‘We had heard that there were Indian troops in France. We thought if we were clever we could get to where they were so we could nurse them. We wrote a letter to the War Office saying nurses who could speak Hindustani must be in short supply – what about it? Some old India hand at the War Office picked up our letter, apparently, because – the wheels ground slowly – there came a day when we found ourselves on a troop ship en route for St Omer. The British Forward Hospital. We thought we’d died and gone to heaven! We loved our uniforms, loved the respect the chaps paid us and we didn’t mind the admiration of our fellow schoolgirls left behind. I had a letter from my father which said, “Jolly good show, old girl! Mummy and I are proud of you!” Poor old poppet! He didn’t have long to be proud. There was cholera in Srinagar where he was and before he could write again, he and Mum were dead.
‘I had never liked England, except when my parents were there. People had been very kind – to all three of us – and we were never short of invitations for the holidays but we welcomed France. It was the first station on the road back to India, you see. I thought of India as being white and gold. I thought of school as being red and brown and I came to see France as grey and grey and almost always raining. I suppose it wasn’t; there must have been hot days but I don’t remember them.
‘I remember when we arrived at the hospital in St Omer, lying in bed on the first night. I heard somebody muttering and wondered who it was and then I realised that it wasn’t a person at all – it was guns. Guns, always guns muttering. From then on for three more years.
‘You really can’t believe that anyone could be as ignorant or as innocent as we were. The training had been pretty perfunctory, you know – a few months in the Indian troops’ convalescent hospital in the Brighton Pavilion, if you can believe! And that was all. We didn’t really learn much more than how to tie a clean bandage out of a packet, how to carry a breakfast tray and how to stop the men getting too fresh! How to keep them at arm’s length. Arm’s length! How do you keep a man at arm’s length when half his stomach has been blown away? They were desperately short-handed so we were thrown in, virtually untrained, at the deep end. In my first week I saw five men die. Little Cheltenham schoolgirls don’t often see men die but there we were in the middle of it. I doubt if any of us schoolgirls had ever seen a naked man before – our only knowledge of male anatomy was derived from the statuary in the Louvre museum. But by the end of our first week we were conducting bed pan parade without turning a hair!’
Joe took advantage of the lightening of her mood to ask a question he had long wanted to ask. ‘Were there ever affairs between nurses and patients? I can tell you, amongst the common soldiery it was the subject of much speculation!’
‘Rarely. And very discreetly.’ She paused, wondering whether to confide secrets and, after a calculating glance, went on, ‘Yes, it happened. Life is intense – concentrated and very ephemeral under those conditions. Men were often declared fit and sent off back into action again too soon. We girls knew – we just knew – when a boy wasn’t going to come back from the front. And, you know, Joe, some of them, especially the ones who’d got close to a particular nurse, would know it too and their regret, their main regret, would not be the complete waste of their lives but that they were going to die before they’d ever loved someone. And nurses are there to give comfort. It’s what they believe in and I’m not going to criticise the ones who chose to follow their instincts.’
She looked at him directly and defiantly. Was she trying to tell him something about herself? Why did she feel that was necessary? There was some mystery here. The possible reason made his heart thump with excitement.
‘Wasn’t it, I mean, couldn’t it have been dangerous… um… of uncertain outcome?’
‘Of course. If we’d been discovered we could have been dismissed and sent home. But no one was going to get rid of a competent and experienced nurse. We were in short supply. But I don’t think that’s what you were hinting at?’
Nancy ’s eyes crinkled in amusement as she remembered. ‘Our matron was not the kind of matron you might envisage – all bosom, starched and rustling! She was slim, twenty-four years old and her mother, the Countess, was a director of the VAD! No, the only starchy thing about Madeleine was her apron. We all knew she wore eau de nil silk cami-knickers underneath her uniform. She used to say they reminded her of who she really was. She gave us a piece of advice on relationships with the men – “Girls, don’t!!! But if you must, be sensible!! You’ll find what you’re looking for in the bottom drawer of my desk!” ’
They fell silent as a side table, glasses and decanters, each with a silver label around its neck, were placed beside them. Joe selected a balloon glass and swirled a little brandy around quietly, anxious not to interrupt Nancy who was almost lost to him in the memories.
‘I remember,’ she said, ‘in the spring of 1918 there were some American troops. They’d had a bloody awful time. They were so brave it broke your heart! There was one boy – he was dying. You soon get to know and I knew that he was dying. I’d gone to bed but couldn’t sleep so I went down to see him in the ward. I didn’t bother to put on my uniform, I just pulled my dress on over my head and went and sat beside him. Oh, God, Joe! Can you imagine this – he suddenly said, in a sort of little boy’s voice, “Is that you, Mommy?” What could I say? I said, “Yes, it’s all right, darling.” And then he said, “Is John there?” And I said, “Yes, he’s here – somewhere about.” And he rambled on. I wanted to do something for him, something special. So I peeled off my dress and lay down on the bed beside him, put my arms round him. He stopped muttering, sighed and snuggled close. About two o’clock in the morning – it always happened at two in the morning – he died. It really was my darkest hour. I saw no hope for anyone and I had to be on duty again in four hours.
‘I had seen others die and was to see more but, somehow, this really entered my heart. He had, in a way…’ She paused for a long time and then resumed, ‘Maybe you’ll find this ridiculous but he had, in a way, become my baby. And his passing left a gap in my heart that the years have not filled. Dammit! I don’t even remember his name!
‘In tears I called for stretcher bearers and while I was waiting for them my attention was called to another man lying nearby. His service dress cap was on the bed beside him. Idly I picked it up. He was an officer – rather unusual on that ward. He was in the 23rd Rajputana Rifles, the Raj. Rif. as we used to call them. I thought he was dead or at the very least, dying. He looked up, reached out for my hand and said, “Well done!” Just that – “Well done.”
‘He was in pretty bad shape. He was my first Indian army casualty and as best I could, I made a tremendous fuss of him. His wound was terrible.’ Nancy hesitated for a moment, her thoughts slowed by the weight of memory. ‘His leg was practically shot to pieces. Multiple fractures and the flesh was cut to ribbons. We all thought it would have to be amputated but the young doctor who dealt with him had only just arrived and hadn’t yet begun to bargain limbs against speed and efficiency. He made a heroic effort and the Raj. Rif. officer began to mend. Eventually – after about a month, I suppose – there was talk of moving him back to the base hospital in Rouen. I tried to keep him – very selfish of me. We used to talk about India and I told him the only thing in the world I wanted was to go home. He understood and we talked about it a lot.