Andrew Wareham - The Balloonatics - A Tale of the Great War

“Looks like they will get her, Adams. Good. We are losing height, very slowly. Be ready to throw out anything that has weight. Lewis first. Spare pans after that. Try to keep the Aldis. Not much else to dump, when you think of it.”

They were at five hundred feet and sagging when Adams identified Plymouth harbour.

“Give them three red flares, Adams. Emergency.”

“They are signalling us to come to the quayside, sir, in what looks like a fishing harbour. About half an acre, sir!”

“Sod it! Better get it right first time. Be ready with the trailing rope. Aerial in.”

Narrowly over the masts of anchored fishing smacks and the rope dropped onto land and grabbed by dozens of hands.

“Engine off, sir!”

Peter had dropped into a half doze, snapped awake, performed the necessary acts, switches off and petrol cock shut.

The nacelle was hauled to earth and Peter tried to stand.

“Can’t get up. Adams. Going to have to be lifted.”

He heard voices.

“Like a bloody abattoir in the cockpit! Pull him out. Carefully!”

He was tugged up and onto a stretcher, felt men running him to an ambulance.

A few minutes and he was in some sort of hospital, he could not tell what. His clothes were being cut off, to his indignation – that had been an expensive uniform.

“Don’t worry, sir. You won’t be needing that again. Now, you will feel a sharp prick and we shall take you to the table.”

He fell asleep, wondering what the voice had meant.

He woke slowly in a hospital bed. He hurt. There was a face to his left. He turned a little and blinked.

“Josephine! How did you get here so quickly?”

“I have been here for a day – you have been asleep for two.”

That seemed very silly, somehow. He managed a smile.

“Your mother is at the hotel. We have been taking it in turns to sit at the bedside.”

“Oh. Did you think I was going to die?”

“You lost a lot of blood and your leg was badly injured. It was possible…”

She did not say that at one point it had seemed likely.

“Oh. Things seem to hurt a bit… Do you think…”

“I have called for the nurse already. She came in and left to find a doctor, a couple of minutes ago. You dropped off to sleep again for a little while.”

A bustle and a senior doctor arrived, ward sister and three nurses in his train to emphasise his importance.

“Commander Naseby! You are with us again. We had wondered how much longer you could sleep, sir!”

“Needed it, doctor. Eighteen hour patrols. Too many of them.”

“One is too many of that sort of thing, sir! Ridiculous to demand that of any man! Not to worry, you will not have to consider them again. Might as well be blunt – you are not the sort I need to pussyfoot around!”

It occurred to Peter that the doctor was a pompous oaf. He thought it wiser not to say so. He smiled politely, indicated the doctor should continue.

“We have taken your left foot, just above the ankle. The ankle and the bones on either side of it were shattered, impossible of repair.”

“I saw bits of white sticking out, sir. I wondered what I would have left.”

Josephine was green in the face, the imagery too much for her.

“Nurse! Best escort the young lady out. She needs fresh air.”

They watched Josephine as she walked away, straightening her shoulders, gulping in a deep breath.

“Been at your side since she got here, Commander. Strong girl. You are a lucky man, sir.”

“I have long thought so, doctor. So! No left foot. What else?”

“Laceration to the abdomen – stitches, sore, leave a scar, unimportant. Rub goose grease on it to keep the skin supple – old fashioned but it still works. A single bullet hole on the right calf which is a damned nuisance. Leaves the right leg weakened for the while, just when you need it to compensate for the left. Other than that, nothing. You will experience considerable pain for a few days, lesser for months. I will give you a morphine injection today which will take all of the pain away. I shall probably repeat the dose tomorrow, and then it will be finish. Morphine is a dangerous friend. Far too easy to become addicted to the stuff! Thousands, literally, in the States after their Civil War. Many hundreds – how many we don’t know, never counted – after the Boer War. Too damned many already in this war. You won’t be one of them! There are pills, and I shall prescribe them. They work to an extent. Live with pain for six months, Commander. It will go away in that time. The alternative is to live with morphine for perhaps five years and die a useless wreck, no good to yourself or anybody else!”

“That is plain speaking, doctor. Thank you. I much prefer that to, what did you call it, ‘pussyfooting around’.”

“Thought you would, Seen one or two of your sort already this war. Not many – there are very few like you, Commander.”

“What is the chance of an artificial foot, sir?”

“A prosthesis? We shall supply one. It will take a shoe and seem normal under a pair of trousers. You will not walk freely on it – no ankle! Regrettably, you will walk less easily for the rest of your life. Resign yourself to sitting whenever possible. Watch your food. It will be easy to grow fat.”

“So it will. If you don’t mind, doctor, I might appreciate that morphine just now.”

“Good idea. Back to sleep. You will feel lousy when you wake up in the morning. It will get better.”

“Vice Admiral Molyneux, commanding Plymouth.”

Peter looked up at the large braided and ribboned figure stood beside his bed at the head of a train of flunkeys.

“Sorry, sir, I can’t sit up straight yet.”

He was laid back in a nest of pillows, a cage over his missing foot to protect it from the weight of blankets.

“Don’t be a bloody fool, boy! Of course you can’t! Ridiculous to expect you to. Even an admiral wouldn’t demand that!”

There was a subdued titter from his staff.

Peter noted that the admiral was a humourist who must be allowed his little jokes.

“Wanted to get a look at you before they cart you off out of my domain. You did damned well, you know. My three destroyers finished your submarine – it couldn’t get away, leaving a trail of oil wherever it twisted and turned. They bombed it until it had to come to the surface; finished it off with the guns then. As far as we are concerned, the glory for the kill is yours. If you had not remained on site, despite your foot being blown off, they might never have found the oil – it was only a trickle. You are finished for the Navy now, more’s the pity. You could have picked your own command after this, you know. The newspapers are having fits about it, naturally. I believe you are to be promoted post captain before they give you the old heave-ho. Retirement to the Sick and Hurt, they used to call it. Main thing is, it will give you a far better pension, which is always a thought. What else they will do is not up to me to say.” He gave a theatrical look over his shoulder, to more titters. “I’m off, because if I am not much mistaken that is your good mother, who looks like you, and a young lady who don’t look like your sister. No need for me hanging around the place. My congratulations, boy!”

The admiral thrust out a hand to shake and then came to the salute before turning away bowing and smiling to the pair of ladies and the nurses accompanying them. His mother responded graciously, evidently regarding bumptious admirals as not quite the thing.

“The doctor says you can be transported to the hospital in Ewell, Peter. He wants you to stay in for another week, just in case. It is possible, it seems, that there might be a splinter of bone or some foreign material in the leg just above the amputation point. Not very likely, but if there is it must be removed as soon as it shows, so they want you in and having the dressings changed twice a day for the week.”