Flora's War (15 page)

So was that where my friends had gone? Were they fighting the Turks?

Mr Khalid came to the excavation to tell us that Allied soldiers had been landed on a peninsula called Gallipoli.

‘Allied? Does that include Australians?’ I asked him.

‘I fear so,’ he nodded soberly. ‘Australians appear to have disembarked on beaches with high cliffs above them. The Turks are on the top of the cliffs and in the hills behind, firing down on them.’

I went straight to the hospital to see what the nurses knew. One had heard that our boys had climbed the cliffs, attacked the Turks, and had them fleeing inland. But another said that our boys were pinned down on the beaches with the Turks picking them off like fish in a barrel. No one knew what to believe.

I found it almost impossible to work. Every day I went to the excavation with Fa and sat trying to sketch the objects from Khnumhotep’s burial chamber, but I spent more time staring out over the desert than I did drawing, wondering where my friends were, hoping they were safe. From the rumours, I was very doubtful that all of them would be.

Late one afternoon I drove Fa back into town past the Nile Palace. Every time I’d gone there as a hospital visitor it had been tranquil and ordered. It wasn’t like that anymore. Motor ambulances were lined up in front of the former hotel in a queue stretching out into the road.

‘Look!’ I said. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Ask one of those driver fellows,’ Fa said.

I pulled the motorcar up in a cloud of dust. ‘Can you tell us what’s happening, please?’ I called to one of the ambulance drivers.

‘The men who got sick on the way have been sent back for treatment,’ he answered.

I could see there was no haste or urgency. The ambulances were unloading their human cargo at the door of the hospital and driving off. ‘Sent back from where?’ I asked. ‘The Dardanelles?’

‘From Lemnos,’ the driver replied.

‘Lemnos?’

‘It’s a Greek island off the Dardanelles.’

‘What’s happening on the Dardanelles exactly?’

The driver, suddenly wary, took another look at me. ‘And who might you be, miss?’

‘Flora Wentworth,’ I said, surprised. ‘I’m a hospital visitor here.’

‘Are you?’ Perhaps the driver thought he’d said too much. ‘I’ll have to ask you to clear the road, miss. There are more ambulances coming through.’

I could see he wasn’t going to say any more so I moved the motorcar, which had not been obstructing traffic at all.

‘Do you think that’s true?’ I said to Fa. ‘That they’re transporting men who got sick coming here?’

‘People get sick all the time,’ said Fa. ‘Even on their way to action.’

‘I suppose so,’ I said. I glanced back. ‘The ambulances don’t seem to be in a hurry.’

‘There you are then,’ said Fa. ‘It’s just the usual, sick soldiers.’

‘Then where do you suppose the wounded from the Dardanelles are being treated?’ I said. ‘There must be some, from the stories we’ve been hearing.’

‘Probably on Lemnos,’ said Fa. ‘It sounds as if there’s a hospital there, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, it does,’ I agreed. Perhaps, I thought, Lydia had gone to nurse on Lemnos. ‘If the wounded are being treated there, then maybe there aren’t a great many wounded?’

‘Let’s hope not,’ said Fa.

Chapter 12

A note came from Lady Bellamy the next morning. The messenger was so early that he knocked on the door of the House of the Butcher and Blacksmith for some time before anyone heard him. Lady Bellamy was summoning her volunteers to the rest and recreation centre, at once.

We assembled in the pavilion, some still yawning and most in need of strong coffee. If this was more first aid training or bandage rolling, we grumbled quietly to each other, couldn’t it have waited?

Lady Bellamy sailed in. I sat up straighter. She had that effect, somehow.

‘Ladies, there is a …’ she hesitated ‘… a
situation
. I have received word from a reliable source that wounded will soon arrive in Cairo.’

We had no doubt about the identity of her reliable source, it must be Lady Bellamy’s important officer husband.

‘As such,’ Lady Bellamy went on, ‘there is some doubt that the hospitals will be able to cope. I am asking for volunteers.’

There was a silence. ‘In what capacity?’ Mrs Haverley, an English volunteer, asked.

‘In any capacity that will release medical staff to concentrate solely on the wounded,’ said Lady Bellamy. She was in her element, resolute and organised to the backbone. ‘There is a great deal of domestic work we can perform to relieve nurses,’ she went on. ‘I have also been asked if any of my ladies can drive and have access to vehicles of any kind. There will be a great need to move the wounded from trains to hospitals, and perhaps between hospitals.’ Her piercing gaze turned to Gwen and me. ‘Flora, Gwendoline, I’m aware you can drive. Would your parents lend their motorcars? Mrs Daunt, you have a motorcar as well, I believe? The army would greatly appreciate its loan.’

‘Of course,’ said Mrs Daunt. ‘I don’t drive myself, but I can send my motorcar and driver.’

‘I’ll have to let my father know,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure he’ll be willing to lend our motorcar.’

‘Mine as well,’ said Gwen. ‘What do we need to do?’

‘Report to the hospital at the Nile Palace immediately, if you would, girls,’ said Lady Bellamy. As we left, we heard her dividing the other volunteers into groups and assigning them to the British and Australian hospitals.

‘I’ll get Frank, too,’ said Gwen. ‘It’s early, he and Papa won’t have left for the excavation yet. Perhaps he can borrow another car, it sounds as if they need all the help they can get.’

Our parents presented no difficulty to lending the use of the cars, and Frank was able to borrow one from a friend of his father’s. ‘Anything to help,’ he said. ‘It’s an older motorcar and has a tendency to backfire unexpectedly, but it goes.’

We arrived at the Nile Palace hospital and saw why we had to report at once. Ambulances were lined up waiting. An English orderly told us to file up behind them. ‘The trains from Alexandria, where the ships from the Dardanelles come in, will be coming directly to the Nile Palace,’ he explained.

‘But there’s no train station here,’ Gwen said.

‘They’ll be able to use the existing tram lines, instead of stopping at the station in town,’ the orderly said. ‘This method is much faster. See, it’s only a hundred yards to the hospital. We can transport many more wounded to the hospital in a much shorter time.’

Dear heaven, I thought, how many wounded were they expecting? There must have been thirty ambulances already lined up. All the army possessed, surely. And dozens of private motorcars like ours, and horse-drawn carriages and, at the end of the line, even donkeys.

‘How – how many wounded are actually coming?’ I asked the orderly.

He gave me a brief look. ‘Lots,’ he said.

We waited. The sun, growing hotter every day now, beat down. No one was talking. We were all staring down the tramline, watching, listening, waiting. The air over the metal tracks shivered and hissed in the heat.

The train came, its carriages mostly closed. From a few windows, faces of nurses and medical officers peered out. Although we were neatly lined up, we couldn’t help but move forward, eager to help, to assist the wounded to alight, to carry them if we had to.

The wooden doors of the carriages slid back. I stepped up to the carriage that had opened in front of me. And I fell back. My heavens, what was
that
?

I’d lived in Egypt, off and on, for years. I was used to bad smells, to overflowing drains, to no drains at all, to rotting meat, to alleys overcrowded with humanity. But this! From the open carriage doors came a stench that made my eyes water, my throat constrict, my hands fly to my mouth.

An orderly appeared at the door, stared down at me. ‘Don’t let them see you like that!’ he hissed. ‘Don’t let them see how it affects you.’

I stepped back and held onto the side of the motorcar for a moment. Deep breath. Another. I’d be all right. I would, really. In a moment. I glanced around for Gwen and Frank.

Gwen was sitting on the running board of her car. Frank had pushed her head down to her knees. He looked up at me, his face sweating. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘What
is
that? What’ve they done to them?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But an orderly said we shouldn’t let them see how it affects us. Is Gwen going to be all right?’

Gwen’s head came up. ‘Of course I am,’ she said. ‘It was just a – a shock. Do they need us yet?’ She brushed Frank’s hand away. ‘Don’t fuss, Frank! I’m all right.’ She was still white, but she stood up. ‘I’m ready,’ she said.

Doctors from the hospital were conferring with the medical officers who’d travelled on the train. Inside the carriage doors I could see rows of bunks, each with a soldier lying on it. I could see a number of different uniforms. Some uniform jackets had red tags attached to them. The doctors were selecting wounded soldiers and directing orderlies to take them, two stretchers at a time, to the waiting ambulances. The men wearing the red tags were selected first. The orderlies loaded the stretchers into the ambulances and drove off immediately. There was a low buzz of talk. A hiss of steam from the engine. There were moans, low groans. A stifled scream.

‘Here, you!’ a medical officer called.

My head snapped around. ‘Me?’ ‘Yes, you. Take these three. No, you’ll fit four in at a pinch. Take these four up to the hospital. You go straight to the hospital, mind.’

He turned away and I stared after him. Straight to the hospital? What did he think I was going to do? Go for a little detour around the pyramids, perhaps?

‘Don’t mind him, miss. He’s had a hard day.’ I turned to the four men I was to drive and tried hard not to choke. They smelled awful, of pain and sweat and bandages that hadn’t been attended to for far too long, days maybe. Their uniforms, three Australian and one British, were filthy and torn. The British soldier had bloodstained bandages right up one leg. The others were supporting him.

‘Can you get into the car?’ I asked him.

I think he was past answering, but a boy with a bandage around his head replied, ‘We’ll get him in, miss.’

They put him in the front where his leg could stretch out and the other three fell into the back. ‘Are you ready?’ I asked.

‘You’re the driver?’ said the bandage-headed boy.

‘I certainly am!’ I replied as cheerfully as I could. ‘Ooh, now we’re in trouble,’ murmured a boy with his arm in a sling.

I was stunned. They were filthy, wounded, probably in pain, possibly hungry and thirsty and they could still joke?

‘You look like you’re in enough trouble already,’ I said matter-of-factly. ‘I’ll
try
not to hit any bumps but any more comments about my driving and I just don’t know what might happen.’

The boys laughed. I pulled out, aiming for the smoothest ride I could manage. We were at the front door of the hospital in seconds. Orderlies and nurses were waiting to help them out. ‘Go in there and you’ll be taken care of,’ an orderly directed them.

The boy with the head wound climbed out last. ‘And whose taxi cab have I been riding in?’ he asked.

‘Flora’s taxi. At your service.’

‘Sorry I can’t give you a tip,’ he said. ‘I seem to have misplaced my wallet somewhere.’

‘Get in there and get looked after,’ I said. ‘And – good luck.’

He smiled and climbed up the marble stairs and I stood looking after him. Good luck to him indeed.

‘You! Don’t block the driveway! Back to the train! There’s more wounded waiting.’ I turned and ran back to my motorcar.

It took all the long afternoon before the train was empty. Trip after trip, ferrying those who couldn’t make even the short hundred-yard walk to the hospital by themselves. Those who were capable of it walked alone, or rode, or even just leaned on a donkey.

How in the world was the hospital coping with this influx? I wondered. I remembered Lydia telling me, long ago, that the hospital had been planned to house about five hundred patients. There were many more than five hundred disembarking from the train. Where were they putting them all?

I delivered my last passengers late in the afternoon. They were lightly wounded, and they’d been put aside to wait.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked them. They’d been waiting so long.

‘Could do with a drink,’ one answered.

At the hospital I saw them out and directed them up the stairs. ‘They need a drink,’ I said to the orderly.

‘They’ll get one first thing,’ he answered. ‘Don’t you worry.’

I’d make sure I had water in the car if I had to do this again, I thought. The fighting was still going on. There were bound to be more wounded – more and more of them. I sank down onto the marble steps of the hospital. The verandah and stairs had, not so long ago, been swept as soon as a foot landed on them. Now they were dirty, covered in sandy boot marks, and there were dark stains that could only be blood. I swallowed. We used to dance on that verandah, I thought.

I looked down at myself. There was a smear of blood on the sleeve of my blouse. I didn’t know where it’d come from. Perhaps from one of the boys I’d helped into the motorcar, or from the motorcar itself. Some of my passengers – I shuddered – had worn bandages with fresh blood seeping through them. There was another stain on my skirt, thick and yellow. Goodness knew what that was, I certainly didn’t want to know. I’d noticed some of the boys had – ugh – lice. They’d been scratching surreptitiously, trying not to let me see. At the mere thought, I started to scratch.

I stood up. I was going home. I was going to have a very long bath and wash my hair. I hoped Mrs Maryam would have dinner ready. I stopped. Dinner? Did I want it? Maybe not. Maybe just the bath and the hair wash and then bed. I didn’t think I’d have any trouble sleeping, it was the dreams that might cause a problem.

Could I do this again? I put my chin up. Yes. If I had to.

Gwen and Frank walked up the stairs and stopped by me while an orderly escorted their charges inside. Gwen sat down and put her head in her hands. ‘Oh God, I saw –’ she stopped. ‘I saw a boy with a bone sticking out of his leg. Right out of his leg!’ She looked up. ‘And you know what I did?’