Page 83 of Summer in Greece

Greek Island of Lemnos, 1916.

THE RED CROSS VADS AND nurses rushed from patient to patient, doing their best for each in turn, reluctant to dwell on what they were dealing with. One soldier started screaming and thrashing with such violence it took four orderlies to hold him down. The surgeon rushed down the ramp with a pad and a bottle which he shoved at Josephine.

‘Chloroform him!’ he ordered abruptly before moving on to another invalid.

Eager to learn the technique, I stood at Josephine’s side. She sensed what was going through my mind. ‘Hold the pad near his mouth and nose, and be careful not to breathe any fumes.’ I did as she said and watched as she dripped the sedating liquid onto the pad. As the fumes doped the soldier, he shuddered and the violence left him. The procedure took two or three minutes. The four orderlies sighed, sweating from the exertion of restraining the patient. They moved on without a word.

‘Look at them all! Where are they coming from?’ I asked Josephine.

‘It’s called triage. Soldiers, sorted into categories. Those not expected to survive are delivered last, the ones needing urgent attention, first; and various stages in between.’ She turned to the chloroformed soldier before us. ‘Poor lad,’ she muttered, fixing the pad to his face and adding the doping drops. ‘Call me if he stirs. Clean the wound while he’s unconscious, Gertie. Cover it with a gauze pad, then find me. There’s a trolley with all you need over there.’

‘Yes, nurse.’ I fetched the dressings trolley, sucked in a breath and lifted the sheet. Shrapnel had taken a sideswipe at him and cut away the front of his abdomen. His internal organs were throbbing in clear view and, horror of horrors, part lifted with the sheet that had stuck to them.

I was a VAD, not a nurse. My job was the tedium, the chores not worthy of detaining a skilled nurse, yet here I was dealing with living body parts that could have come straight out of my father’s anatomy books. Stale saliva rushed into my mouth. I dropped the sheet, ran to the edge of the dock, and hurled my breakfast into the water. Shallow breathing and a thudding heart told me I was in shock . . . no use to anyone in that state. After pulling myself together, I got a grip on the situation and returned to the soldier.

I could do this! I was twice the person that had boarded the Britannic a few weeks ago. I owed my parents, for all the love and faith and support they had sent my way, and I would show them it wasn’t wasted. I used forceps to take pieces of shrapnel out of his abdomen. I would have done this for our Arthur, if only I had been given the chance. Now, I did it for every wounded soldier who had a fretting sister or weeping mother at home. My tears dripped onto him, but apart from that, there was no sign that I wept as I worked. When I could do no more, the orderlies transported him onto the ship.

‘All finished, what’s next?’ I asked Josephine, disappointed to hear the smallness of my own voice.

‘Well done. You’ll make a nurse yet,’ she said. ‘Go four stretchers back along the row, there’s an ear missing. You’ve practised a head bandage, yes?’ I nodded. ‘Then clean the wound and do your best bandage. We have to keep the flies off it.’

The hours ran into each other with cleaning wounds, wafting away flies, and applying dressings. Six hours later, my thoughts went back to the soldier whose belly I had attended. I wondered if he would live and wished I had taken his name. We continued until the light started to fade, then we got a lift to the hospital in one of the returning ambulances. I think I learned more in that one day – when seven hundred men boarded the Athena, bound for Alexandria – than forever after. I ended the day ten times the person I’d been when I woke that morning. I would remember none of the injured, except for the first, he would stay with me forever . . . like my first kiss.

Soon, we peered from the back of the ambulance, which was little more than a covered wagon. The December landscape was lush with wild flowers. Local farmers were collecting the last of the day’s olives from laden trees. Lemon and orange groves, heavy with their bright fruit, flanked the road to the field hospital and perfumed the air with delicate citrus scents. A wide, green valley ran from the port of Mudros, up to the distant mountains. Along the centre of the dale, like a great canvas dressing on a wound in the countryside, were many dozens of tents. These made up the wards of the clearing hospital.

We were allocated beds in the dorm tent, then, in the mess tent, ate something that seemed to be mostly rice with a few herbs. However, a tin mug of strong sweet tea saved the day. The best drink of my life.

They quickly showed us around before it became too dark. So much had happened, I was desperate to write it down in the form of a letter to my parents before I forgot. I wanted my correspondence to be a record of my life helping in the Great War.

Dearest Mother and Father,

I wish I could tell you where I am, but I can’t. Only to say I am safe, in Greece, far from the front line, so no need to worry. The hospital is on an island, and here, it appears to be spring already. We passed many olive trees on our way and saw local people gathered around one. They beat the tree with long sticks to knock the olives down onto sheets or fine fishing nets. The ground is covered in the first wildflowers, mostly pink and lilac anemones. So pretty!

Our hospital looks like a circus, Mother. Rows of canvas tents, each holding fourteen beds. Also, huts of canvas and paper. Long, single-storey sheds of thin wood and roofed with tarred paper are divided into cubicles for eighteen patients. The nurses’ corner is adequate. Two hundred yards away are scores of tents filled with the wounded. They’ve informed us that every night more are brought, and others taken away.

Every hour, troops pass by, whistling their marching tunes as they go down to the port. There are many hospitals like ours. The French are here. The port road is lined with hundreds of barrels of wine that belong to the French army. Then there are the ANZACs, the Australian and New Zealand troops. They have their own hospitals too.

I promise to write as often as possible.

Your loving daughter,

Gertie X

*

The next morning, after a cold wash and a quick breakfast, we were taken to our ward. The marquee was not ready. Yet the ambulances still came and unloaded their cargo of pain-ridden soldiers onto the duckboards.

Inside, orderlies, expert at laying wooden floors, competed against each other. They threw floors down and beds together as if it were an Olympic sport.

A sharp-faced doctor followed by several nurses, examined and labelled patients. Some simply bore a cross. These were removed and a patient on the floor moved into the vacant bed. By midday, heat in the marquee had built to an unbearable level, flaps were tied back and mosquito nets dropped over the entrances. Yet, flies still intruded, attracted by the rancid blood of open wounds. My first order was to clean and disinfect those wounds and limb stumps.

I was afraid of hurting the young men who had signed up with such bravery and enthusiasm. Close to tears, I found myself dabbing at a stump that was once an arm, promising all kinds of miracles, then Josephine stormed up.

‘You’re not helping him, Gertie!’ She snatched the swab from my hand. ‘Remember, there are a million microbes trying to enter this wound and kill our gallant soldier. We must destroy them! If our soldier suffers some discomfort, reassure him you’re saving his life. Sepsis and gangrene kill more than any of Kaiser Bill’s bullets. Do you understand?’ she shouted, scrubbing vigorously at the wound.

‘Yes, nurse. Sorry, nurse.’ I glanced at the soldier’s face. For a moment, his pain had gone and he winked.

Josephine’s voice softened a little. ‘Now go back to saving lives, and take no nonsense from these men.’ She faced the soldier.