Orphans of the Storm (2 page)
Nancy knew that in one way, at least, her friend was right. She was a vicar’s daughter, from a parish in Devonshire, with loving parents and two older sisters. The Kerris family lived in a beautiful old vicarage, just outside the tiny village of Exham. True, there would be no work for her locally at home, but whatever she did she knew she would have the support of a close-knit family.
Ten minutes later, the two girls made their way into the sleeping quarters. Nancy unpinned her cap and loosened her long, pale gold hair from its neat coil on the nape of her neck. Then she undid the stiff white collar round her throat and removed her celluloid cuffs before casting off her stained white apron and the rustling cotton dress which afforded little protection against the extreme cold. She fished her thick woollen nightdress out from under her pillow and pulled it on over her underwear, for the tents were draughty and no one undressed completely before climbing into bed. As she slid between the blankets, she wondered about the young soldier who might, with luck, now live. She did not flatter herself that she alone had saved his life – that had been done by Dr Amis helped by herself and Jess – but she was glad she had played some small part in the night’s happening. Then she snuggled her face into the pillow and put her hands, palms together, close to her chest. Until she had joined the nursing service, she had knelt every night on the cold linoleum of her bedroom floor and said her prayers properly and respectfully as a vicar’s daughter should. Now, in circumstances as different from those at the vicarage as could be imagined, she had long ago informed God, rather tartly, that He would have to forgive her for saying her prayers whilst cuddled down in bed.
But once she began, her prayers followed their usual course. She no longer had to pray that the war would end because it had ended. The Armistice had been signed, Victory Day had come and gone, yet still young men suffered and died for a war which she had long ago ceased to believe in. So now she prayed for the recovery of her patients, and for someone to come along and clean up the awful mess that wars leave in their wake, for both victor and conquered. She added a sort of postscript for the young soldier in tent three, realising as she did so that she did not even know his name, could scarcely recall his face. Then, at last, she slept.
‘Well, Jess, we’re back in Blighty at last! We’ve got a fortnight free before we start at the Liverpool Royal. Are you still positive that you want to do the course?’
The two girls were sitting in an uncomfortably crowded train heading for London, where they would part company, since each meant to go home to her people for a couple of weeks’ break before they started the intensive training course offered to all the volunteers who wished to take up nursing as their career. However, they intended to have a few days in the capital first so that they might buy themselves some warm clothing to replace their threadbare uniforms.
Jess pulled a face. ‘What else is there for me?’ she asked plaintively. ‘I can’t go back to living in a cramped little house in the slums with me mam, four sisters and two brothers; mind, the boys don’t live at home any more, and nor do me two oldest sisters . . . but Mam and me never got on. Oh, I suppose I might gerra job in a shop, or even an office, but the only thing I know anything about is nursing, and Sister Saunders said it were a good career with plenty of prospects for a girl who didn’t mind hard work. Whilst we train, we’ll have a room in the nurses’ home, and once we’re qualified we’ll be able to afford lodgings. So . . . yes, I reckon I’ll do it. But why do you ask? I thought we’d decided it betwixt ourselves. We put in to go to the same hospital for our training so’s we could be together. Don’t say you’ve changed your perishin’ mind, our Nancy!’
Nancy smiled. ‘When you mention Liverpool you sound more like a scouser every minute,’ she said teasingly. She hesitated, knowing that what she was about to say could easily cause offence, for Jess had changed since the death of her fiancé Barney twelve months before. Any mention of marriage seemed to rub salt into the wound and Jess was apt to answer sharply or, worse, not to answer at all. However, it was no good beating about the bush; better to come straight out with what she was thinking and hope that Jess would at least listen to her proposal. Nancy fished in the pocket of her cloak and produced a cutting from a newspaper, then held it out to her friend. ‘I saw this a couple of days ago and it made me think,’ she said slowly. ‘You and I are old friends, Jess, and we’ve both lost the men in our lives, but in one way I believe we are quite different. I would still very much like to be married and have a family of my own, whereas you seem to have given up any such idea. Oh, I know we agreed there are going to be very few young men to marry after the carnage of the trenches, so I suppose it seemed sensible to you to plan a career and dismiss all thought of marriage. But then I saw this advertisement . . . well, read it for yourself.’
Jess took the small piece of newsprint and gave her friend a curious look. There was bitterness in that look and a sort of disillusion, but then her eyes fell on the paper she held and she began to read aloud: ‘Wanted – wives for two white Australians working in the outback. Return passages paid. Apply Box No. 2046.’
Nancy turned to peer in her friend’s face. ‘Well? What do you think? This would be as much a business proposition as a career in nursing.’
Jess snorted. ‘They’re after free housekeepers; someone to cook their meals, mend their clothes and manage their wages,’ she said bluntly. ‘What’s more, it’s half a world away. Anyone who goes that far isn’t likely to turn round and travel all the way back to Britain again. And it’s an awful long journey. You’ve got to live on whatever they send you for weeks and weeks and weeks. I guess that puts you under an obligation which would make it even more difficult to back out, say you’d made a mistake.’ She tossed the newspaper cutting contemptuously into her friend’s lap. ‘Only a fool would answer that advertisement, Nancy Kerris, and if you want to be a fool I can’t stop you.’
Nancy sighed and tucked the advertisement back into her pocket. She had known in her heart what Jess’s reaction would be but had hoped against hope that her friend might at least consider going with her. She supposed she could go alone, then dismissed the thought. After all, she had no idea yet what the hospital course would be like and how she and Jess would enjoy nursing in an atmosphere far more restrained and conventional than that of the makeshift hospitals in which they had worked for the past four years. So presently, when Jess said, in a distinctly unfriendly voice: ‘Well? Are you going to chuck all our plans out of the window and go off on this wild goose chase?’ Nancy replied, in her warmest voice: ‘Don’t be daft, of course I’m not; it was just an idea. Now let’s talk about something else because I don’t mean to fall out with my best friend over something which is probably just a leg-pull anyway.’
She saw the look of relief which swept over Jess’s face and was sorry she had caused her such misery, for she knew the other girl relied heavily on their friendship and was not anywhere near as self-reliant and independent as Nancy was herself. So she began to talk about the sort of warm winter clothing they would buy in London and the show they would see at the London Palladium. At first, there was constraint between them, but gradually this faded, and by the time Victoria Station was reached normal relations had been resumed.
But later that week, when she was once more in her own little room in her parents’ house, Nancy got out the advertisement again, then fished out a photograph of herself which she had taken from the big album on the kitchen dresser. It showed her in her nurse’s uniform and had been taken at the start of hostilities, but it was the only one she had so she penned a short, friendly letter, not saying much other than that she had read the advertisement and was interested in the writer’s proposition, and popped it into an envelope with the photograph, wondering whether she was being a complete fool, as Jess had said. Next day, after some more heart-searching, she told herself that she was committing herself to nothing, squared her shoulders and sent both letter and photograph winging off to Box No. 2046.
Nancy enjoyed her time at the vicarage, and was sorry to leave at the end of her fortnight. Her eldest sister, Helen, had married her father’s curate and had recently given birth to a baby boy, named Paul after his grandfather. Helen was still weak from the baby’s birth and was happy to let Nancy take care of little Paul, and Nancy was enchanted by the baby. The warm weight of him in her arms, the sweetness of his smile and the soft, silky skin of him awoke in her a strong desire for a child of her own. She did not envy Helen her husband – she thought Samuel both pompous and boring – but she did envy her the baby.
Anne, the sister next to Nancy in age, had also nursed in France, but had been invalided out in 1917 after a severe bout of pleurisy. Mrs Kerris assured her youngest daughter that Anne had made a good recovery, but Nancy thought her sister languid and weak still, content to carry out small household tasks such as dusting and arranging flowers, but spinning these jobs out so that they took all day. Nancy could not say much in front of the rest of the family, but before she left she persuaded Anne to walk into the village with her and cross-questioned her as to why she had changed so radically. She thought she could probably guess the answer – overwork and stress left a body prey to all sorts of malaises – but in fact she was quite wrong.
‘I fell in love with a married man,’ Anne said bluntly. ‘He made all sorts of promises, said he would divorce his wife, swore he didn’t really love her. I – I was every sort of fool, Nancy. I made myself believe him, told myself that divorce wasn’t so bad, that love conquers all – that sort of thing, you know. Only then he – he mentioned his children and I knew I couldn’t go through with it. So I had to tell him that we mustn’t meet, that it was all over so far as I was concerned. He was a senior surgeon at my hospital, which made things difficult. When I was off duty, I tried to get as far away from the hospital as possible. I walked out one afternoon into a snowstorm meaning to go into the nearest village, only I lost my way and got benighted. A peasant family took me in but by then I was soaked to the skin and beginning to be ill.’ She smiled tremulously at Nancy. ‘The rest you know, as they say. I got bronchitis which turned to pleurisy and was sent home. I tell myself I’ve recovered from – from my love affair, but my health is poor and somehow nothing seems truly worthwhile any more.’
So Nancy left the vicarage regretfully, wishing that she could comfort Anne with the promise that things would get better as time passed, but she said nothing, because she knew Anne would have to learn this old truth for herself. She rejoined Jess in Liverpool, eager to begin the intensive training they had been promised, but after only a month in her new position at the hospital – a month of being treated both as a nonentity and as a complete beginner – she began to long for something different, where she was not continually criticised or mocked. If only the Australians would reply to her letter! After all, there was no harm in exchanging correspondence, she told herself defensively. Probably a score of girls would have answered the advertisement by now and the Australians might not even bother to respond to her own epistle, although she had made it as lively as she could. However, the very fact that the door had not yet closed on a life seemingly more rewarding than the one she lived at present cheered her immensely, and Jess commented on her friend’s occasional bouts of optimism.
‘I dunno what’s happened, but you’re more like the Nancy I first met when we both started nursing,’ she said approvingly. ‘I know you’re feeling the way I do – that the nurses here despise us – but they’ll get over it once they see how hard we can work.’
Nancy smiled but said nothing and continued to watch for the arrival of the post every morning. She and Jess shared a room in the nurses’ home but were on different wards and frequently on different shifts so they saw little of each other during working hours. Nancy was on a medical ward and Jess on a surgical one so even the staff with whom they worked were different. Jess liked Sister Evans though she was not fond of Sister Page who worked nights, but poor Nancy speedily realised that both Sister Frewin, and the rest of the staff on her ward, regarded her as some sort of threat. This was because Mr Myers, the surgeon in charge, knew her from France, where they had worked together, and was unwise enough to make it clear that he had considerable respect for the lowliest member of the nursing staff. Consequently, Nancy found herself emptying bedpans, scrubbing floors and cleaning the lavatories. The patients liked her, appreciating her cheerful willingness to perform any task and teasing her by referring to her as Cinderella, much to Sister’s fury. She was a middle-aged, weasel-faced woman, who disliked most of her nurses on principle, but truly detested Nancy. The older woman had a crush on Mr Myers, following him on his rounds with dog-like devotion, and seeing her idol laughing and at ease with the newest probationer on the ward filled her with spiteful fury so that it seemed to be her aim in life to make Nancy as miserable as possible.
So when in April a letter came bearing an Australian postmark, Nancy opened it with trembling fingers. Fortunately, she was alone in their room so was able to give her full attention to the missive, but first of all she examined the photograph which fell out of the envelope as she extracted the letter. It was a picture of a very young man in army uniform. It was one of the posed pictures which most of the men sent home and showed him stiffly proud of his new uniform. He was half smiling, and the slouch hat which the Anzacs wore could not quite hide the fact that his hair was as fair as Nancy’s own. But this photograph had probably been taken in the early days of the war; Nancy flipped it over and read on the back:
Andrew Sullivan, 12 September 1914
. This was written in ink; beneath it, in pencil, were the words:
I don’t have a recent photo but this will give you a rough idea; you will guess I am a good deal changed. Andy
.
Andrew Sullivan, 12 September 1914
. This was written in ink; beneath it, in pencil, were the words:
I don’t have a recent photo but this will give you a rough idea; you will guess I am a good deal changed. Andy
.
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