Mademoiselle Nurse WW1

Mademoiselle Nurse WW1

Copyright oggbashan October 2022

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

Some of the conversations would have been in French or German, told in modern English. Because some of the action takes place in France, measurements are in metres. It won't make any difference to the story if you read yards instead of metres. A kilometre and a half is roughly a mile.

+++

"Angelique? I can't go any further. I'm tired out and hurting."

"It's only another fifty metres, Simon."

"It might be but that is fifty metres too far."

Mademoiselle, actually Angelique, Madame Dupont, was originally a volunteer nurse when the war started. She passed examinations and now is a paid rehab nurse at this hospital. She had been assigned to me to help with my recovery after losing a foot and lower leg. We had walked out two hundred metres in the grounds and were on the way back but it was too far on my new wooden leg and foot.

"You can do it, Simon."

"You're a tyrant, Angelique. You drive me too far, too fast. I can't do it."

"You can, Simon. If you do, I'll kiss you."

"You will? That is something worth an effort for. I'll try..."

I didn't succeed. I had to stop and sit down for a quarter of an hour at twenty-five metres. Angelique kissed me anyway.

She was assigned to me to help me to walk. Our ultimate aim was for me to walk to her father's farm a kilometre and a half away and back. At present that seemed an impossible dream, but I had been using this artificial leg and foot for only a week.

+++

Four years earlier.

"Mum? You know how desperate the family's finances are. Josh and I have only had three months work each this year, and Dad just eight months. The winter is coming when any work for farmworkers is difficult. You have two sons and two younger daughters to feed."

"But joining the Army? You could be killed."

"If I, or we are, that would be fewer mouths for you to feed and you would have a small pension. We don't intend to be killed. We should do well in the Army. We are better educated than most Army recruits. We can shoot, manage horses and even drive a car - possibly."

"But when you two got scholarships to the grammar school we had hoped for better, Simon."

"There aren't any jobs for our education locally, Mum. You know that. We've tried in Norwich. There aren't many vacancies there either and we would have to live away from home. That would cost more money than we could afford. The Army would provide accommodation and pay and we could get promoted. Our records from the school's Cadet Force will help."

How could I get Mum to understand? She can't afford to have us at home getting a few months' casual labouring work. The Army wouldn't pay much but anything is better than nothing. Dad's income is erratic. If we didn't grow our own vegetables, we might starve with six mouths to feed.

Two fewer, and those two providing at least some money by allocation, would take the family out of dire poverty to just being able to manage. What I didn't say, because I hadn't told her, is that office jobs in Norwich had turned us down, not because of our examination results, which were good, but because we were farm labourer's sons. We weren't the right sort. The Army didn't care. Anyone reasonably fit would do.

I'm nineteen and a half. Josh is two weeks short of his eighteenth birthday. We thought by joining the regular Army now, when war might happen soon, we should get promotion when the war started, and the Army would be full of volunteers.

Mum still wasn't convinced. She cried when both of us went by train to Norwich to the recruiting office. We intended to join the local regiment that was based in Colchester so when we had leave we could come home.

I was accepted straight away. Simon was told to come back in two weeks when he was eighteen instead of joining as a boy soldier, but he would be accepted then.

We had produced our Cadet Force records and certificates. The Army would write to our school for more detailed information, but we might start with allowances for having been proficient cadets. The recruiting sergeant was very pleased with two recruits that he thought were much better than those he normally dealt with. Both of us had had a perfunctory medical that lasted a few minutes and were passed A1.

I was given a railway pass to go to Colchester. I said goodbye to Josh but would see him again in about two weeks' time.

At the barracks I was fitted with my uniform and allocated to a barrack block. A corporal was detailed off to 'look after me'. I didn't need much looking after. The cadet forces' annual camps had been run like an army unit. By the end of the second day, I was familiar with the routine and undergoing training. Again, that was easy. I had done much of that as a cadet.

I impressed the instructors with my rifle skills, so much so that they tested me for expert rifleman before the end of my first week. I passed, not missing a shot even if one was two inches away from the bull at six hundred yards.

At the end of the second week, when I was expecting Josh to join me within days, I was called to the Regimental Sergeant Major's office.

I saluted him and stood at attention.

"Stand at ease, private," he said.

"I, and some of the officers, have looked at the reports from your training instructors, Simon."

I was startled. I didn't expect the RSM to use my Christian name.

"All of your instructors have not just marked you as 'good' but 'exceptional', Simon. That is almost unique for two weeks. Your school's report on your cadet force experience was equally outstanding. If you had been a gentleman's son, you would be considered for the officer training course. But you're not, are you, Simon?"

"No, Sir. My father is a farmworker."

"I know. It is shown on your recruitment forms. If the army wasn't so class conscious, perhaps you would become an officer."

He sighed.

"But as it is now? You wouldn't be accepted. That's just how it is. However, the regiment is pleased to have you. You have been recommended to become a corporal -- now."

"Sir?" I queried.

"I know. It is almost unprecedented. But as from now, Private Simon Paget is Corporal Simon Paget. Here is your stripe. Congratulations."

"Thank you, sir. What happens now?"

One of the sergeants in the outer office will take you to the six men you will be responsible for. They are all long serving privates who are good soldiers."

"Long serving good soldiers who are still privates? Is there anything I should know?"

"A good question, corporal. They lack your education. They lack almost any education. Two of them can't read. The other four might be able to read like an eight-year-old. As for arithmetic? If they want to count clips for their rifles and the number is more than their fingers? They're in trouble. They also lack ambition. The are happy to be privates with no responsibilities. But on a battlefield? They can act like good soldiers and do."

"Thank you, sir. I'll try to help them. I am sure they will try to help me too."

"They will. That is why almost all new corporals get them for a while. They, and others like them, are the strong backbone of our regiment. They will do what they are told to do and do it efficiently."

"Thank you, sir."

"OK, corporal. Dismiss. And get your stripe sewn on soon."

+++

Three months later, Josh had also joined the regiment. He was made a corporal within six weeks -- still fast but not as fast as me. He now had the six men I had trained with. I, and now Josh, had worked with them to improve their reading skills. They had moaned at first but gradually saw the sense. The two who hadn't been able to read were at a six-year-old's level and eager to progress. The other four had improved to a twelve-year-old's level and that is when most children's education stopped in 1912. Their arithmetic skills were more difficult because Josh and I had been spending so much time on reading. Given another six months? Perhaps.

I had volunteered for any training courses available. I was now a qualified driver and working on vehicle maintenance. I had also taken any examinations possible. Most, because of my education, were stupidly easy. My training and examination results meant I might be considered for sergeant soon, particularly as the regiment was expanding and working with local Territorial units.

Our allocations of pay as corporals had made a real difference to our family. They totalled more than our father's earnings. Our two sisters had moved on from school to a secretarial training college and had learned to type. Neither Josh nor I spent much. We had a few beers a week in the corporals' mess. We had opened Post Office Savings accounts and had financed a typewriter for the sisters to use at home, and on easy payments, our mother now had a Singer treadle sewing machine. She was making money from dressmaking.

The squire had been very pleased when we came to the village church in uniform. He had helped with our costs at grammar school and felt that was money well spent. Through him, my father was able to start buying our cottage home. He had a mortgage from the farmers' friendly society and the squire had set a low price that was affordable.

+++

By the Spring of 1914 both Josh and I were sergeants. Our pay seemed fantastic compared with our meagre seasonal earnings as casual farmworkers. At least half the mortgage had been paid off since the elder sister was now earning as a typist.

But we knew war was coming and our regiment might be the first into battle. We were, joining the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) landing two days after the first troops. We were soon in battle in Belgium, defending the British retreat through Belgium. I and my men were on a railway embankment. We had decimated a German Cavalry attack with fast aimed fire from our Lee-Enfields.

Simon and his men were about a hundred metres away when the first German infantry started appearing, preceded by an artillery bombardment which was poorly aimed. We held them back for a couple of hours until their machine guns were placed. Their artillery became more accurate, and we had to retreat. I stayed with my two corporals as my men ran away at the double. After killing about ten more Germans we slid down the back of the embankment and ran for it.

We were about twenty metres from a wood when one of my corporals was hit in the leg. Josh and I carried him. I was pleased to see the six old soldiers manning a trench just inside the tree line.

"Take him back, sergeant," One yelled. "We'll hold off them Boches."

We took the corporal to a field dressing station and returned to the trenches. Our regiment held on for about three hours before we had to retreat as the Germans had pushed other units back.

The next few days were dreadful. We were constantly on the move in retreat. Every day a few of men were wounded and we had to carry them. The dead, we just left where they fell. Eventually, we reached a solid trench line and could stop, exhausted. Only then could we count how many we had lost. It was too many.

But for the next week we were digging furiously as the German shells rained down on us. So many men were just blown to pieces with nothing left to bury.

A month later Josh and I were surprised that we were still undamaged except for a few minor cuts from shrapnel. Those we could deal with ourselves. But I had two men left and Josh had three. The rest were either dead or too wounded to stay in the front line.

Our regiment was relieved, and we went to a back area. We had to accept barely trained volunteer recruits to bring the regiment up to strength. They seemed so young and willing and knew nothing of what they would have to face. The BEF had lost too many skilled professional soldiers.

+++

By the start of 1916, both Josh and I had become temporary second lieutenants, and confirmed in that rank a few months later. Only one fifth of the men who had been with us as part of the BEF were still with the regiment. The rest had either died, been seriously wounded, or transferred to other new regiments as battle hardened soldiers to provide experience to new recruits.

At the start of the second battle of Ypres both of us were officers attached to a Canadian regiment when they were attacked by Chlorine Gas. As the attack started Josh and I were standing on a small knoll, originally tree covered but now with just a few scattered stumps. We had a better view of the battlefield. We had a telephone link back to the Brigade headquarters.

As the cloud started spreading, at first we thought the Germans were going to attack under cover of a smoke screen. We soon knew we were wrong. The green cloud flowed across the trenches like an advancing flood. We knew from the previous attack that it was chlorine gas. We had been told to cover our mouths and noses with a cloth pad soaked in Bicarbonate of Soda.

It wasn't very effective. It might make the difference between dying or surviving with damaged lungs if the exposure wasn't too long. Many Canadians, running from the gas, climbed our knoll, but too many were dying, as were hundreds in the lower ground around us.

A group of Canadians, who had been among the first to run, brought two machine guns with them. They set them up as we sat on what had now become an island with a green flood all around us. We couldn't retreat from the knoll because that would mean entering the gas cloud.

We waited for the German attack as the only effective troops for hundreds of yards. Josh reported the gas attack to headquarters. We were told to stay where we were and do what we could. They would set up a trench stop line about half a mile back on higher ground that would be above the gas.

Half an hour later there had still been no sign of movement from the Germans. We suspected that their gas protection was as inadequate as ours and they couldn't advance into the gas.

Our machine guns had told the Germans where we were. They targeted almost all their artillery on our small knoll. We took refuge in our trenches, watching through periscopes to see if the Germans were advancing through the gas. One part of the trench where Josh and I were sheltering took a direct hit and the trench collapsed. We ran towards the next trench, but a shell fell near us. Josh was blown into pieces and I lost a foot.

I was dragged into the trench and had a tourniquet on my leg, followed by a large wound dressing on the stump. It was about four hours before the gas dispersed and the Germans could advance but so had our reserves. The Germans had gained about fifty yards. The Canadians had lost hundreds of casualties and even those that had survived would never fight again. The only sound troops were those with me on the knoll above the gas.

I was evacuated to a field dressing station and shortly afterwards to a back area hospital run by nuns of a French nursing order and French rehabilitation nurses.

My stump was cleaned up but needed the dressing changed about twice a day. A French nurse was assigned to look after me. I was pleased that the French I had studied at school, and the French I had acquired since the war started meant that she and I could talk easily, as I could to all the French staff.

She, and all the nurses were addressed as 'Mademoiselle' whatever their marital status. The nuns were all called 'Soeur' or 'Sister'. My nurse was actually Madame Dupont, the widow of a French soldier who had died defending Verdun. But soon I was calling her Angelique and she called me Simon. She told me that I had been sent to this French hospital because they dealt with the more seriously injured. I would have been sent much further away to a British hospital except that I was fluent in French.

+++

I had twenty-five metres to go to the hospital's front door, but a crutch slipped, my wooden foot caught on the ground and I started falling forwards.

I didn't fall over. Angelique was walking backwards in front of me, and she caught me as I started to fall, my crutches flying anywhere. My face met the bib of her apron, cushioned by her soft breasts. Her arms wrapped around me under my armpits and she heaved me up into a kiss. Another passing nurse retrieved my crutches.

"Suzanne? Can you get a bath chair for Simon, please? He's had it."

"Yes, Angelique."

A few minutes later I was suiting in the bath chair on the veranda in the sun. next to me, in another chair, was Hans, an officer from a Bavarian regiment who had lost both lower legs to a land mine. Hans and I were friends, initially because I was the only patient who could speak German.

Hans and I had a lot in common. We were both sons of farmworkers who had joined the army as privates before the war and had been promoted during the war to be officers. Hans' brother had been killed shortly before Hans was wounded. He was a prisoner of war but with two missing legs, even with wooden replacements, he didn't think he was going to escape. His war was ended, as was mine. Suzanne was his dedicated nurse, as Angelique was mine, but at first Hans could only speak to Suzanne if I interpreted for them. But now he could speak French, if not as fluently as I could, and my German was improving.

Angelique brought us cups of tea and sat down beside us.

"Simon? How can you be so friendly with Hans? He is your enemy."

"He was, Angelique. Not any more. We are both out of this war. Neither of us started it. We are both victims of it and will never be the same again. Like millions still fighting, we didn't want to go to war but would do our best while we still can. Hans and I can't."

"I wouldn't be so sure. For Hans? Perhaps. Even if he can walk well again, with two legs missing he would still be a prisoner of war. But you? You are a British officer. If you can walk? There are some roles you could still do - not in the front line of course but perhaps at a regimental HQ."

"Maybe. Do I want to? I'm fed up with this war. I've lost my brother, as has Hans. I'll always be disabled, so will he. Out families will need us after the war. Hans will survive. Will I? If I become an officer again, maybe not. If there is a significant German advance I couldn't run away."

"But in a few months if I keep pushing you to your limits, you might be able to walk away."

"I couldn't do two hundred metres out and back today, Angelique. It will take a long time of you encouraging me to go further before I could be an officer again."

"Even if I kiss you every time you do better?"

"That helps. But whether I can? After today I'm not sure."

"Hans here has done two hundred metres out and back today and he has no legs."

"Maybe, Angelique," Hans said. "But I have been here for a month longer than Simon. Suzanne had to catch me as I finished."

"But you did it, Hans. Suzanne is proud of you. And I am proud of Simon even if he didn't quite make it this time. He will -- tomorrow."

+++

I didn't. I took a week before I could walk two hundred metres out and two hundred metres back reliably. But once I was confident at that distance over the next weeks I pushed the limit each time. Sometimes I didn't quite make the return journey and had to stop but I could see, with Angelique's help, that eventually I would be able to walk further.

Angelique was always there for me even if she was a hard taskmaster. Her goal was for me to walk to and from her father's farm, one and a half kilometres away. If I could do that, I would be discharged from the hospital as being as fit as I ever would be.

Three months later Hans had been discharged and sent to an officers' prison camp. Angelique was pleased for Hans and Suzanne but pushing me each day to go further and further. Every time I succeeded a longer distance, she kissed me very effectively. The encouragement of the kisses was probably more of an incentive than her bullying.