Liverpool Angels (33 page)

Alice took her hand. ‘He’ll come back, Mae. I know he will.’

Mae managed to nod but a terrible feeling of dread hung over her. An awful sense of despair that she would never see him again. That they would never walk together under the lilac trees in the Boston Public Garden.

A
t the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 the guns fell silent. The Armistice was signed and the war was over. After four long years of bitter fighting and enormous loss of life it was at an end. The news was received in Boulogne with rapture. The Allied flags from the casino were taken down and paraded through the streets of the town by jubilant soldiers, medical personnel and civilians, Monsieur Claude Clari amongst them. A large Tricolour now adorned the entrance of the Café Arc-en-ciel.

The atmosphere in No. 24 General Camp Hospital wasn’t as exuberant as in many of the wards, only the nursing staff were in a state to realise that it was all over. Their patients were unconscious or delirious.

Lizzie brought the news to Alice, who was still unfit for duty although feeling much better.

‘It’s over, Alice! The war’s over! Sister Harper told us a few minutes ago and I came straight to tell you.’

Alice threw her arms around her. ‘Oh, Lizzie! We can go home! We can all go home! I can go home to Jimmy and Mam and Billy. Eddie won’t have to risk his life again and you can get married. We’ll both get married!’

Lizzie hugged her but her happiness was tempered with sadness. ‘We’ll all go home – eventually, Alice, but I know many people are wondering was any of it worth it? So many dead, so many young lives blighted forever, so much . . . destruction. Towns, villages and hamlets in ruins, farmland turned into a wasteland of mud and shell craters, ships sunk and their crews lost, and now thousands dying of flu. And Mae . . .’

Alice’s euphoric mood disappeared at Lizzie’s words. In her initial excitement she had forgotten that no one knew if Pip Middlehurst was alive or dead. ‘Oh, Lizzie, poor Mae! Where is she? Does she know about the Armistice?’

Lizzie nodded. ‘She was with the rest of us but she’s stayed on the ward.’

Without uttering another word Alice wrapped her cape around her thin shoulders and, followed by Lizzie, went in search of her cousin.

As they both entered ward six Sister Harper looked up from her tiny work station. ‘Nurse McEvoy, you should be resting, you are far from well yet,’ she admonished her.

‘Where is she, Sister, please? She’ll be so . . . upset. She hasn’t heard anything from him.’

‘Attending to a young private who thankfully seems to be recovering. But don’t stay too long. Although the war is officially ended, our work here isn’t. I’ll need every one of my nurses as this epidemic is far from over and I’ve just received word that there is a convoy of sick and wounded men on its way. Three hundred stretcher cases and they are expected this afternoon.’

Alice found Mae settling the young lad back against the pillows of a bed she had just changed. He looked far from well, Alice thought, but at least he wasn’t going to die. ‘Let me help you, Mae,’ she offered.

‘I . . . I didn’t know what else to do, Alice. I . . . had to keep on working, I can’t feel . . .’ She broke down and Alice put her arms around her.

‘Oh, Mae, don’t give up. Things will get more organised now. If he’s been wounded or is ill you’ll soon hear – and now that the fighting has stopped you’ll be able to travel to see him.’

‘But what if . . . if he’s . . . dead, Alice?’ Mae sobbed. Now that she’d uttered the word that had haunted her for weeks it was as if the floodgates had been opened.

‘Don’t say that! Don’t even
think
it! You would have been notified, you know you would,’ Alice said emphatically. ‘Don’t give up on him, Mae,’ she begged.

Sister Harper had been watching closely and now she quickly took the situation in hand. ‘Nurse McEvoy, take Nurse Strickland back to your billet and both of you get a cup of tea and calm yourselves,’ she instructed. ‘This has been a very emotional and upsetting morning for everyone but I will need you, Nurse Strickland, to help with the convoy when it arrives.’

Her words had the effect she intended on both Mae and Alice, and as they went across to the mess tent Mae became calmer. ‘She’s right, Alice. It
is
a very emotional day and not everyone can celebrate.’

Alice nodded her agreement, thankful that at least Mae would have little time to dwell on the situation when the convoy arrived.

The line of ambulances arrived just after two o’clock with only six fit, able-bodied officers and six enlisted men accompanying it. The men on the stretchers were either suffering from the flu virus or had been wounded in the previous days. The medical officers and nursing staff and orderlies were waiting and the job of assessing the patients began.

‘What regiment are you from?’ Lizzie asked a young man with a bullet wound in his thigh as she removed the field dressing that covered it.

‘Ninety-first Division, ma’am, and I sure am glad it’s all over,’ he replied quite cheerfully despite obviously being in pain.

Lizzie was surprised. ‘You’re American!’

‘I sure am, ma’am, but there was no room for us at the casino. Besides, they’re all out celebrating, painting the town red.’

‘Are there many other Americans with you in this convoy?’ she asked, her heart beginning to beat rapidly.

‘There’s an officer and a few men from the one hundred and thirty-seventh. Mostly down with this Spanish flu.’

Lizzie looked quickly around, searching for Mae, but in the press of wounded she couldn’t see her. The 137th was Pip’s division. ‘We’ll soon make you more comfortable now, soldier,’ she said to him as the orderlies moved him on to the medical officer and she turned to the next patient.

Mae too had just realised that there were American troops amongst the convoy and hope, then fear and desperation chased each other through her in rapid succession as she’d realised that so many of them were very ill with the flu. She knew she couldn’t be spared, she knew she couldn’t just leave this patient to go and search for him. She hastily dashed the tears of frustration away with the back of her hand and had bent down to the next stretcher when she felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned.

‘I promised you I’d come back, Mae.’

A wave of pure joy enveloped her as she flung her arms around him, oblivious to the dust and dirt that streaked his face and covered his uniform. He was here! He was safe! He wasn’t wounded or dying from the virus! ‘Oh, Pip! Pip!’ she sobbed with relief.

He held her tightly. ‘It’s over, Mae, at last it’s over. We can go home. Soon we can go home.’

She gazed up at him, her eyes swimming with tears. ‘I love you so much, Pip, and I thought . . .’

He smiled and gently wiped a tear from her cheek with his finger. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get word to you – there wasn’t time. But surely you knew I wouldn’t break my promise, Mae? We’ll see next Lilac Sunday together, a world away from . . . all this. It’s over and we’ll never be parted again.’

Mae leaned her forehead against his shoulder as happiness enveloped her. In her short life she’d lost her mother, her father, her childhood friends, she’d feared for Alice’s life and for a time she’d thought she’d lost him too, but now the war was over and the future looked so bright. After the years of darkness, death and suffering there was now hope and joy and love. She remembered that beautiful dawn morning last spring. It had indeed been an omen, an omen heralding a new life in a new land.

Maggie and Billy were rather taken aback when early on Monday morning they opened the front door and were confronted by Bertie Mercer, who was waving an edition of the morning paper. ‘Look! Look, Maggie! Billy! Mr Lloyd George has announced that the Armistice was signed at five o’clock this morning. The Press Bureau got the information to the newspapers. Fighting will cease on all fronts at eleven o’clock. It’s over! The war is over!’

Maggie’s initial reaction was of profound relief and she felt tears prick her eyelids. ‘Oh, Bertie, that’s great news! Thanks for coming to let us know.’

He nodded, handing the paper to Billy. ‘Agnes wanted you to know as soon as possible, before it’s all over the city. I’ll get back to her now, she’s still feeling a bit . . . stunned by it all. We’ll see you both later on.’

‘It’s over, Maggie. It’s finally over, luv,’ Billy said quietly as he scanned the lines of newsprint.

‘I thought I’d feel sort of . . . overwhelmed with joy and happiness but all I can feel is relief. Relief that I can stop worrying now, that there won’t be one of those damned telegrams arriving with terrible news about Eddie. We’ll be able to read a newspaper without feeling sick with apprehension and fear.’

Billy nodded sadly. ‘Sure, I’m relieved myself that it’s all over and there will be thousands who feel the same, but there will be thousands of homes where there isn’t much to celebrate.’

‘And poor Agnes’s is one of them, and Nelly Mitford’s,’ Maggie replied, wondering how they were taking the news. No wonder Agnes was stunned, she thought. Would they too be thinking of the day when the lads had all marched away? Jimmy, Harry, Eddie and Tommy, all of them so young, fit, full of patriotic enthusiasm and pride. Now only Eddie was coming back uninjured, although he had suffered and bore the scars. ‘What was it all for, Billy? Was it worth it?
Any
of it?’

Billy knew she was thinking of John Strickland and he remembered too the lads and men he’d served with at Jutland, all of whom had no graves but the sea. ‘I suppose there will be those who think it was. We have our homes, our freedom and our way of life, Maggie, but to my mind it was all bought at a terrible price. But at least now those who’ve been spared will be coming home – Eddie amongst them, and the girls too.’

Maggie brightened at his words. ‘Eddie has been so lucky, Billy, and our Alice can go back to her office job. I think she’ll have had enough of nursing.’

Billy smiled. ‘She did her bit for the war effort. They both did. But I suppose Mae will be going off to Boston.’

‘I know that Jimmy will be glad to have our Alice home and I think they’ve got a future planned together and I’m happy for them.’

‘And we may finally get to meet Lizzie,’ Billy added, thinking that he would see his son for the first time in years. Eddie was a man now, an impressionable boy no longer, not after what he’d been through, and he was proud of him. At least they had the shared experiences of battle and wounds if nothing else to build a relationship on. ‘But they won’t be coming home immediately, Maggie, the girls still have patients to attend to. It will be a while before they can organise the wounded and the troops and get them home.’

‘I know, but at least now we can all look to the future with some . . . hope, and we can look forward to a new daughter-in-law. I just hope her parents will be happy with her choice, but as our Alice said; the world is different now – people and their attitudes have changed.’

Billy put his arm around her. ‘They have, luv, and the best thing to come out of all the fear, misery and hardship – for me at least – is that I’ve got my wife, my family and my home back and they’re things I hold very dear.’

Maggie smiled up at him. All the long bitter years when she’d struggled on alone were in the past and now they could put the four years of war behind them and build a future together. ‘I know, Billy. We’ve got a lot to be thankful for now.’

It was a month later when they at last had the time to venture into the town. Mae and Alice and Lizzie had been kept busy, but the epidemic, although still claiming many lives, seemed to be losing momentum. Pip had been billeted in Boulogne helping to organise the first stage of repatriation of those American troops now deemed fit to travel, and to Lizzie’s delight Eddie had returned to the supply depot to aid Sergeant Walker, for animals and equipment had to be shipped back too.

The Tricolour was still above the door of the café but hanging limply now in the cold, damp December air. The appearance of the little group in the doorway was greeted with a cry of delight from Claude Clari and they were all embraced and kissed in turn, both Pip and Eddie looking a little embarrassed by this typical Gallic greeting and Eddie muttering something to the effect that he didn’t hold with being kissed on both cheeks by a chap. Of course Pip had visited the café as soon as he’d come back to the town but it was Eddie’s first visit since his return.

‘
Champagne!
It . . . you . . . have only
champagne!
’ Monsieur declared, still beaming as he disappeared to fetch it.

‘We’ll be in trouble if we go back tipsy!’ Alice laughed as they seated themselves around a table.

‘She’ll kill us. She’s stretching her generosity in letting us all out together as it is,’ Lizzie added, smiling at Eddie.

‘Still, it is a bit of a special occasion. We’ve none of us had time to celebrate properly and we haven’t been here together since Christmas of nineteen sixteen,’ Mae reminded them.

Alice shook her head in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe it’s
that
long ago.’

‘And so much has happened to us all in that time,’ Pip added, glancing meaningfully at Eddie, who nodded sombrely, both returning in their minds to all the dangers and horrors of battle, the hardships of the trenches and the friends they’d lost.

A silence descended on them all as Alice remembered the day Jimmy had been brought into the hospital and of how ill she’d been last month. They’d both come close to death. Mae thought sadly of her poor da and Harry and Tommy Mitford. Eddie wondered how he would get on with Billy when he finally got home but was resolved to at least give his father the benefit of the doubt. And then Monsieur returned with tall flutes and two bottles and corks popped, champagne fizzed and Monsieur Clari toasted them all. ‘
Vive la victoire!
’