Summer in Greece

by Patricia Wilson

  CHAPTER 34

  GERTIE

  Greek Island of Lemnos, 1916.

  THE RED CROSS VADS AND nurses rushed from patient to patient, doing their best for each in turn, reluctant to dwell on what they were dealing with. One soldier started screaming and thrashing with such violence it took four orderlies to hold him down. The surgeon rushed down the ramp with a pad and a bottle which he shoved at Josephine.

  ‘Chloroform him!’ he ordered abruptly before moving on to another invalid.

  Eager to learn the technique, I stood at Josephine’s side. She sensed what was going through my mind. ‘Hold the pad near his mouth and nose, and be careful not to breathe any fumes.’ I did as she said and watched as she dripped the sedating liquid onto the pad. As the fumes doped the soldier, he shuddered and the violence left him. The procedure took two or three minutes. The four orderlies sighed, sweating from the exertion of restraining the patient. They moved on without a word.

  ‘Look at them all! Where are they coming from?’ I asked Josephine.

  ‘It’s called triage. Soldiers, sorted into categories. Those not expected to survive are delivered last, the ones needing urgent attention, first; and various stages in between.’ She turned to the chloroformed soldier before us. ‘Poor lad,’ she muttered, fixing the pad to his face and adding the doping drops. ‘Call me if he stirs. Clean the wound while he’s unconscious, Gertie. Cover it with a gauze pad, then find me. There’s a trolley with all you need over there.’

  ‘Yes, nurse.’ I fetched the dressings trolley, sucked in a breath and lifted the sheet. Shrapnel had taken a sideswipe at him and cut away the front of his abdomen. His internal organs were throbbing in clear view and, horror of horrors, part lifted with the sheet that had stuck to them.

  I was a VAD, not a nurse. My job was the tedium, the chores not worthy of detaining a skilled nurse, yet here I was dealing with living body parts that could have come straight out of my father’s anatomy books. Stale saliva rushed into my mouth. I dropped the sheet, ran to the edge of the dock, and hurled my breakfast into the water. Shallow breathing and a thudding heart told me I was in shock . . . no use to anyone in that state. After pulling myself together, I got a grip on the situation and returned to the soldier.

  I could do this! I was twice the person that had boarded the Britannic a few weeks ago. I owed my parents, for all the love and faith and support they had sent my way, and I would show them it wasn’t wasted. I used forceps to take pieces of shrapnel out of his abdomen. I would have done this for our Arthur, if only I had been given the chance. Now, I did it for every wounded soldier who had a fretting sister or weeping mother at home. My tears dripped onto him, but apart from that, there was no sign that I wept as I worked. When I could do no more, the orderlies transported him onto the ship.

  ‘All finished, what’s next?’ I asked Josephine, disappointed to hear the smallness of my own voice.

  ‘Well done. You’ll make a nurse yet,’ she said. ‘Go four stretchers back along the row, there’s an ear missing. You’ve practised a head bandage, yes?’ I nodded. ‘Then clean the wound and do your best bandage. We have to keep the flies off it.’

  The hours ran into each other with cleaning wounds, wafting away flies, and applying dressings. Six hours later, my thoughts went back to the soldier whose belly I had attended. I wondered if he would live and wished I had taken his name. We continued until the light started to fade, then we got a lift to the hospital in one of the returning ambulances. I think I learned more in that one day – when seven hundred men boarded the Athena, bound for Alexandria – than forever after. I ended the day ten times the person I’d been when I woke that morning. I would remember none of the injured, except for the first, he would stay with me forever . . . like my first kiss.

  Soon, we peered from the back of the ambulance, which was little more than a covered wagon. The December landscape was lush with wild flowers. Local farmers were collecting the last of the day’s olives from laden trees. Lemon and orange groves, heavy with their bright fruit, flanked the road to the field hospital and perfumed the air with delicate citrus scents. A wide, green valley ran from the port of Mudros, up to the distant mountains. Along the centre of the dale, like a great canvas dressing on a wound in the countryside, were many dozens of tents. These made up the wards of the clearing hospital.

  We were allocated beds in the dorm tent, then, in the mess tent, ate something that seemed to be mostly rice with a few herbs. However, a tin mug of strong sweet tea saved the day. The best drink of my life.

  They quickly showed us around before it became too dark. So much had happened, I was desperate to write it down in the form of a letter to my parents before I forgot. I wanted my correspondence to be a record of my life helping in the Great War.

  Dearest Mother and Father,

  I wish I could tell you where I am, but I can’t. Only to say I am safe, in Greece, far from the front line, so no need to worry. The hospital is on an island, and here, it appears to be spring already. We passed many olive trees on our way and saw local people gathered around one. They beat the tree with long sticks to knock the olives down onto sheets or fine fishing nets. The ground is covered in the first wildflowers, mostly pink and lilac anemones. So pretty!

  Our hospital looks like a circus, Mother. Rows of canvas tents, each holding fourteen beds. Also, huts of canvas and paper. Long, single-storey sheds of thin wood and roofed with tarred paper are divided into cubicles for eighteen patients. The nurses’ corner is adequate. Two hundred yards away are scores of tents filled with the wounded. They’ve informed us that every night more are brought, and others taken away.

  Every hour, troops pass by, whistling their marching tunes as they go down to the port. There are many hospitals like ours. The French are here. The port road is lined with hundreds of barrels of wine that belong to the French army. Then there are the ANZACs, the Australian and New Zealand troops. They have their own hospitals too.

  I promise to write as often as possible.

  Your loving daughter,

  Gertie X

  *

  The next morning, after a cold wash and a quick breakfast, we were taken to our ward. The marquee was not ready. Yet the ambulances still came and unloaded their cargo of pain-ridden soldiers onto the duckboards.

  Inside, orderlies, expert at laying wooden floors, competed against each other. They threw floors down and beds together as if it were an Olympic sport.

  A sharp-faced doctor followed by several nurses, examined and labelled patients. Some simply bore a cross. These were removed and a patient on the floor moved into the vacant bed. By midday, heat in the marquee had built to an unbearable level, flaps were tied back and mosquito nets dropped over the entrances. Yet, flies still intruded, attracted by the rancid blood of open wounds. My first order was to clean and disinfect those wounds and limb stumps.

  I was afraid of hurting the young men who had signed up with such bravery and enthusiasm. Close to tears, I found myself dabbing at a stump that was once an arm, promising all kinds of miracles, then Josephine stormed up.

  ‘You’re not helping him, Gertie!’ She snatched the swab from my hand. ‘Remember, there are a million microbes trying to enter this wound and kill our gallant soldier. We must destroy them! If our soldier suffers some discomfort, reassure him you’re saving his life. Sepsis and gangrene kill more than any of Kaiser Bill’s bullets. Do you understand?’ she shouted, scrubbing vigorously at the wound.

  ‘Yes, nurse. Sorry, nurse.’ I glanced at the soldier’s face. For a moment, his pain had gone and he winked.

  Josephine’s voice softened a little. ‘Now go back to saving lives, and take no nonsense from these men.’ She faced the soldier.

  ‘Young man, if I catch you staring at this VAD’s chest once more, I’ll find the biggest ogre on the camp to give you a cold bed-bath, do you understand?’ Weak laughter came from neighbouring beds.

  The soldier’s eyes flicked to my breasts and his f
ace lit with a grin that dimmed the pallor of his pain.

  Josephine winked, and I understood a part of nursing that would never be seen in the medical manuals. Pain relief was a state of mind, as well as opiates in a syringe.

  Dear Mother and Father,

  I hope this letter finds you well. Father will be pleased to hear I am learning so much.

  I put on a brave face, but the truth is I have at times been overwhelmed by it all. However, every day is less shocking.

  Today we were introduced to the doctors and surgeons and we visited the other military hospitals, to observe how they were run.

  The first hospital, wards of tents, housed almost two thousand men with arms, legs, or faces blown off. The face wounds are the worst! Then, we had elevenses – bread, blackcurrant jam and strong tea. Next, the blinded soldiers. Five hundred of them learning to accept their future. The cripples will get new limbs, but the blinded?

  The tents overflow, with hardly walking space between bodies. Wards are divided into ailments, dysentery being the largest with thirty thousand cases! Also, six thousand frostbites from who knows where. Add rheumatic fever, shrapnel injuries, and bullet wounds, and the figures become impossible.

  Apart from this, I am fine and strive to excel in memory of our Arthur and Sissy.

  Do not be alarmed if the letters are sparse once I start work in earnest.

  Your loving daughter,

  Gertie X

  *

  CHAPTER 35

  SHELLY

  Dover, present day.

  SHELLY OPENED THE DOOR. DJ thrust a bunch of flowers at her. They both said ‘Hi,’ in the first breath, laughed awkwardly in the second breath, swallowed hard and gazed at each other.

  ‘Are you going to ask me in?’ he said gently.

  ‘Actually, shall we go to the pub? We’ve got half an hour before dinner.’

  He let out a gust of air, his shoulders dropped. ‘Great plan, thanks.’

  She nodded at the flowers. ‘I’ll just pop these in the sink, you can get in the car.’ She lifted the car keys off the coat hooks by the door and tossed them to him. Two minutes later, she was beside him, pulling off towards The Rose and Crown.

  They found a quiet corner, and DJ bought them each a pint of shandy. She watched him at the bar, he could have been his father. She wanted to weep.

  ‘There must be so many things you want to know, and I promise I’ll answer all your questions. But this is very hard, for me too, because . . . well . . . first I lost my mother, then your father. Then, I lost you. In a way, I also lost my own father at that time too, you see?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I didn’t want to give you up. It was terrible. I was too young to stand up for myself with everyone pressuring me. And all these things happened in one tragic year that started when I was sixteen and my mother was killed in an accident. I never fully recovered. So please, I hope you’ll forgive me if I sound bitter, or selfish, I’m not . . . not really; it’s just that I am still hurting. There’s so much love and loss and pain involved, DJ, I’ll probably embarrass you on more than one occasion by bursting into tears.’ She gazed at him, her son. ‘But now, oh my God, I can’t believe this – I just can’t – I’m overwhelmed.’ She pulled in a ragged breath.

  He lowered his eyes from her face to the table, digested her words and nodded. ‘You’ve had a hard time. I’ve often tried to imagine why you gave me up . . . why you didn’t want me . . .’

  ‘Please stop right there. There has never been one single moment when I didn’t want you. I let you go to a new family, parents who I understood loved you as much as I did. They did, didn’t they?’ Shelly peered at him with a worried frown.

  He nodded and smiled gently, but she sensed his unease.

  ‘It was the right thing to do, for your sake. My father said, if I loved you, I would want you to have a better life than any seventeen-year-old single mother without an income could give you.’

  ‘So, it was your father that forced you to give me up.’

  Shelly nodded. ‘It took many years before I stopped hating him for it. In the end, I realised he was right. I gave you up because I loved you so much. Not because I didn’t want you.’ She realised tears were trickling down her cheeks and dabbed them away with a tissue. ‘Sorry,’ she said with a smile. ‘I did warn you. Please tell me – you have had a good life, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, very much so, but I grew up knowing I was adopted, and I often wondered about you, of course. My parents said you were very young, but they didn’t know anything about my father. Can you tell me about him?’

  Shelly sipped her drink, then blew through pursed lips. ‘I’ll tell you as much as I can about David each time we meet, but you must be patient, you’re not going to hear the whole story straight off.’ He nodded again. ‘There will be times when I won’t be able to talk about him at all, but rest assured, you will come to know and understand him.’

  ‘Can I ask you some questions?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Yes, of course. I realise you need answers. I was in that position myself once. The pain’s intense, isn’t it? And the bitterness, I was bitter for years.’ He nodded. The old distress rose and she battled against it. ‘It’s so unfair,’ she whispered. ‘And it hurts so bad. But that pain made me determined to be my own boss and rule my own life. Nobody was ever going to tell me what to do again. Perhaps I overreacted.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the world and his wife said I couldn’t look after you by myself, with no family support. So I spent the next nineteen years proving them wrong. I’m desperate for you to understand that I didn’t simply cast you aside for the sake of convenience.

  ‘The loss of my mother, then David, and then you, and in a way my dad too, was too much pain for any young girl to take. Soon, severe depression set in. Although I was little more than a child when you were taken from me, I had one consolation – you were in the safe care of a loving family.

  ‘They said I had post-natal depression, but they never really understood. Slowly but surely, I came back from that dark pit and made a success of my life. I’m proud of that. However, losing you and your father has never quite left me. Twenty years later, and I’m still dealing with it and I know, for the moment, this isn’t making any sense to you, but I promise it will.’

  ‘I’m just realising how brave you’ve been to tackle this. Do you mind if I call you Mum? It feels a little odd, and of course I do have another Mum, in Australia, but nothing else would feel right. Better to get used to it from the start, I think.’

  ‘I’d like that very much. So long as you don’t mind my tears now and again.’

  ‘Look, at any time, please, you can just tell me to shut up and go away, so long as you let me know when you’re feeling stronger and I can come back. And if you ever want to talk, I’ll always be here for you.’

  ‘I think that’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to me. I don’t want you to think I’m a wimp: I did get myself through college and university, and set up my own successful veterinary practice. I’ve got balls, DJ.’

  He laughed. ‘I believe it.’

  ‘So, ask me a question.’

  ‘Can you tell me something about my father. Just something?’

  Shelly took a shuddering breath and, once again, ballooned her cheeks as she let it out. The action calmed her and she found herself dreamily thinking of the young man she had loved so passionately. ‘David was the most amazing guy. A few years older than me, which was exactly what I needed. However, that was what my father objected to. I was sixteen and he was twenty-four. We were so compatible, so happy together.’ She told him how they met outside the jeweller’s shop. How David had been balm to her wounds. ‘He was the sweetest, kindest man on earth, and incredibly handsome, like you. He told me later that he fell in love with me from that first moment in the high street. It was a moment in my life when I most needed love.’<
br />
  ‘It sounds as though he was a romantic.’

  She closed her eyes and nodded. ‘David was a softy with a huge heart, and so grateful to me for helping him with his dog.’

  ‘His dog?’

  ‘A golden retriever, Pat . . . Pat the dog, get it?’ They smiled at each other. ‘That was so typical, your father had a great sense of humour. He’d had Pat for thirteen years, but she became poorly and he had to have her put to sleep.’ She remembered how upset he was. ‘It broke his heart. We took her to see all her pups before that final trip to the vet’s. Years later, I wondered if it was all a plan of David’s to get me to put my own grief aside. “Will you really help me take Pat to say goodbye to her puppies?” he asked as if it was a mammoth feat, when really it was just a kindness.’ She took a sip of her shandy, remembering that day of sadness and incredible closeness.

  ‘We spent the following Saturday and Sunday traipsing from house to home, watching Pat nuzzle and sniff her offspring. When the day was over, I went back to David’s ground-floor flat and we talked until ten o’clock. I knew I’d be in terrible trouble with my father for being out so late, especially as he had no idea where I was. David sensed this. He said he’d go home with me and talk to my dad, tell him how marvellous I’d been. Terribly brave of him. I mean, my dad could have been a gorilla waving a baseball bat for all he knew.’

  When DJ laughed, Shelly’s heart melted. He sounded just like his father. ‘Did he go home with you?’

  ‘No, I persuaded him I’d be better on my own. David saw me into the bus and asked if I’d meet him at the vet’s the next weekend.’ Shelly smiled, then glanced at her watch. ‘I think we ought to head home,’ she said. ‘I’ve been cooking all morning in your honour; shame if it spoiled.’

  *

  ‘About my father, your grandfather,’ Shelly said in the car as they headed down Lighthouse Lane. ‘Be gentle with him, will you? He’s very nervous about meeting you, and he can get a little . . . grumpy.’