Past Loves Ch. 11: Bobby and Hettie

11: Ypres, The Western Front, Belgium: July, AD1917

Bobby and Hettie

Pvt. Bobby Partridge sat, back up against a mouldering wooden plank board, trying to block out the sound of the endless artillery fire booming overhead. They had been firing for over a day now, gearing up for the next big push. The generals had assured the men that this time it would work. With amassed British and other Allied forces, superior numbers and detailed plans (which they had not deigned to share with them), this time it would work. They would charge out over no-man's-land, seize the distant ridges, push the Jerrys back into Germany and end this bloody war once and for all.

The men, of course, didn't believe a word of it, they'd seen it all before countless times. But all they could do was grumble, keep their heads down in their trenches and dugouts and try not to get shot today. At least the push would mean a change of scenery, would mean leaving the trenches with their pools of foetid water, rats, mud and dreary monotony. Some of the men pointed out that the change of scenery would most likely mean they would spend the rest of eternity looking at the inside of a wooden box but they tried not to think about that. Mostly Bobby spent the time thinking 'what the hell am I doing here?!'

Even back at home it had been obvious that the war was not going particularly well even with all of the bombastic propaganda the war department could throw their way. What had started off as a quick summer campaign over to Belgium had turned into three and a half years of hell on earth. So many men had come back to their towns and villages missing limbs or with distant haunted looks in their eyes, many just never came back at all.

Recruiting parties would come round every couple of months trying to drum up a fresh batch. They promised excitement, adventure, a fresh uniform, clean bedding and three hot meals every day. As the months passed, the supplies of new recruits dwindled further and further, those who did sign up were younger and younger. Many lied about their age, and at this point, the recruitment officers weren't looking too closely at the paperwork or asking too many questions. Even the standard physical exams had been dropped, so long as you could stand upright and hold a rifle in your hand, you were signed up. As the slogans said, they need every man they can get.

Which is why Bobby, having already seen two brothers and three cousins march off with the company colours on their arms, had decided that enough was enough and had signed up as well.

It had been a very simple matter for Bobby to cut off the long blond hair which she usually wore in a sensible bun behind her head. She had buried what she had cut away in the back garden. Apart from that, everything else was easy. Nature had not blessed her with a surfeit of feminine curves or particularly dainty features. At twenty-one years old, her body was still pretty much straight up and down and she was a little taller than average for a woman. Up until this point she had been disappointed with her lack of breasts, the two slightly raised mounds on her chest with their small pink nipples barely even merited the name. But it did make passing for a boy much easier. The same could be said for her hips, but she was quite proud of her small but firm well formed bottom.

Her face was angular, some would have said pretty but others might have said 'striking'. She had inherited a long nose from her father and a wide, thin lipped mouth from her mother. She had been told that she looked pretty when she smiled but these days there was little cause for that. All in all it had been very simple for her to strip off her skirts, don a pair of trousers and cut her hair, and the next person she saw in the mirror was a timid but stubborn looking young boy. The only remnant she kept of her past life was a small golden locket that she wore around her neck with a picture of herself in it. She didn't know why, maybe it was so that she didn't lose her true self completely to this masculine role she was filling. If anyone asked, she could say that it was a picture of her sister.

And so, on a dreary wet day in mid April, Roberta Clara Partridge had walked out of her mother's house to become Private Robert 'Bobby' Partridge. The recruiting officer had barely looked twice at her before handing her a slip for a uniform and calling the next in line forward. There were plenty of other young men in the line, some of whose faces didn't look like they had ever felt the touch of a razor either, Bobby fit right in. The uniform, far from being clean and fresh, had been dry and scratchy with several spots where clear bullet holes had been inexpertly sewn over. A dead man's uniform.

After that it had been a month of 'training' which mostly involved marching up and down in an open field outside of Brixton. Even during this brief foray into military life Bobby had easily managed to keep her cover intact, the men were very rarely required to appear wearing anything less than a shirt and underwear. Bobby had found that an extra pair of socks, carefully arranged, provided everything she needed to complete her disguise, and nobody looked too closely or asked any questions. It was possible, she had thought, that the officers knew exactly who and what she was. She could hardly have been the first woman to try such a stunt, and it was likely at that point, they just didn't care. Again, all you needed to be able to do was stand upright and hold a rifle.

After the 'training' it was a train down to Dover, then a ferry to Calais and more trains, and more marching ever eastwards towards The Front. According to some of the more well informed men in the unit, they were just south of a town called Ypres, which the Germans had already shelled into rubble. But a town was a town, and the ridges nearby were relative mountains compared to the flat endless plain of watery lowland that the rest of Belgium seemed to consist of. And so, they had their orders, they were here to take the heights.

- - -

Bobby glanced to her left and right and saw several other soldiers from her regiment sitting in very similar positions to herself, head down, unfocussed eyes staring into the middle distance. Because of her subterfuge Bobby had not gone out of her way to get to know the other men that she had been billeted with, attempting to play off her secrecy as shy timidity. But even so a certain amount of camaraderie had developed in the unit, it was hard not to form a bond with people that you practically lived in the pockets of for months at a time. It turned out that boys were pretty simple creatures deep down, as long as you appreciated a good dick joke and could sing along loudly to the latest raunchy songs out of the music-hall, you could blend in just fine.

She was pretty proud of herself that so far nobody seemed to be even a little suspicious of her true identity. And if they were then they hadn't said anything, either to her or the officers. She dreaded to think what would happen if she ever was found out, but then, would it be worse than being blown to bits by German artillery?

The mind-numbing effect that the endless barrage had on everyone was enough to make you want to stuff your ears full of mud. But even that wouldn't have been enough to stop the teeth-rattling recoil of the bigger cannons pounding away day and night. Bobby had only been at the front line for a day and a half and already she was sick of them. She couldn't even imagine what it must be like for the men that had been here since the beginning. Maybe you got used to it? Or went mad?

Movement further down the trench to her left told Bobby that something was afoot. Men were standing, turning to face the balustrade out into no-man's land, affixing bayonets. Oh God above, this was it, they were really doing it! Bobby felt the hot and cold stone that had been residing just inside her chest for the past week suddenly drop into her stomach and she felt sick and queasy. What the hell was she doing here? This was absurd! She could have just stayed and lived a comfortable albeit guilt-ridden life back home where nobody wanted to kill her. What on earth had possessed her to bring herself here?! Thoughts of ripping off her clothing and revealing her true identity right there and then just to get out of this mess ran through her mind, but she quickly chased them down with a healthy dose of stubborn bloodymindedness. Nobody was going to send her home now, not even herself!

Just then, the sound of the endless artillery stopped. In its absence the deafening silence that followed was somehow even worse, it was so quiet Bobby was convinced that everyone around her must be able to hear her heart beating like a bass drum inside her chest. A loud, piercing call split the quiet.

'Steeeeep forward!'

The Major at the end of the column called out, his thin reedy voice faltering in the still summer air.

'Approach parapet!'

Every soldier along the trench wall crouched just below the parapet wall, every muscle tensed.

'Ready men!... CHARGE!'

As one, with a scream of fear and adrenaline, every soldier along the line launched themselves up out of the trench and scrambled ungainly over the top. Bobby was third in line behind two other men who clambered up the short ladder before her and she gripped her rifle tightly to her chest with one hand as she grasped clumsily at the slick wood with the other to pull herself up. She just had to keep moving forward, she told herself. Already the thick sharp whine of bullets could be heard over the din of men shouting and the recursive distant booms of enemy mortar shells exploding out in no-man's-land.

Finally with one big pull, Bobby heaved herself up out of the trench, scrambled to her feet and began charging forward, adding her howling battle cry to the voices of the other soldiers around her. The world contracted down until all she was seeing was the five feet in front of her, making sure that she put one foot in front of the other, dodging debris and barricades and shell holes.

She even thought that she saw the shell which hit her coming. Saw it launched from the mouth of the German mortar. Saw its flight path up into the air, high above the rolling battlefield, until gravity re-asserted itself and sent it screaming back down towards the earth. She felt it coming, like the finger of a vengeful god looming down from the clouds to strike at her in particular. One moment she was running forwards over a slick wet duckboard and the next, the ground before her was ripped over by the detonation of the shell.

The impact of the blast sent Bobby flying backwards like she had been kicked by a horse. Time seemed to slow and her head was filled with a roaring ringing sound like an alarm clock in a tidal wave. She felt no pain, only the dull familiar feeling of her heart beating in her chest as she flew through the air. The next moment, the ground came rushing up to meet her with all of its unyielding solidity, her head cracked against an exposed bit of rubble, there was a flash of white and darkness overtook her.

- - -

It had been another heavy day of casualties at the 3rd Army Regional Hospital and Aid Station. It was impossible to calculate at this stage how many losses they had taken but for now at the closing of the first day of the assault, the beds, floors and even corridors of the building were filled with the prone forms of wounded men. Head Nurse Hettie Chambers picked her way gently through her ward in the early hours of the morning, inspecting a dressing here, offering a word of comfort there.

Her small candle-lit lantern offered her the only illumination she needed as she had walked these halls and corridors more times than she could count on her nightly rounds. Most of the men were deeply asleep, either exhausted or so filled with painkillers that they had no choice but to slip into unconsciousness. Most of them were so young, boys barely out of school, their youthful faces covered with dirt and their stubble-less cheeks drained of life and colour. She had seen so many of them pass through here, some walked in on their own feet, others were carried in. Some were carried out again, even fewer walked out.

The Aid Station had been here nearly since the beginning of the war and Hettie had come along with it. She had tended to any and all who passed before her. She'd seen them all, Brits, Belgians, French, Africans, Australians, Indians, even the occasional German, handcuffed to their beds and their eyes wide with a mix of fear and relief.

Despite the horrific circumstances she enjoyed her work, or at least felt like she was good at it. She worked hard to bring some comfort and relief to these often broken and shattered human beings that passed before her every day. For many of them she was the first female that they had seen in many months and despite their injuries they did their best to flirt and try it on with her. Hettie usually accepted this with good-mannered humour, reciprocating their flirtations where she could, if nothing else, to make them feel better. None ever stayed around long enough for her to form any real bond with these men, and if she was honest with herself, that was probably for the best.

Men had always been something of a foreign country for Nurse Chambers, like Australia, or Peru. Somewhere she had heard of, and read books about, and where there were many wonderful sights to see and experiences to have, but not a place she had ever, or would ever visit. She always excused her unmarried status to her mother as 'being married to her work', but inside, if she was honest with herself, men simply did not interest her. The only time that she had ever felt a modicum of excitement or interest in another human being in that way, had been during her nurse training years. A bright, dazzlingly beautiful fellow student named Jemima, who had stolen her attention and her heart, before she left her class and obliviously hooked up with a policeman.

And so Hettie had dedicated herself to her training and her job. She never thought it would come to this though. Two and a half years of mud, blood, bombs, bullets and bloodyminded slaughter. She'd seen more men pass before her than she ever would have expected to see in a lifetime of civilian nursing. It was hard, gruelling, dirty work, but someone had to do it and she was damn good at what she did.

As Hettie neared the end of her rounds, she checked in on room 2B, a small alcove secluded below the stairs on the northwest side of the building. The small room had only four beds in it as well as two temporary stretchers lying on the floor, all of which were occupied. This room was generally reserved for those soldiers whose wounds were not life threatening, and so could afford to be away from the immediate call of the doctors.

Hettie cast her dim light around the occupants of the room and her gaze fell upon a young soldier directly next to the door. The poor thing must have been barely old enough to sign up, there was not a scrap of stubble on the boy's chin. Even in sleep, their frowning pain-filled expression looked almost angelically pretty in the glow of her candlelight, like a saint in a stained glass window. He lay still and prone in only his uniform trousers and undershirt, the rest had been removed when he came in, with a thin woollen blanket to keep him warm. He appeared mostly intact, thankfully, but his head was wrapped up in a tight bundle of bandages, with thick wads of over either ear. Hettie had seen this before: burst eardrums from a close explosion and a head wound from being flung to the floor. He would probably never have his full hearing back again.

After glancing briefly at the other patients in the room, and seeing that they all appeared to be sleeping soundly, Hettie turned to leave. But just as she did, she felt someone grip her arm and stop her, she stifled a reflexive yelp and looked down to realise that it was the young pretty boy with the head wound who had woken up and was staring up at her with wonder-filled eyes.

'Are you an angel miss?' The boy said, his voice soft but croaky.

'No... No I'm not. My name is Nurse Chambers, you're in the hospital, you're safe.' Hettie replied. For a moment, a look of confusion passed across the boy's face, and Hettie realised that of course it was because he couldn't hear her. He groggily released her arm and reached up to feel the bandages covering his head. Hettie reached out and stopped him before he could start tearing at the wrappings, trying to uncover his ears. The young man's eyes were starting to fill with panic as he realised that he couldn't hear anything.

Very calmly and gently, Hettie pulled his arms back down to his waist and held up her free hand as if to say 'wait'. She reached over to the doctor's notes which hung on a clipboard off the end of the bed and quickly skimmed over the notes. The boy was Private Bobby Partridge, and yes, burst eardrums and a head injury. Likelihood of regaining full hearing... minimal. Just as she had thought. She came back to sit on the bed with the boy she now knew to be Bobby, held his hand softly in hers and held up the notes for him to read. More confusion passed over his face as his eyes skimmed the page, back and forth, reading and re-reading the notes as if willing it to be untrue.

Finally Bobby's eyes lowered and an involuntary tear ran down his face as he pushed the clipboard away. He looked up at Hettie, his soft lips twisted in a lost expression, as if he didn't know what to say. Hettie just sat there and held his hand, smiling gently down at him, as she had done countless times for countless young men just like him before. She squeezed his hand a couple of times in hers to let him know that she was there, and that he was going to be okay. His hand was soft and warm, with slender dainty fingers, almost feminine. His eyes, though filled with tears were bright and blue, with dark long lashes, his eyes met hers and would not look away, as if trying to read her thoughts because he couldn't hear her words.

Finally Bobby pulled his hand back and mimed out that he wanted to write. Hettie smiled and pulled out the notepad and pencil which had been left at the foot of the bed for just this occasion. Bobby gratefully took the implements and scratched out a quick couple of words on the first page.

'Your name?' He looked back up at her with those same sad blue eyes and Hettie felt a small part of her melt that she had long ago thought calloused and burnt out. There was something different about this young man, she couldn't put her finger on it, but she felt herself struggling to emotionally separate herself from him like the other patients. Private Bobby Partridge was different, somehow.

She took the notebook and pencil from him and scratched out in her neat efficient handwriting,

'My name is Nurse Hettie Chambers, pleased to meet you Private Partridge.' and in smaller writing at the bottom she wrote 'I can hear you, silly.'

Bobby blushed slightly, but smiled.

'Thank you,' he whispered quietly, 'Please call me Bobby, I... I don't... It's very nice to meet you too Nurse Chambers.'

Hettie took the book back and underlined her first name where she had written it before and then pointed to herself. Bobby nodded and smiled,

'Hettie,' he whispered back, 'I... I want to tell you something, that is, I should probably let you know... I'm not...'

Bobby fumbled over his words and Hettie rested a calming hand on his shoulder, the young man had suffered a head wound after all, there was no use stressing himself out about whatever it was. She held a finger up to her lips and wrote in the notebook,

'Sleep. Not to worry. I'll be here tomorrow.'

Then she closed the book and tucked it into the bedding beside the Private. Bobby smiled sweetly up at her, still with worry lines scrawled across his forehead, she even thought for a moment that he looked cute. Again, why did she feel this way? She picked up her lantern and gave her patient one last smile before walking out of the small room and closing the door behind her, the strange feeling of intimacy still swirling in an unfamiliar way in her stomach.