Frontline Nurses Read online

  Chapter 14

  Tom was examining the cracks in the whitewashed ceiling above his head. They seemed to make a familiar pattern but he could not think where he had seen it before. A noise attracted his attention and with a great effort he turned his head to look for the source of it. A long row of beds stretched away from him and for a moment he thought he was back in the dorm at school. Then the noise came again and he saw that it came from a trolley, which was being pushed up the aisle between the beds by two nurses. It stopped at the end of his bed and one of the nurses ladled something into a bowl and brought it to him. She was a middle-aged woman, with a round, pale face and small, dark eyes that looked like two buttons pushed into a lump of dough.

  Tom summoned all his strength and whispered, ‘Where am I?’

  The dough face became animated and she said something in a language he did not understand. She leaned over him and he smelt sweat and garlic but he let her heave him into a sitting position and prop him up with pillows. As she did so she spoke to the other nurse, who wheeled the trolley on up the ward, while Doughface sat on the edge of the bed and began to spoon-feed him from the bowl. It was some kind of soup and the taste seemed familiar. While he ate she kept up a running commentary, as if talking to a baby, cooing encouragement and tutting if he turned his head away. When he could eat no more she laid his pillows flat again and went away and he drifted back to sleep.

  The next time he opened his eyes a man was standing by the bed. He wore a shabby white coat and had a stethoscope round his neck.

  ‘Good afternoon, Meester Devenish,’ he said. ‘I am Dr Charalambous and I speak a leetle bit English. How you feel?’

  ‘Not very good,’ Tom whispered. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You are in hospital in Salonika.’

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  ‘Two, maybe three weeks. You been very ill – double pneumonia. When your friend bring you, we thought you going to die. But now, see! Much better! Soon you will be well again.’

  ‘My friend?’

  ‘The American. He is, how you say? Journalist?’

  ‘Max!’ Tom groped in the fog of his memory. ‘Max brought me here? Is he here?’

  ‘No, he go – long time ago. But he left you letter. Here.’ The doctor took an envelope from the pocket of his white coat and handed it to Tom. ‘You read later. Now I listen to your chest.’

  When the doctor had finished his examination and pronounced himself satisfied Tom opened the envelope.

  Hey buddy!

  They tell me you are making good progress, which is a relief because for a while there we thought we were going to lose you. I hung on as long as I could but my editor back home is getting pretty cheesed off and wants me back in Belgrade, so I’m going to have to leave you. I’ve been in touch with the British military attaché, so he knows you are here and will take care of everything.

  I’m really sorry not to be here for you, but I guess you will understand. If you get back to Belgrade, make sure to look me up. I’ll be at the same hotel.

  One more thing. I made some enquiries about the possible whereabouts of your lady-friend. Some Serbian officers at the Makedonia Palace Hotel remembered two young English women coming through back in November. They weren’t sure where they went after that. Some thought they had taken a boat back to Italy but others seemed pretty sure that they had headed towards Adrianople. Of course, by the time you are well enough to read this, your Leonora may be back home and all your worries will be at an end, but I pass it on just in case it comes in useful.

  Take care of yourself, old pal. And make sure you keep in touch.

  Yours,

  Max

  Tom sank back against his pillows and closed his eyes. Slowly the recollection of his mission and the journey he had made with Max took shape, and with that came the realisation that some of the images that had haunted his brain during his illness were not nightmares but reality.

  By the following day he was feeling stronger but when he attempted to get out of bed his legs buckled under him and his head swam. Doughface pushed him back onto the bed, tutting loudly, and proceeded to perform various humiliating but necessary procedures on his person. Shortly afterwards he woke from a doze to find another man standing by the bed, this time in the uniform of a captain in the Dragoon Guards.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, old man. Reggie Vincent, at your service. I’m the British military attaché, for my sins. We’ve been waiting for you to become compos mentis. It’s good to see you looking better.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Tom murmured.

  ‘I gather you got yourself mixed up in a spot of bother outside Bitola.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember much about it.’

  ‘Well, according to the American chappie who brought you here, you were held up by the cetniks and had your car stolen and had to walk until you reached the Serbian camp. He brought you through the enemy lines on the back of a donkey. Had the devil of a time, by all accounts.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Tom said. ‘I probably owe him my life.’

  ‘Definitely, I should say.’ Vincent sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘What I don’t understand is, what you were doing there in the first place.’

  Tom considered explaining about his quest but remembered Ralph’s caution about publicity. He said, ‘I’m an artist. I wanted to make some sketches of conditions out here, you know, the reality of war sort of thing – for the newspapers.’ He had a sudden thought. ‘My sketch pad! Where is it?’

  Vincent opened the locker by the bed and rummaged for a moment. ‘This it?’

  ‘Oh, yes! Thank you. I wouldn’t want to lose that.’

  ‘Mind if I look?’

  ‘If you like,’ Tom said unwillingly. The pad was still in his visitor’s hand and he could hardly snatch it away.

  Vincent turned the pages and whistled softly. ‘These are bloody good, if you don’t mind me saying so. But some of them are … Was it really that bad out there?’

  ‘It was terrible. That isn’t the half of it.’

  ‘Well, I take my hat off to you. I’ve heard of suffering for your art, but this goes beyond the call of duty.’ He handed the pad to Tom and went on, ‘Anyway, that isn’t what I came for. What I need to tell you is that we found an address among your papers, so I’ve telegraphed your people back in England and let them know where you are. And I’ve got a couple of letters for you in reply.’ He took two envelopes out of his pocket and laid them on the locker. ‘Now, is there anything you need?’

  Tom struggled to focus his mind. ‘Something to read, perhaps? A newspaper? How long am I going to be in here?’

  ‘A while yet, I’m afraid. I had a word with the medic and he says you won’t be strong enough to be discharged for at least a week and then you will need several weeks’ recuperation before you are fit to travel back to England. I can try to book you into a room at the Makadonia Palace when you are ready to be discharged, if you like. But quite frankly Salonika is not a good place for a convalescent at the moment. Food is very short for one thing. If I were you, I’d take the boat down to Athens as soon as you feel up to it, and recuperate there.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll … think about it,’ Tom agreed.

  ‘Right.’ Vincent rose. ‘I must be off. I’ll pop in and see you tomorrow. Sure there’s nothing else I can do?’

  ‘No, really. Thanks very much for calling in – and for getting in touch with my family.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. All in a day’s work. See you tomorrow.’

  As soon as Vincent had gone Tom reached for the letters on his locker. He had already seen that one of them was addressed in Ralph’s handwriting. The other was from his mother. He opened Ralph’s first.

  My dear Tom,

  I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am to hear that you are ill. But at least we know now where you are. For the last few weeks I have been frantic with worry, so the note from your father giving me the news was welcome – to that extent at leas
t. But I can’t forgive myself for sending you off on what has turned out to be a wild goose chase, and putting you in such danger. I never dreamed you would end up in the thick of it on the battlefield. How on earth did that happen?

  And it turns out that it was all for nothing. We received a letter from Leo the other day. It seems she has joined up with a group calling themselves ‘The Women’s Sick and Wounded Convoy’. These people have somehow got themselves to Lozengrad, which is in the far eastern part of Bulgaria and was a Turkish town until the Bulgars took it from them, and they have set up a hospital there. I would never have imagined Leo as a nurse! I thought this FANY business was just an excuse to kick over the traces, but she must have been more serious than I realised. Anyway, she says she is safe and well and I suppose we must take her word for it, though I still think it’s a most foolhardy affair. Lozengrad is well away from the front line, so she should not be in any danger from the actual fighting and presumably since she’s with other Englishwomen she should be protected from … what shall I say? … local dangers.

  As far as I can make out, the fighting has reached a stalemate and there are rumours of an armistice. Presumably, if that happens, these women will pack up and come home, and Leo will come with them. So there is no need for you to worry yourself, my dear old chap. Just take it easy and get well again and by the time you get home Leo should be here as well. Trust me, when I see her I shall give her a good talking to and make her see what trouble she has caused and what a debt of gratitude she owes to you.

  Please write as soon as you are well enough and tell me you forgive me for all I have made you go through!

  Your affectionate friend,

  Ralph

  Tom lay back and closed his eyes. So it had all been for nothing! He thought of Leo and supposed he should be angry with her, but he found that in fact he was more annoyed with Ralph for insisting that he should go in search of her. He wondered how she had managed to get to Lozengrad and whether she had encountered any of the horrors that he had seen. It struck him that in future they would have a special bond because they had witnessed at first-hand things Ralph had only read about in the papers. Then it crossed his mind that if it had not been for her mad escapade he would have stayed at home, making pointless drawings of barges on the Thames or bland rural scenes. He should be grateful to her for dragging him out of that stagnant existence. He had seen things that would give him nightmares for the rest of his life, and he had been close to death if the doctor was to be believed, but he had lived more intensely in these last weeks than in the whole of his previous existence – and at last he had made some pictures that meant something.

  His mind began to drift pleasantly. If there was no further need to look for Leo, he was free to do as he liked. He would go to Athens, as Vincent suggested, and draw some of the wonderful buildings and statues from life, instead of copying them from books. What a fool he had been not to travel before! When he was well enough, he would head for home by any route that took his fancy. He might go to Delphi, or to Mycenae where Leo’s father had excavated. Then, when he had seen enough of Greece, he would take a boat to Italy and visit Venice and Florence and Rome; and after that he would make his way back through France and see some of the scenes that had inspired painters like Cezanne and Van Gogh. He saw himself wandering in sunlit pastures, among vines and cypress trees.

  His pleasant reverie was disturbed, at that point, by the recollection that Leo was supposed to be going home, to face her brother’s lectures – and her grandma’s wrath, no doubt. Should he try to get back as soon as possible, to shield her from the worst of it? Would she be ready now to accept his proposal of marriage? He contemplated the prospect with no great enthusiasm. But if he did not marry her, what were her prospects? She had no other beaux, to his knowledge, and there was no doubt that her reputation would have been injured by her escapade. Would she find someone else? And what would Ralph think of him if he let her down? Perhaps his duty lay in that direction.

  The problem was too intractable and he soon shelved it by falling asleep.

  Over the next week Tom made slow progress, gaining a little more strength each day. Vincent called in from time to time and took away the letters that Tom had made the effort to write, to Ralph and to his mother and father. One morning he arrived bearing a bottle of wine and a jar of cherry jam.

  ‘Thought I should bring you a little something, seeing as it’s Christmas.’

  ‘Christmas!’ Tom sat up in bed. ‘It can’t be!’

  ‘I promise you it is. Of course, this lot—’ indicating the other inmates of the hospital ‘—don’t celebrate it for another couple of weeks, but today is the twenty-fifth. So, Happy Christmas!’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Tom rubbed a hand over his eyes. ‘I had no idea I’d been here that long.’

  ‘You’ve been pretty ill. It’s not surprising you’ve lost count of time. Anyway, I brought you these. I’m sorry I couldn’t manage a roast fowl or something, but food really is very hard to come by. Most of the shops are still shut and the villages in the interior, that used to supply the city with meat and milk and vegetables, have been devastated and the peasants have fled to the mountains. So this is the best I can do, I’m afraid. But at least the jam will help that ghastly brown bread to go down.’

  ‘It certainly will,’ Tom agreed. ‘I’m longing for something sweet. Open that bottle, why don’t you, and we’ll have a Christmas drink.’

  So they had a glass of wine each and wished each other Happy Christmas and drank to absent friends.

  Four days later, on the day that Tom was due to leave hospital, Vincent arrived with the look of one who bears good news.

  ‘The armistice has been signed and there is going to be a big conference in London – not just the combatants but all the interested Great Powers; Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and ourselves. I’m glad I’m not one of them. They are going to have to redraw the map of Eastern Europe.’

  ‘The Ottomans are finished, then?’ Tom queried.

  ‘Undoubtedly. The Turkish Empire is a thing of the past. They will be lucky to retain even a foothold in Europe.’

  ‘And do you think the armistice will hold? Will there be peace now?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it, personally. For a start, they will have to get the Bulgarians and the Serbs to agree about the division of Macedonia. The Bulgars feel, with some reason, that ethnically it’s part of Bulgaria. But the Serbs regard it as the spoils of war and a step towards a Greater Serbia. Already they are pursuing a policy of enforced Serbianisation – sacking Bulgarian officials, closing Bulgarian schools. It will take all Sir Edward Grey’s diplomatic skills to keep those two from each other’s throats. But still, at least the fighting is over for the present, so we can all go home.’

  Tom nodded slowly and gathered up his few personal possessions. Leo would be going home and as for him … he would go to Athens and when he felt strong enough he would consider his next move.

  Chapter 15

  It was a week before the last casualties could be moved from Chataldzha to Lozengrad. When they had been dispatched, Leo said goodbye to the men she had worked with and was gratified by the warmth of their good wishes. Dragonoff, particularly, seemed really sorry to see her go and thanked her warmly for all her hard work. She took a last look round, threw her bag into the boot of Victoria’s car and climbed into the back seat. For the last time they set off on the long road back.

  When they arrived at the hospital Mabel Stobart looked Leo up and down and said dryly, ‘Very practical, no doubt, but I think you had better go and change into your dress before we have dinner.’

  Leo slipped back into the routine of the hospital, but her fellow nurses commented on her lacklustre manner. ‘You’ve been overdoing it, all on your own down there at the front line,’ she was told and she often saw Victoria watching her with a worried frown. She could not tell her that her lack of sparkle was not due to overwork or too little food. It was the memory of on
e terrifying and exhilarating night and the fact that the man she had shared it with had gone away without a backwards glance.

  It was another two weeks before the last patients were ready either to be discharged or transferred to the Red Cross hospital, which now had room for them. There was a sentimental leave-taking as the last ox-carts set off with the men who were still not able to walk. The British and Bulgarian national anthems were sung, hands were kissed and handkerchiefs waved and then it was time to prepare for their own departure. Some of the railway lines had been reconnected, so the plan was for the women of the convoy to travel by a roundabout route to Sophia, so that they did not have to make the gruelling seven-day trek by ox-cart through the mountains, which they had had to endure on the way out. From there, they would take the Orient Express back to Paris. It was suggested that Leo and Victoria should accompany them, but Victoria pointed out that they could not take Sparky on the Orient Express. She was very keen that they should drive back the way they had come, to Salonika, and Leo was not surprised when Luke said that he needed to get to Salonika too, to pick up a ship that would take him on his way to New Zealand. Mrs Stobart was not happy about the idea and tried hard to change their minds but Victoria was adamant. She refused to leave her beloved car behind.

  As they packed Victoria remarked, ‘You had better find your skirt, Leo. You can’t go back to Salonika dressed like that.’

  Leo sighed. She had accepted the necessity of changing into a dress while on duty in the wards but she had grown used to the freedom of her breeches and boots and was reluctant to encumber herself with a heavy skirt again. ‘I suppose I must.’

  When she unearthed the skirt from where it lay rolled up at the bottom of her bag, however, it gave off a strong smell of mould. It was still damp and caked with mud, with patches of fungus growing on it, and in spite of all her attempts to brush and sponge it, it became clear that, as a respectable garment, it was beyond redemption. So Leo took it out into the street and gave it to an old beggar woman whom she had seen shivering at the corner. The old lady seized upon it with glee and, instead of putting it round her waist, hung it from her shoulders like a cloak. Leo returned smiling at the thought that at least it would keep someone warm until the spring came, but Victoria was aghast.