Cairo
Veronica wet the towel and wiped the young lieutenant’s forehead, soothing him as best she could. So many had arrived in the past few hours that she had barely time for such things, but this man had waited so patiently, in such terrible pain, and now the majority were settled into beds she felt she could spare him a few moments. He was young, perhaps not much older than she, and as slight as a girl, but there was a strength in him that she recognised in so many of these young officers and she suspected he commanded his men’s respect.
The wounded began to pour through the doors again and Veronica put down the towel, patting her charge on the arm and moving across to inspect the new arrivals. She thought about tomorrow then tried to put it out of her mind again. After two weeks in Cairo she still hadn’t let her brothers know she was there, although she thought they would likely have received word by now that she had joined the VAD, and that they probably weren’t very happy about it. The last thing she’d wanted was to cause them even more worry by working alongside them green as a leaf, but fortunately an understanding doctor on board the ship had allowed her to spend time in the infirmary. Then, when she’d arrived, Sister Wilma George, Constance Dickson’s cousin, had taken her under her wing for two weeks here at the holding station.
Tomorrow was the day she had been waiting for these many months, having secured a place at the hospital where her brothers worked, the converted ‘Luna Park’. She hoped they would be proud of her and not try to shield her from her work, which had become a passion. Every day she saw men suffer indignities and torment, but with it came the opportunity to do something about it, even if it was only to be there for the wounded. If she had to put a word to it, this hellish place allowed her something she couldn’t find at home: purpose.
Mick cursed as he read the letter again. What were his parents thinking allowing Vera to come over here to this? He hated to think that he couldn’t protect her from witnessing the horrific costs this war was inflicting on body after body. It was hard enough for him and Tom, who worked long hours operating on them, often only to send them off to live their lives maimed, crippled, blinded or scarred – or back to the front, God help them. How could Vera possibly be expected to cope with it? A young, untrained, emotional girl? Especially with everything going on over in Turkey.
He looked across the ward towards Tom, who was examining some poor blighter’s leg, yet still managing to lift the spirits of the man in the bed beyond the curtain by telling him some rather ribald jokes. He’s amazing, my brother, Mick reflected. Never let the idea of despair overtake him, cracking jokes and making friends even here, in the worst nightmare imaginable. It made all the difference to their patients who often managed to laugh despite everything they had been through, thanks to Dr Tom.
‘Hear we’re getting some new recruits today,’ Jerry Rankin, a Canadian doctor, said, stopping to stretch for a minute before starting his next procedure. Jerry was from Vancouver, where he’d worked mainly with a group of other doctors in the development of X-rays and their impact on operative procedures. He was therefore somewhat of an expert in limb surgery, so Egypt had come as a shock. He’d had to accustom himself to just sewing bits back on as well as possible. Still, he tried to bring some of the latest ideas into their makeshift hospital. Mick and Tom had been most interested in the rudimentary X-ray area he had set up out the back.
‘Ambulance driver says there’s a knockout blonde arriving,’ Jerry told Mick, ‘so keep back and give us ordinary fellas half a chance for once, will you?’
Mick sighed. ‘Just keep away from anyone named Veronica.’
‘Don’t tell me you have a sweetheart hidden away?’
‘No, a sister likely to arrive any day and definitely out of bounds to anyone who likes breathing,’ Mick warned. No sooner had the words left his mouth than the new staff walked in, the last one causing him to drop the letter.
‘Vera!’
She turned, letting out an ecstatic ‘Mick!’ before running across the hospital floor, much to the Matron’s disapproval, and flinging herself into his arms. Mick hugged her tight, then pulled away to see her dear face.
‘You’re a bloody sight for sore eyes! I only got the letter today!’ He shook his head, incredulous.
‘No chance to object then.’ She smiled up at him. ‘Where’s Tom?’
Mick looked over to where Tom stood, taking off his gloves and staring at Vera in shock. She rushed over to him, laughing, as his face broke into a huge grin and he let out a great whoop.
Matron scolded as Tom and Mick took turns swinging her about and talking excitedly. ‘You’re disturbing the wounded!’ she raged, shaking one fat finger.
‘Yeah well they’re disturbing my Egyptian holiday,’ Tom quipped, causing the conscious soldiers to laugh.
Mick led the trio outside and over to grab a quick cup of tea in the mess, introducing an awestruck Jerry and telling him to give them a yell if new casualties arrived. Veronica’s eyes were wide as they walked past roller coasters and rides.
‘We’ve put some of the customers in the Haunted House,’ Mick told her, explaining how the lack of room had led to beds at the ferris wheel and even the ice-skating rink, with the operating theatre in the former ticket office.
‘Goodness, imagine waking up to that!’ Veronica exclaimed.
‘Seems kind of appropriate to me,’ Tom mused, draping his arm around her as they walked. ‘Roller coasters, haunted houses, everything feeling like a bit of a circus…’
Veronica laughed, hugging him close.
‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’ He shook his head.
‘Seriously, what did you have to do to convince Mother?’ Mick added.
‘What do you mean? She’s obviously still tied up in the kitchen as we speak,’ said Tom. The trio laughed again and as they walked into the mess Mick figured whatever reservations he had about her being here, it was damn good to see her.
He just didn’t know how he was going to be able to break things to her in person.
About ten minutes later she’d figured out something was up. Yes, they were happy to see her and yes, Tom was making jokes as usual and Mick was talking earnestly about the hospital, but something else was going on.
‘Any news about the boys?’ she said, trying to sound casual.
Tom and Mick went very quiet and neither seemed to want to meet her eye.
‘You’ve heard something haven’t you?’ She tried not to let panic overwhelm her. ‘I saw a few from the 1st down at the holding station. They said there was a big push a few days ago.’ Mick twirled his fork on the table and Veronica placed her hand over his.
‘Please…’ she said, looking from Mick to Tom.
Mick cleared his throat. ‘There was a push from the 1st a few days back, yes, and some of the wounded are only just arriving now. They’ve had a lot of issues with evacuation and overcrowding on the hospital ships.’
She watched his face closely as he played with his cigarette case and felt her heart beat in her throat.
‘What aren’t you telling me?’ She swung her gaze to Tom. ‘Oh God…oh God no…’
The dread flushed through her and she felt the air close in like a suffocating blanket. Jack.
‘It’s Dan,’ Mick began gently, reaching for her hand. Veronica felt the sorrow shoot through her stomach and clenched his fingers, fighting her tears. And to her shame something else too. Relief that it wasn’t Jack. Then Dan’s face flooded her mind and she began to shake. Dan. Her friend.
‘He’s gone, Vera,’ Tom said softly.
‘No…’
‘One of their mates, Simmo, arrived yesterday and told us Dan died right next to Jack. It was instant, which is one mercy I suppose,’ he told her.
‘Jack’s a bit of a hero by all accounts,’ Mick added.
‘Dragged Simmo and Iggy into the trenches and saved their lives. Simmo said he was unconscious so he doesn’t know any more than that about Jack…or Iggy,’ Tom said, deciding not to tell her that Simmo saw Jack afterwards on a stretcher, ‘pale as a ghost and all clammy’. He and Tom suspected typhoid fever.
‘He only knew that much because someone else told him. I’m so sorry, dearest.’
Veronica stared at them, willing them to tell her it wasn’t true. Dan was dead. Barely twenty years old and as good a man as anyone would ever be likely to meet. She thought of his parents in Braidwood, losing their youngest child. She thought of the carved initials on the rock and the secret she’d carried each day. A man who loved her was gone.
But Jack’s alive. Veronica closed her eyes and felt guilt consume her that she could think about that after hearing her fiancé was dead and lying in a Turkish battlefield.
She opened her eyes to her brother’s concerned gazes as they waited for her to speak but she had nothing to say. How could she possibly voice what she was truly feeling? That Dan had been her secret fiancé but she actually didn’t love him? That part of her was relieved they hadn’t said it was Jack? How could she show such a callous heart to her two loving brothers? Finally she said the only truth she was willing to share.
‘I can’t imagine him not alive.’ Dan Hagan had been life itself, a bundle of energy and youth, impossibly now as lifeless as the stone walls around them.
All too soon the messenger came to tell them more wounded were on their way, and they returned to their work, but Veronica carried with her two new weights upon her heart. Her guilt for not mourning Dan as he deserved, and the enormity of what bit at all their heels, because it was no longer just a fear. Death was now an intimate acquaintance. Now it held one of their own.