Liverpool Angels Page 20
He nodded but then she noticed that his breath was coming in short bubbling gasps and there were traces of blood on his lips. Something was very wrong and she wondered if she should call a staff nurse, but another convoy of ambulances was drawing in. Gently she turned him towards her. There was a gaping hole in his back that she could have fitted her fist into and the lungs were torn and collapsed. There was nothing she could do for him; clearly he was dying. She packed a long swab into the wound and then bandaged it as tightly as she could.
‘That will make you feel more … comfortable,’ she soothed, glancing briefly at the label tied to his tunic. ‘Private Arthur Pickavance. 18th King’s Liverpool. Chest Wound’, she read and then for the first time that long, chaotic day she thought of Eddie, Harry, Jimmy and Tommy. ‘Oh, please God, let them be all right,’ she prayed.
Long into the summer night the wounded continued to arrive until the only place to lay them was on the ground in the compound itself; there weren’t even any more stretchers to place them upon and every available space inside the tented hospital was full. Every doctor, nurse, medic and orderly was exhausted but still frantically working and still the ambulances and even carts and lorries continued to arrive.
Mae was holding the shoulder of a man while the surgeon prepared to amputate the arm below the elbow when suddenly she began to see two doctors, two patients and started to sway.
‘Nurse! You are no use to me if you pass out!’ the exhausted surgeon snapped.
‘I’ll take over. Go and get something to eat, girl!’ Staff Nurse Thomas commanded grimly. The girl had shown she was experienced; this was no sudden indication of a delicate constitution, it was the result of hunger and unrelenting work.
Mae groped her way outside and across to the mess tent which was also half full of wounded men. She felt too tired and too sick to eat but she accepted a bowl of soup and a slice of bread and slowly and automatically ate, knowing that shortly she would feel better. They’d long since passed the point where they could possibly hope to cope with the number of wounded; the sheer scale of the casualties was overwhelming, she thought, wondering how Alice was managing – she hadn’t seen her for a few hours. And there was still no end in sight. She handed back the bowl to the harassed young girl who appeared to be the only person in charge of the kitchen. She had to get back; she was still needed.
Another line of ambulances had pulled up by the gate, the only space available for them now, and their drivers were helping to unload yet more casualties. Amongst them she saw Pip, his uniform as caked in blood and dirt as her own. She crossed towards him. Despite the fact that he must have been here dozens of times today she hadn’t seen him since this morning.
He caught sight of her. ‘Mae, you look done in!’
‘I am, Pip, we … we all are. Please, please tell me these are the last?’
He shook his head, his face like hers grey and drawn with exhaustion.
Suddenly she felt hysteria rising in her. ‘We can’t cope with any more, Pip! We’re overwhelmed! Men are lying on the bare earth and we’re running out of everything and they’re dying, Pip! We can’t help them! We can’t even clean their wounds properly before we ship them back home and they’ll get gangrene and they’ll … die!’ She was shaking and crying and he took her in his arms and held her tightly. He’d asked himself time and again during this long and terrible day: would this tide of mangled and broken men and boys ever cease? They’d expected heavy casualties and he had seen more than his fair share in the time he’d been at Verdun but nothing … nothing on such a scale as this. ‘Hush now, Mae. You’re doing your best. Everyone is.’
Mae clung to him. ‘Oh, Pip, I can’t describe … there are no words! There are just no words!’
She was so right, he thought, there were in fact no words, no suitable adjectives to describe the sights, sounds, smells and sheer horror of this day. She was at her wits’ end and all he wanted to do was take her away from it all because … because he loved her. But that was impossible. ‘Mae, Mae, hush now, my darling. When this is all over will you come home with me, as my wife? I love you, Mae. I realised it when I was sent to Verdun and I was away from you.’
Mae sobbed into his shoulder. ‘When will it be over, Pip?’
‘I don’t know, my dear love, but will you be my wife when it is?’
Mae fought down her sobs. She loved him – she’d known she was falling in love with him for months – but could she, amidst all this horrific chaos, look forward to what seemed a remote future? ‘Pip, I love you too.’
‘Then say “yes”, Mae,’ he begged. He hadn’t intended to ask her like this or now in such terrible circumstances but suddenly it had become so very important.
‘Yes, Pip,’ she said, feeling a little calmer and wondering if she would feel more emotional – elated even – about this in time.
He bent and kissed her forehead, knowing that they would both have to go back to their duties. ‘It’s dark now, Mae, at least the fighting will have stopped for today. That’s something to hang on to.’
She raised her head and nodded slowly. ‘I … I’ll try to think about that, Pip. I really will.’
He kissed her again before leaving her but as he walked wearily back towards the ambulance he knew that although the actual fighting had stopped the number of casualties still out there awaiting transportation were probably legion. Was there a single unwounded soldier in the whole front line? he wondered bitterly.
At two o’clock in the morning Staff Nurse Thomas instructed three of her VADs to go and get a couple of hours’ sleep; they would all rest on a rota basis, for everyone was on the point of dropping from exhaustion and mistakes were very likely to occur, mistakes which could prove fatal. Mae, Alice and Lizzie Lawson were the first to go.
‘I’ve changed my opinion of her,’ Alice said grudgingly as she dropped down on her camp bed. ‘She’s not that bad after all.’
‘Dear Lord, was there ever such a day?’ Lizzie groaned, dragging off her stained veil and apron and throwing them on the floor. There was no time to even think of washing them.
‘But at least the fighting will have stopped now it’s dark, so Pip told me,’ Mae informed them both. ‘I saw him after Staff told me to get something to eat. I nearly fainted I was so hungry.’
‘That’s what I mean about her; she chased me off too earlier – although she still won’t address any of us as “Nurse”,’ Alice added.
‘Well, we can’t work at that pace indefinitely without food or sleep,’ Lizzie concurred.
‘I could sleep for a week but a couple of hours will have to do, it will be light again soon,’ Alice said, her eyes already closing.
Mae was too exhausted to contemplate what tomorrow would bring but before she fell into a deep sleep she remembered that she’d promised to marry Pip and a sense of contentment filled her.
It seemed as if they’d only been asleep for minutes when the next batch of grey-featured nurses arrived to wake them. Mae, struggling to lift her head from the pillow, wondered whether she had dreamed Pip’s proposal. Had it been wishful thinking and the desire to be far away from all this? A figment of a mind pushed to the brink of hysteria? Well, there wasn’t time to dwell on it now, she told herself as she pulled a clean apron, cuffs and veil from the sugar box beside her bed and joined Alice and Lizzie to cross to the mess tent for a mug of tea and hopefully a slice of bread.
The first streaks of dawn were spreading across the sky and the breeze coming off the sea was fresh and smelled of salt as they made their way towards the marquee where the wounded were taken initially. There were still vehicles at the gate, some stationary, some arriving, some departing, taking those men not considered too dangerously ill to be moved to the ships which would take them across the Channel to hospitals which could care for them properly and in better conditions.
Mae looked for Pip and with a sigh of relief she caught sight of him. ‘Go on ahead, I’ll catch you up,’ she instructed Alice.
‘How are you? Have you had any rest, Mae?’ Pip asked with concern. All he’d managed was half an hour slumped over the steering wheel as they’d waited for the next train to arrive. She still looked drained but he noted the clean parts of her uniform.
‘I got two hours’ sleep and I’ll be fine now but … but did I dream it, did I imagine … ?’
He grinned at her. ‘No, Mae, you didn’t imagine it; it wasn’t a dream. You promised to marry me and despite everything, I’ve never felt happier in my life. I love you.’
Happiness surged through her as she smiled at him. She could cope with whatever the day might bring now. ‘I love you too, Pip,’ she said, blowing him a kiss as she turned to follow Alice.
‘Will you two please start to attend to those men there who’ve just arrived,’ Staff Nurse Thomas instructed Alice and Mae before turning to Lizzie. ‘Will you come with me, please, we’ve patients to get ready to go down to the dockside.’
Mae bent down beside a man whose head was swathed in dirty bandages but feeling a tug on her skirt she turned. ‘Oh, my God! Eddie!’
He tried to grin but was too weakened and exhausted. ‘At least I made it here, Mae.’
She started to cut away the bandages around his arm. ‘When did this happen, Eddie?’
‘Yesterday, early morning, just … just after …’ Eddie gripped her arm with his other hand. ‘Mae, see to Jimmy, please? He’s over there …’ he begged.
As she got to her feet Mae’s heart began to beat in odd little jerks. Eddie and Jimmy … how many more of the lads were here and in what condition? She took one look at Jimmy’s prostrate form and knew he was in a far worse state than Eddie. ‘Alice! Alice, here!’ she called. ‘It’s Jimmy, Jimmy Mercer!’
Alice’s face drained of what little colour it had possessed as she crossed to Mae’s side. ‘Oh, dear God, Jimmy!’ she cried, dropping to her knees beside him.
‘They were wounded yesterday morning, just after the attack began. Eddie’s here, wounded in the arm, but it doesn’t seem too bad,’ Mae informed her.
Alice was trying hard to push aside the feelings which threatened to overcome her and had slowly and gently started to remove the filthy bandages around Jimmy’s leg. ‘Oh, Mae, this is bad,’ she groaned, looking up at her cousin.
‘Then try to get a doctor to see him, Alice, as quickly as you can. I’m going back to Eddie. At least his arm doesn’t appear to be broken but it will need cleaning with Eusol, it’s already infected.’
Alice had risen to her feet, her expression stricken, her eyes full of fear. ‘Mae, I could smell it … you can’t mistake that smell.’
‘Then go, Alice!’ Mae urged and Alice turned and hastily went in search of a doctor.
Mae went back to Eddie. ‘This is going to hurt, Eddie, but it’s got to be done. Those bits of shrapnel have to come out and then I’ll dress it and they’ll probably take you straight down to a ship. We’ve not enough room here. Think about that, Eddie, while I see to your arm. Concentrate on all the … comforts you’ll have when you get to Blighty.’ She began to clean the yellow pus from the wound and Eddie groaned. ‘Sorry, sorry, Eddie,’ she said, gritting her own teeth as she worked. He must be in agony and she had nothing to give him to help ease the pain.
‘Will Jimmy be going home too, Mae?’
‘Not just yet but … but later on … probably,’ she replied, hoping it would be true.
‘Jimmy and me were lucky, Mae. Harry and Tommy … won’t … won’t be going home.’
Mae closed her eyes for an instant. She’d seen so much of death these past days, weeks and months that she should be used to it, but she’d grown up with Harry and she knew he’d loved her. ‘Oh, poor Tommy and … Harry! I wish I’d never sent that letter, Eddie. I feel so guilty now. I never wanted him to die believing—’
‘I … I’ve got something to tell you, Mae,’ Eddie interrupted. ‘Harry … he never got that letter. I’ve got it. I kept it from him. It … it’s in my pocket.’
Mae looked at him in disbelief. Then she managed a bitter smile. ‘So … so he never knew?’
Eddie shook his head.
‘Thank you, Eddie. Will you destroy it for me?’
Eddie nodded and then winced as Mae resumed dressing his wound. She’d be overcome by the grief later, she knew, but at least poor Harry had died believing she still cared for him and that she was his ‘girl’. She remembered too waving to Tommy as he’d marched past her that day on Lime Street. Seventeen years old and lying dead on some patch of shell-blasted earth. She shook her head and continued with her work. There was nothing else she could do now. She told herself working to help Eddie and the other men around her was what she should fix her mind on.
Alice finally found a doctor who wasn’t too preoccupied to listen to her pleas. ‘Where is the lad, Nurse?’ he asked, turning from the patient he’d just finished attending.
‘Over here, sir. I’m sure I could smell gas gangrene. He suffered the wound early yesterday morning; it’s taken this long to get him here. I know it’s wrong of me, sir, but … but I grew up with him. He’s … special,’ Alice confided.
There was no mistaking the affection in her tone, he thought. She wasn’t being very professional but then she looked very young, far too young even to be here at all. He frowned. No younger than some of the lads he’d treated these last hours. ‘Let’s see what we can do for him then,’ he replied firmly.
He too could smell it even before he gently examined the lad’s leg. ‘You were right, Nurse. I’ll operate now.’ He looked directly at Jimmy, whose face was a mask of pain and dirt but whose eyes were wide with fear. ‘I’m sorry, lad, but I’m going to have to amputate it, otherwise you’ll not survive.’
Alice bent and took his hand. ‘You won’t feel anything, Jimmy, I promise. We’ll give you something to make you sleep. You … you can’t die, Jimmy. Not after everything you’ve been through. You’ll be all right.’
Through the haze of agony that seemed to have clogged his mind for days a sudden shaft of terror penetrated and he gripped her hand tightly. They were going to cut off his leg! ‘Alice, Alice! Stay with me! Don’t leave me!’ he begged.
‘Hush now, lad,’ the doctor instructed firmly as he signalled for the orderlies to carry the lad to be operated on.
‘I’m here, Jimmy. I’ll look after you. You’ll soon be going home,’ Alice soothed, still holding his hand tightly and forcing back her tears. ‘I’ll look after you, Jimmy, I promise. I’ll always look after you.’
She suddenly realised that Staff Nurse Thomas was beside them. ‘I don’t think it will be a very good idea for you to stay with him while the Surgeon Major amputates. You’re too … involved.’ She had come over to assist and had recognised the lad Alice had visited each day last time he’d been here.
Alice couldn’t stop the tears now. ‘But I promised him! I promised him! Please at least let me stay until the chloroform takes effect? He’s terrified,’ she pleaded.
The staff nurse looked pointedly at the medical officer, who nodded curtly. ‘All right, but then there are other patients in urgent need of attention.’
Alice nodded and dashed her hand across her eyes. ‘Will I be able to see him … after … and before he’s sent home?’
Emily Thomas felt a grudging respect for the girl who, over these last frantic terrible hours, had shown a strength of character and a level of competence she’d not expected, for she was certain that the girl was a lot younger than she purported to be. ‘Of course, now pass me the mask and the chloroform, Nurse.’
Alice was so thankful to be allowed to stay with Jimmy that it was a while before she realised that Staff Nurse Thomas had for the first time
addressed her as ‘Nurse’.
When Jimmy had succumbed to the anaesthetic Emily Thomas passed the instruments to the surgeon major for what seemed to her like the thousandth time in twenty-four hours. He took them and looked down at the mangled, gangrenous limb. ‘This isn’t surgery, Nurse. God help us, this is … butchery!’ he said bitterly.
‘But he’ll live, sir,’ she replied.
It was six hours before Mae saw her cousin again; they’d both been given ten minutes to get a drink and something to eat. Again, they were both weary, hungry and blood-spattered.
‘How is Jimmy?’ Mae asked, gulping down a mouthful of tea.
‘They’ve taken his leg off above the knee. Surgeon Major Fawcett said he’ll recover, thank God, and if he doesn’t haemorrhage they’re sending him back tonight. He’ll be better off in a hospital at home. They let me stay until he went under the anaesthetic – poor lad, he was terrified. How is our Eddie?’
‘He’s going home in about an hour. If the wound is kept clean he should be all right – in time.’
Alice nodded thankfully, feeling guilty now that she hadn’t even seen her brother let alone done anything to help him. Jimmy had been her only concern.
‘Eddie carried him on his back all the way to the dressing station and then on to the clearing station because there were no stretchers.’
Alice shook her head and whispered, ‘My God! He deserves a medal.’
‘He probably saved his life, Alice. But … but he told me that Harry and Tommy Mitford were killed. He said Jimmy stayed with Harry until … he died. Poor, poor Harry.’ Mae told her how Eddie had kept her letter from Harry.
‘He really shouldn’t have done that, Mae. I think it’s probably an offence but maybe it was for the best. It’s better that Harry died still thinking … Oh, Mae, how many more of the lads we knew are dead now?’ Alice asked with a sob in her voice, understanding Mae’s feelings of guilt and loss.
‘I don’t know, Alice. I don’t think anyone knows anything, it all seems so … chaotic, but at least when Eddie gets home he’ll be able to tell Aunty Agnes about … Harry.’