“Sorry, lads, sorry. It’ll be a lot smoother when we’ve got you on the train, believe me.” I didn’t answer him, but I wasn’t feeling much. Just before I was transferred to my stretcher, one of the nursing sisters thoughtfully injected me with morphine. The man next to me said nothing. He was wrapped in a blanket and his face stared in blank terror at the canvas tarpaulin above us. I never learned his name or a thing about him; but the sight of him made me grateful I was not more seriously wounded. Whatever physical wounds the poor man suffered paled in comparison to the torment within his mind.
I no longer needed the handrails that lined the hallways of my ward at Number Two Canadian Army Stationary Hospital in London. It was the first time I was walking without feeling dizzy or faint. On my sixth day in London, I was dressed in army-issue paper slippers, blue pyjamas, and dressing gown, and shuffling along with great determination through the corridors when I saw a striking young blonde nursing sister coming towards me pushing a trolley of medical instruments. I wasn’t certain, but she looked very familiar. “Excuse me, Sister, are you Hannah? The nursing sister from Vancouver?”
She looked slightly hesitant but quickly regained her composure. “Yes, but I don’t think I know you, do I?” she said with a weak smile.
“No, I can’t say we actually know each other, but we’ve met. On the troop ship, the day we saw the whales, we chatted for an hour or so.”
“Oh my, yes, it’s you. The nice officer from Montreal,” she said, bursting into a warm smile. “I’ve often wondered how you got on.” She hesitated for a split second, afraid she had made a gaffe and it occurred to me that now, to some people, I had become an object of pity. This was an emotional change of tack for me. Since coming out of the line, I had been brooding over being undeservedly lucky when so many other good men were dead. Hannah recovered immediately and smiled broadly. “How are you?” She seemed genuinely pleased to see me; or maybe it was just that she was one of those women who illuminate the world with their smile. It didn’t matter; I was thrilled.
“I’m getting better,” I said with ill-concealed embarrassment. I’d no reason to be ashamed, but I hadn’t prepared myself for giving explanations to anyone who wasn’t wounded. The few conversations I had about the subject were with other patients and we limited our questions to what part of the line we were in and when we were hit. We never discussed circumstances. “I ran into a little difficulty a couple weeks ago in Flanders. I’m just returning to my ward from the ophthalmologist. He says there’s no sign of infection, so I’m quite lucky. How have you been doing for the last ten months?”
“I’m really well. I’m sure you know, we’re much too busy here,” she said with a grim flourish. “I’m sorry, I really can’t talk just now, but please tell me your name and ward. I’ll come and see you, soon. I promise.”
Two days later I was bitterly discouraged to hear the hospital ophthalmologist tell me I was going to lose my left eye. It wasn’t responding to treatment and he was afraid it was now showing signs of infection. It could kill me. If they took it out, I’d be fine. If they didn’t, he couldn’t guarantee me anything. In a way, I had almost expected that news. Each day the doctors looked a little more anxious when they examined me. And since leaving the casualty clearance hospital, no one had given me assurances that I would ever see with my left eye again. I pinched myself and resolved not to allow the news to dampen my spirits further. I was alive. I knew instinctively things were going to get better; and that afternoon they did. Hannah breezed onto our ward. She loaded me into a wheelchair and cheerfully wheeled me out into the garden.
“We’re not supposed to fraternize socially with patients, but if anyone asks, you’re my brother’s best friend. I do have a brother and he’s serving in the Tenth Battalion somewhere in Flanders.”
I fumbled for my cigarettes and Hannah looked down at them hungrily.
“I’m so glad you smoke! Wait.” She dragged my chair across the lawn behind a large clump of shrubbery that concealed us from the hospital. “Can I have one of those please? They’ll court martial me and then shoot me if they catch me smoking.” Hannah curled her feet up under her on the grass and took off her starched uniform veil. I was taken aback by her behaviour. I wasn’t in the least bit shocked, but I was pleased by her independence and cheerful willingness to break the rules.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t have gotten around to see you earlier. We’ve been rushed off our feet. I think it’s ghastly.” I held a match for her as she lit one of my cigarettes and she exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. She paused and looked at me pensively. “I should explain myself. It’s not ghastly that I’m working hard. I wish I could do more. There are so many young men here whose lives are totally shattered.” She had a faraway look in here eyes and we smoked in silence for a minute.
“You probably think I’m a fool for talking like this. I know I don’t really know you, but …” Her voice trailed off.
“No, it’s all right. I thought when we talked that day on the ship; well, it seemed so natural.” I thought I was sounding sappy and changed my tone. “I need someone to talk to anyway. I’ve been keeping to myself the last two weeks. It’s quite a change talking to someone who hasn’t been living in a trench.”
I wanted to make her feel comfortable and I wanted our conversation to go on forever. Apart from matronly Red Cross tea ladies and the forbidding-looking but over-worked ward nurse who changed my dressings, I hadn’t any kind of a conversation with a woman for months. We stumbled through the weather, laughed about the hospital food, her matron, and talked about Montreal and Vancouver.
During the two days I’d waited for her to come and see me I’d foolishly convinced myself that she was the woman of my dreams. I suppose I was emotionally starved and I let my imagination run wild. I couldn’t read because of my eye. Hannah was a beautiful young woman who was coming to see me and all I could do was lie in my starchy-smelling hospital bed and await her arrival. I imagined our life together, what it would be like to make love to her, what she looked like in the mornings, and what kinds of things we’d do together when the war was over. I can’t say I really believed any of it, but in the state I was in, fantasy lurked dangerously close to reality and I didn’t want to distinguish between the two. Hannah could have been talking in Greek for all I cared.
We grew quiet again and smoked another cigarette in silence. “You know, Rory, I’m glad you’re wounded.” She held up her hand to stop me from speaking. “I’m glad you’re out of that part of things. So many of our boys come back as wrecks. I can’t abide watching innocent men suffer and die and rot. If we save them, they’re returned to duty at the front or go back to Canada, to become what? Occupy a bed space in a dingy hospital for the rest of their lives. I want it over. And for you it’s over, but you can still make a life for yourself, that’s something I’m glad of.”
“It may be that I’m going home, but it’s not going to end for a long time yet, Hannah.” I threw my cigarette down and stared up at great masses of puffy white clouds. “What bothers me is I don’t even know what we’re fighting for any more. Once I believed some of the stories about the Hun and defending the Empire. I don’t believe or disbelieve anything any more. I think we’re fighting now, because we’re fighting.”
Hannah looked at me intently. I wasn’t sure if I’d gone too far but I continued.
“I’m half-German, my mother’s German, and I’ve seen so many killed, our side, Germans, what’s the difference. I’m no socialist revolutionary, but can anyone tell me what’s worth this price?” My voice was rising and I felt flushed.
Hannah reached forward and touched my hand. “Do you remember what it was like in Montreal the day war was declared? I was in Vancouver on Robson Street that day. It was an incredible celebration. People hanging off streetlamps, crowds singing ‘God Save The King.’ You’d have thought we