White Feathers (15 page)

Louise nodded, closed her salt-stung eyes for a moment, then opened them again.

Erin said, ‘Have you seen Sister Griffin?’

‘She was over there before.’ Louise gestured vaguely to her left. ‘I think she was dead. She wasn’t moving.’ She coughed violently and retched. ‘Oh God, what are we going to do?’

‘We’re going to hang on here until someone comes for us. And we’re going to help. We’re nurses.’

‘Help?’ Louise let her head loll against the side of the boat. ‘I’m already so cold I can barely move.’

‘We’re not going to give up. That’s help.’

But Erin was feeling the cold now too, an aching chill that bit deeply into her bones and made even the most conservative of movements, even speech, an insurmountable effort. She wondered detachedly whether you knew you were drowning if it happened while you were asleep.

After some minutes, or it might have been hours, she realised
she actually was dozing, but woke when her hands lost their grip and her head sank beneath the water. She was horribly thirsty as well, her throat parched and sore, but knew better than to deliberately drink the sea water. When she needed to pee she just let go, dimly appreciating the brief waft of warmth around her thighs.

What was Joseph doing now? Had he reached England yet? Was he thinking about her? Did he know she was drowning?

She dozed again, and was woken this time by severe cramps in her shoulders, arms and back. She was unaware of how much time had passed, but estimated by the position of the sun that it was well past midday. There were noticeably fewer people — had they died or had they just given up and let themselves float away? — and they were drifting further and further apart. She looked for Nancy but she’d gone and her spot had been taken by someone else. A woman was sobbing hopelessly and on the other side of the boat an unseen man babbled incoherently, his ramblings punctuated by an eerie, childish wailing.

Louise was dozing too, and Erin watched almost dispassionately as her hands slowly opened and she slid noiselessly under the water. When she didn’t bob back up again Erin shot out her arm, croaking with the sudden spasm of pain snaking across her shoulders, grabbed her friend by the hair and yanked her head above the water.

Louise coughed and spluttered. Eventually she fixed her dull, reddened eyes on Erin and rasped, ‘If I go under again I want you to leave me.’

‘No,’ replied Erin with weary resolution.

Louise’s lips were cracked and bleeding, or perhaps she had bitten them. ‘I’m tired, Erin. I want to go to sleep. I’ve had enough.’

‘Someone will come soon.’

‘No they won’t,’ Louise said bleakly.

Was she right? They had all watched in disbelief as several ships had steamed past, apparently too far away to see or hear the
Marquette
’s survivors. Those who still had the energy screamed themselves hoarse, but none of the vessels stopped or even slowed down. Eventually a man, a major judging by the crown on his shoulder tabs, said they were not stopping because they were neutrals and therefore not prepared to come to their rescue, and Erin felt like drowning him herself.

Her legs and lower body were totally numb now, except for the excruciating cramps that seared and convulsed her muscles with dreadful and unrelenting regularity, but she was far too exhausted to kick or paddle in an effort to ward them off. She felt sad at the thought of never seeing Joseph again, and wished fervently she’d said out loud in the back of the ambulance that she loved him too. The idea of just going to sleep and drifting away was very seductive. She wouldn’t be the only one.

But she couldn’t give up.

Erin knew nothing until she was dragged out of the water and laid in the bottom of a rowing boat by a sailor with a very thick French accent and an appalled look on his face. What happened next was a blur. Erin became properly aware of her surroundings only when she realised she was being winched up the side of a ship in some sort of harness. Strong hands caught her at the top and she was helped onto the deck, wrapped in a blanket and given a mug of hot coffee, which she gulped greedily but coughed up again as the generous tot of brandy it contained caught in her throat. She sat for some minutes, sipping more slowly now, her limbs leaden and unresponsive, then lowered her head to her knees and finally, in the darkness and confusion, allowed herself to cry. But the brandy did its job and began to warm her stomach and return the feeling to her
arms and legs, actually a rather unpleasant and painful sensation. She clutched at a rail and tried to pull herself up, but her legs gave way and she slumped sideways again, defeated.

The French destroyer was not her final destination. Erin and other survivors were transferred first to a French hospital ship where they were given some dry clothes, supper, tea and hot wine. Soon afterwards, they were taken to a British hospital ship.

As Erin boarded, she collapsed again. A woman in a nurse’s uniform bent down next to her and helped her to sit. ‘Are you hurt?’

Erin shook her head. ‘No, I’m just so tired.’

‘That’s to be expected, love. You’ve had a terrible shock,’ the woman responded kindly in a distinctly Australian accent.

She stood and beckoned to a medical orderly, and Erin felt masculine arms lift her to her feet and support her as she walked unsteadily across the deck. They passed through a door and down a short corridor to what appeared to be a medical examination room, where she was helped out of her borrowed overcoat by another nurse, then interviewed by a doctor.

He explained that she and at least some of her colleagues were on board the hospital ship
Grantully Castle
, staffed by Brits and Australians, and that they were preparing to sail for Salonika shortly. Erin’s lack of response concerned the doctor, who proceeded to give her a thorough examination, shining a light into her eyes, waving his fingers in front of her face and asking her to count them, feeling all over her skull and checking her limbs. He pronounced her physically sound, apart from scrapes and severe bruising, but exhausted, severely dehydrated and in shock, and recommended fluids, plenty of rest and a draught to steady her nerves. Erin was almost asleep on her feet by the time she was led out into the corridor again, where she saw Louise leaning heavily on the arm of another orderly.

The two women stared at each other dumbly for several
moments. Then Louise’s face crumpled and they hugged in silence, hanging on to each other in an agony of shared grief and disbelief. How many of them had been lost?
Who
had been lost? What would happen to them now?

The orderly gently disentangled them and led Erin away to a cabin, where she was helped into a bunk with another hot drink and advised to get some sleep, even though other survivors would be coming in on and off. Erin slept fitfully, despite her exhaustion, and stirred each time someone entered the cabin. But she did not dream, and thanked God for that.

When she woke some hours later it was light and she thought for a brief moment she was still on board the
Marquette
, but then, with a jolt that nauseated her, she remembered what had happened.

She sat up slowly and her hand strayed to her dully aching lower belly. Then came a sharp, twisting pain and, taking care not to wake anyone, she left the cabin in search of a toilet, finding one after several minutes of increasingly desperate searching. She went in and shut the door, lowered her borrowed underpants and perched on the seat, grimacing at the stiffness of her thigh muscles. Her abdomen spasmed again but instead of the expected bowel movement, a gush of something warm slid out of her vagina and dripped with frightening heaviness into the bowl. She wiped and inspected the tissue; it was covered with thick, bright blood. Another cramp caught her and she leant over with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands while she waited for it to pass. It did, with another sliding gush.

Her period, finally? It was late by nearly a month. Or was it something else?

It had taken her a few weeks to allow herself to consider the possibility she might be pregnant, because by her calculations the timing hadn’t been right, but a growing tenderness in her breasts and a queasiness around eleven each morning had begun
to convince her. Her eyes squeezed shut in an attempt to hold back bitter tears as she realised that if she had been pregnant with Joseph’s baby, she certainly wasn’t now.

The cramps continued but their force began to abate. Someone came into the bathroom and knocked on the toilet door.

‘Is someone in there?’

‘Yes,’ called Erin. ‘Erin McRae. I’m having a bit of trouble. Who is it?’

‘Elizabeth Barclay.’ Another nurse. ‘Is it serious? Can I do anything?’

‘I need a sanitary towel.’

‘Oh.’ A brief silence, then, ‘It’s probably the shock. I’ll ask one of the Australian girls for you. Won’t be a minute. Hang on.’

The door to the bathroom clanged shut as she went out. She was back five minutes later. ‘Erin? Here, I managed to get a couple.’

Erin opened the door and a hand passed her a brown paper bag. ‘Thanks,’ she called gratefully.

‘Anything else I can do?’

‘No thanks, Elizabeth. I think I’ll be fine now.’

Erin blotted herself again, folded the cloth into the crotch of her knickers, stood and pulled them up. Then she took a deep breath and flushed the bowl, deliberately not looking as the contents swirled away. She opened the door and stepped out.

‘You look very pale,’ Elizabeth observed, concerned. ‘Have you been crying?’

Erin nodded.

Elizabeth touched her hand, her own eyes filling with tears. ‘I know, it’s been a terrible shock, hasn’t it? I keep crying on and off myself.’

Erin turned to the mirror above the hand basin and disinterestedly surveyed her bleached, dark-eyed face. The only spots of colour were on her nose and cheeks, chapped red by salt water. There
was a bruise on her left temple and her lips were cracked and sore.

‘How is Matron, have you heard?’ she asked.

Elizabeth’s voice wobbled. ‘Very ill, apparently. She might not live.’

Erin turned away from the mirror to face the other woman. ‘How many, do you know?’

Elizabeth held up both hands, splayed her fingers, said, ‘Ten of us.’ She struggled to contain her tears. After a moment she sniffed inelegantly and added, ‘And eighteen from the Medical Corps, they say.’

The two women gazed at each other in horrified silence.

The hospital ship steamed into Salonika later that morning, where the survivors disembarked with hugely appreciated gifts of clothing, hairpins, toothbrushes and other necessities from the Australian nurses.

After two days in Salonika, which proved to be a dirty, mal-odorous town, the survivors returned to Alexandria. Some of the more severely distressed women were sent home to New Zealand to recuperate. The others, including Erin, stayed on and, after a short rest, went back to work in one of Alexandria’s four British General hospitals. Erin wired home as soon as she could; she also wrote to Joseph at Walton, unable to bear the thought of how he might feel when he heard what had happened. But only about the sinking; she would not burden him with her sadness regarding their more personal loss.

By the time Joseph arrived at Walton-on-Thames, everyone knew that the Maori Contingent, seriously battered and reduced in number by its service at Gallipoli and subsequently withdrawn to Lemnos for recuperation, was to head back to Egypt for rest, reinforcement and further training.

Joseph wondered how Wi and the rest of them were getting on, and who had taken over as the section’s sergeant. There were also rumours that the Anzacs and the British could be evacuating from Gallipoli altogether, now that the campaign seemed doomed to such costly and inevitable failure.

It was the news about the
Marquette
, however, that chilled him. He had been at Walton only a matter of days when the rumours began to circulate: the ship had been torpedoed six or seven times, more than half of its passengers had been drowned, there were very few survivors from the New Zealand Medical Corps and even fewer from the NZANS party. He scoured every newspaper, growing more and more agitated as time passed. At the beginning of November he read that ten of the almost 170 who perished had been from the NZANS, but this did nothing to assuage his mounting concern as no names were provided.

When Erin’s letter arrived a week after that, he locked himself in the toilet and wept with relief. She was alive. His spirit and demeanour changed dramatically and neither Sonny nor Eru needed to ask whether he had received good news. He wrote back immediately, his letter brimming with words of love and expressions of his profound sense of gratitude at her survival, then threw himself into the process of his recovery with renewed determination and vigour.

Walton-on-Thames was a tranquil-looking hospital beside the river, set in beautiful grounds with artfully laid-out walks, flower beds, mature trees and manicured lawns. Even the food was good. But more than that, it was staffed and run by New Zealanders, which helped to relieve the homesickness of many of the men, although such sentiments were never openly admitted. Joseph and the other patients also found the hospitality of the locals a welcome comfort — there were frequent invitations to private homes, boating parties and picnics and even the occasional motor
trip to Windsor, which meant little to him although he enjoyed the scenery.

Best of all, though, was the river. Joseph swam until his shoulder muscles burned, ignoring the cold for as long as he could until it finally defeated him and he was forced to find another outlet for his steadily increasing energy and his obsessive desire to improve his physical condition.

His left leg was progressing well and his stump had healed to the extent that the orthopaedic surgeon overseeing his treatment had suggested trying an artificial limb. When the time came he found himself inordinately nervous. Sonny told him not to worry — there was nothing to it; he’d been lurching around on his for a fortnight now and could even manage a fair distance without a stick.