Cousins at War

by Doris Davidson

  Olive’s mind came back to what had happened a short time before. She had just left the bedside of a young soldier who had succumbed to his wounds when her aunt turned up, and she had not been feeling like talking. Having been on duty for thirteen hours, she had felt nauseous when the boy died, and had clung on to the end of his bed. Tina, another nurse, had looked at her in some alarm. ‘Are you OK? You look ghastly.’

  ‘I feel a bit squeamish, that’s all.’

  ‘Take a break for a couple of hours. We’ll manage here.’

  ‘I think I will. I’m no use like this.’

  Olive’s legs were trembling, her head was pounding, but a few minutes in the fresh air did stave off the sickness, and she had been on her way to her quarters when the canteen van drew up. She must have looked really awful, so it was little wonder that Ellie had wanted to talk to her. She would take her aunt’s advice and write to her mother, but only to say that she was alive and well, nothing else. It was impossible for her to go home again . . . ever.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The company of Royal Scots Fusiliers to which Neil and Alf were attached had been so reduced in numbers that it was disbanded and the men transferred to other units who had no need of the REME, so the two friends had been separated at last. Alf was sent to the Argylls, while Neil had to go to the Highland Light Infantry. They had been so long together that Neil felt as if part of him was missing, but it was a case of every man for himself against the last desperate struggles of an enemy who refused to recognise the writing on the wall. He no longer had any wish to die – realising, after the terrible things he had witnessed, that his wife’s death, and his child’s, had to be accepted. So many people had lost loved ones, he wasn’t the only one and he could do nothing to bring them back.

  He determined now to survive the war, to go back home and pick up his life from where he had first left Aberdeen. He would never forget Freda but the agony was lessening, the heartache would ease and would gradually become just a deep sadness. So he assured himself, but it was sometimes hard to believe.

  On 1 May, the 15th Scottish Division were given orders to clear the Sachsenwald the next day. This was a large area of forest north-east of Hamburg, and three brigades spent all that day taking up positions for the drive, which began at eight the following morning. The HLI were on the left and had an early, sharp fight with marine cadets from the flak school at Hamburg but managed to overcome them and pressed on. At the end of the day, when they came out of the forest, they met fierce resistance before they reached Neu Bornsen which was their final objective. Neil Ferris, however, never got as far as that.

  For the last lap of their advance, unhindered by the enemy who were now in retreat, the men boarded an open truck which had caught up with them, jumping into the rear part of the vehicle with cries of joy. Even standing, packed as tightly as sardines in a tin, was preferable to foot-slogging along the rough road. Neil found himself in the middle of the mass of bodies but what did that matter? The truck had gone only a few hundred yards when they heard the whine of the shell and were flung off their feet when the driver put his foot hard down on the brake. Scrambling over each other in panic, they vaulted over the backboard to run for cover but Neil, being underneath, was last to get off and fell as he hit the ground. He didn’t have time to roll away as the truck was hit and the diesel tank exploded.

  The Argylls, with Alf Melville amongst them, had been to the south, advancing along the main Geessthacht–Bergedorf road, with Bornsen as their objective. They, too, met some marine cadets with 20mm flak guns, and had difficulty fighting on the almost sheer, thickly wooded hill above the road. Alf was one of the minor casualties, wounded in the right leg but waving away any of the overworked medical team who came near him.

  Just before noon, there came a long-awaited, and extremely welcome, change in the situation. First only a few, then an absolute sea of white flags appeared and a steady stream of men in hodden grey uniforms came out with their hands raised high in the air. Very soon, the news had spread that Hitler was dead. The Wermacht had nothing left to fight for.

  Ever since her unexpected meeting with Ellie, Olive had done a great deal of thinking. She had written to her mother and told her everything, and just setting it down on paper had helped a bit, but she hadn’t had the courage to send it. She had started again, just saying that she was in the Medical Corps and that she was very well, but not giving any address or indication of where she was. She had also said she was sorry for leaving the way she had but that she hadn’t been able to face any explanations. She had still been left with the guilt that burned her up even after being on duty for sometimes more than eighteen hours at a stretch but, thankfully, the pressures now were not so great.

  From the Mehr area, her unit had moved forward gradually, setting up Casualty Clearing Stations in convents or schools – or tents, if nothing else was available. With the help of some Queen Alexandra nurses, they did their best for all the wounded, enemies as well as allies, until the patients could be sent to the Field Hospitals down the line. Olive treated the Germans exactly as she did the others and most of them were grateful, except one young boy who couldn’t have been more than fifteen. The surgeons had worked on him for hours to remove all the shell splinters in his chest before he was brought to her, and she had been bent over him to make sure that he continued to breathe after regaining consciousness. For a second, a flicker of fear had crossed his face, then a hint of a smile when he saw that she was a nurse . . . until he spotted her khaki trousers, then he spat on her. She would never forget the hatred in his eyes but she had wiped her cheek and smiled. He was still a child, after all, and had probably been fed lies about British brutality.

  Her unit had been between Frankfurt and the Kiel Canal when hostilities ceased and she had spent most of her last leave by the canal, swimming and sunbathing. There had been so many British and American men and women that it had been a real holiday, peaceful and fun-filled, but the break was over all too soon. She was then sent back to just outside Hamburg and it was rumoured that they might be moved shortly with the wounded to hospitals in England. They would be taken to Bremerhaven or Hamburg, likely, then on by boat.

  Fastening her belt as she walked, Olive went back on duty, her feet taking her directly to the bedside of a sapper from Southend who had been shot in the spine and was paralysed from the waist down. Ron White’s was a case that interested her. At times, his disability did not seem to bother him then, with no warning, he would rant and scream at anyone who ventured near him. There was no pattern to it and with her psychiatric training, she was itching to find a reason for his erratic behaviour.

  ‘Good morning, Ron,’ she chirped. ‘How are you today?’

  He looked up with a smile, ‘It’s my Scots beauty come to light up my day. I’m not so bad, thanks. I’ll be walking out of here before you can say Jack Robinson.’

  Her pity for him swelled. He knew as well as she did that he would never walk again. ‘Ready for breakfast? Boiled eggs on toast this morning.’

  He pretended to be disappointed. ‘I was looking forward to ham and eggs with sausage and tomatoes.’

  Olive gave a little chuckle ‘Did you get breakfasts like that at home?’

  ‘Not likely. My dad died when I was small, and Mum had to go out charring to keep the two of us. We were lucky to have bread and dripping most days.’ He halted, his eyes clouding. ‘Go and attend to your other patients, Scottie.’

  Obediently, she walked away, pitying him more than ever, and thinking, mournfully, that his mother would have her hands full when Ron was sent home and wouldn’t be able to go out to work. How would they exist? She was occupied for the next hour or so with breakfasts, pills, bed baths for those who could not go to the showers. Some of the boys had been embarrassed at first when a nurse washed them all over but most had learned to joke about it. Making fun of the indignity was the only way they could face up to it. Ron had been here before she came, however, and he still wasn�
��t used to it. Sometimes, his tantrums started while he was bathed but at other times he lay passively, wincing if whoever was washing him was not gentle enough and she was puzzled by the inconsistency.

  Olive was drying a broad Cameronian who had lost an arm and a leg when Gladwys, a tiny Welsh QA, joined her. ‘I’ve bathed Ron, but can you give me a hand to make his bed?’

  ‘Half a mo’.’

  It took two to hoist him on to a chair until they changed his sheets, and they never knew what to expect. He had been quiet for days but he could take a turn at any minute. They were smoothing the top sheet when he began to shout. ‘Why the hell do you take so long? You’re so bloody slow, I could die in the time I’m sitting here and you wouldn’t give a damn.’

  Without stopping what she was doing, Olive said, ‘You’re not going to die, and we’re going as fast as we can.’

  ‘I’d be as well dead for all the use I am now.’

  ‘Don’t be so sorry for yourself,’ Gladwys ventured bravely from the other side of his bed.

  ‘I’m not sorry for myself,’ he growled, ‘but I’m no bloody use for anything.’

  ‘You’re not the only one who’s ever lost the use of his legs,’ Olive snapped, somewhat rashly. ‘Douglas Bader lost his legs altogether and he was flying planes again not long afterwards.’

  Her strategy did not work as she had hoped. ‘I don’t give a monkey’s cuss for Douglas Bader,’ Ron screeched. ‘He got artificial legs to help him to walk. Can you make me walk again? Tell me how I’m going to find work when I go home.’

  The bedspread was in place now but when the two nurses came to lift him back, he struck out at them with both arms, knocking the slight Gladwys off her feet and catching Olive in the stomach. Winded for a moment, she felt furious. What was the good of trying to be kind to a man who acted like this? ‘Look what you’ve done!’ she shouted, helping Gladwys off the floor. ‘Why can’t you be thankful you’re alive and stop venting your bad temper on people who are only trying to help you?’

  There was a moment’s silence but no further outburst. Ron was scowling but allowed them to lift him out of the chair. Neither of the nurses spoke but they were as gentle as they could be, setting him down carefully on the bed and drawing up the covers. Then they went back to the Cameron Highlander to repeat the process all over again with him.

  ‘I’d tak’ my bonnet aff to you two if I had it here,’ he smiled as he held up his one arm and the stump to let them lift him. ‘That lad’s a bloody maniac.’

  Olive shook her head. ‘You know he’s not always like that. He’s really very nice when he’s calm.’

  ‘Aye, but you cannae tell when he’s goin’ aff his heid.’

  ‘We could see it had started and I should have known not to get too close.’ Gladwys rubbed her rump ruefully.

  A glint came into the Cameronian’s eyes, ‘Would you like me to kiss it better for you, Sister?

  Blushing, she exclaimed, ‘Dyuw, dyuw! You Scotsmen are the blooming limit.’

  Ron made no apology when Olive brought his lunch – she had expected none – but she was relieved that the frenzied eyes were serene again. He could be thoughtful, humorous, serious – it was tragic that the injuries to his spine had caused a kink in his brain that could change him into an animal. His hair was dark and unruly, his cheeks, pallid now, would have been ruddy at one time, his jaw was strong, and as clear cut as a twenty-year-old’s, though he was over thirty. He had told her once that he had been six feet two and built like a wrestler before he was shot, and his bone structure verified this, but he was pathetically thin now.

  Realising that Ron had started to eat, Olive turned to go. ‘Is anything wrong, Scottie?’ he asked, as if nothing had happened.

  He honestly doesn’t remember, Olive thought, but said, ‘I guess I’m a bit tired.’

  ‘You must be. I feel sorry for you sisters when you’re on during the day – you’ve so much to do.’

  She almost retorted, ‘Grappling with a wild animal doesn’t help,’ but she wasn’t so foolhardy.

  When the MO had done his rounds in the forenoon, he had said that Ron could be taken out in a wheelchair for half an hour after lunch. ‘If anyone feels like pushing him,’ he had added. Olive had volunteered – she was taller and stronger than Gladwys and Ron never went berserk twice in one day, hardly ever twice in one week. Nevertheless, both girls were rather timid when they wheeled the chair up to his bed. ‘How do you feel about going outside for a wee while?’ Olive eyed him hopefully. ‘It’s a shame to waste all the sunshine and the doc said you could.’

  ‘I’m putty in your hands, Scottie.’ He smiled at them as they lifted him out of bed and swung him round. ‘I’ve never liked being inside when the sun was shining.’

  ‘Will you manage?’ Gladwys asked at the door of the ward.

  Olive knew that the question did not refer to pushing the chair but pretended that it did. ‘If I don’t, this fella’s going to have an unconducted trip down the hill.’

  Ron laughed with them, his temperament as sunny as the day outside, and Olive set off, taking it slowly and carefully until they reached the foot of the incline and were on level ground. It was hot work, so when they came to a shady tree, she said, ‘Will we stop here for a minute or two?’

  ‘That would be nice.’ He inhaled the fresh air deeply as Olive put on the brake, then said, ‘If you want to sit down, you can have my shawl. I’m warm enough.’ He removed the army blanket she had put round his shoulders, but left the knee rug across his useless legs.

  ‘Thanks.’ Taking the blanket, she spread it on the grass and sat down. ‘We never get heat like this at home.’

  ‘Home? Where is your home, Scottie?’

  ‘Aberdeen, and we do have some good summers but . . .’

  ‘Before I was called up,’ Ron said, rather wistfully, ‘the farthest I ever was from home was Southend Pier but I’ve seen a good few places since then. I was stationed in Redcar in Edinburgh for a while, then we laid out runways at Sullom Voe in the Shetlands, then we were in Yorkshire and we ended up in Brighton for a few months before D Day.’

  ‘I came over on D Day plus six.’

  ‘I was four days before you, and most of them still hadn’t got off the beaches. We came through Belgium and Holland.’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘I must tell you something that happened when we were in Holland. We weren’t very far from Deurne when a Dutch family invited three of us in and gave us ersatz coffee and homemade biscuits. We were getting ready to leave when I heard a shell coming down, so I dived to the floor and I happened to cover the youngest daughter – she’d have been about four – and the windows shattered and I got glass in the back of my battledress . . . my back always seems to get it. Anyway, the mother thought I’d deliberately saved the little girl and couldn’t do enough for me, though I told her it was just a reflex action. She’d heard me saying earlier on that I’d be thirty in two days and she told me they’d kill one of their pigs and give me a feast on my birthday.’

  ‘That was very kind of her.’ Olive was amazed that he was telling her this – he had never spoken about his experiences before – but it might do him good.

  ‘We were moved on ten miles the day after and I thought that was my feast up the spout but one of my mates told the sarge about my birthday party and he let me go back with a jeep, so I’d the feed of my life.’ Ron stopped. ‘D’you mind if I smoke?’

  Olive shook her head and he pulled out a battered tin from the pocket of the scruffy robe he had been given. ‘We were between Nijmegen and Arnhem when we saw the parachute drop. The sky was red with dust and we thought it was great. We didn’t know at that time the tragedy it was. Then we came through Germany itself – and that’s where I got mine – just a couple of months before the end of the war.’ His eyes rested regretfully on the rug over his legs. ‘When they told me I was paralysed, I wished I’d been killed.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ Olive murmured,
‘but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. You can use your arms and hands, your eyes are OK, and your br . . .’ She stopped in dismay, having almost forgotten that his spinal injury had affected his brain, too, a fact which, thank God, he did not realise himself.

  ‘Aye, that’s right, I was luckier than some.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Now, I’ve told you all about me, and I don’t know a thing about you, except you come from Aberdeen. Have you always been a nurse?’

  ‘I was training to be a doctor, but . . . something happened, and I left.’

  ‘I bet some man broke your heart. I’ve often wondered why a pretty girl like you wasn’t married.’

  She felt annoyed at herself for bringing it up and making him curious but when he said, softly, ‘Tell me about it,’ a great need rose in her to lay it out in the open, to explain her actions, so she began with her childhood attraction to Neil, stressing how much she had pestered him before she mentioned the trick he and Alf had played on her, how it created a thirst in her for vengeance and the need that had driven her to seduce Neil. She hesitated for a moment before going on to tell him of the outcome. Ron listened, his head cocked to one side, his face expressionless, but when she whispered, ‘After I . . . got rid of the baby, I felt so ashamed about all I had done that I wished I was dead, so I know how you’ve felt,’ he laid his hand on her shoulder.