After the Storm (46 page)

She transferred back to Newcastle on 1 September, wanting general nursing now. Evacuation had begun in the hospital of all patients who were not at death’s door to make way for possible war casualities. Gas masks were to be carried at all times for all people and air-raid shelters which had been started at the time of the Czechoslovakian crisis in 1938 were finished. The parks were dug over with trenches. Light bulbs in the ward were painted and sandbags at the windows cut down the light. Sarah asked her for lunch on Sunday but all leave had been cancelled.

War was declared on 3 September and soon barrage balloons were flying over the Tyne. Annie nodded as the matron at the War Office building in the city asked her if she was prepared to
give up her independence for the duration and two weeks later she was accepted into the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service.

Georgie was still in England and they met in London before she received her posting.

His eyes were veiled as he talked about his movements. He had lines which cut deep round his eyes but they forgot the war, forgot their faded hopes as they lay together and drew closer than ever. They talked of Tom’s marriage, the day after war was announced. They had called into Annie before they took the connection for Wassingham. Grace had clung to her and Tom had stood back and their eyes had met. Georgie saw her off on the train back to Newcastle. He did not know when he would see her again but he was meeting his CO in London and would give him her name because his daughter was joining the QA’s too. Maybe the boss could wangle the same posting for you both, he’d said, and get you into a safe zone.

They had kissed and hugged and promised they would see one another soon, that each moment until then would be an ache.

Annie’s first posting was to a girls’ boarding school in Oxfordshire which had been converted into a small military hospital.

As she was driven up the long drive by the army car that had picked her up at the station she saw that tents had been pitched on the sweeping lawns that led down to the line of oaks which designated the boundary of the school where it met the road. Oaks also lined the drive and there were two rows of drab military ambulances parked where the horses had once paraded outside the stables. There were steps which led to the hall and she returned the driver’s salute wondering if he could see her hand tremble. It was the same feeling in her stomach and legs that she had experienced at the convent and the hospital on her first day but this time there was no Sarah and she missed her.

The hallway smelt of wax with overtones of disinfectant. Was there ever a hall that did not, she thought? There were Daily Orders pinned where timetables should have been and she followed the lance-corporal as he clumped on ahead of her up the wide stairs, his boots clattering where lightfooted girls had previously trod. She smiled to think of the army descending on the convent. Jenn and Sandy would have been in heaven. Where were they both now, she wondered? Sarah had heard that they were both married though she had not received letters from either for years now.

Her room was on the top floor; it had previously been a teacher’s study, the lance-corporal explained as he clicked his heels and left her to unpack. There was another bed in the room but so far it was unoccupied. The window overlooked the side garden and beyond was the playing-field, just so long as there was no Miss Hardy they’d be all right, she grinned to herself.
There were flowered curtains at the window though the beds had plain blue covers. There were photos of old school hockey teams on the walls. The faces were blank as they stared at the camera with hockey sticks held to the right of the knees. It was all very proper.

Matron gathered the new arrivals into her office which was light and faced south. She was dressed as they would be when they were on duty, in a grey dress with a cape trimmed with scarlet and a white veil which fluttered in the breeze coming in through the window. Annie pulled down the jacket of her grey QA uniform.

‘You’ll have your inoculations today and your medicals,’ Matron explained in a relaxed voice that was hard to accept after years of civilian hospitals. ‘You are all here, bar one; a late arrival, I’m afraid.’

The medicals took an hour each and the inoculations were painless but made Annie wonder where she might be sent eventually.

They toured the wards; the orthopaedic with Balkan Beams already installed; the operating theatre, surgical and medical, and the burns unit. It was strange to see no flowers by the beds, just the statutory towel correctly folded for commanding officer’s rounds each morning and the shaving kits.

‘No nighties here anyway.’ Annie murmured to the dark girl next to her.

The girl grinned. ‘Cheer the men up no end if there were!’

Her name was Monica and she came from Birmingham but Annie already knew that from her accent. They had tea together in the Sisters’ mess. Toast with butter and jam and thick brown tea. All the rooms were high-ceilinged with ornate coving. Grey cobwebs hung down and floated in long strands on the breeze. Well, as long as I don’t have to get up there and waggle a duster about, it’s not my problem, Annie thought and ate another piece of toast. She looked at the oil painting that Monica pointed out. It was of a woman and child and was badly in need of a clean.

Halfway through tea, Pruscilla Briggs arrived. Monica nudged her and pointed to the door. ‘Your room-mate has finally arrived. Lucky, lucky you,’ she murmured.

A blonde girl stood in the doorway, her suit straining over a large bust, her eyes wide and her lashes fluttering.

‘Oh dear, I’m so dreadfully late,’ she gushed to Matron who had risen to meet her. ‘I’m so frightfully sorry but we lost our way,’ she simpered, ‘so daddy’s adjutant and I decided to stop for tea in this dear little café to ask the way.’

‘Well, you won’t need any more, will you?’ replied Matron crisply. ‘Go to your room and perhaps your room-mate, Sister Manon, will be so kind as to show you round the wards. Your medical and inoculations will just have to wait now until tomorrow. The doctor will not be pleased.’ She moved swiftly past Pruscilla who giggled helplessly and smiled at Annie as she groaned at Monica and moved towards the girl.

‘Come along then, I’ll show you your room first. Then we’ll have a look around, shall we?’

Pruscilla chatted her way up the stairs but was quieter by the time they reached the fourth flight. She was plump and panting and her footsteps were quick and short, a bit like Mrs Tittlemouse’s, Annie thought, not like Grace and Val who walked in tune with their size.

Her luggage was already there, all six cases of it. And I bet the corporal loved that, thought Annie.

‘What will you do if we’re posted, for goodness sake?’ and then wished she hadn’t asked as Pruscilla told her how Daddy would surely send someone to help if it couldn’t all go on the train.

That night at dinner, a piper played in the gallery and there were candles on the table. Oak panels lined the dining-room and chandeliers hung above. Cutlery gleamed and wine accompanied each course. Pruscilla sat with Annie and dabbed her lips with her napkin as she finished her melon. ‘Of course, I’m used to this sort of thing with Daddy being in the Army. CO of a station in India actually. I schooled in Devon but popped home for the hols.’

Annie laid her spoon and fork down as Pruscilla had done, neatly at one side of the melon shell, and was silently grateful for her unconscious guidance.

‘You must find it a bit cold in England after that heat. I know someone who has been in India for years and finds it freezing.’ She smiled at Pruscilla and Monica, pleased to be talking about Georgie. ‘And you haven’t a tan.’

Pruscilla fluttered her eyelashes at Annie, her eyes really
were remarkably blue she thought and moved slightly to allow the steward to remove her plate.

‘But one doesn’t allow oneself to become tanned. It’s all too frightfully common, don’t you know. And yes, it does get a trifle chill but one just has to bear this sort of thing for one’s country, doesn’t one?’

Annie took another sip of wine; trust her to be sharing with Pruscilla, and she sighed to herself. The piper had begun a lament.

‘Mark you,’ Pruscilla went on. ‘Daddy’s station is in the Himalayas so it never becomes as hot as the plains. They’ve been exercising in the jungles over the last year though where it’s been humid enough to sprout orchids out of nothing, Daddy says.’

Annie fingered her glass. So she thought, the CO managed it, did he? Good God almighty. There was a steady murmur of conversation on each of the three long tables and the stewards in white jackets refilled glasses as soon as they were empty.

‘My friend’s name is Georgie Armstrong,’ she said.

Pruscilla leant back in her chair and looked up towards the piper. ‘I do wish he’d stop soon, I’ve such a headache. Yes,’ she turned to Annie. ‘I know Georgie Armstrong. A sergeant made up into an officer. Good man Daddy says, good body the wives say.’ She tittered and thanked the steward as he placed fish before her and held the silver platter whilst she took carrots and small potatoes.

Annie wanted to tip it into her lap and turned to talk to Monica instead but Prue’s voice continued. ‘Georgie is being posted back, so the adjutant says. He’s been seconded to Daddy’s regiment from the Engineers. They’ll need a bomb expert out there and someone to blow bridges if the Japanese come in through Burma.’ She was eating her fish now, daintily.

Annie took just a few carrots and one potato as the steward stood on her left, waiting. She was no longer hungry. The candles were flickering along the table and the Sisters all looked alike in their grey suits with Matron at the head of the table. All at once the piper’s wail was irritating and she felt alone and only wanted him, Georgie.

She began to eat her fish. ‘I didn’t know he was leaving,’ she said.

‘Oh, but neither does he, Annie. Not yet anyway.’ Pruscilla
stopped and looked at Annie and her face sobered. ‘Oh I say, is he rather more than a friend. I’m so dreadfully sorry. I would never have said. I never should have said anyway. It was a secret and I never know when to stop talking.’ Pruscilla was red now, her eyes distressed. She seemed young, Annie thought and smiled.

‘I’m always the one being told to stop talking, you know. Don’t worry about it, Pruscilla, it will be fine.’

They talked in bed that night or Pruscilla talked and Annie listened. Prue had led a life that seemed identical to that which Georgie had described for the memsahibs over the years. There were the bearers who served food, dressed and fanned you, saddled horses, brushed hair, but Prue’s mother had died when she was 16, six years ago, Prue had mused, and that had cast a shadow. I don’t really miss her, she had said, because I didn’t know her awfully well but one misses the guidance, you know. Daddy is a sweetie of course but fathers aren’t the same. Annie did not reply but looked out through the gap between the wall and the black-out curtain at the moon which was large. The harvest would be in now and the winter would be here soon. Would she see him before he went back, she wondered? She didn’t want to talk of her father.

Georgie came for two hours, three weeks later. She met him in the town and they had tea in the small café on the main street and he smiled when Annie said she’d met Prue. He was to go away, he said, but they would meet again soon, that the war couldn’t last forever. That he would write, but then he fell silent and they couldn’t eat but just sat with hands clasped and then walked through the town not noticing its black-beamed prettiness, just wondering and longing.

‘I’d like to marry, my darling,’ he said, stroking her cheek holding her close to him and his dark eyes were looking deeply into hers and again she felt the tension grip her body.

‘Not now, my love,’ she said. ‘It’s not the right time now.’ Her words were strained and he said nothing but continued to look and his eyelashes cast a shadow on his cheeks. He bent his head and kissed her lips gently and held her head in his strong hands.

She felt a longing for him but something else as well and the pain which flooded through her showed on her face. He pulled out his cigarettes and lit one passing it to her and they stayed in
the shadow of the overhung houses as they shared it. He kept his arm around her, holding her gently to him and kissing her hair and cheeks and she felt his breath on her skin and the tension slowly faded and she pulled in close so that she moulded into his body.

‘I love you, bonny lass. I’ll always love you and one day you’ll be ready to come with me.’

She waved him away on his train, half an hour later. He leaned out, his broad shoulders stretching his uniform.

‘I love you, Annie,’ he shouted again and again as the train gathered speed and she replied, ‘I love you, my darling.’ And her tears were those of anger and despair and were directed at herself.

Pruscilla and she were assigned to the burns unit and there was still no way of removing a dressing painlessly or waving a magic wand and regrowing noses, faces and hands but there was plastic surgery, she told her patients, and when they were stronger they would go to a specialist hospital for treatment.

In the meantime she arranged with the manager of the local cinema that they should all go to see a film once a week but, he insisted, they must come in after the lights went out and leave before they rose. He didn’t want to scare away his regular customers.

Annie felt Prue’s hand on her arm as she made to protest.

‘So kind of you, dear man. We, of course, do not want our patients upset by other people’s ignorance,’ Prue had replied and swept out with Annie in tow.

And so through the winter months they went to the cinema every Thursday evening, even when Annie was transferred to surgical and nursed soldiers without legs or checked the drains and drips on those internally injured. The black-out slits on cars were also reaping their reward and traffic accidents were high and many lives were lost that winter.

In the spring she received a letter from Georgie.

January 1940

Central Provinces.