Their arrival had set off ripples across this world, and those ripples were still spreading with unforeseen consequences. The Pennines, it seemed, had spent a good deal of time on this world unwittingly digging a deeper and deeper hole for themselves. Everson hoped it didn’t turn out to be their grave.
AMID THE CHAOS of the Aid Post, Edith was trying to hold down and calm a wounded young soldier. He seemed about sixteen years old, barely older than her younger brother and almost certainly not old enough to join up. He lay writhing and whimpering on the mat before her. Nellie had just finished bathing and bandaging the eyes of a lad caught out by an acid spit, and Edith caught her attention. “Nellie!”
They unbuttoned his tunic and ripped open the blood-soaked shirt. The spear must have been barbed. It went in cleanly enough but ripped his guts out on the withdrawal. His belly was a mess. Nellie applied pressure to the wound with a field bandage, but he wouldn’t lie still. He thrashed about in pain, sobbing openly. Blood pulsed up and soaked the field bandage; in moments it was sopping. She discarded it in a tray and pressed another to the wound.
He needed surgery, but there were several other surgical cases backed up ahead of him and it was unlikely this boy would survive long enough to make it to the table.
“Mother!” he cried, through snivelling sobs. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”
“Shush now,” said Edith, taking hold of his hand and trying to look him in the eye, but he kept throwing his head from side to side. “Look at me,” she said firmly. “Look at me.” He turned his face to hers but he no longer saw her.
“Charlotte, is that you?” he said with relief, spluttering through the blood.
Edith clasped his hand more firmly so that he would know someone was there.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m here.”
“I love you,” he muttered.
“I love you, too,” said Edith.
He started to smile but the life left him before he could complete it.
Edith felt the corners of her eyes begin to sting with tears. She blinked them away fiercely. It always got to her, the little white lie. The one nurses always told the dying. In her time she had been mothers, sisters, wives, sweethearts, anyone, so long as they eased the passing. Edith slipped his hand from hers and placed it across his chest. There were no words left to say. Just a job to do.
NELLIE CLEARED UP the blood-soaked bandages and left Edith to lay out the body, before summoning the orderlies to remove it to where the Padre would give it the Last Rites as they cleared the space for the next poor soul. Nellie stepped outside to where a brazier burned, tipped the bloodied pads into the fire and returned to the aid tent.
Nellie was looking for her next patient when Half Pint hobbled into the hospital tent on his peg leg, clutching the thigh above it, his face ashen as he looked wildly around. His gaze latched on Nellie.
“Gawd help me, it’s my leg!” he cried, limping towards her.
“Private Nicholls, you’ll have to wait. There are more urgent cases,” she said, only half listening as she glanced around, looking for assistance. Poilus, an urman of Napoo’s clan, was helping to bring more wounded in, some walking, others carried in on blood-soaked stretchers.
“But the pain, nurse. Shooting pains right up me thigh. Sharp they are, like bloody red hot needles,” he griped.
His forehead was beaded with sweat. He gritted his teeth and a grunt escaped his lips as his hand clutched his thigh. He lost his balance and collapsed into her.
“A little help here!” she called as she staggered under his weight.
Edi and Poilus came to her rescue. By now Half Pint’s breath was coming in ragged pants and his eyelids fluttered as he struggled to keep them open, his head lolling back.
Nellie directed the pair to an empty straw mat, where they laid him down. She put a hand on his forehead and tutted. “He has a fever. The stump is probably infected. I told him not to wear that peg leg of his for more than an hour or so at a time, but he was so bloomin’ proud of it. Said the pain would give him something to grouse about.”
“Well let’s get it off him,” said Edith as she began to cut his trouser leg away to reveal the stump. She clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, dear Lord!”
Pale roots sprouted from the inert black wood of the carved peg leg, reaching up and entwining themselves around the pink stump before sinking into the flesh of Half Pint’s thigh.
“Bloomin’ hell!” said Nellie. “It’s growing into him!”
“Corpsewood,” said Poilus.
“What?”
“It is corpsewood. It feeds on dead or rotting flesh, but will eat living things if it can. We must get it off him. It will kill him.”
Nellie knelt and, with shaking hands, unbuckled the leather straps that kept the false leg in place. Gingerly she waggled the peg leg loose, attached now only by the roots that fed deep into Half Pint’s thigh.
Edith made to cut them with a scalpel in order to remove the wooden leg.
“No!” said Poilus. “We must withdraw every root cleanly, unbroken. You cannot leave any part of it in him or it will continue to grow.” He pressed his thumb against the flesh of the upper leg, feeling for the roots, finding how far they had penetrated. “We are lucky. It has not grown in too far yet. We may still save him. We must ease the roots from his legs, slowly. Do not let them break.”
Edith placed a strip of old leather belt in Half Pint’s mouth for him to bite on and save his tongue, then leant herself across Half Pint’s torso that he might not witness the operation and to hold him down should he struggle. She nodded at Poilus. He used the discarded length of puttee, wrapped it around the peg leg to avoid touching it, and took a grip. He applied a steady pressure, drawing it back. Half Pint twisted and grunted as he bit down on the leather, hard enough to leave teeth marks.
Nellie’s nimble fingers eased out each of the dozen or so long thin roots in turn as Polius continued to pull. Eventually, the last thin tendril-like tips were pulled free, writhing weakly as they sought flesh to burrow into. She nodded, and Poilus took the corpsewood peg leg, dangling six inches of bloody roots, their tips writhing feebly. Like some kind of changeling child from a fairy tale, Nellie thought with a shudder. She watched as he strode outside and dropped the thing into the brazier. The flames expanded to greet it, burning a blue-green colour. The corpsewood gave off a high-pitched noise, as if it was squealing in pain.
It was only after that she thought perhaps she should have preserved the specimen for Captain Lippett, who was striving to catalogue this world’s flora and fauna, but it was too late now.
Poilus returned and sank down on his haunches beside Nellie and gave the feverish Half Pint a long, appraising look. “He was lucky. It was old wood. We got it out of him in time. He should live. I will get one of our women to make up a poultice for his leg to stop the fever, though what fool thought to use it in such a manner I cannot think. Even the smallest piece can sprout roots and begin to grow again if it finds a living source. Strapping it to someone is as good as killing them.” He shook his head slowly. “I wonder how you Tohmii are all still alive? You treat us as if we are the children, yet it is you who need your hands holding.” He stood up, still shaking his head to himself as he left the tent.