The Best of Daughters (29 page)

DAISY SAT DOWN,
still clutching the telephone receiver in her hand long after they had said goodbye. It seemed so final. Rupert was not allowed out of the barracks even for the shortest possible period of time, despite the fact that it was so close to home. There was little he could tell her other than the fact that all leave had been cancelled as they were under orders, and it appeared that the wedding must be postponed indefinitely. His voice had cracked with emotion but she had remained quite calm. She knew that she ought to have been desolated by the news but if truth were told she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. All the wealth and grandeur of Pendleton Park meant very little to her, especially when her country's safety was at risk. If she had been a man she would have wanted to be at the forefront, even though the thought of violence and bloodshed terrified her. She looked up as the door opened and Lady Pendleton billowed into the room with her arms outstretched.

‘My darling girl. I am so desperately sorry.' She enveloped Daisy in a hug. ‘Rupert must be utterly devastated, as I'm sure you are too.' She took the receiver from Daisy's hand and hung it back on the hook. ‘Would you like to lie down? You may use my
room and I'll send a maid with tea and smelling salts, or perhaps a little brandy might help?'

Daisy rose to her feet. She could hardly breathe and she felt that she would suffocate if she stayed in this house one moment longer. ‘Would you mind awfully if I went home? I'd like to tell Mother in person and I think it might embarrass all your house guests if I stayed. They wouldn't know what to say to me.'

Lady Pendleton kissed her on the cheek. ‘You are a sweet, thoughtful girl, Daisy. I am truly sorry that this has happened. Henry has done his uttermost to overturn the army's decision, but they remained adamant that all leave is cancelled and that goes for everyone, including Rupert. But this present crisis must surely come to a swift end, and the wedding will take place at the first possible opportunity.'

Daisy felt a twinge of conscience. ‘But all that expense. The wedding breakfast alone must have cost a fortune.'

‘My dear girl, it's vulgar to talk about money. We will entertain our guests and your family will be most welcome to join us. After all, I can't condone waste and the salmon won't keep.'

‘But the church, and all those beautiful flower arrangements . . .'

‘The congregation will enjoy them, and perhaps they will lift their spirits a little.' Lady Pendleton regarded her with a frown puckering her brow. ‘I shouldn't tell you this, Daisy, and you must promise to keep it secret, but Henry thinks we will be at war with Germany within the week. It's not official so don't breathe a
word to anyone. That is the only explanation for the way that our darling boy has been treated, and you young people are the first to suffer.'

War. Daisy had heard rumours in the camps but it had always seemed such a distant threat, and now it was becoming a reality. ‘Lady Pendleton, might I ask for your support? There's something I desperately want to do?'

‘Of course, my dear. But what is it?'

‘If what you say is true then I want to do something for my country. You know that I've been training for the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.'

‘Yes, and I applaud your patriotism.'

‘I want to do more than that. I want to volunteer for active service.'

Lady Pendleton sank down on the nearest chair. ‘But Daisy, I don't think that's a very good idea. What would Rupert say?'

‘I think he would encourage me, and I'm certain he wouldn't try to stop me.'

‘But your parents would be terribly upset.'

‘I'm almost twenty-three, Lady Pendleton. I'm a free woman and I'm of age. I can make up my own mind.'

‘Oh, dear.' Lady Pendleton held her hand to her brow. ‘Now I think I could do with a tot of brandy. Ring the bell for Warrington, Daisy.'

War was declared on the fourth of August, and
Rupert's battalion left for France. He had the Prince Henry delivered back to Pendleton Park with a note giving Daisy permission to use it until his return. Lady
Pendleton had made no objections and furthermore she had insisted that Daisy make full use of the house in Grosvenor Square. She herself would be remaining in the country for a few weeks yet, but then she would be travelling up to London and it would be nice to know that Daisy was there, waiting for her. Daisy was grateful, and although it seemed like cheating to take such an easy option it was a much better proposition than living in a rented room in a poorer part of town as did some of her friends in the Nursing Yeomanry. She said goodbye to her family amidst tears from both her mother and Beatrice, and a stern lecture on keeping safe from her father. She drove off in the Prince Henry with her luggage piled high in the back seat, and headed for London.

It seemed strange at first, living in the echoing mansion alone except for the servants, the number of whom was declining as the younger male members of staff were enlisting in the army at an alarming rate. Daisy did not fancy sitting in solitary state in the enormous dining room at a table intended to seat twenty to thirty guests; neither did she want gargantuan meals. She sent instructions to the kitchen to serve her the same food as they ate in the servants' hall when she dined alone in the morning room. Lord Pendleton also took up residence, in order to fulfil a senior position in the War Office, but Daisy saw him infrequently and only on the rare occasions when he dined at home. Otherwise she was very much alone in the house, but she did not mind as it gave her time to concentrate on her search
for Ruby. She continued to put advertisements in the newspapers in the hope that she might see them and get in touch, but without success.

She worked tirelessly to raise funds for the FANY. It was frustrating that they were barred from taking part in the war effort, and in desperation many of them had taken jobs with the VAD, but Daisy threw herself into organising sewing parties and collecting equipment in the hope of being able to utilise it should the authorities undergo a change of heart. Not only had they come up against a brick wall of prejudice from the War Office, but there was also considerable public opposition to women risking their lives and morals in the male-dominated theatre of war. The French and Belgian authorities were similarly inclined but Belgium had been invaded and was now in desperate need of medical assistance.

In a heroic attempt to prove them all wrong, Grace Ashley-Smith decided to go it alone and travelled to Belgium in September, where she was stationed in a field hospital in Antwerp. Accounts of her valiant struggle against filth, disease and the dire conditions in which she attempted to help nurse the wounded and dying men filtered back to London, making Daisy and her colleagues even more eager to take an active part in the war.

Their chance came at the end of October. Organised by Grace, working on behalf of the Belgians, the first FANY unit left Folkestone for a wet and windy Calais, and Daisy was proud to be amongst them. Within two days they had taken charge of Lamarck, an old convent
school next to the cathedral in the rue de la Rivière. Although she had taken classes in nursing, Daisy had never been in a hospital before, let alone worked in one, but she tackled the tasks assigned to her with a will. The old buildings were in a desperate state and Daisy and her colleagues, most of whom had never done housework of any sort, found themselves faced with conditions which would have daunted the most experienced skivvy. The stench from the row of latrines was overpowering and only faintly masked by the copious amounts of disinfectant that they used to scrub the floors and wash down the walls.

Daisy's hands were raw by the end of the first day and her back ached miserably but she was determined to carry on without complaining. Some of the other young women found it even harder to cope with heavy physical work that would normally have been done by their servants. Daisy endeavoured to raise their flagging spirits, but it was difficult to remain positive and cheerful under such trying conditions. Each day was a battle against filth and lack of the most basic amenities. With just one stove and a small kettle to heat water it was almost impossible to achieve and maintain the minimum standard of cleanliness. They were short of the most fundamental needs for setting up a hospital, and had to cut sheets in half in order to make the beds ready to receive their first patients. Food was also in short supply and their staple diet of bread and jam washed down by cocoa was monotonous, but after a heavy day's work Daisy was glad of anything.

At first the girls were billeted in private homes, but
after a few days Grace found an abandoned shop which she managed to acquire for their use. Making it habitable was easier said than done but it provided a welcome relief from the back-breaking work at the hospital. They scrubbed floors and cleaned windows, and in a desperate attempt to make their austere surroundings a little more homely they cut pictures from magazines and stuck them on the walls. They slept on camp beds or straw-filled palliasses but even then there was still a shortage of beds. In the morning when the day shift got up, the night nurses would climb in between their still warm blankets and settle down to get some well-earned rest.

Despite their constant attention to hygiene, many of the women succumbed to debilitating attacks of dysentery. This meant that those who did not fall ill were compelled to do double shifts, and during the first few weeks at Lamarck Daisy lived in a constant haze of exhaustion. She was fortunate enough to avoid contracting the illness, but she collapsed onto her narrow cot at night fully clothed and did not wake until first light.

Despite the battle raging at Ypres, the first patients at the hospital were mainly suffering from typhoid. When they were brought in from the trenches the soldier's bodies were invariably flea-ridden and running with lice, added to which they were covered in filthy mud and their own excrement. They had to be stripped of their uniforms, washed and deloused before they could be put into clean nightshirts and admitted to the wards. Performing such intimate tasks
on strangers was shocking to someone like Daisy, who had never seen a naked man before, but she realised that it was just as embarrassing for the men who had no alternative but to endure her ministrations.

Even though she had never intended to become a nurse it was a position thrust upon her by necessity, and she tried hard to develop a professional approach to her work, but she had to steel herself not to pass out at the sight of blood. She had fainted several times in the first week, but it was surprising how quickly she became accustomed to dreadful sights. Apart from the dreaded typhoid, gas gangrene, trench foot and shell shock, there were the terrible injuries inflicted by shrapnel from exploding shells. For some there was little that Daisy could do other than hold their hands and comfort them as they passed away. Sometimes she sat and wrote a letter at the dictation of a dying soldier, sending his last words to his wife or mother, and she could barely see the paper as tears welled up in her eyes. Her schoolgirl French had improved rapidly and she was able to converse reasonably well with the Belgian nurses and doctor as well as the patients.

No matter how hard they struggled to save lives, the coffin man was the most regular visitor at Lamarck, and Daisy dreaded hearing the rumble of the cartwheels as it entered the courtyard. She managed to cope by simply not thinking of anything other than the task in hand. She did not look back at the life she had left in England, nor did she allow herself to dwell on thoughts of her family at Rainbow's End. All that seemed like another world. She had been a different
person then, and she could hardly recognise herself as the young woman whose main problem each day had been what gown to wear and the choice of accessories. Now her first thoughts on waking were for Rupert and Teddy. She hoped against hope that they were not suffering in the trenches like the men who were brought daily to the hospital.

She was homesick, of course, like all the other young women who had given up comfort and safety in order to help others, but they supported each other and one thing they all had in common was waiting anxiously for news from home. Letters arrived infrequently and were tucked in Daisy's pocket to be brought out at night when she was either on duty in the hospital or lying down to sleep on the narrow camp bed in the shop window. Even in the darkness she could hear the muffled sobs of some of the other girls, but Daisy had built a protective shell around her heart and she did not cry as she struggled to decipher Bea's spidery scrawl, or studied the perfect copperplate written by her mother. As the weeks went by it began to feel as though she was reading about strangers. Their lives were so far distant from her own that they might have been living on the moon. When she had finished the letters she added the precious links to a life once lived to a bundle tied together with a scrap of ribbon she had found on the floor of the shop.

Despite the fact that she was doing a worthwhile and necessary job, Daisy longed to do something more active, and just before Christmas, when one of the drivers took sick with typhoid, she was given the
task of driving one of the two motorised Ford ambulances. Her job was to collect the wounded from trains arriving from the Front and transport them to hospital or to the docks for repatriation. It was often heavy work as she had of necessity to assist the stretcher bearers and load the injured men into the vehicle. Some of the soldiers were barely alive, and all of them were in desperate need of medical attention. She became adept in dealing with delirious patients who attempted to escape or lashed out at her thinking she was the enemy. She learned how to soothe the fears of the younger soldiers who thought, sometimes rightly, that they were going to die, and she often found herself in the role of surrogate mother, sister or confidante. Despite her active role she was still required to help out on the wards when they were short-staffed, and she did so with a willing heart. She found it deeply touching and rewarding to be able to help the men who had survived the carnage on the Front, and it was good to know that at least some of them would eventually be considered fit enough for repatriation.