by Peggy Savage
‘I don’t know when I’m off duty,’ she said.
‘I don’t know when I’ll be back,’ he said. The words ‘or if’ were not spoken, but they hung in the air, loud and vivid.
‘I’d like to come,’ she said.
All his muscles seemed to relax. His words tumbled over. ‘That’s wonderful of you, thank you so much. I’ll really look forward to it. I’ll be in touch. Will you shake hands?’
She put out her grimy hand and he enclosed it in his own, dry and warm.
‘My name is Dan,’ he said.
‘Amy.’
‘Goodbye then, Amy. I’ll hope to see you soon.’
She crossed the hall and climbed the stairs. Halfway up she turned and looked back. He was still standing where she left him and he raised his hand in a brief wave.
I wonder if I’ve done the right thing, she thought. Still, he was going to speak to Matron, so he seemed quite genuine. She wanted a bath and a hair wash and a cup of tea. Helen would be all for it, she knew, and they didn’t get much chance to relax. He seemed a nice man. It was only dinner, and only once – something to look forward to, dining, perhaps dancing. It was a long time since she had danced. A waltz sang into her head – the ‘Blue Danube’ – a floating dress. With a little shock of surprise she realized that the partner in her mind had blue eyes and blond hair, and an unexpected smile.
Half an hour later, Amy was sitting on the edge of her bed, drying her hair, rubbing it with a rough towel. She let her hair fall over her face; it smelt of soap now. She breathed it in, clean and tangy.
‘Are you all right, Amy?’ Helen was sitting opposite her on her own bed. ‘Was it awful?’
Amy threw her head back, swinging her hair behind her, curling down below her shoulders. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever get it clean. Thank God for bathrooms and hot water and Lifebuoy soap.’
Helen looked at her, waiting.
‘You know what it’s like.’ Amy bit her lip. ‘It was just about as bad as it could get. We had to leave some of the men behind.’
Helen nodded. Amy could see Helen’s own memories reflected in her face, in her compressed lips and unblinking eyes.
‘You know.’
‘Yes, I know.’
Amy wrenched her mind away from the morning; from all the mornings. ‘Did you come across that surgeon from the army?’ she said, ‘Captain Fielding?’
‘Yes,’ Helen said. ‘He came round the wards, poking into everything. Doing a report, or something.’
‘Guess what?’ Amy’s eyes were bright now. ‘He’s asked us out to dinner – you and me. What do you think?’
Helen laughed, surprised and delighted. ‘Has he really? What a lark! Why us? Oh do let’s go, Amy. We don’t get much fun, do we?’
Amy smiled at her enthusiasm. ‘What’s fun?’
‘Exactly,’ Helen grinned. ‘How did it happen? Where did you meet him?’
‘Dr Hanfield introduced us as I was going out this morning. I think she was trying to make a point about what we do. And then he was in the hall when I got back.’
Helen’s eyes danced. ‘Was he indeed? Waiting for you, was he?’
Amy laughed. ‘Don’t get any ideas.’
‘Why not? You could do worse than marry a doctor.’
Amy’s smile faded. She saw again the women waiting around the hotel doors, their fear and pain. What must it be like to be a mother or a wife? What horror must that be now?
‘It isn’t any good, is it?’ she said. ‘What’s the use of getting fond of anybody? I don’t think I’ll ever marry or have children. I couldn’t bear this. What on earth must it be like to have your husband or son out there? I’d go out of my mind.’
‘It’ll never happen again,’ Helen said. ‘No one would be mad enough to do this again. This has to be the last war there will ever be.’
Amy didn’t reply. Her dark thoughts wouldn’t go away.
‘Anyway,’ Helen went on, ‘they say it’ll be over by Christmas.’
Amy shook her head. ‘It won’t be over by Christmas. I can’t see the Germans just giving up and we won’t.’ She got up and hung her wet towel over the towel horse. ‘We can do our bit to cheer up the troops,’ she said. ‘We’ll go out to dinner with Captain Fielding, and whatever other officer he manages to inveigle into our clutches. That’s if Matron says yes.’
‘Splendid.’ Helen got up and took a comb from the dressing table. ‘Here, let me untangle your hair for you.’
Amy sat on the stool and looked at Helen’s bent head in the mirror, at her freckled cheeks and brilliant auburn hair. That hair must have stood out like a beacon in a crowd. She had a sudden picture of Helen on a suffragists’ march, hitting a policeman over the head with her umbrella. She laughed softly and Helen looked up at her.
‘I was thinking about the marches,’ she said.
Helen waved the comb in the air. ‘Votes for women!’
‘Not much chance of that,’ Amy said, ‘while the war’s on.’
‘Soon after then.’ Helen fingered the badge that she persisted in pinning to her lapel. ‘You know our motto; deeds not words. Surely they can’t stop us after this. They’ll have more deeds than they can count.’ She held up a lock of Amy’s hair and struggled with the comb. ‘It’s men, isn’t it? They’re always fighting, one way or another. If women were in charge things would be different, wouldn’t they?’
I don’t know, Amy thought. I don’t know if it would be better. I don’t know anything any more. Trying to understand all the problems in the world was like trying to grasp a handful of water, chaotic, uncontrollable.
Would women be any different? Her mind went home again to a dinner party before the war started. She and her father had been invited to the Poulsons, across the road.
‘We must go to war,’ Mr Poulson said. Amy remembered him piling his plate with food, dabbing with his napkin at the gravy on his chin. ‘Can’t let the Hun have his own way. No knowing what that would lead to.’
Her father had been grave and quiet, too polite to disagree, and appalled, as Amy well knew, at the thought of any war, at the thought of his boys at school.
‘I think it would be a very good thing,’ Mrs Poulson said. The rings on her fingers glittered in the candlelight. ‘A war now and again is good for the boys. Stiffens them up a bit. They’re getting too soft.’
The day came back to her, the stench, the courage. Too soft! My God! Helen was still talking. ‘It’s men, men, men,’ she said. ‘Everything is always men. It’s time women had a go.’
There was a knock at the door and Helen went to open it. ‘Good afternoon, Sister,’ she said. ‘Do come in.’
The sister stepped into the room, her cap and apron crisp and shining white. ‘I’m looking for Amy.’
Amy got up from the stool. ‘I’m here, Sister.’
‘Oh Amy.’ Sister looked contrite. ‘Would you do a couple of hours’ duty on the officers’ ward this evening? I know you must be tired and I’m sorry to ask but one of the nurses isn’t well. We’re just hoping it isn’t influenza. That would go through the place like wildfire. We’ve put her in isolation.’
Amy nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘Good girl. Have you had something to eat?’
Amy shook her head. ‘No, not yet.’
‘Well have an early supper. It shouldn’t be too busy. We’ve only had one officer admission today – the one you brought in. He’s in theatre now, I think. Eight o’clock.’
‘Very well, Sister, I’ll be there.’
After she had gone Amy groaned. ‘I was hoping for an early night.’
Helen grinned. ‘Deeds, not words.’
Amy coiled her hair up into a neat bun again. She put on a clean uniform and walked downstairs to the dining-room. She ate her shepherd’s pie and drank her tea. There was only one new officer then, her lieutenant. He was in theatre. His leg!
She finished her meal. She had an hour before she was on duty. She felt a need to be outside in the
open air, a strange feeling of claustrophobia in this huge hotel. She went upstairs for her hat – Matron was very insistent that a hat should always be worn outside.
She walked slowly down the wide street. The occasional passers-by smiled at her; the men raised their hats. The claustrophobia, the feeling of suffocation, had nothing to do with space, she knew that. It was a constriction of the mind, the absolute denial of everything that she wanted to do. She was caged, pacing, straining at the bars. She should have been in theatre with the lieutenant and all the other men, doing her job. She walked and the feeling eased. The strained faces of the passers by brought her back to the job she had to do. Her own problems were of another time, another place. She would deal with those when the time came. She walked back to the hotel, took off her hat and jacket and walked down to the officers’ ward.
Dusk was falling as she went in and the electric light was on over Sister’s desk, set at the far end. The little oasis of light reminded her of home. She felt a stab of homesickness, missing her father, missing the house, the garden, the town. Most of all it reminded her of her father, sitting in his study in his own pool of light, marking his students’ work, endlessly reading his scientific books.
Someone turned on the overhead lights. It was quiet this evening, and peaceful. Most of the officers were lying on their beds, some reading, some staring at the ceiling. Two of them were sitting on the edge of one bed, playing chess. She looked around quickly but she couldn’t see the lieutenant.
Sister smiled at her. ‘Could you help with the dressings, Amy? Nurse will show you what to do.’
Dressings, Amy thought. My promotion. She rolled up her sleeves and put on a white apron and cuffs. She and the staff nurse moved from bed to bed, changing the dressings. Many of them were infected, the bandages sodden and foul and the dressings had to be changed every four hours. Some of them made her gag, the pus foul and running. She tried to think of other things, of the scent of the roses in the garden at home, and again, the sweet scent of her father’s occasional pipe tobacco.
There were screens around the bed nearest to Sister’s desk.
‘We don’t need to go in there,’ the nurse said. ‘He’s just come back from theatre. He has a nurse with him.’
It must be him, Amy thought. His handsome, ravaged face came back to her. She realized with a jolt that he had been in her thoughts for most of the day. What had happened to him in theatre? Not his leg. Surely he hadn’t lost his leg. He was a free spirit; somehow she knew that. He should be running, riding a fine horse, climbing a mountain. Please no, not his leg.
They finished the dressing round and Sister glanced at her watch. ‘Dr Hanfield is coming to do a round shortly,’ she said. ‘We’d better get the men into bed.’ The beds were neatened and the men tucked in, jackets buttoned up, hair combed.
Dr Hanfield arrived and Sister took her on a round of the beds. Amy watched their progress. Dr Hanfield looked calm and cheerful, but Amy could see the lines of strain around her eyes and her mouth. She must have been operating all day, Amy thought, ever since she had spoken to her that morning. Captain Fielding should have been impressed. They came at last to the screened bed.
‘Excuse me, Doctor,’ Amy said.
Sister looked severe. ‘What do you want, Amy?’ she began, but Dr Hanfield stopped her.
‘What is it, Amy?’
‘This officer,’ Amy said. ‘I brought him in today. I just wondered….’
Dr Hanfield smiled. ‘He’s been very lucky. The bullet chipped the bone but the femur is intact. We got the bullet out and cleaned up the wound.’ Amy knew what that would be like, fragments of clothing and skin and muscle and earth and horse dung.
‘He’s lost a lot of blood,’ Dr Hanfield went on, ‘But he’s young and strong. He’ll be all right as long as it doesn’t get infected.’
‘What about tetanus?’ Amy said. ‘They were working on a tetanus antitoxin….’ She knew that she shouldn’t have said it, but it just came out. She was hungry for news about medicine, cut off from The Lancet and the other journals that she used to read so avidly.
Dr Hanfield looked surprised. ‘They are,’ she said. ‘But we don’t quite have it yet. Very soon, we hope. How do you know about that? Is your father a doctor?’
Amy was shaken. She had almost made another mistake. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s a teacher. He teaches science and he’s very interested in medicine.’
‘I see.’ Dr Hanfield looked thoughtful. ‘Do you know Lieutenant Maddox?’
‘Is that his name?’ Amy said. ‘No, I don’t know him – it was just bringing him in. I was interested.’ But I do know him, she thought. In some odd way I do know him. She had brought in dozens of men now and none of them had stayed in her mind like this man. Maybe it was just because he had annoyed her so much.
Dr Hanfield and Sister went behind the screen and Amy could hear a murmur of voices. Sister came out.
‘He’s awake,’ she said, disapproval in her face, ‘and he would like to speak to you.’
Amy felt herself flushing. ‘Thank you, Sister.’
She stepped in behind the screens to find him lying on his back with a cage over his legs. He was washed and clean. His face was deathly pale, but his blue eyes were bright, as she remembered, and his smile as disturbing.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m Johnny Maddox. I think I owe you my life.’
‘That’s all right, Lieutenant,’ she began, ‘I was glad to help,’ but his eyes were already closed.
She slipped out of the screens. Dr Hanfield had already gone. Sister was standing at her desk, still looking disapproving. ‘You can go now, Amy,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Sister.’
She walked wearily up the great staircase, tired out; she had to pull herself up the last few steps by the banister rail, then walked slowly along the corridor.
He hadn’t lost his leg. She stopped and looked at herself in one of the big mirrors, looking into her eyes as if she were someone she didn’t know. Why him? In the river of men that flowed through this hospital, why had he become so important? Her reflection gave nothing away. I’m just tired, she thought, just very tired.
She opened the door quietly so as not to disturb Helen, but she was still awake, sitting up in bed with a book on her knees.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Helen said.
‘I think I could sleep on a clothes line.’ Amy undressed, almost too tired to bother. She washed and cleaned her teeth and got into bed. For a few moments she stared at the ceiling.
‘I brought an officer in today,’ she said. ‘Leg injury. He was very rude about women doctors.’
‘Oh nice,’ Helen said. ‘You should have left him behind.’
‘I think he’s changed his mind,’ Amy said. ‘He actually thanked me this evening.’
‘That’s all right then.’ Helen turned off the light. ‘We’ll let him stay.’
Amy laughed and was instantly asleep.
CHAPTER SIX
1914
‘WE’RE on the general ward this morning.’ Helen wound up her glowing hair. ‘Sponge baths and changing beds.’
‘Nothing new then.’ Amy buttoned up her shirt and bent around to do up the side placket on her skirt. ‘I wish they’d invent something easier than buttons to do up these things. It’s always a struggle.’
‘We’ve got a few hours off this afternoon,’ Helen said. ‘Had you forgotten?’
‘Of course I haven’t. We’ll do something – that’s if I can stay awake.’
The ward was bustling with the usual early morning activity. Sister looked harassed. ‘We have ten more coming in today,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where we’re going to put them. I really don’t want to put the beds any closer together; it all makes cross infection more likely. And I really do wish we could stop all and sundry visiting the men. They seem to think that they can wander in whenever they feel like it.’ Visitors to the ward were frequent, often just the local people bringing gifts, fruit an
d cigarettes and sometimes books in English. The men seemed to enjoy it.
‘I expect it cheers them up,’ Helen said. ‘It makes a break from the usual routine.’
‘It won’t cheer them up if they get colds or flu,’ Sister said tartly. ‘And it tires them out sometimes. Get on with the beds, please.’
Amy glanced around the room. It was completely full, as always. The lingering smell of infection would not go away, no matter how much they scrubbed everything with carbolic soap. As soon as a bed was freed because the man had gone home, or died, it was instantly filled again. She felt as if that smell had lodged in her senses for ever, become a constant part of existence. She wondered, often, if it would fade away after the war was over. Would it be overcome by the scents of flowers, new-mown grass, the salty smell of the sea, all the clear, lovely scents of nature? Or would it never, never, go away, fixed in her brain like all the other ineradicable memories?
She and Helen moved from bed to bed, changing stained and soiled sheets, making the beds and washing the men who couldn’t look after themselves, and that, Amy thought, was most of them. There had been new admissions overnight.
‘The next one looks about twelve years old,’ Helen whispered. ‘He certainly can’t be more than sixteen.’
Amy nodded. ‘Lied about his age, I expect. You’d think the recruitment officers would notice, wouldn’t you? He looks like a child.’
He was sitting up in bed, talking continuously, whether anyone was listening or not. His young voice was tense, high pitched. ‘And then the officer blew his whistle and we all had to go over the top and the Huns started firing at us, shells and machine-guns, and everybody was falling down and I was shouting and then I got mine….’
