The Eyes of the Dead (7 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Base Hospital Twenty-Six was close to the coast. Everyone cursed the stinging sea winds that came in, but the pure bite of salt in the air was something many of them had not known since leaving England. After months of breathing in nothing but the smell of dead men, dead horses, dead everything, it was a scent that came straight from Heaven. The sun was burning low in the sky. Waning from brilliant yellow to a dusky orchard orange. Shadows lengthened across the camp. The air rang with the plaintive notes of The Last Post.

Every base hospital had a cemetery.

Madeleine and Kitty stopped by the twilit cemetery to watch the funeral ceremony taking place. The rest of their ward round had been uneventful. Apart from Wilf, the boys were pleased to see them. They changed dressings on wounds and blushed a little at the soldiers’ bawdier jokes and sing-songs. Their round done, they decided to take a walk in the fresh air. There wasn’t another rush of wounded due until the next day. The best should be made of the few quiet hours they had.

It was an officer’s funeral that was taking place.

Madeleine and Kitty had seen many of them. The coffin was wheeled into the cemetery on a hand-bier, draped in the Union Jack. The coffin was then carried down to the graveside where the chaplain would read a short service before the coffin was lowered into the grave as ‘The Last Post’ sounded.

To the side of the grave were two women. One was old, frail and grey. The other, a young, thin redhead. Their heads were bowed. They seemed to be alien to the formality of the ceremony. This was a terrible, unique moment in their lives. The eyes of the priest and the pall-bearers were glassy from overexposure to wartime horrors, whereas for the women, this was their first experience of it. They held hands as they cast handfuls of dirt onto the descending coffin. The sound of their weeping was carried inland by the sea breeze.

Madeleine and Kitty moved on past the cemetery, to the sand dunes at the perimeter of the hospital. They stood together as the sun went down. The wind raced along, making little eddies of yellow-white sand dance at their feet. Over the crest of the dunes, the land swept away towards the sea.

There was The Bull Ring.

The training camp for new arrivals and convalescents. During the day, you could see the troops down there being marched around, drilled into shape by NCOs. The bellows of brutal encouragement carrying to the hospital on the wind, making some of the patients twitch. The Bull Ring was quiet now though, as evening drew in. The Machine Gun School was quiet too. The war was stopping, just for a moment, to allow dusk to settle everywhere, in peace. Madeleine and Kitty said nothing. Lost in their own thoughts, they stood, looking off into the distance. Behind them, a bugle sounded in a harsh, strident tone. They both knew what it meant.

The convoy of wounded had arrived early.

The men staggered along the camouflaged duckboard paths and into the base hospital. Unwashed, bearded and dirty, their puttees and tunics clinging to them. Stretcher-bearers wheezed as they bore their human loads to waiting beds. Many of the men should have been on stretchers. It was rare for there to be enough for everyone. Some of the walking wounded rested a hand on the shoulder of the soldier in front of them. Going into the trenches, they did this to make sure they stayed on the duckboard paths. Going out of the trenches, they did this because they had been made blind. Tears of dirty blood wept from the browned dressings that were mercifully covering the gaping holes where their eyes had once been.

The convoy looked like tramps, come to beg succour from the unrelenting pain the world had relentlessly rained down on them. Lamps illuminated their path as they entered the camp. Nurses and orderlies came forward, leading them away to their allocated wards. Duckboards quivered under hurrying feet. Dirty uniforms were taken away to be destroyed. The seriously wounded were taken to waiting surgeons. Those who could be were ferried to the bathhouse hut to be cleaned up. Moans, groans and barked instructions rose in chorus across the camp.

It was going to be a busy night.

******

Dr Meredith hissed through his teeth as he cut away the material from Wilson’s shoulder and thigh. Kneeling to examine the bulbous discoloured tissue, he tapped it with his finger. The wounds rang hollow.

“Oh dear, gas gangrene. Poor fellow.”

He looked up at Madeleine.

“I can remove the bullets but he will need these wounds irrigated with Eusol every three hours, Miss Goldsworth. I want you to keep an eye on him and to administer the treatment, under the supervision of Sister Fearing.”

“Yes, Dr Meredith.”

He peeled the eyelids back and peered into the orbs beneath.

“We can then but pray he comes through.”

Wilson opened his eyes. He got to his feet, his head was pounding. He was in the church crypt. Where were Brookes and Smithy? They were hurt. He knew they were hurt. Where were they? Why couldn’t he remember?

He needed to find them.

Save his mates.

It was all a jumble in his head, trying to think made his brain hurt. Maybe that thing had got them. It could still be down here, waiting to tear out his throat. Shivering, Wilson began to walk down the tunnel.

Kitty pushed the plunger down.

The end of the syringe fed into a length of tubing that disappeared into the pus-flecked wound in Wilson’s shoulder. Inside the tubing was the Eusol solution. It was a mixture of hydrochloric acid and boiled water. She had seen it save several men but it was a long, painful treatment. The wound needed to be re-dressed and irrigated every three hours. Wilson’s eyelids quivered. Shuddering breaths skipping through him as the icy solution was pushed through the infected tissue.

This was his third day in the base hospital.

The tunnel began to slope downwards. Wilson stopped and turned about. He wanted to get up and out of here not go further down into the crypt. Running a hand along the rough-hewn wall, he groped and shuffled along. Going back the way he had come. There was no sound to be heard, except his faltering footsteps. The wall disappeared from under his hand. Stifling a cry, he flapped his palm through the air, trying to find the wall again. His groping fingertips brushed against it. He breathed out heavily and began to follow the wall along once more. It was sloping down this way too. How could that be?

What was that?

He could hear something. He stopped.

Another set of footsteps stopped too.

Kitty wiped the grains of sleep from her eyes. Stifling a yawn, she pressed a new dressing to Wilson’s thigh. The wound there was still bulging but it was not as severe as it had been. Treated with the Eusol, it was gradually contracting. She fastened the mackintosh material covering the dressing into place. She felt a shiver shake through the dazed man. He had not spoken a bit of sense since arriving, just a babyish babble of nonsense.

This was his fifth day in the base hospital.

Wilson stopped and listened. There was nothing he could hear except his own breathing and the quickness of his heartbeat. Wilson let out another heavy breath and wiped at his face. He started walking again.

He stopped.

It was definitely someone else’s footsteps that he could hear. He turned around to face the way he had come. There was something there. A dim light.

Coming towards him.

Sister Fearing’s handling of the Eusol tubing made Kitty flinch. The Sister was always like this with the nervous men. Did something about them offend her sensibilities? Would she rather they died? She pushed the syringe into the end of the tubing and pumped the cool solution into the soldier’s shoulder wound with a hard thrust of her thumb. There was a flinty light in Sister Fearing’s eyes as she did this. It made Kitty wonder if the Sister hoped the stuff would make his heart fail.

Wilson winced as his heart skipped a beat. The light was coming his way, a pinpoint of dirty amber.

“Hallo! Over here! I’m over here!”

The light kept on coming but there was no response to his cry.

“Sprecken zee doight-chuh? Are you English?”

Nothing was said. The light kept on coming.

“Oi, can you hear me? Where’re you from? What company?”

Maybe it was that devil-eyed thing again.

Out on the hunt. Out to kill.

Kitty peeled the last Eusol dressing off of Wilson. This time she applied standard dressings to his shoulder and thigh, doing so made her smile. He had made it. He was better. Another one of their boys was safe.

Wilson slid his bayonet into his hand, just in case. He could hear the steps of the light-bearer now. They were uneven, Wilson wondered if the man was drunk. He wouldn’t be surprised. Better to die drunk in this hellhole than not. The light blossomed one last brilliant time. Wilson blinked and saw the bearer clearly as he came towards him.

Smithy came lurching out of the tunnel. A flickering oil lamp swinging from a chain around his neck. Grim clouds went billowing across his features as the lamp jerked about. His shredded face wept tears of rheumy blood as he reached out for Wilson. The Sergeant’s hands were skeletal, meat hanging from them as fleshy streamers. The mouth worked feverishly, gagging on the black rat nestling within.

“I been ate up, Wilson, all of me. I’ve been all ate up. My eyes are gone, see? You left me to him and he ate my eyes out. Give me yours.”

Smithy came at him, reaching for him, shrieking out of the dark.

“Give me your eyes, boy!”

Dead fingers plunged into Wilson’s face.

Chapter Sixteen

The men in the tent were quiet as Kitty entered. It was the ward for those suffering from shellshock. No-one was allowed to call it that, orders from the top, Mad had told her. The men’s medical tags all read the same.

‘Not Yet Diagnosed, Nervous’

Everyone was told to refer to them as the nervous patients.

Sister Fearing had asked her to come here and help with a difficult dressing. The unknown soldier was here too, recuperating from his wounds. The gas gangrene had finally cleared up after a week of irrigating the wounds with Eusol. He was lucky to be alive. The Ypres casualty clearing stations were always flooded with wounded. Many died from infection out there in the field before they were sent down the line. The unknown soldier was in the bed nearest to the tent’s entrance. She walked past him, favouring him with a glance.

Wilson rushed upwards. His lungs bursting. He clawed his way up through the dismal layers of oblivion, gasping for breath. He surfaced. The chill of passing dreams ran through him, dissipating the memory of the nightmare. Resting his head on his knees, he breathed in and then out, hard. He felt feminine hands take hold of his shoulders, easing him back into the pillow. He looked up and saw her. A beautiful young woman in the washed-out white of a nurse’s uniform.

Wilson snatched at her hand. “Where am I?”

“General Hospital Twenty-Six.”

He looked at her, eyes wide, as if he didn’t believe she was real. He gripped her hand, squeezing it tight, too tight, expecting her to melt away at his touch.

“This isn’t a dream. You’re real.”

She nodded.

“Thank Christ. Oh, thank Christ. I’ve had enough of not knowing what’s real and what’s not.”

A shaky breath escaped him as he slumped back onto the bed. He swallowed the salty sea air washing in through the tent flaps. His nerves settled a little. Yes, this was real. You could not dream air as good as that.

“How long have I been here?”

“You’ve been off the train for quite a while. You’ve been with us just over a week. Do you remember your name? Do you know who you are? You didn’t have your tags on you.”

“Me? I….I’m-“

He stopped speaking and looked dead ahead.

His brow knitted. He scratched at it.

“I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?”

“It could be shock. I’m sure it will come back to you. By the way, please call me Miss Goldsworth. The Sister gets very cross if volunteers, such as myself, are called Sister.”

He looked up, managing a weak smile. “Okay, Sister.”

She smiled back at him. “Now, how are you feeling otherwise?”

“Rough. I didn’t sleep too well. I think I had nightmares.”

“You poor thing.” She pressed a palm to his brow. No fever or temperature. Her soft touch soothed his skin, strengthening his smile.

“I’ll be alright. A bit of rest is what I need. I’ll be right as rain.”

He smiled up at her, hoping to convince her he would be okay. His eyes were a strange shade of grey. There was so much unhappiness in them. They reminded Kitty of a sad and lonely day when she was a child. She’d been looking out of the window into the garden. The rain had been falling so hard. She remembered the words that came into her mind back then. Nothing but the rain shall fall.

“You’ve been delirious since you got here. You were quite mad with pain. We didn’t think you’d come back to us with a clear head. You need to rest as much as you can. I’ll be round again later to check on you.”

“Thank you, Miss Goldsworth. I need your help in here, please,” Sister Fearing’s strident command rang out.

It came from inside the screens erected around the neighbouring bed, breaking the spell of the soldier’s sad eyes. Wilson watched her move onto the next bed and disappear behind the set of screens. Lying back in the bed, he patted the fresh dressings on his shoulder and thigh. They were stiff and hurt when he touched them. He’d been told that infected wounds hurt the worst of all. This pain was real pain though. The good kind of pain. Simple and straightforward. It didn’t come with muggy horrors piggy-backing on it. He closed his eyes to rest, enjoying the soothing sightlessness.

…the nozzle ignited…

…spraying hot death into his face…

He opened his eyes and lay there, unmoving.

Some wounds were not healing.

******

Kitty felt the gaze of the man on her as she walked away from him. Sister Fearing was waiting for her. The older woman’s hands clasped together as if in prayer. She was a skeletal woman with mousey hair secured in a tight bun under her nurse’s bonnet. Her face was peculiar. The skin around her lips was tight and lined, as if she were sucking her face in through her mouth.

“How’s the new arrival, Miss Goldsworth?”

“He’s fine, Sister. Just needs some rest, I think. His nerves seem to have settled too.”

“You can never be too sure of that, Miss Goldsworth. We had a boy in here a few months before you came, seemed to be on the mend. You wouldn’t have thought him different from any of the other Tommies. He had fits. They came on sudden. They stayed longer and longer each time.”

“What happened to him, Sister?”

“Died, his heart gave out.”

Kitty shivered, directing her attention back to the task in hand. Sister Fearing always talked of such morbid things. Mad said that she was just trying to scare her. A bitter old woman picking on a pretty young girl. Kitty dismissed the thoughts from her mind. The boy in bed needed tending to. That was the most important thing, here and now.

Sister Fearing eased back the blankets to reveal the ‘difficult’ wound that needed to be re-dressed. There was a hole where the young man’s genitals should have been. It was packed with pieces of soiled gauze, lodged within the mass of dressing was the length of tubing he used to relieve himself.

“I need you to keep him calm, Miss Goldsworth. You have a way with the men. Try to stop him moving about too much whilst I deal with this.”

The boy was blank-faced, staring into space. His skin was washed-out. His lower lip seemed to tremble at a constant rate. Sister Fearing eased out a piece of soiled gauze. He came to life, squirming. Kitty placed a gentle hand onto his arm, easing him back down to the mattress.

He looked into her eyes.

“We’re going to make you better,” she smiled at him, “Please lie back and let the Sister finish cleaning you up. Your wound will get infected otherwise and you won’t get better.”

Kitty laid him back and placed a square of cloth across his face, to preserve the little dignity he had left as Sister Fearing removed the gauze pieces from the wound. The boy’s tears soaked into the cloth. Sister Fearing cleaned the wound with a series of rough strokes. Being gentle on such a sensitive part of the body was difficult, but not impossible. Sister Fearing did not even try to be gentle. She saw no point in making concessions to the feelings of the wounded. Especially if they were going to act up when she was trying to help them. They were soldiers and should have enough grit in their bellies to stand a sore spot or two.

Kitty handed Sister Fearing the fresh gauze padding she needed for re-dressing the patient’s wound. A new length of tubing was fed into the hole. Then the pieces of gauze padding were packed in around it. The boy hissed between his teeth as it was all pushed into place. Kitty removed the cloth from his face. His eyes were open, blank and glassy once more.

Seeing but not seeing.

Kitty wanted to say something to him, comfort him in some way but she knew what Sister Fearing would say. She kept quiet, sorting all the used dressings onto a tray. As they walked out, the older woman cocked her head to Kitty. “He’s not going to be much use as a man is he, eh? What girl would want that? Bet he wishes the Hun had finished him off properly.”

Kitty heard low sobs coming from behind the screens.

******

“How’s the unknown soldier?”

Kitty and Madeleine were busy folding the newly-washed linen in the back of the main ward hut. The men were quiet. The afternoon was a clear one. The good weather had brought with it a soothing quality that prevailed over the hospital, for the time being. They both had a round to do with Sister Fearing and Dr Meredith in the evening. Until then, they had the menial chores to keep them busy.

“So, how is he? Your new favourite?”

“Mad! That’s unkind. I don’t have any favourites.”

“You do now. You asked to do the Eusol injections. You were by his bedside, even when his dressings were not being changed. You like him.”

“So what if I do? Nothing is going to come of it. You know perfectly well what the rules of conduct are for us here. If we start to become familiar with one of the boys, they will send us straight back to England.”

Madeleine smiled at the vexed expression on her sister’s face. Kitty was a good girl. She wouldn’t dare break the precious rules of conduct that Sister Fearing drummed into their heads on arrival. She had taken a shine to the unknown soldier though, Madeleine could see that. It was unfair. Her sister’s first blossoming of tenderness for a man occurring in this filthy theatre of war. Nothing could come of it, Kitty was right. If something did, they would be found out. Kitty would be humiliated by her dismissal back to England.

Madeleine smiled a comforting smile at her, as they continued with their task, thinking of how things would change between her and Kitty now that men were becoming more a part of her sister’s world. Practically joined at the hip, those two, mother had said. That was all going to change. There would be confidences, secrets and things left unsaid. There would be tears, worries and feelings of inadequacy that could not be shared. I’m going to lose her after all, thought Madeleine.

A weary silence settled between the two sisters.