Living to See You

Bee Johnstone

Description

From the deserts of North Africa to the fever wards back home, this wartime love story charts the distant courtship between a young Wellington Bomber pilot and a probationer nurse. He sees action above the skies of Egypt in one of the most hazardous missions of the Desert Airforce, while she cares for patients with the dreaded diseases of the age. Their unfolding lives are intertwined by their letters as each struggles to survive the perils of war. For him, it is the brutal enemy attack as fighter planes swoop from a desert sky. For her, it is a different battle - against infectious diseases such as TB, diphtheria and polio in the days before antibiotics. They must both observe the rigid hierarchies of the time: whether it be Sister's wrath on the wards or mute acceptance of the grim odds at each new desert landing ground. It is not just their story, for they are part of a wider band of comrades. The young men who started on Tiger Moths could end up as fighter pilots, on Hurricanes or Spitfires, what of their future? The probationers may have survived the Blitz, but where will the State Registered nurses find themselves, during these intense early years of the war, when as Churchill said, 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.'Living to See You is an action-packed novel that will bring the reader closer to the hopes and fears of a generation of young people who led extraordinary wartime lives.

Sujets

• War

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 janvier 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785897597
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Living To See You




Bee Johnstone
Copyright © 2017 Bee Johnstone

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with
the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries
concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781785897597

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
This book is dedicated to my parents, upon whose wartime lives it is based.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to J.T. for her invaluable assistance with the manuscript; Gary West for his detailed advice on aviation and the RAF; Tony Cowland for his cover design; and Derek Robinson for encouraging me to self-publish. I would also like to thank RAF Shawbury and the archivists at RAF Boscombe Down, for their contribution and help.
The Textbook of Medicine , edited by J.J. Coneybeare, sixth edition, 1942, was on loan from the Royal Society of Medicine.
I would also like to thank my husband and my family for their patient support.
Author’s Note
While many of the characters in this book are fictional, the story is based on true fact. When characters are named, it is intended as a tribute to their contribution to the war effort, for example, Vic Willis, who won the DFC for his part in Operation Jostle.
Contents
Part One: Fever Ward
Part Two: Tiger Moths
Part Three: After the Blitz
Part Four: Dear You, from Me
Part Five: Oxford Twin Engines
Part Six: Wellington Bombers
Part Seven: The Desert Air Force
Part Eight: The Cauldron
Part Nine: The Other Enemy
Part Ten: Liberators
Autumn 1940
Part One: Fever Ward
1
It was never really quiet on the ward at night, even when the children were asleep. Some small child would wake and cry; another might call out, such that a quiet orchestra of subtle sounds permeated the dim light. The ward was cold, despite the stove at one end, and the stark framed beds were lined up and down each side.
It was lonely, the long night stretching through from seven o’clock in the evening until eight o’clock the next morning, only interrupted by night sister on her rounds. Still, Honor was glad to be on the scarlet fever ward, where most of the children would recover and go home. Not so the diphtheria ward, which she had found the most difficult so far. There was so little antitoxin available and many of the worst cases presented too late. That smell on the breath of the sick children, the awful membrane which could fill the throat, the desperate attempts to ensure an airway… Honor had been night nursing on the diphtheria ward for three weeks and had no desire to go back. She had never thought to see children die in such a way, and was shocked at their quiet suffering: some, in particular, stuck in her mind, like grubby little Jamie, not four years old when he was admitted from his crowded back-to-back house in the slums. He had looked like a real fighter at the start, but had finally surrendered to the overwhelming consequences of the disease. She had watched by his bed in horror, holding his limp hand, while the doctor had tried to insert a tracheotomy needle into the gasping child’s neck. It had not worked, and Jamie had died anyway, as she had informed his grief-stricken mother the following morning.
With none of the daytime bustle, there was more time to think, and try to study. Whatever the tribulations of the ward, it was nothing compared to the exams which lay ahead of her. There was always so much to learn, usually at the side of a more experienced nurse, watching and memorising procedures and routines: how to wash a bedpan, clean the sluice, take a throat swab, test urine, assist the doctors, sterilise the instruments, or worst of all, how to lay out the body of a child who had given up the unequal struggle to survive.
Honor was not troubled by her long hours, sparse time off and poor pay. Her training was not only stimulating and challenging, it was the key to a better life.
2
She had not planned to run away from home so precipitously. Suddenly, she could take no more: no more of her parents who rejected her because, as the middle of three girls, she should have been a boy, and thus represented a continuous disappointment. No more of her unsympathetic sisters and the drudgery in the vicarage where she had been sent as a kitchen maid after leaving school. No more of the unwanted attentions of the parson, who would appear silently and suddenly behind her as she blacked the grate. No one would listen to her plight, trapped as she was in her class and its prejudices.
‘I’m sure the parson would never try and touch you, Honor!’ Her mother cut her off in horror. ‘He’s a man of the cloth! And so respected in the village.’ But Honor knew that the parson had tried to do much more than that, and would continue with increasing force until he had his way. So escape was her only recourse, and she fled to the City, friendless, nearly penniless, innocent and unworldly.
Her strong sense of self-preservation was her only guide, but could not protect her from some perilous encounters. She had finally found work as a ward maid in the Lambeth Hospital. It was bitterly hard, but safe, as she had accommodation in the maids’ rooms and the protection of the institution. The nurses, especially the sisters, expected impossibly high standards of cleanliness on the wards. Each day she rose at dawn, and poured the freezing water from the jug into the basin to wash her hands and face before dressing in her austere uniform. Then it was straight to the wards to light the fires, followed by a regime of cleaning, scrubbing, damp dusting and polishing that seemed as though it would never end. She saw it as a haven, nonetheless, from the pitfalls outside; the horizons of her eighteen-year-old world had contracted to a safer place, she accepted the back-breaking work with dignity, and found herself on good terms with the nurses who noticed her assiduity.
It was Sister Martin who changed her life, in an act of Christian compassion that Honor had long since ceased to expect.
‘Why are you doing this job?’ Sister asked her late one autumn day, noticing the girl’s fatigue and her chapped hands. She was a kindly, middle-aged Scottish nurse of strict values and undoubted vocation.
‘I don’t have much choice,’ Honor answered stoically. ‘It’s a good deal better than some of the alternatives, I can tell you.’
‘Have you got any family or friends?’
‘None that are interested in me. I expect they were all glad to get rid of me.’ A note of bitterness crept into Honor’s voice.
‘You seem bright enough to me,’ the senior nurse persisted. ‘You work hard too. Why don’t you train as a nurse? We’re bound to need more nurses in this war, you might stand a chance.’
‘They’d never allow me! I left school at fourteen. That’s why I’m a ward cleaner, and I expect that’s what I’ll stay.’
‘Nonsense,’ replied the older woman. Sister Martin was not accustomed to allowing small obstacles to stand in her way. ‘I’m going to talk to Matron on your behalf.’
Honor had little hope for the outcome. Since when were girls from her background allowed to train as nurses? The rigid class systems of the country were as strong as ever, irrespective of intelligence or aptitude. Even the start of the war last year had done little to lift her aspirations, and merely helped to confirm the necessity of hard work and forbearance.
She had not reckoned with the determination of Sister Martin, who came to find her in the sluice the next day. Honor was mopping down the floor and wiping stains from the white tiled walls with Lysol.
‘I told you so!’ Sister’s face was triumphant. ‘Matron says you’re to see her this afternoon!’
Honor looked at her with incredulity. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s going to give you a chance!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, Honor, she wants to talk to you. Not everyone is against you in the world, you know. I know you’ve had some hard knocks, but don’t stop trusting people altogether.’
‘Sister, I don’t know what to say.’ Honor felt the tears rising, tears she had suppressed for so long in the grim struggle for safety and survival. ‘You’re a truly kind person.’
‘There, my dear, no time to cry.’ Sister put an arm around her slight shoulders. ‘You and I will have a little cup of tea first.’
When it came to it, the encounter was better than Honor could have hoped. Matron could be a most forbidding personage, and Honor knew what fear she could strike into the heart of any inattentive member of staff. She had seen senior nursing sisters in tears after one of her unannounced ward visits. It was accepted that Matron’s rule was absolute and no one, not even the doctors, would seek to defy her. She was, nonetheless, a serene-looking woman of late middle age, neat and precise in her matron’s uniform, with a composed face that must have been attractive in her youth.
‘Honor, I’ve heard good reports of you from Sister Martin, and others,’ she began. ‘Sister thinks that you’re capable of nurse training. What do you have t