A Rose in No-Man's Land (11 page)

“Please.” She touched his cheek. “Don’t let’s argue. I love Mark, and there can never be anyone else for me.”

“You’re being foolish.”

“Things are such a mess. Still, I mustn’t burden you with my problems.” She clamped down on her own distress because he looked so worried.

“I suppose Elizabeth will have to call me Auntie.” She forced a smile. “I mean, ‘Cousin Amy’ is hideous. Makes me sound about a hundred years old.”

His grin returned, lightening her heart.
Mark and I have got each other for now. Until the war ends, it has to be enough
.

“Write to me, Guy, won’t you?”

“Sophie will.”

“I know, but I want to hear from you sometimes. You’ve been here and seen what it’s like. Sophie would never understand. I don’t suppose anyone at home would, really.”

He clasped her hand in his. “I will write, I promise.”

“Tell the Carstairs about Billy, won’t you? Say I was with him when he died, and his last thoughts were of Fiona and his mother.”

“I’ll tell them, don’t worry.”

“Thanks. Did you hear about Jules being killed at the Nek with Dick?”

“Yes, I saw the Casualty Lists. I’ll see his parents, too. At least I’ll be able to tell them it was quick, no time for anything else in that mad heroic dash.”

“Take care of yourself, and have a safe trip home.” She kissed his forehead. How many months would pass before they met again?

****

By the twentieth of December 1915, Gallipoli had been evacuated without the loss of even one soldier. For months, thousands of Anzacs had lived under fire in an area of less than three hundred and eighty acres. Now the peninsula lay deserted, except for those who would never leave its shores to return home.

****

France. April 1916.

Amy and Millie strolled in the sunshine, passing through fields of swaying buttercups and daisies.

They had arrived in Marseilles less than a week ago. The green hedgerows and fields of corn on the small French farms enthralled Amy. The train had taken them past quaint little villages and beautiful churches that hadn’t changed for centuries, but as they neared their destination, things were not so tranquil.

Near the Somme River, some villages lay in ruins, and barbed wire entanglements scarred the countryside. A few places remained untouched, while only the distant artillery barrages interrupting a bird’s song reminded her she was close to the front.

The German line ran from the Swiss border to the North Sea, while the British held from Ypres, in the north, to the River Somme near Amiens.

“These pretty fields make me feel homesick, Mill.”

Millie didn’t answer, just stared straight ahead, her hands clasped behind her back.

Amy squatted down on the soft green grass and picked some yellow daisies and linked them together. Industrious bees buzzed around searching for nectar. She closed her eyes and was transported back to Australia. She could almost smell the perfume of the gum trees, feel the soft balls of golden wattle drifting down over her shoulders as she brushed against low-growing branches.

What would Guy and Sophie be doing now? Would she ever see baby Elizabeth? And if so, how old would she be? A wave of homesickness washed over her, but she pushed it aside and stood up.

“I suppose we’d better turn back, otherwise dear Ella will be searching for us.” Amy slid the daisy chain around her friend’s neck.

“I’ve been thinking of asking for a transfer to England, so I can be near Dick.”

Amy’s blood froze in her veins. “Millie, he’s dead.”

“No, we’re going to meet in England. He promised.” Millie drifted a little way ahead.

Since Dick had been killed at the Nek, Millie lived in a twilight world of anguish, caring for the wounded with an intense, frightening dedication. Only with her patients did she show any emotion; off duty, she erected a barrier around herself that even Amy could not storm.

Now and again she had lapses when she spoke as if Dick were still alive. Goosebumps pebbled Amy’s skin as she hurried to catch up with her friend.

“Millie, wait. No need to run.” A wagon lumbered past, and the elderly farmer raised his hand to them.

“
Bonjour, monsieur
,” she called out in greeting, and his weather-worn face creaked into a smile.

Their hospital was situated in a chateau surrounded by an orchard full of blossoming trees. Tall poplars guarded the winding drive, and window boxes along the chateau’s façade were full of golden daffodils and blue hyacinths. The nurses slept in the attics under the roofline, while the lower floors were set up into wards.

“Where have you two been?” Ella minced up to them.

“Taking a stroll through the fields,” Amy said.

“A stroll! I should put you both on report. We’ve just been warned to expect heavy casualties, and the two of you are wandering around the countryside.” Ella’s green eyes flashed.

She was a beautiful woman, Amy had to admit it, but such perfection was somehow repelling.

“We’re sorry, but Major Vincent told Millie and me to take a short break.”

“All right. Get the operating theatres ready. You know how lazy some of the orderlies are.”

Within two hours the wounded started streaming in, English Tommies, mostly, evacuated from Casualty Clearing Stations just behind the lines. The stretcher-bearers unloaded them from the ambulances and carried them inside, while the nursing staff decided the order of priority.

Amy decided one blond-haired young soldier couldn’t wait when she lifted the pad covering his gaping thigh wound.

“Will I lose my leg, Sister?”

She stared into his ashen face and lied. “Of course not. We’ll have you good as new in no time. This isn’t an ordinary hospital, you know. It’s an Australian one.”

He clutched at her hand. “I’d rather die than be limbless.”

“Get Major Vincent, please, orderly,” she instructed. “This patient can’t wait.”

A large number of wounds needed to be opened and drained. Some patients had to have lumps of metal dug out of their bodies. Others screamed and sobbed uncontrollably because their minds had snapped under the horror of battle.

By midnight, all their patients were settled in. As Amy wearily made her way between the beds, she almost swayed with fatigue.

“Lucy, Lucy.” She stopped and glanced down at a young soldier whose eyes were swathed in bandages. “I can’t see you, Lucy.” He rolled his head restlessly from side to side.

She sat on the bed and clasped his hand. “Is Lucy your sister?” she asked him softly.

“My…my wife,” he whispered. “We got married five weeks before I left for the front.”

So this was a member of Lord Kitchener’s new army, a replacement for those who had been slaughtered in Flanders.

“Shh, you must rest. We’ll be sending you home soon.”

“I won’t have to fight anymore?” His whole body shook. “Nurse, I was so frightened. So much noise—bombardment, yelling, screaming…”

“I know. Try to sleep.” She patted his hand. “Dream of Lucy and be happy.”

She sat by the bed stroking his hand, and as soon as he fell asleep she tiptoed away.

Upstairs in the room she shared with Millie and Jane, she prepared for bed. Then, instead of slipping under the sheets, she picked up her Bible.

Where would Mark be now? He had written only once, a short, stilted few lines from England. She opened the Bible and spread the note out on the first page of the New Testament. Running her fingers across the paper, she smoothed out the crinkles that had been made when, in the throes of anger and hurt, she had screwed up the letter and tossed it on the floor. The bold black handwriting mocked her:
We have no future together. Better if we never see each other again
.

She blinked back the tears filling her eyes. Stupid to cry now. She had shed enough tears over Mark. A large tear plopped onto the paper. In brushing it away, she smudged some of the writing. Why did she keep the letter? Because she wanted to touch the paper that he had touched. Except for her memories and the rose she had pressed in the Bible, this sheet of paper was all she had left of Mark.

His being right didn’t make the pain of losing him any easier to bear. Work became her solace now, the wounded a panacea for her aching heart.

Next morning, after their ward rounds, all the medical staff got issued with tin helmets and gas masks.

“All we need are rifles and we could pass ourselves off as soldiers,” Jane remarked.

“Do you think we could get away with it? I mean, if we dressed as men? We could move around much more freely,” Amy mused out loud, her fertile brain toying with the possibilities.

“I doubt it.” Jane grimaced.

“What do you think, Mill?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to see what Dick says.”

Jane and Amy exchanged worried glances. Millie was becoming more and more entrenched in a strange, dead little world of her own. They had so far hidden her condition from Ella, who would ship her home immediately if she knew, but Amy kept hoping Millie might rejoin their world again.

Ella, wearing full uniform, marched up to Amy. “There’s an ambulance train leaving in an hour for one of the British hospitals near Paris. Major Vincent wants you to go with it. You’ll be gone a couple of days. HQ will arrange transport back here.”

“What about us?” Jane asked.

“You’re needed here.”

“That isn’t fair,” Jane remonstrated with Ella.

“Nothing is fair in war.” Ella strolled toward an English officer. When he turned his head, Amy recognized Colonel Clive Justice.

“Did you see that?” Jane sneered. “She’s going on leave with him, and I know for a fact he’s married. Disgustingly rich, but married.”

“Is he really married?” Amy watched the pair of them head toward a staff car.

“Yes, to some impoverished lord’s daughter. She wanted the money, he the social position. A marriage of convenience, I suppose you’d call it.” Jane’s thinned lips made her face look even gaunter than usual.

****

The wounded were jammed into cattle trucks with a nurse and an orderly in charge of them, while three first-class carriages had been reserved for staff officers. Bitterness rose up like bile in Amy’s throat. Not for herself. She didn’t care what kind of transport they provided, but these boys had already suffered enough at the hands of British staff officers.

“Bloody disgrace, Sister,” a cheeky young orderly spoke the words she couldn’t bring herself to utter.

“Yes, you have to wonder how they could let themselves wallow in comfort while the wounded get crammed into cattle trucks.”

“Sons of rich men who bought their commissions. Typical bloody toffs.”

Amy laughed. “You’re right, Private. Whereabouts in Australia do you come from?”

“Sydney.”

“I’m from Victoria. Ever heard of Kilmore?”

“Nah.” He spoke roughly, his manners those of a street larrikin, yet he handled the wounded with the gentleness of a woman.

They settled their patients in as comfortably as they could, then waited for the first-class passengers to board.

“Cigarette, Sister?”

“No, thanks, Private, um…”

“Peters, but call me Jake.”

“All right, Jake. Have you been to Paris before?”

“I’ve had one weekend leave there.”

“Lucky you. Perhaps you could recommend some places for me to see, in case I get time off.”

He gave a wolfish grin. “Don’t think you’d want to go to the same places as me. Bloody bonzer place, though.” He lounged against the side of the carriage.

“No need for you to travel in there, Sister.” A haughty young major cast a look of disdain at the cattle truck. “Come up into first class with me.”

“No, thank you, someone has to attend the wounded.”

“You have an orderly for that.” He stared down his nose at Jake. “Stand to attention when I speak to you, soldier.”

“Were you speaking to me, sir?” Jake straightened himself with an insolent slowness.

“Your name, soldier. I’ll have you on report for insubordination.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” Amy rushed to Jake’s defense. “We don’t happen to be in the English army, Major. If you and your kind possessed even a scrap of decency, you’d let these wounded men have the most comfortable part of the train.”

“Do you realize who you’re speaking to, Sister?”

“No, and I don’t particularly care—Sir.” She watched angry red gallop into his cheeks.

“My father is Lord Urquhart, my grandfather is…”

“Sorry, Major, but quite frankly, I’m not the least bit interested in your pedigree.” Deliberately, she turned her back on him and walked away.

“Bloody toff,” Jake said as he followed her onto the train. “You handled him nicely.”

“I behaved rudely, but he deserved it.”

“Could I have some water?” The soldier who had cried out for his Lucy grabbed her skirt. “I feel so hot.”

Amy knelt down beside him. “Lie still.” She held a canteen to his lips. “This is the first step in your journey home to England.”

Throughout the trip she went around to each soldier, a word of comfort, a cool drink, anything to lessen their trauma. It wasn’t Major Vincent’s fault they had to shift the less serious cases to another hospital to make room for new casualties streaming in from the trenches. She continued to curse the callous attitude of the military hierarchy, arranging luxury first-class carriages for themselves but allocating cattle trucks to the wounded.

Weariness and disillusionment had sapped her spirit by the time they reached their destination. Ambulances waited for the patients, and once more Amy shared a conveyance with Jake.

The British hospital was set out amidst spacious grounds in what had once been a gracious manor house. Recently built wings added on three sides gave the place a rather sprawling appearance. An enormous white statue of a young man astride a prancing steed stood in the centre of the garden. Water pouring from the horse’s mouth formed a fountain that sprayed into a diamond-shaped pond.

The ambulances passed under a huge trellis of roses before they pulled up in a cobbled courtyard.