Secrets of the Frontline Nurses Read online

  ‘Bloody good show!’ he exclaimed. ‘You can fall back now. There’s a German sap just to your left. If you follow that it’ll take you back nearly to our lines.’

  Numb and almost too weary to move, Tom led his small contingent along the sap and finally fell into his own front line trench and lost consciousness.

  He came round on a stretcher in the forward dressing station. An orderly was bending over him.

  ‘Am I wounded?’ he asked.

  ‘Nasty cut on the head, that’s all,’ the man said. ‘We thought it was worse to begin with. You was so covered in blood we didn’t hardly know where to start looking. Seems like most of it wasn’t yours.’

  As he lay waiting for the wound to be stitched, Tom tried to come to terms with what he remembered of the last hours. It was hard to focus his thoughts, but he could not escape a feeling that he had crossed some kind of threshold; that he would never be the man he was a day earlier. He remembered that he had shot a man, quite deliberately, and had felt no compunction. In the struggle for survival his most primitive, atavistic instincts had taken over and even now he felt no regret, but rather a vague sense of triumph. They had taken the trench and held it, against all opposition. He wondered how far the advance had gone beyond that point.

  When his wound had been treated he was free to return to his unit – if he could locate it. The trenches were a milling chaos of wounded men and stretcher bearers and it took Tom some time to find an officer.

  ‘God knows!’ was the answer to his question. ‘It’s a nightmare out there. You’ll be lucky to find any of them alive.’

  He discovered what was left of his company occupying a German dugout just behind the first line of trenches. Barton was there, one arm in an improvised sling, his head drooping in exhaustion. He looked up as Tom clattered down the stairs.

  ‘Tom? Thank God! We’d given you up for dead.’

  ‘What are we doing here?’ Tom asked. ‘I thought we’d be further forward than this.’

  The captain gave a brief, bitter laugh. ‘You went over the top with the first wave, didn’t you? You saw what happened.’

  For the first time Tom remembered the domino collapse of the men on either side of him. ‘I don’t understand. What went wrong?’

  ‘Look around you. How deep is this dugout? Thirty feet? Nothing short of a direct hit by a high explosive shell would affect anyone in here. The Jerries just sat out our bombardment in their cosy little bolt holes, and then, as soon as the shelling stopped, all they had to do was run up the stairs and man the machine guns.’

  ‘How many have we lost?’ Tom sank down on a packing case.

  ‘God alone knows. Hundreds, thousands. And all for a few forward trenches. Fritz will counter-attack as soon as he can bring up reserves and we’ll be lucky to hold on to what we’ve gained. What a bloody shambles!’

  Chapter 5

  At some point in the days following the first assault at Thiepval, Tom decided that alive or dead it made no difference. He was already in hell. Again and again they were ordered to attack, and again and again he led his men towards the enemy guns. Sometimes the advance ended with hand-to-hand fighting in the German trenches; sometimes it petered out in the craters of no-man’s-land. Sometimes they gained their objective; the crest of a small hill, or a copse of trees reduced to skeletons by the bombardment. Sometimes they were able to hold it; more often they were driven back by a determined counter-attack. Death became commonplace. Replacements for men lost were sent up and died before he even had time to learn their names. He trampled over bodies as if they were fallen branches. Often he had no food for days on end. He took rations from corpses, drank from dead men’s water bottles. Yet still he survived. He came to the conclusion that this was his punishment. Not for him, the peace of oblivion; he must live on as punishment for what he had become; what he had allowed the war to make him.

  One day, he heard that the 2nd Battalion had been withdrawn from Ypres and sent to reinforce the troops on the Somme. That meant that Ralph was somewhere in the vicinity, if he was still alive. But he had no chance to enquire. Social interaction had been reduced to the barest necessities. Then, at last, they received the order to retire and regroup. For the first time, all three battalions of the Coldstream were to attack in line. The objective was the village of Les Boeufs and the news that the whole regiment was to be together seemed to cheer the troops considerably.

  ‘Now we’ll show them!’ Tom heard. ‘Fritz won’t know what hit him!’

  He could not share their optimism.

  The attack began at 8.30 and once again Tom forced his limbs to carry him out of the trench and forward up the slope of the long hill ahead, shouting to his men to follow. Enfilading fire from machine guns on the crest was kicking up the dust to either side of him but he ignored it. Suddenly a new sound, audible above the chatter of the guns and the crash of exploding shells, caught his attention; a grinding, throbbing roar that came from somewhere to his left, and with it a wave of cheering. Looking round, he was stopped in his tracks by an extraordinary apparition. A huge machine, a steel leviathan that moved forward not on wheels but on some kind of moving belt, was advancing towards him, crushing beneath it every obstacle in its way. From the top of it a gun spat fire towards the enemy trenches and following behind it came a throng of cheering soldiers. The enemy gunners had seen it too and for a moment all firing ceased. The machine ground forwards, smashing through the enemy wire as if it was made of gossamer and rolling unimpeded over the first trench. Tom saw German soldiers scrambling out of its path and fleeing. The British men rushed forward in pursuit and Tom ran with them. But suddenly a spurt of black smoke issued from the rear of the machine and the engine choked into silence, leaving it tilted to one side like a beetle left helpless on its back. The advance faltered and came to a standstill and the enemy guns opened up again.

  A shell exploded at the feet of the man next to Tom, leaving a smouldering crater and showering Tom with earth and fragments of human flesh. He heard the whistle of a second shell approaching and instinctively flung himself sideways into the still-smoking hole. He lay for a while, panting and listening to the sounds of the battle around him. He could tell from experience by the noise whether the advance was continuing or whether it had stalled. This one, like so many before, had stalled. The survivors would cower in their shell holes until dark and then try to crawl back to their own lines. He knew he should get up and try to rally them but he was exhausted and sick of the whole business. Then, a little way off, he heard the unmistakable notes of a hunting horn, followed by a ragged cheer. He raised his head cautiously. A figure he recognised as Colonel Campbell, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, was running forward, hunting horn in one hand, revolver in the other, and his men were racing after him. Tom scrambled out of the shell hole and joined them. In a wave they swept towards the enemy trenches. To his amazement Tom found his section empty. He drew a Mills Bomb from his belt and threw it round the traverse wall, then went in after it. A figure appeared in front of him. He fired and the man fell. Others from Tom’s own company were behind him now and he led them along the communications trench towards the second line.

  Time and distance became a blur. He ran and fired, reloaded and ran on, hearing the shouts and cheers of men on either side and, when they began to falter, another call on the horn. As dusk began to fall they found themselves entering the ruins of the village of Les Boeufs. In what remained of the village square Colonel Campbell called them to a halt.

  ‘We’ll dig in here for the night, men. We’re far ahead of the rest, so we’ll hold this position until the reinforcements come up.’

  Suddenly Tom felt that his legs would not hold him up any longer. He sank down with his back against a broken wall and closed his eyes. A voice nearby forced him to open them again.

  ‘Cup of char, sir?’

  A soldier was crouching in front of him with a steaming mess tin. He took it and thanked the man.

  ‘Something to e
at, sir? It’s only hard tack I’m afraid.’

  Tom shook his head. The thought of food turned his stomach. He sipped the tea gratefully, then closed his eyes again and slipped into a sleep that was like a coma. When consciousness returned he was stiff and shivering in the damp chill of dawn and the village was astir with the sound of tramping feet and new voices. An orderly with a Red Cross armband approached him.

  ‘Better let me have a look at that wound, sir.’

  ‘Wound? I’m not wounded,’ Tom said.

  ‘Don’t know about that, sir. Look at your tunic.’

  Tom looked down. His tunic was ripped across the shoulder and stained with blood; and when he tried to lift his hand a stab of pain went through him. The orderly efficiently cut away the remaining material, exposing a deep gash from which blood was oozing.

  ‘That’s going to need proper attention, sir,’ the orderly said. ‘It needs stitching, and the bullet could still be in there. I’ll tell my CO.’

  He bandaged the wound tightly and a few moments later a captain, whose name Tom did not recall, came over to him.

  ‘Can you get yourself back to the dressing station? We’re taking over here so all you chaps are being withdrawn. Bloody good show, incidentally! Do you think you can manage?’

  ‘I expect so.’ Tom hauled himself to his feet. A steady stream of men was heading back down the hill towards the British lines, but it was a trickle compared to the flood that had swept the Germans aside. Bodies littered the ground and they had to pick their way over them. The Coldstreamers had paid a heavy price for their victory.

  Tom was never quite sure how he ended up at the dressing station. At some point he must have passed out, because he came round on a stretcher with a doctor bending over him. The doctor took a cursory glance at the wound and said to someone Tom could not see. ‘Not serious. He can wait.’

  He waited, the pain in his shoulder growing more insistent, until it seemed to consume his whole torso. Finally the doctor came back, probed the wound and pronounced it clear. He gave Tom a morphia injection, stitched the wound and put his arm in a sling.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I can’t see that the wound warrants sending you back home. The truth is, there are hundreds of men in a worse case than you are. But you’ve lost a lot of blood so you need to take it easy. I’m going to send you back to Battalion HQ for them to decide what to do with you. If you’re up to it, there’s a car leaving in a couple of minutes that will take you.’

  Battalion HQ was in a ruined farmhouse a mile or so behind the lines. Tom reported to a corporal sitting at a table in what had once been the kitchen and was asked to wait. He sat in a kind of stupor, wondering vaguely how long it would be before someone offered him something to eat or drink. His throat was so parched he could barely speak.

  The corporal returned. ‘Major Malham Brown asks you to come this way, sir.’

  Ralph was sitting behind another table, spread with maps. He got up as Tom was announced and hobbled forward. Tom registered that his left foot was in a cast and he supported himself with a stick. He grasped Tom by his good shoulder.

  ‘Tom! Dear God, what have you been doing with yourself? You look terrible. But you’re alive, that’s all that matters! I’ve been worried out of my mind.’ His voice broke. ‘I’m just so glad to see you!’

  Suddenly Tom’s legs buckled under him and he felt himself caught in Ralph’s arms. He pressed his face into Ralph’s shoulder and began to weep; silent, shuddering sobs that shook his body and tears that scalded his eyes and soaked into Ralph’s tunic.

  Above his head he heard Ralph murmuring. ‘What have they done to you? It shouldn’t happen like this. Not to you! I won’t have it. It’s got to be stopped.’

  At length the paroxysms of weeping exhausted themselves and Ralph led him to the side of the room, where a camp bed had been set up. They sat side by side, Ralph’s arm still round Tom’s shoulders.

  ‘Look at you!’ he murmured. ‘You’re a walking skeleton. When did you last have a square meal, or a decent night’s rest – or a bath?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘God knows. I’ve been living like an animal for weeks. What about you? What happened to your leg?’

  ‘Broken ankle. I tripped over some barbed wire and fell into a trench. Bloody stupid! I’ve been stuck back here at HQ while you chaps are out there doing the business. I look at you, Tom, and I’m ashamed.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Tom muttered.

  ‘Where are you wounded? Is it your arm?’

  ‘No, my shoulder. It’s just a flesh wound. But apparently I’ve lost a lot of blood.’

  ‘Right!’ Ralph straightened up. ‘You are going to have the best that this godforsaken place can provide. You are going to have a meal and a bath and sleep in a proper bed and then you are going on sick leave.’

  ‘The doc said it wasn’t bad enough to warrant being sent home.’

  ‘I don’t care what he said. I’ll make out the necessary pass. Now, what do you want first?’

  ‘Please can I have a drink of water?’ Tom croaked.

  ‘Water? Of course! What have I been thinking of? Here.’

  There was a jug on the desk. Ralph poured water into a mug and placed it in Tom’s good hand. His throat was almost too dry to swallow but he allowed the water to trickle into his throat and almost wept again with sheer relief. Ralph was shouting for his orderly and when the man appeared told him to see to it that Tom was given the best meal the kitchen could produce.

  Next morning, still weak but in control of himself after a long sleep, Tom was eating breakfast when Ralph came in and sat opposite him.

  ‘Now, about this leave. Where do you want to go?’

  Tom struggled to adjust his thoughts. ‘I don’t want to go home. I think I’d like to go to Paris. Is that possible?’

  ‘Certainly. I’ll make out the paperwork.’

  Within the hour Tom was provided with a new uniform and handed a warrant that allowed him to travel to Paris for two week’s leave. Ralph even arranged for a car to take him to the station and came to see him off.

  ‘Don’t overdo it now,’ he counselled. ‘No riotous nights with girls from the Follies Bèrgère.’

  Tom looked at him. ‘That’s not my style – and you know it.’

  For a moment their eyes held, then Ralph did an extraordinary thing. He leaned into the car and kissed Tom on the cheek.

  ‘Off you go! Have a good leave – and don’t worry about the future. You’re too valuable to be wasted.’

  *

  In Salonika the days passed too slowly for both Leo and Sasha, but for opposite reasons. Sasha was bored and frustrated with the lack of agreement over tactics. Leo longed for the summer to end so that the time for campaigning would be over for another year. They would have the whole winter together. But even as she thought of that she felt a tremor of dread. She was not sure how Sasha would cope with being confined to Salonika for all that time and she feared he would embark on some rash exploit without waiting for his allies.

  One evening Sasha came quickly into their room at the hotel in Salonika and Leo felt her heart give a jolt.

  ‘It’s come!’ he said. ‘Serrail has finally decided to attack. There are rumours that Romania is about to declare for the Allies and they want a diversionary assault here to draw away German forces that might otherwise be deployed against the Romanians.’

  ‘When?’ Leo asked, almost unable to breathe.

  ‘In five days, on August fourteenth.’

  Five days! Now that the time was almost upon them, Leo cast about desperately for some way to delay their separation. At the hospital she waylaid the Chief Medical Officer on his rounds.

  ‘I suppose you have heard that there is to be a new campaign.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I assume you will be sending out a field hospital to care for wounded.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me my job?’

  ‘No, of course not. I just want to volunt
eer to go with them. I’ve had experience of working in the field – and I speak Serbian and Bulgarian.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll bear that in mind.’

  ‘Then I can go?’

  ‘I’ll let you know when I’ve made my decision.’

  Leo was left to chew her nails until news came that changed all the plans that had been drawn up. The Bulgarians, presumably warned in advance by friends in Greece, launched a pre-emptive attack and Sasha and his men, along with their British and French allies, were caught up in a desperate defensive action. The planned advance was put off until September 12th.

  ‘Isn’t that too late to start a new campaign?’ Leo asked when Sasha told her. ‘Winter comes early in the mountains. You don’t want to be caught up in the sort of conditions we suffered last year.’

  ‘If we don’t go now we shall have to wait until spring,’ he said. ‘And then who knows what might have happened. We have to take our chance now. With any luck we shall be through the mountains before the bad weather comes.’

  The following morning it occurred to Leo for the first time that she might be pregnant. Her periods had stopped after the privations of the winter retreat and, although they had restarted while they were on Corfu, they had been irregular, so she had not paid much attention to when the next one was due. But that morning she woke feeling queasy and all day she was aware of a tightness in her breasts. Thinking back, she realised that she had not had a period since the night when she had first slept with Sasha. He had taken precautions since then but in that first passionate encounter neither of them had thought of the risk. She wondered whether to tell him of her suspicions but immediately decided against it. If he thought she was carrying his child it would only add to his burdens. He would have enough to contend with, without worrying about her. He would probably forbid her to join the field ambulance, assuming she had the opportunity. Worse still, he might insist on her going back to England, where she could be sure of better medical attention. She had no intention of obeying such an order, but she did not want to quarrel just as they were about to part. She decided to say nothing until winter brought an end to the fighting, at least for the time being.