Angels at War (26 page)

But her breathing grew ever more shallow and Livia was in despair. ‘Oh, do please come round, Mercy dear. If our family failed you in the past, Ella and I really do wish to make up for our father’s neglect. We love you, we do really.’

At some point during the night, and despite every effort not to do so, Livia’s own eyes closed and she began to droop. She must have fallen into a deep sleep for her head had sunk onto the bed when she felt a hand upon her hair, gently patting her.

‘You look worn out, and what sort of a day have you had?’

Jerking awake, Livia looked up into her sister’s pale face, a wry smile twisting her
rosebud lips. Livia returned the smile and said, ‘Absolutely spiffing fun. How about you?’

‘Top-ho!’

Then Livia was laughing with relief, Mercy was chuckling and they were hugging each other tight. The patient, it seemed, would live.

There was further good news when a much longed-for letter from Jack arrived. Mercy at once pressed it to her lips, as if trying to recapture the kiss he might have left there for her. Livia smiled, tucked the blankets up to her chin, and went back on duty.

Ella, too, was working hard back in Kentmere, assisting Amos as best she could on the farm as well as keeping their home going and minding the children. It was a hard life and she welcomed the fact that Mary had stayed home to help.

‘How would I manage without you?’ she was frequently heard to say, as Mary would sweep up the five-year-old twins and take them off her hands for a while. ‘Though how you will ever find a young man to marry if you don’t go out into the world, I dread to think.’

Mary would only laugh, saying she wasn’t planning on looking for one at present. ‘I’ve only just turned twenty, there’ll be plenty of time to think of such things when this war is over. 
Assuming there are any young men left to marry,’ she quietly added.

‘Oh, don’t say such terrible things.’ But it was a very serious possibility, judging by the numbers of reported casualties in the newspapers every week.

Back in the spring, when they’d been at full stretch with the lambing, a couple of land girls had been billeted on Todd Farm, and they were a great boon, particularly as more of the land had been ploughed up for cereal crops. Emmett, having left school at fifteen, was now a great help to his father, trekking for hours with him over the fells to mind the sheep. Two years younger than her brother, Tilda would normally have been going into service when her education at the village school was completed this July. Instead, she’d declared her intention of training to be a nurse.

‘You’ve just got caught up with the romance of it all,’ Ella told her.

‘If Aunt Livia can go off to war with only first aid training, why can’t I learn to be a proper nurse?’

‘Because you’re too young. Your father would never allow it. Neither would I.’

Nevertheless the child had persisted with her ambition through a long, tiring summer that seemed to drag endlessly on, and Ella and Amos
eventually agreed they would investigate when she might be considered old enough to commence training as a nurse. It was a worthwhile profession, after all. ‘And this war can’t last for much longer, can it?’ Ella would cry, fearful for all her brood.

Today was Sunday, and Ella was driving the trap to church. The land girls had volunteered to mind the farm, Amos and Emmett were out over Mardale checking the ewes, but Tilda, the twins and Mary were all on board, looking forward to this welcome break from routine and a chat with neighbours.

‘Oh, I never thought I would miss Mercy, but I do,’ Ella confessed as they drove along. It was a bright autumn day with soft white clouds seeming to settle in the dips of the valleys, although with a slight nip in the air as there often was in this mountain region. Everyone was well wrapped up in warm coats, hats and scarves, enjoying the sunshine even if there was little warmth to it. ‘I worry about her and dearest Livia all the time. I do hope they’re both well.’

‘I’m sure they’ll be fine,’ Mary said, in an effort to reassure her stepmother.

‘If only we had more news. It must be three or four weeks since we heard anything from them.’

‘Letters often get held up. I’m sure we’ll hear something soon.’

Once settled in church, Ella, Mary and Tilda took out their knitting while they listened to the sermon. The vicar had given permission for the ladies of the parish to knit socks, mittens or mufflers for the soldiers during church services. For some, it was the longest time they actually found to be quietly seated and able to pursue the task. Some of the older ladies nodded off, fingers would still and they’d miss the sermon altogether, only waking for the final rousing hymn.

It was as they were leaving, chatting here and there to neighbours in the churchyard, when Mrs Jepson hurried over to ask if they’d heard the news.

Ella immediately felt sick. ‘What news? Is it Livvy? Or Mercy?’

Wilma Jepson put a comforting hand on her friend’s arm. ‘No, no, not your dear sisters. Jessie Flint is in church this morning, and she’s in a bit of a state. She’s been carrying a letter from her son Jack around for over a week now, and can’t bring herself to open it. She thinks he’s been injured. Isn’t he married to your Livia?’

‘Oh, goodness, yes. I must see Jessie at once. Thank you, Wilma, for telling me.’

Ella hurried over to the old lady, leaving the children in the trap with Mary while she talked to her. Jessie Flint at once handed over the letter. ‘I can’t read meself but I’m sure it must be bad
news. I’ve heard nowt from him for weeks and letters never bring good news, do they? I can’t bear to think he might be badly injured. You read it, Ella love. Is it bad? Is he a goner, d’you reckon?’

Overwhelmed with pity, Ella sat the old lady down on a drystone wall then quickly scanned the single sheet. ‘Shall I read it to you?’

‘Ooh, aye, please do. Just tell me my Jack is safe.’

‘The letter is from him,’ Ella quickly reassured her. ‘So he must be all right.’

‘Praise the Lord.’

She swiftly flicked through the words of endearment to his mother and siblings, some talk of ceaseless rain and mud, the awful food, and cut to the heart of his message:

‘I was in the dugout and suddenly there was this tremendous noise. I couldn’t begin to describe it to you, Mam. It felt as if the earth had dropped away from me. We’d been hit by a mortar bomb. When the smoke cleared the first thing I saw was that the machine-gunner next to me had taken a hit full in the chest. There was nothing I could do for him. I knew I had to get out and I can’t tell you how relieved I was to find that my legs still worked. I’ll spare you the details but I had to crawl out of that hellhole over the strewn bodies of dead men who minutes before
had been laughing and joking with me. I’ve a wound in my shoulder which I’ll get seen to, but otherwise I’m still in one piece. Just wanted you to know that.

‘All my love, Jack.’

‘He’s safe, Jessie. Don’t you fret, your son is safe and well.’

A smile was breaking through Jessie’s tears as she dabbed at them with her handkerchief. ‘And what about this other letter then?’ she asked, pulling a second scrap of paper from her capacious pocket. ‘This came yesterday. A young lad on a bike fetched it.’

Ella’s heart sank to her boots as she took the yellow telegram from the old woman’s shaking hand. ‘Oh, Jessie.’

‘They’re coming!’ The gunner fired off two hundred rounds with the machine-gun, shouting to his loader for more ammo. The lad was yelling that he didn’t have any left, then found a box, dropping it in the mud in his panic. Finally, he shoved the belt into the gun’s feed block.
Tack-tack
-tack! Then it stopped.

‘Christ, it’s jammed. The ammo’s wet, dammit!’

The pair flung themselves, and the gun, into the dugout sited alongside, wanting the mud to swallow them up as enemy fire screamed overhead.

It felt as if they’d fallen into hell. Bombs exploding, the whine of shrapnel, the crash and roar of shell raining down all around them. Men screaming and weeping for their mothers, a barrage of gunfire ripping the air. White flares shot up everywhere, briefly illuminating the black night, silhouetting men in a last macabre dance as they fell.

When a lull finally descended, the sergeant muttered, ‘How the bleedin’ hell are we supposed to defend ourselves now with no bloody machine-gun? We’ll be mown down like rabbits in a trap.’

‘Has anyone any hand grenades left?’ Matthew calmly asked, a dreadful sensation of inevitability creeping over him.

‘Not a friggin’ one.’

He was crouching in the foul-smelling shelter, euphemistically called the ‘rest room’ but little more than a funk hole. The smell of overflowing latrines in the trench outside mingled with the lingering odour of poison gas and cordite. Add to that the stink of male sweat, dirty feet that hadn’t been washed in weeks, cigarette smoke and stale food and you had quite a cocktail. Fortunately, the men were too accustomed to the malodorous mix to notice.

One had been asleep on a make-shift bed when the firing had started but was now wide
awake and shaking, another was crouched beside him. In a space meant to accommodate no more than two or three men, the dugout afforded some respite from the weather and from enemy fire. Five was an uncomfortable squash.

‘The front line must have been decimated,’ the sergeant murmured.

‘Looks that way,’ Matthew agreed, and the two men exchanged a speaking glance, both aware what this could mean.

They’d protected themselves as best they could with a sheet of corrugated iron wedged between two wooden posts at the dugout’s entrance, and had draped a groundsheet over it to guard against flying shrapnel and gas. They’d even plugged up most of the ventilation shafts. But Matthew knew they were slowly being surrounded by the enemy, and he could think of no way to get these men safely out, let alone face the next wave of gunfire.

They were already in a sorry state, their long exposure to constant shelling at the front in atrocious weather conditions having taken its toll. They’d been put back in the reserve line for a spell, but with only rifles either jammed by the clay and mud, or short of ammunition, he was reluctant to order them back out into the rat-infested trenches to face almost certain death.

The other three men huddled together, eyes closed. Whether they were snatching five minutes’ shut-eye before the next onslaught, or silently praying, he couldn’t rightly say. Someone asked for water and was refused. Despite this being the wettest September anyone could ever recall, the rain still sheeting down outside, they were running out.

Matthew almost smiled. ‘Water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink.’

‘Aye, pity you can’t drink mud,’ the sergeant quipped.

‘My feet must have grown webs between the toes from all this rain.’ More likely rotting away inside his soaking boots, he thought. Trench foot was a constant worry. Army boots rarely fitted correctly and if socks weren’t changed regularly and kept dry, feet would swell causing men to sob and scream in agony. At worst they could even turn gangrenous and result in amputation. But now wasn’t the moment to be thinking of such problems.

‘We’ll let the men rest for half an hour, then check ammunition and—’

The explosion took them by surprise. The entire dugout seemed to shake, sending them all falling on top of each other like skittles. A rumble of earth and wood and stone, the grinding of metal. Something slammed into Matthew’s chest,
and he knew with a dreadful certainty that the entrance was blocked.

They’d been buried alive!

‘Can you help with this blood transfusion, please, Simpson?’ While the doctor operated the syringe, Mercy held the jug that contained the blood, no doubt donated by one of the nurses or VADs.

‘Just keep that blood moving. We don’t want it to coagulate or go cold.’

She stood the jug in a bowl of warm water and stirred it carefully with a glass rod.

‘And don’t fall asleep on the job, will you?’ The doctor softened his words with a grin, knowing this girl was one of the most conscientious of the VADs, always ready to lend a hand without a word of complaint. ‘Glad to see you’ve fully recovered from that bout of pneumonia. Pretty nasty, eh?’

‘I seem to have survived,’ Mercy agreed. ‘Wouldn’t recommend it though.’

The doctor refilled the syringe. ‘Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be stuck in this camp the whole time. Do you ever get any time off?’

‘Yes, that’s when I sleep.’ She was flattered by his obvious interest but there was only one man for her. ‘And I write to my boyfriend, of course. He’s at the front somewhere.’

The doctor cast her a wry glance and
sighed, his expression clearly revealing his disappointment. ‘All the best girls seem to be taken. He’s a lucky man. What about your sister?’

‘She’s not available either.’

‘A bloke could be driven mad for the lack of female company here,’ he ruefully remarked, ‘even though I’m surrounded by women. Look but don’t touch, eh?’

Mercy giggled. ‘My heart bleeds for you.’

‘Right, Simpson, if you’re not going to be suitably sympathetic let’s move on. This one is done. Who’s next for the ice cream cart?’

Mercy’s next patient was a young soldier who’d been blinded by a bomb blast. ‘How are you this fine morning?’ she asked, helping him to take a drink of water.

‘I can hear the birds singing, Nurse. Is the sun shining?’

‘It is. Would you like to sit out in it for a bit?’

His young face lit up. ‘Oh, I would like that very much.’

Once she’d got him settled in a chair with the sun right on his face, he smiled at her. He was no more than nineteen and a fine-looking young man, except for not having any eyes. ‘Is that all right for you?’ Mercy asked, handing him the water bottle.

‘Perfect. Will you marry me, Nurse?’

‘You know me, I can never resist a
good-looking
fella. I’m booked up for two ceremonies already this week and three next, so it’ll have to be the one after that. Will that do?’ She knew the lad was fearful that his girl would no longer want him, so made every effort to bolster his morale with a bit of flirting.

‘I don’t mind being the last in line, so long as you know that I adore you.’

‘I shall keep that knowledge close to my heart,’ Mercy said, letting her smile show in her voice as she moved on to the next patient.

It had taken weeks for Mercy to fully recover from the pneumonia. Even then it had left her feeling low, and she was again worrying about not having heard from Jack, which did nothing to lift her spirits. Only last week Livia had got a letter from Matthew, which made Jack’s silence all the harder to bear. Mercy knew there must be something wrong. It was autumn now, weeks since his last letter, and he wouldn’t stop writing if he were still fit and well.

Her one consolation was the job itself. She loved it. Mercy felt as if she had found her forte, perhaps because she could empathise with their pain. She was eager to learn as much as she could to help her patients, whom she loved dearly, just as she had cared for those poor boys at the workhouse. And there was nothing a Tommy
liked better than to engage in a bit of light banter and flirting.