‘Cacao, mon brave?’
It was a stranger’s voice. Midge looked up. All along the platform, she saw young women in grey skirts with handkerchiefs about their heads, old women in black lace, girls with aprons over neat print dresses. The village women had come to help. Now at least it was possible to also give drinks to everyone.
A hospital train arrived, steaming and snorting as it stopped. Orderlies climbed out—all men, this time, and in uniform—lifted stretchers from the platform and carried them one by one on board. Inside the train Midge could see nurses, their veils a brilliant white even through the window glass. But as soon as one stretcher was taken from the platform, another took its place.
Midge glanced out into the courtyard again. It was still crowded with stretchers, the road still lined with vehicles waiting to unload. There were no more motor ambulances. Now the wounded came in farm trucks, delivery trucks, carts that a year ago had carried cows or sheep and still smelled of hay or manure. Others came in private cars with leather seats and empty silver vases for the nosegays there was no time to pick, the men stretched out on the back seat or propped awkwardly with linen pillows.
Midge returned to her task. ‘Pardon, monsieur? Cocoa?’
Mopping blood from a soldier’s face so it didn’t drip into the cocoa. Replacing a bandage pad that had slipped off a wound. More trucks, more cars, and then the ambulances again, returning from hell, carrying a second load.
‘Pardon, monsieur? Cocoa?’
The shadows grew shorter, then long. Dusk thickened the air as the first of the walking wounded limped down the cobbled street and lay panting against the walls of the station master’s office or stretched out on any patch of platform or in the station courtyard.
The station master lit the gaslights. They hissed above sounds of pain.
‘Pardon, monsieur? Cocoa?’
And still the wounded came staggering along the village street, on foot now as well as in the carts, an endless procession, desperate to reach the station and a hospital train, a doctor’s hands. One man helped another; two carried a comrade between them; men with bandaged eyes pushed bath chairs, their passengers giving them directions.
Villagers rushed into the street to lend a shoulder; some brought wheelbarrows to help those who collapsed along the road. School children lugged buckets of water, while women held cups to the dry cracked lips of bleeding men who rested on steps or leaned against walls on their way to the station.
The gaslights flared on the platform, turning the pale faces yellow. Here and there buckets of smouldering coke provided a little heat, and a thin transparent smoke that choked you if you went too close.
Cocoa and more cocoa. Loaf after loaf to be sliced. And still the ambulances came and left. And the wounded staggered in.
Dimly Midge was aware of Slogger and Boadicea coming back a third time; unloading more stretchers. Slogger swayed up to grab more cocoa, Dolores at her heels. Even the big dog seemed weary now.
‘Smile,’ Slogger whispered, her eyes red with tiredness.
‘What?’ Midge stared at her, not understanding.
‘It’s all we can do for the poor chaps sometimes—smile at them. Comfort them. Give them a pennyworth of hope. And if they’re dying…well, let their last thought be of home, of comfort.’
How could you smile in this, thought Midge desperately. But Slogger was right. They had so little to give. She forced her lips to move, her face to relax from grimness to what she hoped was comfort.
‘Pardon, monsieur? Cocoa?’ Smile. Lift and fill and smile…
More powdered milk to be mixed. More bread to slice. Midge stared at the loaf in front of her. How many hours had she been working? The knife seemed to blur back and forth whether her hands moved or not. She blinked hard, but the world still swam.
‘Darling, go and sleep.’ It was Anne.
‘I can’t.’ The world was pain and hungry men, stretchers, the rumble of engines and the snort of tired horses. Sleep was a demon that tried to lure you away. But she couldn’t sleep. Not with so much to do, so many men, the blood and desperation.
‘You have to. Darling, you’ve been on your feet for a day and a night.’
‘Take her into the storeroom.’ That was Ethel’s voice. ‘Bring more powdered milk while you’re there. You! Station master! I need to send a telegram to England. Angleterre! “Need more supplies. Urgent.” No, you silly man, I know you don’t send telegrams. Take it to post office. La poste!’
Anne’s hand on her arm, leading her, guiding her. Stumbling over something, a stretcher. Anne keeping her upright…
The sacks were hard and lumpy, but just to close her eyes was an indescribable luxury. The world vanished.
A scream outside woke her.
‘Non, non, non…’
Midge sat up and shook her head to clear it. How long had she slept? Her head ached, her body—or was it her feet? The scream had faded, but now she could hear voices, groans, a strange hoarse laugh and then the rumble of a train.
Was it night or day? She peered at the window. Night: the light outside was still yellow gaslight, the moths flickering about the flames. She must have slept two hours, or three. She stretched and tried to straighten her dress, then went outside.
‘Your turn,’ she said to Anne. ‘Go and sleep.’
Anne didn’t argue. Her spots stood out bright red against her paleness. She trod drearily over to the storeroom and shut the door.
‘Eat,’ said Ethel, handing Midge a roll. It was thick with butter, ham and cheese, the best thing she had ever eaten. ‘Madame sent it over from the hotel. Everyone is doing what they can…’ Ethel’s voice broke for a moment, then steadied. ‘You slept for three hours. Are you all right to carry on?’
Midge nodded.
‘Maybe you’d best help slice the bread then, and do the cocoa. Your hands will be steadier than mine. I’ll serve. I got a telegram back from Da,’ she added. ‘There’ll be more supplies in tomorrow.’
‘That was quick.’
‘He was waiting by the phone, I think. All England’s waiting.’ She shrugged. ‘A few yards taken. More lives lost. Daft, daft, the lot of them.’
‘Ethel!’
‘Well, they are. That Sir John French is a fool.’
‘Are you sorry you came?’
Ethel looked at her strangely. ‘Sorry? No. We’re needed. I’ve never been needed before.’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t mind me, lass.’ Then turned to a young soldier who was asking if they had any writing paper. ‘Non, Monsieur, je suis, um, desolée. Mais je peux faire le cacao pour vous.’1
‘Donnez-moi un sourire alors!’2 the boy said cheekily.
Ethel obliged with a giant grin as she poured him some cocoa. A day and a night, thought Midge dazedly, and Ethel could still grin.
Loaf after loaf of bread, can after can of bully beef. Ethel was thinning out the cocoa with water. The powdered milk must be finished. What had Slogger said, Midge thought. ‘As long as it’s hot and wet.’
The smell of milk and cocoa mingled with the smell of blood; the sharp odour of antiseptic mixed with the smell of bully beef. Midge saw VADs moving among the wounded now. They must have arrived on one of the hospital trains while she was asleep. They looked like crows, she thought, with their long black cloaks, their braid-edged shoulder capes, thick black stockings under the drab dress, and the tiny black straw bonnet trimmed with black bows and held on by white strings. A mob of crows preying on the wounded. Then she saw the concern on every face, the tired smiles that attempted to give comfort where there was none to give as they tried to sort the most urgent cases to go on the next train.
The sky grew grey with dawn. A man with a bandaged face stared at Midge with strange blank eyes. ‘Avance à l’aube,’ he whispered. ‘Suivez-moi, mes amis. Avance à l’aube.’3
Another man took his arm, his hand black with blood from a wound on his shoulder. ‘Ne vous inquiétez pas par lui, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘Venez, Marcel, pre
nez votre cacao.’4 And he led his comrade off to find a place to sit.
Another train arrived, this one carrying new troops heading into battle. Clean, fresh faces startled into fear as the men jumped from the carriages and saw what they were heading into: a world of horror populated by wounded men, dying men, men who staggered blindly, men who wept.
Another hospital train, a brief space as the stretchers were carried aboard, then the platform grew its carpet of bodies once more.
Midge slept again, no longer sure how long she had been working or even what day it was. She woke as a new train crept into the station, bringing sacks and boxes for them from England; Ethel’s father performing miracles, or her brother perhaps, out of who knew what sense of guilt or conscience.
Another night. Another dawn. And suddenly it was over. The platform was strangely empty. Only the memories of pain and death remained.
Midge watched the last hospital train pull out. If those men were lucky, they would be unloaded at Boulogne. If the hospitals there were full, they might go to Le Touquet or Rouen, Le Havre or Paris, or be sent on another nightmare journey, crammed into ships bound for England.
She turned back to the canteen, trying not to stagger. Her apron was more cocoa brown than white, splattered with bloodstains. She wondered, briefly, what her hair looked like. Their counter was filthy, splashed with cocoa and crusted with crumbs. A few ambulance drivers still slouched on the platform; most were men, she thought, but it was hard to tell the women from the men. Sometime during the night Dolores had crept into the storeroom. She was stretched out on the case of bully beef, her lips stained with cocoa froth, snoring softly. Slogger and her friend Jumbo stood nearby, waving their mugs of cocoa as they sang.
Could you get drunk on cocoa and tiredness, wondered Midge.
No, she thought, she couldn’t write to Aunt Lallie about all that had happened. Lallie would understand, if anybody could. But Aunt Lallie might tell Aunt Harriet, who would worry and call her back to England. It was all so different from the girls’ romantic idea of war. But there was no way they could desert their canteen now. This was work, not adventure.
* * *
1‘No, sir, I am sorry. But I can make cocoa for you.’
2‘Give me a smile then!’
3‘Advance with the daybreak. Follow me, my friends. Advance with the daybreak!’
4‘Do not worry about him, Miss. Come, Marcel, take your cocoa.’
Chapter 5
MARTEL, FRANCE
17 September 1915
Dear Dougie,
I hope this finds you as well as you were when you wrote your last letter. I’m sorry I can’t send you any soap. I’ve asked Aunt Harriet to send you some, and some to me as well. I’m sorry you are not happy about my coming here. But I am ‘behaving myself’ as you put it. I’m nearly two years older than when you saw me last, remember. I’m not a baby any more. We really are needed here, and I can’t go back to England just to get you soap and knit you socks.
Sorry to be a grouch. I know that is the last thing you need. I am so proud of you and all our men. Some Tommies passed through here last week and when they heard I was from New Zealand they said the Anzacs were the bravest, stubbornest troops around. Well, one Tommy spoke of someone ‘swearing like an Anzac’ too, but I promise he did it with great admiration. But you see, that is why I have to ‘do my bit’ too. I can’t just sit back in England and knit socks, and I promise you I am not ‘being a nuisance’ to everyone!
I am sure that if you saw our canteen you would realise that we really are doing our bit for the war. We served ten thousand men last night—Ethel keeps count so we know what supplies we need to order. I know you would like Anne and Ethel too, and they would love to meet you. I think you and Anne would really hit it off.
I had better go now. We are expecting a shipment of bully beef and if we don’t count every box some of them always go missing!
Your loving sister,
Margery
P.S. Do let me know if you hear any word at all about Tim.
The Firs
Sussex
14 November 1915
My dear Margery,
I hope you are well. We are all well here and the news from Michael in Flanders has been good. I hear Dougie has his promotion. We are so glad and proud, and you must be too. I have sent him the soap you asked for, and six pairs of socks. I hope they fit. There is nothing worse than badly fitting socks.
We have had two convalescent soldiers billeted with us this last week. They are both young Scotsmen and very sweet. They come from crofts in the Highlands and I think living in our house must be as strange to them as they sometimes are to us. Cook found them one morning brewing tea in a dustbin in her kitchen; they had thrown the refuse out onto the lawn! They had never seen a dustbin, it seems, or gaslights either. They have worked out how to turn the lights on now, but turning them off seems beyond them! But they are both good lads and we will miss them when they go. They both knit as well as I do and, I confess, turn the heels of socks much better.
Your uncle is excited over the news of the new War Cabinet. You must be shocked too about the news of conditions at Gallipoli, but I am sure that all the problems will be sorted out now and we will have victory soon.
We often think of you over there in France and are so very proud of you.
Your loving aunt,
Harriet Macpherson.
Dear Midge,
Just a short note. Sorry I went on at you in my last letter. It’s a bit of a shock hearing that your baby sister has upped and gone to France, you know. But Uncle says you are with a grand group of girls and being well looked after. Aunt sent me the soap, and socks too. Just what I need—more socks! But the other men are grateful for them, so don’t tell her I have enough. My feet are warm at least!
Sam, my batman, just brought me a cup of tea. If I’d had any sugar to put in it, the spoon would have dissolved too, it was stewed so strong. Do you remember the shearers’ tea, how Dad always said it tanned your insides?
We are in a lot of wet tents on wet ground under wet bivouac sheets but I’ve got the men singing lustily. Never underestimate an Anzac’s ability to organise a singsong.
We have just received an order that all men must wash their feet in hot water. I don’t know what the British command think we will wash in—the dixies we make our tea in, I suppose, or maybe the canteens we use to eat and drink from. Never underestimate the lack of imagination of the British officer behind the lines either!
We are a long way from the front line ourselves at the moment, and I think it will be a while before we are sent back again. I didn’t tell you in my last letter but Captain Andrews commanding BN Company was killed by a sniper while we were on exercises last week, poor chap. I think you met him at the tennis party at the Baxters’. He joined up at the same time as me. His parents are both dead but you might write to his sister. Not that there is much you can say at times like this, but I think she would be glad to hear from you.
There is no real news of Tim, I’m afraid. It seems he was in a spot called Mule Valley, where the fighting was pretty fierce. I wrote to his commanding officer but the poor chap was killed the day after Tim went missing, and the NCOs as well. I think that is probably why the date of his disappearance was wrong—there just wasn’t anyone to do the blessed paperwork for a while. We just have to keep our fingers crossed, old girl, and hope the Turks have him and that we hear from him soon.
Let the folks in England know I am well—I haven’t had time to write to them this week—and thank Aunt for the socks. She sent a big package of rock cakes too. Though as they took nearly three weeks to reach me they were rock cakes indeed, but there is no need to tell her that.
Your loving brother,
Dougie.
14 January 1916
Dear Dougie,
I hope you got the Christmas pudding. I made it myself in Madame’s kitchen. Anne says if you don’t want to eat it you can lob it at the en
emy. I didn’t think it was THAT bad, but after all it is the first one I have made! We all had a stir of it for luck, and all our love and best wishes went into it.
Everyone here is still trying to come to terms with the retreat from Gallipoli. It is hard to believe that so much was lost for nothing. There is a lot of criticism of Sir John French in the papers and Kitchener too. But the evacuation seems to have been a triumph.
We had a busy Christmas here. Aunt Harriet’s Comforts Committee sent us more than 200 puddings! They even had sixpences in them. We were able to give every man a slice on Christmas Day, as well as extra cigarettes. At midnight some of the ambulance girls sang ‘Silent Night’. It was very moving. For the first time we have mostly Tommies here now, so at least they understood the words! My French is improving but it is still hard to make myself understood sometimes.
If there is any chance of leave in England do let me know in time and I will find someone to take over for me here for a few days somehow. It would be so wonderful to see you. I miss you and Tim and home so very much. But it is easier now I am working here, not just twiddling my thumbs at school.
I still haven’t heard from Tim, but Uncle Thomas says that mail from the Turkish prisoners of war is only just starting to get through, so we may get a letter from him any day now.
Your loving sister,
Midge
1 MAY 1916
The baker’s shop was small, like a cupboard. It smelled of burnt flour, smothering the scent of spring and chestnut trees. The wire bread racks behind the counter were empty; the lunchtime loaves bought and sliced and eaten.
Midge tried again. ‘Pourriez-vous dire Monsieur—’
A Rose for the Anzac Boys Page 5
