A Nightingale in Winter Read online

  For it was busy—desperately so at times. Duties were long, the VADs working a twelve hour stretch with little time at the end of the day for anything much more than the evening meal and a short stroll or an hour or so of reading. And that suited Eleanor perfectly; the challenges of the work were stimulation enough for her.

  Kit, on the other hand, was finding it more difficult to adjust; it was obvious she was missing her friends and family. Sister Palmer had already taken Kit to task twice: once for being “over-familiar” with the patients, and once for not scrubbing a floor to her stringent standards of cleanliness.

  Now Kit wanted to try to get the rules about uniforms relaxed. Only the previous day, VAD Robins had been hauled over the coals for wearing a red muffler with her great coat instead of the regulation white. The fact that it had been the unfortunate girl’s birthday and her mother had sent the muffler as a present had cut absolutely no ice with Sister Palmer; the offending muffler had been confiscated. All in all, Eleanor was not terribly optimistic about Kit’s chances of success.

  “They could at least let us shorten our skirts an inch or two,” Kit was saying, warming to her subject. “Honestly, with skirts this cumbersome, we hardly need to use a broom to sweep the floors; they are already swept perfectly well as we walk along. And it’s too ridiculous that the uniform rules are still just as strict when we’re off duty. Not that we ever are. To think I suggested…”

  Her voice trailed off, and Eleanor knew immediately what she was thinking about. The Sussex.

  “Oh, Eleanor, poor Jimmy and those others who died,” she said at last, and Eleanor nodded.

  “Yes.”

  As if by mutual consent, they’d hardly spoken about their ordeal on The Sussex. For the first day or so, people had been inquisitive, but somehow the trauma had been so painful for them that not even Kit wanted to glamorize it. When it became clear that neither girl was about to divulge gory details, the questions had dried up.

  But even though they didn’t speak of it, sometimes, lying in the darkness waiting for sleep, it was impossible not to remember.

  “D’you suppose Dirk’s alive?” Kit asked now.

  “I don’t know.” As she spoke, Eleanor was back on the deck of The Sussex with Dirk’s head in her lap. She could hear the slap of the waves against the stricken hull and feel the chilly wind numbing her fingers that were busy keeping him alive.

  How connected she’d felt to him. Had he felt it too? She thought he had; otherwise he wouldn’t have spoken to her the way he had done. She had also told him about her mother dying in childbirth, which was something she never spoke of, something that was so painful she chose not to remember it.

  “If he is alive, I’m sure he’ll contact us sooner or later,” Kit reassured herself. “He took our address, didn’t he? He wrote it down in his notebook. I do so hope he came through. I liked him very much. I can’t stop wondering about him.”

  Recalling Dirk’s blood-soaked clothing, Eleanor thought it unlikely that anything written in Dirk’s notebook would have remained legible, but she didn’t say so. “Perhaps he’ll write to us if he remembers the name of the hospital,” she simply said, and Kit frowned.

  “That would be nice, but it would be much more fun if he visited.”

  Eleanor’s heart gave a lurch at the thought. She imagined Dirk strolling up to the hospital, smiling at them both the way he’d smiled before the torpedo had struck. Then, just as quickly, she saw the corpse-pale color of his face as he lay in the tanned crewman’s arms on The Sussex and knew that it was far more likely that Dirk had never made it to the hospital in England alive.

  “We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?” she said to Kit as lightly as she could, putting on her nurse’s hat in front of the small mirror Jenkins had managed to purloin from somewhere for the chest of drawers.

  “I suppose we will,” Kit agreed. “After all, we can hardly write; Dirk didn’t even know himself where he was headed. Presuming he does come to France after all, that is. I suppose what happened on The Sussex might have put him off.”

  No. If Dirk had survived, he would definitely come to France; she was sure of that. He wouldn’t allow his brush with death to put him off.

  “I say,” Kit said, sitting up and watching Eleanor as she used the mirror to position her nurse’s hat, “I don’t know that I ought to let you use the dressing table since you were so scathing about it!”

  Eleanor smiled. Until she’d met Kit, she hadn’t been teased very often. It’d taken her a little while to get used to it, but now she was getting better at recognizing it as the sign of affection she believed it to be. “I’ve finished now.” She looked at her watch. “We’re going to be late if you don’t get a move on.”

  Kit groaned, hoisting herself off the bed. “Slave driver. You ought to share a room with Sister Palmer.” Crossing to the new dressing table, she sat down on the chair and began to put on her own nurse’s hat. “Goodness, I do hope Jenkins is right about her being sent up the line soon.”

  “She’s very efficient,” Eleanor felt moved to say.

  Kit whirled round. “Oh, no. Now you’re praising her? Didn’t I say you were a paragon?”

  Eleanor made no reply to this but couldn’t help looking at her watch. She might admire the sister’s efficiency, but she had no wish to be on the receiving end of her admonishments. “Come on, Kit,” she urged. “We’re going to be late.”

  “Coming, coming!”

  As they went outside, a now familiar cry rang out from the hospital.

  “Convoy!”

  It was a cry that signaled the imminent arrival of several ambulances packed full of casualties, and Kit caught Eleanor’s eye. “Here we go again,” she said, and they went straight into the ward to cover what empty beds there were left with protective receiving blankets and to set water to boil.

  Most of the casualties at the hospital were French, and, as the girls worked, there was a rumble of French conversation from those casualties who were well enough to talk. The ward was unusual with its stone walls and arched ceiling, but the novelty of lying in bed in what seemed a little like the knave of a church soon wore off for the patients. The arrival of newcomers broke the monotony of life for them as well as bringing eagerly sought-after news about the fate of Verdun. The brave citadel town had escaped capture at the beginning of the war, but now the Germans seemed determined to take it. It had been under siege for almost two months, and the Voie Sacre, the pot-holed road which was Verdun’s only link with the rest of her country, was clogged with refugees.

  But even so, the ambulances managed to get through somehow.

  “Here come the first of the motors.” Eleanor joined Kit and several other VADs and orderlies in the grand stone archway that was the main entrance of the abbey just in time to see the first ambulance laboring up the drive with its load. The wind was quite strong, causing the canvas roof of the vehicle to flutter like flimsy sheeting.

  Eleanor shivered in the chilly air, although her mind didn’t register that she was cold. Now that she was on duty, her whole attention was directed toward her work. The routine for the arrival of a convoy never varied: ambulances shuddered to a halt in front of the Abbey, doors opened, tailgates were lowered, and male Canadian voices spoke with weary cheer. The ambulance drivers all seemed to be Canadian, and they were enthusiastic and committed to their work despite its difficulties.

  “It took us so long to get here, I think we may have lost some on the way,” one of them told Eleanor now. “Ammunition and fresh men are the essential things. The wounded are the has-beens.”

  There was no time for anything but the briefest of sympathetic smiles before accompanying the first of the casualties indoors. Once inside, the procedure was always as organized as the chaos of arrival and the limits of available space would allow it to be. Stretchers were taken to the room that had been set aside as a washroom and lain on the cold stone floor. Those wounded who were able to walk were bathed behind curtains by t
he male orderlies and by patients whose wounds weren’t so serious.

  The badly injured were washed by the VADs since they weren’t in any state to complain about feeling self-conscious about their nudity. But before they could be bathed, their filthy uniforms had to be cut from their mangled limbs with an outsized pair of scissors, and this was the task that Eleanor busied herself with now.

  Unlike in the ward, these men were largely silent, and the snipping of the scissors and the tearing of fabric were the main sounds until the casualties were ready to be washed. Even now, with three weeks of experience of dealing with casualties direct from the Front, Eleanor’s sense of smell bridled at the odor emanating from the men as their uniforms were removed. In England, the casualties had usually been cleaner. Someone somewhere along the way on their journey back to Blighty had cleaned them up a bit. But these men were direct from the Front and brought with them a stench of dried sweat and stinking feet. Every one of them was also infested with body lice.

  Kit, Eleanor knew, was particularly repulsed by the state of them, but it didn’t do to let your reactions show. Those men who were conscious invariably watched the VADs as they worked, lying there silently with their blood seeping through the stretcher onto the stone floor. Later on, some unfortunate VAD, possibly Eleanor herself, would have to get down on her hands and knees and scrub the floor until it gleamed, but it was far better not to think about that dismal prospect now.

  “Mademoiselle,” said the man Eleanor was dealing with now. He reached out as if to try to touch her to see if she was real.

  “Restez tranquille,” she told him gently, sponging down his naked body, a task which had filled her with dread at the start of the war, but to which she no longer gave a second thought. Just for a moment, the man smiled to hear a female voice. Then his face froze, and his arm went slack. He was dead.

  There was no sheet to cover him with, but she reached out to close his eyes before gathering her things together and moving on to the next patient.

  While Eleanor and the other VADs worked, the doctor wove his way between the rows of stretchers, making pronouncements and decisions about treatment, and the orderlies took priority cases away to the operating theater. Outside, only five miles away, the German bombardment of Verdun raged on, largely unnoticed by the hospital staff; they had become so accustomed to the sound, they hardly heard it any longer.

  “I daresay Kit’s stowing belongings into treasury bags again,” a fellow VAD said to Eleanor suddenly, causing her to look up from her work with surprise. It was rare for anyone to talk while they were involved in this, one of the filthiest jobs they had to do. Everyone just wanted to get it over as quickly as possible, and Eleanor frowned as she looked up at the other girl.

  “I’m not sure what Kit’s doing,” she said, and Sister Palmer chose that precise moment to come in to the room to check on their progress.

  “Kindly concentrate on the job in hand, Miss Martin,” she barked.

  The other VAD looked apologetic. “Sorry,” she said in a whisper after Sister Palmer had gone on her way in a rustle of starch. “I didn’t see her there. But you have to admit Kit does all she can to have an easy life. I’m not the only one to have noticed.”

  Giving her another meaningful look, the VAD got on with her work, leaving Eleanor thoughtful. Was what she’d said about Kit true? Eleanor hadn’t noticed Kit shirking, but then she got so totally absorbed in her work herself and it was so very busy. But if everyone but her had noticed it…Perhaps she should speak to Kit later on.

  Putting the uncomfortable thoughts temporarily from her mind, she dipped her sponge in the bowl of water in readiness to wash yet another patient. When the priest entered the room, she didn’t notice he was there until she heard him speak.

  “Bless you, my son.”

  Immediately Eleanor tensed, quickly finishing with her final patient and going off to find some orderlies to help carry the stretchers to the ward.

  She avoided the priest wherever possible; he was an unwanted reminder of England and her father. With any luck, he would be gone by the time she returned with the orderlies.

  But when she came back, he was still there, crouching by the side of the incomprehensibly mumbling casualty, his black skirts trailing like crow’s wings on the blood-soaked floor. As she watched, the patient’s mumbling stopped, and she saw the priest make the sign of the cross and close his eyes briefly in prayer.

  “Another poor soul laid to rest,” he said, getting to his feet and smiling at Eleanor sadly. She flushed, quickly going about her business, but next moment someone was bursting excitedly into the room. It was the surgeon.

  “Quickly,” he said in French. “We need someone to administer the anesthetic. Father. Come.”

  The priest was startled. The surgeon had spoken too quickly, and he didn’t understand.

  “What’s he saying?” he asked Eleanor.

  “He wants you to administer the anesthetics.”

  “Anesthetics? Me?” The priest sounded terrified, looking at her with alarm as if he hoped she could do something about it.

  The surgeon plunged forward. “Oui, monsieur!” he said urgently, starting to usher him from the room. “Vite!”

  The priest went, clothes billowing after him, causing some of the other VADs to giggle. Eleanor didn’t laugh. She was simply glad that the priest had gone, leaving her free to lose herself in her work again.

  “Miss Martin? A word, if you please.” Sister Palmer’s tight-lipped interruption came two hours later. Now working in the ward, Eleanor and another VAD were helping two qualified nurses to make the newcomers as comfortable as possible. It was a slow and labor-intensive task and not one for the faint hearted, since some of the injuries were appalling.

  “Yes, Sister.” As Eleanor followed the older woman’s bristling back, she wondered what she’d done wrong. Sister Palmer was clearly annoyed about something, but Eleanor couldn’t imagine what it was, try as she might.

  “Lieutenant Lazare is refusing to allow anyone but yourself to change his dressing,” the sister said when they were out of earshot of the other patients of the ward. “He is thrashing his limbs about in a quite ridiculous manner and screaming blue murder into the bargain.”

  Eleanor remained silent, waiting for Sister Palmer to get to the point. She liked Lazare, difficult as he was. He had five bullet wounds in his buttocks and back, and it was agonizing for him to have his dressings changed. So far, though, he’d been extremely brave and had taken the decision to attempt to counter this pain by practicing his English while his dressings were being changed. It was impossible not to admire his courage.

  “His behavior is unseemly and distracting to the other patients, and it cannot be tolerated. Apart from anything else, he is in real danger of making his wounds very much worse than they already are.” Warming to her theme, Sister Palmer looked quite furious. “If it wasn’t for this, I would never give in to his blackmail. Never!”

  Five minutes later, Eleanor was by Lazare’s bedside. He grinned at her, head turned sideways on the pillow.

  “We may yet lose Verdun, but the French have one victory at least. We defeat the unhappy sister!”

  Eleanor shook her head at him, drawing the bedclothes gently down from his back.

  “But I hope she is not angry with you?” he went on, then answered his own question. “But of course she is angry. Always she is angry. Why does she not realize that I ask for you—” he gasped as she began to remove the soiled dressings, sweat breaking out on his forehead “—because you are…the best?”

  All the time he’d been speaking, she’d been quickly stripping off the old dressings and soaking each wound with a saline solution. It was an agonizing process for Lazare and a dispiriting one for the nursing staff, since the angry wounds seemed to be so slow to improve.

  “Are you sure it’s not just because you enjoy getting Sister Palmer worked up into a lather?” she asked. She smiled to herself, because it was the kind of questi
on she could imagine Kit asking.

  “Lather?” he gasped, eyes screwed tightly shut against the pain. “That is soap…is it not? I do not understand.”

  “Oh, I think you do, lieutenant,” Eleanor said dryly. “I think you do.”

  “I do not concern myself with Sister Palmer,” he said slowly, gasping at each wave of pain. “I care only that you listen instead of talk…talk…talk like a noisy bird.”

  Eleanor dipped the sponge into the saline solution in readiness to tackle the very worst wound, just below his right shoulder blade.

  “Also you have very gently hands…”

  She doused the wound with the saline, and his hands gripped his pillow tightly. “Alors,” he said when the pain had receded sufficiently for him to speak. “That is what I thought before. Now I know I was wrong. You want to kill me!”

  When Eleanor had finished with Lazare and returned to her work with the new arrivals, she found a far more relaxed atmosphere in the ward than when she’d left.

  Kit was there, and she smiled at Eleanor cheerfully.

  “Sister Palmer’s been called in to help in theater,” she explained. “Seems the theater nurse has been packed off to Sick Sisters with influenza. They’re already managing without a proper anesthetist, poor blighters.”

  “I know,” Eleanor said. As she wheeled the dressing trolley to the next bed, she wondered if the priest had succeeded in killing any of the patients yet or whether he’d passed out at the first incision.