Suffragette Girl (26 page)

‘Thank you.’ She glanced from one to the other and added huskily, ‘Do – do take care of yourselves, won’t you?’

‘We’ll do our best, miss.’ Billy grinned.

‘An’ if we cop one, we’ll be in good hands if we get brought here,’ Walter chuckled.

Florrie smiled and promised, ‘I’ll look after you personally.’

She watched them go. Despite Dr Hartmann’s reprimand, the two soldiers had been the epitome of propriety all the time they’d been helping Florrie clean out the cellars. Not once had
either of them – or any of the four who’d helped – stepped out of line.

The next day, Sergeant Granger brought four different soldiers to help her, though the cellars were almost ready. There was only the kitchen left to clean now.

‘Me name’s George, and me mate Walt said I was to clean the range for you, miss, an’ get it going.’

‘That’d be wonderful.’

‘Will it burn wood, miss? ’Cos there’s not much else to use round here.’

‘I expect so,’ Florrie said, wishing she’d known more about the workings of the kitchen at Candlethorpe Hall. ‘We can but try.’

As George bent to his task, she turned to greet the other three soldiers who’d come with him.

‘Hello, Miss Florrie. Fancy seeing you here.’

Florrie’s mouth dropped open in a gasp of surprise, her eyes wide.

‘Ben! Oh, Ben!’ She stretched her arms wide and gave him a bear hug – much to the amusement of the sergeant and the other three soldiers. She stood back and examined him from
head to foot. ‘Are you all right?’ Physically, he looked well, but there was a haunted look in his eyes.

‘I’m – fine, miss,’ he said, with only the merest hesitation and a swift half-glance at his superior.

‘It’s – good to see you.’ Her feelings were mixed. It
was
good to see the young boy, to see him still alive and well, but she wished it could have been anywhere
but here. He was in the thick of the fighting now and anything could happen to him. But, at least for the next few days, he had a respite.

‘Have you written home?’

‘I’m not awfully good at the letter-writing, miss. Nor’s me ma, but I’ve filled in a few of them postcards we get to send. She’ll’ve got them. And I got a
nice parcel t’other day from your grandmother.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Some nice warm socks, miss.’

Florrie laughed. ‘Just in time for summer, eh?’

But the boy shook his head. ‘Weather’s been bad, miss, even though it’s May. I’ve been glad of ’em. Specially at night in the – the trenches. It gets really
cold.’

‘Right, lads, let’s get cracking,’ Sergeant Granger interrupted. ‘What do you want them to do, miss?’

‘The rest of the kitchen, please. Once that’s done, we can move in all the equipment and supplies. And then we’ll be ready.’

The four soldiers worked all day and by evening the room was clean. George had cleaned the range and now a fire was roaring in the grate.

‘It’s got a back boiler, miss,’ Ben told her. ‘Just like our range at home. We’ve found you plenty of firewood in a shed out the back and we’ve filled it up
with water from the pump in the yard. Luckily, it’s still working. So you’ll have plenty of water, an’ now you can heat it an’ all.’

‘We’ll be back tomorrow to bring more supplies, miss,’ one of the other soldiers, whose name was Harry, put in. ‘And help with whatever you want us to do.’

Florrie smiled. ‘That’s wonderful, I—’

‘Look what I’ve found.’ George came in from the yard, walking backwards and dragging something through the door.

Florrie clapped her hands. ‘Oh, a tin bath!’

‘It was in the shed. I’ve given it a good clean-out.’ He stood up and turned to face her, grinning. ‘So now you can have a nice bath in front of that fire. An’
I’m first in line to scrub your back.’

‘Watch it,’ Ben said at once, frowning and stepping towards the other man. ‘Miss Florrie’s a lady, an’ don’t you forget it.’

‘Whoa there, mate,’ George said at once, his hands outstretched, palms outwards as if to fend Ben off. ‘I was only having a larf. No offence meant, miss. Honest.’

Florrie laughed and put her hand on Ben’s arm to calm him down. ‘And none taken, George. Now, how about I make us all a nice cup of tea before you leave?’

They all sat down at the freshly scrubbed kitchen table on a motley selection of chairs that had been found in various parts of the house. Florrie set out cups and poured boiling water from the
kettle on the hob into a cracked teapot. The lid was missing, but she improvised with a cracked saucer to cover the tea whilst it brewed.

They sat around drinking tea and swapping stories of their lives and loved ones back home. Florrie was able to reassure Ben that his family had been fit and well when she’d last seen them,
and she promised that she’d write that very night to her grandmother with messages for the Atkinson family.

‘So this is what you all get up to when my back’s turned.’ Sergeant Granger was standing in the doorway. At once the four soldiers scrambled to their feet and stood to
attention, looking suddenly fearful.

‘My fault entirely, Sergeant,’ Florrie said cheerfully. ‘They’ve all worked so hard they deserved a cuppa.’ She lifted up the teapot. ‘How about you? I think
there’s still enough in the pot.’

Sergeant Granger smiled, nodded to his men to relax and joined them at the table.

‘Everything’s done,’ Florrie said as she fetched another cup for him. ‘Thanks to you and your men. Just the medical supplies to come and we’ll be ready.’

A little later the men left and Florrie was alone. It was growing dusk as she banked down the fire in the range and prepared to walk the mile and a half back to the camp. She
eyed the tin bath sitting innocently on the hearth. There was plenty of hot water in the boiler. It was such a pity to waste it, she thought, and there was no one about now.

She found a tin jug, filled it from the tap at the side of the range and poured it into the bath. Six more jugfuls gave her a few inches to sit in. She rummaged through some clutter that the
soldiers had heaped into one corner of the kitchen during their cleaning. They’d brought everything they could find from other parts of the house too. Anything and everything that might be
useful: sheets, blankets, pillows, towels and even some clothing that had been left. They’d brought it all to the kitchen.

‘So you don’t go looking round the house, miss,’ Ben had said. ‘T’ain’t safe in some parts.’

At last she found what she sought – a piece of soap. It was cracked and dried, but it was better than nothing. She lit two candles and, moments later, she was stepping naked into the bath
and luxuriating in the warmth of the hot water. Every limb was aching with the fatigue of the last two days, but she’d completed the task. The cellars were ready and even the kitchen was
usable. She couldn’t wait to get back to the camp and tell Dr Hartmann. She chuckled as she soaped herself. She might even get a smile of thanks from him.

Florrie froze as she heard a scuffling noise outside. She glanced towards her clothes, strewn over a chair. Her gun was beneath them and she couldn’t reach it from where she was sitting.
She waited, holding her breath and hoping that whoever it was might go away. The footsteps came nearer, right to the kitchen door. It swung open, creaking on its hinges.

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ Florrie breathed as she saw Ernst standing in the doorway.

‘Nurse Maltby – whatever are you doing?’

‘What does it look like?’ she replied with asperity, forgetting for a moment his senior position. ‘I’ve done my bit these last two days – with a lot of help, mind
you. But I’m hot and filthy and I deserve a bath, so, Dr Hartmann, if you wouldn’t mind leaving whilst I get dried and dressed . . .’

But Ernst didn’t leave. He came into the room and moved towards her, picking up the towel and stretching it out so that she could step out of the bath and allow him to wrap it around her.
She looked up at him, her heart beating a little faster.

He was even more handsome in the soft glow from the candlelight. His black hair shone and his blue eyes were dark with a sudden passion. Her body responded of its own volition. She was powerless
against the huge tide of emotion and longing that swept through her. It was wrong – all so wrong – yet she wanted to be in his arms more than anything she’d ever wanted in her
life . . .

He was still holding the towel stretched out for her. Slowly, she stood up. The candlelight glistened on her body. She stepped out of the water onto the flagged stone floor. He wrapped the towel
around her and pulled her gently into his arms.

‘Florence – my darling girl. From the moment I first saw you, I knew this was meant to be. It is Fate that has brought us together. Come . . .’ He drew back and took her hand.
Picking up one of the lighted candles, he led her towards the steps leading down to the cellar. They lay on one of the beds made ready for their first patients and there Florrie believed
she’d found the love and passion she sought. She’d found a man she truly could love and be loved by. Willingly, she gave herself to him, body and soul.

Locked in their own private little world, they could have been a thousand miles away from the war.

‘So, tomorrow we begin,’ Ernst said as they walked back through the twilight, holding hands until they came within sight of the encampment. ‘No one must know
about us, Florence. You do understand that, don’t you?’

‘Of course,’ she said swiftly. ‘Sister Blackstock would send me packing immediately. And I don’t want to go – especially now.’

He chuckled. ‘I don’t think they would do that to me, but my reputation would not be so – how do you say – wholesome?’

She laughed softly. ‘Oh, I don’t know. You’d be forgiven. You’re a man.’ There was a tinge of irony in her tone. In Florrie’s mind, it was another example of
the inequality that existed between men and women. Whilst she would be sent home in disgrace, he would merely cause a nudge and a wink and be thought a bit of a ‘jack the lad’. Even so,
she didn’t want to be parted from him.

‘But how are we going to meet? Have some time alone together?’

‘I’ll think of something,’ he murmured. He gave her hand a quick squeeze before releasing his hold. They walked back into the camp with a demure three feet between them.

The following morning, Ernst, Sister Blackstock and Florrie set off to begin work in the ruined house. Rosemary Blackstock was full of praise for the work Florrie had done with the help of the
soldiers. ‘Dr Hartmann was right, wasn’t he? We’ll be able to do so much more, the nearer we are. And these cellars are comparatively safe.’

As if on cue they heard the thump of the guns begin again and it wasn’t long before their first patients began to arrive.

Ernst insisted on seeing every one of them, though not all required his surgeon’s knife. He picked out one here, another there that needed his skill and instructed Sister Blackstock to
assist him in the small room set up as a crude operating theatre. Florrie was left to attend to all the other casualties carried down the steps and into the cellars. She felt a moment’s pang
of disappointment that it was Rosemary Blackstock at Ernst’s side and not her. But her head, if not her heart, told her that the older woman was by far the more experienced at assisting him.
And besides, Florrie told herself, they’ve trusted me enough to leave me in charge in the wards.

She bent over a man who’d been injured in the face. Gently Florrie syringed and washed the wound with peroxide to clean the blood and mud away. Carefully, she shaved his face and placed a
dressing on the wound. It would need such treatment repeated frequently over the next three or four days. As she turned to leave him and go to her next patient, the man gripped her arm. He
couldn’t speak, but in the dim light of the cellar, lit only by lanterns and candles, the look in his eyes spoke his thanks.

She smiled and moved on. The next casualty had a badly smashed leg and was awaiting his turn in the operating room. He was in dreadful pain, but he was smiling through it all. ‘This is a
Blighty one, ain’t it, Sister?’

Florrie grinned. ‘Could be, soldier, but that’s for the doctors to say. And by the way, I’m not a sister, I’m only a VAD – not even a proper nurse.’

The man winked at her. ‘Well, you’ll do for me, luv. Just get me patched up an’ on that ship home.’

The three of them worked all day until at last the flow of casualties stopped, but already it seemed as if the cellars were full.

‘First thing in the morning, Nurse Maltby,’ Ernst said, ‘you must ferry as many of these patients as can be moved back to our base camp.’ He seemed to be avoiding looking
directly at her and spoke now to the sister. ‘We need more people here. Another doctor and more nurses.’

‘We do, Dr Hartmann.’ Rosemary spoke softly as she glanced around at the sleeping patients. ‘You were right. Several – if not most – of these men would have been in
a far worse state if they’d had to travel further before receiving attention.’

Ernst gave a grunt of satisfaction at hearing her admit it.

He moved away, towards the tiny room where he slept, without bidding them goodnight and – to Florrie’s intense disappointment – without even glancing at her.

The days passed in a blur and there was no time for Florrie and Ernst to snatch a few precious moments together. The wounded poured into their field ambulance in the cellars,
now nicknamed, with tongue-in-cheek wry humour, the Chateau. They were treated or operated on, nursed and moved back to what was referred to as Base Camp.

‘Would you like to come with me, Grace?’ Florrie asked. Grace had come to the Chateau to help out for a few days. ‘There’s a poor boy who’s been gassed. He can
hardly breathe, poor dear. If you could sit in the back of the lorry and—’

‘Oh, Florrie, I’d love to – I know the one you mean. He’s a lamb and so
young
! But I’ve got all these sheets to wash.’ She leaned closer and lowered
her voice. ‘He’s a fanatic about
everything
being washed.’

Florrie nodded, remembering the argument between Ernst and Sister Blackstock. Arms akimbo, Rosemary had faced him fearlessly. ‘Doctor, if you want this amount of laundry doing –
clean sheets for every new arrival – you must send for another VAD to do that and nothing else. I’d put Maltby on it, but she’s too valuable driving the lorry, and besides, her
nursing skills are—’