Song of Songs

by Beverley Hughesdon

  Three days later I received a postcard from Guy: he was in the thick of it, but the few scribbled words radiated confidence and determination. I was glad, for his sake. And they said in the mess that Ypres had not fallen after all: we were still hanging on. Then Robbie wrote and told me that he and his men were being pulled out of the Salient and were to be sent to a quiet sector down in the south; I felt a deep thankfulness.

  At the end of April spring came, but we were so busy we scarcely had time to notice the new green leaves on the trees. Casualties still flooded in through the first weeks of May. One evening as we were chatting in the mess there was a sudden crash and the ground shuddered; Aylmer and I looked at each other blankly – there had been no air-raid warning – another crash, then another; and we were frantically scrabbling for tin hats and ramming them on as we ran to the slit trenches which had been dug for us. We huddled in them for two hours as crash succeeded crash – they seemed to be all around us.

  When we eventually got to bed I lay trembling in the darkness for a long time before I could sleep – although I was very tired. Next morning we heard that it was the No. 1 Canadian General which had taken the brunt of the attack: twenty-two of the bombs had landed on their hospital, half of their personnel were casualties and three of their sisters had been killed. We talked of it in shocked whispers, and hurried to our own wards as soon as we had finished our breakfasts.

  Several new patients had been brought in from the raid of the previous night and one of them was a tall, broad man with a broken arm and leg. As I talked to him I discovered he was a Lifeguardsman who had just finished a course at the machine-gun school at Camiers. A group of a dozen or so NCOs had been under canvas at Étaples, across the railway line from the hospital, when they had been bombed in their tents – only two had survived. My patient told me he was a regular, and he had been out since 1914. I looked down at his weather-beaten face as I dressed his wound and ventured to ask, ‘Did you – did you know anything of Major Lord Staveley?’

  ‘Yes ma’am – Sister I mean – he was a good officer, he knew his job and he looked after his men, a fine man, and a sad loss.’

  Before lunch I ran to the hut and took out my photograph of Gerald and sat looking at it for a long time. ‘A fine man, and a sad loss.’ I felt the tears on my cheeks as I mourned him still.

  A week later we heard that the Germans had launched a third great offensive, in the south, against a quiet sector on the river Aisne – and our line had been broken again. Robbie, oh my Robbie.

  Two nights after, the bridge over the Canche was bombed again, the village was hit and French civilians injured. This time the engineers took only seven hours to make their repairs, then the traffic of war was roaring past us again. I had heard nothing from Robbie.

  The following evening, the last night of May, we heard the whistle blow and from the north came the menacing throb of aircraft engines. We tumbled into the trenches as the sudden blinding flash of a magnesium flare turned night into day. I crouched like a small frightened animal, listening to the steady crump of the bombs exploding. A couple of hours later I unlocked my rigid limbs and we went back to the hut and lit the stove – although it was nearly June we were shivering and cold.

  Next morning we learnt that it was St John’s Hospital, next to us, which had taken the weight of the attack this time; another four sisters had been killed while caring for their patients. Again any of us who could be spared were sent off duty to walk in their funeral procession; Tilney and I met at the mess. We were early, so Tilney insisted we must go and look at the bomb damage.

  I followed her listlessly, but as we walked towards the wreckage of the camp my listlessness stiffened into shock. The rows of huts at the Camiers end had collapsed like a house of cards; now they were simply a heap of splintered wood. Debris was scattered all around – shattered beds, torn blankets, lockers smashed by the blast. Men were still searching the rubble, and as we watched, they disturbed a pile of broken beams and a piece of paper was set free and was tossed about in the wind until it came to rest at our feet. Tilney picked it up and smoothed it out. It was a letter: ‘Darling Ma, Just a quick note to let you know that…’ but at this point the writer had broken off – called to the wards? or worse? We did not know, and nor perhaps would ‘Darling Ma’. Tilney folded the piece of paper, bent down and anchored it carefully under a twisted tube of metal, then we turned and picked our way back over the rubble in silence.

  We stood by the side of the road waiting for the funeral procession. The wind tugged at the padre’s white surplice as he led it; an RAMC sergeant marched ramrod straight behind him. The flag-draped coffin of the first sister followed on its high bier, drawn easily along the level road by the four orderlies marching at its corners. The spokes of the large light wheels etched their delicate shadows in the morning sunlight and the pale-pink petals of the wreath on the coffin clashed with the harsh red and blue of the Union Jack.

  Kilted Highlanders stood to attention each side of the road as the matron and sisters followed the bier; we moved forward and fell into step behind them.

  The forest of crosses was growing daily now, advancing steadily over the bare hillside.

  ‘Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thine Eternal Rest to all those who have died for their country, as this our sister hath; and grant that we may so follow her good example that we may be united with her in Thine Everlasting Kingdom…’

  And as I listened to the words of the chaplain I knew that whatever faith I had once possessed had gone now. Almost without my noticing it, it had seeped away in the blood and pus of the last months. If there was a God, then He was the God of the Old Testament, a jealous God who scourged His people for their sins and exacted an impossible price.

  As I walked back with the other mourners I felt something akin to relief; it would be easier now, now that I had come to the end of hope.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The news I had for so long dreaded came the next day: Robbie had been in the ‘quiet sector’ where the Germans had launched their third onslaught and had been seriously wounded. He was already back in London and Papa wrote that a shell had exploded in front of him: the shrapnel had caught him full in the chest and also broken his right arm. The surgeons at the CCS had managed to remove the jagged fragments from his lungs, but as usual, infection had set in and now everything depended on Robbie’s natural powers of resistance. My father said he would write again as soon as there was any more news. I folded up his letter and walked back to the ward. Robbie, oh my Robbie.

  For two days I waited, praying to a God I did not believe in, and on the next morning three letters were waiting for me. I opened Papa’s with hands that shook – Robbie was still alive, and Papa said he was holding his own; now it was just a question of time. So that first dangerous week was over – surely I could begin to hope a little?

  Alice had written as well; she had visited Robbie the previous afternoon and he was talking again now, though rather wheezily – and he sent his love. She said Letty had run away from school and had badgered Mother to let her serve in a soldiers’ canteen at Victoria Station. I looked down at the letter and thought, but she’s only a child! Then I realized my younger sister was nearly eighteen – I had not seen her since Eddie’s funeral. In the last paragraph Alice said she was marrying again: an industrialist called Clayton. ‘He’s quite a bit older than I am, but he’s very well-heeled, and he’s made a lot more money because of the war.’ There was an added note scribbled in the margin, ‘He’s not a profiteer, I haven’t sunk that low!’ She explained that Hugh had not left her and the boys in very good circumstances – ‘and I don’t want to sponge off Papa all my life, so when Fred asked me I said “Yes”. The wedding will be very quiet.’ There was no word of love or even affection in her account. I shrugged. For all her faults Alice was not a hypocrite – and nobody could say that Hugh was barely cold in his grave, since he had no grave. But I wished she had waited a little longer; because Hugh had loved he
r.

  The third letter was in a hand I did not recognize. I opened it and looked at the signature – it was from Ben Holden. It was quite short and almost painfully respectful. He had heard of the bombings at Étaples and that sisters had been injured and killed – was I safe? He asked would I send him a line? ‘Just a postcard with your name on it, Sister, that’s all, just so that I know.’ I was touched that a man who was in the midst of the hell of the front line should have the time and energy to think of my safety, so when I had written to Robbie and Alice that evening I picked up my pen again and wrote him a letter, thanking him for his concern and telling him the latest news of my brother. Then I forgot about him again until a straggly pencilled note from Robbie himself lightened my heart – and told me that Ben Holden had been awarded the DCM. ‘It was a good show, and from what I’ve heard he earned it several times over.’

  The news from the front became less black: the Germans had been held back from Paris and the Americans had fought their first battle, counter-attacking fiercely at Chateau Thierry – their troops were fresh and vigorous. There were stories too, that the advancing Germans had stopped to loot the cellars of Champagne, and that drunken soldiers were no longer obeying their officers – we hoped that they were true.

  One day Sister came to fetch me from the end of the ward. ‘Nurse, your brother is here to see you.’ I swung round and there was Guy. I ran to him, but as I came near I slowed my pace, and hung back, remembering him as I had last seen him when I had been home on leave in the summer of ’17. But his smile was the smile of the old Guy, though his face was leaner and older, and I threw myself into his arms and hugged him very tightly.

  Sister said I could be spared from the ward for a couple of hours, so we walked down towards the estuary together. Guy told me he had been sent down to Montreuil to give a report, so he had seized the chance to come on by train to Étaples to see me. We talked of Robbie – Papa had written that he was still very weak and in some pain, but that he was eating solid food again now. Then Guy spoke of his three small sons, so I nerved myself to ask, ‘How is Pansy, Guy?’

  He answered quite naturally, ‘She’s tired, of course – but otherwise reasonably well.’ Then he looked away from me, out over the sand dunes to the coast, and said at last, ‘She’s been a brick, Hellie – and I’ve been a swine to her – you’ve no idea. When I think of what she’s had to put up with over these last years – I usually didn’t bother to write when I was in France, and then, when I was home those months – I don’t know how she stood it. The way I spoke to her and the things I said. I wanted to hurt someone, and she was there, and – she’s easy to hurt.’ He turned and looked at me for a moment, then braced himself as he went on, ‘One day she was out, in Bond Street, and she saw me – I was with a whore I’d just picked up. I don’t think she realized at first, and she came towards me, smiling – so I called a cab and bundled the woman into it and jumped in myself and drove off. I saw her as she stood there looking after me – she looked like a child that’s been hit – and, God forgive me, Hellie, I was glad. She never said anything when I got home, she never reproached me, she just opened her arms to me that night and let me’ – his voice broke – ‘let me use her like a whore too.’ There were tears on Guy’s face as he stared out over the dunes. ‘And it wasn’t until the morning that I realized what I might have done. I’d taken that girl straight off the streets, and not used anything – Papa always warned us. I lay in my dressing room sweating – I could have given my wife a dose of the clap, and she was carrying my child. Even then, it was only the child I cared about – I kept remembering old Foster’s youngest,’ he shuddered. ‘But I was luckier than I deserved. So after that I only used the reputable establishments – and thought I was being a considerate husband!’ His voice was tormented with self-disgust.

  I waited and at last he said, ‘When I’d decided to go back up the line it was like a weight dropping off my back. I wangled forty-eight hours’ leave – you can pull any strings at HQ – and I went home. I arrived at teatime and she was there in the drawing room with the children around her. She looked dreadful: her ankles were puffed up, her body all shapeless, and her hair was a mess – the baby had tugged it down. I stood in the doorway, looking at her – she didn’t see me at first, the boys were making such a racket – and I thought, I love this woman, I love her.’

  He fell silent, until I whispered, ‘And was she pleased?’

  Guy’s face as he looked at me was suddenly very young and bashful. ‘I don’t know, Hellie – I was too embarrassed to tell her.’

  I cried, ‘Guy!’ I wanted to hit him.

  He fended me off, laughing, ‘It’s all right, Hellie, I wrote – all the way back on the steamer I just wrote and wrote. I told her everything: that I knew what a vicious brute I’d been – how wonderfully patient she was – and how I felt now. I’ve never written so much in my life before.’ He looked out towards the sea, towards England, and said softly, ‘I think she was pleased.’

  I reached up and kissed him, then I slipped my arm in his and we walked back to the camp together.

  Several days later, Alice wrote to tell me that Guy had been awarded the MC for the part he had played in the March retreat. I wrote to my brother to congratulate him, and then I wrote to Pansy. Her reply overflowed with love for Guy. In thoughtless anger Guy had rushed into a hasty marriage; had done everything to turn Pansy’s love to bitterness – and incredibly he had failed. My brother had been very lucky.

  The impetus of the German offensive was slowing down: we had lost ground but we were no longer being pushed back; we could breathe more easily now. But still the casualties flooded in, and the men I was nursing could scarcely breathe at all – I had been moved to the gas marquees. There were four of them, pitched side by side, with a VAD in each and one sister and one MO in the dressing tent that stood at right angles to the four. They were there if I needed them, but most of the time I was alone with my forty gassed men: men who were burned, who were blind, and who were gasping for breath.

  The gas had seeped into the cloth of their uniforms as they had stumbled to the aid post, and now they were all on fire, with festering sores on their bodies where the gas had eaten away their flesh. Their eyes had been scorched as though by a flame, and hid behind eyelids gummed together with sticky pus. And they panted and choked on their pillows as the gas destroyed their lungs.

  Each day, after the routine ward cleaning was done, I injected the strychnine that forced their weary hearts to keep beating. Then I lugged the oxygen cylinder to each bed in turn to give relief to labouring chests, before I cleansed the dried pus from their eyelids and dropped lotion on to staring eyeballs. And finally there were the dressings; the MO did some, I did the rest – and learned to soak the lint in castor oil as well as picric so that next day it could be more easily peeled off the scorched raw flesh.

  The effort of drawing air into their gas-filled lungs took all their strength and they were frightened and alone in their dark worlds, so all day they lay and listened to me. They needed my voice; as long as they could hear me they knew I was there and that they had not been abandoned. They could tell when I came towards them, and be ready for my touch. At first I talked of the weather, but there was not enough to say, so I told them stories from the nursery, of days outside in the park at Hatton, of long-gone rides to hounds – and then I began to sing. I sang all the childhood favourites, I sang all the familiar hymns, I sang arias from the Italian operas and catchy tunes from pre-war musicals – but I did not sing Lieder, and I could not sing the message of hope from the Messiah, for I would not sing a lie. All through that long hot summer the foetid smell of burns and sweat invaded my nostrils and seeped into my pores and forced its way down my throat, but still I sang my song of war.

  Dimly I realized that the balance of the fighting was changing: Étaples was bombed again in August, but at the front we were the attackers now – slowly, very slowly, the enemy were retreating, and slowly, very slowl
y, the numbers of gassed men dwindled, until by September three of the marquees had been transferred; and then my leave came through.

  As soon as I arrived in London I went straight to the hospital to see Robbie. He was very thin and pale, but his face lit up as I came into the room. I sat with his hand in mine and we talked together in disjointed murmurs; he wheezed and spoke slowly, but he could speak. As I was sitting there I just fell asleep. I woke much later, stiff and cramped, still holding Robbie’s hand. He managed a short gasping laugh at the expression on my face as I woke up, and I laughed too and stood up and kissed him goodbye. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Robbie,’ and I stumbled out and down the stairs and asked the porter to call a cab. Pansy was at Cadogan Place; she was enormous but she hugged me as best she could, and then Nanny appeared and clasped me to her swelling bosom and said, ‘Bed, my lady.’

  I staggered out every day to see Robbie, but otherwise I slept. I even slept when I was with him. It was a luxurious hospital for officers and he ordered an armchair to be put in his room for me, so that I could curl up in it, and sometimes I dropped off in the middle of a sentence. Once I woke up and Ralph Dutton was there, talking softly to Robbie. I was embarrassed for a moment, but he jumped to his feet and came forward with his hand outstretched and his pleasant open smile lighting up his fair face, so I relaxed and smiled warmly back. We chatted easily together for a little while, and then Robbie sent me home to bed.

  Pansy’s baby was born while I was in London; it was another boy. It was strange to think of Guy as the father of four sons – at least he had something good to show for the years of war. I gently touched the small crumpled red face and felt a great sadness.