October 3rd, 1916
Duchess of Connaught's Red Cross Hospital, Taplow, England – Maidenhead, England

It's hard to part I know

"Alright, so what's the verdict, Sister?" The young private grins widely.

I put a finger to my lips, motioning for him to be quiet, as I take his pulse with the other hand. Then, after having read his temperature, I jot both down on his patient chart, where I had earlier noted blood pressure and breathing rate.

Only now do I look at him. "Satisfactory," I tell him and the smile comes easily to my lips. He has a double fracture to the right ankle and is thus one of the less serious cases. Though, my calling a fractured ankle 'less serious' maybe just goes to show how far I have come.

Still, it's the kind of injury his comrades envy him for. It's bad enough to keep him in England for the foreseeable future – 'Blighty', as they call it – yet it is slight enough not to leave him with any lasting damage. Maybe, if he's really lucky, he'll even get a few weeks of sick leave in Canada out of this. That's what makes this a typical Blighty wound and, therefore, one of the good ones.

The private nods, suddenly growing serious. "Glad to hear that, Sister. But… is there something you can do about the pain?"

I consider him through narrowed eyes. I have a feeling he's trying to lead me on – his mood is far too exuberant for him to be in any real pain. And yet, when a patient complains of pain, it would be negligent to ignore it. Not that I would be able to do much for him, were he really in pain. We've got aspirin, which hardly ever works, and morphine, which reliably sends them off into a coma more often than not. So, if morphine is not indicated, they are left with little option but to grit it out.

"Where does it hurt?" I take a step closer to the head of the bed.

The grin is back, breaking through that serious expression he has not been able to keep up for even two minutes. "Right here, Sister", he exclaims, slapping a hand to a spot on his chest, where I suspect he imagines his heart to be.

Rolling my eyes, I retort, "I'm sure it does."

Safely putting my thermometer into the pocket on my apron, I am already turning to move over to the next bed, when he calls after me. "Ah, Sister, don't be like that. Have a heart!"

The patient two beds over chortles.

Still walking, I glance back over my shoulder, making sure to keep a straight face. "Whether I have a heart remains to be seen. Yours, however, is further to the right."

For a second he appears confused, looking down at his hand, up at me, down at the hand again. Then, suddenly, he bursts out laughing, adjusting his hand a little to the right. "See? You already know more about my heart than I do!"

Now, I do smile. His theatrics might be ridiculous, but, for all that, they are also amusing. "Nothing an anatomy textbook couldn't have told me", I inform him, before turning my back to him and moving on, for real this time. A little flirting never harms, but we are still compelled not to encourage them rather too much.

I finish my round, all the while making sure not to get too close to our little jokester with his heart aches again, and, finally, slip into the little room at the head of the ward that is the domain of us nursing sisters. As I put a broken thermometer on her desk, Miss Talbot raises her head.

"Well, won't the quartermaster be pleased," she comments drily. I've already made quite a name for myself as having a questionable talent to regularly shorten the life cycle of thermometers considerably.

Still, I will not go down without a fight! "It's not my fault they keep breaking. You want to bet they keep giving me the most fragile thermometers anyway?"

"The most fragile thermometers?" Miss Talbot shakes her head, laughing softly.

Of course, she knows as well as I do that there is no such thing as a ‚most fragile thermometer'. Or, at least, not around here. Our thermometers are army-issue, and anything army-issued has a tendency to be depressingly uniform.

"Fragile or not, this time you can be the one to tell Captain Sheperd why we need another thermometer for the ward yet again," Miss Talbot replies. "When I was there last week he actually wanted to know whether we eat them."

"I shall just recommend them as an excellent stuffing for Shepherd's Pie then, shall I?" I retort, as blasé as I can manage while fighting a smile myself. To be quite honest I do not much look forward to having to explain myself and my destructive habit to the quartermaster again, though that's mostly because he teases me mercilessly about it. He is humorous man, Captain Sheperd.

Miss Talbot nods briskly, but with an amused twinkle in her eyes still. "You do that. Beforehand, however, are you interested at all in taking a break?"

I shrug. "Sure, if there's nothing else to be done?" Strictly speaking, we are due a two-hour long break each day, but reality hardly ever keeps up with regulations. The fighting in France, keeping up throughout the second half of September and right into October, meant that in the past few weeks, I had a break on maybe half of my working days.

"Go ahead. It's fairly quiet today and we don't expect another transport. Ideal conditions to take a break for once. It is nice, believe me. I managed to write an entire letter this morning, without any interruptions!" She raises her eyebrows comically.

I know only too well what she's talking about. All too seldom do we have enough time and quiet to write a letter all in one sitting. Mostly, it's a few lines here and a paragraph there, until, after the fifth day of having the letter sit there all accusingly, one just sends it off regardless, because really, there's no way it's ever going to get properly finished.

"Sounds like I'd better put that break to good use and write to my sister then, shall I?" I wonder aloud. "I've been getting enough complaints from home about my letters being far too few and far too short as it is."

Having already turned to leave, I pause in the doorway. "Keep an eye on the man in the sixth bed on the right, will you?"

"Did he say something?" Miss Talbot enquires, suddenly alert.

I shake my head, slowly. "No, not exactly. He doesn't say anything at all, and to be honest, somehow… somehow that worries me."

For it is not those screaming loudest one has to worry about. Often, it's the quiet, polite ones that do not want to cause any inconvenience, Sister, no really, it's fine, whom one has to keep an eye on. It's them who, after having assured you they are perfectly alright in one moment, die on you the second you turn around.

"I'll look out for him," promises Miss Talbot, "and now, off you go!"

Well, it would be impolite to have her prompt me another time, so, with a little wave, I set off, hastening through the ward. The cheeky calls – heart-ache jokester being loudest of all – I have learned to ignore, glad as I am to hear them. If they have the strength to be cheeky, they aren't feeling all that bad.

Already mentally composing my letter to Nan, I reach the front door of Taplow Lodge, where I almost run into Betty. Hurriedly, I take a step back, and take hold of her arm to stabilize her.

"Huh!" she smiles, "I guess I didn't look where I was going. Sorry for that!"

"Neither did I," I say. Once I am sure she is safely back on her feet, I let go of her arm.

Betty nods absentmindedly, apparently having put our near run-in behind her already. "Are you having a break as well?" she asks. "I convinced one of the orderlies to take me up to Maidenhead. I have to buy a present for Olive and could do with some advice. Polly is still on duty, though, to be honest, I would not expect her to be of much help anyway."

Polly is an only child and, understandably, has little to no experience in buying birthday presents for siblings. Her tastes, too, are very… well, unique.

The thought of that letter for Nan makes me hesitate. I really should write it and yet… I'd just have to explain again why I've had no opportunity to visit Jerry up until now. Hardly invigorating prospects. So, "I'd like to come."

Betty smiles – Betty often smiles. "Great! Just go and take off your apron. We'll be waiting."

I hasten to get rid of the apron and get my coat instead. Not five minutes later Betty and I are seating in the back of a small lorry, being driven by the orderly Betty has recruited as our personal driver. It's the only way for us to get anywhere during those two hours of break time. The walk to Maidenhead, even at a brisk pace, takes an hour on a good day, and even the village of Taplow is reached only after about thirty minutes of walking. It hardly needs mentioning that Polly considers our rural placement a personal insult!

"So, how is your brother?" Betty asks, as we are leaving the hospital area.

I raise an eyebrow at her. "Which one?"

"Any. All", Betty says, laughing.

She was talking about Walter originally, I think, for she has shown rather a lot of interest in his well-being in recent weeks. She has never met him, of course, but she was with me when news of his illness had reached me, so she probably feels responsible in a way.

So, I answer, "Walter is recovering, if slowly. He appears to be over the worst of it, but the fever keeps coming and going. I expect it will take some time yet before he'll be back on his feet."

"Classic trench fever," Betty nods knowingly. "It's sneaky. Just when you think it's gone, it has a habit of coming back."

I nod slightly, because by now, I am a veritable expert on all things trench fever. "At any rate, he hates it as much as Jem hated his acquaintance with dysentery."

Betty takes up this new thread. "How's Jem then?"

I give a small shrug before replying, "Quite well, as far as I know. He's well and truly sick of the Mediterranean by now, though you wouldn't know it from the letters he writes. It's always a case of reading between the jokes with Jem."

"Hm," with what thoughtful sound Betty falls silent for a moment. I don't think she has given up every last bit of hope of being posted to more exotic realms and my every mention of Jem reminds her that reality has but little resemblance to her idealistic notions. Usually, she is quick to change the subject after any such mention.

And… yes. "How's your brother-in-law, then? Jerry?"

Jerry. I sigh softly. "I don't know, really," I admit. "He hardly ever writes. Not that he ever wrote to me all that often, but according to Faith she almost never hears from him anymore and even Nan only ever gets maybe two or three letters a month when, before, he wrote to her almost daily."

Betty frowns, considering my words. "Curious", she murmurs.

"Yes, something is curious. Moreover, though I didn't mention this to Nan, he's been in hospital far too long by now. In my experience, he should have been released weeks ago. He had been wounded in the arm, mostly a flesh wound with no infection to speak of. I can't imagine that, almost six months on, he's not recovered enough to be sent on to a convalescent home, at the very least."

"You're the expert on wounds," Betty concedes, her frown deepening, "Though I tend to agree with you. It is very long."

Sighing, I continue, "I so want to visit him and I know Nan expects me to. But I don't have to tell you it's just not possible right now. Getting that day off to visit Walter was hard enough and they won't give me another day to go and see Jerry. And those half-days are too short to take the train all the way to Kent, even more so, as those timetables are basically useless, what with them side-lining civilian traffic so often to make way for army trains!"

Pulling a face, Betty adds, "And besides, more often than not, we don't even get those half-days off. Once a week? Don't make me laugh!"

Which is certainly true. In theory, we are due an afternoon off every week, but in practice, as with the breaks, getting time off depends on the amount of work there is. If there's work to be done, work will be done. And, in recent times, work certainly was done.

Before I have a chance to reply though, the lorry comes to a halt with a splutter. Taking a look around, I am surprised to find myself in Maidenhead already. The orderly is already out of the driver's seat, rounding the lorry to open a door for us.

"I have to go get the stuff now. I leave in an hour. Not a minute later. And I don't wait up!", he warns.

"We'll be there," Betty promises with her sweetest smile – and Betty's smiles are very sweet indeed. "And thank you so much for having us come along."

I am not entirely sure, but didn't that orderly blush a little just there? Betty seems to have noticed as well, for, after he has turned, she quickly winks at me. I watch him climb back into the lorry, while Betty lights herself a cigarette. She smokes a few a day and, when someone comments on it, she just shrugs and declares it to be her only known vice.

"Alright. Where do you want to go?" I ask, once the cigarette is safely lit.

Betty gives a nonchalant shrug. "Just taking a stroll, I guess. I need a present for Olive, but I have no idea what I want to buy for her. I figured I'd let myself be inspired."

To what extent a small market town such as Maidenhead, after two years of war, can hope to be 'inspiring', I do not know, but if that's the plan, it sounds fine with me. Really, I am here only to put off writing that letter to Nan for a day or two longer yet.

"Olive's the middle sister, right?" I ask, as we start walking down a narrow road.

Betty takes my arm. "That she is. Edith is thirteen, Olive is just turning eleven and Myra is eight. And the little prince is all of five years old."

Her smile now is tender as she thinks of her younger siblings. Looking at her, no-one would ever guess that the four of them are, strictly speaking, only her half-siblings. At least it serves to explain the age difference between them. Charlie, the little prince, is, after all, nineteen years younger than Betty.

Whatever happened to Betty's own father, I do not know. Whenever the topic is broached – or, really, just touched upon – Betty makes sure to avoid it. At first I simply suspected him of having died an early death and her of still grieving too much to talk about him, but then I noticed that particular gaze with which Polly always considers and maybe… maybe, I think, him disappearing out of the lives of Betty and her mother might not have been all that accidental on his part. To put it like that.

"So, any idea on what Olive might like?" I turn back to the task at hand. We only have an hour, after all, and that present won't buy itself.

"Anything frilly and ruffled," retorts Betty with a grimace.

"Same as every eleven-year-old then," I say with a grin.

Betty puffs a cloud of smoke into the air. "Not you, certainly?"

I shake my head, laughing. "Oh, make no mistake about it. When I was eleven I dreamed of pretty dresses and a knight in shining armour!"

Betty eyes me doubtfully. "What happened?"

Life, probably. But you can't say that, can you?

"I realized one day that Nan would always be the most beautiful of us. After that, pretty dresses seemed to lose their appeal – and the knight just never materialized," I reply instead, flippantly, even though this answer, too, holds more truth than may be strictly comfortable.

For all my attempts to keep the mood light, Betty's expression suddenly turns thoughtful. "Do you get along well, you and Nan?"

I consider the question for several moments, before answering, not without hesitation, "Well enough, I suppose. She's my sister and I love her something fierce. So does she, I know, even if to be honest, we don't have all that much in common. I suppose I've grown closer to Faith over the years, regardless of her being 'only' my sister-in-law. And Di and I, well… at least we've both managed to scandalize the entire village with our life choices, so we've got that."

"How so?" asks Betty, sounding curious, as she directs me along another road.

"Di writes," I reply readily, "stories, articles, anything that earns money and then some. She started back in college and stayed in Kingsport after graduating, to make a job out of it. Which, all by itself, would not be half bad, were her articles not increasingly sympathetic to the plights of the working classes and the women's rights campaigners."

"Your sister is a suffragette?" Betty's eyes are wide and sparkling.

I allow myself a little grin. "That she is. Which, by the way, is also the reason why she enthusiastically supported my plans to become an army nurse. Ideologically speaking, of course, working women are right up her alley, especially in a world as dominated by men as the army is, but I suspect her real motives to be much more… personal, shall we say. To this day I remember the way she teased me, eyes all a-twinkle, 'Well, I am well and truly rid of the position as this family's morally questionable daughter now, am I? How could a few newspaper articles with socialist tendencies and the odd march for women's rights ever compare to – how did that horrible Mrs MacAllister put it? To you taking off and running after the army like some common harlot?"

"Ouch," Betty laughs, "not particularly nice."

"No, but true," I concede. "She was just joking, of course, and not even so much at my expense than at that of the Mrs MacAllisters of the world. Di honestly supports me very much, but the good people of Glen St. Mary were collectively scandalized by my decision. I reckon Di would need to jump in front of a racehorse now to surpass me once more as the morally questionable daughter."

Giggling, Betty halts in front of a shop window. After considering the goods for a moment, she drags me away, starts walking again.

"In any case, neither of us made our parents' lives any easier, that's for sure. Nor did Walter, come to think of it, what with his inexplicable leanings towards incense and myrrh," I conclude, following her down the road.

A moment passes, then, abruptly, Betty asks, "Do you ever regret it? Coming here? Leaving your family?" She has come to a halt again, her gaze firmly fixed on the window of a shoemaker's shop. Seeing as this is hardly the place to get a proper present for Olive, I conclude that she simply does not want to look at me. Instead, she pulls frantically at her cigarette, the ashes falling to the ground at an alarming rate.

I take a second to collect my thoughts before answering, carefully, "I miss them. Every day and sometimes like crazy. But… they don't need me. That, I think, makes it bearable. I haven't left anyone who depends on me."

"Not even your parents? Your mother?" Betty wants to know, still seemingly fascinated by the shoeshine and bootlaces. This, evidently, is not about me.

"They miss me too, or, you know, I certainly hope so." My quip though, does not get a reaction, so I turn serious again. "They might miss me, but they do not need me. Perhaps, if everyone else had already been gone, things would've been different, but that's not the case, is it? Jem closed down home and office the moment war was declared and resettled Faith and Ian from Lowbridge to Ingleside. Nan, too, came back from Summerside after Jerry had left for good. Truth to be told, Ingleside hasn't been as, well, full for a very long time, especially since the births of Sara and Connie."

Betty nods, absentmindedly. She lets the cigarette drop to the ground, crushing it with the heel of her boot. Then, suddenly, she turns away from the shoemaker's shop and I have to hurry to keep pace with her.

Walking swiftly, I continue, "Besides, I don't see why I should feel especially guilty about leaving. If I have a responsibility towards my parents, then so do my siblings. The boys went overseas, same as me, and Di didn't go home either, did she? What's more, she moved to Toronto last year, to live with a friend from college, and in its own ways, Toronto is hardly closer to the Glen then Europe is!"

"It's easier for you, I suppose. You are all grown up. You can share the responsibility", Betty says, quietly.

And she can't. Edith might be older now than Betty was at her birth, but in the eyes of the big sister though, she is but a child yet. And she will never be quite grown up to be trusted to support their mother in the way Betty herself has done.

"Do you regret it, then?" I ask, softly.

First, an angry shake of the head. Then, almost imperceptibly, a nod. Finally, a frustrated shrug.

"I don't think so. Not really. It's just that sometimes I wish I could be here and back home. I want to be here, to be doing this, only… when I think of all the work mum has with the children, I'd also like to be back there to help her." She sighs heavily.

There's nothing I could possibly say in reply, for how am I to try and judge her position, so utterly different from my own? So, instead, I gently squeeze her arm and am rewarded with the ghost of a smile in return.

"It's quite alright," Betty assures bravely. "I am just being melancholic, I guess. Don't take me all that seriously, please. It's probably just Olive's birthday coming up and me realizing it'll be the first one I will miss."

For a moment, her eyes looks suspiciously wet, so I do the only thing I can think of – distracting her.

"Then we'd better hurry to find the very best of presents for Olive, don't you think? That lorry leaves after exactly an hour and the driver does not wait!" I do my best to imitate the driver's voice and, though Shirley is the mimic amongst us, I do a passable job. At least it gains me another smile from Betty.

"Too right you are. Let's find the very best of presents for Olive!" she exclaims with new-found vigour.

Resolutely, she marches towards a little shop, pushing open the door to go inside. I hasten to follow, the best to support her in finding that present, even though it must be clear to both of us that no present, however amazing, could ever compensate Olive for her big sister missing her birthday.


The title of this chapter is taken from the song 'Good-bye-ee!' from 1915 (lyrics and music by R.P. Weston und Bert Lee).