SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND, MAY 1917
It was an English fishing boat. The radio operator — Alan Galbraith’s chum — must have had time to send out a distress call and the boat had been searching for survivors. She was the only one they’d found, though when she woke up between white sheets in a cottage hospital she vaguely remembered shapes under a tarpaulin on the deck that might have been bodies.
She had not been injured but was suffering from exposure. She had to stay in hospital until the nurses were sure her fingers and toes all worked and she had feeling in them, and she could walk to the bathroom by herself without wobbling and having to grab a chair or bed end to stop falling over.
The ward had once been a parlour, perhaps. Now it held five beds: two maternity cases, with babies who demanded to be fed all through the night, a woman with a broken leg, an old woman with pneumonia, and Jean. It was not an army hospital, for the nearest ones had no women’s wards, and so they’d brought her here.
The hospital was run by Matron Higgins, who had been a registered nurse before the war. She and her mother had turned their cottage into a hospital. Matron had put Jean in a pneumonia jacket to keep her chest warm the first night and for the next two days old Mrs Higgins applied a mustard plaster to her chest and then covered it with brown paper under her nightdress each morning.
‘A sovereign way to warm a body up,’ she kept saying. ‘Sovereign.’ Mrs Higgins also brought the newspaper each morning, which the patients took turns reading.
There was no mention of the sinking of their ship, though lots of people must have known about it, including Matron and Mrs Higgins, who had been told Jean was rescued from a sunken ship. They must also have seen her uniform, now washed and dried and ironed and folded on the table by her bed. The calico nightdress and combinations she now wore had been donated by the local Ladies’ Guild.
Nor was Jean in the lists of Wounded, and none of the other women either in Wounded, Missing or Dead, including Miss Eglamore, but then the women weren’t in the army, even though they had taken the oath and worked under army orders. She couldn’t find Lieutenant Galbraith’s name either, though she searched for it each day. The names of those who had died or were wounded would not have been published all on the same day, as they might have been picked up by other ships, or even swum ashore, or, just possibly, one of the lifeboats had been launched.
Had Alan Galbraith survived? She couldn’t ask because she wasn’t supposed to have been speaking to him. Perhaps, one day, when the war was over, she could find Galbraith’s steelworks in Bristol, and ask after Alan Galbraith.
Even though her name hadn’t been in the newspaper, someone must have sent a telegram home, because a suitcase arrived on the fourth day, just before she left to catch the train to Folkestone once more.
The suitcase had another three pairs of newly made combinations — Mama must have stayed up all night to make them — another spare petticoat, a dress, a travelling rug — not new, this time — Jean’s second-best nightdress, slippers, Mama’s own thick flannel dressing gown, Papa’s copy of The Complete Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a new sewing kit, a cake of rose-scented soap, and once again, a hot water bottle.
There was also a big block of chocolate in another oilcloth bag, and a letter. Jean wasn’t sure if her tears were of love or heartbreak for all those she’d known who’d been lost, but she smiled too, as she looked at the chocolate, as her last block had survived not just the sinking of the ship, but the hours in the English Channel and her rescue. She now had two blocks of chocolate.
She held the letter to her face before she opened it. It had Papa’s handwriting on it, and she could smell the bay rum he used on his face after shaving, and maybe even leather from the chairs and leather-covered books in his study. She opened it carefully.
My Dearest Daughter,
Words cannot express the great pride your mother and I feel at the work you have volunteered for, or our joy that you are safe. We pray to God each day that you remain so.
Life here plods on from day to day. The sixth form express their eagerness to turn eighteen, and do their bit to serve their country. Miss Pigeon informs me that little Jenny Maskin has taken your place at the post office. She does not know Morse code, so Miss Pigeon has had to bring down the old alphabet machine from the attic, where the arrows point to each letter as the signal comes in, but this of course is very slow. Miss Pigeon sends her very best wishes. The soap is from her. She would have added a jar of raspberry jam, but your mama persuaded her it might break en route and leave your clothes sadly sticky.
Your mama and I continue well. We have added another female teacher to the staff, Mrs Fotherington, whose husband is in the Middle East. She has an inclination towards mathematics that is unusual in a woman and will make an excellent substitute until our men come home.
Your mama sends her dearest love, and I remain,
Your loving and proud father,
Henry McLain
Jean put on her uniform again. It smelled of fresh starch and ironing. She put on the coat, which had looked so shapeless when new that even a dunking in the English Channel couldn’t make it worse, the shoes, the hat, freshly starched as well, and a miracle that the elastic band under her chin had kept it on, and possibly helped keep her warm enough to stay alive. She picked up her suitcase and walked to the station to catch the train. Swallows darted about the roofs like tiny fighter planes. Roses bloomed fatly pink and red and white in gardens: all the beauty of an English summer.
The strawberries would be ripe at home at Butterwood, but there would not be much jam this year, with sugar so hard to find in the shops, and few people would have cream to eat with the strawberries, or butter with scones. Meat was scarce too. Matron had fed her patients eggs from their own hens, and stewed rabbit from the hutches behind their cottage.
But Jean was going to France to serve her country.