A Rose for the Anzac Boys

by Jackie French

  Midge nodded. She smiled at the boy automatically, the practised smile she had learned at the canteen, in the ambulances. She remembered Slogger’s words. No matter how bad it is, you have to smile at them. Together she and Mr Fineacre peeled the blood-sodden garment from the boy. He gasped. His eyes rolled upwards. Midge looked down.

  Blood boiled upwards, slowly, sluggishly, around a bulge of purple intestine. Mr Fineacre reached over and picked up a wire cup covered in gauze. He held it over the boy’s mouth and nose. He began to drip a solution from a large brown bottle.

  Drip…drip…drip…

  The chemical smell seeped up through the scent of blood and disinfectant.

  The boy’s breathing changed. The gasps relaxed, turned deep and steady.

  ‘Ready!’ called Mr Fineacre.

  Immediately another man stepped over from the next table, his gloved hands blood-covered. A woman in a nursing sister’s cap stepped over with him.

  Midge looked enquiringly at Mr Fineacre.

  ‘He’s the surgeon,’ said Mr Fineacre tersely. ‘Only one we’ve got. Our job is to get the boys prepared for him. Ready for the next one?’

  The body on the next table was a man, forties perhaps, skinny. One foot dangled below his trouser leg, held on by tendons and shreds of bone. Amazingly, he was conscious, even through the long minutes it took to cut off his trousers, till finally he too closed his eyes as he breathed in the anaesthetic.

  Slowly they fell into a rhythm. Cut and strip together, then Midge pulled any remnants of cloth from the wounds with a pair of tweezers while Mr Fineacre dripped on the chloroform.

  Cut, strip, drip…

  Cut, strip, drip…

  All around them the surgeon cut, stitched; nurses handed instruments, bandaged; VADs fetched and swabbed. As soon as one man was bandaged, an orderly lifted the stretcher under him and took him out, while more orderlies carried in another.

  It was unending. Unchanging, body after body, wound after wound, till suddenly you focused again and saw the faces, the individuals not just ‘the wounded’, every one with a sister like me, thought Midge, or parents perhaps at home. Each one with a life that had been shattered, the next moments perhaps deciding whether they lived or died.

  Oh, Tim, she thought. Tim, Dougie, Gordon, Harry…Cut, strip, drip…

  What was happening outside, Midge wondered. Her wrists ached. Her feet were beyond cold. Only her fingers were warm, cutting and stripping the still-living flesh. Was the ‘sheep pen’ of men growing smaller? Or would they have to keep working until each battlefield was emptied?

  Where was Aunt Lallie?

  Thirst and hunger came and went. There was no food, no drink for any person in this tent, no time for either. Even a sandwich snatched would cost a man his life.

  Cut, strip, drip…The world narrowed to this tent, to this table, to her hands wielding the scissors.

  ‘I demand to see the surgeon! I demand—’

  ‘He will be here in a moment, Colonel.’

  Midge woke from her daze. It couldn’t be.

  It wasn’t. The man on the table in front of her was not the one she had left at lunch…had it only been today? How long had she been here?

  ‘I demand…’ The words were muffled as Mr Fineacre held the mask over him. ‘Mwwf, wff.’

  Drip, drip, drip…

  To Midge’s horror the man tried to sit up. Bone showed white as blood streamed from his shattered shoulder. One arm hung awkwardly, as though it wasn’t sure if it still belonged there or not.

  Mr Fineacre waved his hand. Two orderlies ran over. They stood either side of the table and held the colonel down. He was a big man, and they were short and thin. Despite his wound they had to strain.

  The colonel’s good hand tore the mask away. ‘I demand—’ he began again. A dribble of blood trickled from his mouth.

  Mr Fineacre pressed the mask back on. He dripped on more chloroform, more quickly now.

  Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip…

  ‘He’s not going under,’ whispered Midge.

  Mr Fineacre bit his lip. He kept on dripping. None of the others had taken even half as much as this, thought Midge. The colonel kept on struggling.

  Suddenly he stopped. The waving arm went limp. The orderlies stepped back.

  ‘Oh, God.’ Somehow it seemed like a prayer, not swearing. ‘He’s stopped breathing!’ called Mr Fineacre. ‘Someone, help him.’

  ‘Can’t, old chap.’

  It was the surgeon at the next table. A shattered leg lay at his feet. As he moved sideways Midge could see the arteries he was tying in the leg stump, the flaccid body of the man who only this morning had been walking.

  ‘Help me!’ Mr Fineacre shook Midge’s arm. She jerked the colonel’s one good arm while Mr Fineacre pressed his chest. Suddenly the colonel took a gasping breath.

  ‘We’ve done it! Next table,’ said Mr Fineacre.

  They moved away just as one of the orderlies called, ‘He’s gone again.’

  Mr Fineacre grabbed the colonel’s arm again. But it was obvious he was dead.

  ‘Is he…? Did we…?’

  ‘I gave him too much anaesthetic.’ Mr Fineacre’s voice was flat.

  The world shook. She took hold of the table till the dizziness passed. ‘It’s my fault. I’m not a nurse.’ Was that her voice babbling? ‘Not even a VAD. I didn’t know what to do…’

  She felt like running. Hiding. Her ignorance had killed a man.

  ‘I’m not a doctor either. I’m the chaplain.’

  Midge stared at him. Mr Fineacre managed a smile. There was gentleness in it, but no humour. ‘That is the third man I’ve killed this month. But I’ve helped save a lot more. So have you. We do what we have to. Come on.’

  She followed him to the next table. To table after table. The darkness thickened outside the tent. Someone lit lamps and hung them from the dripping roof. They hissed and spat when the drops hit them. Table after table. Cut, pull, drip…

  Midge kept wielding the scissors. There was no energy now to do anything but cut. Cut, pull, drip…

  Something crawled under her sleeve. Lice, she thought, with a shudder of repugnance. They must have been crawling out of each uniform she touched. But there was nothing she could do about them now.

  Cut, pull, drip…

  Something changed. For a while she was too tired to realise what it was. And then reality filtered through the weariness. No more orderlies and stretchers. Instead two wounded men would stagger in, carrying a third between them. Sometimes they staggered out again to wait their turn for surgery; at other times they slumped onto the rough wooden floor till a table became free.

  Mr Fineacre saw her stare and shrugged. ‘We usually run out of stretchers during a push,’ he said shortly. ‘You can’t send the boys in an ambulance without a stretcher. Can you carry on, my dear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Midge.

  Cut, pull, drip…

  ‘Margery!’

  Snip, tug, pull…

  ‘Margery! Margery, look at me!’ The voice was used to obedience.

  Midge looked up. ‘Aunt Lallie,’ she whispered.

  Aunt Lallie looked just the same. Just the same but different. Blood on her apron, but her hands in their rubber gloves were clean. She must have just washed them.

  ‘Rest,’ said Aunt Lallie.

  ‘But I can’t—’

  ‘Rest.’

  There was a tent. This too had the wooden floorboards and the drips that crept down your neck. But it had beds instead of tables: six of them, a few feet apart.

  There was water in a bowl, and disinfectant and a wooden bucket for her louse-infested clothes. She washed her hair twice, wringing out the moisture as best she could without a towel, then sponged herself, starting with her top and moving lower, hoping she had got every one of the ‘greybacks’ as she went. She put on clean clothes—day clothes, not a nightdress. Her body screamed for sleep but her mind knew any rest was unlikely to be long, and prob
ably disturbed.

  There was cocoa in a tin mug, thin and lukewarm.

  The guns cracked and thundered in the distance. Were they nearer now? The dark about the tents was lit by lanterns. The red flares further off were shells. Impossible, she thought. So many wounded here, and they are still fighting. Each second shattered more young men.

  The beds were only stretchers, hard and narrow, with two thin blankets, no barrier to the cold. It didn’t matter. She drank, she lay, she slept. There were no dreams. Exhaustion didn’t leave energy for dreams. She woke to Lallie’s voice, her hand on her arm.

  Daylight; sunlight instead of rain. The smell of mud. The sweet scent of blood. The sound of flies and, when she looked out between the tent flaps, there was a pile of arms and legs.

  Aunt Lallie pressed another mug of cocoa into her hand.

  ‘I have to go. My dear, can you carry on?’ Lallie’s voice was a strange mixture of family and professional, thought Midge.

  She had to sleep. She had to escape to a world where there was grass, and peace and normality…

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Lallie patted her shoulder, hesitated, then bent down and kissed her cheek. Her lips were cold. ‘We’ll talk later. This has to ease up soon. It has to…I am so glad to see you,’ she added softly. ‘There’s more hot water in the bowl. Latrines are two tents down. Get some rest and a bite to eat, then report to the tent you were in last night.’

  She walked to the tent flap, then turned. ‘This isn’t surgery, my dear. It’s butchery.’

  She left.

  There was no sign of Mr Fineacre in the tent’s grey morning light. Midge recognised most of the others though, their heads still bent over the bloody operating tables. She wondered if they had slept at all.

  How long had she slept? Three hours? Four? She hadn’t bothered to find breakfast. Last night’s sandwich was still a nauseous lump in her stomach.

  A young woman in the grey serge dress and long apron of a VAD beckoned. Midge made her way through the tent, the others seemingly oblivious to everything but the broken bodies on the tables.

  ‘Can you take over here?’ the VAD asked.

  ‘If it’s nothing complicated.’

  The woman shook her head. She was working alone. ‘You were here yesterday? Same as before then. Cut the uniforms off. Check pockets. You know the drill.’ ‘Check the pockets?’ Mr Fineacre hadn’t mentioned that.

  ‘For letters, that sort of thing. One chap had a live grenade two days ago. Silly blighter. We might all have been for it.’

  Midge wondered guiltily how many letters she had discarded. But if there had been any grenades at least they hadn’t gone off.

  ‘Thanks. I’m done for. I’ve worked twenty hours this stretch.’

  Midge stared. ‘How can you stand it?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘Captain Salter, he’s the surgeon in the corner, worked twenty-three hours yesterday. Two hours’ sleep and he’s back again. No one else wants to work so near the lines. See you later.’ She was gone.

  ‘Sister…’

  It was the man—no, boy—on the table. ‘Sister, is it bad?’

  She managed a smile. ‘You’ll be all right.’

  ‘Can’t feel my leg.’

  She checked automatically, then began to clip the bloody sleeve from his shirt. ‘It’s still there. It’s your arm that’s hurt.’

  ‘Can’t feel my leg,’ he said again, as though he hadn’t heard her. ‘Can’t march without a leg. They’ll send me back to Blighty, won’t they, Sister? Can’t march without a leg. Tell them to send me back to Blighty.’

  ‘Shh. I’ll tell them.’

  ‘Name’s Pete.’ The voice was mumbling now. ‘Tell them Pete has to go back to Blighty. You tell them now.’ His eyes closed.

  Midge hesitated, the scissors in her hands. Something was wrong. Almost instinctively she felt around the unconscious boy’s head. Yes, there was a lump on one side.

  ‘Thank you, Miss…’ It was the surgeon, his face as pale as any of his patients as he moved from the table behind onto hers. He began to examine the boy’s arm. ‘Aye, we can save this, I think. Sister, could you pass me—’

  ‘I…excuse me…I think he’s hurt his head too.’

  The surgeon looked up, as though seeing her for the first time. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He seemed…dopey. Sleepy. And there’s a lump here on his head.’

  The surgeon’s fingers followed hers, then lifted the boy’s eyelid.

  ‘You’re right. Could be concussion. Could be a haemorrhage. Not much we can do except get him to Paris and hope he makes it. Sister, make a note to give him priority, will you?’ Then, as Midge moved to the next table, her scissors in her hand. ‘Well spotted, Miss…’

  ‘Macpherson,’ said Midge. ‘Miss Macpherson.’

  She smiled down at the man on the new table and began to cut again.

  Snip, snip, snip, smile and snip…

  She had thought that after a while the faces would blur, as they had for a while last night. But they didn’t. Each one stayed with her. It was as though her memory was telling her that it was important not to lose each one. The lives in front of her might be short, so each second must be remembered, the final moments most of all.

  ‘What’s your name?’ A whisper from a muddy face.

  ‘Margery.’

  ‘My sister’s called Margery…’

  Mumbles of pain, of hope, of terror. Whispers, a clutch on the arm. ‘Don’t let them send me back. Sister, don’t let them send me back…’

  One boy gazed up at her. ‘He’s a good dog,’ he said clearly. ‘The best.’ His eyes rolled back into unconsciousness. Was he dreaming or remembering, thought Midge. She hoped whichever place was good.

  Body after body. As soon as one table was clear the body from another stretcher took its place.

  Snip and smile, snip and smile…

  ‘My teeth…’ A man with half a hand stared up at her.

  She bent to hear the murmur. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Don’t let them take my teeth.’

  ‘They won’t take your teeth, I promise. They’re just going to fix your hand.’

  ‘No, miss. These teeth!’ To Midge’s horror the two remaining fingers tried to probe into the man’s mouth.

  Suddenly she understood. ‘Your false teeth!’

  ‘That’s right…can’t eat wi’out me teeth…’

  She remembered Private Harrison’s friend’s battle with the hard biscuit of the trenches. ‘I’ll take your teeth out. I promise we’ll keep them safe.’

  ‘They’re good teeth. Never had teeth as good as these.’ The white bone where his fingers were missing finally found his jaw. He gave a startled shriek. His face turned blank and unconscious.

  She fished the plate of false teeth from his mouth, hesitated, then used a bandage to tie them to his one sound arm. At least when he woke up he’d have his teeth, and rescue from the war now too.

  Snip, smile, snip and smile…

  And suddenly a table was empty, then two, then three. What were the orderlies doing? She staggered outside, trying not to trip on the uneven planks.

  ‘What’s going on? Why have you stopped bringing them in?’

  ‘That’s it, miss. For the moment.’ The orderly only came up to her shoulder, with the wizened face of a monkey. ‘You go and have a nice cuppa char now, miss,’ he added comfortingly. ‘That’s what you need. A nice cuppa char.’

  ‘Tea sounds wonderful,’ said Aunt Lallie, appearing out of the long tent next door. ‘And let’s see if we can’t find some food.’

  Chapter 12

  16 April 1917

  My dear Margery,

  I hope you are well, as your uncle and I and the family are here.

  I hope you are not worried at the reports of the zeppelin raids. The zeppelins look quite fearsome floating up in the sky to be sure—much larger than you would think and so quiet. But no bombs have fallen near us. Flora�
��s family though have been burnt out by the incendiaries—you remember Flora, our parlour maid?

  We have agreed that her two younger sisters can come here and share her room and help in the kitchen. They are rather young for service, only eight and ten. But they seem to be good girls and there is really nowhere else for them to go.

  I have never seen two children eat as much as they do though! You would think they had never seen meat before or even jam or milk. From what Flora says they have been living on bread and lard and dandelion leaves and mashed potatoes. But even bread is so expensive now, it is difficult for poorer families to feed their children.

  Your uncle says that the children line the street outside the factory each evening when the workers leave, begging for the crusts from their sandwiches or a piece of stale cake. Mrs Southey, the vicar’s wife, is planning a soup kitchen three nights a week in the church hall. We plan to boil the soup in coppers so it will be quite like your canteen! Sadly the hall is used the other nights, but it is for the Red Cross and the Prisoner of War Society so one cannot complain.

  I do hope you are keeping well and dressing warmly in this cold weather. I am so glad you will be going back to the canteen. Sometimes I wonder if we should ever have allowed you to go to France. But we are very proud of you, my dear, as proud as of our boys in uniform.

  Your loving aunt,

  Harriet

  ‘Better call me Sister Macpherson.’

  They were in another tent, or perhaps it was a hut—the walls were canvas, the floor the same rough boards as before, but this building at least had wooden posts and a tin roof. There were tables and chairs and orderlies collecting mugs and plates, and a smell of stew, which tasted disconcertingly like that served at school. The pudding tasted like school’s too, a slab of flour and suet and what might have been a crust of half-burnt jam. But Midge was too hungry to care. Aunt Lallie had eaten hers with the efficient dispatch of a woman who knows that meals are necessary, and must be taken when and where you can.

  ‘Then I can stay?’ Midge said. ‘I know I’m not trained. But I can help cut off the uniforms, make the beds…’