Mademoiselle Nurse WW1

On the day I made a kilometre out and back, Angelique sat on my knee and hugged and kissed me fervently. I was enjoying that and Suzanne, when Angelique told her, kissed me as well. The two of them were my friends and with their help I hoped to be as mobile as I could be with a wooden foot.

A month later I announced that I thought I could walk to Angelique's father's farm. I did, and I was welcomed by her father and mother who had heard a lot about me from Angelique. Awkwardly, in their front parlour, I got down on my knees and proposed to Angelique. She was startled but her parents were beaming. She took some persuading. Did she want to marry a man with one foot, even if he was an officer? She asked whether I could support her.

I produced a letter I had received a fortnight ago. My promotion to First Lieutenant had been approved, backdated for six months (with back pay at the higher rank). When the hospital discharged me, I would return to Colchester to help train new recruits before they came to France. I would get accommodation, and if married, a house for myself and my wife.

"So, Angelique, will you marry me and be a British officer's wife? You'll be far from the war, as will I. We'll survive even if others don't."

She accepted my proposal and her parents produced some red wine to toast the newly engaged couple. Later they admitted to me that they had been worried about Angelique's future. Their farm was small and although it supported them and provided some cash income, it was doubtful that it could support three adults. Angelique's pay was more than the farm earned. If she ceased to be a nurse after the war? They would struggle.

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Three months later we had married in the village Catholic Church and Lieutenant and Mrs Paget were settled in an officer's house in Colchester. I was training the new recruits who seemed impossibly young and callow. Angelique was working in a local rehabilitation hospital and because she could speak French and German was assigned to French soldiers and injured German prisoners of war. At first she struggled to understand the French Canadians and found the Australians impossible. They used to tease her by lapsing into Aussie slang.

I still found my missing foot very tiring. After a whole day training recruits Angelique had to massage both my legs which had seized up. But I was very happy with my French nurse as a wife, and any doubts she had about living in England had long disappeared. She was loved by me, and all those injured men she worked with.

Some of them were very jealous of me. I knew I had made the right decision when I proposed to her. After the war, I had been discharged from the army with a pension as a substantive Major, but not even on the reserve as being disabled. I had an office job in Colchester. Apparently an ex-officer was acceptable when years before a farmworker's son hadn't been.

Madame Dupont, now Mrs Paget, remained a nurse because after the war so many men still needed rehabilitation. But she had rehabilitated me to be her loving husband.