Conflict and Passion

James Martin-Woodcock

Description

The paths of a young medical orderly and nurse cross during a tumultuous time in British history that has more control over their destiny than they initially realize.
It is the end of the nineteenth century. The British Empire is at its peak, the industrial revolution has transformed society, and education is leading the way.

When fifteen-year-old Charles Woodyson decides to join the army on the eve of the Boer War, he shocks his parents. Although his mother forbids him to go, his father signs the papers, sealing the destiny of the boy in a lower socioeconomic class who never achieved anything significant in grammar school. As Charles transforms into a medical orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Sophia North is deciding her future. The daughter of a wealthy surgeon major, Sophia is not content to attend garden parties and climb social ladders like her twin sister. Instead, she is focused on becoming a nurse, and her romantic sights are set within that fraternity. But when fate leads Charles and Sophia to meet, everything is about to change in unexpected ways.

In this intriguing tale, the paths of a young medical orderly and nurse cross during a tumultuous time in British history that has more control over their destiny than they initially realize.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Balboa Press AU
• Date de parution: 28 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781982296797
• Langue: English

Extrait

Conflict and Passion




James Martin-Woodcock









Copyright © 2023 James Martin-Woodcock.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.



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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.



ISBN: 978-1-9822-9680-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-9822-9679-7 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 02/27/2023



Contents
Prologue and Episode 1

Chapter 1 Lady smith, South Africa, 1900
Chapter 2 The Aftermath
Chapter 3 Tennentsons Return
Chapter 4 Charles’ Homecoming
Chapter 5 Northern Posting
Chapter 6 Sofies Wedding
Chapter 7 Episode 2: Rumours of War
Chapter 8 War Declared in Europe
Chapter 9 Military Hospital Posting
Chapter 10 Drafted
Chapter 11 Christmas 1915
Chapter 12 Episode 3: 1918
Chapter 13
Chapter 14 The Chosen Few
Chapter 15 A Living Nightmare
Chapter 16 The Home-front
Chapter 17 Midst of Battle
Chapter 18 Sibling Friendship
Chapter 19 Hanging in the Balance
Chapter 20 Heavy Weight of Mortality
Chapter 21 News at Last
Chapter 22 Leave at Last
Chapter 23 A New Enemy
Chapter 24 Spanish Influenza
Chapter 25
Chapter 26 Episode 4
Chapter 27 Evacuation
Chapter 28 Government Austerity
Chapter 29 Time to Recover
Chapter 30 The Machiavellian
Chapter 31 Anticipation
Chapter 32 Counter Subterfuge
Chapter 33 A Proposal
Chapter 34 Family Unity
Chapter 35 Complications
Chapter 36 Farewells
Chapter 37 Separation
Chapter 38 A Godforsaken Place

Epilogue



Prologue and Episode 1
Charles Gregory Woodyson was overjoyed to read in the Oxford Gazette that war was close to being declared with the Orange Free State in South Africa.
He was yet but fifteen years old, and the boy had been working in a dirty, smoke-encrusted, foul-smelling tannery in Oxford for a year. It was a job he detested since graduating from the parish grammar school a year earlier. The work was only semi-skilled, a drudge of a job which paid very little and had even less dignity or recognition. But it was work he was pleased to find after he was denied a scholarship. He put the Gazette down and wandered back to the tanning bath just as the siren signalled the end of the lunch break. Four hours later, he finished work and clocked off. He then impetuously hurried away to the army recruiting office on the high street.
The recruiting sergeant was impressed with this new prospective recruit’s height and physique. ‘How old are ye, lad?
‘I am seventeen, sir,’ he lied.
Sergeant Waring, a veteran soldier, had been recruiting young men into service for Queen and country for the last ten years. ‘And do your parents know you are wishing to join the regiment,’ he asked with a knowing look on his face. ‘And call me sergeant, lad. I’m not an officer.’
‘Oh, they will tonight, Sergeant. I really am old enough to make my own decisions though.’
‘Oh, you are, are you? I will still want to see your birth certificate, however. Bring it along tomorrow. There’s a good fellow.’
Charles’s parents, Leonard and Edith, were shocked to the core with their son’s revelation that he had joined the Oxford Light Infantry. Leonard had hoped his elder son would take up studies at night school with a view to getting a trade or apprenticeship when it became obvious his academic results were not high enough to attract a scholarship. But then a recession followed, and any job at all was considered a blessing.
‘I am not allowing you to leave home and throw your life away on some barren field in a far-off, God-forsaken wilderness because you haven’t the patience or the will to await a position in the Great Western Rail offices as a clerk,’ Leonard venomously asserted.
‘Well, Father, I would sooner die in glory on a battlefield than to die a slow, agonizing death from boredom, calculating wages all day long in a stuffy office being watched by you. Why, I’d sooner wait for an opportunity for an apprenticeship and slaving away in the tannery than that ordeal.’
His father rose sharply from his seat, his fist clenched. In three paces, he was upon his son, striking him below his left ear. He shouted, ‘You, you will do as I say while you’re under my roof.’
‘Leonard, stop that right now,’ screamed Edith. ‘He’s only a boy, and my home is not a boxing booth.’
Charles, holding back tears of utter humiliation after his father’s violent reaction, could only whisper, ‘This is my life we are talking about, Father, and I will make of it what I will. If not now, then in two years’ time.’
His father stood menacingly over his son. Then he shrugged his broad shoulders. A look of regretful emotion overcame him, and he repented his actions. ‘I am so sorry, Charlie”, he said, using a nickname which vexes Edith; she strongly opposed the use of shortened names. ‘But if you are determined to defy my good counselling, then go by all means. I have no wish to keep you here against your will.’
Edith was appalled at the complete turnaround of her husband’s apparent position. ‘What are you saying, Leonard? He is too young to go in the army without our permission. I forbid it. It’s ridiculous to think of him fending for himself among such, such outcasts of society. No, we must not allow it.’
‘As head of this house, Edith, it is my decision and mine alone . Can’t you see, though, he is not to be persuaded to remain here with us?’ This was Leonard’s final word.
The door to the parlour opened painfully slowly, quieting the angry discourse. A little boy, Simon, Charles’s seven-year-old brother tearfully entered the room, upset by the noise which disturbed his sleep. This was the defusing moment when reality closed the chasm between opposed reasoning.
Edith went along to the recruiting office to plead to have her son removed from the ledger, but to no avail for the father, by his absence, had given his sanction. Charles became a boy soldier.

On the day Charles joined his regiment, a wedding was taking place in Oxford between a captain in the Gloucester Infantry, 2 nd Battalion, Basil Tennentson and Miss Marjorie North, daughter of the honorary regimental surgeon, Major Walter Lionel North, serving with the Oxford Light Infantry.
Tennentson and the young lady (she was only eighteen), had been introduced at a military ball in London. At thirty-two, he was much older and worldly wiser than she. He had flattered her with exaggerated and insincere praise of her attributes, attributes which were not totally unfounded. She was like her father, slim and well proportioned. Only a facial scar from a pushbike accident allowed her appearance to diminish, and the somewhat adolescent remarks which occasionally came from her thin lips did nothing to promote general approbation. This quite suited Captain Tennentson, whose sole motivations in life were success at all costs with little input from him and complete control over his minions. He had good reason to believe his marriage would be successful for him and disastrous for his young naive bride for her privileged existence would become one of relative deprivation, not so much of luxury but of happiness.
However, Marjorie had a twin sister, Sophia. Unlike her sibling, Sophia possessed an ethereal countenance which distinguished her from Marjorie. Sophia did not like balls, though she was fun loving. But garden parties gave her great pleasure, and country walks typified her pastoral sentiments. The sisters, in general and as one would suspect for twins, were the same height and had the same features, but there the similarity ended. Marjorie was ostentatious, a show-off. She had an extensive wardrobe of the latest fashions. Encouraged by her mother, she was not ashamed to be risqué. By contrast, Sophia had fewer clothes. Most were of a more sober, durable quality. Still, she managed still to be pleasantly vivacious. Unlike Marjorie, who had an infinite line of gentlemen admirers, Sophie had one very eligible beau. This lady wanted to pursue a career in nursing, and her romantic sights were set within that fraternity.



Chapter 1
Ladysmith, South Africa, 1900

Charles Gregory Woodyson became a medical orderly. He was fortunate to have been selected to serve in the recently formed Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC, 1898). His recruiting sergeant, in a rare fit of compassion for Charles’s mother, had recommended the young man for the RAMC after his basic training was complete. But he had also recognized the boy as being of above-average intellect, an asset in a field hospital. Woodyson had been disappointed to learn of his draft to the Medical Corps, that was at odds to his adventurous spirit. To him, nothing less than a fighting role would give him the honour and respect he so craved.
Caught up as he was in a fantasy world of misplaced chivalric duty, only a circumstance of drastic reality could bring about