At the beginning of November Oswald dropped Lucy a postcard to say he was going home that weekend; was there any chance that she would be going too? She’d replied briefly that she wasn’t as she was busy with practical exam work in one of the hospitals, and added, Give everyone my love and I hope to see you all at Christmas.
Mmm, he thought dully. So shall I go or not? Yes, perhaps I will, otherwise my mother will think I only go to see them when Lucy is with me, which is generally true, but when I’m alone Mother will keep asking me questions relating to young women and have I met anyone nice, and no I have not, Mother! Well yes, lots, but not anyone I would want to spend my whole life with which is really what she’s asking.
Besides, he pondered glumly as he packed an overnight bag, the way the troubles of the world and the war are progressing, what kind of life can anyone look forward to?
The next morning there was such a lot of traffic that he had to hurry to catch his train and began to run down the platform when he saw the engine was already building up steam. Other passengers were doing the same and he came abreast of a young woman in a nurse’s uniform and cloak also rushing to catch it. A carriage door was swinging open and he grabbed it and turned to the nurse and said, ‘Come on, quick!’
Then they both laughed. ‘Edie!’ he said.
‘Oswald!’ she chuckled. ‘Fancy seeing you.’
‘Oh, it’s good to see you, Edie,’ he said, scrambling in behind her. ‘And here I was thinking that it was going to be a long and boring journey home.’
‘It still might be,’ she said breathlessly, flopping down on a seat as Oswald took her bag from her and put it with his on the overhead shelf. ‘I’m so exhausted I might fall asleep, but please don’t think it’s because of your conversation.’ She unbuttoned the high neck of her blue-grey cloak but kept it on, as she also did the small white cap perched on her head. ‘I’m so lucky to get this particular weekend off. Have you heard that Ada is getting married on Monday? Although I can’t stay for the wedding, I wanted to see her before she took the final plunge.’
‘My mother did mention it,’ he said. ‘But she didn’t say when.’
‘Done in a rush seemingly.’ She grinned. ‘And not for ’usual reason you might imagine, but because her fiancé has joined up and he said if she didn’t say yes this time he wouldn’t ever ask her again!’
‘What about you?’ he asked, leaning back in his seat and crossing his legs. ‘Is there a man in your life?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m in ’same situation as Lucy,’ she smiled. ‘Can’t continue in my profession if I marry.’
‘Ridiculous, isn’t it? We’re in the twentieth century.’ Oswald glimpsed the short blue-grey shoulder cape half hidden beneath her cloak. He glanced at the other two elderly passengers in the carriage and lowered his voice. ‘Is that a sister’s uniform?’
She shook her head again. ‘Staff nurse; the uniform is similar except for the badge. I’m not ready yet to be a sister.’
‘Staff Nurse Morris! Well done. I imagine it’s hard work. Have you finished all your training?’
‘I have for ’time being, but there’ll be more.’ She too glanced at their travelling companions, and leaning towards him whispered, ‘I’m going abroad in January.’
‘France?’ he mouthed and she nodded.
‘QAIMNS,’ she said quietly, under the sound of the guard’s piercing whistle and the jolting clanking of the engine as they got under way. Oswald immediately understood what she meant, and also knew that the uninitiated wouldn’t. Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. Edie was going to war.
‘That’s why I’m going home now,’ she continued, still speaking softly. ‘I won’t be able to come for Christmas. I’m going to work in another London hospital for further instruction before embarkation. I’m thrilled to be accepted, but a bit scared too.’
‘Scared?’ he said, in a semi-mocking manner. ‘Edie Morris? Scared! I don’t believe that for one minute.’ He looked at her admiringly. ‘I’m proud to know you, Edie. How brave you are.’ She denied it forcibly. ‘Well, we’ll see how brave I am once I’m over there, but as two of my brothers have gone I thought I could do ’same. I always tried to keep up with them when we were little bairns, and …’ She paused, and her expression became anxious. ‘I just thought that – well, if something awful happened to either of them, I’d be there, wouldn’t I? On ’same side of ’water.’
‘Oh, Edie!’ He reached over and grasped her hands and the elderly couple looked their way, the woman looking scandalized over the top of her spectacles and the gentleman harrumphing loudly. Oswald disregarded them and said softly, ‘I understand your meaning, but try to be positive.’
He withdrew his hands and Edie took a deep breath and nodded. ‘I will,’ she whispered. ‘I will.’
She told him about the hospitals that had been or were soon to be opened for injured soldiers all over the country, including Hull. ‘Reckitt’s are opening one at their factory, to be ready if ’situation worsens,’ she murmured, ‘and ’Red Cross is setting up another, and then there’s a building in Bowlalley Lane that’s looking after Belgian refugees. My mother told me that she’s been helping out there. Folk in Hull are always ready to give a helping hand.’
They said goodbye at the Hull railway station and Oswald wished her God speed and Keep safe and as she walked briskly away in the other direction, her cloak swinging about her ankles, he watched her with some restlessness. There were groups of young men standing around, chatting and laughing together, some in army uniform, some in their working clothes, and he wondered if they were in or had just enlisted in one of the Hull pals battalions that had recently been formed. Pasted up on the wall of the station entrance was a recruitment poster with an image of Lord Kitchener eloquently indicating to young men that Britain needed them, and this, added to his admiration of Edie brought on by her news of her mission abroad, brought to the fore a disquiet that had been festering for some time.
His mother opened the door to him. ‘Hello, Mater,’ he said jovially, and kissed her cheek as he stepped inside. ‘I gather you might have lost your precious Ada and have to answer the door yourself, until she’s back again!’
‘She’s left,’ Nora said mournfully, closing the door behind him. ‘She’s getting married on Monday and not coming back. Come on up. Pa and Eleanor will be home in an hour. He went to fetch her as she’s been given permission to attend the wedding – she’s made Ada a hat.’
‘Really?’ He laughed. ‘And is that reason enough for that expensive school to allow her out?’
‘It is an absolutely wonderful hat,’ Nora told him. ‘I’m really quite envious, and as it’s Eleanor’s very first garment made specifically for someone the school made an exception. We were surprised too.’
He dumped his bag in the hall and dropped his coat on top of it. ‘Eleanor probably told them it was a relative’s wedding,’ he joked, ‘and forgot to tell them that she was the family housekeeper!’
‘Ada has been here so long that she seems like a relative,’ his mother mused. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to manage without her.’ She laughed. ‘I never thought that I’d say such a thing.’
‘You’ll find someone else, won’t you?’ He followed her upstairs to the sitting room, where he took off his jacket and flopped on to the sofa.
‘I don’t know if I will. It seems that so many young men have enlisted that women are taking their jobs now. They don’t want to do housework.’
‘I travelled back with Edie,’ he remarked. ‘She’s come home to see Ada, though she can’t stay for the wedding. Will you go?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ll go with Eleanor,’ Nora said. ‘Ada asked if we would. Pa can’t go, of course, as it’s a weekday. What about you, can you stay?’
‘Sorry, Ma,’ he said. ‘I’ve to go back tomorrow. We’re really busy at the lab. Oh, and Lucy sends her love and is sorry that she couldn’t get home this weekend.’
‘Have you seen her?’
‘No. Not recently. She dropped me a postcard and said she hopes to be home at Christmas. I suppose it all depends on this dratted war,’ he added.
She was silent for a moment, and then said, ‘Yes, of course. I suppose she might be on duty, like Edie?’
It wasn’t quite a question, but he took it to be a kind of enquiry. ‘Yes, I expect so,’ he answered, and decided not to tell her that Edie was going abroad to work in an army hospital, in case she got it into her head that Lucy might do the same, which, he thought with a considerable amount of concern, she might if a request came.
He took a stroll into town that afternoon and wondered why it was so busy; groups of young men like those he had seen at the railway station were heading towards Queen Victoria Square, and out of curiosity he followed them. Outside the city hall was a military recruiting lorry and an omnibus, each with a queue of young men and boys, some looking as if they were still of school age. They were all grinning and joking and it struck him that most wouldn’t realize the seriousness of war; to them it would be merely a great and glorious adventure.
Standing at a table by the bus was a sergeant taking details and directing some of the men towards another queue, whilst the very young boys he waved away, shaking his head. Oswald narrowed his eyes. The sergeant was Stanley Morris.
It was two weeks later that the reality of war came home to those who had said that it wouldn’t last, the doubters who claimed that it was just a flash in the pan fomented by ambitious politicians and the military who were spoiling for a fight.
William came home from the bank extremely restless and carrying a well-read crumpled newspaper.
‘Cup of tea?’ Nora suggested. ‘Or something stronger? Have you had a hectic day?’
‘The latest war news has finally brought doubters to their senses and crowds of people have been into the bank to draw out their savings,’ he said wearily. ‘The clerks have notified quite a run on cash, which I suppose some might think is safer under their beds than in the bank vaults. Yes, a cup of tea would be nice, thank you.’ He smiled. ‘I’m sure that it is as effective at calming nerves as alcohol.’
‘Why, what’s happened?’ She sat down opposite him, rather than going to make tea.
He handed her the newspaper. ‘German battleships attacked Scarborough early yesterday morning. God damn them,’ he said vehemently. ‘There are less than thirty-five thousand inhabitants living in the town; what kind of threat could they have been to the Germans? People have been killed in their beds and hundreds injured!’
Nora gazed at the front page, which showed photographs of the damaged buildings and houses with the fronts blown out and tattered curtains hanging in shreds from glassless windows. She read on silently. Eighteen people had been killed including a baby, and newly recruited Territorials had been sent on their first war effort to help with the many injured.
She glanced up at him. ‘It says that the battleships went on to Whitby and fired on the town,’ she said. ‘Why? Why these small places? Is it because they knew they would be unprepared? Or is it,’ she went on slowly as the reality became clear, ‘because they are practising for something bigger? A port city like Hull? A city with rail links?’
He nodded. ‘I think you are right. Apparently there was a bombardment in Hartlepool too, so they’ve planned for the east coast. It’s the first onslaught on British soil since the war began.’ He sighed deeply. ‘And I’m very much afraid it won’t be the last. We must prepare ourselves. I know that many people might think I’m a pessimist, but I am not! I am a realist and we must be ready for what is to come.’
When Nora came back with a tray of tea, he got up and paced about and then went to the window and gazed out. ‘I feel as if I should be doing something,’ he muttered. ‘But I’m too old to enlist.’
Nora stared at him. ‘Well, thank goodness you are,’ she said. ‘The way things are moving on so quickly it’s likely that Oswald will be conscripted and I’m worried enough about him without having to worry about you as well!’
He turned to face her. ‘Oswald is doing important scientific work,’ he assured her. ‘It’s doubtful that he’ll be conscripted. Besides,’ he said wryly, ‘if he lost his spectacles he’d be unable to tell if the person in front of him was friend or foe!’
He sat down to drink his tea. That last remark was true, at least, he thought, but Oswald had indicated to him on his last visit that he too felt that he should be doing something, even though he was against war in principle and wouldn’t want to take up arms. He had also told him in confidence of the rumours flying around amongst the scientists he knew, that the Germans were working on a secret destructive process that they were preparing to use. ‘It will be devastating, Pa,’ he’d said. ‘Chemical warfare; and if what we hear is true, we should all be afraid.’