A Rose for the Anzac Boys (11 page)

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.’

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…’

Aunt Lallie shook her head. ‘My dear, I’m sorry. This isn’t like the Duchess’s operation. We have rules…Oh, here is Captain Salter.’ She stood up as the surgeon Midge had seen in the tent came in. ‘Captain, this is my niece, Margery Macpherson. Margery, Captain Salter.’

‘Miss Macpherson.’ The man’s face was thin above his uniform, his eyes red-rimmed. The hand that held his mug of tea looked surprisingly soft and white.

‘I was explaining to my niece that she can’t stay here. Much as I would like her to,’ added Aunt Lallie.

‘She’s your closest relative, isn’t she, Sister?’

‘The only one with half a brain,’ said Lallie drily. ‘Or any gumption.’

Midge looked at her, surprised. She had never wondered what Aunt Lallie wrote to her cousins, or even if she wrote to them at all.

‘Well, Miss Macpherson, your aunt is right. This is an official army operation. I know things are different in some of the volunteer brigades. But here we need paperwork. And more paperwork. How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three…’ The familiar lie faded as she caught Aunt Lallie’s eye. ‘Nearly eighteen.’

The surgeon lifted his mug to sip his tea. The tea slopped as his hand trembled. He grasped it with both hands to steady it. ‘Which means you’re seventeen. A good many years away from being eligible for overseas work.’

‘I’ve already worked in France for over a year now. My friends and I run a canteen…and I’ve been driving an ambulance.’

‘Not the Duchess’s affair?’

Midge nodded.

‘They do good work.’ He shut his eyes for a second, then opened them with an obvious effort. ‘No, Miss Macpherson, I am afraid it’s impossible for you to stay here, either officially or unofficially. It’s my responsibility to make sure things are done properly, you know. I have no choice but to ask you to make arrangements to get back to your friends as soon as possible. Let’s see…shall we say in a couple of months?’

‘A couple of months?’

His eyes crinkled as he smiled. ‘Yes. Do you think you will be able to make the necessary arrangements to travel by then?’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

‘Good. And if anyone from headquarters arrives, Sister Macpherson, you will of course inform him that your niece is in the process of leaving.’

‘Certainly, sir.’ Aunt Lallie smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she added quietly.

‘My pleasure. Now I am going to sleep for a fortnight. Or however long the Germans give me.’ He turned to go,
then looked back. ‘By the way, good show about that head injury you spotted. Your niece has the makings of a good nurse, Sister.’

He smiled again, and was gone.

‘He’s nice,’ Midge said.

‘He’s a good man,’ said Aunt Lallie softly. ‘I wish we had a thousand like him.’

‘Aunt…do you have to go back on duty straightaway?’

Aunt Lallie glanced at the watch pinned to her uniform. ‘Not for another twenty minutes.’ She patted Midge’s hand. ‘I’m afraid we won’t get to spend much time together, my dear. But it’s so good to see you. Just out of curiosity,’ she added, ‘how exactly
did
you get here?’

Midge explained. Then: ‘Aunt…in your letter you said that you met a man who thought Tim had been taken prisoner. Where is he? Can I speak to him?’

Aunt Lallie shook her head. ‘Not possible.’

‘I know I can’t go and talk to a soldier on duty. But I could write to him, meet him when he’s next on leave.’

Aunt Lallie sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I explained—I was more than usually tired when I wrote to you. He’s dead.’

‘Oh,’ said Midge.

‘Sepsis. Infection. There was nothing we could do. Just stay with him. It was a quiet time, so I sat with him that night. Just let him talk. It’s what they need, sometimes. All you can do for them. He spoke about Gallipoli, so I asked
him about Tim. Just for something to say. I didn’t really expect him to know anything.’

‘And he told you he had seen Tim captured.’

Aunt Lallie nodded. ‘With three others. But Margery, don’t make too much of it. He was dying. In shock. Rambling half the time. He just wanted to make a connection with the nurse sitting with him. If I’d asked him if he’d seen the King at Gallipoli he’d probably have said yes.’

‘But it might be true,’ said Midge stubbornly.

Aunt Lallie sighed. ‘Yes. It might be true.’

Midge sat silently for a moment, then looked back at her aunt. ‘You’re right. There’s nothing I can do about it. Now what can I do to help here?’

‘I’ll take you to Miss Pleasance. She’s the most senior of the VADs.’ Aunt Lallie smiled wryly. ‘I’m sure she can find a job for you. Probably the worst on the station. You may regret ever coming here.’

‘No, I won’t. I’m glad.’

Aunt Lallie laughed. ‘Oh my dear, I’m glad as well.’