Orphans of the Storm
Also by Katie Flynn
A Liverpool Lass
The Girl From Penny Lane
Liverpool Taffy
The Mersey Girls
Strawberry Fields
Rainbow’s End
Rose of Tralee
No Silver Spoon
Polly’s Angel
The Girl from Seaforth Sands
The Liverpool Rose
Poor Little Rich Girl
The Bad Penny
Down Daisy Street
A Kiss and a Promise
Two Penn’orth of Sky
A Long and Lonely Road
The Cuckoo Child
Darkest Before Dawn
About the Author
Katie Flynn has lived for many years in the Northwest. A compulsive writer, she started with short stories and articles and many of her early stories were broadcast on Radio Mersey. She decided to write her Liverpool series after hearing the reminiscences of family members about life in the city in the early years of the twentieth century. She also writes as Judith Saxton. For the past few years, she has had to cope with ME but has continued to write.
Praise for Katie Flynn
‘Arrow’s best and biggest saga author. She’s good.’
Bookseller
‘If you pick up a Katie Flynn book it’s going to be a wrench to put it down again’
Holyhead & Anglesey Mail
‘A heart-warming story of love and loss’
Woman’s Weekly
‘One of the best Liverpool writers’
Liverpool Echo
‘[Katie Flynn] has the gift that Catherine Cookson had of bringing the period and the characters to life’
Caernarfon & Denbigh Herald
This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form (including any digital form) other than this in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Epub ISBN: 9781446411131
Version 1.0
Published by Arrow Books in 2006
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © Katie Flynn 2005
The right of Katie Flynn to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the
author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental
First published in the United Kingdom in 2005 by William Heinemann
Arrow Books
The Random House Group Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA
Random House Australia (Pty) Limited
20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney
New South Wales 2061, Australia
Random House New Zealand Limited
18 Poland Road, Glenfield
Auckland 10, New Zealand
Random House (Pty) Limited
Isle of Houghton, Corner of Boundary Road & Carse O’Gowrie,
Houghton 2198 South Africa
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 09 948698 5 (from Jan 2007)
ISBN 0 09 948698 9
Contents
For Sandy, Tony and Amelie Turner,
my Australian family, whose hospitality
and loving affection made researching
this book a pleasure.
Acknowledgments
Firstly, I have to thank my son, Tony, who gave me the idea for this book based on his experience in hospital, and then I am most grateful to Joan and Paul Russell, who lent me Paul’s father’s army records enabling me to trace where the Australian soldiers were hospitalised during the Great War.
I am also grateful to Norman Cox for recounting a little of his life in South Africa during WWII when he was doing his basic training on an elderly Avro Anson. Great stuff!
Chapter OneNovember 1918
Nancy Kerris bent over the young man in the bed and put gentle fingers round his wrist. Odd to feel such a tiny flutter in such a strong brown arm – odd to see that his lips were purplish blue and that the tanned face looked suddenly yellow – almost as yellow as his hair. For one heart-stopping moment she did not know what to do; then previous experience, and her training, told her that she must get help – and quickly. She knew the patient had been badly wounded only a matter of a day or so before the Armistice had been signed and now, with a jolt of horror, she realised he was almost certainly haemorrhaging internally. But the gasp which rose to her lips never left them; if you panicked a patient, Sister Saunders said, he could die from fear. No, what she must do was get help and get it quickly.
She laid his hand down on the bed covers and smiled reassuringly into the bloodless face. ‘You’ll be fine, soldier, but I think maybe your bandage is loosening,’ she said, in her most matter-of-fact voice. ‘I’ll just fetch Dr Amis . . .’
Nancy moved away from the bed, walking with a gliding, rapid step, which was the next best thing to a run, because Sister did not approve of her nurses running, or not on the wards at any rate. ‘If you need help urgently,’ she told her staff, ‘then run as fast as you like along the corridors but not on the wards themselves; is that understood?’
So now Nancy went out of the tent flap – this was a makeshift emergency hospital from which the wounded men would presently be transferred to proper hospitals in England – and, as soon as she was out of sight of the patients, broke into a fast run. A nurse coming towards her turned in her tracks to accompany her, saying as she did so: ‘What’s up, Nancy? Can I help?’
It was Jess Williams, her best friend, and Nancy spoke rapidly. ‘Tent three, fourth bed from the door, haemorrhaging. I’m going to get a doctor; can you lay up a trolley, fetch instruments and so on?’
She did not wait for a reply, knowing Jess was both skilful and competent, but ran on, hearing her friend’s hasty footsteps fading in the opposite direction. Seconds later, she was explaining the problem to Dr Amis and turning to accompany him back to the tent she had just left. Obedient to the strictures laid upon them, both doctor and nurse eased their pace to a steady walk as they entered the ward. Already it was clear that Jess had found a blood match between the patient and the young man in the next bed, and had obtained the necessary equipment to do a transfusion. Dr Amis nodded to Jess and spoke softly to the would-be donor, explaining the procedure he was about to carry out, and the young man nodded. Before Dr Amis could ask, Nancy had leaned across the trolley and handed him the appropriate scalpel, then watched as the doctor inserted the tube into the dying man’s wrist. Only after that was satisfactorily in place did he make the long incision in the donor’s arm. The boy went white but he grinned at Nancy, then switched his gaze to the tubing through which his blood had begun to run steadily into the pint bottle Jess was holding up. Nancy knew that the bottle contained a measured amount of sodium citrate solution to stop the blood from clotting and saw Jess giving the bottle a little shake every few minutes as the blood ran down the other length of tubing into the patient’s arm. The donor lay with his forearm supported on a board, and the doctor gently reminded him to keep opening and closing his fist on the piece of rolled-up bandage in his hand in order to facilitate the blood flow.
The young man nodded. Nancy averted her fascinated gaze from the five-inch slit the doctor had cut in his arm and smoothed the damp hair from his forehead. He was only a boy, probably no more than seventeen or eighteen, yet he had volunteered to help another man without a second’s hesitation. As she watched, he turned his eyes up towards her and gave her a beaming smile. ‘Look at the feller’s face,’ he whispered. ‘He were yellowy-grey two minutes ago, and to tell you the truth I thought he were a goner. But as soon as the blood started to flow, his colour began to come back. Ain’t blood a wonderful thing, nurse?’
Nancy, agreeing that it was, caught Jess’s eye and they exchanged smiles. To save a life is always sweet and both girls knew that their prompt action had probably done so on this occasion.
Presently the pair were dismissed and made their way towards their sleeping quarters. They were extremely tired, having just worked a double shift, and Nancy guessed that Jess, too, longed to get what rest they could before they went back on duty. Despite her tiredness, however, Nancy could not help remembering that other young man, the one to whom she had been engaged to be married. He had died two years previously, when transfusing blood had been in its infancy; died in her arms, because no one had realised – until too late – that he, too, was haemorrhaging internally from a bayonet wound. She, who had loved Graham Peters to distraction, had knelt on the floor by his bed and held him in her arms whilst his life ebbed slowly away. He had looked up at her wonderingly out of tired blue eyes and she knew she would never forget his last words. ‘You’ve grown so tiny, my love,’ he whispered. ‘So tiny that I could hang you on a chain round my neck; then I would have you with me for always.’
Before she could answer him, Graham’s head had slumped forward on to his chest and she had felt the faint flutter of his heartbeat simply cease as though it had never been.
‘Nancy?’ Jess’s voice interrupted her thoughts and Nancy saw the understanding in her eyes, the shared pain. ‘Look, we need our rest; we’ll feel better in the morning. And don’t think I don’t know what you’re going through, because if they had known a bit more about blood transfusions two years ago Graham might still be here today.’
Nancy smiled wearily and gripped her friend’s hand for a moment. ‘I lost Graham and you lost Barney and it was dreadful for both of us,’ she said quietly. ‘But at least we had their love while they were alive and we have some beautiful memories. And – and we’re still young, Jess. I know you think it won’t happen, but we might meet somebody else, get married, have children and be happy. I know Graham wouldn’t grudge me happiness and I’m very sure Barney wouldn’t grudge it to you either; why, they’d both be glad of it!’
Jess was a pretty girl with a cloud of chestnut hair and large, dark blue eyes, but now her lips tightened and her eyes grew cold. ‘I shall never marry,’ she said bitterly. ‘What chance would I have, stuck in a Liverpool slum with a fat, idle mother who wouldn’t give tuppence for any of her kids? I suppose I’ll have to put in for a training hospital and try to pass the exams but . . . oh no, I shall never marry. There’s only ever been one man in my life and that was Barney. It’s different for you; you’re younger and you’ve a nice family.’
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