WALK TO PARADISE GARDEN
by John Campbell
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SMASHWORDS EDITION
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Copyright © John Campbell
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not gifted by the author or purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, other than recognized public figures, is purely coincidental.
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Acknowledgements
Warm and special thanks go to: Wendy Bertsch, Robert Davidson, Richard Sutton, Genevieve Graham-Sawchyn, Kathy Vorenerg, Val-Rae Christensen, Debbie Girardi and her illustrious book club, Valerie Tate, Caroline Hartman, Jake Barton, Richard Allen, Clark G Vanderpool, Fontaine, Mary Enck, Nicole Dweck, Mary Vensel White, Marge McRae, Roberta Winter, Elizabeth Matson, Iva Polansky, Marssie Mencotti, Johanna Stephen-Ward, Alverne Ball, Kay Christina Fenton, John Breeden, Barbara Jurgensen, Caleb Engel, Mike Dewey, Bridget Dunn, Christina Naftis, Wangari Mathenge, Meredith Rackley Stoddard, Emmett Delaney, Andrew Wright, Frank Laurie, Bill Clark, John McGrosso, Pamela Campbell, John and Betty Campbell, Vicktoria Jimenez, Saundra Verstrate, Tanya McCulloch, Evelyne Keith, James Protsman and many patient friends and colleagues.
Table of Contents
WALK TO PARADISE GARDEN
1915 – Flanders
“My father is a butcher in Chicago,” John Armitage informed the lorry driver. The man ground the gears and grunted, his yellowed teeth threatening to sever the stub of a rank cigar.
John shrugged and gazed out over the desolate Belgian landscape. The overcast sky offered nothing but monotonous gray, save for two dark buzzards circling over a dip. Even the muddy crossroad before them lacked a signpost, as if no one could possibly want to know what lay ahead.
The gears shifted with a lurch. Albert, the driver and John’s only companion, sniffed. “Well, no disrespect, young man, but I can see and hear you’re a nob through and through. Lemme just tell you what ol’ Albert saw back there.” He turned toward his window and spat the butt through the opening. “When you tried to get in the transport wagon, you looked right indignant when they blocked yer way an’ was tellin’ you as it was full up. And you and I both knows it weren’t that full. They’d read you as a toff, same as I did.”
“Your perception is admirable.”
“Prob’ly thought you was a surgeon or sumfink, if not a proper toff.” Albert added with relish, his tone affable.
“Ha! Far from it.”
“Now, don’t you take it personal. Them boys are out of sorts. Scared, they is, ’bout goin’ to the Front, and they prob’ly just wanted to go this last stretch wiv their own company o’ mates. But that’s not all I heard outta you. No sir. Thing is, you don’t talk like any butcher’s son I ever met. Me ear tells me there’s more than Yank in you. I detect a bit o’ West End—Mayfair or maybe up by Highgate.” Albert pointed a gnarled and grimy finger his way. “And yer hands is soft.”
“I can see, Albert, that you’re a real Sherlock Holmes,” John said stiffly, slightly annoyed at being read correctly. Nonetheless, he was thankful for the opportunity for some banter. It would help dispel, at least for the moment, his mounting anxiety as they drew closer to the battle zone.
“Ta, very much. That means you credit me my intelligence. Yep, Ol’ Albert can read well enough, both books and folks. But now, don’t go takin’ any offence. I’m happy to see an American cross the high seas and volunteer to help our boys. Lord knows as they needs all the help they can get.” Albert dropped his voice to a low whisper. His playfulness evaporated as quickly as would laughter at the crack of close gunfire. “It’s hell out there, I’m sorry to say. You, my friend, are in for the shock of yer life.”
John frowned, surprised at his companion’s sudden change of demeanor. He turned and scanned the disheartening view again. Dismal fields stretched in all directions. The few trees dotting the land looked as if they had died of despair.
A dark shape on the other side of the road caught his eye, materializing as a lone boy. The dejected figure trudged southward, bent under a bag slung over his shoulder. Albert paid scant attention to the lad despite the fact that the young face watched them. The driver’s attention was elsewhere. For a long moment, the boy’s sad gaze locked with John’s, twisting and weighing down his heart. An orphan? His family and home destroyed by war? Heading for Calais or some other city to live off the streets?
John checked Albert’s expression and wondered why the man still wouldn’t look the boy’s way. It was deliberate, he could tell. John considered saying something, then thought better of it. If some personal pain forced his companion’s gaze straight ahead, better to let it be.
A pent-up breath escaped John’s lips. Everything about this war upset him. He silently fumed, feeling helpless. All he could do was wish the insanity throughout Europe would end. He was about to set into a tirade over the pompous old fools who had allowed this whole mess, those who had weakly chosen violence over diplomacy. But the tension still emanating from Albert convinced him to swallow his complaints.
“Got a bit to go yet,” the driver said with a hollow lift to his voice. An effort, possibly, to compensate for ignoring the boy.
They had jolted over the lonely stretch for some time before a Red Cross wagon pulled by two dray horses approached, most likely heading back to Calais. Perhaps they would encounter the child along the road and offer him a lift to town. As the two vehicles passed, each going its own way along the pitiful road, the drivers traded somber waves.
“There goes some lucky lads. Goin’ for a Blighty. Tha’ means a bit o’ rest at home. O’ course, ‘lucky’ means they’re less a limb or two. I heard abaht one poor boy went back without ’is face. Got mostly blown off from an explosion. Woulda been more merciful had he died.”
John’s skin felt suddenly cold and clammy and he swallowed down nausea. The relentless jostling in a truck that reeked of petrol and sweat was bad enough. Now, with images of irreversible injuries and ruined lives floating through his mind, he had to summon up control with a concerted effort. He wiped damp hands on his trousers and tried to think of something else.
But he couldn’t. And he craved conversation. “Uh,” John said, clearing his throat. “I can only guess morale must be pretty low these days.”
“Sumfink turrble, it is. But the boys love their homeland. Just let anyone talk against what they’re fightin’ for and the bloke’s in fer a beatin.”
“Right,” John said, his mind filling with frightening scenarios. He didn’t subscribe to blind patriotism, and in John’s experience, speaking his mind often got him into scrapes.
For a second, John was back to that cold day, standing on his soapbox in front of Lunt Library. Incensed at hearing of Roosevelt’s intention to run a third-term campaign, John had begun his own address and began speaking out against reneged promises. Many in the gathering crowd were his fellow footballers. The tension was palpable. Edwina had done all she could to doctor his cuts and bruises after that rigmarole.
John had always been determined to be his own man. His mother would have pampered him into a feckless fop, had it not been for his British nanny, and later his governess, Edwina Pitt, who had emigrated to live with the family in Illinois. Edwina had the gonads of a Royal Navy admiral. While his father neglected him, Edwina went out on the Lake Forest estate grounds in her skirts and kicked the soccer ball around with him on numerous occasions. The spry woman had guided his masculine development and fostered not a few of his ideals.
John could never imagine himself killing anyone, but he was no coward. His decision to serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps was accomplished in phases. After leaving the Midwest in a huff, he had taken a steamer from New York to England. With rumors flying about German U-boats on the prowl, that had proven to be a brave step. In London he had preferred not to stay at his mother’s Mayfair house, because his cousin Basil was residing there. John found the man insufferable. Instead, he rented rooms in modest Lambeth and considered his next move.
One dreary day, as he was crossing Cavendish Road, a Red Cross poster had caught his eye. It read Ease Pain; Save Lives; Join the Red Cross. Soon after, John saw a recruiting station advertising their need for stretcher bearers for the Royal Army Medical Corps,. He marched directly in and volunteered.
He had considered this kind of field service before, after he’d read an article about the fate of the wounded on a battlefield in Solferino, Italy, some fifty years before. The article had been presented in his European history class and it told of 40,000 injured soldiers who had been abandoned on a mountainside without any help.
“…smell your own flesh rotting.” John jolted straight. Had he said that out loud?
“Aye. That’s a nasty problem,” Albert replied. “Trench Foot, mostly.”
“Oh, no. I…I was thinking back to something I’d read about injured soldiers in Italy. There was no Red Cross or RAMC there. I’ve often imagined what it must’ve been like for the wounded left behind, smelling the gangrene before sinking into death.”
Albert shot him a sideways glance. “That’s pretty morbid for a lad just startin’ out his duty.”
“Uh, sorry. That’s why I volunteered. To help, I mean.”
Albert grunted his reply.
In hindsight, John admitted his decision to volunteer came in part from the unattractive wish to spite his father. He also conceded that he yearned for adventure. But something else had niggled at the back of his mind, and he now saw clearly what it was. By doing this, for the first time in his life, John felt needed.
He was told that as a stretcher-bearer, he would be facing the same dangers as those in combat. But helping the wounded was how he had chosen to serve. He couldn’t help the dead, but sometimes even dragging their bodies out of No Man’s Land seemed of some value.
“Can ya smell it? O’ course ya can,” Albert said, speaking not of his truck nor of death in Italy, but to introduce the conditions into which John would soon be submerged. The stench from the Front at the Ypres Salient carried for miles on the stale breezes. It caught in John’s throat as they approached Vlamertinghe, the small village west of Ypres that would serve as his base. And the smell was undeniably getting stronger.
“Ye’ll get used to it, mate.”
Though he tried not to, John burst into a coughing fit, trying not to give in to the waves of nausea threatening from lower down. As he gained command of himself, the truck pulled up in front of what looked like a warehouse. Albert ground the gears and floored the brakes, and the lorry lurched to a halt.
“That’d be your barracks, sir.”
John scrambled out, grabbed his suitcase, then stood at mock attention, albeit a bit stiffly after the long ride. With a sincere grin, he ceremoniously saluted his driver.
“Thank you, sir,” John barked in friendly mimic.
Albert pointed across the street. “The pub fare is better at that Signee Nory.”
As the lorry pulled away, the engine backfired and chugged so loudly John could only wave and nod appreciatively for the advice. He looked down the lane, hunting for the suggested tavern. “Oh, Le Cygne Noir. The Black Swan,” John said to himself. He chuckled, reflecting both on Albert’s pronunciation and on his company. In a way, he was almost grateful there had been ‘no room’ for him in the transport wagon, back in Calais.
Turning toward his destination, John considered the building that would house him when he wasn’t risking his life at the Front. For a utilitarian commercial building, it looked quite smart, with its symmetry and large windows. The brickwork offered a smattering of ornamentation. The RAMC sign announcing the structure’s new official purpose did all it could to dress the building down.
He was just about to enter when a powerful shoulder struck him from behind, shoving him against the doorframe. A British soldier, a bear of a man, towered over him. “Are you a bloody journalist, come to write lies?”
Reining in his anger, John straightened. “No. I’m here with the RAMC to help get you boys patched up.”
“Then you’re a bloody conchie.” The man’s breath was nasty.
John enunciated as if to a dim child. “I am an American, offering to carry a carcass like yours off the battlefield.”
“Hmph. Well, you best watch where you’re goin’, mate. There’s one thing I can’t abide and that’s a conscientious objector.” The soldier spat to the side and walked around him—a victory in itself—then lumbered down the street.
Pleased to note his hands weren’t shaking, John took a deep breath of relatively fresh air and entered the barracks. He reported in and was subsequently deposited in a second-floor wing. There he washed, put on fresh clothing, and tried to settle his nerves. Tomorrow would begin his baptism by fire. Shaking off a chill that ran the length of his body, he sat on his bunk to unwind, propping his feet up, pressing his shoulder blades against the cool brick wall. The air in the large room was heavy with the scent of a recently washed wood floor, mixed with a muskiness which clung to the blankets and folded clothing of other men. More than a dozen bunks lined the walls of his section, all unoccupied at the moment, except for one in which a young man snored.
Some distance outside the village, rumblings and cracklings of artillery fire echoed over the flatlands. How many lives had been snuffed out just then? John closed his eyes and sighed, doubting himself. How would his heart survive observing firsthand, repeated tragedy?
A more immediate confrontation broke out just below his window. John got up and peered out, then realized it was just boisterous bantering. A handful of British soldiers were walking with a nurse, each man jockeying for her attention, all of them juddering past like chickens in a yard. John reached for his satchel and pulled out a book, but after several minutes of effort even Plutarch failed to calm him. With a vague sense of relief, he got up, checked his reflection in the mirror and that of his unknown roommate, and left the building.
As old taverns go, Le Cygne Noir was unexceptional from the outside. John had just reached the other side of the lane when a man dressed like a local stumbled out of the place, offered a slurred salutation and bowed to him in jest. John nodded, determined to be one of the fellows, and then stepped into a warm welcome of lantern light and laughter.
Closing the door with the back of his heel, he stood for a moment on the plank floor, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the smoky room. Along the far wall he spied Eddie Thompson, whom he had met back at the Lambeth office. John had been told before crossing the Channel that he and Eddie would likely be partnered as stretcher-bearers. He didn’t know how long they might work together, peons in the RAMC, but he found it slightly amusing that he again had an Eddie in his life. He doubted, however, that many men could match the spirit of the formidable Edwina Pitt.
As he meandered between tables, John was almost hit in the gut by a drunken Belgian, flailing his arms as he made fun of something. The soldier apologized, looking somewhat sheepish, but John patted him on the back and continued navigating his way toward Eddie’s table. He pulled out a chair. “Mind if I join you?”
“I’d be ’onored.” Eddie’s tone and expression were welcoming. The young man had told him he had been a cobbler in Wapping before he’d signed up. Like John, he was just twenty. Unlike John, he looked as if he were fifteen, a lanky youth with tousled sandy hair. John angled a chair so that as he sat he could lean against the wall, his right elbow on the table.
“They’re outta whisky, I’m sorry to tell ya,” Eddie drawled. “I ’elped them with tha’, which I’m not sorry to tell ya. The wine’s not bad, though.”
Eddie signaled to the older couple tending the bar and the woman came over promptly, setting a sparkling clean glass before John. “For Monsieur.” Her posture told him she was proud of her well-kept establishment, neat and efficient when everything around them was in war-torn shambles. Her expression, however, expressed concern, as if she realized she had yet another young man to worry about.
John stood and made a quick bow. She giggled at this special treatment and returned to the bar, still smiling. Eddie poured, filling both glasses.
Lifting his by the stem, John gazed through the red liquid. “I don’t know how I’m going to get any sleep tonight with all that rumbling from the Front. It must be maddening to realize each volley brings misery and bloodshed.” He took a sip, swallowed hard, and grimaced. The wine was a touch too bright, carrying an essence of vinegar, but it was drinkable. He was glad to have it.
“You’ll get used to the noise. Daown’t take too long. I’ve been ’ere for over a week now, almost two. Sleep like a baby most times, when I gets to.” Eddie held up his glass. “Here’s to ya,” he said, and tossed back a gulp.
They talked about the cobbler business then went on to discuss eel pies, which were sold on the occasional East End street corner. It was a delicacy on which they disagreed; John was not a fan of eel pies.
Eddie’s face suddenly lit and he nodded toward the door. “Ah, look at what just came in, will ya? Two nice lookin’ nurses. One fer you and one fer me.”
John smiled appreciatively at the ladies, letting his gaze linger. They glanced his way only briefly before sitting at a table closer to the bar. “I don’t think they’re quite taken with us, old man.”
“Don’t underestimate our charms.” Eddie shook his head and stifled a belch. “They’re T.F.N.S., if I heard c’rectly.”
John closed his eyes, grappling to come up with words for what that meant. British officialdom’s acronyms were fast becoming annoying.
“It stands for Tuff Nurses.” Eddie barked out a laugh, sounding pleased with himself. John hoped the ladies hadn’t overheard them and forced himself not to look their way. Eddie sat straighter. “Sometimes they assist at the Casualty Clearing Stations. So, we, my good gentleman, might just get to ride out there in their company.”
John frowned at this revelation. “They have ladies near the Front?”
“Only the trained and the brave. A special lot, them.” With his elbow propped on the table, head in his hand, the cobbler beamed a dreamy gaze at the women.
“That brown-haired lass sits right like a toff. Back straight. Lovely. Now there’s a match fer ya. Me, I like ‘em plump, like blondie there. I’ve seen ‘er around but ‘aven’t yet ‘ad the pleasure.”
John slapped the table as the meaning finally came to him and Eddie jumped, almost knocking over his glass. “Territorial Field Nursing Services. Ha!”
The wine bottle before Eddie was empty, so John got up to get another, keeping his eyes casually on the brunette as he negotiated his way around tables. There was something about her that pulled at him, as if there were a new energy in the room, a tension which heightened his senses. It couldn’t be from the wine; he’d only had a few sips. When he reached the bar, John tried to shrug off the uncomfortable sensation that the entire place was watching him. He gave a quick glance around, but no one was paying the least attention.
The elderly publican behind the bar leaned closer and smiled, ears pricked, as if ready to decipher something other than French or Flemish. The woman beside him, wiping glasses with a white towel, glanced over her shoulder and gave John a familiar smile.
John spoke in formal French. “It’s my first evening here and I’m grateful to find such a pleasant establishment so handy.”
“Merci, monsieur. I am Jacques, and this here’s my wife, Amelie. Welcome to Le Cygne Noir. This is my family’s business.”
Letting his eyes wander, John admired the crafted detail of the cabinetry. “How old is the building?”
“Oh, more than two hundred years. I hope it survives.” A shadow of doubt crossed the man’s amiable features, then disappeared beneath his ready smile.
Amelie came to stand by her husband. “I hope you survive, too, young man. So many nice boys we meet and never see again.”
As fascinating as it was to get the pulse of the area through these folks, John was still distracted by the lingering sensation of being watched. The assessing gaze bored into his back, and he imagined—hoped—it was from the women behind him. Leaning his elbow on the bar, he casually turned as if admiring the room while still conversing. He hoped he was placing his words in the right order as he stole a quick glance at the ladies. The brunette remained attentive to her companion’s conversation. John couldn’t help thinking that were her profile minted on a gold coin, it would be more than appropriate. The blonde’s eyes shifted, catching his. She winked.
He turned back, his pulse internally audible. Smiling at Jacques and Amelie, he felt sure they could read him. Without missing a beat, however, he added, “I can’t imagine what it must be like for you to see the surrounding area ruined as it is.”
“It’s hardly recognizable,” Jacques agreed, his voice resigned.
Amelie clucked her tongue and looked away. Her hazel eyes might have held a sparkle once, but not now. She began wiping down the bar, despite its already pristine finish. John bought a bottle of the only red they had left, a claret. Returning to the table, he filled Eddie’s glass and settled back in.
Eddie’s one-sided conversation ran on, contentedly detailing life in Wapping and the East End in general. It was obvious the young man was homesick. John nodded and grunted in response as needed, but his attention shifted back to the T.F.N.S. ladies. The blonde, evidently dominating the conversation, was taking care of what looked like a bottle of Pernod, an ambitious project for one. The brunette held a teacup and listened politely. Her rich, dark hair was pulled up in a neat topknot bun, accentuating her elegant neck. She was slender with delicate features, the epitome of femininity, and yet here she was, in a war. He considered the courage and compassion it must have taken for her to volunteer. The suggested depth of character attracted him.
The next thing John knew, Eddie’s conversation had ceased. The young cobbler’s head had lowered to the table and he had begun to snore.
Recognizing opportunity, John rose and approached the ladies. With a slight bow he asked, “Mind if I join you ladies for a bit?”
“Owh, we don’t mind at all, do we, Evie?” the blonde said, puffing out a breathy perfume of anise liquor.
“Please do,” the brunette said. A slight smile spread across her face, hinting at amusement. John pulled a chair to their table, noticing how large her exquisite hazel eyes were. These, too, revealed humor, as if there were something comical about his joining them. He wondered fleetingly if the blonde had made some kind of bet about his doing so.
“Oi’m Liz and this here’s Evie. Her real name’s Evelyne, but she lets me call her Evie. Can’t say if she’ll be as nice to you.” Liz licked her lips and looked him up and down. “But Oi reckon she might. Go ahead and sit. You just get in, did ya?”
He slid into his chair. “First day on the job’s tomorrow. Stretcher-bearer. I’m nervous, of course.” He looked at Evelyne. “How about you?”
“Lucky fer you they just got in some new ambulances,” Liz chipped in.
Evelyne nodded, agreeing with Liz’ contribution. “We received a Rolls and a Sunbeam last week, and I understand a Star lorry is due here any day.” She lifted her cup and sipped her tea, ignoring his question about her time at the Front.
Liz continued, chatting on and on about horses for some time before John realized he had been staring at Evelyne’s delicate hands: a lady’s hands, worthy of jewels and caresses. With a start, his mind raced to catch up, registering a moment’s eye contact as Evelyne set down her cup. She lowered her hands smoothly back to her lap when her efforts to restrain a smile succeeded. John mumbled some nonsensical reply to Liz’s comment, all the time wondering how the war conditions might affect this brave young woman before him, this lady who sat with the air of a grand duchess.
Liz’s grating voice finally grabbed his full attention. “Owh, Oi been here just three weeks. Evie’s been ‘round for some time now. Ridin’ in them ambulances can about break your bum. New or not, this area’s rough on ’em, ambulances and bums. Roads are nuthin’ but ruts most the time. Poor horses were scared to death of the gunfire and flares. These horseless ones break down, and they usually do that in the worst o’ places,” she said, indicating the Front. “Wheel’ll come off now and then.”
“You’re American,” Evelyne said, matter of fact. Her words slipped in naturally, as if she’d meant to include them initially, as if Liz’s conversation hadn’t interrupted at all. He read kindness and frankness in her expression, a forthrightness that was refreshing.
“Yes, from Chicago,” he replied. “I have dual citizenship, though. My mum is British.” He affected an imitation of her accent and grinned.
She laughed with him and the conversation shifted to what she and Liz had experienced thus far. After hearing their accounts of assisting medics and surgeons in primitive and dangerous conditions, John was amazed at how they appeared relatively unscathed. The evening passed too quickly. The women said they had to get back and John jumped up to pull Evelyne’s chair back as she stood.
Liz glanced over at Eddie. “Should we wake him?”
John shook his head. “Oh, I’ll come back and collect him after I get you two ladies safely home.” John grinned and so did they, as if realizing that he’d meant “safe” from Eddie, too.
Outside, Evelyne took Liz’s arm. In the dark a foot might slip or an ankle give on the slick cobbled lane.
John found it remarkable that Evelyne didn’t appear shackled by the rigid social stricture of her obviously upper class British roots. Before the war it had simply not been done for even a modestly titled young woman to keep company with the likes of Liz. The women spoke softly to one another, unaffected by the dark and sporadic barrages of distant gunfire, and he couldn’t help admiring her courage. Would he be able to acclimate and assimilate as well as she had in so short a time? He felt as if he had done nothing all day but fail at exactly that.
Around the corner, someone sang a bawdy song. Horse hooves lazily clomped from behind, heading toward the Australian camp, and the delicate fragrance of Lily of the Valley wafted from Evelyne’s hair. Passing through lamplight, John admired her graceful carriage and was startled when her lovely eyes met his gaze. Awash with exhilaration, he barely resisted reaching out to touch her. You’re an impetuous lad, Edwina reminded him. He sunk his hands safely in his pockets.
“Here we are,” Liz announced. Disappointment soaked through him. “One of us will prob’ly ride out with ya tomorrow,” she added. “Won’t know till we report in.”
Evelyne said, “It was nice meeting you, John.”
He wished them goodnight and gave a salute before Liz latched the door behind them.
Try as he might, John could not fall asleep. A familiar aching in his chest overwhelmed rumblings from the Front, thoughts of the dreamy-eyed Evelyne, and the general noise. His mind buzzed, busy with old arguments and counterarguments. He thought of his father and how, after so long, the old man had stepped in from out of nowhere, planning to steer John’s life. He had wanted his son to come work for him, at the Armitage Meats Company. But John had refused to set foot in the building.
I know all about outfits like yours and their exploitation of workers, he’d said. Yes, I read Upton Sinclair. Fiction or not, everybody knows those conditions are real.
He had stood unflinching as the old man flung accusations, but John was determined. He’d thrown it all back in his father’s scowling face. No, I’m not a blasted socialist, I’m a humanitarian, unlike you.
John had shaken with rage after that conversation, though he’d done it behind closed doors. Not that it mattered. His father had disappeared yet again.
Where were you before now? I didn’t have a father growing up, I had a nanny. Where were you? At that stinking plant!
Then came the remorse. After a tirade, John was always riddled with guilt. And no one could make him fly off with rage like Chicago’s great Franklin Armitage.
Brisk breezes slapped at John’s face as he headed outside to report for duty. Dawn had just arrived and moody clouds painted everything gunmetal gray. It was cold for April, but even more chilling was the coming confrontation with real war conditions. His focus was on the base, so he only vaguely noticed the haunted look of the few villagers he passed along the cobbled lane. The ambulance base was housed in a stable yard, next to a large building constructed of fieldstone. This home served as the infirmary. Just before entering the base, John inhaled the heady aroma of baking bread. Despite having eaten, he wished he had time to investigate. Turning from the comforting sensation as if he were leaving behind the last vestige of civilization, he stepped into the stable yard and shook the chill off his back, ignoring his growling stomach.
He had been awake all night, alternately fuming about his father and regretting harsh words. It shouldn’t have surprised him that the tentacles of pain and the guilt Franklin Armitage could inflict reached so far from home. Now he was angry with himself over his weakness of mind, for not having the control to dispel his old demons. As a result, he was setting out on his first day—at the Western Front, of all places—with an exhausted mind and body.
Learning that Liz, not Evelyne, was joining his ambulance run to the Casualty Clearing Station did not lighten his mood.
Eddie moved about like an old man as he loaded the vehicle, paying the price for having sought consolation in drink. The surgeon, who needed to be driven to the Front, was a somber Scotsman named Alistair MacLeod. He was a small man in spectacles who wore the serious expression of one who had been there for some time.
MacLeod rode up front with the driver, a middle-aged volunteer from Wales. In the back Liz clung to the edges of the bench, trying to keep from sliding off at each curve and bump. Eddie was nursing his hangover, head between his knees for most of the trip. The ambulance lurched over a rut, and the cobbler cursed.
“See what Oi mean?” Liz said good-naturedly. She placed her hand on Eddie’s back and murmured something soothing to him. They’d just met, officially, in the stable yard, but she was quick to sympathize. “Ya need a tough bum to ride in one o’ these things.” She released a hearty laugh.
Gunfire barked back and forth across the lines of the fast-approaching Front. John’s stomach knotted and his hands felt clammy. He would have given in to the urge to retch from nerves had it not been for the calming presence of Liz. If she and Evelyne could put up with the conditions of war, he should be able to as well.
They pulled up to the Casualty Clearing Station, otherwise known as the C.C.S., and John hopped out, his new boots landing in a sucking puddle of mud. He studied the large tent structure, noting the Red Cross insignias displayed front and side. Without a word, MacLeod strode past him, heading in to confer with the other surgeons. Eddie picked up a stretcher, clumsy from nerves or inexperience, and then followed the surgeon. John grappled with another, but stopped before entering.
He propped up his folded stretcher like a staff and surveyed the scarred earth stretched between the C.C.S. and the trenches. The firing had subsided during their approach and an eerie silence pressed against him. Stronger waves of stench arose, flowing from the tent, and he fought nausea again. He wondered if he would ever get used to the smell, then wondered if that would be a good thing or a bad one.
It was hard to envision the land’s pastoral appearance before the insanity. When he squinted, he could make out the barbed wire. With a little more yardage and elevation, he imagined he’d be able to see the Germans if they came up to fire. He swallowed involuntarily and went in search of Eddie.
Within the Red Cross tent, misery and concern hung like smoke, suspended in a veil over the occupants. John set the stretcher against the side of a cabinet and spotted Liz and Eddie talking in low tones with two orderlies. MacLeod was to the side, nodding and evidently getting direction from his superior. John made his way toward Eddie. Walking past a latrine, John breathed through his mouth, trying to ignore the stink of blood, urine, effluvia. He kept on, now moving between rows of cots.
He inadvertently met the gaze of a young soldier who began struggling to sit up. It was as though the lad wanted to get up on John’s account. Was he in need of reassurance? Diversion? His brow was bandaged, as was his right hand. John smiled with something he hoped gave strength. The answering smile on the lad’s face stretched in a controlled manner, evidently defying pain. His front two teeth were missing. In the silent interchange, the soldier’s expression spoke. I’m one of the lucky ones. John nodded acknowledgement then turned and walked on, afraid to look too closely at some of the others, particularly those who moaned under blood-soaked sheets and others who were inanimate. He approached the surgical station desk and waited for instructions.
An orderly was speaking to Eddie, who looked even paler than he had during the ambulance drive. “Ronnie Dunn’s bought it, poor lad. Hardly nineteen, he were,” the orderly said, his voice shivering. He stood with his arms akimbo as if holding himself steady. “Suffered somethin’ terrible at the end. I held his hand. Called for his mum, he did.”
MacLeod motioned John and Eddie away from the orderly and read their list of duties, pointing to this cot and that, as though the human factor didn’t exist. John imagined war left little time or energy for sentimentality and wondered how he would view all the carnage after being here for weeks. The Scotsman then handed John the list as if appointing him in charge of something more than moving the injured. Having time before her duty, Liz offered to help, as did the troubled orderly. Stone-faced, Eddie fell in next to John, and they went in search of the first patient.
“Here we are,” John said, trying to sound both sympathetic and encouraging. The soldier in cot number fourteen had both of his legs broken. He would spend some time in the infirmary before heading home to recuperate. Having shifted him onto one of the stretchers, John and Eddie began carrying him to the ambulance.
The man looked up at Eddie, eyes big in his grimy face. “Ya heard they got Ronnie, yeah? How’s his poor mum goin’ to take the news?”
Eddie didn’t reply. John couldn’t see his expression. He sensed his partner’s hangover had dissipated and had likely been replaced by raw emotion. Ronnie had evidently been a school chum or, if not that, at least close to Eddie in some way.
The injured man went on, not seeming to care if anyone listened. “Me, I get to go home while I get me legs to walk again. Only I don’t got a mum to go home to. Just me Da. Me and Da, that’ll be nice while I mend. Have a pint and some pie, we will.”
Gravel crunched under John’s feet as they made their way to the vehicle. They got the soldier into the ambulance and slid him next to the side, away from the bench.
“I’ll be back here, though,” the soldier assured them. “Gotta do it for Ronnie, I do.”
Just before Eddie jumped out of the ambulance, he turned back. “Daown’t go anywhere for now, mate,” he said wryly. The soldier laughed, but the sound was hollow.
They turned toward the C.C.S., passing Liz and the orderly as they made their way with their charge. John recognized the patient as the lad he had smiled at earlier and felt compelled to see if they needed a hand. Blood seeped through the head bandage, causing John a pang of concern. He watched Liz climb in first as the orderly did a careful hoist. The young man had the use of his legs, though they shook as if he suffered with tremors. Liz guided him to a corner and had him slide down to the floor where he could be propped up. The young man smiled his thanks and Liz gently patted his cheek before returning to the tent.
That day they made three trips, transporting fifteen wounded men to the infirmary, four of whom would be transferred home for long-term recuperation. For hours at a time John’s mind was filled with sharp impressions of the soldiers he had helped. If he hadn’t had the image of Evelyne visiting his thoughts, he would have wished to get well and truly soused that night
***
It was early for camaraderie at Le Cygne Noir, but John had been too restless to sit in his room. After washing, he had come straight over. He sat at a table by himself, yearning for the company of Eddie and the two nurses. Amelie set the stew he’d ordered before him, and he used his fork to search for pieces of meat. He found only two small bits. The vegetables, at least, were tasty. As his plate was cleared away, a few soldiers filtered in, their conversations somber. John listened to their voices, feeling a similar need to talk about his day, to somehow meld his experience into a universal purpose. He smiled with relief when Eddie appeared at the door. Together they drank a bottle of claret before Liz and Evelyne arrived and joined them. Though Evelyne was polite and seemed glad to see him, sadness clouded her expression.
In short order Liz had her Pernod and was raising a glass in John’s direction. “You did good on yer first day. Pleasure workin’ with someone who’s got more manners than Eddie ’ere.”
“What d’ya mean?” the cobbler demanded, but the question was rhetorical and they all knew it. Liz ruffled his hair. Evelyne forced a courteous smile.
At a nearby table, a ruckus broke out between some soused soldiers, loud and physical. Just as quickly, it settled down, though tension lingered.
“That edgy lot is from Manchester,” Eddie explained, careful not to be heard beyond their own table. John recognized one of them from his arrival, the man who had purposely knocked him against the doorframe. Liz unabashedly gave the rowdies a disdainful glare, then, as if she were taking credit for handling the matter, belted down a shot of Pernod and smiled with satisfaction. John made no comment about the quick dispute or about his amusement over nervous Eddie and spirited Liz, but Evelyne’s eyes met his in unspoken agreement.
Despite the pleasant companionship, pent up feelings about the day overtook John and the claret encouraged him to speak. “It’s infuriating,” he said, “seeing Britain’s young men decimated like this. And for what?”
As if he had spoken with a bullhorn, tension engulfed the table and filled the entire pub. Conversation ebbed. John sat frozen, wondering if it were only his imagination, or if everyone had stiffened at hearing what they considered to be treasonous talk. Instead of looking around, though, he kept his gaze locked with Evelyne’s. He was surprised at how much her opinion mattered to him, and he worried she might take him for a radical, or worse, a coward. He had no intention of compromising his feelings, but was relieved to see warmth in her expression, brightening her eyes and smile.
The lapse in conversations ended, which was also a relief. John had been worried the edgy lot might leap to their feet, countering his question. For God and Country, man! Instead, one by one folks fell back into their private discussions. John’s peripheral told him some might even agree.
“What’s wrong with diplomacy?” he asked, keeping his voice low this time. “Why must our military leaders sit back and play war games while young men, little more than boys, get blown to bits?” He cleared his throat and gulped a swallow of wine. “It’s, uh, well, it’s a nasty state of affairs.” Again silence ensued, but this time there was less tension. He chuckled self-consciously. “But listen to me going on. What do I know? You three have been a part of this for what? Weeks already, right? Uh, more than that for the ladies.”
Liz perked up at this reference to her being a lady. “Actually, Evie’s been here for several months, haven’t ya, pet?”
Evelyne nodded, her expression quiet.
Eddie shrugged, his gaze on his empty glass. “Even though, we’re still all wet behind the ears, we are.”
Liz seemed to notice John’s concern for the silent Evie. She patted his hand. “Evie here’s had a bad one today, poor thing.”
Evelyne gave an apologetic half-smile. “A young man died in my arms this afternoon. He was due to go home with a blighty wound.” Her eyes blinked quickly. “He looked so lively when he came to my ward today. We changed the dressing on his head. It was a surface wound, but needed attention again. Nothing serious, from the look of it. They thought he would make it home, at least.”
John grimaced. “He wasn’t missing teeth, was he?” he asked, hoping it wasn’t the youth he had noticed earlier.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Toby Phelps. Later in the day he complained of a severe headache as I passed by his bed. I sat with him, thinking at first he just needed to be comforted. Next thing I knew, he lost consciousness. And then he died.”
“The doctor said it musta been a brain hemorrhage,” Liz said.
John yearned for whisky, for something stronger to dull the pain he felt for Evelyne, and for dead boys like Toby Phelps. He reached across the table and took Evelyne’s hand, finding it hard to imagine these delicate fingers changing bloody bandages. He imagined how angelic she must seem to near-delirious patients in her nursing duties.
She withdrew her hand before he’d even registered it. Without word or gesture, she got up and strode hurriedly to the door. John glanced at Liz, his heart full of questions and emotions.
“Poor little dove,” Liz said and clucked her tongue.
“It’s bound to wear ya daown, all this is,” Eddie agreed, his expression clouded. He pressed his lips together as if trying to decide how to say something. Then he apparently changed his mind. He gulped the last of his wine and stared at his hands on the table.
“I’m going after her,” John announced as he got to his feet.
“Ugh, naow wait a bit, lovey.” Liz reached out to grab his arm, possibly intending comfort rather than restraint, but he slipped from her grasp. Eddie sucked in air but said nothing. Other patrons watched John as he went after Evelyne, their prurient suggestions sticking to him like gnats in humidity. He zigzagged his way through them, avoiding the legs of empty tables and chairs, ignoring the few mocking comments at his back.
He stepped out in the night and looked down the lamplit lane but didn’t see her. The openness and quiet was like a breath of relief, removing some of the annoyance he’d picked up from the crowded room. The way was empty. If Evelyne wasn’t heading to her dormitory, where was she?
"I’m here,” she offered from the shadows.
He made out her silhouette where she sat on one of the empty crates at the far end of the Black Swan. She and everything around her were bathed in midnight blue.
A wall of tension stood between them, as tangible as coolness rising from a river. Even so, he couldn’t help but approach. He lowered himself onto one of the crates and said nothing when she turned her face away.
A scraping noise cut through the night air as a small cart came around the corner, its wheels grinding on the cobbles. The old woman pushing it trudged along, eyes downcast, too tired to bother scrutinizing them.
Evelyne spoke, her voice husky with restrained emotion. “It’s funny how something I read long ago suddenly springs to mind. Seems relevant.” Her hands fidgeted in her lap. Was she meaning to communicate or mystify ? “When I was reading Pushkin, the world was entirely different.” She looked at him, her expression masked. “He wrote in verse, you know. Perhaps that explains the durability of the lines. Certainly their power.” She stood. “I should go.”
He shot up. “Was it something I—”
“No.” She turned away. “Pardon me please, Mister Armitage.” He could feel the heat of her emotion from where he stood. “No need to escort me back.” She walked away, her skirts swishing. He came up abreast, but she faced him, her hand pushed against his chest. “Please. Go back inside.” Tears glistened on her cheeks and he involuntarily reached out to console. She drew away. “You cannot be this nice,” she finally said, then ran down the lane, her steps echoing off ancient stone walls.
Liz and Eddie were the only folks in the tavern who noticed his return. The mocking soldiers, even the edgy Manchester lot, ignored him, their focus now on slurred diatribes and stories. Returning to his friends’ table, John was unable to rouse himself to be better company. He barely heard the few words his companions offered.
Eventually, Liz stood to leave. “Daown’t worry, love. Won’t help. Things’ll straighten round.” She patted his shoulder, nodded to Eddie with a meaningful look, then headed out.
After a moment, Eddie leaned forward, his eyes intent. “I need to tell ya sumfink I didn’t know till today. Well, ‘ow could I, as I didn’t really know Liz till today?” He glanced down at his fingers and tapped a tattoo on the weathered tabletop.
“What?!”
“She’s married. That nice-lookin’ Evie’s already married.”
The canteen, used both by soldiers and medical personnel, had been a cheese factory before the war and was as large as a barn. The inside had been stripped of its equipment and filled with rows of tables and benches. Its whitewashed walls and ceiling, now colored with a patina of dust, sometimes echoed nervous laughter, sometimes sheltered a morose silence. Today, John felt the numerous conversations revealed a rawness of emotion.
In the past, rumors claimed the war would end before Christmas. They were long past that now, with no sign of victory anywhere in sight.
A company of Algerian infantrymen huddled together along the wall farthest from John. His gaze settled surreptitiously on them, feeling both admiration and pity. Forced into service by the French, the Algerians were often sent to the front lines and suffered heavier casualties than their Imperial masters. It wasn’t only their exotic features and uniforms that drew his attention. It was more how they carried themselves with a kind of dignity in the face of this injustice.
Eddie broke into his thoughts. “I used to think I could eat a horse if I was hungry enough, but this stuff is awful.” His face twisted with disgust.
“Hmm? Oh.” John glanced at the table in front of his mate: a tin of processed meat, a few biscuits and a mug of tea. “See that?” He pointed to the side of Eddie’s meat tin, indicating the name Ballantine. “That’s my uncle’s meatpacking business in Limehouse.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Don’t be. He’s a nice enough man but, like my father, who is also in the meatpacking business, profits are more important to him than people. Especially his own workers.”
Eddie frowned, looking interested, and John took this as encouragement. “You can’t imagine the conditions of working with animal products. Meat is the mainstay, but byproducts from things like hoofs turn into buttons and soap and such.” John leaned toward Eddie. “You know what happened after the war began? Women started taking jobs in place of all the men who’d come here, and my uncle had the audacity to cut wages. Can you believe that? He was already paying precious little and having them work under terrible conditions. ‘Nobody pays women as much as men,’ he told me. What does their being women have to do with anything?” John stabbed his fork into a hunk of jellied meat and held it up like a weapon. “In my opinion, men like my father and my uncle too readily accept the plight of the poor and exploit it for their own gain.”
Taken aback at the vehement speech, Eddie looked down at his tin and chuckled nervously. “Yer’d think with a woman’s touch, this stuff would taste better than it does.”
“I tell you, Eddie, this isn’t how I’d expected to spend the twentieth year of my life.” John shook his head, giving a derisive laugh. “I apologize. That sounded self-centered. What do you think you’d be doing now if the war hadn’t broken out?”
Eddie pushed his plate aside, lowered his head into the axis-frame of his thin hand and looked pathetic. “I like makin’ shoes, that’s all well and good, but right now, I could go fer me mum’s cookin’, and havin’ a pint with me da at the Rusty Hen, or playin’ a bit o’ football with me mates.”
“I hear you, Eddie,” John said with a grin. “That would be grand. At Northwestern University we played the American game, but I prefer British football. I’m grateful I could play at all, because the school directors had previously banned the sport for five years.”
Eddie didn’t hear him. His eyes had glazed over, as if he saw the East End along with all of his memories.
John went on, talking to himself more than to Eddie, because he needed to. If he didn’t get his thoughts out, he would go crazy, “They said they banned the game due to violence. Ha! Too bad the pompous fools of the world couldn’t ban war due to violence.”
Eddie sighed. “And then there was Maggie. I always was wantin’ to ask her out, but never got up the nerve. Wish I had.”
John patted his friend on the shoulder, letting his own thoughts drift to Evelyne.
He had been an eligible bachelor on Chicago’s North Shore, and several fine young ladies had been paraded past him by eager mothers. But never had a woman captivated him so completely as had she, and there hadn’t been the slightest intention on Evelyne’s part. It wasn’t only her beauty, but her noble spirit and self-sacrifice that made her so highly attractive to him. Then to learn that she was taken—blast! This vexed him to no end.
Movement among the Algerians caught his eye. One of them had collapsed in evident grief, dropping his head into his hands as he sobbed in silence.
John sat up straight, then surprised even himself by raising his voice and demanding, “What are we here for? Europe’s finest young men are being mowed down and it’s all over a crazy Serb and a dead Archduke. Everyone’s gone mad! We shouldn’t even be here!”
That was all he got out before someone grabbed him from behind. Powerful arms went through his, lifting his frame and pinning his arms up and out. Eddie looked on, frozen with stunned horror.
Hot, rancid breath tickled John’s ear. “I’ve heard enough from you, conchie.” The soldier jerked John’s arms back, shooting pain up his neck. From the voice, John knew it was the man that had accosted him on that first day in front of the barracks. “A man not willin’ to fight fer God and Country ain’t in no position to complain.”
“God has nothing to do with this bloody war!” John bellowed.
“Now ye’re accusin’ me o’ blasphemy, are ye?” the man asked, mocking him. “Come on, boys. Let’s teach this bloke a lesson.”
John strained to free his arms as men from the Manchester regiment scrambled to their feet, fists clenched. Fortunately, only one could come at him at a time, because the row between tables was so narrow. John kicked out at the first assailant, hitting the man squarely in the sternum and knocking him back into the throng. Before John could kick again, two men came over the top of the benches. The first fist caught John solidly in the jaw, almost ripping his head from his neck. The second landed in his gut, stealing both breath and strength.
Next thing he knew he was dragged to the wider aisle. He tried to muster strength but couldn’t get his breath. At the first slackening of the grip on his arms he freed himself and crouched in a fighting position, backing up against another table. He managed to ward off the next attacker, almost deafened by the jeering of the men in the room, but his peripheral vision was darkening. Fearful he might faint and die under the barrage, he forced himself upright, took a deep breath and struck out. He took down a man but stumbled over him, unable to stop his fall. He swore as hands pushed under his arms again. Just as he was being hoisted in that dreaded familiar hold, a captain strode up, red-faced and barking orders. Behind the officer, large eyes anxious, was Evelyne. Embarrassment swept over him as their gazes locked. Another punch caught him in the gut, and he blacked out.
***
John lingered in the ethereal comfort of near-oblivion, safe within his mind. Yet despite his resistance, dawning alertness drew him to the surface. He lay on his back, eyes closed. His tongue slid over his teeth, checking and rechecking, searching out any sharp edges that hadn’t been there before. Various sensations began nagging him, each fighting for dominance: upper back, shoulders, neck, jaw and stomach. When he tried to take in a deep breath, another agony joined the ranks, a dull, almost restrictive one, telling him his chest must be badly bruised. Ah yes, he thought. The fracas.
He didn’t regret a word of what had inflamed the testy Manchester bunch, but he cursed himself regardless. When would he learn discretion? He tried to open his eyes, but the glare of the room pressed them closed. The glare and…a silhouette stationed close to his bed. Please heaven, not Evelyne. Not with humiliation stuck to his face like scabs.
He forced his eyes open a slit and saw it was indeed Evelyne in her uniform, her lovely eyes searching for his. Her gaze commanded him to open his. He tried to mask his embarrassment, but in that instant she read him, and he knew she understood. He considered feigning a drift back to unconsciousness, but thought better of it. He tried to smile, but his swollen jawline quickly put a stop to that.
“John.”
In that syllable she communicated a book of sentiments: honesty, understanding, a little judgment, perhaps? Concern, certainly. And could it be…affection? With complete focus, he studied her face, but she averted her eyes toward the small table next to his infirmary cot. Her chair stood next to the mattress, within reach. He sensed movement, then felt her hand settle on his arm. Her cool, soft fingers calmed his jagged breathing, helping him to think more clearly.
“I, uh…” It hurt to move his mouth. His right hand went to his jaw and carefully explored the damage. His puffy skin felt like an overripe tomato. “I, uh, must look a fright.”