Secrets of the Frontline Nurses Page 3

  ‘No. The medics did a pretty good job on it, but it took a while.’ He thought back to the endless days on the hospital ship, where men around him died every night and their places were taken by new casualties. He was glad that his parents had not seen the pathetic skeleton to which dysentery and exposure had reduced him. The period of recuperation in Egypt and the long voyage home had allowed time to repair most of the damage. He had put on weight and the blistering sunburn had subsided to a healthy tan, and he only limped now when he was tired; but the memories of the horror which was Gallipoli were still fresh. He said, ‘I was in a bad way for a while. I probably owe my life to the way Sophie nursed me – in fact, I know I do.’

  ‘You’ve no idea of making it a real marriage?’ his father said. ‘You wouldn’t be the first man to fall in love with the woman who saved his life.’

  Something turned over in the region of Luke’s stomach and he took a quick swallow of the schnapps. ‘Sophie’s a widow, dad. It’s only a few months since her husband was shot by the Turks. The question doesn’t arise.’

  ‘If you say so,’ his father said. After a pause he added, ‘I guess it was tough out there.’

  Luke hesitated. Should he try to describe the heat, the flies, the insanitary conditions, the suicidal attacks, the incessant sniping? He shrugged. ‘Yep, it was tough.’

  ‘Good to have you home, son,’ his father said.

  ‘It’s good to be here,’ Luke responded. He finished his drink and stubbed out his cigar. ‘I’m pretty tired, Dad. If you don’t mind I think I’ll hit the hay.’

  ‘Of course. You get some rest. See you in the morning.’

  Sophie had been given the spare room, which happened to be just opposite Luke’s, and as he reached his door he saw that hers was slightly open. As he hesitated outside he heard her say softly, ‘Luke?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He tapped on the door and went in. Anton was asleep in the cot Luke’s mother had dragged out of the attic in readiness and Sophie was standing by the open window. The room was lit only by an oil lamp, turned down as low as it would go, and the pale gleam of a waxing moon. The scent of orange blossom from the orchard his grandfather had planted to remind him of home came and went on the breeze. She was wearing a white cotton nightgown, with a shawl round her shoulders, and her dark hair was loose.

  He went to stand beside her. ‘Can’t you sleep?’

  ‘I was waiting for you. I wanted to ask you something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You haven’t told your parents that we are married. Why not?’

  He drew a breath and lifted his shoulders slightly. ‘It’s difficult. I didn’t want to give them too much of a shock. I’ll explain it all tomorrow. Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve just told my father. He sort of guessed.’

  ‘Was he shocked?’

  ‘No, not really. He understood the reason.’

  She looked away from him, at the dark shapes of the hills that surrounded the valley. ‘I must start looking for a job. It should not be too difficult, I think.’

  A chill ran down Luke’s spine. ‘There’s no hurry. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I cannot do that. Your parents are very kind, but I cannot depend on your family’s charity. I must find a way to support myself and my son, and when I am settled you can divorce me, or have the marriage annulled. It should not be a problem, since we have not … I don’t know the word.’

  ‘Not consummated the marriage,’ Luke finished for her. The chill now seemed to have taken possession of the rest of his body. ‘But there is no need to rush things. Take some time to settle in, get used to the place.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I am here … I don’t know how to say it …’ She reverted to Serbian and he translated.

  ‘Under false pretences. No, you’re not, not at all.’

  ‘Yes, I am. As a guest who is not really just a guest, and as a wife who is not really a wife.’

  Her face was a pale blur surrounded by the dark cloud of her hair and he could not read her expression, but he was suddenly acutely aware of her naked body under the nightgown. In that instant, the confused emotions that had been worrying him for weeks crystallised.

  ‘Sophie, I know it’s too soon to ask this. You are still mourning for Iannis. But … one day, perhaps one day soon, would you consider being my wife – in reality?’

  Her face lifted towards him. ‘This is what you want? What you really want?’

  ‘Yes, it is. But not unless you want it too. You mustn’t say yes out of gratitude, or a feeling of being in my debt.’

  She reached out and touched his hand and he felt that she was trembling. ‘I think …’ her voice was a husky whisper, ‘I think I would like that very much.’

  ‘You mean …?’

  He did not finish the sentence because she leaned into him and he gathered her into his arms and kissed her. Her lips were soft and responsive and he felt her body straining against his own. After a few minutes he lifted her up and carried her silently across the passage to his own bed.

  Luke woke to a sense of completeness, as if he had come to the end of an episode in his life. Now, at last, he could put the horrors of Gallipoli behind him and begin anew. He looked at Sophie, asleep beside him with her dark hair spread over the pillow. They had made love almost silently, partly because they were both aware of the rest of the family still awake and moving around the house, but also because their passion had an almost dreamlike intensity, suffused with a great tenderness. It was completely different from his memory of his abortive encounter with Victoria, back in Lozengrad, and this added to his sense of embarking on something new. In a matter of a few hours his life had turned a corner and suddenly he found himself with a wife … and a son. He was not sure whether he would ever be able to think of Anton as really his, but he resolved at that instant that if he had any reservations the little boy should never be aware of them.

  There was one shadow over his contentment. His leg was healing, and he was still in the army. Sooner or later he would have to appear before a medical board and, if he was deemed fit, he would be returned to the front. He told himself that perhaps the war would be over before that time came, but he could not place much confidence in the possibility.

  From across the hall Anton began to cry and call for his mother and Sophie rolled out of bed almost before she was awake. Before Luke could speak she had struggled into her nightgown and was at the door and face to face with his mother, who had also heard the child’s cries. For a second the two women stared at each other and then, with a muttered apology, Sophie dodged past and went into her own room. Luke had pulled on his pyjama trousers by this time and hurried over to his mother.

  Mrs Pavel looked past him at the rumpled bed and then round at the open door of Sophie’s room. ‘Ah,’ she said, and the single sound incorporated disapproval and a fatalistic acceptance of the situation, as she saw it.

  Luke put his arm round her, grinning. ‘It’s all right, Ma. We’re married.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘We got married in Cairo, because it was the only way I could bring Sophie on the ship. It was supposed to be just a marriage of convenience, but last night we decided it would be more convenient to be married properly – if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say?’ Sophie came out of the bedroom with Anton in her arms and Mrs Pavel turned to her. ‘If I’d known yesterday that you were part of the family, I’d have given you a proper family welcome. Come here, my dear, and let me do it now.’ She put her arms round Sophie and the child and kissed them both. ‘Welcome to Taupaki!’

  Chapter 4

  In the valley of the Somme the fields sloping down to the river were brilliant with poppies and cornflowers and loud with the hum of insects. For Tom, lying on his back among the long grass, the sound was almost sufficient to drown out the noise of the guns bombarding Verdun, a few miles away. Everyone knew that a bi
tter struggle was underway there, as the Germans threw the whole might of their army against the French defenders; but here, apart from the routine exchange of gunfire which occurred at a recognised hour every morning and evening, the battle front was quiet. But it was an uneasy quiet; everyone knew, too, that a ‘big push’ was being planned. It was just a question of when.

  So far there had been little fighting in this area. The British and German lines faced each other across the space of no-man’s-land and from time to time patrols went out at night to check for sapper activity, but there were no organised attacks; in fact the opposing sides had developed an almost comradely attitude. Rumour had it that the officers of one battalion had been horrified to discover, upon relieving another unit, that the German officers from the opposing sector were in the habit of popping over every evening after dinner for a game of bridge.

  But behind the lines the peaceful countryside was being torn apart by new roads and railway lines, and along those routes rattled and trundled huge numbers of guns – mortars, howitzers and field guns of varying calibre. Telephone wires were sunk into the ground and ammunition dumps set up, new trenches were dug and it was obvious to any observer that preparations were being made for the greatest battle yet.

  For Tom, the transfer to 1st Battalion, which had come as such a shock, had proved a blessing. After their last encounter he did not know how he could have faced normal daily contact with Ralph. Here, among strangers, he had time to reflect, not to recover – he recognised that he had been given a wound that would never heal – but at least to come to terms with the shattering of his dream. He had never expected to be able to declare his true feelings to Ralph, but to discover that the possibility had existed and then have it snatched away was too cruel to bear.

  Art and distance were his saviours. In the breathless pause before the new offensive there was little for him to do beyond the basic routine of inspections and drills, so he had time to explore the countryside. In the gardens of abandoned cottages, roses grew unpruned and bushes of gooseberries and blackcurrants, heavy with fruit, offered nourishment to both eye and tongue. Twice he borrowed a bicycle and rode into Amiens, where he stood in awe in the cathedral. Soon, his sketch book was full of images of beauty instead of pictures of horror and devastation.

  One evening the commanding officer of his company, Captain Barton, said casually, ‘You a fisherman, Tom?’

  ‘What sort of fishing did you have in mind?’ Tom responded cautiously.

  ‘Fly, of course. You didn’t think I meant working on a trawler, did you?’

  ‘Well, yes, I have fished, but not for a long time.’ It had been one of the few country pursuits he had enjoyed as a boy, largely because it gave him an excuse to disappear from the house and spend hours sitting by a stream with a rod nearby and a sketch book on his knee.

  ‘I was thinking, there must be trout in this river – what’s it called?’

  ‘The Ancre.’

  ‘That’s it. You’re off-duty tomorrow, aren’t you? Why don’t you take a horse and have a ride upstream and see if you can spot any likely-looking places where we might cast a fly. Then, next chance we get, we can go out and try our luck.’

  ‘I don’t have a rod with me,’ Tom pointed out.

  ‘That’s no problem. I have a spare you can borrow. What about it?’

  ‘Why not? It sounds a good idea.’

  For one idyllic day Tom was almost able to forget the war. He took a horse from the lines, one that he had ridden before and knew to be quiet and easy to handle, and jogged gently along the river bank until he came almost to the source. Then he rode slowly back, stopping frequently to sketch likely spots for catching the trout he could see in the clear water, lazily holding their places against the current. Barton was delighted with his efforts, and two days later they rode out again, accompanied by an orderly, and returned with enough gleaming brown trout to make a welcome variation to the diet in the mess.

  Very soon they had a rude reminder that they were at war. It was not unusual to wake in the morning to find that some enterprising German patrol had left a half-joking notice fixed to a post in no-man’s-land, taunting the opposing forces. One day, the words on the sign had a much stronger impact, in spite of the erratic English:

  The English Ministre of War and the general Kommandre Lord Kitchener is on the trip to Russia with all his officers trowned in the east sea by a german submarine.

  ‘Is it true, do you think?’ Tom asked his CO.

  ‘God knows! It’ll be a bad blow to morale if it is.’

  Within the next twenty-four hours they had confirmation. Kitchener, who had been the inspiring figure who had persuaded thousands of young men to join up, was dead.

  A few days later Barton came back from a conference with his senior officers.

  ‘Well, men, this is it. The Big Push starts in four days. There will be a massive three-day bombardment before that. You’ve all seen the build up of firepower. Once our artillery has finished with them there won’t be a German left alive. We should be able to walk through the gaps in the wire and into their trenches without firing a shot.’

  One of Tom’s fellow subalterns turned to him and muttered, ‘Why does that remark not fill me with confidence?’

  Tom stood of the fire step with his whistle in his mouth and his eyes on his watch. His head was pounding and he felt sick with fear and lack of sleep. The attack had been put off for two days because of bad weather, so for five days the artillery had pounded the German trenches with a relentless rain of shells. The noise had been incessant. The smaller shells whistled and howled. The big ones sounded like an express train passing overhead. The explosions blended into one continuous roar. Indeed, it was hard to see how anything could have lived through it, and there had been no answering fire from the German lines. Around him some of the men had been joking, laying bets on how far forward they would be by the end of the day; but now a tense silence had fallen. Tom had not joined in the optimistic predictions. Whether they were correct or not, he had a premonition that he would not survive the day. The thought did not distress him. At least it would put an end to the pain in his head.

  Suddenly the guns fell silent and in the breathless pause that followed, incredibly, Tom heard a lark singing. All along the line there were smaller explosions as smoke bombs were let off, and immediately the ground between the lines was covered in a dense pall. It struck Tom that if any Germans were still alive they would know at once that the attack was about to commence. All along the trench whistles blew. Tom blew his and drew his revolver.

  ‘Come on, lads!’

  He scrambled up the ladder propped against the side of the trench and stood in the open. To both sides of him men were forming up in line, in perfect skirmishing order. Their orders were to advance at a steady walking pace and in an unreal silence they plodded forward, each man weighed down by 65lbs of equipment and ammunition, skirting shell holes where possible, or splashing through them. As they came closer to the German wire there was still no answering fire and Tom began to believe that perhaps this time what they had been told was true. He searched ahead for the gaps in the wire that the barrage was supposed to have created and could see none. He was just beginning to wonder why when the machine guns in the German positions opened up. Along the line to his right men began to fall like dominoes, as if it was part of some gymnastic exercise. It took him a split second to understand why, then he threw himself to the ground just as the traversing fire reached him.

  After a few seconds he heard shouting behind him and realised that the second wave had left the trenches and were advancing. He stood up, gripped by a strange fatalistic calm, and began to move forward. On either side, other men were scrambling to their feet. He waved to them and shouted, ‘Come on, lads!’ In a shell hole to his right a man was crouched, as if doing up his boot lace. ‘Get up,’ Tom yelled. ‘Come on, up!’ He leaned down and shook his shoulder and the man keeled over onto his side, and Tom saw that bullets had ca
rved a line across his waist, almost cutting him in half. The man’s intestines were bulging out and even in death he was clasping them with both hands as if trying to shove them back. Tom straightened up and struggled forward.

  There were others with him now, no longer a straight disciplined line but a rabble of desperate men. He saw more of them fall on either side of him, and the bodies of the dead and wounded barred his way. He jumped over some, trampled on others, and found himself at a gap in the wire. Ahead was a trench. He pulled a Mills bomb from his belt and lobbed it in, then ducked until the explosion was over. Jumping into the trench he saw five Germans. Four were dead. The fifth was reaching for his rifle. Tom raised his revolver and shot him in the head.

  There was a slither of stones behind him and a man from his platoon dropped into the trench, quickly followed by two others.

  ‘What now, sir?’ one asked breathlessly.

  ‘We must hold this section of trench until the reserves come through,’ Tom said. ‘Try to find something to barricade either end. And collect all the grenades you can find.’

  They could hear German voices approaching, as reinforcements arrived. Tom took a grenade from the body of one of the Germans and lobbed it round the traverse at the end of the trench. There was a scream and the advance seemed to pause. The men with him dragged everything they could find, including the dead bodies, to each end of the section and piled them up, but it was not long before a grenade landed close to one of them, the fuse still fizzing. Without hesitation, the man picked it up and hurled it back and they heard it explode on the far side of the barricade.

  How long they held out Tom was never sure. They threw every grenade they could find, more than once returning those that were thrown at them, and each one gave them a brief respite, but it seemed that at any moment the enemy must break through and overwhelm them. Then, at last, the attacks ceased, there was a sound of English voices and a 2nd Lieutenant in the Somersets led a small party into their section of the trench.