Liverpool Angels Page 31

  She stood up and bade a fond farewell to Monsieur Clari, who escorted her to the door and stood, shaking his head sadly as he watched her bend her head against the wind and walk up the Rue Nationale.

  As always, when she returned she hoped against hope that there would be a letter or a note but Lizzie shook her head before she even had time to speak.

  ‘Don’t give up, Mae. Things must be chaotic for them, they are moving so quickly now. They’re not stuck in trenches with all the back-up of supply lines. You know he’ll get word to you as soon as he can.’

  ‘But what if … he’s been badly wounded and is lying in some American hospital unable to speak or has gone down with this flu?’

  ‘They’d have got word to you, Mae. You know he insisted on putting you as his next of kin, as well as his parents,’ Lizzie reminded her, her heart going out to her friend. It was the waiting, the not knowing that was so hard to bear.

  ‘Have there been any more cases this afternoon, Lizzie?’ Mae asked dejectedly, taking off her cape.

  ‘About a dozen and there have been another three deaths. Oh, it’s so hard to bear, Mae. They’ve come through so much and now the Hun is retreating and they go down with this … this plague! I wish there was more we could do for them.’

  Mae nodded as she tied on a clean apron.

  ‘I did hear of what is being called a remedy of sorts although I can’t see how it will work when nothing else does. One of the lads on ward six who so far hasn’t succumbed says he puts black pepper in his tea.’

  ‘Pepper?’

  Lizzie nodded. ‘I know, it sounds crazy to me but he swears by it. Might be worth a try though. We’re just as vulnerable.’

  ‘The tea already tastes bad enough!’

  ‘Then it can’t get much worse, Mae, can it? We should give it a try.’

  Mae managed a grim smile as she left to resume her ward duties.

  When she came off duty it was to find that Alice wasn’t well. She was sitting on the edge of her bed and looked flushed and feverish.

  ‘I feel terrible, Mae. My throat is sore, my head is thumping, I’m aching all over and I feel hot and yet shivery.’

  Instantly Mae was alarmed. ‘Get into that bed and I’ll take your temperature,’ she instructed. Meekly Alice did as she was told, praying it was just a heavy cold and not the deadly flu.

  Mae was even more alarmed when she realised her cousin’s temperature was 105 degrees. She passed the thermometer to Lizzie and they looked at each other in horror. Alice almost certainly had the virus.

  ‘I’ll go and inform Sister,’ Lizzie whispered and Mae nodded. She bent over Alice, tucking the grey blankets tightly around her. ‘I think I’ve still got some aspirin, Alice. It might help ease your headache.’

  Alice tried to nod but the effort caused her to groan.

  Mae found the aspirins and got a cup of water and helped Alice to take them but she knew they would have little or no effect.

  Sister Harper arrived with Lizzie, both looking very concerned.

  ‘How is she, Nurse Strickland? I hear she has a raging temperature.’

  ‘She’s got all the symptoms, Sister. I’ve given her two aspirins but …’

  Sister Harper nodded grimly. There didn’t seem to be any medication that had any effect. ‘All you can do is try and get her temperature down, get her to take plenty of fluids and … and hope.’

  ‘Sister, I’ll stay up with her,’ Mae said.

  ‘We’ll take it in turns, Mae,’ Lizzie added.

  Sister Harper replied, ‘I think I can spare you tomorrow morning, Nurse Strickland, but not you too, Nurse Lawson. Maybe for a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister,’ Mae replied, praying that Alice wouldn’t be worse by then.

  As the night wore on Alice’s condition did become worse. Despite the fact that Mae and Lizzie sponged her down repeatedly her temperature remained dangerously high. She became delirious, not knowing who they were or where she was but calling repeatedly for her mam and then crying out, ‘Don’t be afraid, Jimmy! I’m here! I’m here!’

  ‘Oh, God, Lizzie, what can we do?’ Mae begged frantically. ‘She can’t die! She can’t! Not now!’

  ‘There isn’t anything more we can do, Mae,’ Lizzie replied, on the verge of tears herself. They continued to sponge Alice down.

  At two o’clock Sister Harper appeared. ‘Is there any change?’

  ‘She’s delirious, Sister. We’re at our wits’ end,’ Lizzie fretted.

  Sister bent over Alice, placing a hand on her forehead. ‘Still burning up with fever, but at least there isn’t any sign that it’s affecting her chest and she’s young and reasonably fit.’ She straightened up, her eyes full of compassion. She prayed young Alice McEvoy would recover; she was a good nurse, even though she was so young, and she liked her and knew how close these girls were. ‘You’re excused duties, Nurse Strickland, until … until further notice.’

  Or until poor Alice dies, Lizzie thought in desperation.

  By morning Alice’s condition didn’t seem to have worsened although it hadn’t improved, Mae thought. She was exhausted from lack of sleep and worry but throughout those long hours she’d held Alice’s hand. ‘Alice, please, please don’t give up! You can’t give up, Alice, Jimmy’s waiting for you and he loves you so much. You promised him you’d look after him and he just wants you to come home to him. Don’t give up, Alice!’ she’d repeated over and over just in case her cousin could hear her but she wasn’t convinced that she could.

  When Lizzie came off duty she brought Mae a cup of tea and a sandwich. ‘Get some rest, Mae. I’ll sit with her now. You’ll make yourself ill if you go on like this,’ she urged.

  ‘She hasn’t improved, Lizzie,’ Mae told her friend.

  ‘It’s too soon to expect any change but at least she hasn’t deteriorated and it hasn’t turned to pneumonia, thank God. Get some rest. I’ve got two hours off, then I’ve got to go back on duty.’ Lizzie didn’t tell her that she really couldn’t be spared for there had been more cases overnight. In fact, now in ward seven there wasn’t a single man who didn’t have this flu and Sister was seriously concerned for her nursing staff.

  Mae curled up on her bunk, cold and trembling with fatigue, but she realised that since Alice had taken ill she hadn’t thought about Pip. Before her eyes closed she prayed that wherever he was, he hadn’t succumbed to this terrible disease.

  By the following morning it was clear that Alice was over the worst. Her temperature was still high but she was no longer delirious and seemed to be sleeping normally – although her breathing was shallow, Mae thought as she replaced the thermometer in its holder. Sister Harper had paid regular visits to check on both Alice and herself and had informed her, with evident relief in her voice, that for weeks now two American doctors at the No. 5 Base Hospital in Boulogne (which had formerly been the casino), had been studying the virus day and night in a laboratory and had finally produced what everyone hoped was an emergency vaccine. It had been hastily tested and they’d had some success and now all hospital personnel were to be vaccinated.

  ‘Just a pity we didn’t have it before Nurse McEvoy went down with it,’ she finished, ‘although it looks as if she will pull through.’

  ‘I’ll stay with her, Sister, if that’s all right, just in case …’ Mae sincerely hoped Alice would not have a relapse.

  Sister Harper had agreed and left and Mae had sat beside her cousin, dozing intermittently until Lizzie again brought her tea.

  ‘Have you heard, Mae, we’re all to be vaccinated. Thank God they’ve finally found something that might help. Is she sleeping normally?’

  Mae nodded, gratefully sipping the tea, oblivious now to its taste. ‘Her temperature was almost back to normal last time I took it. Oh, Lizzie, I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I don’t think any of us could have stood it if anything had happened to her. She’s worked so hard, she’s been so brave and … she’s only eighteen.’ />
  ‘She’ll be all right now, Mae, and there’s more good news. Lille has been captured, the casino in town is covered in flags, Mons will be next, then Liège and that’s not far from the border with Germany itself. The end can’t be far off now, everyone is hoping it will be all over by next week.’

  Mae smiled tiredly. ‘And thank God Alice will be able to celebrate with us.’

  Alice was still very weak when she finally got up three days later.

  ‘I feel a bit light-headed, sort of … dizzy,’ she said to Mae as she sat on the edge of her bed.

  ‘You’re bound to, you’ve been very ill. We were terrified you would die, Alice.’

  Alice was chastened. ‘Was I really that bad?’

  ‘You were, believe me,’ Lizzie replied grimly. ‘We’ve lost count of the poor lads who haven’t recovered. You were very, very lucky, Alice.’

  ‘What if I … I get it again?’ Alice asked timidly. Her apparent brush with death had made her feel very apprehensive of her future.

  ‘You won’t. You’ve probably developed an immunity to it now and besides, we’ve all been vaccinated. When you’re stronger, you can be vaccinated too. Now, all you’ve got to do is rest and get your strength back,’ Lizzie said firmly, ‘so I’m going over to the mess tent to see what they can rustle up in the way of beef tea or bouillon, as Monsieur Clari calls it.’

  Alice pulled a face although she knew Lizzie was only thinking of her welfare.

  ‘And while you’ve been ill the news has been good. Everyone is saying the war will be over in a few days now,’ Mae informed her.

  ‘Really? Oh, Mae, I can’t believe that after all this time the end is actually in sight. Have you heard from Pip?’

  Mae’s expression changed; all the joy of Alice’s recovery drained away. ‘No, still nothing.’

  Alice took her hand. ‘He’ll come back, Mae. I know he will.’

  Mae managed to nod but a terrible feeling of dread hung over her. An awful sense of despair that she would never see him again. That they would never walk together under the lilac trees in the Boston Public Garden.

  At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 the guns fell silent. The Armistice was signed and the war was over. After four long years of bitter fighting and enormous loss of life it was at an end. The news was received in Boulogne with rapture. The Allied flags from the casino were taken down and paraded through the streets of the town by jubilant soldiers, medical personnel and civilians, Monsieur Claude Clari amongst them. A large Tricolour now adorned the entrance of the Café Arc-en-ciel.

  The atmosphere in No. 24 General Camp Hospital wasn’t as exuberant as in many of the wards, only the nursing staff were in a state to realise that it was all over. Their patients were unconscious or delirious.

  Lizzie brought the news to Alice, who was still unfit for duty although feeling much better.

  ‘It’s over, Alice! The war’s over! Sister Harper told us a few minutes ago and I came straight to tell you.’

  Alice threw her arms around her. ‘Oh, Lizzie! We can go home! We can all go home! I can go home to Jimmy and Mam and Billy. Eddie won’t have to risk his life again and you can get married. We’ll both get married!’

  Lizzie hugged her but her happiness was tempered with sadness. ‘We’ll all go home – eventually, Alice, but I know many people are wondering was any of it worth it? So many dead, so many young lives blighted forever, so much … destruction. Towns, villages and hamlets in ruins, farmland turned into a wasteland of mud and shell craters, ships sunk and their crews lost, and now thousands dying of flu. And Mae …’

  Alice’s euphoric mood disappeared at Lizzie’s words. In her initial excitement she had forgotten that no one knew if Pip Middlehurst was alive or dead. ‘Oh, Lizzie, poor Mae! Where is she? Does she know about the Armistice?’

  Lizzie nodded. ‘She was with the rest of us but she’s stayed on the ward.’

  Without uttering another word Alice wrapped her cape around her thin shoulders and, followed by Lizzie, went in search of her cousin.

  As they both entered ward six Sister Harper looked up from her tiny work station. ‘Nurse McEvoy, you should be resting, you are far from well yet,’ she admonished her.

  ‘Where is she, Sister, please? She’ll be so … upset. She hasn’t heard anything from him.’

  ‘Attending to a young private who thankfully seems to be recovering. But don’t stay too long. Although the war is officially ended, our work here isn’t. I’ll need every one of my nurses as this epidemic is far from over and I’ve just received word that there is a convoy of sick and wounded men on its way. Three hundred stretcher cases and they are expected this afternoon.’

  Alice found Mae settling the young lad back against the pillows of a bed she had just changed. He looked far from well, Alice thought, but at least he wasn’t going to die. ‘Let me help you, Mae,’ she offered.

  ‘I … I didn’t know what else to do, Alice. I … had to keep on working, I can’t feel …’ She broke down and Alice put her arms around her.

  ‘Oh, Mae, don’t give up. Things will get more organised now. If he’s been wounded or is ill you’ll soon hear – and now that the fighting has stopped you’ll be able to travel to see him.’

  ‘But what if … if he’s … dead, Alice?’ Mae sobbed. Now that she’d uttered the word that had haunted her for weeks it was as if the floodgates had been opened.

  ‘Don’t say that! Don’t even think it! You would have been notified, you know you would,’ Alice said emphatically. ‘Don’t give up on him, Mae,’ she begged.

  Sister Harper had been watching closely and now she quickly took the situation in hand. ‘Nurse McEvoy, take Nurse Strickland back to your billet and both of you get a cup of tea and calm yourselves,’ she instructed. ‘This has been a very emotional and upsetting morning for everyone but I will need you, Nurse Strickland, to help with the convoy when it arrives.’

  Her words had the effect she intended on both Mae and Alice, and as they went across to the mess tent Mae became calmer. ‘She’s right, Alice. It is a very emotional day and not everyone can celebrate.’

  Alice nodded her agreement, thankful that at least Mae would have little time to dwell on the situation when the convoy arrived.

  The line of ambulances arrived just after two o’clock with only six fit, able-bodied officers and six enlisted men accompanying it. The men on the stretchers were either suffering from the flu virus or had been wounded in the previous days. The medical officers and nursing staff and orderlies were waiting and the job of assessing the patients began.

  ‘What regiment are you from?’ Lizzie asked a young man with a bullet wound in his thigh as she removed the field dressing that covered it.

  ‘Ninety-first Division, ma’am, and I sure am glad it’s all over,’ he replied quite cheerfully despite obviously being in pain.

  Lizzie was surprised. ‘You’re American!’

  ‘I sure am, ma’am, but there was no room for us at the casino. Besides, they’re all out celebrating, painting the town red.’

  ‘Are there many other Americans with you in this convoy?’ she asked, her heart beginning to beat rapidly.

  ‘There’s an officer and a few men from the one hundred and thirty-seventh. Mostly down with this Spanish flu.’

  Lizzie looked quickly around, searching for Mae, but in the press of wounded she couldn’t see her. The 137th was Pip’s division. ‘We’ll soon make you more comfortable now, soldier,’ she said to him as the orderlies moved him on to the medical officer and she turned to the next patient.

  Mae too had just realised that there were American troops amongst the convoy and hope, then fear and desperation chased each other through her in rapid succession as she’d realised that so many of them were very ill with the flu. She knew she couldn’t be spared, she knew she couldn’t just leave this patient to go and search for him. She hastily dashed the tears of frustration away with the back of her hand and ha
d bent down to the next stretcher when she felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned.

  ‘I promised you I’d come back, Mae.’

  A wave of pure joy enveloped her as she flung her arms around him, oblivious to the dust and dirt that streaked his face and covered his uniform. He was here! He was safe! He wasn’t wounded or dying from the virus! ‘Oh, Pip! Pip!’ she sobbed with relief.

  He held her tightly. ‘It’s over, Mae, at last it’s over. We can go home. Soon we can go home.’

  She gazed up at him, her eyes swimming with tears. ‘I love you so much, Pip, and I thought …’

  He smiled and gently wiped a tear from her cheek with his finger. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get word to you – there wasn’t time. But surely you knew I wouldn’t break my promise, Mae? We’ll see next Lilac Sunday together, a world away from … all this. It’s over and we’ll never be parted again.’

  Mae leaned her forehead against his shoulder as happiness enveloped her. In her short life she’d lost her mother, her father, her childhood friends, she’d feared for Alice’s life and for a time she’d thought she’d lost him too, but now the war was over and the future looked so bright. After the years of darkness, death and suffering there was now hope and joy and love. She remembered that beautiful dawn morning last spring. It had indeed been an omen, an omen heralding a new life in a new land.

  Maggie and Billy were rather taken aback when early on Monday morning they opened the front door and were confronted by Bertie Mercer, who was waving an edition of the morning paper. ‘Look! Look, Maggie! Billy! Mr Lloyd George has announced that the Armistice was signed at five o’clock this morning. The Press Bureau got the information to the newspapers. Fighting will cease on all fronts at eleven o’clock. It’s over! The war is over!’