Angel of the Somme: The Great War, Book 1

by Terri Meeker

  Blighted war.

  He rolled to his side, hoping to catch a little sleep, and his headache rolled along with him, complaining all the way.

  Shortly after lunch, Gordy decided to regale Sam with tales of fishing in Newfoundland.

  “Now your Atlantic Salmon is a whole other kettle of fish from your Pacific Salmon. The Atlantic Salmon is what the Pacific wishes he could be if he ever grew a pair of nibber-nabbers.”

  “Is that right?” Sam asked. As far as entertaining neighbors, a fellow would be hard pressed to do better than Gordy Robbins.

  “Too right it is! You’re never seen a fiercer fighter. And teeth like you’d not believe. Back home we call them river sharks.”

  “Do you now?” Sam didn’t even attempt to keep the disbelief from his voice.

  “I caught this one salmon, almost as tall as me. A right bastard he was and when I first hooked him…” He stopped mid-sentence, an expression of wonder on his face as he stared at the door. Sam followed his gaze.

  A dozen or so women had entered the ward, local French townspeople by their dress. A particularly beautiful young woman headed right for them. She wore a bright red frock that was extremely low-cut. Her plump breasts nearly bounced out of the bodice as she walked.

  “I’ll be damned,” muttered Gordy.

  “Indeed,” Sam agreed.

  “Attention,” a voice called from the doorway. The matron. “With the influx of wounded, we’ve been rather short-staffed. Several kind women from the village have volunteered to help for the afternoon. They’ll be taking you to the back garden for the morning. Those of you who are ambulatory, if you could please assist with those lesser-abled.”

  “Bonjour.” The lovely brunette with the never-ending cleavage stopped in front of them. She flashed Sam and Gordy a winning smile.

  “Bonjour,” Gordy replied, pronouncing it ‘ban-jar.’ The pretty French miss’s smile slipped a bit.

  “Comment allez-vous?” Sam asked.

  The girl laughed prettily. “Bien, et vous?”

  “Bien, merci,” Sam replied. At least his battered mind had allowed his French to remain not much worse than his English, though at present, that wasn’t saying much.

  “Bloody show off,” Gordy muttered.

  An older woman pushed a wheelchair up to Gordy’s bed. She asked Gordy a question, but so rapidly and with such heavily accented French that Sam couldn’t understand her. Gordy gave Sam a look of help me but Sam could only shrug. “I think she wants to know if you need a wheelchair.”

  “Ah, no wheelchair for me. I’m boko strong. Manly.” Gordy swung his leg cast around and tried to stand.

  “Lieutenant Robbins.” The matron called from across the room. “You will be so good as to use a wheelchair, won’t you?” It was more statement than question and Gordy remained sitting on the edge of his bed, head wobbling in defeat.

  “Translate that for me, will you, Sam? Tell that French miss that I’m a virile specimen of manhood. Make her compree.”

  “I can’t help you, Gordy. I don’t believe there are…French words strong enough to describe your raw masculinity.”

  Gordy gave a defeated groan when the elder of the two women assisted him into a wheelchair. The buxom brunette pulled a wheelchair up to Sam’s bedside.

  “I suppose it would be useless to protest,” Sam said as he seated himself in the chair.

  “You get the girl, and I get her mother,” Gordy grumbled, as he was wheeled off through the ward, just ahead of Sam. “God hates me.”

  The women pushed the men through kitchen. The room was mostly abandoned, save for a few dishwashers wrestling with pots in the large rear sinks. Sun streamed through the east window and Sam’s head sounded a shout of pain as the sunlight stabbed into his eyes.

  The French girl pushing his wheelchair leaned down to say something to Sam. Her breasts pressed against Sam’s neck and he heard Gordy let out a groan. The girl said it was a lovely day outside and something vague about sunshine. Sam’s French lessons were too long ago to be much help and his freshly energized headache was not helping his language skills.

  Gordy twisted around in his chair and shot Sam a particularly forlorn look. “What did she say?”

  “She told me that she’s been saving herself a man who battles with…river sharks. I only wish I could help her, somehow.”

  “Bloody Englishmen,” Gordy said, as he passed under the threshold and out into the yard.

  A buzz of pain in Sam’s head rose as he went through the door and into the yard, but it felt so refreshing to be outside again, after so long. Like all those late-July mornings back on the farm, with Baden and Father—checking on the sheep as the sun shone down. He lifted his face to the sky and…it happened in an instant.

  Where before he’d felt an electric tingling down his arms and legs as the pain rose in his head—this time it came all at once. A terrible electric jolt seared his head and limbs, jolting him up, feeling as though it was lifting him out of the chair and then—a flood of crimson.

  The first thing he felt was the sun-warmed dirt beneath his body. His head screaming in pain, he rolled on his back to try to climb back into his chair. The chair was gone, along with the backyard and New Bedlam.

  He’d landed in a shell hole. He glanced around to see the ground was pitted, like an immense Gruyere cheese. The few scattered trees were branchless, their trunks blasted and dead. He was smack in the middle of that hellish landscape between opposing trenches—No Man’s Land.

  God. It was happening again. Was he going mad?

  The air was perfectly still. No boom of artillery, or machine gun rattling. Peaceful, almost, if he could imagine such a thing in this place. Perhaps that was evidence enough that he was dreaming.

  Though the air was filled with the stench of death and mud, another odor lingered just beneath. It was the hint of new mown hay. Phosgene gas was supposed to smell like that.

  The pain in his head roared again and he fell back against the rim of the hole.

  You weren’t supposed to feel pain in dreams, were you?

  Sam crouched. Even it if was only a dream, he wasn’t about to poke his head up and provide a target.

  “Oi! Over ‘ere, fella.”

  As he pivoted his head toward the man’s voice, his headache howled. A grime-covered infantryman lay twenty feet away, behind some sandbags, in the remains of a trench. He gave Sam a frantic come-here motion.

  Sam crawled toward the man. Once he reached the edge of the trench, he let his body fall into it, rolling down the embankment, holding back a scream of pain. His head was roaring now. Even his arms and legs sang with a strange electric agony.

  “Stagged right up to our eyebrows, we are.” The soldier spoke in a thick Cornish accent. “Got trapped back here on the last fall back.”

  Sam simply lay in the dirt, too spent to move.

  “What’s happened to you, then? You don’t look right.”

  “Fine,” Sam ground out.

  “You ‘avin’ a good long stank, then? You’re dressed right queerly,” the Cornishman said.

  Curious, Sam glanced down. As in the other dream, he was still wearing his hospital blues, though they were now streaked with mud. Before he could reply, a sound captured his attention. A strange, gurgling noise coming from behind the infantryman.

  Another soldier lay on the trench floor. The poor devil’s face was covered in lesions and his eyes had swollen shut, surrounded by raw, red skin. His lips were puffy and bleeding, small rivulets leading down his saliva-soaked chin. All the signs of phosgene.

  “Please,” the soldier gasped, as the gas went about its cruel work. He reached for Sam.

  “I can’t help you. I don’t know…” Sam trailed off.

  Despite the locomotive of pain steaming through his head, Sam crawled along the trench bottom tow
ard the boy’s outstretched fingers. The cold mud oozed through the thin cloth covering his legs.

  Sam had to try it again, delusion or not. Though his body was smashed up and useless in a hospital bed behind the lines, at least here—in this place—he could make a difference.

  Sam grasped the man’s fingers. The instant their fingertips touched, Sam felt a sense of peace, of power. A beam of light shone from their hands, growing brighter by the second. Sam jumped back, but did not break the connection. A jolt of electricity shot from Sam’s hands into the boy.

  The pain flowed out of Sam’s head as the white light grew to blind him from his surroundings. And as the light blossomed, it erased everything save one thought.

  This is real.

  No Man’s Land and the boy faded into nothingness, followed by, mercifully, Sam’s consciousness.

  Chapter Eight

  Lily grabbed a muffin and settled down on the long wooden bench at the crowded kitchen table. She struggled to keep her eyelids open. When she lifted the muffin to her mouth, her arm ached. Between the spending half the night unloading wounded from train cars and trying to help the new VADs, she felt physically and emotionally spent.

  Sorting out the injured at the train station had been the worst of it. Triage was Lily’s most hated duty and though she tried to block the thoughts from her mind, they persisted in sneaking across the border. When Lily scribbled a triage number on a card, it meant the difference between life and death to her patient. With so many men in desperate need of attention and limited ability to tend to all of them, it was up to her split-second analysis to determine who would be seen first. A heartbreaking task.

  She’d joined the war to save lives, not to play at God. Humans weren’t meant for such a cruel occupation.

  She glanced up from her breakfast to see a deflated Rose grab a muffin and make her way toward the table. Lily was disappointed but not surprised to find that the shadows beneath the girl’s eyes were even deeper. Lily scooted over to create a space for her roommate.

  Rose settled in beside her and took a tiny nibble of her muffin. A wilted English rose at best. The poor girl was getting a baptism by fire now, for certain. Though Rose’s general ability on the ward had improved, yesterday she’d flown apart when faced with some particularly nasty injuries. Upon seeing her first septic leg, the girl vomited all over Sister Newell’s shoes.

  “Chin up, Rose.” Lily reached out and squeezed the girl’s hand.

  Rose gave her a weak smile. “At this rate, they’ll never trust me with train duty.”

  “Give it time,” Lily said. “Besides, word is we won’t be receiving any more trains for some time. We need a few days to clear the wards to Blighty.”

  “Oh good,” Rose said. “It’ll be nice to have you around New Bedlam today. I know I’m not the only one who’s missed you these past few days.”

  Lily laughed. “Please. You can’t mean Gordy Robbins.”

  “I don’t mean him at all.” Rose smiled, and the motion seemed to take some of the shadows from beneath her eyes. “I mean Captain Dwight.”

  “Why, that’s just…silly.” Lily swallowed. The muffin stuck in her throat. “But I have to ask, why would you think that?”

  Rose’s smile didn’t fade. “Because despite how much he appears to look forward to his mail, he declines to have anyone but you read it to him.”

  “Oh, that.” Lily could feel heat rising in her cheeks. “Perhaps he just likes the way I read.”

  Rose laughed. “Oh yes, Lily. That’s it entirely. Your reading skills, and only your reading skills, have ensnared him.”

  Lily stood and dusted the crumbs from her skirt. “We should go before the matron comes in and accuses us of lounging about.”

  Rose reached out to squeeze Lily’s hand. “He seems like a wonderful sort, you know. I’d rather be thrilled if a dashing captain held out for my mail reading abilities.”

  They made their way to the rear of the room just as the breakfast carts were being loaded up. After such frantic days at the station, doing something as mundane as serving a breakfast seemed like a gift.

  Lily grabbed a cart and wheeled it next to the serving table. Before she began loading it, however, Matron Marshall clumped into the room and headed directly toward her.

  “Miss Curtis,” the matron said, “you’re to let the less experienced girls handle meals. Dr. Raye has specifically requested your assistance on rounds.” Her voice was thick with disapproval. “Wait outside his office, if you please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lily walked through the back hall toward the surgical rooms. Though she was slightly disappointed to be called away from breakfast duty, it was always a pleasure to work with Dr. Raye. He was unique in being the one person at New Bedlam who viewed Lily as an actual nurse, much to the matron’s discomfort.

  Even better, at least to Lily’s point-of-view, the doctor had a very educated approach regarding medical practices. He even agreed with Lily regarding the more modern practice of blood typing, even though he was English. Lily had discovered that American and Canadian medical staff disagreed with the French and English most profoundly when it came to blood transfusions. Her European counterparts looked at transfusions as a course of last resort, whereas the North Americans embraced newer techniques. Since Lily was working in an English-run hospital, however, her opinions on such matters were thoroughly ignored by all except the very forward thinking Dr. Raye.

  Lily reached the doctor’s office and knocked on the door.

  “Please come in,” Dr. Raye said.

  She entered his small and extremely cluttered office to find the doctor sorting through a jumble of files. He was a big man with a wide, sun-tanned face. He reminded her of the loggers back home, more fit for a life in the wild than inside a surgical ward. Perhaps that was why she felt such fondness for him—she and he were both square pegs trying to fit into round holes.

  “Good morning, sir,” she said.

  “Miss Curtis. Thank you for joining me.” Though usually quick to smile, the doctor looked more somber than usual, and extremely weary. His salt and pepper hair was especially unruly and he was badly in need of a shave. He cleared his throat, a nervous habit of his. “It’s been a rough couple of days. How’re you holding up?”

  “I’m fine, sir. Hard work is what I came here for.”

  Dr. Raye nodded at her. “That’s the spirit.” He wrote a few quick notes, then collected his stack of papers and attached them to his clipboard. “I should expect things will settle down any time now. A few days of this and neither side will have the temerity to push for much longer.”

  He stood and left the office, with Lily following behind.

  By the time they arrived in the officers’ ward, the VADs were just beginning their breakfast rounds. Though the ward was never as boisterous as the enlisted wards, it felt especially quiet this morning, like a fidgety child holding still for a church sermon. The regulars were attuned to the cycles of New Bedlam and tended to settle into a more silent mode when the freshly wounded joined their ranks.

  The doctor stopped by the beds of the newer patients first. Most of them had amputated limbs, likely performed in haste at a casualty clearing station. Many suffered the additional injury of the recent gas attacks at Deville Wood. Though most had been hit with mustard gas, a few were suffering from the effects of phosgene, an especially cruel invention. Between seeping eyes, lung injuries and the terrible skin blisters, examination took much longer than for the more established patients. The new arrivals were so doped from morphine, they were scarcely aware of the doctor’s presence, or their own.

  Lily trailed behind Dr. Raye, gripping a clipboard and taking notes regarding alterations to treatment or medication. On most of the charts, she noted “Cleared for England.” As soon as a bed was available, the man would be loaded on a hospital ship to finish recovering at a hospital ba
ck home. Not that any of them would ever fully recover. She’d seen thousands missing limbs or horribly disfigured, but the visible injuries were only the more obvious wounds. After years of living in ditches, watching so many of their comrades fall, how could a man remain unscarred?

  She shook her head to clear her mind. She’d have time for contemplation later. For now, she focused on the new patients as she followed Dr. Raye through the ward.

  When they made their way toward the rear of the ward and their regulars, Gordy greeted them with a grin.

  “Lovely to see you!” Gordy wrestled with his cast and managed to sit up in bed, giving Lily a very enthusiastic wave. Likely in deference to the doctor’s presence, he’d left off calling her “Bluebird,” which was a relief.

  “Good morning,” Lily replied.

  “Still staying off your foot, Lieutenant Robbins?”

  “As ordered, sir,” Gordy said with a saucy salute.

  The doctor chuckled. Gordy had an inappropriate charm that captured everyone. Well, everyone but the impenetrable matron. Lily’s smile faded at the thought of her.

  “The captain’s the one who can’t stay where he’s supposed to. Had another seizure yesterday. Did you hear?”

  Lily swallowed. Her throat felt as if a stone sat in the center of it. Not the Captain. After seeing such a tidal wave of misery the past few days, she’d missed the Farmer-Captain and his quiet charm. She cast a quick glance at him. Though he was deeply asleep, his face looked haggard and pinched, his color far too pale.

  Dr. Raye cleared his throat and grabbed the captain’s chart. He studied it with interest, making a little humming noise as he scanned the page. He looked at Gordy. “It was more prolonged than the last one. Has he woken since the incident, Lieutenant?”

  “Not a peep from him, sir.”

  “I see.” The doctor reached down to check the captain’s pulse. “Were you nearby when it occurred?”

  “I was. Happened in a flash. As soon as they wheeled him into the back garden, he was out of his chair and laying in the dirt—his whole body jerking.”