Poppy (25 page)

‘On the other hand, he says he’s going to tell her that he has no intention of marrying Miss Whatsername, but doesn’t say he’s going to tell her about you.’

Poppy had noticed this, but was pretending that she hadn’t. ‘But look – see here,’ she said, holding the letter in front of her friend’s face. ‘He says he was smitten by my charms. And he thinks our time will come!’

‘Yes, I know,’ Matthews said. ‘I suggest you write back,’ she went on, ‘but not immediately. Try and keep him guessing a little. You don’t want to look too eager.’

‘I suppose not.’ But she was eager, Poppy thought. She
was
 . . .

Poppy travelled to the hospital with Jameson that morning and told her a little about the contents of Freddie’s letter, hoping that she might learn more about the upper classes and their habit of arranging marriages between their offspring. Jameson was strangely subdued, however, and hardly seemed to take in what Poppy was saying. After a while Poppy stopped talking. There she was, unburdening her heart, and Jameson wasn’t even listening!

In Hut 59 that morning, Private Williams’s bed, as usual, had two screens around it, as much for his comfort as for anything else. At visiting time or when there were strangers expected on the ward, the screens would be closed so that he was completely hidden from view. The rest of the time there was a narrow gap left between screens, and all the staff, from Sister down to the orderlies, made it a point of honour to go and speak to him at least once in the morning and once in the evening. His face looked just as horrific, but his wounds were cleaned and dressed each morning, and he was as comfortable as any man in his condition could be.

Poppy, doing the rounds with the breakfast trays, wished Private Williams a good morning, then left one of the orderlies to feed him. When she’d washed up the breakfast things, Sister beckoned her over.

‘Two jobs for you, Pearson. The first is to take Private Williams to Facial Reconstruction.’

Poppy’s heart sank. She was managing as well as she could with the injured soldier, speaking to him brightly and cheerfully and never without a smile, but the thought of taking him somewhere and being with him for any length of time was not an appealing one.

‘I know,’ said Sister Kay, though Poppy hadn’t articulated this, ‘but we must try and get him back into society. FR can do great things. They need to assess his face now, early on, before it starts healing.’

‘They can’t make a whole new face for him, though, can they?’

‘Not quite that,’ Sister said. ‘But they’re getting awfully good. The surgeon wants to see him this morning to give him some hope.’

‘I’ll take him now,’ Poppy said, trying to look keen. ‘And what’s the other thing?’

‘Well, I daresay you’ll like this better,’ Sister said. ‘Christmas is coming and last year we didn’t do much because we all expected the war to be over. This year we know better, so I want to make Christmas as good as possible for the boys. I’d like you to start collecting bits and pieces for their Christmas stockings.’

Poppy laughed, surprised. ‘Oh, yes please!’

‘Charities are excellent at donating things, and the big local stores, and tobacco companies and breweries. I’ll give you a list.’ She hesitated. ‘Now, Christmas Day is going to be a day like any other as far as the sick and injured are concerned, so I’m hoping all my staff will be in here that day – that is, if they’ve nowhere else they ought to be.’

Poppy thought of her ma and sisters far away at Christmas, of Billy in Scotland, of Freddie with his family. ‘Nowhere else at all, Sister. I’d like to be on duty.’

‘Excellent, Pearson.’

Private Williams had already been told he was going to Facial Reconstruction and an orderly had settled him into a wheelchair. He had a great woolly muffler wound around his neck and, because this completely hid the lower half of his face, to the rest of the world he appeared quite normal. The boys in the ward looked at him, did a double take and, because his mutilated face was hidden, forgot to be awkwardly tactful and spoke to him as if he was no different from anyone else.

‘Enjoy your trip to the tin noses shop, Williams!’ one shouted.

‘Mind you get a corker!’

‘Say you want to look like Rudolph Valentino,’ called another.

Private Williams could not reply in words, but Poppy felt he was enjoying the change. Either way, he raised his good arm in farewell to his fellow Tommies as she wheeled him from the ward.

Chapter Twenty-Three

YWCA Hostel,

Southampton

1st December 1915

Dear Freddie,

I was very happy to receive your letter! Thank you for letting me know more about Miss Cardew. Your mother only wants your happiness, but surely she will come round to what you want in the end?

I often think of missed opportunities when we were both in Airey House and wonder how these things start. I remember there was a look between us and a smile, but what made that particular look different from all the others, so that we both knew something strange had happened?

Our time will come . . . I treasure those words and try to imagine where you were and how you felt when you wrote them. To me they foretell a magical time when the war will be over and everything has returned to the way it should be. You are a very long way from here, somewhere unknown, but in Southampton we can sometimes hear the distant thunder of bombs exploding and I shake a little inside when I hear them, for I always fear that they are falling near you.

I would dearly love to see you when you come back through Southampton. How fortunate that I’m working here! I could so easily have been sent to nurse in Birmingham or Liverpool and then we would never be able to meet.

Freddie, I am about to go down to breakfast, so will finish now, hoping that this letter finds you safe.

You are in my heart and in my thoughts.

Poppy xxx

Poppy read through the letter twice, wondering if she’d been too syrupy and sentimental, then in a sudden understanding that it contained the truth – this was how she felt – put the sheets of paper in an envelope and went down to breakfast with Matthews. Jameson came down too, for it was her day off and she’d got up early in order to make the most of it.

‘Guess where I went yesterday?’ Poppy asked and, after they’d had several fruitless guesses, told them it was the facial reconstruction unit.

‘Gosh, what was it like?’ Matthews asked. ‘Was it gruesome? Like a waxworks?’

Poppy shook her head. ‘More like an artist’s studio, with photographs pinned all around the room of the men as they were before they were injured, plaster casts of faces on shelves, and baskets containing spectacles and wigs and so on.’

‘But how do they make artificial faces?’ Jameson asked.

‘Well, first of all, any dental work is done – sometimes a new jaw has to be made,’ Poppy began. ‘After that, the surgeon puts plaster of Paris on to the good portion of a man’s face and makes half a mask, and then that gets reversed and stuck to its other half.’

The two girls were looking at her with interest.

‘But where does the tin come in?’ Matthews wanted to know.

Poppy frowned a little. ‘Well, somehow, somewhere along the way, the mask gets transferred – beaten – on to very thin metal.’

‘What, and made skin colour?’ Matthews said.

Poppy nodded.

‘But does the finished article look any good?’ said Jameson.

‘Does it look
real
?’ asked Matthews.

‘Well . . .’ Poppy hesitated, ‘from what I could see of the ones being made, they don’t look great, but with a false moustache, or beard and glasses, they’re passable. Better than what was there before, at any rate.’

‘And have they started making your chap’s face yet?’ Matthews asked.

Poppy shook her head. ‘It’s too early. He’s got to have dentistry work done on his left side – a new jaw and a new set of teeth. The surgeon wanted to show him what was possible, though, just to cheer him up a bit.’

‘And was he cheered?’ Matthews asked.

Poppy shrugged. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Not really.’

‘He must be relieved they can do
something
,’ Matthews said. ‘After all, a person can manage without a leg or arm, but how can they manage without a face?’

They were all quiet for a moment, thinking about this, then Poppy said, ‘Private Williams has got to write to his wife and ask her for some photographs of what he looked like before he got hit.’

‘Does she know what’s happened to him?’ Matthews asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Poppy. ‘He told me – well, when I say he
told
me . . .’ the others nodded to say that they understood and she carried on, ‘. . . that he’d sent her a field postcard telling her he was being shipped home, but I don’t know what he said.’

‘What about your Fritz?’ Matthews asked Jameson suddenly. ‘Is he allowed to send postcards home?’

Jameson, startled, looked at the other two girls as though she’d been cornered. ‘What? Why do you ask?’ she blustered.

‘No particular reason,’ Matthews said. ‘I just wondered how he kept in touch with his family in Germany.’

Jameson looked at them – a sudden, desperate look – then covered her face with her hands.

‘Jameson . . .’ Poppy said, trying and failing to remember her friend’s first name. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’

Jameson didn’t reply, but just shook her head.

Matthews said, ‘Is this something to do with your German friend?’

Jameson nodded. ‘Reinhart,’ she said, in a muffled voice.

‘Have you become engaged to him?’ Poppy asked, giving Matthews a look of horror.

‘Kind of. He’s given me his ring.’ A long moment went by and then she took her hands away from her face and said. ‘But it’s not that.’

‘What, then?’ asked Poppy.

‘It’s . . . it’s all gone wrong.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Well, you see, yesterday . . . yesterday he asked me if I could find out how many hospital ships are docking here, and where most of the casualties are coming from.’

Poppy and Matthews both gasped.

‘He wanted you to find out
that
?’ cried Poppy.

‘He’s asking you to spy for him!’

‘I know,’ said Jameson, not looking at them.

‘The absolute scoundrel!’ Matthews said in a fierce whisper.

Poppy looked at Jameson sternly. ‘I hope you haven’t . . .’

‘Of course I haven’t! I wouldn’t dream of it! Never!’ Jameson got out her handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘He was so very nice to me, you see – had such lovely manners and was grateful for everything I did. And then he gave me his ring and asked me to wait for him until after the war.’ Jameson wiped her eyes. ‘But now I don’t know if he ever really cared for me or was just trying to get information.’

‘I think possibly the second,’ said Matthews drily.

‘He may have liked you as well,’ Poppy added, feeling sorry for the girl.

‘What should I do?’ Jameson said pathetically. ‘I’ve been awake all night worrying about it. I don’t want to see him again now. I don’t
ever
want to see him again!’

‘Why don’t you go and speak to Sister Malcolm and ask to be moved to a different ward?’ Poppy said. ‘You don’t have to say exactly why, just say you want a change.’

‘She did say we should go to her if we had any problems,’ Matthews added.

‘What about his ring?’

‘Give it back!’ Poppy and Matthews said together.

‘You don’t even have to see him,’ Poppy added. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll take it to his ward and hand it to whoever’s guarding the door.’

Jameson felt around the back of her neck to undo the clasp of the gold chain, slipped off the ring and gave it to Poppy. ‘His name is Reinhart Teichmann.’ She printed it carefully in the margin of the newspaper she held, then tore off the strip and gave it to Poppy. ‘Put the ring in an envelope or something; please don’t let the orderlies see what it is.’ She gave a huge sniff. ‘I don’t want him to get into trouble.’

Matthews looked at her watch and nudged Poppy. ‘The bus! We’ve got to go.’

Poppy stood up. ‘It’ll be all right, Jameson,’ she said. ‘Sister Malcolm will help.’

That evening, Jameson told Poppy and Matthews that she had been transferred to Hut 48, which was a medical unit dealing with those men with serious diseases picked up on the battlefield: trench fever, dysentery, influenza and so on.

‘Sister Malcolm was very nice,’ she said. ‘I told her I was unhappy in that ward, and she said that seeing as I’d practised my nursing on German officers I should now be ready for some British boys.’ She looked at Poppy anxiously. ‘But did you give the ring back?’

Poppy nodded. ‘It was easy. I put it in an envelope with his name on and gave it to the guard at the door.’