by Val Wood
People were moving, running even, doctors, nurses, orderlies and messengers. She made her way to the main tent where the casualties would be taken, made it known that she was on duty, and then slipped across to the canteen tent for a cup of coffee and porridge for breakfast.
By midday the casualties were being brought in, first in their tens, then fifties, until after that they became uncountable and many had to wait in the lorries and wagons that had brought them from the battlefield before room could be found. Nurses ran to those waiting outside to administer immediate first aid. Church and chapel ministers hurried to give spiritual help, and those needing urgent amputation to save their lives were brought straight into surgery.
Lucy swilled her hands and arms in the deep sink in the theatre and then scrubbed with carbolic soap before treating each patient. She had been by a senior surgeon’s side for most of the afternoon before he had suddenly turned nauseous and had to go outside for air. When he came back she had amputated a soldier’s limb from above the knee. His leg had been blown apart and he was bleeding profusely, and to remove the lower leg was the only way to save his life.
The soldier had already been given a dose of morphine to calm him, but when she had explained what she was going to do his eyes filled with terror and he shook his head. ‘Do you want to live?’ she’d asked softly. ‘Do you want to go home to England and your family?’
Tears streamed down his cheeks. ‘Aye,’ he cried, ‘I do. I’ve got a young bairn and – me wife – what’ll she do without me?’
‘You won’t feel pain,’ she assured him. ‘Not during the surgery, but afterwards you will, I’m afraid. But think of them and you’ll survive. Do you want to take the chance?’ She hovered with the chloroform mask, and when he agreed she gently placed it over his face and nodded to the anaesthetist to turn on the gas machine.
By ten o’clock in the evening she could barely stand, her hands were shaking and she was ordered off duty by the duty officer. She was positive that she had demonstrated to anyone who had any doubts, and to herself, that she had earned her place. This day, she discovered a month later when moving to another CCS, had been the first day of the battle of the Somme, beginning with the battle of Albert on the first of July. It had been one of the largest battles and the worst day in the history of the British army, with twenty thousand British killed and forty thousand injured or captured on the first day, but as the driver of the vehicle that transported her reported bitterly, it wasn’t over yet.
There was no X-ray unit at the next CCS and Lucy asked the duty officer if they had yet had the use of one.
‘We did, but they moved on,’ the officer said. ‘There are so few of them that they have to share them out.’
‘Do you remember the name of the radiographer?’ she asked. ‘My cousin is out here working as one, but I haven’t been able to catch up with him yet.’ In all the months she had been in France she had not heard from Oswald, and she was becoming anxious.
‘I remember the last one we had. The boffin the lads called him. When he wasn’t required on his machine he went off to the battlefield to become a stretcher bearer, then he came back, washed and got changed and became a boffin again. I can’t recall his name though. Oh, wait a minute. I think the lads called him Oz.’
‘Oh, yes! That’s him.’ She put her fingers to her mouth and hid a gasp of relief. ‘Thank goodness.’
‘Come to think of it,’ he added, ‘he said he was looking for his cousin – that would be you then?’
‘Yes.’ She gave a choking laugh. ‘That’s me. His cousin. Where was he going next?’
‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘Wherever it is, the battlefields all look the same. A sea of mud, trenches and barbed wire and bodies scattered like poppy seeds.’ He lit a tab end of cigarette and drew on it heavily. ‘Do you know how many we lost on the first day of the Somme, and do the bleeding top dogs care?’ She nodded, but he went on. ‘Fifty-eight thousand lads,’ he said harshly, and gazed blankly out across the line of white tents, seeing who knew what. ‘Some mother’s son, some wife’s husband, some child’s father, and who gives a toss? It’s sheer slaughter, and all for a bit of land that won’t be fit for owt by the time this is over – if it ever is. Haig,’ he said bitterly, speaking of the top commander, and nipping out his cigarette he stamped on it on the ground. ‘I’d shoot him myself if ever I saw him.’
He drew in a deep breath. ‘You should go home, miss – doctor,’ he said. ‘This hellhole is no place for such as you.’
Lucy heard that many men had been lost from various pals battalions and she wondered about Stanley and Joshua and if they were still safe. As the year wore on she eventually caught up with Edie when they both were taking a break from their duties away from the front.
‘They’re all right,’ Edie told her when Lucy asked about her brothers. ‘I heard from home that they’d had a letter. The post is very erratic. It’s cos we keep moving about and ’post can’t keep up with us. I don’t know how they’re surviving. I’ve heard that a million men have been killed or injured, and some of ’em are Hull lads. That can’t be right, can it? A million!’
Lucy didn’t answer. She’d heard that too. She had also received an outdated letter from home which said that Oswald still hadn’t been in touch.
She and Edie and Milly, who were all due leave, agreed to spend Christmas together in a guest house in a village near Arras, which was under British control although fairly close to the German lines. There had been some severe bombing in the town but there was a military presence so they felt fairly safe. Lucy and Edie wrote letters home telling everyone that everything was fine and that they hoped to be home soon. Lucy included a note to say that although she hadn’t met up with Oswald she had heard word of him.
In January 1917 Lucy was given leave to go to England; this was a general procedure to allow the medical staff to take some proper rest. She agreed that she would and wrote to Rose to say that she would call to see her on her way home, but there was no reply and she wondered if perhaps she had gone on leave too. A few days later she received an envelope in an unfamiliar hand and opened it to find it was from Dr Dorothy Lawson, to tell her that Rose was very ill and was asking for her.
She asked for immediate leave of absence and by truck and train she arrived back at the base hospital within two days. There were several new faces amongst the medical staff but Dr Lawson came immediately to greet her.
‘I’m so sorry, my dear,’ she said quietly. ‘Dr Mason is very sick. She caught influenza and it has turned to pneumonia. She keeps asking for you. There’s something she wants you to do for her.’
‘Take me to her, please.’ Lucy was distraught. Of all the dreadful things she had seen, this was the worst possible news.
Rose was in a small room that had been converted into a sickroom, lying still with the blinds drawn to keep out the light. Lucy sat in the chair by the bed and placed her hand over her friend’s.
‘Are you asleep, Rose?’ she whispered. ‘It’s Lucy.’
Rose turned her head. ‘You came.’ She breathed shallowly. ‘I’m dying, Lucy. There’s no other word for it.’
‘Please don’t, Rose. I should miss you so much.’ Lucy felt tears gathering and her throat tightened. She had seen so much death and had kept her emotions under control, but she couldn’t contain this. ‘Try to rest,’ she murmured. ‘It’s the finest cure.’
Rose gave the slightest of smiles. ‘I want you to go and see Olga,’ she whispered. ‘I want you to tell her – as I have never told her often enough – how much I have loved her. She – she was always jealous of your mother, you know; she thought – thought that I had loved Alice more than her.’
Lucy licked her lips. ‘My mother?’ she said, thinking that Rose’s mind was wandering. ‘But—’
‘Alice didn’t love me.’ Rose took a gasping breath. ‘It was always one-sided; she only ever loved your father, but she was very beautiful – just as you are – and I was besotted by her.�
� She gently squeezed Lucy’s hand. ‘But I love Olga and I want you to tell her after I’m gone. Please,’ she beseeched her. ‘I can trust no one else but you. No one else will understand.’
‘I will tell her,’ Lucy said brokenly. ‘But I’m going to nurse you back to health and then you can tell her yourself.’
She sat with the sick woman every day; she washed her down with cool water then wrapped her in blankets, she gave her sips of boiled water and spoonfuls of chicken broth and occasionally, when she could obtain it, she gave her a glass of hot water laced with a drop of French brandy and a few grains of sugar. After a week Rose’s breathing improved and she sat up in bed with several pillows behind her back and was able to take more soup with a few small pieces of chicken in it. After two weeks she was talking about getting up.
Lucy sat on the bed beside her. ‘Are you still threatening to die?’ she asked.
Rose smiled. She was still very pale and weak, but she shook her head and said huskily, ‘I think I might have changed my mind over that. Thank you, Lucy.’ Her mouth trembled. ‘I really thought my life was over.’
A slight knock came on the door and Dr Lawson looked in. ‘Is the patient able to receive visitors?’
‘Oh, I don’t think just yet—’ Rose began, but Lucy interrupted.
‘I think you might like to see this visitor for a few minutes,’ she said, and couldn’t conceal the big smile that covered her face.
Olga, or Olive, came into the room and for a moment looked shocked as she saw Rose’s pale, thin face. Then she hurried to her friend’s side. ‘Oh, my poor Rose,’ she wept. ‘They said you were very ill and I was – I was—’
Lucy and Dr Lawson silently left the room and Lucy breathed out a huge breath. ‘She’s going to be all right now, isn’t she?’
Dr Lawson nodded and said, ‘Apparently so, though I would never have thought it just a few weeks ago. You did well, doctor.’
‘She was one of my mother’s best friends,’ she said softly. ‘One of only a few who remember her. I couldn’t let her go.’
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Passchendaele, 1917
It was too late for Lucy to go home, having spent so much time with Rose, and she resumed her duties, going wherever she was sent. In July, she, Edie, Milly Thomas, two other doctors and several nurses, replacements for other medical staff who were going on leave, were travelling by train and army lorry towards Ypres in west Flanders and an advanced dressing station outside the town of Potijze, a place name that no one could pronounce.
In May there had been a vicious battle in what became known as Oppy Wood where many pals battalions, including the Hull units, were casualties. The Germans were holding the defensive line in a wooded area that was filled with barbed trenches, and held their nerve whilst under severe attack. The wood itself, though by now sparsely treed, was still very dark. Then came a moonlit night and by its light the Allies were seen advancing and another onslaught began. Some men got through the line but many were either killed in doing so or taken prisoner.
Artillery attacks began again in July, but then came the heaviest rain in thirty years and on the Passchendaele battlefields of what had now become the third battle of Ypres tanks sank into the churned-up mud and couldn’t be moved, men were stuck up to their waists in quagmires unable to use their rifles or artillery, and both men and horses drowned. In August, when the weather improved, heavy artillery attacks began again that brought in more casualties, and yet again in September and October, and it seemed as if the commanders and the generals wouldn’t give up the fight until everyone, allies and enemy alike, was totally obliterated.
Lucy still hadn’t heard from Oswald, nor did she expect to; no one had the time or inclination to write letters. The injured men who were brought in, those who would survive, were patched up and either sent back to the front for another session on the art of survival or sent on to base hospital. Life for the doctors and nurses was a constant loop of treating mangled limbs, mopping up blood and gore and giving succour to the dying.
Many men of the pals divisions were brought in, including the Grimsby Chums and the Hull Pals, and Lucy or Edie, who was working alongside her, would always ask if anyone had news of Stanley or Josh or Captain Warrington. Sometimes they had been seen and it was comforting to know they were still surviving. If Lucy was able to catch any of the stretcher bearers she would ask if they knew anything of Oswald, but rarely did they know him.
Then one afternoon, Oswald turned up in theatre, complete with his mobile X-ray machine, as she was attending a soldier who was riddled with shrapnel.
She wanted to put out her arms and hug him, but all she could do was stand and stare. She was wearing a bloodstained gown and her gloved hands were bloody too. The other surgeon present, who was dealing with a head wound on another bed, looked at Oswald and said, ‘About time! Where in hell have you been?’
Oswald looked at him laconically, pushed his wonky spectacles with their cracked lens up the bridge of his nose and said, ‘Just taking a walk in the park, don’t you know?’
A few miles outside the village of Passchendaele, Stanley was instructing his men, including the special unit of ‘bombers’ armed with grenades. ‘Helmets and gas masks on as soon as you hear ’whistle or ’gas bell. Bombers, be armed and ready. Things are really hotting up, lads, and if you’re not prepared you’re a goner.’
‘We’ll be goners anyway, sarge,’ somebody interrupted, ‘if we’re hit by artillery fire or a gas shell.’
‘You might be wounded, that’s true,’ Stanley replied. ‘And to avoid being hit you keep running, ducking and dodging, never in a straight line, and keep on firing. Avoid any shell holes, not only because there might be unexploded bombs in them but also cos they’re full o’ water and you might drown.’
‘And I haven’t brought my swimming togs, sarge,’ a wag from up the trench said wryly.
‘I’m glad that you’re all in such a good mood.’ The captain came out of the dugout. ‘We’ve lost a lot of men and we don’t want to lose anybody else. Do as the sergeant says and we’ll come through it. The Allies are taking more ground, we’ve got the Canadians and the Aussies with us, and now the Americans have come in we’re bound to succeed.’
He dismissed the men and Stanley suggested they got some shut-eye. This was a very wet trench, although it had been well built originally with plenty of sandbags and duckboards, but after the torrential rain it was filled with sludge again. It took all his energy to keep up the men’s spirits. It seemed to him that the war was never-ending; they were living in a land of mud and filth and there were bodies out there that would never be recovered. In spite of what the captain had said, the amount of ground they had gained was minuscule. The battle of Broodseinde at the beginning of October had given the Allied forces possession of the ridge east of Ypres, but since then nothing had changed. General Haig had a lot to answer for was his opinion, and continuing this third battle of Ypres and the attempt to take the village of Passchendaele, which was still held by the enemy, Stanley considered a fruitless endeavour that had led to the death of thousands of Allies and Germans. There was little of the village left and the church tower was no longer visible on the horizon.
It was bitterly cold and he huddled inside his greatcoat as he pencilled a short letter home, telling them that he was fine and that he would soon be taking some leave and was looking forward to a hot bath and some good grub. Don’t worry about me, he said finally. The powers that be say this will soon be over and we’ll be home sweet home again. Keep the Home-Fires Burning, as they say in the song. Much love from your son Stanley.
He folded the letter, and unbuttoning the top pocket of his tunic he slipped it inside. He touched his dog tag with his army number on it for luck, positioned himself against the trench wall and looked through the periscope towards Passchendaele village. All was quiet, and the setting sun was glistening on the muddy landscape, turning the mire to myriad rainbow colours: blue, green and purple.
He leaned back against the sandbags, folding his arms, and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again it was dark and he’d lost track of the time, but he sensed that something was amiss. He looked about him down the short trench and saw the captain in the dugout, the listening device hanging loose round his neck and his head lolling on his chest. Most of the men were asleep. He turned over and looked through the periscope. The sky had darkened except for long silver streaks on the skyline.
I must have nodded off, he thought. Is this still night or another day dawning? He screwed up his eyes, blinked and looked again. Was there movement or was he imagining it? Were there human forms slithering over the wet ground and were those stumps of blackened bushes really crouching men holding rifles, and – he twitched his nose – could he smell something?
Yes! He shouted and blew his whistle, pulled on his helmet and heaved on his mask as he’d told the men to do. The captain woke and rang the gas bell even though as yet he was unaware of the fast approaching gas cloud, and the men were instantly on their feet and in position.
Stanley blew his whistle again. ‘Ready, men! Let’s get at them. Up and over.’
They rushed as one, all yelling and shouting, guns blazing, the bomber unit hurling grenades straight into the line of the enemy that was advancing towards them. Some of the German soldiers went down as the projectiles found their target, but there were more of them, hordes of them, and with their armaments prepared they had been patiently waiting several hours for dawn to break. With the field guns firing and tear gas canisters and shrapnel-filled shells landing in the heart of the British advance, all resistance crumbled in their path. As Stanley’s rifle slipped from his grasp he pressed his hand to his chest to keep safe his letter home, and left behind the war and the battlefield for ever.
