A Rose in No-Man's Land (18 page)

The mind can act strangely under extreme trauma, as Dr. Heinrich, who had studied psychiatry, explained on more than one occasion. That’s what must have happened to Mark after Pozieres.

You wanted to make him the scapegoat, Amy Smithfield
. The cruel honesty pared her soul wide open. Sharing Mark’s bed without marriage went against everything she had ever been taught. She wanted his passion, had eagerly seized the chance of being in his arms in Paris—had instigated it, in fact.

She dared not admit it until now, but she wanted to be with him again for as long as they had. They would never escape from the nightmare of the Somme. After one battle, another always followed. Thousands lay dead, and their luck would not hold out indefinitely. It was not a matter of
if
a bullet had Mark’s name on it but
when
.

“
Fräulein, Fräulein
.” The words sounded distorted, probably because her ears still rang from the artillery fire. She felt her way to the door of her room and unbolted it.

“Dr. Heinrich, what’s wrong?” It was too dark to see, but instinctively she knew when the male form shoved its way past that it was not the doctor.

“
Fräulein
, I come see you.” Major Schwartz’s words were slurred, and his breath flayed her face with whisky.

“Get out,” she ordered, backing away, “or I’ll scream.” She fought to avoid his groping hands.

“No one hear you,
schlampe
.” He gave her a vicious shove that knocked her to the floor, and his body pile-drived into hers.

“Slut, English whore.”

His punch almost decapitated her and left her ears ringing with shock.
I mustn’t faint! God, I must keep fighting.
She bucked and writhed beneath his weight, while he tore at her clothes. Fortunately, the cloth of the German uniform in which she slept and worked hindered his invasion. Suddenly her body was free of his weight.

“Undress,
schlampe
,” he snarled as she scrambled to her feet.

“I’d rather die than be violated by a pig like you.”

She heard the click as he flicked open the flap on the pistol holster he always wore on his hip.

“Now,
schlampe
.” The cold threat in his voice frightened her more than his vitriolic snarl. “I be generous to them who please me, but not them who don’t.”

She felt rather than saw him take aim with his pistol. Her life was going to end at the hands of a deranged monster.

Fear drenched her body with sweat as she forced her brain to function. She had to do something. Otherwise she was doomed to die here in a German held cellar.

“Undress.”

“Only if you let me undress you first, Major. Come closer. I can’t reach you from there.” She injected huskiness into her voice, hoping it sounded seductive.

“Ah.” He snickered. “You play,
Fräulein
, a game with me.”

“Yes, a game.”

With shaking fingers Amy fumbled with his jacket buttons. How drunk he must be to think she would welcome his filthy advances. “Your trousers next, Major.” She lowered her voice to a breathy whisper.

He gave a low guttural laugh. As she slipped his braces down, he swayed slightly, and she felt the hard bulge between his thighs. Her flesh crawled with the vileness of the situation, but the will to survive proved strong. She would try anything to escape.

He stood motionless. The stench of his sweating anticipation fouled her nostrils as she slowly slipped his trousers down until they dangled around his ankles. Her sudden shove caught him off balance and sent him sprawling. She leapt for the door.

With his curses rumbling in her ears, she dived into the passageway and started running toward the stairs. God, if she couldn’t lift the outside trapdoor, she was a dead woman. Desperation gave her the strength of a man, and when the opening slid back, a cold gust of air clutched at her throat.

If she blundered around in the darkness, she would be caught, for sure. The terror of what capture would mean allowed her brain to function with a cunning coolness. She lay down behind a pile of rubble, pulling some uprooted bushes on top of her for further camouflage. With several hours of darkness still left, if she could avoid detection for a while, she had a slim chance of escape.

Bellows of rage from Major Schwartz, followed by barked-out orders, confirmed the search had started. She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering and tried to still her trembling body.
You don’t want to die. You want to live so you can be with Mark again.
Love fought with fear—love won.

She lay motionless, even when a booted foot stomped on her hand. Scarcely daring to breathe, she waited. Time passed, how long she did not know, but when a tremendous artillery barrage started up again, Amy knew the British prepared for yet another assault on Thiepval. It had to be now or never.

Getting to her knees, she crawled on all fours in what she hoped was the direction of the British lines, too frightened to cry out. If she stood up, she would almost certainly be mown down.

What if the infantry attack started and caught her out in no-man’s land? In a German uniform, she risked being shot even if she managed to make contact with some unit.

I’m doing this for you, Mark.
I wouldn’t
be brave enough to do it otherwise.
After what seemed like hours, with shells dropping all around, she came to barbed wire.
God, don’t let me die out here like a dog, not after I’ve come so far.
She clawed at the ground with her fingers, gouging and scraping the oozing mud away in an endeavor to tunnel underneath.

The unseasonable downpours of the last few days had turned the Somme battlefield into a sea of mud. Finally she burrowed her way under the wire entanglements.

What a sight she must present, scratched, muddy, unwashed, filthy hair probably full of lice.
You fool. Why worry about how you look? Survival is all that matters. Getting out of this hell. Concentrate on this, nothing else. You want to live, don’t you? Fight to live, Smithfield.

“Oh, Mark, please help me.”

Terror filled her heart as a machine gun opened up from the German lines, instantly followed by a barrage from the British. Still on her knees, she crawled over bodies. Some felt stiff and hard, others saturated with the warm stickiness of fresh blood.

“Stretcher bearers, for God’s sake, help me.”

Above the noise of battle Amy heard a plea almost at her elbow. Someone was still alive out here in this ravaged no-man’s land. She hesitated only for a moment.
You’re a nurse, aren’t you? Do something.

“Where are you?” Her voice sounded so scratchy she hardly recognized it.

“Here.”

She slithered toward the sound. “Where?”

“Over here.”

The ground opened up beneath her and she felt herself falling. She hit something soft and heard a scream of agony.

“Sorry, I’ve fallen on you,” she apologized.

The moon slid out from behind some clouds. Its translucent beam momentarily allowed her to see a pile of bodies, and a soldier slumped up against the trench wall.

“Fritz.” He raised his rifle, but the moonbeams shifted, fortunately, plunging the trench into darkness once more.

“No, I’m an escaped prisoner.”

“You sound like a lassie.”

“I’m an army nurse.”

“You must be one of those Australian nurses who disappeared. Been talking about you up and down the trenches for weeks.”

“I’m Amy Smithfield. How badly hurt are you?”

“My legs have been shot about, and my shoulder is all smashed up so I can’t drag myself back. I’ve been here since yesterday morning. Sergeant Alistair McLeod, at your service.”

“You’re Scottish?”

“How could you tell?”

“Your accent, of course.”

“We must be daft, lassie, chatting out here like this.”

“Yes, quite mad,” she agreed. “If I help, do you think you could stand up?”

“I’ll never be able to climb out of this shell hole, but we’re only a hundred yards from our trenches. You could get someone to come out and get me.”

“What about the others?”

“All dead. I checked them in the daylight. A mortar landed on us. Lucky it’s dark and you can’t see properly; it isn’t a pretty sight. I’ve been in the army for twenty years. Never seen anything this bad, though. You better make a run for it, Sister. Once it gets light, you’ll have no hope.”

“I can’t just leave you out here, Sarge.” She knew as well as he did the unlikelihood of stretcher bearers being able to bring him in, even if she did tell them where to find him. “I can help you.”

“No, save yourself.”

“We can both make it,” Amy insisted. When a lull in the firing came, she knew this might be their only chance of escape. “Try to stand up.”

He cried out in pain but with her help managed to get to his feet.

“I’ll never be able to climb out.”

“Yes you will, with my help.” She scrambled out of the hole and stretched out flat on her stomach. “Catch hold of my hands.” She reached down, but as their fingers touched, his slipped away because the hole was too deep.

She slid back into the dugout. “Off you go, lassie, I’ll be all right.” He slumped to the ground again.

“I’m not leaving you out here. It would be murder.”

He was built like a jockey and not very tall. Amy looked about in desperation. Dear God, could she do it?

“We need something to give you added height.” His gaze followed hers to the bodies. It couldn’t be wrong, because these soldiers had passed beyond earthly help.

With her teeth clenched together so she would not scream at the foulness of it all, and blinded not only by the darkness but tear-filled eyes, Amy started dragging the bodies into position. Of all the dreadful things she had endured in the war, this would have to be the most frightful.

The sergeant couldn’t help, so she tugged and dragged the corpses into a pile on her own, in an endeavor to fashion a stairway. It was the most revolting and upsetting thing she had ever done.

The darkness made it impossible to see the mangled state of the bodies, but they felt stiff, lifeless. Only yesterday they were laughing, vibrant young men. Vomit rose up into her throat and spewed out her mouth, but she dared not stop her gruesome task.

At last the human pyramid was ready. She started climbing out, with the sergeant’s good arm wrapped around her neck. The bodies felt rock hard under her boots. The sergeant almost strangled her because of his tight grip, yet with strength born of desperation, and with the Scotsman using his less wounded leg, they eventually scrambled out of their tomb.

Across no-man’s land they staggered, bent almost double. The sergeant moaned with agony as he put weight on his wounded legs.

A strange silence settled momentarily over this section of the battlefield. “Help us someone, please.” She panted with exertion now, but had to keep going. If she faltered, they were doomed. English voices broke through the mist of exhaustion and fear.

“We’re over here,” she called out frantically. “Don’t shoot, I’ve got Sergeant McLeod.” He slumped against her, an absolute dead weight. Amy’s legs started to buckle.

“Cor blimey, it’s a woman.”

The cockney exclamation sounded like a sweet symphony in her ears. “Quick, see to Sergeant McLeod. He’s badly wounded.” Thankfully she handed her charge over. “I’ll be all right,” she assured them, stumbling along behind.

Dawn, like a ribbon of pink, colored the night sky before Amy and Sergeant McLeod made it to safety behind the English lines. They had run into a forward scouting party trying to ascertain the strength of the fortified German positions.

At battalion headquarters, over a mug of tea, she told the English major of her experiences.

“You mean you actually nursed Germans! My dear young woman, if you were a soldier, I’d have you court-martialed.” His moustache bristled with indignation.

“They were wounded and needed help,” she said, thinking of Ernst Kruger. “I’m a nurse. I only did what I’m trained for.”

“Maybe so, but are you certain you can’t help us regarding troop numbers or trench positions?”

“No, I’m sorry, sir. I’ve told you everything I can.”

“It will be best if we get you back to your own hospital.”

“I was on the verge of being sent to England before the Germans captured me.”

“That complicates things a little.”

“Major, are there any Australian battalions near here?”

Before answering, he exchanged looks with a young captain who had written down her report. “The Australians are preparing to launch an attack on Mouquet Farm.”

Would Mark be there? “Captain Mark Tremayne, do you know him?”

“By reputation only.” He gave her a speculative look. Surely Ella hadn’t spread her poison up and down the allied trenches?

“I’ll arrange transport to the nearest field hospital. In other words, Sister, I’m passing you over to the Medical Corps. They can decide what to do with you. Can we offer you some food? You must be starving.”

“Sir.” An Australian private came up and saluted. “I’m here to pick up Sister Smithfield.”

“Already?” The major whistled his surprise. “Well, there you are, Sister. You won’t have to stay the night with us after all.”

Amy followed the soldier outside and saw a staff car waiting. Relief surged through her as she climbed into the cabin with the driver.

“Plucky thing you did, Sister.”

“What’s an Aussie doing here?” She couldn’t hide her delight at seeing a fellow countryman.

“Come to collect you, orders of Captain Tremayne.”

“You’ve seen Mark—I mean, Captain Tremayne? He knows I’m alive?”

“Yes, there’s hardly a soldier on this section of the Somme who hasn’t heard what you did. Spread through the trenches like wildfire.”