Frontline Nurses

by Holly Green

  ‘Leo.’ Over the last two days she had made a point of starting to learn Bulgarian and had found a willing teacher in Georgi Radic. She had a natural ability for languages and had already picked up a number of useful phrases. ‘My name is Leo,’ she repeated in Bulgarian.

  His face, which was lined and seamed with dirt, cracked open in a grin, revealing broken, brown teeth. ‘Bogdan! I am Bogdan.’

  From then on they conversed in broken fragments, often laughing uproariously at their misunderstandings, and Leo’s command of the language grew. The oxen plodded onwards, and from time to time one of the carts stuck in the mud and the men had to descend and pull and push it free. Progress was painfully slow, and Leo reckoned that they were averaging scarcely more than two kilometres in every hour. She began to understand how it was that the journey from the front line to the hospitals could take so long.

  When the winter evening drew in they made camp on a slight rise that had the advantage of being marginally drier than the road and Leo was handed down from the cart with as much ceremony as a princess arriving at a ball. The oxen were out-spanned and given hay and water and there was no shortage of wood for a fire as here, as elsewhere, the progress of the fighting had brought down trees and left the landscape littered with broken branches. Soon water was boiling for coffee and the carcase of some creature that Leo took to be a goat was turning on an improvised spit.

  One of the drivers came over to Bogdan and spoke urgently for a moment and the big driver turned to Leo.

  ‘Wounded man very ill – over there. You help him?’

  Leo was immediately overcome with shame. She had been warming herself at the fire and had completely forgotten that she was supposed to be here on a mission of mercy. She collected her First Aid kit and followed the driver to the cart he indicated. As they approached she felt sick with apprehension at what she might find. She knew so little, and could do so little, yet she sensed that great things were expected of her. The man was lying on a bed of straw in the bottom of the cart. There was no sign of any injury but he was obviously in the grip of a high fever, tossing and twisting and muttering to himself. Leo searched in her bag and found several sachets of aspirin powder.

  She pointed to a tin mug hanging on a hook on the side of the cart and then to the cauldron of water over the fire. Bogdan nodded and went off with the mug, returning in a moment with the boiling water. Leo held it until it had cooled sufficiently and then tipped the powder into it and, with some difficulty, persuaded the patient to drink it. In mime she indicated that he should be kept warm and given water as often as possible.

  Climbing down from the cart she found Bogdan waiting for her. ‘I suppose I had better see if I can do anything for the others,’ she said, and when his brow wrinkled with incomprehension she gestured towards the other wagons.

  There were twenty of them, lying two to a cart. Several had bullet wounds, one had a broken leg which had been roughly bound with a splint, another had had a hand blown off by a grenade and the rest had been slashed by bayonets. Leo was thankful for the brief experience she’d had of dressing real wounds in the hospital tent at Adrianople but as she worked she could not help remembering an exercise at FANY camp before the war, when she had struggled to bandage the imaginary wounds of a soldier who was rather drunk and determined not to co-operate. It had been less than six months ago but it seemed now to belong to a different existence. She did what she could, changing dressings and administering the last of her precious morphine lozenges, and by the time she had finished the meal was ready.

  There was no singing that night. As soon as they had eaten the men wrapped themselves in their blankets and prepared to sleep. Leo remembered with regret that her warm sleeping bag had gone in the car with Victoria but Bogdan led her back to his cart and indicated that she should climb in. On the bottom was a thick layer of clean hay and a blanket. She guessed that the hay should have been fed to some of the oxen but at that moment she felt her need was greater than theirs. She thanked him, lay down, pulled the blanket over her and slept almost at once.

  The camp was astir with the dawn and, while the water boiled for more of the thick, sweet coffee that seemed to form an essential part of the diet, Leo made the rounds of her patients. The feverish man was quiet and awake, and meekly swallowed another bitter draft of aspirin powder, and the rest greeted her with husky whispers of gratitude for the ‘magic pills’ that had given them a few blessed hours of relief from pain. As soon as the coffee had been drunk, the oxen were in-spanned and the convoy proceeded on its way. Leo swung herself up beside Bogdan and pointed ahead.

  ‘Lozengrad? Today?’

  He shrugged. ‘The Turks say …’

  ‘Insh’allah,’ Leo finished for him. It was an expression she had grown up with. ‘God willing.’

  The hours passed. They plodded through deserted villages where only half-starved dogs and cats roamed, and sometimes the ground was strewn with the debris of battle – cartridge cases, shrapnel pieces, scraps of clothing – and the bodies of men and horses. The first time they encountered this Leo turned her horrified gaze to Bogdan.

  ‘Why doesn’t somebody bury them?’

  He looked at her and shrugged. ‘Who?’

  There was no stop at midday, but Bogdan reached under the seat and pulled out some hard, dry bread and a flask containing a clear liquid, which caught at Leo’s throat and made her cough.

  ‘Rakia!’ he said. ‘Dobro!’

  The second sip revealed a pleasant hint of muscatel and sent a warm feeling through her stomach. They jogged on, taking alternate slugs from the flask and gnawing at the hard bread.

  If only Grandma could see me now! Leo thought, and immediately felt a pang of guilt. There had been no opportunity to write to her, or to Ralph, and she knew they must be frantic with worry. She resolved to write as soon as she had a chance. But there was nothing she could do at that moment … The swaying of the oxen’s heads took on a hypnotic rhythm and her eyelids began to droop and she drifted into a doze, which lasted until Bogdan nudged her and pointed ahead with his ox-goad.

  ‘Lozengrad!’

  Leo jerked upright and peered forward. The rain had stopped at last and the western sky was smouldering with the sunset. There, a few miles ahead, were the walls and towers of a city – a city which, she had learned from Radic, had been one of four great fortresses guarding the approach to Constantinople and which should have been as impregnable as Adrianople. She expected to see signs of a great battle, but the land here seemed undisturbed. Vineyards stretched away on either side of the road, the vines blackened by winter frosts but undamaged and the city itself, as they drew closer, seemed intact.

  Now that it was within sight, the last few miles seemed longer than ever, but as they approached the gate Leo gave a cry of delight as a car appeared and sped towards them. Minutes later she was hugging Victoria.

  ‘You’re here at last! Thank God!’ her friend exclaimed. ‘I’m so glad to see you. Are you all right? I’ve been frantic with worry. After what we saw on the way here … I kept imagining all sorts of terrible things. I should never have forgiven myself for leaving you if anything had happened.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Leo assured her, squeezing her shoulders. ‘I’ve been treated like royalty. How about you? Did Milan make it?’

  ‘Yes, he did. They had to amputate his leg, of course, but he’s recovering. The doctors said if we hadn’t picked him up he would probably have been dead by the time he got here.’

  ‘We did the right thing, then,’ Leo said. ‘Oh, this is Bogdan. He’s been looking after me.’

  The ox-driver raised his goad in greeting and Victoria waved in return. Then she said, ‘You’re to bring your patients to our hospital. The Red Cross one is full to bursting. Come on, I’ll show you the way.’

  They drove slowly, to allow the ox-carts to keep up with them, which gave Leo a chance to examine the buildings as they passed. She remarked on the lack of damage.

  ‘I know,’
Victoria replied. ‘I was puzzled by that. Apparently the Turks abandoned it without a fight. According to Luke, Sultan Abdulhamid refused to pay for the defences of the city to be strengthened so the main line of defence was outside to the north, at a place they call Fort Bulgaria. The Bulgars came down out of the mountains expecting a big battle but when they woke up the next morning the Turkish trenches were empty and the whole army had decamped. They were able to walk into the city without firing a shot.’

  Victoria drew up outside a large house where a group of nurses was waiting with stretchers. As soon as the ox-carts came to a standstill they climbed into them and the wounded men were lifted down and carried up the steps to the front door, where a tall, middle-aged lady with fine features and an air of innate authority was waiting. She spoke briefly to each stretcher party, assessing the condition of the patient, and then they were carried inside, all except for the man with the broken leg, who was directed across the road to the house opposite.

  ‘Where is he being taken?’ Leo asked.

  ‘That’s where the operating theatre is. They are probably going to deal with him straight away,’ Victoria said. ‘Come on. I’ll introduce you.’

  She led Leo to the woman at the door. ‘Mrs Stobart, may I present Leonora Malham Brown? Leo, this is Mabel St Clair Stobart, the commandant.’

  Stobart extended her hand. ‘I’m very glad to see you here safely. I gather from Langford here that you have had quite an eventful journey.’

  ‘Yes, you could say that,’ Leo agreed. ‘I’m just sorry we couldn’t get here sooner.’

  ‘It’s very brave of you to come at all,’ Stobart responded. ‘And we shall be glad to have you. We haven’t been here very long ourselves. There doesn’t seem to be any way of getting to Lozengrad quickly. Now, you must excuse me. There are wounded to be dealt with, as you realise. Langford will show you round.’

  ‘Our sleeping house is round the corner,’ Victoria said. ‘I’ll take you there first so you can dump your bag and tidy up, then I’ll show you the hospital proper. It’s amazing what they have managed to do in such a short time.’

  The ox-carts had lumbered away but as they turned back to the street a voice hailed them in English. ‘Hey, wait up a minute.’

  For a moment Leo did not recognise the lanky figure coming towards them, until Victoria said, ‘Oh good, here’s Luke.’

  He had shaved his beard and shed the enveloping sheepskin coat, which seemed to be the uniform of all the ox-drivers, to reveal well-worn breeches and a leather jerkin.

  ‘Good to see you, Leonora,’ he said, pulling off his cap. ‘Oh, is it all right for me to call you Leonora?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ she replied. There was something in his open, boyish face that made any form of formality seem ridiculous. ‘Except I’d prefer just Leo.’

  ‘Leo it is, then,’ he said, shaking her hand. Then, looking at Victoria, ‘See, I told you she’d be fine. Bogdan’s been singing your praises. He reckons you’re an angel of mercy.’

  Leo felt herself blush. ‘I just did what I could and handed out some morphine lozenges. It wasn’t much.’

  ‘It meant a lot to those men,’ he assured her.

  ‘Shouldn’t there be a doctor or at least a nurse travelling with them?’ Leo asked.

  ‘There should,’ he said, ‘but there just aren’t enough to man the hospitals, without sending them off on a ten-day round trip. What these men suffer is criminal but no one seems to be able to think of a better system.’

  Leo caught Victoria’s eye and knew that the same thought was going through both their minds, but she decided not to bring it up for the moment.

  Victoria said, ‘I’m just going to show Leo around, Luke. Will you be here later?’

  ‘Sure,’ he answered. ‘I’ll drop by to say goodbye this evening.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘Crack of dawn tomorrow, back to Chataldzha with supplies, but I’ll be back again in ten or twelve days with another convoy.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see you before you go.’

  ‘Of course.’ He smiled. Leo looked from him to her and saw something in Victoria’s face that she had not seen before.

  Luke pulled his cap on and gave a mock salute. ‘See you later.’

  As he walked away Leo said, ‘That’s quite a transformation. He’s a good-looking chap, under all that hair. You two seem to have got on very well.’

  Victoria twitched her shoulders. ‘You know what they say – “adversity makes strange bedfellows”.’ She reddened suddenly. ‘If you see what I mean.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Leo replied, grinning. ‘By the way, did you ever find out how he comes to be here?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll explain as we go. Come on.’

  Chapter 10

  The hospital was, as Victoria had said, a remarkable achievement by a remarkable group of women. There were sixteen of them altogether including three doctors, two nursing sisters, four trained nurses and six general duties staff, including Mrs Godfray, the chief cook.

  They had taken over four houses in the same road. In the main building the ground floor was given over to out-patients and general administration. On the first floor, which was reached by a curving staircase that made carrying stretchers extremely difficult, there was a wide corridor which was lined with beds and four large rooms which also served as wards. That evening every bed was full and some of the less severely wounded men were lying on straw-filled mattresses on the floor. On the opposite side of the street there were more wards and a large, well-lit room, which was equipped as an operating theatre.

  Meals for the staff were taken in a small room on the ground floor, and Leo’s first impression of this was the pervading smell of sewage. She soon discovered the reason. The plumbing and sanitary arrangements in the house were rudimentary and the effluent all collected in a cesspit located immediately below the window.

  The nurses’ sleeping accommodation, in the house to which Victoria took her first, was the least well furnished, consisting of several rooms completely bare of anything except iron bedsteads on which were laid straw palliasses. Water had to be drawn from a pump in the yard and was so cold that it made Leo gasp. She was glad to see her warm sleeping bag on one of the beds but Victoria warned her dryly not to get too excited.

  ‘The bed is yours for the night, but in the morning when the night staff come off duty, someone else will take it over. And don’t leave any of your things lying about or they won’t be there in the morning.’

  ‘Why? You surely don’t mean that one of the women is light-fingered.’

  Victoria chuckled grimly. ‘Of course not. But the local rats have no such moral inhibitions. They’ll make off with anything, I’m told.’

  ‘Rats!’ Leo shuddered. ‘Do you mean in here?’

  ‘We should think ourselves lucky. Most of them have been got rid of but apparently when the girls first moved in the place was overrun with them. They used to run across people’s faces in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Oh, how horrible!’

  That night, although she was almost too tired to stand, Leo could not sleep for a long time, jolted awake by every rustle of straw as one of the other occupants of the room turned over. But eventually exhaustion overcame fear and she slept like a child.

  At six-thirty the next morning she was woken and given a linen dress like those worn by the others, with a white cap and apron. Properly dressed, she reported for duty along with Victoria. She had seen horrors at Adrianople and had struggled unaided on the road from Chataldzha; but she realised by the end of that day that she had never worked at full stretch until then. With almost a hundred patients to care for, the work of washing, feeding and changing dressings was unending but, in compensation, there was the obvious gratitude of the men. They arrived filthy and starving, with their dressings stuck to their wounds so that they had to be sponged off, and within the hour they had been washed, fed and clothed in clean nightshirts and drawers and settled into bed under
sheets and blankets.

  ‘Do they ever object to being treated by women?’ Leo asked Mabel Stobart.

  ‘Never,’ was the reply. ‘Instead they tell everyone how much gentler and kinder we are than the men.’

  On the first evening, Mabel Stobart asked Leo to come to her office.

  ‘Sit down, my dear,’ she began. ‘Now, how old are you?’

  ‘Nineteen, ma’am.’

  ‘I see. So you are not “of age”.’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘I presume that your parents know where you are and have given their permission?’

  ‘My parents are both dead,’ Leo hedged.

  ‘So who is your legal guardian?’

  ‘My grandma.’

  ‘And she has given her permission?’

  Leo considered saying yes, but Mabel Stobart was not a woman to whom you told lies. ‘No. I didn’t tell her because I knew she would have prevented me from coming.’

  Stobart regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. Then she said, ‘Well, I have defied authority myself in the cause of freedom, so I cannot lecture you on the subject. And it is not practical for me to send you home unaccompanied. So you may stay. Have you written to your grandma to tell her where you are and that you are safe?’

  Leo blushed. ‘No. There doesn’t seem to have been an opportunity.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should write now?’

  ‘I suppose I should. But is there any way to post it?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. The British military attaché is a good friend of ours. He will see that it gets to Sophia and is posted there. Now, no time like the present. Do you have pen and paper?’