‘His name is Albert Fellows, and he probably won’t last the night,’ she said quietly. ‘He has a terrible chest wound along with his facial injuries. He said he was eighteen to join up, but I’d say he’s only seventeen, and he wants his mother to know he was thinking of her at the end.’
Albert Fellows had his head and eyes bandaged, and what was showing of the rest of his face was a shocking mess of torn tissue. Belle took his hand as she sat beside his bed ready with a notepad and pencil. ‘Hello, Albert, I’m Mrs Reilly,’ she said. ‘I’m not a nurse, just a volunteer, but Sister said you wanted to send a letter to your mother. Can you tell me what you want to say?’
It was impossible to picture what he’d looked like before he was blown up, but the hand in hers, though calloused and rough, was small, reminding her he was just a boy.
‘I never did much letter-writing,’ he croaked out. ‘Sarge used to do it for me, so you write what’s best.’
‘Dear Mother then,’ Belle suggested.
‘I calls her Ma,’ he said.
‘Dear Ma, I’m in the Royal Herbert Hospital in Woolwich now,’ she began. ‘Does that sound right?’
‘Yes, tell her I’m poorly but I’m in good hands. Tell her I wasn’t windy when I went over the top, and I’m sorry that I was such a worry to her.’ He stopped then, and it was clear from his laboured breathing that he found talking very difficult.
Belle had heard the expression ‘windy’ several times already that day. It meant being afraid. She was sure all the men must have been afraid, but like not complaining about their injuries, it was considered honourable to hide fear. She wondered how they could possibly be brave enough to leap out of the trenches, knowing full well they were likely to be gunned down.
‘Have you got any brothers and sisters I should mention?’ she asked.
‘I’m her only one, Pa died a few years back,’ he wheezed. ‘Tell her to pat Whisky for me, that’s my dog. I don’t know what else.’
‘You could say you love her,’ Belle suggested.
‘We never said soppy stuff,’ he croaked.
Belle squeezed his hand gently, glad he couldn’t see the tears in her eyes. ‘Now’s a good time to be soppy. I know I’d like to hear such a thing from my brave son.’
‘OK then. And tell her to look after herself and not work so hard.’
Sister May had suggested Belle scribble it down as he dictated and write it up properly later. ‘And I’ll sign it from your loving son Albert,’ Belle said.
‘You’ll post it for me?’ he asked.
‘Of course I will, Albert,’ she said. ‘Now, you go to sleep until the doctor comes to see you.’
‘Are you young?’ he asked. ‘You sound as if you are and your hands are nice and soft.’
‘Yes, I’m young,’ she replied, trying hard to control the quaver in her voice. ‘I haven’t been helping here long enough to get rough hands. But I expect I will.’
‘I never even kissed a girl,’ he rasped out. ‘Some of the blokes told me all sorts they did with girls. Reckon they were lying to look big?’
‘Yes, I’m sure they were,’ she said, wishing she could reassure him he’d get to do all that too one day. But she couldn’t, he already knew he wasn’t going to make it. ‘I have to go now, but I’ll come and see you again later.’
Albert died just an hour later but Sister May was with him, holding his hand. Belle struggled to hold back tears and Sister put one steadying hand on her arm. ‘It was for the best, Reilly,’ she said softly. ‘His pain is gone, and what kind of life would he have with no sight and his face disfigured? Better too that his mother didn’t get here in time to see him like that. She can be proud of his courage and remember him as he was.’
‘Will it always be like this?’ Belle asked, thinking that she didn’t know if she would be capable of holding herself together if scenes like this were a regular occurrence.
‘We have to take heart from the ones who recover,’ Sister said. ‘Not dwell on those who don’t. We do our best for all of them, and even if all you could do for Albert was to write to his mother, that gave him more comfort than the morphine.’
As Belle began to drift off to sleep she wondered how Miranda had fared today. They had gone to the hospital together that morning, but Miranda had been sent off to a different ward, and Belle hadn’t caught sight of her again, not even when the convoy of wounded arrived.
Three days passed before Belle met up with Miranda again. From her second day Belle had reported for duty at six in the morning, and left at six in the evening, and for all she knew Miranda might have been given different times.
But on her third day she was walking up Shooters Hill when the tinkle of a bicycle bell made her look round. Miranda was pedalling laboriously up towards her.
‘Now, that’s a good idea,’ Belle said. ‘An awful lot quicker than walking.’
‘Papa got it for me,’ Miranda panted as she dismounted and walked beside Belle, pushing the bicycle. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘Becoming very aware nursing isn’t for the faint-hearted,’ Belle said. ‘How are you finding it? I’d begun to think you’d given up as I hadn’t seen you.’
‘I’m in the officers’ ward,’ Miranda said. ‘I nearly did turn tail and run. It’s pretty hideous! Just because they’re all gentlemen doesn’t make their injuries any more palatable than in the other ranks. But I won’t give up; if I do my mother will crow with delight.’
Belle laughed. ‘I feel the same. Mog’s waiting for me to give up. She’s been rather nasty too.’
They chatted about the two older women’s attitude as they walked.
‘I think we’ll have enough experience to be able to apply to go to France in September,’ Miranda said. ‘I haven’t told them at home that’s the plan. Have you?’
‘No, I daren’t, I’ll only tell them at the last minute,’ Belle said.
‘It might be a good idea for you to get a bicycle too,’ Miranda said as she pushed hers into the shed. ‘I could teach you to ride one.’
‘Could you?’ Belle asked eagerly. ‘I’m off on Sunday, are you going to be off too?’
Miranda said she was, and suggested they meet up in the afternoon for a lesson. ‘We could do it in Greenwich Park.’
After arranging to meet at three in the afternoon they both rushed off to their respective wards.
Belle’s first job of the morning was to scrub down a couple of beds outside. As she worked she smiled to herself at the thought of Miranda teaching her to ride a bicycle. It would make it much quicker to get to and from the hospital.
On Sunday afternoon Miranda was waiting with her bicycle by the church when Belle met her at three. It was a sunny day, and the heath was full of families flying kites, walking to the pond with boats to sail, exercising dogs and playing ball games.
‘Mama said I shouldn’t be out riding a bicycle on a Sunday,’ Miranda said. ‘She said it was ungodly!’
Belle giggled. She’d had the misfortune to meet Mrs Forbes-Alton again just before she closed down the shop. The woman had cross-examined her about volunteering, and made it quite plain she held Belle responsible for giving her daughter what she called ‘peculiar ideas’. Belle had been tempted to say that if she didn’t spend her time handing out white feathers, perhaps there would be fewer men needing nursing back to health. But she didn’t quite dare, the woman was too formidable and it would only come back on Miranda.
The girls walked with the bicycle to a quiet part of the park. ‘Get on then,’ Miranda said once they’d found a deserted path. ‘I’ll hold you upright until you get your balance.’
Belle got on, and with Miranda holding the saddle, she pushed off and began to pedal. Miranda ran along beside her, steadying her. Then she let go, and Belle toppled over.
This happened many times. Belle got her skirt caught on the chain, she hurt her wrist when she fell on it, and bruised her knee, but she was determined she was going to master it.
‘How long did it take you to learn?’ she asked Miranda breathlessly.
‘Ages, and I learned wearing knickerbockers which makes it easier,’ she replied.
‘I haven’t got ages,’ Belle said. ‘I’ve got to learn today so I can ask Garth to buy me a bicycle tomorrow and ride it to the hospital on Tuesday.’
She gritted her teeth and got on again. This time she managed to stay on for about ten yards before losing concentration and toppling over.
‘You’ve got it now,’ Miranda called out to her. ‘On again and keep pedalling.’
Belle managed to keep going. She wobbled, didn’t steer straight, but she was really riding it.
‘Well done!’ Miranda yelled from a long way behind her. ‘Keep going till you find somewhere wide enough to turn round without getting off and come back to me.’
Belle did it. She not only stayed on but turned round and rode back with ever-increasing confidence. Miranda clapped her hands with delight.
‘You learned a lot quicker than me,’ she said. ‘Now, let’s go and have a cup of tea, then you can ride all the way home.’
Over tea and a cake in the park tea room, once Belle had got over her excitement at learning to ride, they discussed their first week at the hospital.
‘I’m not really cut out for it,’ Miranda admitted. ‘Emptying bedpans makes me heave and I don’t think I could ever dress a wound, but luckily the real nurses do that. Sister MacDonald is on at me all the time. I don’t think she likes me at all. But I keep reminding myself that I’m going to be an ambulance driver, I only need to know basic first aid, and that gets me through it.’
From what Miranda said about her work on her ward, she really was only being given the cleaning-up kind of jobs. Belle did those too, mopping the floor, giving out and taking away bedpans, feeding patients who couldn’t feed themselves and making beds. But she was also entrusted with washing and shaving patients, and she had dressed less serious wounds too.
But neither of them dwelt for long on the hardships of the job. There were too many funny stories for them to laugh about.
‘A new volunteer started on Friday,’ Miranda said. ‘Sister told her to take a bedpan to a patient who had the curtains pulled round his bed. The nurse in with him was giving him a bed-bath so he was naked except for his dressings. You should’ve seen her as she came out, face as red as a letter box and quivering like a blancmange. She told me afterwards she’d never seen a naked man before, she hadn’t even got any brothers.’
Belle laughed. The nurses on her ward had told similar stories, in fact they’d said she was the first volunteer not to look embarrassed. She’d thought it was lucky they knew she was married or they might have wondered about her. ‘It’s just as bad for the men,’ she said. ‘We had a very young lad in yesterday and I had to wash him. He kept his eyes tight shut, I think he imagined if he couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see him either. I don’t suppose anyone but his mother has ever seen him naked. He was still blushing and trying not to meet my eyes when I had to feed him later.’
‘How did you get on when you were doing, umm, well, you know? In New Orleans,’ Miranda asked.
‘After the first half dozen men the embarrassment goes,’ Belle sighed. ‘I got to know too much about men. I tried to wipe it all from my mind when I got back from Paris, but I didn’t succeed.’
‘I often wonder how it will be for me when and if I meet another man I really like,’ said Miranda. ‘I tell myself I’ll never do that again, not until I’m married, but I wonder if I’ll be strong enough.’
Belle looked at her friend appraisingly. She guessed that what she really meant was that she thought about making love often, and missed it. All the other women Belle had met of a similar age and background were prim and strait-laced, but she thought Miranda had been born with a wanton streak. The more she’d got to know her, the more she felt Miranda was unlikely ever to conform to the strict rules society laid down for young women. Perhaps it was just that similarity between them which had made them become such close friends.
‘Then just make sure you fall for a man who is worthy of you,’ Belle said warningly. ‘You don’t want to go through all that pain and heartache again. The war might be opening things up a bit more for women, with more choices and opportunities, but some things will remain the same.’
‘I know,’ Miranda sighed. ‘My mother for one. She is such a crashing snob. I expect she thinks officers’ shit doesn’t smell as bad as enlisted men’s.’
Belle laughed. ‘If you really hate it at the hospital, give up. I bet you could get a job driving someone about. There must be people whose chauffeur has joined up. You could put an advertisement in the paper.’
Miranda pulled a face. ‘I need to do this, Belle. I want to be able to prove to myself and the family that I can stick at something, be useful and independent. Sister Crooke told me yesterday that she thought I wouldn’t even finish the first day. She isn’t the kind to praise anyone but I think she was trying to say I had surprised her and I was doing all right. That must mean something.’
Belle lifted her tea cup and clinked it against Miranda’s. ‘To France,’ she said.
‘To France,’ Miranda said. ‘Do you really think we’ll get there?’
‘You can do anything if you’re determined enough,’ Belle replied. ‘And I’m going to prove it by riding your bicycle home.’
Belle rode confidently all the way back to the church on the heath and then waited for Miranda to catch up with her.
‘Well done,’ Miranda said. ‘I was just thinking that if that Blessard creature should try and contact you again, at least once you’ve got a bicycle you can ride off in a hurry.’
‘I’m hoping he’ll give up now the shop is closed down,’ Belle said. ‘He’s so creepy, I really don’t know what it is he wants from me. It doesn’t seem to be just a story for his newspaper.’
‘I think it’s you he wants,’ Miranda said. ‘He knows enough about you to be stimulated by your past. I’d say he is aroused by that.’
‘Oh, don’t say that, it reminds me of the way that man in Paris was about me,’ Belle said in some alarm.
‘He’ll be a lot less stimulated by you if he spots you in your uniform.’ Miranda grimaced and then laughed. ‘Go on home and don’t worry about him, he’s just an idiot. Good luck in talking Garth into getting a bicycle for you.’
As Belle walked down Tranquil Vale she couldn’t help but think about Blessard.