by Charles Todd
I was sewing up a man’s face when to my astonishment I heard the familiar cry of the kookaburra bird in the distance.
It was nearly dusk, and it had been raining off and on for the past two hours. I had the feeling that both sides had sat down somewhere dry to lick their wounds, for the shelling had stopped an hour ago.
I finished what I was doing and turned my patient over to one of the other Sisters. Stopping in the main tent, I asked the doctor if he needed me.
He looked up, his face tired in the light of the shuttered lamp. “Get yourself a cup of soup, Sister. You’ve earned it. I’ll be along soon.”
But I knew he wouldn’t. There were too many stretchers waiting for him.
Coming out of the main tent, I heard a noise overhead and looked up in time to see that black Fokker swooping down from the sky and heading for the rear, where the ambulances would be forming up to collect the seriously wounded. I gritted my teeth in anger, wondering why this pilot was bereft of kindness. What had happened to him or to his to make him the way he was? Was he eager to kill because he could, and it gave him something, a sense of power? Or just a feeling that his side was losing the war and there was nothing left for them in the air or at sea. Only here at the Front could bravery and a quick eye allow him to harass the helpless.
I’d reached the water lorry in my search for Sergeant Lassiter when a voice said out of the growing darkness, “Is that you, Bess?”
I turned quickly, and there he was. Filthy, his uniform torn, blood everywhere.
“Are you hurt?” I asked him, just as I had asked Simon.
“Just a little scratch here and there. We held as long as we could.”
“But I thought you were on charge for insubordination.”
“So I was, but it got hot enough that I was given my rifle and told to do my duty. I got most of my men safely back from No Man’s Land. It was touch and go.”
“What happened to Captain Maxwell?” I asked, fearing the worst—a shot in the back, perhaps, as he led the charge.
I could see the surprise on Lassiter’s face as he said, “He turned out to be a right sort after all. Fussy little bas— fussy little man, always looking for something to nag a soul about, even someone who’d been at the Front for four years. But when it came down to hand-to-hand he didn’t blink, and I watched him fall. Nothing I could do, I was rather busy myself. But I got his body back.”
“But what about the charges brought against you?”
He grinned suddenly. “Corporal Eustace, now, he’s a lovely man. Forgetful as the very devil. He never sent the papers back to the rear. Not for any of us, although he swore up and down that they were on their way to regimental HQ. I doubt anyone will be able to find them now. Or the Germans might have captured them. Good luck to them.”
I had to laugh. Only Sergeant Lassiter could make light of what was happening under a man who was all but incompetent.
“So it wasn’t your sector that folded?”
He looked offended. “God as my witness, no.”
I believed him.
Telling him very quickly why it was I needed his help finding Sergeant Rollins, I explained the reason it was so urgent.
“This Major. Is he someone you care about?”
“Major Ashton?” I stared at him. “Not in that way, Sergeant. Besides, he’s just lost his fiancée to the Spanish flu. I don’t think he sees me as anything more than a friend.”
“And what about you?”
“Sergeant Lassiter,” I said, frowning up at him in exasperation, “I haven’t given my heart to anyone, not even you. Least of all to the Major. And even if he was the love of my life, I’d still expect you to help him and his father.”
He put his hands on my waist, lifting me off my feet, and whirled me around. “A man can’t be too careful,” he said grinning. “All right, lass, I’ll find your Sergeant Rollins, and send you word as soon as I do.” Setting me back on my feet again, he added, “I’ve missed you, Sister Crawford, and that’s a fact.”
And he was gone into the darkness.
I looked around quickly to be sure no one had seen his exuberance. He was incorrigible. But one day he was going to make a young woman a very fine husband. And she would be lucky to have him.
Hastily drinking my soup, I hurried to take up my place examining the lines of wounded. Everyone must have been too busy to notice my encounter with Sergeant Lassiter, for no one mentioned him to me. I was very glad of that. We were told over and over again not to encourage any officer or man in the ranks to think about us as anything more than a nursing Sister.
Sergeant Lassiter, alas, had needed no encouragement at all.
The night wore on, my apron so spattered with blood that I had to change it at midnight.
It was late the next morning that I heard that call of the kookaburra bird again and looked up to see Sergeant Lassiter stalking toward us beside a stretcher bearing a very badly burned man.
I quickly made my way toward them.
“He was in a tank that took a hit,” the sergeant said, touching his cap to me as if we were strangers. “I told them they’d do better to bring him here to be cared for.”
Looking up at him, I said, “Is it . . . ?” and stopped without saying the name.
Sergeant Lassiter shook his head. “Meet Sergeant Overton, from Hampshire.”
Unable to question him further, I followed the stretcher bearers to the tent and called to the doctor to come and have a look. Then I took out my scissors and began very carefully to cut away Overton’s blouse, giving the doctor a better view of the man’s wounds. He was awake, gazing at me with pain-filled eyes. I spoke soothingly to him, telling him what I was doing and asking him where his mates were, for tanks carried a full complement of men.
“They got out. The pigeons too.” Every tank carried a cage of pigeons, their only method of communicating with the rear. “I—I was the last. Shell bowled us right over and set us alight. Poor old girl, she’d done well by us.”
The Army had male and female tanks, depending on their armament.
“You’re all very lucky,” I assured him. And then the doctor was there, working with him, and I had no choice but to return to my own duty, judging the new arrivals. I’d finished the line when a hand was thrust into mine, and Sergeant Lassiter’s voice said, “It’s hurting just there, Sister. I don’t think you got it all.”
And under his breath as I held his hand and looked at the healed wound I’d dressed some time ago, he added, “Rollins wasn’t aboard. But he’s in the same company. I’ve got people keeping an eye out. You’d better wrap the wrist, Bess. I told our new Lieutenant that I’d sprained something.”
“I will do just that. Gratefully.” I set about washing the hand and then bandaging it. “Does this man Overton know Sergeant Rollins?”
“He does. I thought you might find him useful.”
I suppressed a smile. Depend on Sergeant Lassiter to make the best of a bad situation.
I finished his wrist and watched him walk away, carefully cradling it. Then I went back to the wounded awaiting transfer to a base hospital, and knelt beside the man with the burns.
“Have you been in the tank corps for very long?” I asked as I counted his pulse.
“From the start. The Mark I. Can’t say what drew me to the silly things. I expect I thought it was better than being shot at.”
I smiled. “And found yourself to be a much larger target, I expect.”
“You’re right there, Sister.”
“I was in Canterbury not long ago. Someone mentioned a sergeant in the tank corps. Roland? Ralphson?”
“There’s a Sergeant Rollins. He was in it from the start as well, even worked on the first designs. Rumor says he met Mr. Churchill, when he came down to see a demonstration.”
“Did he, indeed?” Th
e Colonel Sahib had remarked that Mr. Churchill was one of the earliest proponents of the tank, working hard to settle on a design and start production. And he had also brought the Admiralty in on design, for they understood hulls in ways the Army didn’t. “Sergeant Rollins must be a very good tank man.”
“One of the best we’ve got.” My patient moved restlessly, and it was time to give him a little relief. It would also let him sleep until he was back at a base hospital. Still, this would be my last opportunity to question him. “He named his first tank after his sister. Agatha. Said he couldn’t stand her, mind you, and thought if anything went wrong with that tank, he could blame it on her.”
I laughed. Mark had mentioned a sister . . .
“Inside a tank is a wretched place to be. Loud, smelly, jarring every bone. I’ve seen men’s knees buckle when they step out into the fresh air after only a few hours inside.”
I tried to think of a way to bring the conversation back to Sergeant Rollins. “Was Sergeant Rollins at Cambrai?” It was the first use of tanks, during the Battle of the Somme. “Were you?”
He shook his head. “Not me. But Rollins was. Said it was a bloo— a disaster, but they learned from it.”
I took pity on him and let him drift into that quiet realm where, for a while, pain didn’t exist. He nodded as I rose to leave. “Thank you, Sister,” he said drowsily. “I’m glad there was someone like you here. Kind. I wasn’t sure I’d make it.”
“You will,” I assured him. “Not quite as handsome as you were, not until your eyebrows grow in again. But that’s a small price to pay.”
He quickly put up a hand, discovering that his face wasn’t bandaged. Only his arms and chest. Grinning at me, he said, “I’ll pay it. Gladly.”
It was hard to say how much help Sergeant Overton had been, but I could at least be sure of two things, first that Sergeant Rollins was still alive and well, and second that the man Sergeant Lassiter was trying to find for me was in fact the man I needed to speak to.
As it happened, I met him sooner than expected.
I’d taken a convoy of wounded to the base hospital, once more dodging that black aircraft, and when we arrived, I reported to Matron what had happened.
Incensed, I said, “Can nothing be done to stop that pilot?”
“The Army assures me they are preparing to deal with him. I’m told they are encouraging anyone in the line who spots him to shoot him down. There’s a reward.”
It had been rumored that the Red Baron had been brought down by men in a trench.
“Now, then, Sister Crawford. Your report on the men you’ve brought us?”
Clearing my mind of the black aircraft, I sat down and gave Matron the information she needed to continue the care of the wounded from our sector.
When I’d finished my report, when we’d got every man into a bed, his needs addressed, and his body as comfortable as possible, I was free to walk across to the canteen and have a hot meal for the first time in days.
I was just finishing the last of bit of bread on my plate when the canteen door opened and a man came in.
He stood there, scanning the room, and then crossed to the cluttered table in the rear where another man was sitting, hunched over a cup of tea. The newcomer joined him.
I was taking my tray back to the counter when there was a crashing of cutlery and silverware, and I turned, like everyone else, to see what it was.
The man who had been sitting with a cup clenched in both hands was on his feet, his body shaking, his eyes wide. The table before him was swept clean, and broken crockery lay scattered across the floor.
The newcomer had touched his arm, trying to calm the distraught soldier, but he shook off the hand and went staggering across to the door like someone who was blind.
I left my tray where it was and went after him.
He’d made it halfway across the compound. There was the stunted trunk of a tree near the line of ambulances, and he had reached it before collapsing against it, as if his limbs couldn’t support him any longer.
I reached him to find him crying in great gulps of air and tears, his head pressed so hard against the tree’s rough bark that I could see a thin line of blood beginning to trickle down.
He was a corporal in the tank corps. I knew better than to put my hand on him, and so I stood there beside him, blocking the view of people who had stopped what they were doing to stare in his direction, trying to give him what little privacy I could in this very open place crowded with wounded and nurses and orderlies.
I was aware that the other man had come up behind us, but he stood there, keeping his distance, letting the corporal weep. It was several minutes before the gulps and choked cries began to subside. Not, I thought, because the man’s pain had subsided but because his body could stand no more grief. Now he simply leaned against the tree, as if for support. His eyes were closed, his breathing still ragged, and that trickle of blood was garish against his pale skin.
“Corporal?” I said quietly. “May I escort you somewhere more private than this? I think it might be more comfortable for you.”
I didn’t think he’d heard me at first, but then he turned and stumbled after me as I led him to one of the small rooms the hospital chaplain used to speak privately with anyone needing his care.
The other man followed us. I wasn’t sure whether he was a friend or the corporal’s sergeant. I hesitated, and then held the door for him to join us.
The corporal sank into a chair, buried his face in his hands, and said nothing. I could hear him breathing, shallowly at first, then more deeply with time. It was the only sound in the small room.
I sat across from him, wondering if I’d miss my transport back to the Front lines. But his need was desperate, and the other man didn’t seem to know what to say.
After a bit, I asked, “Corporal? Is there anything I can do?”
He shook his head.
Behind me, the other man said softly, “They were killed. The others in the tank. Shot while climbing out of the burning vehicle. His sergeant made it this far, but succumbed to his wound before they could take him into surgery.”
And as far as I could tell, this poor man hadn’t a scratch on him.
He’d survived. By some miracle, he’d made it out of his burning tank and through a hail of bullets, and the others hadn’t. They had died at the scene, save for one who had not lived long enough to reach an aid station.
I said to the man by the door, “Find the chaplain, please. And bring him here.”
He nodded and was gone.
I sat with the distraught man until the chaplain arrived. He was alone, thinner than he should be, with a tired face and circles beneath his eyes. I found myself thinking that he too needed help. He took in the state of the man in the chair, then nodded to me in understanding.
“My son,” he said in a steadying voice. “I have just prayed for the soul of your sergeant. And I think now he would wish me to pray for yours. It is no small thing to lose so many good friends at once.”
I slipped out of the little room, leaving the chaplain to his duty. The other man who had been with us had disappeared. I hurried to the line of ambulances, but they were still being cleaned. I took this extra time and went back to the wards for a last look at my own patients. They were doing well, except for a private who was in great pain, and I sat with him for several minutes, cheering him on, telling him that I would be thinking about him. But I could smell the early stages of gangrene in his foot, and I felt a sweeping sympathy for what was to come for him.
It was less than twenty-four hours later when I brought more wounded back to this same base hospital. Only a handful this time, but critical cases that couldn’t wait. Once more I spoke to Matron, and then helped settle my patients.
Aching for something hot to drink after the cold drive in, I went across to the canteen again, a
nd the first person I saw was the chaplain. He was sitting alone, staring into space, a cup between his hands as if to warm them. I collected a bowl of soup and went to join him.
“May I?”
“Yes, of course,” he said without looking up, but as I sat down, he said, “Ah. Sister.”
“How is the man I left with you?”
He took a deep breath. “He tried to kill himself last night. But we stopped him in time, and I think now he might be the better for it.”
He had made the gesture. He had salved his conscience. Perhaps now he could heal . . .
“I was worried about him. How sad.”
He shook his head. “It was Sergeant Rollins who suggested the suicide watch. And of course he was right. Corporal Haines is sleeping now, Matron prescribed something to allow him to sleep.”
I’d heard the words Sergeant Rollins, and was busy trying to take them in. Surely that wasn’t the Sergeant Rollins I was searching for? But it must be.
He’d shown such compassion for one of his men. Perhaps he’d be willing to help Philip Ashton as well.
“I’m glad,” I said, referring to the corporal. “I couldn’t leave him. Not like that. But you said Sergeant Rollins?”
He roused himself. “Yes, that’s right. The sergeant who was with Corporal Haines when you first sent for me. Do you know him?”
“Only by reputation. I would have liked to meet him. Speak to him. But he’d left by the time I could look for him.”
“Several of the tank corps have been brought in. Losses can be high sometimes. He must have come to look in on them, then gone straight back to the lines.”
I tried to remember his face. But Rollins had one of those ordinary faces, the features unremarkable and yet, as a whole, pleasant enough. Short-cropped dark hair, pale eyes—a light blue, I thought—and only of middle height. But then tall men didn’t fit into tanks quite as well. Good shoulders, a quiet manner. He hadn’t panicked when Corporal Haines had fallen apart. And he’d listened to me when I suggested going for the chaplain.
An experienced soldier who took good care of his men.
My spirits lifted.
