Softly Grow the Poppies Page 12

When Harry awoke she fed him herself, making him eat the good, nourishing broths, soups, and custards that Nessie made for him and slowly though still thin he began to look like the man who had left her over a year ago and in his eyes was a look that asked something of her. She knew what it was and when she had fed him and returned the tray to the kitchen she went upstairs, telling Dolly she did not want the captain disturbed.

  Dolly watched her go sadly for there were so many men longing for what Rose was about to give Harry and that was a respite from the horrors they had seen in the trenches. She sighed and exchanged a sympathetic smile with Nessie. Both were knitting, socks, balaclavas, mittens, scarves, anything to keep their men warm in the coming winter. They had both come to work at Summer Place because that was where they were needed but with Beechworth destined to be the next house authorised as a hospital who knew where they would end up? Wherever two elderly ladies could do the most good. Not much except be there for the ones who cared for the men in the beds. The maimed and blinded, the mutilated and damaged in their poor heads and minds that could literally take no more. For nearly two years these men had been subjected to terrors not just of possible death, which in many ways was better than the wounds that crippled them for life, but of the loss of their innocence, their faith in the men who led them.

  ‘Let’s hope there’ll not be another babby without a father,’ Dolly murmured and a sad tear ran down her cheek, finding its way along a wrinkle that ran from the corner of her eye to her chin.

  ‘Miss Rose loves that there man, Dolly, and will give ’im summat ter take back ter that ’ell ’e come from.’

  He watched her from the bed, his need of her, now that he had the strength to manage it, very obvious in the bulge under the clean sheets she and Dolly had put him between that morning. His face was a blessing to her for she knew that she would send him back with the remembrance of her in his arms and their loving which she prayed would heal his wounded soul. Though he was whole, as so many weren’t, his mind was not, for in it were pictures of the young, baby-faced officers straight from school who had never been with a woman and now never would for they had had their genitals blown off; men who wandered the trenches calling for ‘Tich’ or ‘Jimmy’ or, worse than anything, ‘Mummy’ or ‘Nanny’; men who held their blown-off leg in their hands, begging for someone to sew it back on; men screaming as they were caught in the barbed wire, cruelly and for ever entangled until some compassionate pal put a bullet in them. The casualties flowed back across the Channel and some flowed the other way, returning to the front. The smell of gangrene and perhaps the worse sight, not remarked on but heartbreaking just the same, the surgeons who did their best but wept at the sheer waste of it all.

  These images were tumbling about in his head but the sight of Rose, his lovely Rose, clean, whole, swept them all away as she came into his arms and held him as he, unable to help himself, wept too. Then with her hands and her mouth and the smell of her in his nostrils, it all vanished and rapture came, sweeping them both up on its wave and taking them to a shore where peace was. They slept then but during that night they loved again and again, slept and loved and mended Harry Summers. The man with half a face blown away was himself no more than a misty sorrow in Harry’s mind and the words he had spoken to him, the smile he had given and the man’s gratitude as Harry looked him straight in the face and did not flinch.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ the man had mumbled through the hole in what was left of his face. All this had tortured him for the months he had borne it but now he knew he could deal with it which sounded hard but was merely an acceptance of life, and death. He wanted Rose to be here when he got back. He had lost his brother and, more than likely, his brother’s wife who gallantly and probably foolishly roamed the battlefields looking for Charlie, but here was his saviour in his arms. Their loving seemed to strengthen him and where she had been the dominant one in their desire he now began to make demands of her that had not been in his power in the beginning.

  ‘I love you, I have never stopped loving you,’ laying a hard hand against her cheek. ‘My heart rises when I see you and my love is as constant as the heavens. Do you . . .?’

  ‘I have waited for this ever since that day,’ lifting her hips to accommodate his masculine need.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘The day at the station. Oh God, I did not know this would ever come . . .’

  ‘This . . .’ His body moved slowly, slowly in and out, then his pace quickened.

  ‘Let me help you,’ for she was afraid he was not strong enough for such a pounding energy.

  ‘I need no help. You love me?’

  ‘Yes, oh yes . . . this is . . . I am ready to scream. Dolly will . . .’

  ‘To hell with Dolly. I need this, you know that . . .’

  ‘I am yours to do with . . .’

  ‘This?’

  ‘Yes . . . yes . . . yes, my darling heart. I love you, never leave me . . .’

  And so she shouted her love, her passion for this man – yelled, he told her later as he cradled her in his arms. Their climax had been an explosion of love held in and now given free range. She was drowsy with it now but he watched the light slowly beginning to seep round the edge of the curtains and the joy that had been shared with her, just for a moment, made his heart ache for it was to end this day. He felt the desolation run through him, then, like a dog just come from the water, he shook himself; had he not just been given what all the men he served with yearned for. Love! Yes and more than that because he knew this woman would wait for him and the next leave he had they would be married.

  When she woke she found him leaning on his elbow looking down into her face. She put her hand on his cheek. ‘Such love I have. I am filled with it.’

  ‘I did my best,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘Was it . . .?’ then had no need to continue for he turned her towards him and silently, gently, his lips fastened on her nipple and she rose to meet him and he loved her for what he knew would be the last time on this leave.

  His uniform had been cleaned and pressed and hung on the wardrobe door in readiness for his departure. From the bed she watched him and didn’t know how she could bear it. She had only just found him. I have only just found him, to an uncaring God yet he was to go and her heart was breaking, for would she ever see him again and if she did would he be whole and sane as he was now?

  ‘I told you I had seen Alice,’ he said abruptly and she felt ashamed as in her new-found happiness she had forgotten. She sat up and the sheet fell away from her and his eyes went to the sweet roundness and fullness of her breast.

  ‘Sweetheart, don’t do that or I shall never . . .’

  She sighed since she knew what he meant. ‘Tell me about Alice.’

  ‘She was standing outside the hospital and each time an ambulance drew up she accosted those who were able to speak. She was off duty but she would not rest. “Are any of you men from the Liverpool Regiment?” she was asking and from everyone there was either silence or a shake of an anguished head. Then someone – perhaps a lad from around Old Swan or West Derby – said he was but the regiment had lost so many men those who were left had been integrated into other battalions.

  ‘“Was yer lookin’ fer someone, queen?” he asked sympathetically, despite his own troubles, doing his best to raise his head from the stretcher.

  ‘“Captain Charlie Summers of the 19th Battalion, King’s Liverpool Regiment,” she replied, moving to the stretcher and taking hold of the man’s hand. “Do you know him? He has been missing for a year or more.”’

  Harry sighed and stared out at the garden. ‘They all knew her, of course, for she had become famous. Mad, they thought her, but nevertheless they all held her in great esteem. She was not shirking her duties and drove her ambulance wherever it was needed and gave great comfort to the men she brought to the hospital but she cried when I spoke to her. She has the strength of a lion. Who was it said, “I have the body of a weak and feeble woman but the heart of a li
on,” – or something like that? A queen, I think, and that is Alice.’ He fell to musing as he buttoned his immaculate khaki shirt. ‘That day when Charlie left, you remember when Lady wouldn’t get on the train, she wept and was so fragile, so wilting, like a flower dragged from the soil but now I believe if they gave her the leadership of the armies she would have this bloody lot sorted out in no time. She swears she will not come home until she has found Charlie or seen his body, which is impossible. She was going to start on the prisoner-of-war camps, someone told me, which is madness.’

  ‘I know how she feels now, Harry. If you were to—’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said sharply but she would not be stopped.

  ‘I would do as she is doing. I know it is ridiculous. If every woman who lost her man were to do what Alice is doing there would be chaos but . . .’

  He dropped on to his knees beside the bed, running his fingers through her hair, stroking her cheek and neck and, inevitably, the peached peak of her white breast. They could both feel the hot blood begin again and hastily he kissed her, a light kiss, then stood up and strode from the room. She knew he was going to the nursery where young Will Summers was having his breakfast. He would report it all back to Alice if he saw her again and even present her with a photograph one of the men had taken of Will. It might persuade her to come home.

  The shelling had eased off a lot when she spotted two khaki figures stumbling towards her about fifty yards away. She had a revolver one of the officers had given her, saying he hoped she never had to use it but better to be safe than sorry. It remained in her pocket and had never been used. She had smiled at the picture of herself shooting a fellow human being but the two soldiers seemed unaware of her and just kept walking. They were Germans. Both of them had wounds, at least they were bleeding, or there was blood on them though she could not tell from where.

  ‘Madam,’ one of them said, an officer by the look of him. ‘You are English.’

  ‘Yes, I am, but what are you—’

  ‘I have brought my corporal to you, to your hospital which I know is near. He is hurt. I have many hurt but this one is my brother.’

  ‘Your brother!’

  ‘Ja. Forgive me, but I must get back to my men. They are . . . I must get back to them but I could not leave Erich, you understand?’

  ‘Well, no. I am—’

  ‘The nearest hospital is . . . German hospital is several miles away. It is in a prisoner-of-war camp where there are many Englishmen: soldiers, prisoners. One of them was helped by a German doctor. He had no papers but he is with his own now. I thought since a German doctor tended him one of yours might do the same for Erich.’

  He laid his brother down in the bit of grass that had first attracted her to the place. There were even wild flowers. After clicking his heels and saluting with great politeness, the officer strode away and disappeared into the distance from where sounds of gunfire could be heard.

  Alice looked down at the young corporal in astonishment then up again to where the officer had gone. A small crowd of soldiers had gathered round her, ready to stick their bayonets into the supine figure on the ground but with a sharp word from her they drew back. They all knew or had heard of the mad woman who searched for her husband and would not cross her for the world. She was on a par with an angel to them for not only did she work alongside them she was also a mystical being from another world, or so they believed.

  Doing as she ordered, they made a rough stretcher and carried the young wounded soldier back to the hospital.

  10

  They had more warning – and help – this time when Beechworth opened its doors to the pitiful dregs of humanity who were once men, soldiers who had answered the call and paid heavily for their patriotism. The suffering victims had had nothing in the way of medical care bar the hastily slapped-on dressings at the dressing station hundred of miles away. Their faces were grey with pain but this time Rose and her helpers had everything ready, her home scrubbed from attic to cellars, beds erected, doctors at the ready with a staff of nurses and VADs, some of them borrowed from Summer Place. The men were quiet as though the little bit of life that had been theirs at the beginning of their journey from the front had slowly drained away from them as time moved on. Ambulance, train, boat, train, ambulance: hours had passed and now they were lifted gently from the fleet of ambulances by the volunteer stretcher-bearers who placed them in the beds they had been designated. Doctors and nurses had travelled with them, two of them, and Dr Cartwright from Summer Place, reading the labels that had been tied on to the men, different colours denoting the severity of their wounds, inspected them briefly then directed them to their place in what Rose thought of as a queue, the worst of them first though how these medical men could make such a decision was beyond her understanding. Two men, almost unrecognisable as men so wrapped about were they in various pieces of what looked like rags from the bone yard in Old Swan, were found to be dead, their blood hiding their horrific wounds so that they had probably been dead for hours without anyone noticing.

  Some of the farm wives stood by ready to give a hand were it needed, dropping blood-soaked dressings into a bucket, their expressions stoic. They had been brought up to deal with nothing more than a cut with a scythe, a burn perhaps, a child poorly with a fever and even though some of them had loved ones at this mysterious ‘front’ that was forever on everybody’s lips they did not falter. Rose was everywhere at once, taking orders since the doctors knew how reliable she was, giving them to the farm women, even the VADs who didn’t know where anything or any place was, and at the end of the day it was only Dolly’s forceful command and her own total exhaustion that made her lie down in her own bedroom at Beechworth.

  ‘What about Will?’ she said plaintively and was gently pushed down on the bed, covered with a blanket and told that there was a horde of women, servants from Beechworth and Summer Place, only too willing to look after the dear little chap.

  ‘But he might fret if I’m not there,’ for it was very evident that Charlie and Alice’s son had attached himself to Rose as he would a mother. The bond between them was a worry to Dolly. What would happen when his parents came home? She fully believed they would, she didn’t know exactly why but in her heart there was a small place that held the sweet girl whom they had all come to love, and a voice in it that whispered to her that she would not be taken like the Summers brothers. Like Alice she somehow felt that she would know if Captain Charlie, a great favourite of them all, was dead and fully expected his face to smile up at her from one of the stretchers that were now in some sort of order according to the gravity of their wounds.

  ‘Be quiet and do as you’re told for once,’ Dolly ordered and almost before Dolly left the room, Rose was asleep.

  ‘What have you done to your hand, Nurse?’ the doctor asked tiredly. Although he was beyond exhaustion as he bent over a bed in which a boy moaned in his sleep, he still noticed that the little ambulance driver who had just brought him in had her left hand wrapped up and his medical training kicked in, for it would not do to have a valuable member of the medical team with an injury.

  ‘Nothing, Doctor. A splinter from the frame of the hut where we sleep. Nurse Paget got it out then bandaged it to protect it from—’

  But the doctor had turned away. A splinter! In the midst of the horrific wounds some of these men suffered, a splinter did not seem to matter much in the scheme of things! Alice left the stretcher that she had helped to carry in and headed for the hut where she and the other ambulance drivers slept, hoping for a bit of ‘shut-eye’ but the alarm bell rang out to tell them that the ambulances were needed again.

  ‘Where to?’ she asked O’Neill who was crossing herself as she ran for her ambulance. The Battle of the Somme still raged as it had done since July and the tented hospitals were overflowing with the wounded. Alice had lost count of how many times she had made this run to the dressing station to pick up the shattered flotsam that was once a group of fighting soldiers. From the
hospital she would then run them to the railway station where they would be loaded like so many parcels to be shipped back to England.

  ‘Somebody said Delville Wood wherever that is. There’s been a big battle there. We’re to pick them up and take them directly to the trains. The hospitals are full, they say, and the wounded are just lying on the ground where they were brought in.’

  Alice climbed into her ambulance though the damn splinter in her finger was throbbing so much she could barely hold the steering wheel. Some kind soldier, despite a terrible wound to his left arm, had cranked the engine for her, cheerfully smiling as he waved her away and she wondered for the thousandth time how these men, these suffering men, many of them clerks, tram drivers, coal men, milk men, servants, kept going against the odds which said that two-thirds of them would be dead before the week was out.

  She and the stretcher-bearers packed the ambulance with wounded men. She had cigarettes in her pocket and having lit several for the men who were in her charge, for it seemed, despite their plight, a ‘fag’ was a great comfort to the wounded, she then turned in the direction of the railway station, following the line of other ambulances. The train was already at the platform and she reversed her vehicle adroitly so that the rear was facing the train. She knew all the terrible wounds by now, the worst being made by the evil serrated entrenching tools used by the Germans. There were shrapnel wounds which she knew tore off parts of the body and then the ones that were clean, one could almost call it the humane wound of a bullet.

  The men were loaded, lying almost on top of one another in the wagons which she knew would be stinking, accepting the conditions in which these poor souls were to lie for there had not been time to clean them and the floors where the patient wounded lay were filthy with vomit, excrement and blood from their last passengers. It seemed no one cared and for a moment she felt a great wave of guilt sweep over her. She thought she had become so indifferent – no, that was not the right word, but it was close and for an instant she wanted to weep. For these brave and suffering men, for the people she loved at home who must suffer agonies at her disappearance, for her beloved husband who could not be found. Dear, sweet Jesus, forgive me.