The Last Lady from Hell (39 page)

Dan couldn’t believe the story after thinking that his friend was dead for so long. “How could he get so easily lost in the system?” he asked.

“No cold meat tags,” she said. That’s what we call dog tags. “Ypres was a busy place at the time, he was left for dead and with no identification he became a lost soul. The clearing stations had no time to research a John Doe, especially one whose prognosis was so bleak. He was just another unknown wounded soldier.”

Dan shook his head. “Does he not know who he is?”

“No clue” Sheila said. “I have to get this information into the office so they can notify his family. They must have given up all hope.
Dan, you are sure about this, aren’t you? I don’t want to notify the Macdonald family unless you’re absolutely sure.” She looked at Dan searchingly.

“There’s no doubt in my mind, that’s Alan,” he responded turning his wheelchair toward Bully. “Hey Al, come over here,” he called to his old friend.

It was unmistakable to Bully, the large fellow in the wheelchair was talking to him. He began to hobble over using his canes for support.

“I thought you said he had a head wound,” Dan asked Sheila. “What’s with the canes?”

“After a year of immobility, his muscles have atrophied. He almost has to learn to walk all over again,” she said.

Alan approached this big man with obvious caution. “Do we know each other?” he asked sheepishly.

“Friggin’ A we do! You and I have been ice fishing about a hundred times and you were the guy I’d have to look out for in the rugger scrum, you friggin’ farmer!” Dan said, smiling warmly.

There was something about this big fellow –- his voice, his smile, the “friggin’ farmer” crack – it all seemed to be somehow familiar, but the picture was unclear.

“Your little brother is sure going to be excited to have his brother, Al, back,” Dan continued.

“My little brother?” Alan asked, unsure.

“Yea, Ian the bagpiper, you know,” Dan said.

Alan stared down at the ground looking at nothing. He shook his head and tried to rattle some of the beans into place, but to no avail. His eyes then came up to Dan’s with an expression of frustration and fear.

“I don’t know...I can’t remember,” his voice broke.

Dan could see that his old friend from Wolfe Island had no recollection of his past. “Don’t worry, pal, I’ll work with you,” he said. “I have a lot of time on my hands and we can use it to catch up. “Deal?”

Alan licked his lips, a nervous gesture, and gave Dan an appreciative, but weak smile. “Deal.”

The morning sun was now warming the courtyard as the two old friends were getting reacquainted. Sheila excused herself and went to report Alan Macdonald’s rebirth to her superiors. Then, without warning, the building shook and they all felt a wave of compression followed by the sensation of the air being sucked away.

The leaves on the trees shook as if a huge blast of wind had just blown by. Then came the huge sound of explosion. It was monstrous, beyond anything they had experienced at the hospital.

“Oh, my God!” Sheila screamed, running back to Dan and Alan. “Are they shelling us?”

Dan suddenly realized what it might be. “What day is it?” He asked.

“Monday.”

“Monday what?” Dan demanded.

“The first of July,” Sheila said nervously. “Why?”

He looked at his wristwatch. “Oh, Lord, it’s begun,” he said in a solemn voice.

“What? What’s begun?” Sheila asked, regaining her composure.

“It’s the Big Push. Those were the land mines,” Dan said.

A series of explosions followed in rapid succession, none so powerful as the first, but massive nonetheless. The first was the Hawthorne Ridge mine, which was later reported being heard all the way in London.

“It looks like we’ll be seeing some increase in wounded,” Sheila commented.

“I’m afraid you’ll be seeing a lot more than just an increase,” Dan said. “I was wounded coming back from a night reconnaissance mission and I can tell you that the German entanglement trench is completely untouched. Those boys will be charging into a shoot
ing gallery where they will be the targets and those Maxim machine guns make killing easy.”

Dan’s comment stunned both Sheila and Alan.

“But, I thought the artillery bombardment was supposed to destroy the barbed wire and drive the Germans out of their trenches,” Sheila said, realizing the failure of the British guns and what was to come next.

Dan shook his head.

“Oh, God no, they’ll be slaughtered!” she said.

Alan, who had no knowledge of the Somme offensive, was somewhat lost. “Who – the Germans? They’ll be slaughtered?”

“No, our kids,” Sheila said, sympathetic to his confusion.

Alan grabbed Dan’s robe by the shoulders. “My brother – is he among those boys going to their deaths?” he asked desperately.

“Yes, Alan, I’m afraid Ian is among them,” Dan answered solemnly, not daring to look into Alan’s eyes.

Alan sank down onto a nearby bench and cradled his face between his hands. “He may die never knowing that his brother is still alive and I may never see his face, a face I still can’t even picture. I hate this war.”

PART EIGHT

THE TIME HAS COME

“Ocean Villas” 1st Newfoundland Division

G
eorge and Terry were concerned about their friend Dan. He had been taken away before they had a chance to see him, and they had to rely on reports and information from strangers as to his whereabouts and condition.

The Division had moved even closer to the front and they were looking for a place to billet for several nights. The beautiful rolling hills and unending fields of the Picardie region of France had been transformed into a bleak and broken countryside. The choices for places to stay were limited to half destroyed farmhouses, barns, or tents. The boys were leaning toward barns.

One of the Newfoundlanders told them to head up the St. Johns road about half a mile where they could stay at the “Ocean Villas.”

George looked at Terry. “That’s ridiculous we’re nowhere near the ocean.” Several of the Newfs burst out laughing. They explained that when the Tommies first showed up in the little town of
Auchonvillers they couldn’t properly pronounce the name so they instead called it Ocean Villas, and the name stuck among the P.B.I.

“Let’s go take a look,” Terry said. The two lads went in search of their lodging.

As they entered the badly damaged village they noticed a farm with several barns still standing. The barns were brick and slate and all but one seemed in good condition. The largest was demolished and seemed to have had the main house attached. A pile of rubble was all that was left of the once beautiful home.

Oddly, there seemed to be an unusual amount of activity around the pile of debris. Men were coming and going through trenches carved into the earth, lined with sand bags and covered over with a corrugated metal top. The boys were drawn by the mystery and went in for a closer look.

“What’s all the fuss about?” Terry asked one fellow as he came out of the shallow trench.

“Advanced dressing Station,” the man replied as he rushed by.

The two pipers entered one of the trenches and followed it into a bunker. It was lit by several bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling that did a nice job of illuminating the room. The bunker was brick and had a curved or arched ceiling that gave about seven feet of headroom at the apex. It had two chambers. The first, which the boys entered, had several wounded men on bunk beds along the far left wall. Some of the men were unconscious but, others were awake and busily scratching their names into the brick wall. They stopped momentarily to see who had come in and then returned to their tasks. This was too well built to have been simply a bunker and in fact it turned out to be the basement of the demolished farm house.

To the right was a door into the second room in which several doctors had just finished working on a wounded man. They looked tired as they wiped the blood from their hands.

One of the doctors noticed the boys. “Bringing more in boys or are you just here to watch?” the taller of the two doctors asked.

George moved closer and almost tripped over a pile of bloody rags as he thrust out his hand. “George Cohen, third year med, Mcgill.” The doctor raised his eyebrows and he smiled.

“We have a fellow professional, Kranston,” he said to his colleague.

Kranston was a short, broad man with very dark hair and one large eyebrow. “Humph, I’ll be outside having a smoke,” he said as he brushed past George and Terry, never making eye contact.

“My apologies for my partner’s lack of social graces,” the doctor said. “We’ve been on post for over two weeks and now things are starting to pick up so he would appear to have lost his sense of humor. I am Doctor Nichols, Mark Nichols. Welcome to our humble post Ocean Villa.”

Terry joined in on the introductions but was not doing well with the combined smell of the blood soaked floor, old buckets of God knows what and ether, not to mention the odor of filthy men.

“I believe I’ll join your friend outside for some air,” he said and quickly exited the basement.

“Does your friend always have that odd yellow-green color?” Doctor Nichols asked jokingly.

“I think he may have been nauseated by the sight of blood and the stale smell down here,” George said seriously, failing to recognize Nichols’ biting humor.

Nichols looked at George for a moment and said, “Yes, I was kidding my young friend. So, to what do we owe this visit?”

“Well, we were told that this area is a good place to find a billet and we were drawn in by the activity. Just plain curiousity I guess.”

“Good show. We happen to be housed in the adjacent barn and there is plenty of room. You and your friend are welcome to billet there if you like,” Nichols said. “What division are you two with?”

“We’re 86th division, 1st Newfoundland regiment,” George explained. “We’re bagpipers.”

“Good people, the Newfies. Very strong, and thoroughly honest. And a piper you say? I hope you’ll play for us later, I love the pipes,” the Doctor said. “But why aren’t we taking advantage of your medical talents?”

“Military intelligence,” George said.

Nichols laughed loudly. “Quite so – the oxymoron. You do have a sense of humor after all. Perhaps I can rectify the military’s over sight, I am not without influence.”

George smiled at the off er. “I still have an obligation and a responsibility to The 1st now, but I would love to explore the idea further with you at a later date if that suits you.”

“Very admirable,” Nichols responded.

That night the four men talked about the war, politics and family, all over several scotches. The brusque Kranston turned out to be a very friendly and likeable fellow after a couple of drinks and he, too, was a great fan of the pipes.

Terry spent most of the evening entertaining Kranston while George and Nichols talked medicine. Doctor Nichols was so impressed with George that he would later make good on his off er to have the piper moved to the Medical Corps, but not in time.