CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Lucy was kept up to date with what was happening in Hull by letters from her uncle, who told her about the Hull fishermen in their trawlers who were minesweeping and dropping depth charges in their effort to search for and destroy submarines. He also said that he had had a telephone installed at the house, and was thinking of buying a motor car. Her aunt Nora described the women’s groups who were helping out the families of many soldiers who had been sent abroad, and Eleanor was planning on leaving school at Easter and keen to tell her about her proposed project of making shirts for the military.

S.F.S. Eleanor wrote. Shirts For Soldiers. Of course we’ll make puttees and other things too if we get the contracts. Papa has done all the paperwork and worked out how much it will cost to buy sewing machines and I’ve sent a sample of my work so that they can see that I’m up to it, and if we do get the go-ahead Mama suggested we use the Pearson Park house as a temporary workplace. I’m so excited, she finished. I’ll be devastated if they turn us down.

Lucy smiled as she read the letter, the exuberance and enthusiasm showing through Eleanor’s written words.

Edie had also written to say she was about to set off to France in a few days’ time and would try to keep in touch. I hope I’m doing the right thing, she declared. I was really thrilled when Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson herself spoke to me and thanked me for my decision to join the Women’s Hospital Corps as she says they really need experienced nurses, just as much as doctors. The hospital is an important medical centre, and somewhere on the coast, near Calais, so I’ll get plenty of fresh air, come summer.

I hope all is well with you, my dear friend, and with Oswald too. Please give him my kind regards next time you see him. You’ll probably be a fully qualified doctor by the time we meet again, so I’ll send my congratulations in advance. By the way, you’ll never guess who I saw on my visit home. Henry Warrington! We had a short conversation. He’s grown very handsome and seems a thoroughly nice sort.

Much love from your old friend, Edie.

Lucy gave a pensive sigh. So much was happening, so many changes, and she would soon have news of her own to impart about moving to Endell Street Hospital along with Dr Olga Schultz and Dr Rose Mason, both of whom had become good friends despite the difference in their ages.

There would be more practical work for her at the military hospital, which was run entirely by female surgeons and doctors, many of whom had been suffragists. The hospital had been opened only recently to treat head and femoral injuries sustained in the war, and was a direct result of the success of French hospitals like the one in Wimereux that Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson and Dr Flora Murray had founded in direct opposition to the English medical fraternity and the War Office, neither of whom appeared to understand the logic of having a specialist military hospital in London.

Perhaps I’ll eventually go abroad too, she thought, if this dreadful war doesn’t end soon. But there didn’t seem to be any end in sight; there were ongoing battles at Ypres with many casualties and as the year progressed into February and through to April thousands of British, French and Australian troops landed in Gallipoli to confront the Turkish army fighting alongside Germany.

‘Dr Thornbury.’

Lucy turned her head. Strictly speaking she had not yet finally qualified as a doctor, but that is how everyone spoke of her. She had had much more experience than she would have had in normal times, and was about to make a ward visit.

‘Yes, Dr Schultz? Can I do something for you?’

‘A word if you please?’ Dr Schultz looked tired, and there were dark rings beneath her eyes.

‘Are you unwell, doctor?’ Lucy asked her, following her into a small room at the end of the ward where the medical staff took an occasional rest whenever they had the opportunity.

‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘Just tired, as we all are. Sit down a minute, Lucy. I want to tell you something.’

‘Is something wrong?’ Lucy interrupted anxiously. ‘Can I help?’

Olga Schultz smiled. ‘It’s good that you ask if you can help. You’re a true doctor, Lucy. But no, in this instance you can’t.’ She paused. ‘You know that I was due to work at Endell Street with you and Dr Rose?’ She paused again as if gathering her words together. ‘Well, now it seems that I’m not. I’m being transferred to a convalescent hospital somewhere in the country. It’s still important war work, for the aim is to get soldiers well enough to be sent back to the killing fields,’ she added bitterly. ‘But I will not be trusted with a scalpel as I would be in Endell Street.’

‘But why?’ Lucy asked. ‘You’re one of the best surgeons here.’

Dr Schultz gazed at her pensively. ‘Have you noticed that I have a German name? I am British born, as is my mother, but my father was born in Germany. He came to England – arriving by ship in your home city of Hull, by the way – when he was three years old and has been dead for fifteen years, but it seems,’ she said, with a catch in her voice, ‘it seems that the War Office authorities consider that because I have a German name I might be perceived as a threat to this country that has always been my home.’

‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Lucy began, and then remembered what Uncle William had told her in one of his letters, that there had been a demonstration by an angry and threatening mob outside a pork butcher’s shop in Hull. The unfortunate butcher had a German name.

‘Would you be willing to change your name?’ she asked hesitantly.

The doctor nodded. ‘That is what I am going to do,’ she said miserably. ‘If I want to continue with my work, then I must. I’m going to be Olive Spence.’

They sat quietly for a short time and then Dr Schultz, soon to be Dr Spence, said, ‘I’ll miss working with you, Lucy, and most of all with Rose. We have worked side by side for a long time, as well as being such very good friends. So there you have it,’ she said with a sigh. ‘This war is changing everyone’s lives. None of us can escape the consequences of it.’

She was gone by the following week, and Lucy and Dr Mason were looking for lodgings near Endell Street. This was a very run-down area of London and finding somewhere suitable to live where a landlady didn’t object to their coming and going at unsuitable hours wasn’t easy, but eventually they found two rooms in the same house in Covent Garden where they could have the use of the kitchen to make a hot drink whenever they wanted, providing they supplied their own tea, coffee and milk. For breakfast, lunch and supper they ate in the hospital refectory.

‘It’s such a pity that Olga – Olive can’t be with us,’ Dr Mason remarked. ‘The hospital is run by suffragists and there is no one keener than her on rights for women. In fact she was asked to come by Dr Anderson herself; she wants all of her doctors to be of the same mind.’

‘Oh! Does she?’ Lucy said, and wondering why she had been chosen she determined to make an appointment to speak to either Dr Anderson or Dr Murray as soon as possible.

Endell Street was a very new hospital, the War Office on this occasion having decided to turn a blind eye to the fact that many of the doctors and the nurses had been militant members of the suffragettes and suffragists campaigns; it was, however, within a very old building, a former workhouse, and there was much work required to bring it up to the exacting requirements of Dr Anderson and Dr Murray, who were often at odds with the Royal Army Medical Corps. In addition to the doctors, clinical research scientists would be moving in too, with the aim of advancing the understanding of medicine and surgery.

‘Dr Thornbury,’ Dr Anderson said, inviting her to sit down. ‘Are you settling in? We’re rather topsy-turvy at the moment, but soon everything will be spick and span. The beds and medicines and equipment that we need are starting to arrive, and the staff too, and we are expecting to receive many seriously injured military patients who are in much need of our expertise. I’m so pleased,’ she added, with a smile that lit her rather plain features, ‘that you felt able to join us even though you are only just on the threshold of your profession.’

Lucy licked her lips. It was at times like this, in the company of someone like the estimable doctor and militant campaigner, that she felt totally inadequate, but she decided to be as true to herself as possible and outline her fears.

‘I’m really pleased to be here, Dr Anderson,’ she said, ‘and I hope I can justify your faith in me.’ Dr Anderson’s calm gaze did not waver, and she continued, ‘It’s because I’m at the beginning of my professional life that I asked to speak to you, as I have a slight worry.’

She hesitated and swallowed. ‘I am, of course, on the side of all women who want the same opportunities as men, but I feel I should tell you that I am not a militant campaigner, as most of the doctors and nurses here at Endell Street are.’

‘Of course we know that already, Dr Thornbury, but I appreciate your honesty.’ Dr Anderson gave another small smile. ‘We vet our potential medical staff very thoroughly and we have had excellent reports of you, medically speaking, and understand, we think, that your inclination is to concentrate on your true calling rather than becoming involved in politics. Perhaps one day when you are fully qualified and without hindrance you might join us, but for the time being we at Endell Street would rather you focused on your studies and your work here to help the injured soldiers who need our care so much.’

Lucy was so relieved she wanted to weep, but she held back her tears. She was a doctor, or almost, and didn’t cry, but must remain detached. ‘Thank you,’ she said, with just the merest break in her voice. ‘Thank you so much.’

They were inundated with wounded men, and it was much harder than she ever imagined it would be; there were times in theatre when she was on the verge of passing out, but she didn’t. She pinched her thigh or her arm to help her concentrate and tried not to think that the raw and bloody flesh beneath the surgeon’s knife belonged to someone’s son or husband. With her apron covered in blood she would hold a severed limb and know that the soldier who had lost it now had at least a chance of survival.

Lucy thought of the first time she had seen a naked man. They had had to strip his sodden uniform from him to attend to his injuries, and even though horribly wounded he had tried to cover himself when he saw that it was women who were tending him.

‘Oh, miss,’ he had wept, as he attempted to conceal himself and his injuries. ‘Such sights are not for your eyes.’

‘It’s all right, soldier,’ she had said gently. ‘Don’t be embarrassed. I’m not in the least,’ and she had a fleeting, cherished memory of Edie when they were children explaining how to tell if a new baby was a boy.

She made a point of visiting the patients who were back on the recovery ward and sometimes the surgeon would ask her to explain to them the procedures that they had been through. ‘Where are you from?’ she always asked, and often said, ‘Your family will be relieved to know you are safe.’

Once, when she asked the question, the soldier replied, ‘I’m from Hull, wi’ Hull Pals.’

‘I’m from Hull too,’ she said. ‘Whereabouts do you live?’

‘Mason Street.’ He looked up at her from pained, bloodshot eyes.

‘I know it,’ she said. ‘It’s not far from where I live. Do you know Joshua and Stanley Morris? They’re with Hull Pals too.’

‘Aye, I do. They’re wi’ a different unit though. Hope they’ve made it.’

He tried to say something else but was growing drowsy as his medication took effect, so she patted his hand and murmured, ‘So do I.’