Poppy in the Field Read online

  One day, Sister had a painful hand infection and was especially irritable and difficult, criticising everything Poppy did and even finding fault with the manner in which she’d sprinkled boracic powder on a man’s grazed back. By the time Poppy had finished her shift and the night staff came on, she was looking forward to being alone and having a weep. She wondered again about going to Matron, but suppose Matron told Sister that Poppy had complained about her? Wouldn’t things just be worse than ever? What should she do? Had she made a terrible mistake in coming to France?

  Going downstairs to her cubicle, she found that even a moment alone was going to be denied her, because two girls in nurse’s uniform were perched on crates in the communal part of the basement, the ‘lounge’ that no one ever had time to lounge in.

  ‘Hi!’ they chorused.

  The one nearest to her said in a broad accent, ‘How’re you doing?’

  ‘I’m doing very well, thank you,’ said Poppy, and the two girls burst out laughing.

  ‘Oh, do excuse us!’ said the first girl, who had light gingery hair in rather extravagant waves. ‘It’s just that it’s been drummed into us that English girls are really polite and well mannered, and you replied in exactly the way we thought you would.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it,’ said Poppy, for both girls were beaming at her and there was absolutely no way she could have taken offence. She introduced herself.

  The girls said they were American nurses and their names were Dorothy Manning and Matilda Butt, usually called Dot and Tilly, which prompted Poppy to say they sounded like a singing duo.

  ‘We can do that, too!’ Tilly said. She had the shortest hair Poppy had seen on a young woman, and (certainly forbidden in Poppy’s ward) a pair of small, sparkling earrings.

  ‘In fact, we’re from Chicago and there’s not much we can’t do!’ said her friend.

  ‘But why are you here when America isn’t in the war?’ Poppy asked. ‘Although we’re very pleased to have you, I’m sure,’ she added hastily.

  ‘We’re volunteers,’ Dot said. ‘There’s a whole parcel of us – doctors and nurses – who’ve come over to lend a hand. I don’t think it’ll be long before we’re all in the war together, though.’

  ‘Do you know what ward you’ll be working on?’ Poppy asked, crossing her fingers it would be Ward 5.

  They shook their heads.

  ‘We’re not working in this hospital,’ Tilly said. ‘We’re at the place that used to be the Savoy, down the road. It’s just that they’ve run out of staff quarters there.’

  ‘Not to mention the fact that the doctors have already grabbed all the best rooms,’ put in Dot. ‘The end result is, they’ve billeted us here. We’re just waiting for our beds to be put up and our lockers to arrive, then we’re going to unpack and go into town for something to eat.’

  ‘There’s a canteen here,’ Poppy offered.

  Both girls gave her raised-eyebrow looks.

  ‘We’re not that desperate – not yet,’ said Dot. ‘Come out to supper with us, won’t you? You can tell us the best places to eat.’

  Poppy shook her head. ‘I doubt if I could do that. I’ve not been here long myself and I certainly don’t know anywhere to go.’

  ‘Then just come anyway.’

  Poppy thought for a moment. Should she stay in the basement on her own and have a cry, or go out with two girls called Dot and Tilly who looked like movie stars?

  ‘That would be grand,’ she said.

  In the little restaurant they found, Poppy felt a bit shy at first, because the American girls were well travelled and seemed much more sophisticated, but they also giggled a lot, were great fans of Mary Pickford and knew all the latest movie news, so it didn’t take long before the three of them were gossiping like old friends.

  The next day brought a letter from Billy.

  8903 D Company

  Dear Sis,

  Well here i am back on the front. Well not quite on the front but certainly close so i hear the bloody guns firing all nite loud enough to make a bloke want to scream at the blighters to shut up. I wish i could of stayed at the farm in Scotland – i would have been quite happy up there and clear of the war but no. Some busybody thought it would be a good idea to get me back to France. I won’t say where i am because of the censor but i think it is south from where you are in Bulloyne (i am not sure how you spell it).

  My foot is completely healed now and i won’t talk about the reasons i am here as i don’t want everyone knowing my business, so i am glad i am in a different regiment. The best thing is they have asked for volunteers to be stretcher bearers wen we move up the line and i have put my name down so it means i do not have to go out and be a target for Fritz as we will only be sent out when firing has stopped.

  We have a dog here – it runs between groups of lads passing on messages. Sometimes if there is not much going on we have a laugh. We send him off with pictures (that is cartoons a matey has drawn) of the field marshal in the bog and whoever gets them has to send them off quick to the next group before an officer sees them.

  I think i am managing better this time tho it is still hell on earth. I took a lad to a bandaging station in the middle of the night as he had woke to find a rat nawing at his hand (it was as big as a cat he said) and before he could kill it, it had bit his finger of. I think he would of bled to death if it hadn’t been for me. He said he was so deep asleep and dreaming of home that he did not want to wake up.

  Have you heard from ma? I would like to no she’s alright. i sent her a field postcard when i was on the farm but have not herd anything since.

  Let me no what it’s like there.

  Love from your brother Billy.

  Poppy, pleased to receive this, wrote back on another postcard to say that the last she’d heard, Ma and the girls were fine. She added a plea to Billy to keep his head down and not do anything silly, but just remember how lucky he was, saying (as enigmatically as possible) that no one would be able to help him if the sort of thing which happened before happened again. After thinking that even this might be too much information on an open postcard, she put it in an envelope before sending it.

  *

  A week went by and Sister’s hand got worse. Apparently – so Poppy heard from the other nurses – it had started with a small cut between thumb and forefinger, which had quickly become infected by something passed on by a patient who’d been in the trenches. Nurses were supposed to wear rubber gloves when bandaging or treating casualties, but the stocks of these had run very low – and the demand for them in operating theatres was so high – that they weren’t always available. Sister’s hand had now puffed up so much that she could no longer move it and she had it in a sling. This meant, of course, that she couldn’t undertake some of her usual duties, which left her more time to supervise – and criticise – Poppy and anyone else she currently had a down on. During the week, many an orderly was castigated or told in no uncertain terms that his work wasn’t good enough. Even the two other VADs were chastised for, firstly, taking too long over dinner in the canteen, and secondly and much more seriously, allowing crumbs to fall into a patient’s bed and be noticed by one of the doctors.

  ‘The absolute rotter!’ Dot said to Poppy on hearing the full story of Freddie de Vere. ‘So, he actually went and married someone else?’

  ‘He did. I mean, he hadn’t proposed to me or anything, but I was felt that he just might, when the war was over. And he did assure me that there was absolutely nothing between him and Miss Cardew.’

  It was early evening and the two girls were in the basement, waiting for Tilly to appear before going out for something to eat. Life, Poppy had discovered, was much more bearable now that the two American nurses were around.

  ‘So,’ Dot said, her eyes big and round, ‘if you’d married him you would have ended up Lady of the Manor.’

  Poppy smiled sadly. ‘Yes, can you believe it!’ She couldn’t help remembering her brief encounter with Freddie in the
moonlit garden of Airey House and the way, the next morning, he’d referred to her as the beautiful lady of the lake. She’d believed it then, all right . . .

  ‘Did you ever see Miss Cardew?’ Dot asked eagerly. ‘Is she a real swell?’

  Poppy nodded. ‘I’ve seen her many times. Her family used to visit the de Veres for shooting parties and afternoon tea and so on.’

  ‘Golly!’

  ‘They’re very well-to-do. She was a debutante.’

  ‘I’m not sure what that is but it sounds real impressive. Kinda like being titled, is it?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Poppy said. She slid off the bed. ‘I’ve got a photograph of them, a wedding photograph, if you’d like to . . .’

  ‘Oh, sure I would!’

  Poppy got out the medical dictionary and found the cutting. ‘I wasn’t going to look at this again – not until I felt I was over him, and then I was going to throw it away.’

  ‘Nooo!’ Dot said. ‘You must keep it for ever, and then when you’re old you’ll be able to remember him fondly and know that he was just a stepping stone before meeting the great love of your life.’

  Poppy, smiling at this, handed over the cutting and Dot stared at it for some moments.

  ‘Yeah. I see why you fell for him – he’s quite a looker,’ she said. ‘And her, the new wifey, looks like a real lady.’

  ‘I know. They’re terribly well suited. Cook used to say that their relationship was just about money and a contract for houses and land, but I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Gee,’ said Dot, still gazing at the newspaper photograph. ‘It’s kinda like a movie.’

  ‘Phew! What a day!’ Tilly had come in while they’d been staring at the cutting and was now looking over their shoulders.

  ‘You’ve missed a great story!’ Dot exclaimed. She glanced at Poppy. ‘That is, a great but tragic story.’

  ‘Hey, who’s the bridegroom?’ Tilly said, jabbing a finger at the picture of Freddie. ‘Looks like Wallace Reid the movie star.’

  Dot nudged her. ‘But he’s a rotter! A screwed-down stinking rotter.’

  Tilly gave a squeak of surprise, then said, ‘Well, of course. You can see it, can’t you, just by looking at him.’

  Wallace Reid, Poppy thought. She would buy Movie Star Magazine and see if Freddie really did look like him. She waited for Tilly to finish studying the cutting, then folded it carefully and put it back in the book. She wasn’t ready to throw it away just yet.

  Dot turned to Tilly. ‘Where have you been all this time? I finished an hour ago.’

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ Tilly said. ‘And nor have you, actually. A score of ambulances has brought some casualties from Ypres and as many nurses as possible are wanted on duty.’

  Dot groaned. ‘I’m starving and tired and have chilblains.’

  ‘You’re lucky to have toes to have chilblains on,’ Tilly said briskly, flapping her apron. ‘Come on, our patients are waiting.’ She waved farewell to Poppy. ‘See you later, maybe?’

  Poppy, disappointed not to be going out, was thinking she might go to the canteen on her own when one of the other VADs from her ward appeared. ‘You’re wanted!’ she said. ‘All hands on deck.’

  ‘New boys coming in?’ Poppy asked, but the VAD had already run back up the stairs.

  Poppy followed her. It used to be both thrilling and terrifying when new casualties arrived at Netley, but it was different here. The injuries were worse – bloodier, gorier, the men filthier with mud and running with lice – but she wasn’t allowed to do anything really useful. Mentally she prepared herself for an evening of standing about handing bandages to the nurses and filling up water jugs.

  Chapter Nine

  Going back to Ward 5, Poppy found that there were five nurses and three VADs ready to take care of the new boys. But no Sister Shrew, she realised, and remembered that she’d gone off at dinner time and not been seen since.

  ‘Has Sister been told we’ve got new men coming in?’ Poppy whispered to one of the nurses.

  The nurse shook her head. ‘Poor Sister’s got a fever from the infection in her hand and her arm has swelled up like a balloon. I think she’ll be off for the rest of the week.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Poppy tried to sound sincere. ‘What rotten news.’

  Matron arrived with a new sister who was going to take charge of the ward in the Shrew’s absence. Poppy had seen her in the hospital canteen – not to speak to, of course, because high-ranking staff were apt to distance themselves from VADs – but coming and going in a busy, important way. An attractive woman in her thirties, Sister Gradley introduced herself and said that she’d be staying until Sister Sherwood was fit enough to return.

  Poppy, looking at her, tried to judge what she’d be like and whether or not she approved of VADs. Oh, just let her be more reasonable, more open, nicer than Sister Shrew . . .

  There were seven new casualties coming into Ward 5, four with stomach wounds, two with broken bones and multiple shrapnel wounds, and one who’d been gassed as well as having other injuries. They’d received these injuries two or three days before, but had been stuck in no-man’s-land, where it had proved almost impossible to reach them. As a result of this time delay, many of their wounds had turned gangrenous.

  Waiting to be cleaned up, they were lying on waterproof-covered mattresses placed together in a section partitioned off from the main ward by screens on wheels.

  ‘They were too weak to climb out of the trenches on their own, and in any case they were very close to the German line,’ one of the ambulance men told the Ward 5 nurses. ‘We waited and waited, and in the end we had to wave a white flag and shout over to Fritz for a truce.’

  ‘Did you get them out easily?’ someone asked.

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘Two of them were lying in a foot of mud in the bottom of the trench – it was lucky that they weren’t face down or they would have drowned. Another had somehow got rolled up in barbed wire and we had to cut him out.’ The ambulance man shook his head. ‘There were a few more of our chaps lying about, but by the time we got to them they were already dead.’ He added chillingly, ‘Very much dead.’

  There was a silence, then one of the VADs asked, ‘So the Germans did allow a truce in the end?’

  ‘Yeah, because Jerry had wounded to bring in, too,’ said a second ambulance man. ‘Both sides stopped firing for ten minutes and everyone scrambled around in the mud until they’d got their own boys back.’

  ‘These chaps have only had a quick once-over by a doctor – there was no time for anything else – so you may find other injuries no one has spotted yet,’ said the first man, wheeling back a screen.

  As one, the staff turned their attention to the sight now before them: seven dreadfully injured men, caked in mud and blood and in as bad a condition as any casualty Poppy had ever seen before. Unreachable for too long, buffeted and jolted by the journey to the hospital, occasionally a groan or great sigh would come from one of them. Mostly, though, they were silent. Did they know they’d been rescued? Poppy wondered. Did they know where they were, or even that they were alive?

  Once the ambulance men had gone, Sister Gradley counted up the assembled staff. ‘We are nine altogether. I suggest one of the qualified nurses keeps an eye on those boys who are more or less settled down for the night, and the rest of us take an injured man each.’ She nodded towards the two older VADs. ‘You’ve been out here a while so you know the ropes, and . . .’ she looked at Poppy appraisingly, ‘our young VAD here can work with me.’

  Poppy smiled and nodded. Even though it was a huge responsibility, it would be too terrible to be the only person on the ward not allowed to help with the new boys, to be relegated to making the night-time cocoa.

  Sister Gradley proved to be brisk, competent and – much to Poppy’s relief – fair. She asked what experience Poppy had had, and being told that at Netley she’d been trusted to do most basic tasks, said she’d allow Poppy to wash and prepare one of the new
intake of soldiers ready for inspection by the doctors, as long as Poppy promised to tell her immediately if there was anything she felt she couldn’t cope with. Poppy, looking at the casualty she’d been assigned to, said a little prayer that she would be able to cope, and also that he wouldn’t die while she was looking after him.

  The soldier – her soldier – was a tall, thin, young man with muddy, slicked-back hair and a deep gash on his cheek through which his jaw could be seen. He was wearing khaki, but any stripes or regimental badges had disappeared under layers of mud and caked-on blood. One of his arms was crushed and hanging, misshapen, off the bed, and his boots and puttees were so filthy that it was difficult to say what they were covered with. His eyes were closed and at that moment there was no indication as to whether he was conscious or not.

  ‘You’ll have to cut his uniform off,’ the nurse next to her said. ‘And his boots, probably.’

  Poppy nodded and, rather nervous now, went to the head of the bed. She knew she had to reassure her patient, tell him where he was, and she felt around his neck to see if he had a name tag. Pte Terry Ian Burroughs, it said, and underneath someone had scratched, Tibs.

  Very well, Poppy thought. She would call him Tibs for now, and when he got better she would call him by his proper name. Right then, though, she knew he needed to be made to feel comfortable and safe.

  ‘Tibs?’ she said. ‘Hello, Tibs. Do you know where you are?’

  There was a long pause and his eyelids flickered. ‘Hell?’ came the hoarse reply.

  Poppy took his good hand in hers and held it tightly. ‘No, they’ve brought you to Boulogne. You’re in what they call the Casino Hospital. My name’s Pearson. I’m a VAD.’

  ‘Ah.’ He breathed in deeply and groaned. ‘On a clear day you can see Blighty,’ he said, speaking, as much as was possible, without moving the gashed side of his face.

  ‘I believe you can,’ Poppy replied, for that was what the boys said, though she thought it was just wishful thinking on their part.