Liverpool Angels Read online

  ‘Even if we were, typewriting is a bit like riding a bike, you don’t forget how to do it. We could always go back to it,’ Alice informed them.

  ‘Well, let’s hear no more talk of giving up jobs,’ Maggie said crossly. It seemed as if she’d been presented with a fait accompli. ‘I just hope you’ll still be as pleased with nursing in a month’s time, Alice.’

  Sister Forshaw hadn’t been joking when she’d said the work would be hard, Mae thought grimly a couple of weeks later as she scrubbed a wooden draining board in the sink room. It was never-ending and quite often after a day at work in the office the last thing she felt like was travelling here by the tram, rolling up her sleeves and getting down to the very menial tasks required of her, but she was determined not to complain.

  Everything in the sink room had to be scrubbed. Shelves, tables, sinks, bowls, rubber sheets, the floor, and the urinals and bedpans stacked on the shelves. The smell of carbolic mixed with antiseptic had made her feel ill at first until she’d become used to it. They’d both been disappointed in the first week when they realised that there seemed to be very little in the way of actual medical training.

  ‘We didn’t volunteer to be flaming skivvies, Mae! We had our chores at home but nothing like this! We volunteered to become nurses,’ Alice had complained bitterly as they’d returned home that first evening. Their duties had been explained in detail by Sister Forshaw and they were to work their way through the tasks on the sheet that Sister had pinned to the wall, work that was supervised by a senior nurse and checked by Sister herself.

  They weren’t the only volunteers and many of the tasks required of them they all found distasteful and acutely embarrassing.

  ‘Sister, we’re a bit curious as to what that stuff in the sack is used for,’ Mae had volunteered to ask for no one had any idea what it was. She and Alice had been detailed to the sink room with two other girls, both older and from a very different background. They’d looked at each other and shrugged in mystification at the sack leaning against the wall.

  ‘I can’t think of a purpose for it, unless it’s used in cleaning … something,’ Elizabeth Lawson, whose father was a solicitor, had surmised.

  Alice had poked about in the sack, wrinkling her nose. ‘It looks like the stuff they use to make coconut matting.’

  ‘Surely we won’t be expected to make it into mats?’ Elizabeth had wondered, so Mae had said she would ask Sister.

  ‘It’s called “tow” and it’s a product of hemp, Nurse Strickland,’ Sister had replied curtly.

  ‘What’s it for, Sister?’ Alice had asked, rubbing the coarse fibres between her fingers.

  ‘It is used instead of toilet paper, Nurse. You take a handful and stuff it into the handle of the bedpan, so …’ She demonstrated, taking a handful of tow and a bedpan from a shelf. ‘Then, when it has been used you dispose of it in that bin there to be burned. The rest of the contents of the bedpan you throw down the sluice.’ She’d indicated the huge sinks with their big brass taps. ‘Then you scrub the bedpan and its cover. Is all that quite clear?’

  They’d all nodded, their cheeks pink with embarrassment.

  ‘I’m sorry I asked,’ Mae said, grimacing, when Sister had departed.

  ‘I don’t think we’d better say anything to Mam about that,’ Alice had advised.

  ‘Elizabeth, you’ve gone quite pale,’ Mae had remarked.

  ‘I … I didn’t think we’d have to do such … personal things,’ Elizabeth had replied a little faintly.

  ‘I don’t suppose any of us really realised just what we would be expected to do,’ Mae added.

  ‘I bet you have a proper bathroom in your house, Elizabeth. You don’t have a privy in the yard like us, do you?’ Alice had asked candidly.

  ‘Please call me “Lizzie”, and yes, we do have a proper bathroom.’

  Mae had smiled kindly at her. ‘We’re all going to have to get used to a lot of difficult things but we’ll manage it. After all, the lads in France are risking their lives.’

  Lizzie had nodded and smiled back.

  ‘You are here to work, not gossip or complain or debate social conditions,’ Sister reprimanded them sharply from the other side of the door.

  Alice had raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘She’s got eyes in the back of her head!’ she hissed as they’d hastily resumed work.

  They’d discussed their duties and their companions as they walked home from the tram at the end of that first week. ‘I meant it about not telling Mam we’ll have to give out bedpans and wipe the behinds of … complete strangers,’ Alice had urged.

  ‘But she must realise that we’ll have to do things like that,’ Mae had replied. ‘A lot of these lads will be badly injured and can’t walk. It’s all part of being a nurse.’

  ‘You know what she’s like, Mae. She’ll go mad and say it’s not “proper” for us to do things like that, us being so young and unmarried. She’s not at all happy about me being here in the first place, let alone knowing I’ll have to do those kinds of jobs.’

  ‘It must be as bad for the likes of Lizzie,’ Mae had mused aloud.

  ‘Worse, I should think,’ Alice had replied. ‘For a start she’s never had to scrub anything in her life before, let alone floors and tables and bedpans. She’s probably never even seen anyone having a bath either, unlike us with the tub in the kitchen.’

  ‘She’d never even made a cup of tea before she came here, she told me that herself,’ Mae had confided. ‘They have a cook and a maid.’

  Alice had grinned. ‘I know, but at least she brought the maid with her. I was working with her yesterday and she’s very down to earth. She’s used to hard work but she said Lizzie isn’t and is finding it very tough-going and is complaining that her hands are ruined.’

  Mae had smiled and nodded. ‘Everyone’s hands are ruined, Alice, but it’s a very small price we have to pay.’

  As the weeks passed they became accustomed to the work and the sights and smells, and embarrassment became a thing of the past. They learned about morphine, ether and paraldehyde, which had a foul smell and was used for insomnia. They learned how to clean and dress wounds, give an enema, check a pulse and read a thermometer. It was more like ‘real’ nursing, Mae thought, wondering when she was going to find time to write up all the notes Sister Tutor had given them.

  Between them they’d bought a second-hand edition of Taylor’s Manual of Nursing and Black’s Medical Dictionary, which they studied closely in any spare minute they had. Sister Tutor had a porcelain human figure with little hooks attached to it and a box of ‘organs’, as she called them, which could be attached to the hooks: liver, kidneys, heart and numerous bones. ‘I never realised there was just so much to learn,’ Alice complained.

  ‘At least Sister Tutor’s more approachable than Sister Forshaw,’ Mae reminded her. ‘If you don’t understand something, she’ll go over and over it until you do. Sister Forshaw expects you to know everything at once.’

  Alice nodded her agreement. ‘Mam was right about that, Mae. She said you had to have had a good education to be a nurse, not just a basic one like us. I’ve never come across so many long, complicated words in all my life,’ she pronounced rather gloomily.

  ‘Well, they can’t be too choosy these days, Alice. Not when there are so many casualties.’

  ‘I know. I just hope our Eddie and the twins will be all right,’ Alice replied.

  Mae frowned and gave a little shiver of concern. They hadn’t heard from any of the boys for a few weeks now and she wondered how Harry was coping. He was by far the quietest of the boys, and she knew he felt things deeply. She was afraid he would find the fighting very hard to bear.

  It was certainly easier to write now that they had been taken out of the line and stationed in the village of La Haie – or what was left of it, Harry thought. He’d felt very bad about not being able to write regularly to Mae but it had been an almost impossible task given the fact that there was little time or, on Jimmy�
��s part, inclination for such things. All he’d managed was a couple of very brief notes to his mam to let her know they were all still safe and reasonably well.

  News had reached them about the sinking of the Lusitania and even before he’d received the letter from his mam he’d realised that it was improbable that John Strickland would have been amongst the survivors. The news had hit Eddie hard for over the years his uncle had taken the place of the father who’d deserted him and of whom he had no recollection. They’d done what they could to bolster Eddie’s spirits but none of them had been feeling particularly cheerful and now the cold and damp of autumn added to their discomfort; it seemed to have rained for most of the time they’d been stationed in France but the weather affected everyone: the British and colonial troops, French and Belgian soldiers and those of Germany and her allies, Austria and Hungary. The conditions were also sapping their strength.

  He frowned and chewed the end of the pencil, trying to gather his thoughts, choosing the words he would write to her with care. He’d only had the occasional letter from Mae since her da’s death but that hadn’t upset him, she was obviously overcome by grief, he’d thought. Poor Mae, he’d known she would be broken-hearted but his mam had said she was bearing it bravely. She and Alice had both joined the VAD and were finding the work hard going. He knew there were VAD nurses out here and he wondered if she would be sent out too. He hoped not, he wouldn’t want her to have to endure this kind of life on top of the grief and loss she was trying to cope with.

  They’d had no idea what conditions were like here, he thought gloomily. They’d been eager and excited when they’d boarded the train at Boulogne. Before then, when they’d disembarked from the ship, they’d been cheered by the French citizens as they’d marched through the streets but had been exhausted by the time they’d reached the rest camp at Ostre Hove because they’d had to climb a steep hill with their heavy packs on their backs. And they’d only stayed there one night; then it had been back down to the station. But their spirits had been high and had remained so throughout the exceedingly slow and tedious journey. It had been stop, start, stop, start all the way but they’d been cheerful because at last they were going to fight.

  ‘Are you going to write that letter or are you going to stare at the sheet of paper forever?’ Jimmy Mercer asked, lighting a cigarette and drawing deeply on it. They were all muffled up against the cold in greatcoats over uniforms, scarves and gloves and with balaclavas under their helmets as they sheltered in the ruins of a shop. A burst of artillery thundered in the background but they ignored it; they’d become accustomed to the sound and it was miles away so there was very little danger.

  ‘I’m trying to think what to say. I mean, I don’t want to go upsetting her, now do I? She’s starting to get over her da and if I put my big foot in it by saying the wrong thing …’ Harry explained curtly. ‘Anyway, it wouldn’t hurt you to write a note to Mam, tell her our bits of news and that we’re all right.’

  Jimmy shrugged. ‘You know I hate writing letters and anyway I don’t think she’d really like to know that we’re due to go back up the line again to the front before Christmas.’

  Eddie appeared carrying a billycan of hot tea. ‘Get your tin mugs out; it won’t stay hot for very long and God knows when we’ll get any more. Have you got a woodie to spare, Jimmy?’

  Jimmy duly lit and handed over a cigarette as Eddie filled the mugs and Harry put aside his letter to relish the first hot drink they’d had all day.

  Eddie took a gulp of tea. ‘At least it’s a bit better here than that place near Abbeville,’ he remarked, referring to the tiny hamlet where they’d first come under fire.

  ‘Well, there wasn’t much left of that by the time we got there, was there? And those trenches were in a bloody terrible state. I know we “practised” at Prescot and Grantham but they didn’t tell us that the damned trenches would be always full of water and mud.’

  ‘And at the end of the day back in Blighty we had warm huts and a hot meal and a proper bed,’ Harry added and then shuddered. ‘And no rats!’ When they’d first arrived they’d been attached to a Regular Army unit, albeit a greatly depleted one, who’d shown them the ropes, and it had been then that the first seeds of doubt and disillusionment had been sown.

  ‘We’ve got to be thankful that this part of the line is quiet and that so far we’ve had no serious casualties,’ Jimmy reminded them. They’d been told that a few shells came over from time to time and a few were fired back. Damaged buildings took a few more hits, there were more shell holes but there had been no one killed or badly wounded. However, they were always cold, hungry and tired.

  ‘If they keep us stuck in these trenches all winter we’ll go down with pneumonia and that won’t be a very glorious end to our military service, will it? No one is going to give us a medal for that, there’s nothing heroic about pneumonia,’ Eddie commented bitterly.

  ‘Where’s Tommy?’ Jimmy asked, glancing around as Harry resumed his task. Young Tommy Mitford had become part of their little group for he lived in the next street and had attended the same school.

  ‘Said he was going for a scout around,’ Eddie replied.

  ‘We’re not supposed to do that,’ Jimmy reminded him but before Eddie could answer Tommy appeared, grinning and with something stuffed under his greatcoat.

  ‘What have you got there? You haven’t been pinching stuff – there’ll be hell to pay if you have.’

  ‘No! I didn’t pinch this, she gave it me,’ Tommy replied indignantly, pulling out a small flat loaf of coarse black bread.

  ‘She?’ Eddie repeated pointedly. ‘You been chatting up the Mad-em-oiselles? You know we’re not supposed to do that either.’

  ‘I ’aven’t been doing any “fraternising”. ’Er name’s Mariette, she’s the baker’s daughter and I think she’s taken a fancy to me so she gave me this,’ Tommy informed them, looking both proud and bashful at the same time. ‘She said I wasn’t to tell ’er Pa; she sort of mimed that. I can’t understand much of what she says and seeing as I don’t speak the lingo …’

  ‘Well, share it out then,’ Eddie instructed. ‘We’re starving and it’s ages before mess time and even then it’ll only be dry bully beef.’

  ‘You can be certain of one thing,’ Jimmy remarked, his mouth full. ‘There won’t be ham, tongue, peaches or anything else like that this Christmas.’

  Harry nodded and then grinned. ‘Still, it might not be too bad. We’ll get parcels from home. That’s something to look forward to.’

  They did get parcels from home but by then they were back in the front-line trenches. However, the socks, soap, cigarettes, biscuits, chocolate, magazines and other small comforts were very welcome and with the parcels came the mail.

  ‘My God! They’re sending Mae over here after Christmas,’ Harry informed his mates and his brother. He’d opened her letter first and had quickly scanned the lines, delighted to hear from her but rather taken aback at her news.

  ‘What, here?’ Jimmy probed.

  ‘Well, not exactly here. She’s going to be allocated to one of the hospital trains that take the wounded to the hospital from the Casualty Clearing Stations. There are two other girls coming out with her.’

  Eddie started to wheeze for he’d developed a racking cough since they’d left La Haie. ‘Christ! They’re not sending our Alice out too, are they? She’s just a bit of a kid,’ he asked when he’d stopped coughing.

  Harry shook his head. ‘No, Mae says the sister knows how old she is and she’s too young to be sent over. Apparently she doesn’t know how old Mae is or if she does she’s not letting on. There’s a girl called Lizzie and one called Ethel coming over with Mae.’

  ‘That’s a relief. Mam would have created merry hell if they’d wanted to send our Alice, and if they had then I’d have been worrying about my sister – and I’ve enough to worry about as it is with you, Tommy.’

  ‘Yer don’t ’ave ter worry about me, Eddie. I can take care of
meself!’ Tommy protested indignantly. ‘And yer know …’ The rest of his words were drowned out by the loud whistling of a shell followed by an explosion and they all ducked. It was an automatic reflex now.

  ‘I hope they’re not going to start that up again, they’ve been quiet for the last couple of days,’ Jimmy stated irritably, wiping the spattering of mud that had fallen into the trench from his face. Then he grinned wryly at Tommy. ‘Stand on the fire step and stick your head over the parapet and yell over do they know it’s Christmas Eve and can we all have a bit of quiet, if not peace?’

  Tommy grinned back. ‘I just told yer I can look after meself! Do I look soft? I’m not that daft, I’d get a bullet fer an answer! Mind you, that might not be a bad idea, at least then I’d get ter spend Christmas in a hospital bed.’

  Harry frowned, thinking of Mae. How on earth would she cope with all this? Oh, she wouldn’t be anywhere near the front line so she wouldn’t be in any danger but tending the wounded on those interminably slow and crowded hospital trains would be no picnic, so he’d heard. He closed his eyes for a second, thinking of last Christmas and wishing fervently that he was back home in his mam’s kitchen. He’d be warm, dry, clean and well fed, not cold, dirty, crawling with lice, up to his ankles in filthy freezing water and hungry. But then he thought he was lucky that he was alive, uninjured and hadn’t succumbed to any of the diseases that were proving to be so prevalent in these atrocious conditions. He was worried about Eddie, though. That cough wasn’t getting any better at all.

  By the first week of the New Year it was obvious to them all that Eddie was seriously ill. He’d grown steadily worse as the days passed but as the bombardment had resumed and with increased ferocity they’d had little time to think of anything other than staying alive. But that afternoon Eddie was running a fever and was on the point of collapse so they’d laid him on one of the narrow wire bunks in the dugout, although that offered little in the way of comfort for there was no mattress, pillow or blankets.