Frontline Nurses Read online

  He began pulling loose stones from the wall and piling them round the child’s body. After a moment Max joined him and together they created a rough cairn, which covered her from view. Max found a couple of pieces of broken branch from a tree brought down by the bombardment and tied them together with a piece of string from his pocket to form a cross, which he wedged in the top. Then they turned away and trudged on down the road.

  It was almost dark by the time they reached the Serbian encampment. A sentry took them to the commanding officer’s tent, where they told their story. Max demanded to know who was responsible.

  ‘For the theft of your car? četniks, almost certainly. They operate almost without control in this area and your car would be a valuable prize.’

  ‘And for the child?’

  ‘Who can say? Retreating Turks, Albanian irregulars. There have been atrocities on all sides.’

  ‘Not Serbs.’

  ‘No, not Serbs.’ He spoke firmly but Tom wondered how he could be so sure.

  They were given food and invited to sit round the campfire with the colonel and some of his officers. Tom could not eat, though he craved drink like a man in the desert. He had not stopped shivering since they found the child but his face burned and his head was swimming.

  ‘Tom,’ Max said, ‘I admire what you did today. I couldn’t have done it myself. How come you were able to?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Tom said through chattering teeth, ‘it comes from having what you called “a privileged upbringing”.’

  He put down his mug, felt himself sway and lost consciousness.

  Chapter 9

  Luke Pavel swore as the ox-cart in which he was riding lurched into a pothole and the wounded man behind him moaned in pain. It was two and a half days since the train of carts carrying the wounded had left Chataldzha and they would be lucky to reach Lozengrad before dark the day after tomorrow. By that time, the man would probably be dead, along with several others. Now they were stuck again. Luke had lost count of how many times he had made the journey now, but each time the road seemed to be worse and the weather colder. He swung himself down and joined the driver, who was tugging at the heads of the oxen and yelling encouragement to them as they strained to drag the cart out of the mire. Eventually the cart jolted free and they plodded onwards. Luke climbed aboard again and looked back along the line – twelve carts, each with its cargo of wounded. There should, he thought for the hundredth time, be a better and faster way of moving them.

  The driver gave a shout and pointed ahead with his ox-goad. They were approaching a junction with the road from Adrianople and far away in that direction Luke could dimly make out a cluster of moving figures. The air was heavy with moisture and the distances were shrouded in mist, making it difficult to see how many there were. He reached under his seat for his rifle.

  ‘Četniks?’

  The driver shrugged. ‘Maybe. Probably not.’

  Three mounted figures detached themselves from the group and cantered towards them and as they drew closer Luke was relieved to see that they were in Bulgarian uniform. The ox driver called to his team and they stood still.

  The leading rider called out, ‘Are you bound for Lozengrad?’

  ‘Yes,’ Luke shouted in reply, but his eyes were not on the rider. Behind him, out of the mist, appeared a motor car, so caked in mud that it was impossible to make out its type or colour, but a rare enough sight to suggest that it carried someone extremely important.

  The rider drew rein beside them. ‘My name is Lieutenant Radic. And you are?’

  ‘Lucas Pavlovitch.’ Luke used the name his father had born with, before his grandfather anglicised it. ‘I’m a medical orderly, in charge of this convoy of wounded.’

  ‘And I am charged with escorting two important guests to Lozengrad but I am anxious to get back to my unit at Adrianople. If you are going there perhaps I can leave them with you?’

  The car had stopped a few yards away, and Luke’s reply died in his throat as the occupants descended. A general or a visiting dignitary would have been surprising enough, but two women …! Two young women, moreover. He heard the driver beside him grunt as if he had received a blow in the stomach.

  The lieutenant was saying, ‘These are two ladies who have volunteered to nurse our wounded. They are going to join some others, who we believe are in Lozengrad. Do you know anything about them?’

  Luke forced himself to concentrate. ‘Yes, there is a new hospital run by women.’

  The lieutenant looked relieved. ‘Then that must be it.’ He turned to the women, who had arrived at his side, and said something in a language Luke did not understand. They both nodded and one of them, the dark-haired one, smiled up at him and said something else, in the same language. Nonplussed, he jumped down from the cart and replied in Bulgarian.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’ Then, seeing the look of incomprehension on her face, he reverted to his native tongue. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I speak Bulgarian and English, but nothing else.’

  Her companion, a tall, chestnut-haired girl who had her arm in a sling, had come to stand beside her and he saw a look of amazement on both their faces.

  ‘You’re English!’ the second girl exclaimed incredulously. ‘So are we!’

  ‘No, I’m a New Zealander,’ he corrected. ‘But what the heck are two English girls doing in this godforsaken neck of the woods?’

  They both started to laugh and the dark one said, ‘Oh, it’s a long story. Anyway, we could ask the same thing. What’s a New Zealander doing here?’

  The lieutenant broke in and said something in what Luke assumed was German and a short conversation ensued between him and the two women. Then he turned to Luke and said in his own language, ‘You seem to be a compatriot of these ladies. Can I safely leave them in your care?’

  Luke nodded. He spoke Bulgarian fluently but he did not feel equal to explaining the difference between a New Zealander and an Englishman. ‘Is that OK with you?’ he asked the women and it seemed they were both happy to agree. After a few more words of farewell and thanks Radic remounted and saluted, then turned away and trotted back towards Adrianople, with his two troopers following and the men who had been riding on the running boards of the car jogging behind him.

  The dark-haired girl turned to Luke and offered her hand. ‘We haven’t been introduced. I’m Victoria Langford and this is Leonora Malham Brown.’

  ‘Luke Pavel,’ he answered, shaking hands with both of them. Suddenly he felt tongue-tied. His experience of women, other than his mother and his sisters, was limited and certainly did not encompass the social niceties he assumed would be expected by English ladies. He rubbed a hand through the two-week growth of beard on his chin, uncomfortably aware that he had not bathed for the same length of time. That did not, however, seem to worry them. They both began speaking at once.

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve actually met another Englishman – well, someone who speaks English. How on earth did you get here?’

  ‘Have you been to Lozengrad? Is it true that there are English nurses there?’

  They were interrupted by the ox driver, who waved his goad in the direction of the man in the cart and the line of similar carts behind them and demanded to know if they were going to stand around talking until the patients were all dead.

  ‘What did he say?’ Victoria asked.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ Luke said. ‘We have to move on. These carts are full of wounded. There’s a man here who probably won’t make it as far as Lozengrad, but we have to try.’

  ‘How long will it take you to get there?’ the one called Leonora asked.

  ‘Two days, if we’re lucky. Could be more.’

  ‘That’s terrible! How long ago did you leave?’

  ‘Day before yesterday. It’s a five- or six-day trek in these things.’ He indicated the ox-carts.

  ‘Good Lord! That’s ridiculous.’ Leonora looked at her companion. ‘Vita, can’t we take him in the car?’

  ‘Of
course we can,’ the dark-haired girl responded. ‘What is the road like from here?’

  ‘Much the same,’ Luke said. ‘You might make better time in the car, but you’d need someone to push you out of the mud when you get stuck.’

  The girls looked at each other. ‘There isn’t enough room for a wounded man and both of us, and someone to push,’ Leonora said. ‘And I’m not much good to you in that department at the moment.’ She indicated the sling on her arm.

  ‘What happened?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Nothing serious. Sparky back-fired when I was cranking him – Sparky’s Victoria’s car. It’s just a sprain, but for the time being this arm is pretty useless. Look, why don’t you go with Vita and the wounded man in the car and I’ll come along with the rest.’

  ‘I can’t leave you here on your own,’ Victoria protested.

  ‘Yes, you can. I’ll be perfectly safe, won’t I, Luke?’

  Luke hesitated. The driver shouted again. ‘This man’s in a bad way. Let’s get on.’

  Luke made up his mind. ‘Yes, you’ll be safe enough. I’d trust these men with my life. If you’re sure you can cope …’

  ‘Of course I can. Now, let’s get my things out of the car and put your wounded man in.’

  In a matter of minutes Leonora had hauled her bag out of the back seat and Luke and the driver had lifted the wounded man down from the wagon. He had lost one foot and his leg was swathed in filthy bandages.

  Victoria put her hand to her nose. ‘What is that smell?’

  Luke looked at her. ‘It’s easy to see you haven’t had much experience of battlefield casualties. That’s gangrene. And if we don’t get this guy to a hospital where they can amputate his leg pretty soon it’ll kill him.’

  They propped the man up in the back seat of the car and covered him with a blanket.

  ‘Wait!’ Leonora said. ‘We have morphine lozenges in our First Aid kits. Hold on a minute.’

  She hunted in her bag and produced a packet wrapped in oilskin. Taking a lozenge from it she leaned into the car and held it to the wounded man’s lips. ‘What is his name?

  ‘Milan.’

  ‘Suck this, Milan.’ She made sucking sounds with her tongue. ‘Good! Dobro! Dobro!’ The man opened his mouth and she popped the lozenge in. Then she straightened up and turned to Victoria ‘Off you go. Good luck.’

  Victoria put her arms round Leo. ‘I hate leaving you here alone.’

  ‘I’m not alone. I’ll be fine. I’ll see you in a couple of days. Now, get going.’

  They watched Leonora climb up onto the leading wagon, then Luke got into the car and Victoria cranked the engine. The motor coughed into life and they were away, skidding and bouncing over the uneven surface.

  For a while they drove in silence, while Luke cursed his inability to make small talk. Victoria apparently had no such inhibitions.

  ‘Well, come on,’ Victoria said. ‘I’m dying to know what a New Zealander is doing with the Bulgarian army.’

  ‘No more than I am, to know what two English ladies are doing this close to the front line,’ he responded.

  ‘You first,’ she commanded.

  ‘OK. It’s pretty simple, really. I’m a Kiwi, born and bred, but my grandparents were from Thrace. My granddad had a small holding in a village called Polia, near Komotini – that’s not very far from here. He had vines and olives, and grew melons and vegetables, and he and Grandma had a pretty good life, until the local Turkish landlord took a fancy to Granddad’s land. He trumped up a charge, saying that Granddad owed him money and accusing him of encouraging the locals to rebel against the Turkish governor. The land was confiscated and my grandparents were forced to take the first ship they could get out of Alexandroupolis. They really wanted to get to America but they called in at Wellington on the way and decided to stay. I grew up hearing Grandma’s stories of life here and the injustice they suffered at the hands of the Turks, so when I heard the Bulgars were aiming to drive the Turks out I felt I ought to come and give them a hand.’

  ‘What did your parents think about that?’

  ‘My dad really needs me to help out on the farm. But he’s grown up listening to Grandma, too, so I think he felt it was, kind of, a family obligation. My mum wasn’t too keen, though.’

  ‘I bet! Is she from this part of the world, too?’

  ‘No, she isn’t. But she comes from an immigrant family, like us, only her forbears were Scottish. Guess that makes me a bit of a mongrel.’

  ‘Best kind of breed,’ Victoria said. ‘Healthier and more intelligent than purebred dogs. So, you came to help out. What as? You’re not in uniform.’

  ‘No.’ He shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘It’s not for want of trying. I volunteered but I was told that only Bulgarian nationals are accepted into the armed forces. Apparently being two generations removed doesn’t count. So I offered myself as a stretcher bearer. I’ve been taking convoys from Chataldzha to Lozengrad ever since.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ she said. ‘It’s what we’ve come here to do, as well.’

  He listened in amazement as she explained about her training with the FANYs, though he had to suppress a snigger when she pronounced the name. Surprise turned to admiration as she described the journey she and Leonora had made.

  ‘Anyway,’ she finished, ‘it looks as if we are finally going to catch up with Mrs Stobart and her group, so we can start doing what we trained for – except that I expected to be nearer the fighting. Why isn’t there a hospital closer to the front?’

  He shrugged. ‘Search me. I guess you’d have to ask the High Command that question.’

  They drove for a while in silence. The morphia lozenge had done its work and the man in the back seat was sleeping. Victoria was concentrating on the road and he admired the skill with which she negotiated the ruts and potholes. After a bit she said, ‘So your family is settled in New Zealand?’

  ‘Oh yes. The country has been good to us. Granddad started out working on someone else’s farm but he saved until he could buy a few acres of his own in the Wairarapa valley. That’s just a bit north-east of Wellington. It was virgin bush when he bought it, but he saw that it was good agricultural land. He worked hard to clear it and planted fruit and vegetables to sell in the local town. Every year he bought a bit more land and cleared it and when my dad took over he expanded it still further. So now we have five hundred acres, dairy cattle, and we’re starting to plant vines. My dad reckons one day New Zealand will produce wines as good as anything they make in France. We have horses, too. That’s my particular interest.’

  ‘Riding or breeding?’

  ‘Both. There’s a race track not far away at Tauherenikau and I’ve had one or two good wins there, but I’d like to extend my range. You know, get into the big time. I dream of breeding a horse that’ll win your Epsom Derby.’

  She laughed. He liked the way she tossed her head back when something amused her. ‘You’ll get on well with Leo. She’s a brilliant horsewoman. Personally I prefer cars.’ After a moment she glanced sideways at him and said, ‘You don’t look Bulgarian.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, most Bulgarians are dark, aren’t they?’

  ‘But I’m not an ethnic Bulgarian. I’m Thracian. We’ve lived alongside the Bulgars and the Pomaks and all the others in this melting pot but according to my granddad the original Thracians came from somewhere further north and east, the Carpathians probably, and a lot of them were fair or had red hair and grey eyes.’

  ‘Like you.’

  ‘Yes, a lot like me, I imagine.’

  She grinned. ‘I bet you were called “carrots” or “ginger” at school.’

  He laughed in return. There was something straightforward in her manner, without any trace of flirtatiousness, which made him feel at ease. ‘Yes, sometimes. But nobody ever did it twice.’

  She flashed him a merry sideways look. ‘I’ll remember that.’

  The road here was a little better than the one from
Adrianople, but even so Luke had to get out several times to extricate the car from the mud. In spite of this, they reached Lozengrad as it was getting dark and Luke directed her to the Bulgarian Red Cross hospital on the outskirts. By this time the wounded man on the back seat was awake and moaning with pain but at the hospital they were greeted with the news that every bed was occupied and the surgeons could take no more cases that day.

  ‘OK, we’ll try the hospital run by the English ladies,’ Luke said. ‘They have doctors, and surgeons – women surgeons but they seem to know what they are doing. We’ll take him there.’

  The car bounced and skidded through the narrow streets, over cobbles covered in mud, until they turned at last into a wider road where the houses were larger and set farther apart. Luke instructed Victoria to draw up outside one of them, which had clearly been a Turkish residence judging from the harem grills over the windows and the crescent above the door. As they came to a standstill two women in linen dresses with white aprons and caps came down the steps carrying a stretcher. Victoria jumped down and spread her arms ecstatically.

  ‘Are you Stobart’s lot?’

  The two came to an abrupt halt and stared at her. Then one said, ‘We are members of the Women’s Sick and Wounded Convoy and Mrs Stobart is our commanding officer. Who are you?’

  Victoria thrust out a hand. ‘Ensign Langford, FANY, come to volunteer. Thank God we’ve found you at last!’

  *

  Leo watched the car disappear into the mist with a tremor at the pit of her stomach. She had assured Victoria that she would be perfectly safe and Luke had endorsed that, but now she was painfully aware that she had entrusted herself to a group of unknown men with whom she could hardly communicate. The driver of the ox-cart called to his beasts and they began to plod forwards, and Leo took the opportunity to glance sideways at him. He was a large man, unshaven and wrapped to the nose in a coat of some partly-cured animal skin, which gave off a powerful aroma, with a greasy fur cap pulled down to his eyebrows. She twisted in her seat to look back at the rest of the convoy. All the drivers were similarly dressed and it was impossible to make out any individual faces. She wondered about the wounded men who lay in the carts out of sight and for a moment forgot her own fears in pity for them. As she turned back she was aware that the driver was surreptitiously examining her, as she had been looking at him. Their eyes met and the humour of the situation overcame Leo’s nervousness. She grinned and pointed to herself.