Amy (24 page)

She got a letter from Johnny and almost collapsed with relief. He had been there.

He’s alive, she thought. He came through it. He’s alive. She slept that night like the dead.

The wounded arrived, endless, endless lines of men, soaked to the skin, covered in mud and lice, many with rat-bites. They toiled on.

A letter arrived from her father.

June was drier with occasional sunny days. ‘Thank God it’s stopped raining,’ Dan said. ‘Perhaps the men can get somewhere now. They can’t fight in the mud.’ He spoke too soon. The rain started again, torrential and continuous and the trenches and shell holes filled again. The army captured Messines Ridge and began the battle at Passchendaele.

‘The Germans are using mustard gas again,’ Dan said. ‘God help the men.’

‘The Americans won’t be coming until next year,’ Helen said, almost in tears. ‘You know what that means.’ There was nothing that Amy could say. ‘It means it isn’t going to end, not this year anyway.’

Amy felt overcome with weariness. Another year at least, and after that – who could know? They were all just waiting, endlessly waiting for any kind of normal life to come back again; Helen and Peter, she and Johnny, half the world.

That evening Helen bounced into the hut, her eyes shining. ‘Amy!’ she said. ‘Guess what!’

Amy laughed. ‘Whatever it is it’s obviously something good.’

‘We’re not going to wait any longer.’ Helen was excited and happy. ‘We’re going to get married now as soon as we can.’

Amy was thrilled. ‘What? When? When did all this happen?’

‘We decided today.’ Helen stopped bouncing around the room and sat down at the table. ‘We’re not going home; it would take too long. We’re going to get married in Paris. Peter wants Dan to be his best man, and I want you to be my maid of honour.’

For the next two weeks Helen was totally occupied with her wedding. She was given two days off to go to Paris to make
arrangements
. ‘I’ll have to let you go,’ Matron said, smiling. ‘You won’t be any use until you’ve done it.’

When she came back she was beaming. ‘I’ve organized the Embassy in Paris, and the English church, and I’ve booked hotels.’

‘Can your parents come?’ Amy asked, and for the first time Helen looked a little sad. ‘I’ve sent cables,’ she said. ‘My father is coming if he can get a passage, but they don’t think my mother or the girls should take the risk. Peter’s father can’t get away.’ She brightened up again. ‘That little dressmaker is making a dress for me.’

‘I’ll just wear my pink again,’ Amy said. ‘It’s come in very handy.’

‘After the war,’ Helen said, ‘we’ll have another blessing and a real party in England. We’ll really celebrate then.’

Somewhat to Amy’s surprise they were all given two nights off to go to the wedding and Helen and Peter were to have two extra nights in Paris. ‘I shall still have to share with you when we get back,’ Helen said. ‘Matron says we can’t stay together.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It would cause scandal and set a bad example.’

‘At least you’ll have a long weekend,’ Amy said wistfully. It was more than she had ever had alone with Johnny.

They travelled to Paris on the train, the men decently housed in one hotel and the girls in another. Helen’s father was there to give her away.

The simple ceremony touched Amy in the deepest way, far more than a lavish wedding in England would ever have done. The men standing proudly in their uniforms and Helen in her simple dress seemed to pare down the service to its real meaning – the simple
joining of two fine people who loved each other.

She and Dan travelled back together on the train. She sat with her head against the seat back, staring drowsily out of the window. She glanced at Dan and he was looking at her, his dark eyes brooding. Then he smiled at her, a cheerful, friendly smile.

‘Post, Amy.’ Helen put the letters on the table. Amy was dressing hurriedly; she was due in theatre. She glanced at the letters. One was from her father; she could see that. The other one she didn’t recognize. She slipped them in her pocket to read later.

She spent the morning in theatre, and came back to the hut to tidy up her hair and get ready for the afternoon. She stood by the table and read her father’s letter. He tried to keep cheerful, bless him, but he constantly worried about her.

She slit open the other letter.
Dear Amy
, it began. Puzzled, she read on. In a moment she felt suddenly as if she were not alive any more, as if her heart had stopped beating and she was not breathing. It isn’t true, she thought, it can’t be; it’s some dreadful mistake, and for a few confused seconds she was comforted. Then she gave a cry, ‘Helen!’

Helen was beside her at once. ‘Amy, what is it? What’s happened?’

Amy couldn’t stand. She lowered herself slowly into a chair. Helen knelt beside her. She tried to take the letter but Amy wouldn’t let it go. She clutched it to her in despair, as if it was the last contact she would ever have, as if his name, written on the paper, was his last touch.

‘He’s dead, Helen,’ she whispered. ‘Johnny is dead. The letter is from his father.’

‘Oh no! Oh no!’ Helen put her arms around her. She burst into tears.

‘He can’t be,’ Amy said. ‘He can’t be dead.’ But outside the door, in the road and the railway and the hospitals, death was a living,
breathing
, insatiable monster. She couldn’t cry. She sat on the chair
unmoving
.

‘Stay here,’ Helen said. ‘I’m going to get someone. I’m going to tell them you can’t work today. Don’t move, Amy.’

She didn’t move. Slowly, very slowly, she had to realize, to accept the truth. Johnny was dead. Her bright, laughing Johnny was dead. She saw him standing before her, tall and upright in his uniform. She saw his smile, his shining hair as he walked to her across the field. She felt his arms around her and his kiss on her mouth. She saw his mother’s
roses that she had named for him, the bright, flaming flowers dancing free in the garden. Her face felt frozen; she couldn’t cry.

The door opened quietly and Helen and Dan came in. Dan took her hands in his. ‘I’m so sorry, Amy. I’m so sorry.’

She looked into his kind, concerned face and held on to his hands.

‘I’ll tell them you can’t work for a while,’ he said.

‘I don’t want to stop working,’ she said dully. ‘It’ll be better if I go on. God knows I’m not the only one.’

‘You must take your time, Amy.’

‘I want to go to his funeral,’ she said. ‘The letter is from his father. He’s being buried in a week, when – when he arrives home.’

‘Of course,’ Dan said. ‘You shall go.’

‘I’ll stay with you today,’ Helen said. ‘You shouldn’t be alone.’

‘Call for me any time,’ Dan said. He released her hands. ‘I’ll sort out compassionate leave for you. Just leave it to me. Look after her, Helen.’

‘I’ll go to see Matron,’ Helen said. ‘I’ll get the day off to be with you. I’ll be back very soon.’

They left the hut, leaving her alone. She walked about the hut,
restless
, in pain. It didn’t seem possible that he had gone – a moment, a spark of time, and he was gone. She couldn’t bear to think of how he died – surely not like the German pilot. She put the letter down
carefully
on the table. How they must be suffering, his mother and father and his brother. She remembered his mother’s face, the fear in her eyes. This war – any war – takes the finest and the best.

Helen came back. ‘Come out with me,’ Amy said. ‘I need to be outside in the open air.’

They walked down their usual walk at the edge of the camp. Helen took her hand. ‘Do you want to talk about it, Amy?’

They walked a little further. ‘His father got a letter from his
commanding
officer,’ Amy said. ‘He was shot down. He said that Johnny died instantly. He didn’t suffer. I only hope that it was true.’ They walked for most of the rest of the day. Amy was too restless to stay anywhere.

In the evening Dan came. ‘I’ve arranged for you to go home,’ he said. ‘The day after tomorrow.’ She nodded her thanks. ‘Do you think you might come back, Amy? Or perhaps it’s too soon for you to make such decisions.’

‘Of course I’ll come back,’ she said. ‘I need to work. It’s the only thing I can do.’

After he had gone she got into bed, but she lay awake most of the night, only falling into a restless doze as dawn was breaking.

When she arrived in England it was raining. She sent a telegram to her father as soon as she left the boat:
Have arrived in England. Johnny is dead
. She took the train to London, to Victoria Station. The train was packed with soldiers. They sat in strained silence in the seats, or smoked, standing in the corridors, their eyes distant and guarded.

She arrived home exhausted. Her father met her at the door and put his arms around her and led her inside. The familiar atmosphere of home wrapped around her. She put her head on her father’s shoulder and for the first time, she wept.

‘What can I say, Amy?’ Her father held her as her sobbing quietened. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘There’s nothing to say,’ she said. ‘He’s gone; that’s all.’ Her head began to droop.

‘You’re exhausted,’ he said. ‘You must go to bed and rest.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Just for a little while.’ She dragged herself upstairs and into her room and undressed and got into bed. She fell asleep instantly and slept until the next morning, without dreaming.

Her father was at the breakfast table when she came downstairs. He poured her a cup of tea. ‘Did you sleep?’

She nodded. ‘Yes.’ She sipped her tea. ‘The funeral is on Friday. At their home in Berkshire.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No, dear,’ she said. ‘I’d rather go alone. I’m only going to the service. I’m not going to stay. I couldn’t bear to stand around talking about him to people I don’t know and who don’t know me.’

‘Come straight home afterwards,’ he said. ‘You can rest here with me.’

On Friday she took the train to London and then a train from Paddington. She took a taxi from the station to the church.

The little church was filled with people, all, to her distress, dressed in black. There was so much black everywhere. Johnny would not have wanted black.

She found a place at the back of the church. She could see Johnny’s father in the front pew and beside him Johnny’s mother. She looked smaller than ever, shrunken and bent, and heavily veiled.

The organ began to play quietly and the congregation stood up. The
coffin was carried in, draped in the Union flag. It passed so close to her that she could have reached out and touched it – touched him. The tears began and ran silently down her cheeks. There were tears all around her.

She didn’t hear the service. She stood up and sat down with
everyone
else. A few words came through from the prayers; courage,
sacrifice
, eternal life. I want him now, she thought. I want him now. The tears flowed. The service ended and the coffin was carried out into the little churchyard for the final goodbye.

Johnny’s father saw her and made a little signal with his hand, reaching out to her. When the service was over he came to stand beside her.

‘Amy,’ he said. He took her hand. She could see the agony in his eyes. ‘I want to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Will you come back to the house?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’

He seemed to understand. ‘Wait for me here,’ he said. ‘I’ll take my wife home and I’ll come back.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait.’

They climbed into their cars. Johnny’s mother didn’t speak to her, too devastated, Amy thought, to speak to anyone. She probably didn’t know anything about her real relationship with Johnny. He probably hadn’t told her yet. It was going to be after the war. Everything was after the war.

She stood beside the grave for a few moments with bowed head, saying her last goodbye. Then she went to sit in the little church. It was very quiet. The light slanted through the stained-glass windows,
casting
their colours on the stone floor. The ancient walls seemed to speak to her. She put out her hand and touched one of the stone pillars, solid, unchanging. Hundreds of years of English history folded around her. She could feel the presence of these ancient congregations. ‘Life goes on,’ they seemed to say. ‘We accept; we go on.’

Sir Henry came into the church and sat beside her. ‘My dear,’ he said. There were tears in his eyes. ‘I know that you loved him and I know that he loved you. I want you to know that I would have been proud to welcome you into the family.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

‘He told me,’ he went on, ‘about you being a doctor and about your troubles.’

‘It hardly matters now,’ she said.

‘Yes, it does, Amy. You must go on with your life. I believe what you say. I’m not without contacts. I’ll help you in any way I can.’

‘I can’t think about it now,’ she said.

He took her hand. ‘I know, but time heals, Amy. Don’t let this war destroy you.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered again.

He got up. ‘I’ll take you to the station. Go home to your father, Amy, and then go back to your work. Johnny admired you very much.’

He saw her on to the train. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.

She left Johnny in the churchyard. She went home to her father and then she went back to France, taking Johnny’s free spirit with her.

A
MY
arrived back in France and took the train to Étaples. Once again it was raining. Rain, she thought, endless rain, as if the whole world were weeping. Rain and mud.

Helen was waiting for her in their hut. ‘Take off your coat,’ she said, ‘you’re soaking.’ She made a cup of tea. ‘Can I do anything, Amy?’

Amy shook her head. ‘I’m glad I went. I don’t think I quite believed it before.’

‘I’m so sorry, Amy.’

Helen and Dan were concerned and kind, but there was no time for reflection or even for grieving. Only when she lay in bed could she think about Johnny and shed her private tears. The battle for Passchendaele went on in a nightmare of bullets, mud, and poison gas.

They were getting more and more shell-shocked men; so many that they opened a ward for them in one of the tents. There were men who couldn’t stop screaming unless they were sedated into a restless sleep; men whose whole body shook and shuddered until they were skeletal and exhausted; men who couldn’t walk – whose legs let them down as they tried to stand; men who couldn’t see or hear, whose uninjured eyes and ears could no longer transmit their messages to a brain so stunned with horror that it would not receive them.

She was surprised to see that there were a few French women and children in the camp, women from the farms, by the look of them, weary and distraught.

‘They’re refugees from the villages,’ Helen said. ‘They’ve started to come into Étaples, into the town. Some of them have come here
looking
for a doctor.’

‘Miss Osborne,’ Sister said one morning. ‘Captain Fielding wants you urgently in the female ward. There is an emergency there.’ Amy hurried across, wondering what the problem was. The nurses and orderlies got colds and flu but they hadn’t had a surgical emergency before.

She found, to her surprise, a woman in labour. ‘She’s from one of the villages,’ Dan said. ‘One of the refugees. We’ll have to help her. She’s been in labour too long already and she isn’t getting anywhere.’

Amy felt her abdomen. The baby’s head seemed to be lying freely to one side. She put on a glove and examined her. ‘There’s a limb down,’ she said.

‘Trouble,’ Dan said. ‘Is it an arm or a leg?’

Amy paused. If the baby’s limb was a leg then it was a breech presentation and they could allow it to proceed normally. If it was an arm then the delivery was totally obstructed, the baby lying across the neck of the womb. In that case there was no way that the baby could be delivered normally. If they left her, the baby and probably the mother, would die. She felt again, her fingers touching the little limb. Was it a hand she was feeling, or a foot? She felt the tiny fingers move.

‘It’s a hand,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to do a section. It’s the only way.’

Dan looked at her across the patient who was moaning in pain, the sweat standing on her brow. ‘Have you done one before?’

She nodded. ‘Perhaps we could cross-match her and get a donor in case she needs blood. We’ll use Group O if there’s no match.’

He nodded briefly. ‘Prepare her for theatre, Sister,’ he said. ‘I’ll get it organized. I’ll see you in theatre, Miss Osborne.’

The last thing Amy expected was that she would be doing a Caesarean section here in this army camp filled with the weapons of destruction. Between them she and Sister managed to explain to the mother what they were going to do. They took her to theatre where Dan and the anaesthetist were waiting.

Speed, Amy thought. Speed was essential. The baby’s pulse rate was already too high. The anaesthetist put the mother to sleep.

She cut across the abdomen, through the muscles and the
peritoneum
. Then she cut through the uterus and the blood spurted, as she knew it would. She and Dan clamped off the bleeding vessels. She felt carefully for the baby’s head and gently lifted him out – a little boy. She clipped off and cut the cord and laid him in the nurse’s waiting arms. The afterbirth came away and she quickly began to repair the uterus and close the wound. Across the theatre she heard a little cough, and then the baby cried, a loud, healthy cry. She glanced up at Sister whose eyes were filled with tears.

The baby cried. Amy felt an unaccustomed surge of pleasure and joy. Among all the cries she heard in this camp day after day, this was a cry to warm the heart, a cry of new life, of hope and happiness.

‘I hear you had a baby,’ Helen said. ‘How lovely,’ and then she laughed and blushed. ‘I’m so sorry. What a thing to say.’

Amy smiled. ‘It’s all right, I know what you mean. Just don’t say it to anyone else.’

‘I’m going to have lots of babies,’ Helen said. ‘Lots and lots.’

‘Helen!’ Amy said. ‘You don’t mean….’

Helen blushed again. ‘Oh no. I wouldn’t be here if I was pregnant. Peter wouldn’t let me stay. He’s not too keen now, but I said we got married to be together, didn’t we, so he’ll have to put up with me.’

Amy laughed. ‘I think he can manage that.’

In September the weather became fine and dry. ‘Perhaps we’ll get somewhere now,’ Dan said, ‘if the land dries out.’ But once again he spoke too soon. By October it was raining again, daily, incessant rain. In November, after sixteen weeks of fighting, the Canadians took Passchendaele Ridge. Then the British attacked at Cambrai, but the British tanks bogged down in the mud. After 40,000 casualties, they were back where they started.

‘Bad news,’ Dan said one morning. ‘The Russians are pulling out. The new government has obviously decided that they’ve had enough. Now the Huns can concentrate on us.’

Amy stared at him. ‘Perhaps they’re the only ones with any sense,’ she said. ‘I wish we could all do the same.’

‘When will the Americans get here?’ Helen said plaintively. ‘I wish
they would come.’

The men who poured into the hospital from Cambrai were exhausted beyond belief.

‘They’re beginning to fantasize again,’ Helen said. ‘They’re talking about ghosts. One of them told me he saw his commanding officer helping the wounded off the battlefield, bullets flying all around, and when he got back he found out the officer had been dead for three days.’ The rumours flew around, of dead soldiers coming back to help the living. More angels of Mons.

‘They’ve had enough,’ Amy said. ‘They can’t accept reality any more.’

Sometimes she almost believed them. She dreamt about Johnny almost every night. Then once, when she was walking at the edge of the camp, she thought she saw him walking towards her over the field, his fair hair shining. She had a crazed moment of unbelieving joy, she almost called out to him, almost climbed over the fence to run to him, and then in an instant he was gone. Slowly the acute and unbearable pain became a steady, nostalgic ache in her heart.

After Cambrai the flow of wounded began to ease a little, but they were replaced by an endless flow of sick men, men with pneumonia, typhus, influenza, hepatitis. Often they had raging fevers that were never diagnosed. Helen was transferred to a medical ward. ‘There aren’t nearly enough nurses or VADs,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I’m the only person on the ward. I give bedpans out in my dreams.’

‘What’s happening?’ Amy said to Dan. ‘Have you any news?’

‘Not much,’ he said. ‘It seems to have gone back to the same old beginning, sitting in trenches staring at each other and shooting anything that moves.’

The winter came in and was bitter; deep, frozen cold and bitter winds. The water froze in the kettles and taps overnight. The nurses and VADs wore jerseys and sometimes overcoats on the wards. Keeping the men warm became a major battle.

The year crept towards its end. Just before Christmas Amy and Helen walked into Étaples town to buy some sweets and biscuits for the men. Even these simple pleasures were becoming scarce. The town was busy, a steady trickle of refugees along the road in from the east. In the camp the men got up a Christmas concert. The medical and nursing staff crowded into the back of the tent, ready to leave if
they were needed. There were the old, well-worn acts, music and songs and recitations – ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’ and ‘The Ancient Mariner.’ Then a young man came on to the makeshift stage, a young pilot from the RFC, his arm in a sling. He sang a song that he said was popular among the pilots. Amy listened with growing horror.

She left the tent abruptly. Dan followed her out into the freezing night.

‘I’m sorry, Amy,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have had to listen to that.’ She was trying, unsuccessfully, to hold back the tears. ‘Amy,’ he said softly. He took her in his arms and held her close, stroking her hair, as you would comfort a child.

‘It’s all right,’ she said at last. ‘I’m sorry.’

He let her go. ‘I wish I could take the pain away.’ She nodded,
without
looking at him, and without words, and made her way back to the hut.

Helen came back later. ‘1918 in a week,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to celebrate New Year. How could anyone? I’m just going to spend the evening with Peter if I can, though I don’t suppose we’ll manage to be alone.’

A strange marriage, Amy thought, but at least they’re together. Most people were not.

January was bitter. The wounded still came in steady but
manageable
numbers, and the sick flowed in.

In February there was news that delighted the female staff. ‘It’s happened, Amy.’ Helen was dancing about the hut. ‘Votes for women! Our great and wonderful government’ – she made a face – ‘has at last decided that women can vote. We are no longer classed with criminals and lunatics.’ She pulled another face. ‘You’ve got to be thirty, though.’

‘About time too. And I don’t understand why they’ve made it only over thirty.’ Amy thought of all the women here and at home, the
nurses and VADs and the WAACs and WRENS and the Land Army and the ambulance drivers – most of them under thirty. ‘I suppose it’s a start.’

Helen pinned her suffragist badge to her apron. ‘They can’t stop me wearing this today.’ She smiled broadly. ‘We can be Members of Parliament too.’

Amy laughed. ‘I can certainly think of someone who might do that.’

Helen was serious. ‘I’ll have to wait for a few years, but I shall certainly keep it in mind.’

‘What are you all so happy about?’ one of the patients asked, a
grizzled
sergeant, wounded in the leg.

‘We’ve got the vote,’ Amy said. ‘Women have got the vote. What do you think of that?’

‘Good for you,’ he said. ‘You can’t do worse than the lot we’ve got now. Maybe you can stop this bleeding war.’

In March the weather eased a little, icy days and nights changing to cold, cold rain. Amy was in a strange, restless mood. She took to wandering about the edge of the camp in her time off, or occasionally walked into Étaples, looking at the shops, watching the steady trickle of refugees from the east, away from the enemy lines. Do they know something we don’t, she thought? Or are they just getting as far away as they can? She felt as if this were the lull before a storm. Everywhere there was a dreadful sense of weariness, of want and despair. The only laughter came from the children, playing with their meagre toys in the streets.

She saw Dan almost daily. ‘I’m stifled, Dan,’ she said. ‘I just have this awful feeling, and it’s not only me. The men are restless and the shell-shock cases are worse. It’s as if there’s a black cloud hanging over us.’

‘You’re tired, Amy,’ he said. ‘We’re all tired to death.’

‘I just feel as if there’s something coming,’ she said.

Dan smiled wearily. ‘There’s always something coming.’

On 21 March, they knew what it was. The camp was struck with unbelieving shock. The Germans had launched a massive offensive, pouring shells and explosives and phosgene and mustard gas into the British lines. By nightfall they had broken through and the British were falling back.

Amy and Dan were in the surgical ward when the news came through. Dan visibly paled before her eyes.

‘It’ll take nearly two days before the wounded get here,’ he said. ‘God knows what it will be like. We must be prepared. Get what sleep you can, Amy.’ He turned to Sister. ‘Stock up the theatres and the wards, Sister. As many dressings and bandages as you can get. I’ll try to get more blood. We must transfer more of the nurses and VADs to the surgical wards.’

Amy lay in bed at night, waiting. She felt as she had when she first qualified, afraid of what might be coming in, hoping that she would be able to cope.

They heard the rumbling of the ambulances and lorries on the road half an hour before they arrived. They waited in the theatres and wards, silent, apprehensive.

The ambulances began to unload. Amy was dazed by the scenes before her. There were hundreds of men, their wounds covered in filthy, stinking bandages and sodden dressings, shattered limbs bound to splints with filthy rags, spilling intestines under dirty wet towels; the gassed men coughing up their lives, their eyes swollen and
purulent
. The men were crying, dismayed. ‘There’s thousands of them,’ one of the young soldiers sobbed. ‘There’s ten of them for every one of us.’

Amy and Helen looked at each other, horrified. Where had all these German soldiers come from? For the very first time it occurred to Amy that the Allies might lose the war. The thought was devastating, paralysing. Was it possible? All this, and then to lose? Was German cavalry going to ride down Whitehall?

The men came on, in trucks, farm carts, anything they could get. One of the officers was near to tears. ‘It’s chaos,’ he said. ‘We’ve lost dozens of the men; they’re scattered everywhere.’

‘Miss Osborne,’ Sister whispered, ‘they’ve shelled Paris! They’ve got guns that can shell from seventy-five miles away.’

One morning Amy and Helen were walking to the hospital when a column of soldiers marched down the road nearby. ‘Who on earth are they?’ Helen said. They were so tall, so upright, and seemed so
cheerful
. Helen clutched Amy’s arm. ‘Amy! It’s the Americans!’ Amy watched them go by, impressed by their height and strength. What a contrast, she thought, to our own men, beaten down by years of war,
and beaten down by neglect and want before that. There were so many things that needed changing at home, after the war.