The Poppy Field: A gripping and emotional historical romance

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“Yes, it just might,” Mary said.

Alice knew they were fooling themselves, but if they remained positive then they were better placed to help the patients. “I wish they didn’t discharge them straight back to the trenches as soon as they were well.”

Mary didn’t reply immediately. She drank the remainder of her tea. “I can’t help wondering at the fruitlessness of it all.”

“That’s enough of that,” Matron snapped from behind them making them both jump and Mary spill her tea. “No feeble talk from my nurses,” she said. “I want you back at your ward now. The convoy will be here shortly.”

They stood up and cleared their plates and cups.

Alice waited for Matron to leave the room before exhaling. “I hate being caught out like that,” she said, embarrassed.

“Don’t you think she feels the same as us sometimes?”

Alice looked at Mary and shrugged. “I imagine so, but the difference between her and us is that she’d never allow her feelings to show.”

And neither should she, Alice decided. She was here to do a job and bleating about it wasn’t going to help anyone. She needed to buck up her ideas.

Reaching the other nurses and orderlies waiting on the wooden walkway, Alice heard the bugle announcing the arrival of the ambulances. First Matron stepped forward, followed by two nurses and two orderlies. Once they had been told which ward in which to take the initial casualty, Matron checked the next man, and so on, until it was Alice’s turn.

“Ward Four,” she said. Alice looked down at the conscious man who winced in pain as the orderlies lifted his stretcher from the back of the ambulance. She accompanied him across the wooden boards to the ward.

“We’re in here,” she said, aware she was stating the obvious, but not sure what else to say until she had discovered what his injuries were exactly.

Indicating the vacant bed next to Captain Woodhall, Alice checked the tag on the man’s jacket. “Corporal William Healy?”

“Yes, Nurse, that’s me,” he said, in a gentle southern Irish accent. He gazed around him.

He appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He was pale, thin, and, like most of the men who came here after spending months in the discomfort of the trenches, utterly exhausted.

“You have a gunshot wound to the right foot, I see,” she said, waiting while the orderlies lifted him carefully from the stretcher onto the bed.

“Yes, and stings something dreadful, it does.”

“I don’t doubt it.” She unbuttoned his dust encased jacket. “Let me help you off with this filthy uniform,” she said. “Then I can wash you and help you change into your pyjamas. You’ll be more comfortable then.”

“Thanks, nurse,” he said, gritting his teeth as she slowly worked his trousers down past his bandaged foot. He looked to his right and nodded at the captain in the next bed.

“Welcome to The Haven,” the captain said, smiling up at Alice. “Most of our nurses here are angels.” He lowered his voice. “Matron can be a bit of a tyrant, but I’ve noticed that her heart is in the right place.”

Alice was relieved to see the captain had improved dramatically since she’d last seen him. She went to speak to him, but two more injured soldiers were carried in to the large tent, diverting her attention. One was writhing in pain and Alice noticed Mary assisting a sister as she attempted to calm him. The two men next to her stopped talking, as both stared anxiously at the weeping casualty.

Alice emptied the corporal’s pockets and placed a photo, wallet and letters onto the small chair by his bed that he’d be sharing with Captain Woodhall. She dropped the trousers and jacket in a heap that a probationer would take away with a mound of other dirty uniforms.

“Poor sod,” the corporal said. “He was in my battalion. I wondered what had happened to him.”

“He’s here now,” Alice said, trying to sooth their concerns. “We’ll ask Sister to give him something for his pain shortly.”

“There’s far worse than that arriving,” Captain Woodhall said quietly.

“Thank you, Captain,” she shook her head. “I need to clean Corporal Healy. You can impart your survival tips afterwards.”

Alice washed and partially changed the corporal into pyjamas.

“I’m going to have to change this dressing,” she explained, concerned that the heat in his damaged foot indicated an infection might have set in to the gunshot wound. “If you lie back,” she said taking him gently by the shoulders and pushing against the freshly plumped pillow. “Then I can have a proper look.”

Taking a pair of large tweezers, Alice held her breath, nervous at what she would find. She gently pulled back the filthy dressing, relieved it didn’t stick to the wound. Dropping the once white gauze into a metal bowl, she began meticulously cleaning the area with hydrogen peroxide.

“Hell, that stings,” Corporal Healy grimaced, his eyes watering from the pain.

“I know, I’m sorry,” she said hating having to inflict more pain on him. “I’m afraid it’s necessary.”

“How is it looking Nurse?” he asked, moments later.

She suspected the pain of his wound must be intense. She moved his foot to the right, hearing him wince. “Sorry, Corporal. I think the bullet exited through your foot cleanly.”

“Don’t you worry Nurse,” he said. “You do what you must.”

Alice fixed a smile on her face. She was determined not to show how saddened she was that her suspicions were right. Infection had begun to swell the damaged area on that side. “I’m going to ask Doctor Sullivan to have a look at this,” she said, trying to instil positivity in him. “We need to ensure no fragments of bone are left in there that might hinder healing.”

Satisfied she had done all she could for now, Alice carefully placed clean gauze on his foot and finished dressing him.

“There you go,” she said returning his smile. “Try to rest. You must be exhausted after what you’ve been through.” Alice smoothed down her skirt. “I’ll leave you now. Tea should be here shortly.”

“Thanks, Nurse—”

“She’s Nurse Le Breton,” Captain Woodhall said, giving Alice a shy smile.

“I’ll leave you two to become acquainted,” she said, hoping her face wasn’t as red as she suspected it might be. Alice wished the rules about becoming too close to any of the patients wasn’t so absolute. She knew the captain would be discharged at some point, but she daren’t risk ruining any chance she might have of training to become a fully qualified nurse after this war ended.

She helped Mary wash and change her patient who had calmed down a little after receiving a morphine injection. These new arrivals always unsettled the patients, thought Alice. It was upsetting to witness those that had found comfort in the security of the hospital, to be reminded of what they would probably return to.

She glanced over at one patient, relieved to see one of the sisters soothing him. The recent amputation of his lower leg meant he had to be kept as still as possible. The last thing they needed was for him to haemorrhage. Alice doubted most of these men would ever come to terms with what they had experienced.

“Were you at Guillemont?” she heard the captain quietly ask Corporal Healy. “I heard it was particularly bad there.”

“Yes,” he hesitated. “It was a nightmare. We’ve been there since the third of September. That’s where I got this hole in my foot. Some bloody Hun caught me in the village, just as I was running for cover behind a wall.”

The captain frowned. “Many men down?”

The corporal shook his head and cleared his throat, his voice cracking as he answered. “Far too many. It was a bloodbath. Men were being mown down in their droves. I wonder if, in a hundred years, anyone will remember all the Irish blokes who lost their lives there this week?”

“I think about that often,” the captain admitted. “All of us cannon fodder. I can’t help thinking about all the families that will never be. Will future generations commemorate what we’ve done, or do their best to forget us?”

Alice wondered the same thing. She had never heard the captain speaking so frankly before, but he voiced what most of them must be thinking. It was only September and the war had been dragging on for over two years now. Unable to bear seeing the endless columns of names of the missing and fallen, Alice had stopped reading the papers months ago.

“How about you?” the corporal asked Captain Woodhall. “What brought you to this place?”

He touched the bandage on his head. “Thankfully, this is more of a graze than anything,” he said. “Could have been far worse.” They both looked over at two men on the other side of the ward, both with thick dressings covering one side of their faces and heads. “Also, a bullet sliced through my side, near my right hip.”

“I’m hoping this is a Blighty one,” Corporal Healy whispered. “My wife’s struggling to cope at home with the kids.”

“How many have you got?”

“Six. Five boys and a little girl,” he smiled, groaning as he reached to lift up a photo from his small selection of personal items. “My daughter, Kathleen’s only nineteen months old.”

Hearing the corporal talk about his children chilled Alice. What if he was to lose his leg to infection? She had heard about it happening too many times to count, men with families losing the ability to obtain gainful employment after losing a limb. Her concern for how these injured men and their families would survive after the war ended, kept her awake at night.

She hoped the corporal wouldn’t be one of them, not with such a large family relying on his earnings. She’d speak to the surgeon as soon as she finished helping Mary. Sister Brown would be furious if she discovered Alice had over-stepped her authority, but she couldn’t take a chance that his infection might be missed. If he needed surgery as soon as possible, and she was almost certain he did, she needed to speak up. She had seen how rapidly and uncontrollably infection could spread through these weakened men’s systems once it took hold.

“You got any kids?” She heard the corporal ask and glanced over at the two men again.

Captain Woodhall shook his head. “No. No kids.”

“Married?”

There was a hesitation before Alice heard him answer, “No. No wife, either.”

Alice looked at him then and their eyes met for a few seconds, before he turned away to answer another of the corporal’s questions. Something had happened to him, she could tell. But what? Had his fiancée called off their engagement, like she had done?

Spotting Matron standing in the entrance, Alice finished redressing a wound on another patient when a particularly loud bombardment exploded nearby. Alice’s heart pounded heavily and a few of the newer patients stared at her, their eyes wide with concern.

“It probably sounds closer because of the wind direction,” she said, recalling how this explanation had calmed her on her arrival. “We’re perfectly safe here.”

She was interrupted by shouting outside the ward. Alice walked as quickly as she could to find out the cause of the commotion. Two of the orderlies were restraining a young patient in the middle of a grand mal episode on the wooden walkway. Alice returned to the ward, grabbed a blanket and pillow and went back to help. She carefully raised the patient’s head and placed the pillow underneath. She didn’t want him banging his head, causing himself even more damage. His contorted body finally relaxed, but the man seemed barely conscious. She covered him with a blanket to keep him warm and glanced at the closest orderly.