The Girl Under the Olive Tree (11 page)

There were lectures on hygiene, anatomy, and care of children, the elderly and the chronically infirm, but despite her studies Penny found time to read in the newspapers all about the war in Europe. The march of Italy to the Albanian border was causing concern throughout the Balkans, and there were letters from home once again, demanding she return.

Yet she felt safer here in the city doing a job she loved. There was nothing to spoil the glory of spring and early summer before the heat got oppressive. There were flowers in bloom everywhere, which cheered the two nurses one hot afternoon as they staggered out of their lecture towards the National Garden, trying to absorb all the horrors to which they’d just been exposed.

‘Do you think we’ll cope if we’re faced with stuff like that?’ Yolanda asked. ‘I feel sick. How I ever thought I could be a doctor . . .’

‘You still could train,’ Penny said, but Yolanda dismissed this with a wave of her hand.

‘Poof ! I am a woman, a Jew . . . who will train me now? You know our situation. It’s not an option, just a silly dream.’

‘And it’s
when
we’re faced with stuff like that, not
if,’
Penny replied, sensing Yolanda’s disappointment. ‘You can feel the tension in the air. The legation has people coming and going like Piccadilly Circus. They’ve taken on extra staff to help with administration and registration. Margery is working there now. I saw John Pendlebury in his uniform outside the Hotel Grande Bretagne. He’s only got one eye – I wonder how he passed a medical board . . . You know, while I was looking at those slides I kept thinking what if one of those pictures had been of my brother? He’s in the army in France now. I hope he’s safe.’

Yolanda peered at her with serious eyes. ‘You ought to go back to your family. I don’t know how you can stay away from them

‘We’re not like you, we go our different ways.’ How could she explain how distant they all felt to her now? Effy’s letters were full of news of who was married and enlisting, what parties she’d missed in London and how the season would be cancelled. It was a world away from her life now.

‘I couldn’t bear anything to happen to mine. I’m so glad they’ve gone to Crete. Uncle Joseph will look after them. My father fears for the future of our race should Nazis come here, and I promised him I will join them if there’s trouble.’

‘I suppose you have more to fear than I do,’ Penny blurted out without thinking. ‘Sorry! You know what I mean.’

Yolanda smiled, patting her arm. ‘They say we Jews belong to no nation but ourselves, but it’s not true. I’m Greek, these are my people,’ she indicated the passers-by. ‘I have to do what I can for my country. No harm will come to us here.’

‘That’s just how I feel too. I belong here now. This is my home and I’m not going to desert it.’

Penny was learning fast that no matter what emergency there was in the hospital, a nurse must always walk not run, must stay calm for the patient’s sake, no matter what she was feeling inside. She mustn’t flinch or frighten a patient by showing emotion, even when death was close at hand. She’d learned to wash and lay out bodies according to their religious rites, respect each patient and the hierarchy of hospital procedures. She was not to speak unless spoken to, to put the patient’s comfort as a priority, listening to their grumbles and fears . . .

Not that the nurses didn’t have fun after shifts. There were name-day parties with cakes and wine, flirtations with some of the young doctors, who tried to hook in pretty nurses with their smooth talking. She had no inclination to attach herself to any one in particular and understood, now she’d found her own vocation, why Bruce had backed away from any real intimacy with her. There was always safety in numbers and mild flirtations. He’d got his future to think of. She blushed every time she thought of how keen she must have seemed to him. She couldn’t help wondering just where he was now and if they would ever meet again.

Yolanda was a good influence, her head forever stuck in the newspaper, gleaning information about the international situation with her own slant on politics, making Penny feel lazy and slack on current affairs. She’d not picked up a book for months; one glance at a page and she fell asleep.

Yolanda insisted they made tours of the museums and art galleries on their precious days off. ‘When war comes, all this will disappear,’ she warned.

Penny wished Yolanda’s influence could be brought to bear in her revision. Penny had never sat an examination in her life before she began her nursing training and she found the tests hard. There was so much to mug up on: anatomical details, drug regimes and chemistry. Yolanda seemed merely to glance through her notes and passed everything effortlessly, blessed with a good memory. It wasn’t fair. Penny, however, had more stamina for walking around the city. Yolanda was hopeless at hill walking, complaining about the steep paths, wanting to sit down and rest every five minutes. She’d never hiked or ridden a horse or swam in the sea. Her parents preferred to keep her close to heel and out of view. They usually met up in the city, never at Rabbi Israel’s house.

‘I’m sorry, but they are stricter in observance than my family,’ Yolanda explained. ‘They don’t approve of unmarried women working out of the home, let alone working with Gentiles. They’re kind but old-fashioned. Any time soon I expect them to produce a nice Jewish man for me to marry, but I’m not ready for the chuppah yet.’ She laughed as Penny looked blank ‘It’s the canopy under which we get married in the synagogue. Perhaps one day, but not yet . . .’

There was so much for Penny to learn about Yolanda’s way of life. One of the things she loved about Athens was the melting pot of different peoples, religions, costumes and languages in the bustling streets and markets.

It was a glorious hot summer, with languorous nights spent sitting under the stars watching the swifts wheeling over the rooftops. The news from England, according to Margery, was dire. France had fallen and the army had been evacuated from Dunkirk. The post was not so reliable now that war had come to the Mediterranean so Penny didn’t know whether Zan was safe.

The expats had to register their presence with the embassy, then were given papers and instructions on evacuation procedures, but Penny, turning up in her uniform, found no one bothered much with her presence. Effy’s news, when it came, was worrying too.

But Penny knew she
had
joined up in the fight for justice and compassion by taking on further training. There were now troops of every nation stationed around the city, the port was heaving with ships and Greek troops were on manoeuvres outside the city, gathered up as if waiting for something to happen. It could be only a matter of time before she was needed here.

I felt myself shivering, and woke to find myself sitting in my chair, stiff, staring at the cluster of silver-framed photographs. How long had I been dreaming?

For a second I panicked.
Where am I? Have I packed? Have I missed the plane? Is this all still a dream?

Trojan was restless at my feet, pawing me to open the French windows and let him out, so I pulled my limbs back into shape, stretched my arms out, feeling the night air cooling my cheeks, the scent of the night-scented stocks heady with allure. A fox barked from the spinney.

Now I was leaving I didn’t want to move from the comfort of my own fireside. Here I was safe, known and relaxed. What would be waiting for me out there on the island? What ghosts from the misty mountain tops would come down to haunt me?

With relief I saw my cases were packed, everything in order. I mixed a malt whisky and walked down the path to call the dog back. It was so peaceful, so very English; flowers like silver ghosts in the moonlight brushed my arms. How could I have ever thought of leaving here on some wild-goose chase? But a promise is a promise, and I couldn’t let Lois down at this late hour.

I sat under the cedar tree and sipped the whisky with a sigh. The last time I’d seen Athens it lay in ruins, a broken filthy place fit only for rats and cockroaches to live in. It would be good to see how it had risen from those ashes. Besides, what I learned there made me who I am today, taught me how to survive and showed me just how tough I could be. But more than that, it had given me one of the best friends of my life.

I made my way back slowly to the open door and resumed my place in the chair. Tomorrow I would sleep far away, but as dawn was breaking I would keep a vigil, relive those memories of olive days and remember.

Penny shivered under her cloak, trying to forget the numbness in her fingers as she fumbled to cut away the frozen sleeve of the soldier’s uniform. Infection was his enemy now. The bullets had done their worst, but the journey back from the field clearing station to the train, carrying the casualties on makeshift shelves full of stretchers, had taken so long in the snow that there would be only hours before gangrene would claim its due on his flesh.

She looked down on his ashen face, knowing his life was in her hands.

She sighed, recalling how proudly the Greek army had marched through Athens on its way north to defend the country from invasion. Was he one of the young gods paraded through the streets, girls throwing flowers at their trucks, waving and blowing kisses just as they had lauded Papa’s troops on their way to the Somme all those years ago? Now this youthful soldier lay wasted by frostbite and shock as they worked on him, a pitiable sight with blackened fingers, in a flimsy uniform not fit for the treacherous terrain of the Pindus Mountains during one of the worst winters for years.

All those Athenians who’d danced until dawn, fired bullets into the air in joy at Prime Minister Metaxas’s stand against Mussolini in October when he said ‘
óhi
’ to his demands, would weep now. Death was gathering up the best of their youth. The bells might be ringing there for a string of victories against the enemy – and one as badly equipped as themselves, thank God – but the cost in lives was high.

It was a shock see what mud and ice could do to the human body on top of the injuries. Men frozen into a stupor were brought back to life with warm soup or hot drinks when they could find enough water to melt and enough fuel to fire up the stoves. Frostbite was eased with oil of turpentine, wrapping the wound in cotton wool and gently heating the limb. Infections were soaked in Lysol solution and liquid paraffin, the doctors amputating as best they could.

Yet, enduring this, the men would smile at the nurses, call them angels of mercy, grateful for any attention. Sometimes Penny wanted to weep with frustration when the light went out of a boy’s young eyes. For weeks the medical teams struggled under makeshift light and heat, trying to keep their patients alive long enough to get back to one of the major hospitals. Many did not survive even the journey from the front to the clearing stations.

Now attached to the military wing of the Red Cross, Penny was glad of Sister McGrath’s lecture all those months ago, though nothing could prepare her for the reality: those feelings of helplessness and fury when they ran out of dressings, ether and all the essentials of medical care. It was hard, learning to walk through the lines of stretchers, marking those who would get priority treatment, a chance of life, and those who could only be made comfortable and allowed to die. She knew the lucky ones would be patched up, given leave, perhaps, and then returned to this hell of bitter winds and barren unforgiving terrain.

Yet the intensity of each day’s new challenges – cleaning the men, delousing them and preparing food – gave Penny an electric charge of satisfaction that she’d never known before in her young life. Here I am needed, saving lives, she thought. She was alive in a way she’d never experienced before, busy, exhausted, but satisfied that her existence was suddenly worthwhile.

Yolanda was out there somewhere doing the same work. It was so good to have a close friend who knew exactly what you were enduring. There was such a camaraderie within the team; doctors, nurses, aides and orderlies with no time for petty jealousies. They tried to snatch sleep when they could, lived on the most basic of meals, and tried to ward off the fleas by warming stone hot-water bottles under their covers. It was a losing battle but the chill had at least discouraged the larger insect life, which was a blessing.

Where they set up, villagers came out offering coats, socks and scarves for the soldiers at the front, thick blankets and food they could hardly spare. Everyone was making sacrifices in this war. Sometimes they were stranded by blizzards and ice on the tracks, but they kept on nursing, cleaning, feeding right through January and into February 1941.

It was good that there were fresh troops from the islands coming to relieve the poor Greek army, who battled on, overwhelming the Italians, pushing them ever backwards into Albania. But the price was high. There was a victory at Ioaninna, but then came the prisoners of war, streaming in for treatment, pathetic bundles of rags, starving, defeat etched on their faces. Some were grateful to be fed and sheltered in tents, others needed to be guarded. There was so little fresh food to go round that men began to suffer from lack of vitamins as they were shipped down to camps in the south.

There were no enemies in a Red Cross hospital, just frightened exhausted men at the end of their hope, grateful for any act of kindness. Penny learned that there were no winners in this campaign. Only losers.