Shoreditch, London
December 1913
"Are you sure you don't want me to swing by the shops with you, Mum?" Caroline asked as she finished washing the breakfast dishes in the old stone trough they used as a sink.
"And ruin your Christmas present? I couldn't do that to you, love." her mum said walking up behind her and giving her a kiss on the head.
"You know I don't need anything! The rents are due soon and Dad hasn't been working as he should."
"You're a good girl, but don't you worry. I've been saving a couple of pennies from doing the laundry for a few o' of the neighbours."
"Mum…" Caroline lamented, drying her hands on the scrap of linen on the counter.
"Hush, now. I don't want to hear another word. You've been a hard-working girl and I want to treat ya."
"Thanks, Mum." Caroline sighed, leaning in to give her mother a tight hug. "I'll mind Da while you're out."
Her mother grasped her tightly by both her shoulders and gave her a long look, her blue eyes twinkling.
"We don't deserve you, girlie. Such a blessing you are."
"I love you, Mum."
"I love you too, duck. I'll be home in an hour to make the boys their supper. And then maybe we can share a cuppa, yeah?"
Both Caroline and her mother had been busy recently, working hard to pick up the slack for her father who had to stop working a few months back after his accident at the docks. With her younger brother Mick still trying to go to school and her older brother Davey, out at all hours doing God knows what, Caroline and her mother were the glue that was keeping their fragile family together.
She watched her mother go out into the cold through the ash-caked window as she bundled herself tighter against the sharp December wind. At least the winds provided a relief from the permanent factory smog that had settled into their street over the past week. Their whole family had developed a bad cough, and even though she was getting over the worst of it her younger brother Mick and their father's cough had settled deeply in their chests.
A rattling, hacking cough pulled Caroline's eyes off her mother who had just disappeared around the narrow corner of their back alleyway. She had grown up knowing not to disturb her father when he was in his own bedroom so as she tiptoed past the cracked plaster walls to the dark bedroom at the back where her parents slept, she could feel her body becoming tenser. "Dad?" She called out as she slowly opened the ancient, creaking door.
Her eyes landed on the mattress that was jammed into the corner of the windowless room where her father was illuminated by the small oil lamp on the bedside table. The red glow cast dark shadows across the space and turned his familiar face into a sinister caricature of the father she had once loved.
"Dad, you know you shouldn't be smoking with a cough that -"
"Ah fucks sake, Caro. A little smoke doesn't hurt none."
Maybe it wasn't the lamp that turned her father into this stranger of a man. The grimace that had permanently set on his face had erased the caring smile that she had now not seen in years. Knowing that arguing with her father when he was in this state would be fruitless she scanned the room, looking at the empty brown beer bottles scattered on the bedroom floor. Her mother had cleaned out half a dozen of the same bottles only last night if she remembered correctly. She hadn't understood why her mother still brought him the beer, both of them knowing how the drink affected him and she had confronted her mother earlier in the week when she caught her delivering more of the beer into her father's room.
"He'll get it one way or the other, love. So I best be the one controlling how much he can get his hands on." her mother had sadly remarked as she gave her a tap on the nose, her once brilliant blue eyes now dull with exhaustion and something far more worrisome that had been clouding her vision for months now.
Silently she began cleaning the bottles up, putting the clinking bottles in the apron she always wore around the house. As she leaned down beside the bed to collect the last empty she flinched as she felt her father's cold fingers grasp her wrist.
"That's your mother's job."
"She's gone out."
"Out?" He hissed.
"Popped round the shops for a moment. Don't fuss, she'll be back for supper." "
Who gave her the right to go spending all me coins."
"She's not. It's her hard-earned money she's spending."
"What'd you say to me girl?" He whispered, his fingers tightening harder around her wrist as he pulled her closer to him.
"Never mind, Dad. Forget it." And she meant it. Her father had a difficult time remembering anything these days, let alone a conversation he'd had after six beers.
"I'd get off that high horse miss before I get to tell your brother of your cheek. Have 'im knock you down a few pegs I tells ya." Her heart skipped a few beats as she eyed the open door, filling with momentary dread thinking that her brother had just come home. She tried her best to stay out of his way whenever she was home alone.
"I'm sorry, Dad."
"I bet you are." He seethed, releasing her wrist with a hard twist making her gasp.
"I'll be out scrubbing the windows." She replied in a low voice as she slunk out of the room without turning her back on her father's hard stare.
"Make sure your mother doesn't cook up that crap again for supper, or I'll toss it in 'er face."
Flinging the door shut against her father's vitriol, she sighed as she slumped against the wall, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to calm the waves of dread that lapped against her clenched stomach.
Only another half hour and Mum would be back. Everything will be alright when she returns.
Caroline spent the next fitful hour washing the few windows of the house, trying her best to avoid her father and think about the ways she could make a few extra pennies to help pay for Christmas lunch. Once the house was cleaned to the best of her ability, she looked over at the clock. Her mother should have been home by now, but luckily from her father's roaring snores, she knew he was fast asleep.
Wandering over to the meagre pantry to look for something to cook for supper, the shift horn blew, causing her to jump out of her skin. Half-past six. Her mother promised to be back a half-hour ago. She tried to keep her hands busy peeling the potatoes and carrots that she found to cook up a thin stew. Her father could moan all he wanted about the crap, but he could starve for all she cared if he was going to treat her Mum so poorly. She was getting sick of it all quite frankly. Her best friend Stella had just moved to the country to take on a pantry maids position at some family's third home. The idea of getting to live in the countryside to get paid to do all the things that she already did for free grew stronger in her mind by each passing day. But she could never leave her Mum to look after this mess of a family on her own she thought as she swung the cleaving knife down upon the last carrot with a crash, sending it sailing halfway across the kitchen.
"Fucking hell," she swore as she shook her head and crossed the dirt floor to pick it up.
As she did the front door opened with such ferocity that she feared that the windows would all crack out of their panes. But that would be the least of her worries once she saw her brother Davey dragging her keeled-over mother through the door.
Caroline sprinted towards them, grabbing her mother's sleeves to try to keep her upright. Only then did she notice the blood.
"What's happened?" she screamed as she helped her brother set her mother down on the kitchen table that she had yet to set.
"She's been shot!"
"How is this possible?" Caroline whimpered, looking at her mother's body and seeing the bullet hole that had pierced her chest.
"I saw her walking back from the market. I wanted to walk her home." her brother cried out, as he tried to place a cloth against the blood flow.
Caroline looked into her mother's closed eyes but saw her chest rising slowly.
"We need to get her to a hospital!"
"We can't fucking afford one. And we ain't going to take no charity from one either. You've always been one for healing. So get to fucking fixing her."
"This is serious, Davey. I can't heal this." she cried out again, her hands combing across her mum's clammy forehead. "
You better fucking try or else…"
"It was you they were going for wasn't it?" she screeched out again, knowing the dark paths that he brother had been winding down recently would eventually get them here. "Someone was trying to shoot you for all the shit you and your friends have been dealing in!"
"I would have gotten to them first if I had seen the bastard! I never meant for her to be hurt in all this." her brother roared at her from across the table, tears pooling in his eyes, his face red with anger.
"But look where we are." she seethed through her teeth, staring him down. "I'll do my best for her." Caroline agonized, gazing down at her beloved mother hanging by a thread. "But for her, and her alone."
—-
No° 4 Casualty Clearing Station
Calais, France
November 1917
Tonight was the night. The one that Caroline had been both dreading and wishing for with equal ferocity for the past three weeks. Like the months before it, the evening was going exactly to plan. All the doctors and senior staff were at their monthly regimental dinner. The wards were as quiet as they were going to get. The receiving tent was whittled down to only a few, high-spirited Blighty cases that were awaiting their return to England on their stretchers.
Caroline awoke fully dressed under the covers of her camp bed and eased her way out silently taking care to not wake up the sleeping nurses. Darkness shrouded the quiet camp as she stuck her head out and searched from side to side, checking to ensure her anonymity. The new moon shed no light, so she would have to find her way through the camp by senses alone.
Navigating off the duckboards to keep the pounding of her feet silent, Caroline whisked from tree to tree, hiding in the shadows as she made her way to her cache.
Just beyond the last tent, she heard a low murder of male voices accompanied by the whirring of a wheelchair along the wooden duckboards. Caroline froze, hoping that she wouldn't be seen as she had nowhere to duck behind as she made her final dash across the open lawn and into the forest beyond.
"Shh, hold on lads. There's someone up ahead." The first male voice called out, one that didn't match that of any doctor or orderly she had known at the hospital. Patients out of bed was a rather common occurrence and usually came with quite the consequences if reported to the higher-ups. Caroline thanked her lucky stars that in this instance, she had the upper hand.
Thinking quickly, she confidently stepped out onto the duckboards, hoping to shroud her face in the darkness of the surrounding hedges. Not even sensing her lack of nursing veil, as she focussed solely on the voices ahead and the weight of her apron weighing her down. No one could discover what she travelled with tonight. If they did it would be more than just a prison sentence. Potentially it would come with the judgement of the hangman's noose.
Tucking her loose hair that fell from her braid behind her ears, she bolstered herself against her fears and spoke out calmly into the night.
"Whoever is out here better find their way back to beds immediately."
She could see the outline of two men standing still and another in a wheelchair, their blue and white pajamas shining even in the near darkness. The men came to a stop a few feet in front of her and she began to recognize the men standing from the post-operative wards. Privates Smith and Mackay. Some of their top troublemakers. Which could only mean…
Her eyes slipped to the man in the wheelchair being pushed by Private Smith.
Even in the dark, she could see his neatly combed golden hair and the whites of his teeth as his smile beckoned her into the night as if he had been expecting her. She had tried her best to avoid him over the past two days, trying to create space between him and the growing feeling inside her whenever she found herself at his bedside. Even despite the fact that she had seen the letters he was receiving from other women.
"Two can play that game, Nurse Robinson." Private Shelby's voice swept over her along with his eyes as she could tell he was taking in her free-flowing hair and lack of nursing uniform. Matron would be utterly horrified if she could have witnessed the exchange, but Caroline stiffened against his words, suddenly feeling more self-conscious than angry.
"I'm curious where you could be off to this time of night. Clearly, you aren't heading to your next shift."
"I don't see a single person not where they should be. Don't you agree, Private Shelby?" She challenged him, her eyebrows raised.
Silence reverberated between them until Caroline heard the familiar clink of glass bottles jostling against each other coming from the jacket of Private Smith.
Clearly, she had some unexpected competition when it came to relieving the Quartermaster of the contents of his warehouse.
"Fucking hell, Smitty." Private Mackay groaned, looking across to his sheep-eyed friend.
"I guess we best be getting back lads. Fun's over." Private Shelby sighed, staring at Caroline again. "Goodnight nurse. You be careful out there. I can't have something happen to my favourite nurse before she's finished her job." He said sincerely, patting his leg. Caroline became even more grateful for the darkness of the sky, hopefully covering the redness that splashed across her face that she couldn't account for as the cold. She nodded her head towards the men as they turned back towards the ward tent, feeling her heart rattle against her chest, her knees nearly buckling under the stress of coming so close to losing everything. Thankfully, this would be the last night she would ever have to do this.
Once the group of men were safely out of view, she took the last few long strides across the grass before she was swallowed up by the trees.
Buried under the roots of an old beech tree, she kept her monthly spoils. And as she finally found her way to it, her mind packed away all the other emotions that she had felt that night and focussed solely on the task ahead of her. Rolling up her sleeves to her dress she uncovered the hole with the blanket that she kept hidden with sticks and loose foliage. She always had visions of coming to retrieve her contraband to find it empty. But tonight, everything had been going to plan and the glass morphine bottles, wrapped in burlap lay untouched.
Her stomach clenched as she collected them and sat down on the grass. In a mere moment, she could be at peace again and the thought of returning to her bed and drifting off into a long sleep made her quicken her pace.
She grabbed all she could in one go and sat down on the grass, counting and making sure everything was accounted for. At the sound of rustling in the grass, Caroline bolted to her feet and scuttled into the shadows of the tree behind her. What if the men had tricked her, and roamed back into the night only to stumble upon her secret meeting spot? She wasn't sure if even she could talk her way out of the dubious circumstances that surrounded her. She held her breath, pressing herself against the bark of the tree, the shrubs around her ankles scratching her. As the adrenaline coursed through her, causing the tiny hairs all over her body to stand on end, she trained her ears to the sound, listening intently.
One rock thudded against the tree. Two. Three.
Swallowing hard and taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she smoothed down her hair before stepping out from behind the tree.
"You're late, sister," Caroline's brother Davey ground out in his low gravelly voice.
"If you had been waiting all this time, why didn't you come out earlier." she huffed, guided towards him by the glow of his golden incisor tooth.
"Quit your moaning girl and just show me what you got." he snipped as he walked up beside her, the familiar scent of rum and cigarettes flooding her senses.
This would be the last time.
She had practised this line relentlessly in her head for weeks now, ever since her last close encounter with the Quartermaster. She wasn't the same eighteen-year-old girl who had been forced into this role under her brother's request. He had been confident in her ability to steal from the hospitals where she would come to work at, a critical piece of the "company" he had been building up over the years. But as she told her last fateful day, she was only in it for her mother's sake.
"How many vials you got today then?"
"Five," she stated meekly, nearly recoiling already at the memory of the feel of his slap against her cheek or string of cutting words if she was lucky.
"Fucking five? Are you joking, Caroline? What the fuck am I to do with that?"
"Believe it or not, there is a war on and there are men out there who need this drug." She felt brave as she had never been able to find the courage to defy her brother.
"Don't you fucking have a go at me!" Her brother Davey had dodged joining up with some highly fabricated medical problems. However, always the entrepreneur he concocted the idea of how the family could still run the business even with her other brother Mick, and their multitude of cousins had joined up and was fighting all over the Western Front.
Caroline was one of the cornerstone pieces of their business model, without her compliance the whole thing crumbled. And she made sure her brother was reminded of this often enough, which explained why she had come out of this situation so far unscathed.
"I'm not a child anymore, Davey. I've seen things done to the human body that makes your beatings look like child's play. I've seen wounds and psychological ruination from this war that have made me realise that you are nothing but a backstreet urchin and a cad." She tested her newfound strength, relishing in the power that she finally had over her brother.
His nostrils flared and his fists balled up at his side, but for now, they stayed there. Her flesh untouched.
"What else is there?" he finally said after a moment through gritted teeth.
"About fifty packages of cigarettes, twenty chocolate bars, a few more medical supplies…" she trailed off, trying to sound bored. "And these," she added ominously, pulling two shiny new pistols out of her pocket which she had hidden there earlier in the day.
Davey's eyes flashed like a dragon protecting his hoard. Taking the guns had been without a doubt the most reckless thing that she had done. But she knew that she needed something worthwhile to break the chain of her brother's hold, and he spoke the language of guns better than he did English.
"You've outdone yourself," he said, leaning forward to snatch a gun from her with his dirt-covered hands.
"I would think not," she snapped, taking a sharp step back from his reach.
"You sure know how to piss me off."
Caroline laughed, enjoying the feeling of getting under his skin when she knew there was little he could do about it.
"This is all getting too dangerous, Davey. The hospital is getting busier each week and it is only a matter of time until I am discovered."
"Ain't see why that'll be my problem."
"Really?" her eyebrows lifted as her voice became artificially sweet, "you don't think when I am caught that the first thing I'll say is that there is a small dinghy moored in a tiny cove off the coast of Calais every month on the new moon? That there will be a man captaining it with a gold tooth, a man named David Rivers who is a criminal sought after in most boroughs of London?"
"You bitch," he seethed and she could tell that maybe she had gone too far this time.
There was no way of controlling him once the anger broke inside of him, and there would be no one to save her if she screamed. Her finger tightened slightly on the smooth trigger of the gun in her hands. Neither gun was loaded, but Davey didn't know that and it made her feel safer all the same.
"I could tell them everything." she continued, buoyed by the power she knew she held over him. "That on the dinghy there will be stolen goods from all over France, taken from the King himself. This will be the last time I do this Davey. Take the morphine, take the guns. All of it is yours. But you won't meet me here again, am I understood?"
"You think that because you've taken on their posh fucking accent that you're one of them now? That you're better than me? Better than your family? What about Mum?"
How she wished she could speak her mind at this moment. And tell him that the answer to both questions was a resounding yes, she was better. And she was making an honest life for herself that wouldn't end when the war did.
"You'll never be one of them, Caroline Rivers. Never. No matter how hard you beg. Don't forget that. No matter how far you run I will always be watching every single fucking step you take. And if the coppers ever get tipped off, I'm coming for you." he raged as the spittle flew from his mouth while he jabbed his trembling finger in her face. ''Best believe me, you're a dead woman."
Her hands shook as she lifted up the pistol in her hands and more a moment a flash of fear echoed across Davey's eyes.
"I said take them."
The guns dropped heavily on the ground in front of his feet as she turned her back on her brother and took long steps into the night. She stopped before fully disappearing into the darkness and without turning her head back to speak to her brother she called out, "don't you ever fucking come back here, Davey. Go find someone else to do your dirty work, because it ain't gonna be me no more."
"There is she," he cackled, "remember that, you can't ever shake off where you come from."