Charles Todd - A Bitter Truth

“Ah. A good name, Henri. Did he have blue eyes like yours?”

“No, they were not blue. There was brown in them.”

“Did you and Henri play games together?”

This time she nodded vigorously and began to list their games. I had finished examining her broken arm, which was healing well. It had been a compound fracture, and surgery had been necessary to reset it.

“My arm was broken too. Almost a year ago,” I told her as I helped her put hers back in its sling. Pushing up my sleeve, I showed her where my break had occurred. Her eyes grew large, and she touched it with a small finger.

“There is no scar,” she said, wonderingly.

“And the scar on your arm will also disappear. If you mind the Sisters and take good care of it.”

“Henri’s neck was broken,” she told me then. “There was no way to heal it.”

I could have taken her in my arms and held her close, but I smiled and said, “It didn’t hurt, you know. Necks are not like arms.”

She nodded.

At that moment, an Australian soldier strode by, a tall man, broad shouldered and fair. I stopped him and indicated the children. “Do you by any chance have chocolates, Sergeant?”

He grinned down at me. “I believe I do.” The children were staring at him, round-eyed, and watching as he dug into his kit. He came up with a very flat chocolate bar and handed it to me. I thanked him, knowing well that chocolates were treats even for the men. Hadn’t Princess Mary’s Christmas Gift in 1914 included sweets for those who didn’t smoke?

I handed the bar to the Sisters, to be shared with the children on the journey back to their convent.

As they prepared to take their leave, effusive in their gratitude, I hugged the children, then said to the younger nun before she turned away, “As a matter of fact, I’m looking for a child. She’s half English, and her father has been searching for her since her mother died.” I described her, using Juliana’s portrait as my guide. “Have you seen her? Do you know where I could find her?”

But they hadn’t seen her, had no idea where I might begin to look.

“Convents from the north have been taken in by other houses wherever possible,” she told me. “And a few have been given shelter by benefactors. With so many children displaced by the war, it is difficult to keep proper records. Some are too young to know how they are called. And for others, like this little one”-she touched the head of a boy who must have been close to two years old-“there is no village name or family name.” She shrugged, that very Gallic shrug that said, What can one do?

I thanked them, and watched them go.

“That’s a bonny lass, that little one.”

I jumped, unaware that the Australian was still there just behind me.

“Yes, she is,” I said, wondering what life held in store for such children.

“If you ask me,” he replied, echoing my own thoughts, “those are the real victims in this bloody war-begging your pardon, Sister. I sometimes wonder what’s ahead of them. And what sort of men and women they’ll grow up to become.”

“At least these have found shelter,” I said. “That counts for something.”

“Does it? My best friend’s mother came out from England when she was seven. Taken from a poor house where her own mother had just died and consigned to a convict ship filled with thieves and whores and the scum of the prisons. She was raped before she reached Australia, and then served as an indentured servant to a family who nearly worked her to death. My friend’s great-aunt took pity on her and rescued her. She turned out to be a fine woman. She never spoke of her trials. She said she had put them behind her. She was the bravest woman I ever knew.” There was pride mixed with an old anger in his voice.

“She must have been, to survive.”

“My friend was set on going to England after the war is finished and finding the men who put her on that ship. But of course they must all be dead now. What’s more, my friend is dead. Killed last week. So, with any luck, he’s caught up with them at last.”

He touched his hat to me and was gone. I stood there, looking after him. And then the nursing sisters were calling to me, asking my help with a delirious patient who had taken a turn for the worse. From what I saw of his leg, swollen around the ankle and purple with gangrene, I knew it would have to come off, and soon. He wouldn’t make it alive to England otherwise.

Half an hour later a surgeon’s assistant came for him.

I spent my few days of respite asking if anyone knew of other convents in the vicinity that had taken in orphan children, but no one seemed to be aware of any.

One doctor, his apron dark with other men’s blood, said, “Why do you want to know?”

“Curiosity,” I replied. “I treated those five children who were here on Tuesday.”

“Hmmmph,” he answered. “Thought you might be one of those wanting us to take on the care of the civilian population. Leave that to the French doctors. We’ve got enough on our hands as it is, trying to save the men who get this far.”

“What happened to the Corporal with the gangrenous foot?” I asked.

“Didn’t survive. Bled to death, in spite of all we could do. Just as well. When I got in there I could see it wasn’t just his foot we’d have to take, but the entire leg, if he was to have any chance at living. Too little too late.”

He nodded and walked away, leaving me standing there. I went back to my assigned quarters and bathed before lying down on my bed.

It was hopeless, trying to find that child. I couldn’t imagine that Roger Ellis would have had any better luck. Even though he had come back to France while he still had nearly ten days of leave. Had he looked then, or gone directly to his regiment? She was lost in a sea of humanity. Perhaps after the war-but that could be years away, in spite of what was being said about the Americans soon turning the tide. With their ships being destroyed by German torpedoes, how could they resupply themselves, or bring in fresh troops? It would, I thought wearily, be more likely that the Germans and their allies and the British and their allies would simply fight each other to a standstill, until there were no more men, no more shells, and no more bullets left on either side.

I fell asleep for a few hours, and then went back again to see if I could help. But there had been a lull in the long line of wounded being convoyed back to us, some of them on omnibuses painted khaki, and I finally had an evening to write letters home and indulge myself in a long, hot bath. If I could find someone to heat the water and haul it to my quarters.

I returned to the Front when my relief was up. On the third day, while bandaging the head of a young private who came from Sussex, I asked if he’d ever been to Ashdown Forest.

“No, Sister. I’d never left Eastbourne, until I joined the Army.”

“Do you by any chance know Captain Roger Ellis, of Vixen Hill, near Hartfield?”

His eyes brightened. “That I do. I served under him for a time. Took good care of us, he did. He said Sussex men must stand up for each other.”

It was a side of Roger I hadn’t seen before. “He’s liked by his men?”

“Trusted is the word. You always knew where you stood with him.”

Noting the past tense, I said, “Knew?”

He grinned. “Sorry. What was left of our company was sent along to another regiment to make up their numbers.”

“Then he’s still alive.”

“Oh, yes. There’s a rumor that he got to Paris one day. Bluffed his way onto a convoy. Went to see the dancing girls, someone said. Perhaps he did. Perhaps not. But he came back from Paris with a bottle of champagne. It was the most expensive he’d ever paid for, he said, and gave each of his men a taste.”