‘Excuse me, sir.’ Midge couldn’t help herself. ‘Why?’
The colonel stared at her, as though amazed that she could speak. For a moment she thought he was going to rebuke her. Then he patted her knee. His hand was white, apart from the dark hairs on the fingers. ‘Hard for little girls to understand these things! You see, my dear, shell shock counts as a war wound. Man can get a pension, don’t you know, for a war wound. But all these cases, why, it’s funk, that’s all.’
‘So, it’s just to save money?’ said Midge tentatively.
‘Not at all,’ said the colonel stiffly. ‘Blighters just too scared to do their duty. From now on medical officers are to write “Not yet diagnosed, nervous”.’
‘But…’ Midge remembered the screams on the platform; the shell-shock case who had tried to throw himself out of Kanga’s truck. Her hands clenched in anger, so hard the nails cut the skin. ‘Surely the men with shell shock really are sick. They can’t help themselves.’
‘Nonsense. Why should one blighter try to run away when his friends can take it? Bad for morale, all this nerve business. Can’t let men shirk their duty. Who knows what would happen.’ The colonel’s face grew redder. ‘You leave military matters to those who know, Miss Er…’
He made an obvious effort to change the subject. ‘You get any shooting last winter?’ he asked the captain.
For a moment Midge assumed he was talking about the war. But the captain shook his head. ‘Not much, sir. A few pigeons and a brace of rooks.’
‘Ha! Bagged three dozen pheasants in one morning last time I was down at Hillington.’
‘Oh, well done, sir,’ the captain replied.
The colonel looked complacent. ‘A fine bag. You shoot, Miss Er…?’
She tried to speak normally. ‘Miss Macpherson, sir. No, sir. Well, a little, sir. Mostly just potting rabbits, at home.’
‘And where is that?’
‘The South Island of New Zealand, sir.’
‘You’re a colonial! I’d never have known it.’
It was meant as a compliment. She said, ‘Thank you, sir.’ How was it possible, she thought, to despise a man so much? How many men like this were wandering through the war while the men she’d tended were dying?
The colonel smiled at her, as though his approval was a favour. ‘What brought you over here, my dear?’
Explanations lasted through two villages and past a broken-down truck, its wet soldier cargo smoking by the side of the road. Midge expected the colonel to ask her to stop and help, but he didn’t.
Finally he looked at his watch.
‘Time for a little déjeuner, eh?’
‘Excellent idea, sir.’ That was the captain.
The colonel peered out of the window, through the rain. His moustache twitched in anticipation. ‘If I remember rightly there’s a hotel. Old Piggy Harbord and I dined here once, oh, a year ago. Jolly fine dinner they gave us too. Quiche de Nancy, foie de mouton à la patraque. Got a good memory for that sort of thing. You like French food, Miss Er…?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘That’s the ticket. Jolly good. Ah, yes, there it is. Hôtel la Mère Brabant, the sign with the goose’s head. Better not park her in the street, Miss Er. Never know with these foreign blighters. Fingers all over the upholstery. Leave the car smelling of garlic, like as not. Ha, ha! Let us out here, then you can park it in the courtyard. That’s the ticket.’
The hotel was large, with a terrace along the front, too grand for red geraniums. Wet orange trees stood in barrels. Midge drew the car up by the dripping sign. This time she remembered to turn the engine off and get out first, to open the door for the colonel, and then the others in the back. They dashed for the doorway, out of the rain. Midge sighed, and slid in to start the controls before turning the crank again.
The courtyard at least was cobbled, with a minimum of mud and any horse droppings swept away. An elderly ostler opened the car door for her and promised what she hoped was an oath to guard the car from all garlic-smelling fingers. It was impossible to know which was the hotel’s back door, so she squelched round to the front again and up the stairs to the door.
A girl stared at her as she slipped inside. A wet-looking girl, with damp hair and a smudge of mud on one cheek. It was herself, she realised, reflected in the gold-framed mirror on the wall opposite. She leaned closer, brushed what moisture she could from her hair, and wiped off the smudge.
‘Er, déjeuner?’ she enquired at the desk.
A bark of French answered her and, more usefully, an elderly man with a white cloth over one arm ushered her tactfully down the corridor towards a smell of onions.
Her stomach rumbled. Breakfast, with its cup of coffee and sour bread, was a long time ago.
The room was large, made even larger by the mirrors on the walls. Gold-framed mirrors, gilt-edged columns, tables dressed in white and silver, the cutlery heavy and expensive. A smell of chicken and the tang of wine. Her stomach muttered in satisfaction.
The two men stood as she approached. It surprised her, after the way they had treated her as their servant in the car. But perhaps, she thought, etiquette in hotels was different.
‘That’s the ticket,’ said the colonel meaninglessly as she sat. His glass was already half empty. A waiter—also elderly, like so many of the civilians in France these days—glided over and filled the glass again.
It was strange to unroll a damask napkin again, to sip red wine from crystal. How could such luxury still exist? For men like the colonel, she supposed, glancing across at him.
‘Ah, let’s see.’ The colonel perused the menu. His moustache twitched again. ‘Mimosa soup. Sole à la maison, no, make it supreme of pike à la Dijonnaise. Sweetbreads à la Napolitaine. Leg of mutton à la Muscovite. Potatoes mousseline, green peas. Salad Bagration.’
The soup was rich, a taste of chicken with beans and chopped hard-boiled eggs. The pike was even richer, the fish itself almost unrecognisable in its creamy, winey sauce. She had thought the mutton might bring a scent of home. But it too had the tang of herbs and garlic, and its juices oozed pink, not grey. Only the peas were familiar. She would have liked a second helping—not from hunger, as already she felt slightly ill from the unaccustomed richness of the food, and her head spun from the wine. But simply because their greenness was the only sane and familiar thing in this meal.
The colonel held forth between mouthfuls, and filled her glass again. ‘Drink up, Miss Er. I like a girl with a hearty appetite. Ha, ha! You’ll like the salad. Only the French can make a good mayonnaise. Salad cream has nothing on it.’
‘Do you have salad cream back where you come from, Miss Er?’ asked the captain. They were the first words he had addressed to her.
‘Yes, sir.’
Is it because of men like you, she thought, stupid men, ignorant men, men in charge because of who they are, not what they are—is that why so many have to die?
The colonel patted her knee. His hand stayed there, fat and white and hairy. ‘Come, come, Miss Er. You can be a bit more forthcoming now. What do you say, Ferguson? Cheese?’
‘Definitely, sir.’
‘That’s the ticket. And the little lady would like an ice?’
‘Sir…’
‘Tut-tut. All little girls like ices.’ He squeezed her leg, then, thankfully, took his hand away. He gestured at the waiter. ‘An ice for mademoiselle. Bombe chocolat, eh? And the cheese board. Port or madeira, Ferguson?’ He answered his own question. ‘Madeira, I think. You ever drunk madeira, little girl?’ His moustache twitched even more this time.
‘Sir…’ She clutched her napkin. The room was spinning. ‘I think I’ve had enough. I have to drive this afternoon.’
‘Drive? What?’ He shook his head. ‘Tell you what. Yes, tell you what, rain coming down too hard to drive now. Stay here tonight. Damn good dinner they give you here, pardon my French, Miss Er, ha, ha. Poulet estragon. Had squabs here last time with what’s-his-name, salmon too, damn good sauce, h
ollandaise, pardon my French again, Miss Er.’ He patted her leg again.
He was drunk, she realised. And so was she. She had never drunk more than half a glass of wine before, to toast the King at Christmas or on someone’s birthday.
She had a sudden vision of Corporal Harrison’s friend with his ill-fitting false teeth soaking his hard biscuit in the filthy water of his trench. The hungry men on her platform, thousand after thousand of them, grateful for their cocoa and their bully beef sandwich. Suddenly she couldn’t take any more. The hot room. The smell of too much food. The smell of cigar that wafted from the colonel’s clothes. The heat of his hand on her leg. She pushed back her chair. Instantly the waiter was there to help her.
‘If you’ll excuse me for a moment…’ she began.
The colonel’s hand squeezed, then blessedly let go as she stood up. ‘Certainly. Certainly. Off you pop, little girl. Yes, we’ll stay here tonight. Really get to know each other, eh?’ He gazed around. ‘Where is that madeira?’
She escaped, into the cool of the corridor, out onto the terrace and into the rain.
The rain had lessened to drizzle. The clouds were low, the mist hovering about the trees. The cold shocked the nausea away.
What was she to do now? Impossible to go back in, to that man and his moustache and his bally madeira. Equally impossible to just drive off. The car wasn’t hers. Nor, she realised gratefully, was the responsibility hers either. What could the colonel do? Ring up and report her? She wasn’t even officially a member of the ambulance unit. Probably he couldn’t even remember her name, and she could trust Captain Nancy not to remind him of it. She could just walk away.
But where to? The hotel was isolated, with no other buildings nearby that she could see. And if she took a room here the colonel would find her. She could refuse to come out, of course. But it would be unpleasant and cause a scene.
She trod slowly along the terrace, then back into the courtyard, and asked for the car in halting French.
She lifted out her case, then hesitated again. No, there was nothing else for it but to take a room. Pretend that she was ill, perhaps, and hope her French was up to convincing the maid to give a suitably dismissive message to the colonel.
She was just about to mount the hotel’s front steps when a vehicle loomed out of the mist. For a moment she thought it was one of the trucks they had passed on the road. And then she realised it was a car, much like the one she had been driving, but with a red cross on the side. Impulsively she stepped into the road and put up her hand.
The car jerked to a halt. ‘You all right, miss?’
Her heart thumped. She had been hoping the driver might be familiar, even another woman. But although he was a stranger, at least this man spoke English.
‘I’m sorry, my car has broken down. I don’t suppose you could give me a lift?’
The man shook his head. ‘Sorry, miss. Orders. We’re on our way to the casualty station. All our lot’s been ordered to report there. Big push on last night, I reckon.’
She knew what that meant. Thousands, tens of thousands, dead, dying, wounded. But Aunt Lallie was at the casualty station, she thought vaguely through her spinning head. If I find Aunt Lallie I’ll be all right. Whatever the colonel was going there to do, she doubted he’d be inspecting the nursing staff. Not if there’d been a push last night and the wards were full of wounded. Not the colonel with his madeira.
‘Oh, the casualty station is perfect. That’s where I was headed before I had to stop.’
‘Hop in then, miss. You’re a nurse?’ he added.
‘Ambulance driver,’ she said. ‘The Duchess’s unit. Relieving anyway. But the regular driver is back now.’
‘Well, they’ll welcome anyone with a pair of hands where we’re going.’
The engine flared again. The car took off, as jerkily as it had stopped. It wouldn’t have jerked like that if I’d been driving, she thought, leaning back against the leather seat and shutting her eyes.
She wondered how long the colonel would wait, her untouched chocolate ice melting at his side.
Chapter 11
15 April 1917
Dear Miss Macpherson,
I hope you are well.
I got the parcel you sent. Thank Miss Carryman for the chocolate—I don’t know how she got so much but tell her the boys are grateful. Not much to report here. A general out from Blighty came to give us a pep talk today. They want to send us back up the line. Some of the boys threw clods of dirt at him. You would have laughed if you had seen it. But I reckon we will be going anyway. I’m going to take a good long look at that photo you gave me before we go, just in case there isn’t time to look at it again once we get to the front. Come to think of it, that ram of yours has a bit of a look of the general. Reckon the sheep has more brains, but.
Oh, and Johnno has found his teeth. Or someone’s teeth, because he swears there is an extra tooth he never had before. I’d offered to chew his food up for him, but you know, the so and so wasn’t even grateful.
Well, I am not one for putting pen to paper much, Miss Macpherson. I have never written so much before in my life as I have to you, I reckon, even when Mum made me do that correspondence school. But you can’t know what your letters mean to me. I read bits of them out to the others, and they think you’re just bonza too. I am glad that you are out of it and going back to the canteen. There is only so much a body can take. You know Miss Macpherson I reckon sometimes you get used to looking after others so much you forget about yourself.
I hope this finds you well as it leaves me.
Yours sincerely,
Harry Harrison (Sergeant!)
The casualty clearing station was tents and men, trucks and mud and chaos; a temporary hotchpotch that looked as though it had grown, mushroom-like, from the dirt around it. The sound of guns rumbled in the distance, like thunder that forgot to end. Each truck brought more men, and made more mud and chaos.
Men lay on stretchers on the muddy ground. Men carried stretchers, some wounded, but still able to stagger. Men leaned on each other, the blind supporting the lame. Men passed by in grey coats and muddy uniforms, their badges startlingly white in a world of drab. The vivid flash of blood was the only colour in the landscape.
‘A new push’ the driver had said. A few words by men like the colonel, a long way from the battle lines, translated into this.
Midge had been standing, staring, for minutes now since the ambulance had left her at the first row of tents. Slowly, the chaos before her eyes resolved into some sort of order.
Ambulances and trucks bringing stretchers, presumably from the battlefield itself; men waiting, like wet sheep in a pen before shearing, but these men were grey, not white, dappled with mud and blood, men with bandages, sitting or standing, those with less serious wounds, she supposed. Waiting, waiting, waiting for help to save their lives, their sight, their limbs. Trucks leaving with the stabilised wounded, so few out of so many, off to hospitals in Paris or England.
The sagging damp tents over there must be the wards and offices, she thought, or perhaps living quarters for the medical staff. There was no way to tell which. She shifted her case from one aching hand to the other and squelched over the boards laid in the mud to the first tent, and stepped inside.
The tent itself was long and grey and not quite waterproof, so what had been steady rain outside was transformed into fewer but larger drips that dangled off the tent’s roof and plopped onto the planks that had been roughly laid to make a floor over the mud.
It wasn’t an office, nor was it a ward or dormitory. It was, she thought afterwards, more like the waiting room of hell.
Two rows of tables. Ordinary tables, like the kitchen table back home. But these were draped with sheets, not a tablecloth, and decorated with blood instead of teapots, and on each table, instead of saddle of mutton or a plate of biscuits, was a living, bleeding man.
Women in stained grey aprons bent over them; men in once white coats worked with blo
ody hands; here and there a nurse in a still-white cap and veil hurried from table to table.
One glanced up at her, her attention still mostly on the bloody arm she bandaged. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I…I’m looking for Sister Macpherson.’
‘New are you? Well, there’s no time for paperwork now.’ She nodded to a smaller table along the back of the tent. ‘Clean aprons over there.’
‘I’m not a VAD. Or a nurse, either.’
‘Well, what are you then?’ Even as she spoke the woman’s eyes slid over to the next table. Someone is dying while she deals with me, thought Midge.
‘I was an ambulance driver—’
‘Good enough. You can help Mr Fineacre. He’s on the end table.’ And she was gone.
Midge moved in a dream to the back table. What was she doing? She couldn’t stay here. Not untrained. What would Aunt Lallie say?
The legion of wounded outside rose up before her.
How could she go?
Midge put on the apron.
Mr Fineacre was Uncle Thomas’s age, tall and thin and clean-shaven, a white coat over his uniform, slightly bulbous pale blue eyes in a shadowed face. He nodded, and held out a large pair of scissors. ‘Cut.’
The boy on the table stared up at her. His face was white, his eyes even whiter in the bruises around them. For a moment Midge thought Mr Fineacre meant she was to use the scissors to operate, to cut flesh and bone. And then she saw the scissors in his own hands as he began to cut away the top of the boy’s uniform.
‘Start at the side,’ he said shortly. ‘Then we’ll lift the shirt off. I think the stomach wound’s the only injury but we need to check. Can you hear me, lad?’ he asked more gently.
The boy nodded, an infinitesimal movement, as though even that was agony.
‘Where do you hurt?’
‘Not hurt,’ said the boy. Midge stared at the bright blood on the shirt she was cutting. ‘Cold. Just cold.’
‘Ah. Well, we’ll warm you up again.’ The man’s voice was reassuring. He looked over at Midge. ‘Ready?’
A Rose for the Anzac Boys Page 11
