by Charles Todd
I finished with the trench foot and went back to look in on a leg that would surely be amputated when the Sergeant was sent back in the next convoy of ambulances.
He had been shot in the knee by machine gun fire, and there was very little we could do besides keeping him comfortable. That meant morphine, and I could hear him calling out in drugged delirium as he tossed on his cot. I summoned an orderly and we strapped him down to keep him from doing more damage as he struggled with rising fever.
The next morning, the first run of ambulances brought back Captain Travis. He had a plaster on his head—it must have hurt abominably when he put on his cap—but he was free from fever. He claimed.
“I told you I was able to return to my men,” he said briskly as I greeted him.
“A quick recovery,” I agreed, smiling up at him. I could hear Sister Medford behind me, clearing her throat, wanting to speak to the handsome officer she’d tended through the night as his fever rose. He looked up and nodded to her, then turned back to me.
“Did you pass the word?”
I’d hoped that as his fever went down, his insistence on looking for Lieutenant Travis would fade. “Yes, through one of your Corporals. I must tell you that neither he nor his Lieutenant knew of an officer by the name of Travis. But it was so confused that day. Travis could have got separated from his own men. I’m told the Front is almost impossible to pin down at the moment, and your area has taken the brunt of the fighting for days.” I took the note from my pocket and held it out to him. I’d kept it on the chance that he’d come back sooner than expected.
“Then Travis may well be new. It would explain why I hadn’t seen him before he shot me.”
“Lieutenant Anderson is the ranking officer in the sector next to yours, if you need to speak to him. I’m told he’s steady.”
“Yes, a good man from all reports. All right then, I’ve a walk ahead of me.”
“Are you still quite certain that that’s how you were wounded? By Lieutenant Travis?” I asked, keeping my voice diffident. “Head wounds are—difficult, sometimes.”
“I’m neither mad nor imagining things,” he said quietly. He touched his cap and left, striding back the way he’d come.
I watched him go, thinking that if determination could subdue a fever, the Captain had managed it somehow.
I went to find the ambulance driver, and I asked him what he’d been told about the officer he’d brought forward.
“Just that he’d been cleared to return to duty.”
“No mention of concussion?”
“They didn’t speak of it to me, Sister.” He turned to look toward the shelling. “I thought he was all right. He sat next to me, not in the rear, and we talked.”
“Then that’s a good sign. Thank you for telling me.”
“Did you know he’s from an island out in the Caribbean Sea? Could have fooled me. I thought he was English.”
I smiled. “And so he is. He just doesn’t live in England.”
The driver returned the smile. “I expect that’s true.”
I walked on to the section of the crypt where we held the more serious cases, most of them destined to go back. We had another possible amputation, the fifth in two days.
I opened the partition flap to find Sergeant Wilson half off his cot, lying in a pool of blood.
Hurrying to him, I could see that he’d ripped off his bandages and was trying to cut his wrists with a pocketknife.
“That will do, Sergeant,” I said sternly, in the voice that Matron used to keep the wards in order.
He looked up at me, shocked and dazed. “It’s no good, Sister. They’ll take the leg, and I’ll be no use to anyone.”
“Nonsense. Pitying yourself is a waste of time. Your life matters, not your leg.” It was not kind, but it had given me time to reach his side and take the knife before he realized what I was about to do. “Now let’s see to that knee.”
I could tell it was coming off, but I said nothing about that. “You’re more likely to lose it to infection than to that bullet.”
He reached out, intending to fight me for the pocketknife, just as one of the orderlies came in to fetch him for the ambulance.
“Here!” the orderly shouted and wrestled the Sergeant down again, cursing and struggling every inch of the way. But we managed to get him settled and give him enough morphine to keep him quiet until he reached the base hospital.
The next day, we left the church crypt to move forward again, this time to a cleared area behind what had been a farmhouse, built in the French fashion of a walled enclosure that included sheds and the barn. There wasn’t much left, stones scattered here and there that were tripping hazards and one wall of the house, where we set up the cooking area. It was cold and far too open here—the wind swept through like a scythe, but we got the tents up and still dealt with the incoming wounded. We could build fires for hot water and tea in the lee of that house wall, to give patients a little warmth. A lorry moving forward in the wake of the Army brought us blankets and other supplies, including hot water bottles. But the ground was too hard and too cold for us to stay here long. Still, it saved lives, to stay close to the fighting.
An officer who came in with dysentery told us that we’d be moving up again soon, because the Germans were also on the move. “But it doesn’t get much better forward. I saw an orchard cut down. Not for firewood, mind you, but to prevent anyone using it. Do you know how long it takes a fruit tree to reach the age where it bears well? Stupid, that’s what they were. Bloody stupid.”
An hour later, I watched Dr. Weatherby save the arm of a Lieutenant Barker, in a remarkable bit of surgery, in spite of the wind coursing through the broken walls and chilling us to the bone. I heard much later that he’d made a full recovery. Dr. Weatherby brought out his store of whisky and insisted that I have a little celebratory drink with him. “You need it, Bess. And so do I. God, I didn’t think I could stop the bleeding, much less take out that bit of shrapnel.” He downed his whisky in a gulp, then put the bottle safely away.
I was just washing my hands and hoping for a brief respite when a new line of wounded appeared.
We sorted the stretcher bearers and got the more seriously wounded under cover as quickly as we could. A man losing blood needed to be kept warm. I helped Dr. Weatherby with two shell wounds and another trench foot that was bleeding badly, and then we were told that an officer had been brought in with a life-threatening wound.
He was carried in next, facedown on his stretcher, a blanket over his body.
I said to one of the orderlies, “Spine?” And waited for the answer, dreading it.
“He was shot in the back. May’ve missed the vital bits, but nasty all the same.”
I nodded, and we pulled away the blanket to examine the field dressings that had been put there when he was shot.
It didn’t look good. I thought the shot had missed the ribs and lung on that side, and the major arteries, but how much internal bleeding there might be was another matter. I knelt to feel under him as Dr. Weatherby began to cut away his tunic and shirt.
“I think the bullet passed through,” I said quietly. “Straight through, not at an angle.”
“Are you very sure?” the doctor asked.
“See for yourself.”
He put his hand where mine was and felt the exit wound. “Thank God,” Dr. Weatherby whispered.
If the shot had angled through his body, we had no way of knowing what organs might have been compromised. The only X-ray machine that I knew of was in Rouen, a very long way away, and this man might well bleed to death before he reached the American Base Hospital in the former racetrack there.
It wasn’t until we had dealt with the wound in his back and turned him over that I realized that this patient was Captain Travis. And this time he wasn’t as fortunate. His wound might well end his war.
He was still unconscious when we put him with the other patients waiting for the ambulances to return. By the time they did
, we’d lost two of our cases, the lung and the abdomen.
The driver who had brought the Captain back to the forward lines was in charge of this convoy, and as we were shifting his stretcher into place, he said, “I recognize that one. The man from the Caribbean Sea.”
I smothered a smile, thinking of him swimming for dear life, like a turtle or a porpoise.
“Will he be all right, do you think?”
“I hope so. Infection is the worry now,” I replied.
I was standing beside the first ambulance, giving final instructions to the lead driver, when Sister Medford called to me.
“It’s the Captain. He’s awake. I think we should give him a little morphine.”
I went back to see to it, and Captain Travis’s eyes were open, pain-filled but intense.
He recognized me as I came up to him, there in the ambulance, and he reached out to grip my arm.
“Sister Crawford.”
“Yes, I’m here, Captain.”
“It was the same man. Lieutenant Travis. I saw him.”
“You were shot in the back,” I said as gently as I could. “How could you have seen him?”
“The shot. It spun me around, and as I went down, I saw him standing there.”
“What did he do then?” I asked.
“He ran past me. Left me lying there. One of my men dragged me behind a wall. I asked him if he’d seen who shot me, but he hadn’t. I had.”
I was afraid this had become an obsession with Captain Travis. I said only, “I shouldn’t say anything to Matron about this. Not until you have more proof. She’ll think you mad.”
“I’m not mad. It was Travis, I tell you.”
His grip on my hand was hurting. I pulled it free and gave him the morphine. He didn’t fight me. I think he was almost beyond coping with the pain he was in, and any attempt to return to his men and hunt down this Lieutenant was the furthest thing from his mind. Instead there was a determination to heal as fast as he could.
Through clenched teeth he murmured, “I wonder where I’ll find you when I come back.”
“We’ll be moving again,” I said. “But I’ll look out for you.”
He managed a crooked smile and then turned his face to the wall and patiently waited for the morphine to take effect.
As I made a final check of his comrades, I heard Captain Travis speak in a voice that quickly faded into a low rumble. Hardly intelligible.
“You’re my witness. I need you.”
I stepped out of the ambulance and watched as the convoy rolled away over the uneven ground, jostling the men as it gained speed only to encounter some sort of foundation half-hidden in the mud and bump raggedly over it.
I wished I knew what the truth was. I could speak for the Captain’s wounds, but not for who had caused them.
The word obsession came back to me. I didn’t know whether it was the right word or not.
Chapter 4
With the dawn, a new line of wounded appeared, most of them—thank God—ambulatory. And several of the men brought us copies of German newspapers left behind by the retreating Army.
A Lieutenant, Eric Mossby, who knew enough German to translate it for us, said, “If this isn’t propaganda—if it isn’t designed to make us believe Germany is about to change its tactics and halt the retreat—it appears that Ludendorff is out of favor in Berlin.”
I’d been holding the tray as Dr. Weatherby probed the Lieutenant’s forearm for shrapnel, and I nearly dropped it in my surprise.
I’d listened to my father and Simon discussing the German High Command, the role of General von Hindenburg and General Ludendorff in shaping the war, the brilliant strategies that had made General Ludendorff the hero of Liège for taking that supposedly impregnable city in the opening days of the war. Despite the courageous defense by the tiny Belgian Army.
“But who is taking his place?” The answer was so very important, this close to the end of the war. He might be replaced by a man who believed that it was time to sue for peace on the best terms available—or by a man who wanted to continue the fighting, whatever the cost in lives. We had sometimes found ourselves overwhelmed with German wounded, men too tired and dispirited to care about being taken prisoner.
Lieutenant Mossby said, resignation in his voice, “Who knows, Sister? I don’t think Berlin has decided, much less made an announcement.” He held up the newspaper in his good hand. “All of us look for these. I even read them to my men. It’s just as well—” He broke off with a grunt, his mouth closed in a tight line of pain. When it had passed, he finished what he had been about to say. “It’s just as well for them to know what’s happening. I hope to heaven this means good news.”
“And General von Hindenburg?”
“I gather he’s still in charge, but someone is likely to be appointed in Ludendorff’s place. And unfortunately, that’s the worry. Better the devil you know than a cypher, someone we can’t predict. It could change everything.”
He was right.
Dr. Weatherby sewed up the wound in his arm and left me to bandage it.
He’d said nothing during the exchange, concentrating on his work. Now as the doctor washed his hands, he commented, “Medically I don’t see how you go on. Day after day.”
Lieutenant Mossby smiled grimly. “There’s no choice, is there? If we stop pursuing the enemy, it will stop running. And once it stops, the German Army is likely to regroup and come at us while we’re most vulnerable.”
He thanked the doctor, nodded to me, and was gone, back to his men.
Both armies were using field guns, now that the Front was shifting so quickly. There was no time to unlimber and move the heavy artillery that had been such a factor in the early years of the war. But the number of shells being fired was overwhelming, and we were seeing their handiwork as well as machine gun wounds.
Later that day three very serious cases came in, two of them stomach wounds, and a third a chest. Dr. Weatherby did what he could, but as soon as the ambulances arrived, we sent them back.
“Go with them, Bess, if you will. I don’t think they’ll make it, otherwise.”
I caught up my things—moving as much as I’d done, I kept my kit bag ready at a moment’s notice to finish packing it—and went out to help load the three serious cases, along with three others awaiting their turn.
It was a harrowing journey. Holding on for dear life as the ambulance bounced and jerked and slid sideways, I stood up in the rear compartment where I could keep a close eye on the chest and stomach wounds. It wouldn’t do for me to fall and be badly injured. But I’d collected a dozen new bruises before the base hospital was in sight.
The chest case gave me several minutes of real concern. I was afraid a lung would collapse, but Florence Nightingale must have been looking out for us. He was still alive when we pulled into the hospital forecourt, and half a dozen nurses and doctors came running. A lone ambulance usually meant trouble was arriving.
We got the men inside and settled in their cots, a doctor already examining the reports and the wounds.
Miraculously, the chest survived, but one of the stomachs died on the operating table.
With time on my hands after the exchange of reports and answering questions asked by the doctors about what we had done thus far, I went to inquire of Matron if there was anything we could take back with us in the matter of supplies. We needed blankets, with this colder weather, and one often wasn’t enough out in the open, despite the tents.
I was just coming back from her office when one of the Sisters called to me in the passage.
“Sister Crawford?”
I turned to find Mary, one of my flatmates in London, hurrying to catch me up.
“Mary!” I exclaimed.
“Bess? I thought I heard your voice. Oh, how lovely to see you!”
She threw her arms around me, and I hugged her in return.
“How long has it been?” I asked.
“The better part of a year? At least.�
� She stood back. “Let me look at you. Tired—aren’t we all?—but well. I’ll write to Diana and Lady Elspeth and Mrs. Hennessey to let them know we’ve met. Tell me, how is everything?”
We stood there in the passage, exchanging news and asking about friends we had in common.
It was very good to see Mary. At the start of the war, Mrs. Hennessey, a widow, had opened her London home to nursing staff looking for a London flat where we could live during our training and where we could come when our duties brought us back to London, sometimes only overnight, sometimes for a day or two when we wanted nothing more than to sleep.
It still wasn’t considered proper for us to stay at hotels, and this was the perfect solution. And as Mrs. Hennessey lived downstairs, while we were upstairs, there was always someone to mind the door and retrieve the mail and keep us safe while we slept the world away. We’d all come to love her, and I knew for a certainty that my parents were fond of her too. She had rules, very stringent ones. No man was allowed to ascend the stairs unless he was related and carried a trunk and was accompanied by Mrs. Hennessey herself. That was true even of the Colonel Sahib. And RMS Simon Brandon was forbidden to climb the stairs at all, even though Mrs. Hennessey believed he’d saved her from an attacker.
“He’s much too attractive, dear, and I must think about my young ladies and their reputations. He’ll understand, won’t he, dear? I trust him implicitly, you know that, but there are the other parents who depend on me to do what’s best.”
