by Mary Hooper
There were two pictures in the envelope. The first showed Billy’s grave in a line with five other identical mounds of dark earth, each with a rough wooden cross at the top. The second was a close-up of Billy’s own mound, the name PRIVATE WILLIAM PEARSON showing clearly on his cross. Someone, probably Matthews, had pressed a jam jar containing twists of pink honeysuckle into the earth.
Poppy started crying. How could she possibly send those to her mother? Suppose she hadn’t even received the first letter telling her that he was dead?
The wheels at the bottom of the bed screen squealed as it was moved to one side, and one of the night orderlies appeared with a tray of mugs. ‘Would you like some cocoa, dearie?’
Poppy thanked him and took a mug.
‘Is that poor boy still with us?’ said the orderly, an elderly chap, nodding towards Sergeant Miller.
‘Yes, he is.’
The orderly dropped his voice. ‘Having a hard time with him, are you?’
Poppy shook her head, dried her eyes. ‘It’s not him, exactly. I . . . I’ve just been looking at photographs of my brother’s grave.’
‘Ah,’ said the orderly. ‘Death everywhere you look. It’s a sad old business, this war. But your brother’s lucky to have a grave to rest in. Lots of boys are still out there in the mud and their bodies will never be found.’
‘I know.’
‘But we mustn’t spend time on the dead. We must concentrate on helping the living, especially those boys who won’t be here much longer.’
‘Like Sergeant Miller here,’ Poppy whispered.
‘Like Sergeant Miller,’ the man agreed. ‘Help him to pass peacefully, dearie. Tell him what he wants to hear – lie if you have to – so that he can go in peace.’
He patted her hand and went out. Poppy drank her cocoa, thinking about what he’d said.
The next time Sergeant Miller asked restlessly for his ma, she replied, ‘She’s on her way, Sergeant. She’s nearly here.’
Finishing her cocoa, Poppy put her candle lantern on to the floor, so that if her patient opened his eyes she would only appear as a silhouette.
Some minutes went by. ‘Ma?’ he asked. ‘Are you here yet?’
Poppy took his hand in hers. ‘Yes, I’m here,’ she whispered.
His breath came out as a long sigh. ‘At last. Will you kiss me goodnight, Ma?’
Poppy, trembling all over, leaned towards him and brushed his cheek with her lips.
‘Ah . . .’ was all he said, but the tension in his face disappeared, the muscles in his body began to relax and his limbs sank deeper into the mattress.
‘Goodnight, son. God bless,’ Poppy said.
His lips formed the word ‘G’night’ then he inhaled once more and breathed it out in a long sigh of relief. There were perhaps five more raggedy breaths, and then his personal war was over.
Poppy closed her eyes and said her own goodbye to him, then went to tell the night staff. She looked around for the old orderly who’d brought her the cocoa and advice, but there was no sign of him.
Ward 5,
Casino Hospital,
Nr Boulogne-sur-Mer,
France
15th June 1916
Dearest Ma,
I am very anxious because I haven’t heard from you. I wrote just over a week ago to tell you about Billy’s death, but have not had a word since. I’m worried that either you didn’t get this letter, or I didn’t get yours in reply. Please let me know if you would like me to send the photographs of Billy’s grave? My friend Matthews sent them to me, and she has promised to keep the grave neat and tidy for us.
I hope Jane and Mary were not too upset at Billy’s death. I’m afraid dying is a way of life over here – if that’s not too odd a thing to say. Morale is still high, though, and we are all hoping that the next Big Push (whenever it happens) is the one which will decide things once and for all. We are not terribly busy at the moment, but it is the lull before the storm.
Dear Ma, I desperately want to hear from you. Please write back to me soon.
All my love,
Poppy x
Poppy sighed as she stuck down the envelope, wondering what to do if she still didn’t hear anything. There were no other relatives alive now apart from old Aunt Ruby, and Ma wasn’t living at home in Mayfield so she couldn’t write to a neighbour to ask if they knew anything. Could she ask Miss Luttrell to investigate? Or, if the worst came to the very worst, ask for compassionate leave to go back to England for a few days? It was not a good time to ask for leave, however, seeing as the Push was coming. They were going to need every nurse and every VAD they could get.
‘You’ll never guess!’ Dot said when the three girls had met up to take the air a day or so later. ‘We have this cutie of a Tommy in our ward.’ She turned to Tilly. ‘Isn’t that true? Isn’t Norman Collier a stunner?’
‘Absolutely a stunner!’ Tilly confirmed.
‘He put his name and address in one of your English papers, and sent in a photo, saying he was a lonely soldier in hospital with no one to write to, and what do you think?’
‘I think he got lots of replies,’ Poppy said.
‘But guess how many!’
Poppy thought. ‘Twenty? Fifty?’
‘Three hundred and forty so far!’ Dot squealed. ‘They filled up three whole mail bags. The orderlies put them in piles all over the ward and our nursing sister went quite mad.’
‘And they sent him presents, too: socks and ties, chocolate, ciggies and photographs!’
‘And, oh my! You should see the photographs.’
‘What were they like, then?’ Poppy asked, intrigued.
‘Well, I take back all I ever said about you Brits being quiet and reserved,’ said Dot. ‘These girls sure weren’t.’
‘So how did this gorgeous Norman Collier choose who to write to?’ Poppy wanted to know.
‘Well, he went through the photographs and picked out all the glamour girls – mostly wearing bathing costumes – then he let the unmarried boys in the ward choose whoever they wanted.’
‘It kept them amused for two whole days while they sorted and swapped and bickered about the girls,’ Tilly said.
‘Say, talking of good-looking guys,’ Dot said after a moment, ‘we saw your doctor friend yesterday.’
‘Oh?’
‘You know who we mean, right?’
Poppy, nodding, said that she did.
‘And he asked after you and wanted to send his best regards.’
‘That’s nice,’ Poppy said.
Dot glanced at her. ‘Hey, the girl has gone as red as her name!’
‘That’s because it’s a warm day today,’ said Poppy.
The letter, coming two days later, was in handwriting which Poppy didn’t recognise, an old-fashioned, rounded script. Someone’s mother writing to say how their boy was getting on now that he was home, Poppy thought as she opened it.
Bide-a-wee,
Logan,
Aberystwyth
26th June 1916
My dear Poppy,
I have hesitated some time before writing this letter, for I know how much you love being part of the war effort, and of course your help is so desperately needed in France. But you will have heard the expression ‘charity begins at home’ and I am afraid I need you to come back and look after your poor mother.
We received your first letter telling of Billy’s sad death and then the second one, but your mother has not been able or inclined to answer either. This dreariness of spirit happened slowly and started some months back, before the news about your brother arrived. Since then, however, she has fallen into a melancholic state where she does very little except stare out of the window. Even your sisters cannot rouse her to show any interest in them or their welfare.
Your mother originally came to Wales to make her home here and care for me, but I fear I am now the one caring not only for her, but for your sisters, too. This I am now finding difficult, for I am rather frail physica
lly and your sisters are robust, headstrong girls who take very little notice of me and my old-fashioned ways. The neighbours say that Mary especially is out of control.
Poppy, I am sorry to bring you such bad news, but we really cannot cope without you any longer. You must leave your nursing service and come back as quickly as you can.
With sincere wishes,
Aunt Ruby
Poppy, horrified, pushed the letter away from her. She wouldn’t, couldn’t bear the thought of going home! She’d pretend she’d never received Aunt Ruby’s letter! She’d be like Tibs’s Violet: if questioned, she’d say the letter must have got lost on the journey over. This was plausible, since mail ships were regularly getting torpedoed and their spoils sunk.
She was almost able to forget about the letter in the hurly-burly rush of the day, but when evening came and she walked out on to the sand dunes to try and clear her head, she started thinking about her mother. Nurses were supposed to be caring – and she did care. So how could she leave the four of them – her dearest ma, Aunt Ruby, Jane and Mary – all floundering? If they needed her then she had to go. Only, please, not quite yet . . .
Chapter Twenty-Two
Poppy took out the medical dictionary which held Freddie de Vere’s wedding picture and tucked the photographs of Billy’s grave inside the front cover. She put the book back in her locker and was about to go out when, on an impulse, she picked up the book again, took out the picture and stared at the bride and groom. She – pretty Miss Cardew, in her diamond tiara and silk gown – looked nothing but smug, she thought. And he, Freddie, looked trapped, caught as surely as a hare in a poacher’s pocket.
Maybe he had loved her, but such a weak and watery love would never have been enough. He hadn’t had the strength of mind, the ability, the manliness to oppose his mother. He’d fallen at the first hurdle.
Poppy screwed up the photograph and put it in the bin, and then threw away the letter from Aunt Ruby, too. She knew she would have to go home, but she couldn’t think about it yet. She needed just a little more time. She wanted to be stationed in France for the Big Push – she wanted to be useful and valuable and brave. She also wanted to know if the interest that Michael Archer seemed to be showing her was real or just a wartime flirtation.
She tried to tell herself that it might not be so bad back in Blighty. Once she’d got things back to normal, got Ma some treatment for whatever malady she had and sorted out her sisters, then maybe she could enrol on a course to become a proper, qualified nurse. If not – well, there were hundreds of military hospitals in Britain, all of them doing valuable work. There was sure to be a hospital that needed volunteers close to where they were living, either in Wales with Aunt Ruby or back in Mayfield.
If Aunt Ruby wrote again, Poppy decided, then that meant it really was urgent and she’d start arranging to go back right away. If no second letter came, then it might mean, perhaps, that Aunt was able to cope on her own for a little longer. She would return and help out at home, of course, but would leave it as long as she dared, perhaps making the excuse to Aunt Ruby that she had to give a month’s notice.
The wards of the Casino Hospital and all the other base hospitals continued to be cleared of as many patients as possible. Most of them – including Private Casey – went on to convalescent homes, while others went back to England a little earlier than they would have done normally.
Waving goodbye from the balcony to a small group of Ward 5 boys, Poppy saw a group of nine men, led by an orderly, proceeding in single file along the dusty road to the docks. Each man except the orderly at the front had been blinded, and each had his right hand on the shoulder of the man in front. In this way, singing Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty, they trekked towards the ship which would take them home.
One night at the end of June, all the medical staff of the hospitals in and around Boulogne who weren’t on duty, as well as recovering patients and local dignitaries, were invited to a ‘Grand Music Hall’. This was a morale-boosting exercise to be held in the old Hôtel de Ville in Boulogne.
When the nurses arrived at the old city hall at seven o’clock, spruce in clean aprons, some daringly wearing a smear of pink lip balm, most of them were disappointed to find that nurses and VADs were to be seated alongside their respective ward sisters and matrons, and apart from the male medical staff.
There was some low-key muttering and grumbling about this, and the girls were moving rather reluctantly towards their seats, when a much-decorated general in dress uniform appeared on the stage.
‘If Matron-in-Charge is willing,’ he said, ‘I propose that men and women should be allowed to sit together, just as they would at home.’ A cheer went up from the boys. ‘After all, I’m sure we can be trusted to behave like gentlemen for a couple of hours.’
‘Norman Collier can’t!’ some wag called, for the tale of the good-looking Tommy and his fan mail had spread throughout the Boulogne hospitals.
As the laughter faded away, Poppy and the rest of the VADs looked anxiously towards Matron-in-Charge, whose expression hadn’t altered. The general went over to her, they exchanged a few words and, to another rousing cheer, he kissed her hand. He went back on the stage to say that Matron-in-Charge had graciously agreed to allow both sexes to sit together.
There followed a scramble by the young men, while the girls tried to look slightly bemused, as if they didn’t care one way or another. Poppy, wondering what to do if no one came and sat beside her, suddenly became aware that Michael Archer was leaping over the seats like a deer in order to reach her quickly.
‘Phew!’ he said, claiming the seat beside her. ‘It’s a good job I’ve been in training for this.’
The Push was the number one topic for almost everyone there, but after that Poppy told him the story of the mysterious orderly who, when she’d been sitting beside a dying man, had come into the ward dispensing cocoa and thoughtful advice.
‘And the funny thing is,’ she concluded, ‘the night staff didn’t even see him at all.’
‘Ah,’ said Michael. ‘He sounds like a ghost to me.’
Poppy laughed. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘I think we could quite reasonably start a rumour about it.’
‘But there’s no such thing!’ Poppy said, thinking of the Grey Lady of Netley.
‘That’s as maybe, but everyone loves spooky stories,’ he said, ‘especially if the ghosts encountered are spiritually enlightened ones. Let’s push the rumour out there and see how quickly it gets back to us. Winner gets a . . .’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, we can decide on that later.’
Poppy laughingly agreed.
‘You must promise to pass on the story at least twice a day.’
‘I promise.’
‘And I do, too,’ he said, turning to her and saying the words so solemnly, it was as if he was vowing something quite different.
The music hall turns started. There were jugglers, men who climbed on each other’s backs to form pyramids, a dog that could add up, and lots of singers, including the Little Orphan and the Henpecked Man, who both came with accompanying songs. The finale that evening was everyone’s favourite, the Soldier Far from Home. This was a regular infantryman sitting in a tent on the stage, writing letters home to recipients who magically appeared before him. His act included such well-known songs as ‘There’s a Long, Long Trail A-winding’ and ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’. By the time he got to ‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World’, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
At this point, Poppy became aware of the warmth of Michael Archer’s arm on the seat rest beside hers, touching her arm all the way down from shoulder to elbow. Did he really like her, she wondered, or was he just being friendly because they were both far from home? But, even if he really was attracted to her, how could it come to anything once she was back in England? What was the point of falling in love when there was a war on?
During the nights following the ‘Grand Music Hall’, there was a heav
y bombardment of an area to the south, somewhere (so rumour had it) around the River Somme. It lit up the sky in an astonishing display of noisy fireworks and prevented Poppy and nearly everyone else from sleeping. It went on for several days and nights, and someone in the canteen told Poppy that the Allies were trying to shell through the masses of barbed wire protecting the German trenches, thus giving the infantry a chance to gain ground.
Going out one morning on an errand for Sister, Poppy was surprised to see that a huge marquee had been erected on a scruffy piece of land behind the Casino and, going closer, saw piles of iron bedsteads waiting to be erected, and several carts full of what looked like mattresses and pillows.
‘Yes, the hospital expects a very large number of new patients,’ Sister explained to Ward 5 staff later.
Poppy shared a look with one of the other VADs – a look of alarm.
‘Are there going to be that many?’ the VAD asked.
Sister nodded. ‘I’m afraid the whole hospital is going to be frightfully busy. The Push has most definitely begun.’
The next afternoon, the casualties began arriving. Having already filled up the hospitals close to the fighting, they were being transported further and further across country in order to find empty beds.
When it was Ward 5’s turn, Sister took a team of nurses, VADs and orderlies down to the railway station. The orderlies carried back the most badly wounded on stretchers; others in bath chairs were pushed by nurses. The walking wounded were helped along by those working nearby – shop assistants, laundry workers, drivers – anyone who had an hour or two to spare and wanted to help.
Poppy brought back Private Cassidy, a man who’d lost his foot to a grenade.
‘That’s my lot,’ he said chirpily, limping along with one arm around Poppy’s neck. ‘I reckon it was almost worth losing a foot to get out of it.’
