A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front (11 page)

Feel better, what?’

This, for some reason or other, sent the boys into paroxysms of laughter. The masculine sense of humour is, at times, a little puzzling.

‘
APRÈS LA GUERRE
finit, après la guerre napoo,’ he softly sang, laboriously scratching away at the black box which had contained the gift chocolate from the West Indian Colonies. He was removing the paint with a pin, thus showing the tin beneath, and forming a design of his Oxford and Bucks badge and the R.A.M.C. twisted serpent. Engraving these boxes had very much of a vogue in our wards at the time, and some beautifully artistic effects had been the result.

‘Have a dekko, draftie. Très bon, isn’t it? This one is for sister as a souvenir. The first one I did I’m going to send to Blighty for the youngsters. But it’ll have to wait until I go out of hospital. All my pay-days have gone West since I’ve been here swinging the lead. Alley,
toot swee,’ he continues clearing the table as I come through the tunnel with the medicine basket, ‘line up for the rum ration, boys. Runner, sister?’

‘Please.’

‘’Ere yare, matey, bonne santé, bonne année, bonne nuit,’ as he offers the first dose.

‘Merci boaco, merci cocoa,’ elegantly retorts the recipient.

‘Ser nay fair reang,’ with a shrug, not to be outdone in politeness nor in knowledge of the French language. ‘Taffy’s getting the wind up, sister, when he sees you laying hands on the saucy sal,’ otherwise the sodii sal.

‘Buck up and drink it. Bon for the troops,’ Taffy is urged. ‘You’re too slow to catch cold. If you want to linger longer in quaffing the cup, go to a hestaminay. Oh, sister,’ in terrible reproach, ‘I thought you might forget me if I was runner. It’s awful tasting stuff, sister, no bon, no bon,’ – ‘no foloomin’ bon’ is his superlative phrase which he applies catholically to a cabinet minister of supposed ineptitude, a medical officer sparing of Blighty tickets, a non-picture hand at whist, or a suet pudding.

‘Ah! that’s the stuff to give ’em, sister. Come on, sergeant,’ he invites, handing over some acid tonic and breaking into a minor key:

‘If the sergeant drinks your rum
,

Never mind, nev-er mind
,

If the sergeant drinks your rum
,

Nev-ver mind
,

He’s entitled to a tot
,

But not the bally lot
,

(Still)
If the sergeant drinks your rum
,

Never mind
,

Nev-ver mi-ind.’

‘Oh, stow yer’ymn o’ ’ate,’ urges the sergeant.

‘Shall I give you a hand till the orderly comes, sister? I’m very handy at bed-making really. As a matter of fact I’m quite an all-round handy person – make a good wife for somebody. Now, laddie,’ as we tug up the mattress, ‘up you go … and the best of luck,’ for he cannot refrain from finishing the tag. ‘Mercy, kamerad,’ he suggests as the patient lifts his arms out of the way of the bedclothes. Then, as his head goes rather near the chart board, ‘Haud yer ’eed doon, monn,’ another tag which he hurls at people dipping under the eaves of the tent, or under the tunnel between the marquees or into the annexe – and which one day he explained.

‘You know, sister, we were once in the trenches
with some Jocks on our left, and all day long it was, “Haud yer ’eed doon, monn, the’s a sneeper aboot,”’ – a phrase which must be spoken aloud rather quickly, and in broad Scotch to be thoroughly appreciated.

‘Nahpoo,’ he sadly overworks all day long. ‘Nahpoo,’ he says gazing on his hand at nap. ‘Nahpoo the possy,’ he comments, peeping into the jam tin. ‘Nah-poo the bergoo,’ he remarks as he disposes of the last spoonful of breakfast porridge. ‘Nahpoo the Allemang, nahpoo the bully beef,’ he cheerfully and confidently sings as he plays with his picture puzzle. ‘Gam, stow it,’ he would have said at one time to the teller of a tall story. ‘Nahpoo,’ he now growls scornfully and disgustedly, and in moments of additional stress ‘Nahpoo, fini.’

‘I believe there’s a war on’ and ‘before peace is declared,’ are two of his pet phrases. ‘I believe there’s a war on, sister,’ he hazards, on first sipping the tea made to hospital standards, and not to his mother’s 60-horse-power, brewed strong enough to ‘make the spoon stand upright.’

‘For the duration’ is another favourite phrase. If m’mslle at the estaminet were tardy, he would certainly ask her if she thought he were there ‘for the duration.’ If his partner at draughts took what he considered to be too long in thinking out the next move, he would
inform the assembly that they were presumably both there ‘for the duration.’

‘I clicked for beds and sister’s told me off now,’ I hear him informing the orderly. ‘I’ll cut the bread if you like. I seem to be the onion this afternoon.’

‘You the onion!’ laughs the orderly. ‘I like that, don’t come it over me with that yarn. It’s gassed, sonny, gassed. It’s tanked.’

‘Um, but you won’t say that when I’ve cut up umteen loaves, eh?’

‘Oh! carry on. It will keep you out of mischief. So double up to it.’

‘That’s a dud,’ he remarks, when he finds the first tin of butter empty. Then ‘where are these tins dumped?’ He never by any chance throws anything away. He always ‘dumps’ it.

Finally he seats himself and brandishes a knife gaily.

‘What did you do in the Great War, daddy? Dodged Fritz & Co., my boy, slunk about hospital, swinging the lead, cutting up the rooty, ladelling out the stingo, handing out the possy and the doolay. Isn’t that a record for an old sweat? Aah, I’m afraid I’m a washout, a sinful old perisher. What do you say, rookie?’ addressing a young recruit. ‘You want a backsheecoat?
Hello! I didn’t know you were in the Labour Battalion? Ten-shun, slope wheelbarrows.’

‘What is sister doing?’ as I stumble over the mat. ‘Oh, sister, you’re not trying to work your tickets, are you?’ ‘Working England tickets’ consists of ‘scrimshanking,’ malingering, or courting disaster purposely.

‘Don’t you think I’m useful, sister? I think
après la guerre
those in this ward ought to run a boarding house. I could be kitchen maid and waiter, “Lightning” could dust and sweep, the orderly could do all the rough work – special emphasis on the “work,” and loud pedal on the “rough” – and Rookie could be the messenger boy.’

‘And I’d make the beds.’

‘Oh, no, sister, you’d be the lady with the frizzed hair that takes the money.’

I make assurance that I am overwhelmed by such a symbol of trust as the guardianship of the money, and I laughingly betake myself into the next ward where some work awaits me.

I hear him pattering round ‘handing out the rooty and the possy, the stingo and the doolay,’ and promising some one
a nissue
– otherwise a ration cigarette. Then when everything is ready I hear him
subside into a deck chair, where I can imagine him at his ease remarking, ‘Now, boys, let’s get on with the war,’ or ‘Nah, then, wot abaht it?’

HE WAS A
Greek god with a baritone voice and he came ‘fra’ Oadam,’ more usually known as Oldham. He knew more parodies of songs than I had ever known existed, and all day long except at meal times we had such ditties as ‘My little grey home in the Trench.’ ‘A little bit Jack Johnson fell from out the sky one day,’ and ‘Nahpoo the Allemang, nahpoo the Bully Beef,’ the latter being, I think, scarcely a drawing-room song, for I have never been able to persuade any one to sing it me in its entirety.

He had a slight muscular trouble in his left shoulder, and was sent to us for a few days from a casualty clearing station
en route
for a rest camp, and to revert to his base. Of course he was up and about all day, and his great feat was carrying round for me the medicine
basket to each tent, and standing by as I administered each dose.

Needless to say, remarks trickled forth subconsciously. ‘Now, draftie, down with the drink.’ ‘A drop of port for you, sonny,’ as I poured out the ferri and amm. cit. ‘Wake up, me lad, here’s your rum ration. Look how he springs to attention at the mention of “rum,” sister. One of your tender years ought to sign the pledge. Give this one an extra dose, sister, to get even with him. He’s a policeman in civvy life. Ugh’ – reading his diet sheet – ‘chicken, beef tea, eggs, jelly. Isn’t this a policeman’s holiday?’

‘Kelly, sister? What! the one from the Isle of Man? Here he is, and next to him there’s Douglas. Upon my word, now, isn’t that a cute arrangement? A mustard plaster, sister,’ – handing me the tin and breaking into melodramatic accents and a verse of ‘Little Jim,’ – ‘I feel no pain, dear mother, now. Are we down-hearted? No, but he jolly soon will be when that plaster begins to bite.’

‘A wee doech and doris,’ as I pour out some sodii sal. ‘Hoch, hoots, mon Jock. Ah cood fair greet tae see sae bonny a drap feending sae feckless a haame. Ferri. phos., sister, is that to give this man an appetite? Why, he could eat anything, he could eat a flock bed.

‘Sorry, sister, I’m afraid I talk too much,’ looking at me and hoping for a disclaimer. ‘Do I?’

‘Old Dads,’ as the men called him, was a member of the ‘Greybeards’ Battalion,’ and when in the forest cutting trees for trench supports he had injured his hand – an accident which brought him to my acquaintance.

At first the sisters’ presence in the wards embarrassed his sense of the fitness of things, and our social rank seemed somewhat of a puzzle to him. On occasion he put finger to forelock, and addressed us as ‘Mum,’ ‘Ma’am’ and ‘Me lady,’ at other times it was ‘Yes, sir’ and at others ‘Miss’ in tones reminiscent of a customer to a waitress at a cheap restaurant. Finally he managed with great difficulty to learn the usual form of address.

He was infinitely grateful for what we did for him, and had a habit of talking under his breath while we did his dressing which was both amusing and disconcerting.

‘You are good ter me. God knows you are. You are kind ter me. The Lord knows you are. I’m better looked after here than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m sure I am. I never knew there was so much kindness in the world. I’m sure I didn’t. You ’ave ter work ’ard.
I’m sure you ’ave. I wouldn’t like a daughter of mine to after do it.’

Whether he considered the work beneath the dignity of his daughter or whether he wished to spare her its excesses, I was never quite sure. More probably the latter, for he was a thoughtful and kind old man.

The last I saw of him was as he was being carried out on a stretcher to proceed to England – a recumbent figure swathed like a Polar explorer in great coat and scarves and a Balaclava, and still he was muttering – ‘They have been good ter me. I’m sure they have. They were kind ter me. The Lord knows they were.’

‘Sonny’ was not quite seventeen years old, military age nineteen. He was a tall slip of a youth with a nature as bright as a June day, and eyes as blue as its skies. He came into hospital with tonsilitis, and he was up and about in a day or two, following me round like a little dog.

‘Sister, can’t I carry that for you? Sister, mayn’t I cut those lemons? Sister, I’m a good sewer. Can’t I stitch that curtain? Let me thread your needles.’

He told me much of his home affairs, and also of his disgust at getting so near to things, and yet not being sent into the trenches.

‘You see, sister, people at home will say I’m a coward if I don’t go up the line. I want to go up after a V.C., I haven’t any one special at home to think about. I have no father or mother, only a sister and she’s married. Her husband is one of the best, but they have two kiddies, and I’m not necessary to them or to any one, so it wouldn’t matter if I went West. It’s chaps like me that can be spared. We’re the sort that ought to get knocked out.

‘My sister sends me a parcel every fortnight, and she always sends my favourite supper-dish, a tin of pineapple and a tin of condensed milk. Have you tried it, sister? It’s luscious, tray bon, trez beans. Do have it for your supper, sister. You would like it.’

Repartee and jokes were his forte.

‘What are
you
doing in a regiment like the Buffs?’ some older patient asked him.

‘The Buffs, my boy?’ Sonny retorted. ‘Because they are the Best Unit For Foreign Service. See?’

One day he came to me and inquired, ‘Are you fond of music, sister?’

‘Why, of course,’ I replied.

‘Then here’s a whole band for you, sister,’ volunteered the young scapegrace, holding out the small rubber band from the mouth of a soda-water-bottle.

I laughed as I went on with my work. ‘Quite right of you not to accept, sister. It’s not worthy of you,’ moving it round in his fingers, and disclosing the fact that it was split across. ‘It’s only a broken melody.’

‘Pewcy’ the other boys called him, though that was not the N. or M. given to him in his baptism. ‘A regular entertainment he is,’ said a Kiplingesque soldier, ‘a fair Daisy,’ – a criticism begot by the fact that Pewcy talked in italics. He used the latest slang, he brushed his hair an alarming number of times a day. He used to say ‘Excuse me,’ ‘Allow me,’ ‘Will you please?’ and ‘Do you mind?’ In a word, Pewcy was genteel, and gentility is the one thing at a discount on the Western Front.

The other men laughed at and made a great butt of him, and one of them used to imitate how Pewcy would say in the trenches, ‘There’s a beastly Boche, haw. What shall I do, haw? Shall I kill him or shall I smack his beastly face, haw?’

Poor Pewcy! When the July push came his regiment ‘went over,’ and he was one who proved himself a soldier and a man.

‘Canada’ had been blanket bathed, and duly installed in bed before I had had time to give him more than the
briefest attention. Then, however, I went to see if he was warm and comfortable.

‘Comfortable, sister,’ with a blissful sigh of contentment. ‘I’ve never slept between sheets for four years,’ a circumstance which I asked him to explain.

He had been in Canada three years before war broke out, had ‘had it pretty rough,’ had been fur-trapping three hundred and ninety miles north of the Hudson Bay. On the outbreak of war he had come south, and joined the army without having a night in an hotel, so one could quite understand how he and sheets had been strangers for so long.