world could top this. Nothing could be this unbearable.
'Here, miss, old merchant navy trick for the indisposition . . .'
She looked sideways from the place she had claimed, holding on to a handrail that led to a cabin door, then rushed to the side of the boat again. She felt a strong hand between her shoulder blades and pushed against the guard rail bring herself to a standing position. A member of the crew, sensibly wearing foul-weather clothing, with his cap miraculously still on his head, held out a tin mug of hot cocoa and a lump of Madeira cake. Maisie put her hand to her mouth in terror.
'What you do is, when you think you're going to lose your insides again, you take a bite o' this and a quick swig of cocoa. And you do it every time you feel queasy. Then it'll go away; you'll see.'
Maisie looked at the man, shook her head, and leaned over the side rail. Exhausted to the core, she stood up again and held out her hands for the cake and cocoa. It had to be worth a go.
Iris Rigson, Dottie Dornhill, Bess White, and Maisie Dobbs had set sail with a small contingent of nurses on July 20, 1916, bound for service in France. Iris, Dottie, and Bess had not suffered unduly on the requisitioned freighter, now in the service of king and country, ferrying supplies--and in this case nurses, too--between England and France. But Maisie Dobbs, granddaughter of a lighterman on the Thames, was embarrassingly seasick. Whatever the battlefield had to offer, it could not possibly make her feel worse than this, though she had in her pocket a letter from Priscilla, who had been sent to France in January with the first FANY convoy. The censors might be able to take out words, but they could not delete the emotion poured from inkwell to paper. Priscilla was exhausted, if not in body then in mind. Her words seemed to bite through the edges of Maisie's thoughts and expectations. For just a moment, as she fingered the letter in her pocket, she felt as if she were a ghostly presence watching over Priscilla as she worked. Priscilla had written:
My back is killing me, Maisie. Florrie the Lorry did not want to go to work this morning, so I did double duty with the starting handle. I had only two hours rest last night, after a twenty-hour shift. Maisie, I can only barely remember the last time I slept for more than just a few hours. My clothes are becoming one with my body, and I dread to imagine how I must reek! Mind you, one simply cannot go on about one's aching back and stinging eyes when faced with the good humor of these boys, even as they are suffering the pain of torn limbs and the terror of seeing comrades die. Despite rain that seems to come down in buckets here, there are some days that suddenly get very hot and humid indeed, especially if you are lugging around the added weight of a heavy uniform glued to your body. Many of the boys have taken a knife to their woolen trousers to get some relief from the chafing of army issue cloth. I suppose it's less for the doctors to cut away, but loaded on to Florrie they look like schoolboys who've taken a wrong turning into hell. I had a boy die on me yesterday. Maisie, his eyes were as deep a blue as that dress you wore to Simon's party, and he could not have been more than seventeen. Poor lad hadn't even begun to shave, just a bit of fluff on his chin. I wanted to just sit there and weep. But you know, you just have to go on. If I stood around in mourning for them, another poor boy would die for want of an ambulance. I don't know what the papers are saying, but here's
Priscilla's letter was abruptly halted by heavy black ink of the censor's pen.
'Here she is. Maisie o' the high seas!' Iris announced as Maisie returned to the cabin.
'Blimey, Maisie, how're you now, then?' Dottie came over to Maisie and put an arm around her shoulder. 'Come and sit down. We'll soon be there. Le Havre can't be much longer--can it?' She looked at the other nurses, their heavy capes drawn around them, and settled Maisie into a seat.'You poor little mite, Dobbs. There's nothing of you to start with. Never you mind, we'll soon be in Le Havre. Get us a nice cuppa. That's if the French can make tea.'
Iris felt Maisie's forehead and looked at her watch.'You do seem a bit better, though.'
Maisie looked at the other girls and leaned against Iris.'Cocoa and cake,' she muttered, and promptly fell into a deep sleep.
From Le Havre the train journey to Rouen passed uneventfully. The young women were tired from the journey but managed to keep awake long enough to watch their first few minutes of foreign soil speed past. Arriving at the port of Rouen, the nurses were met by a medical officer, and taken to the Hotel St. Georges, where they expected to stay for two nights while they waited for orders.
'Let's get ourselves a nice wash and have a cup of tea downstairs,' suggested Iris as they settled into the room all four women were to share.
Iris was a tall, big-boned girl, whose uniform always looked rather too small for her. She considered this a blessing. The unfashionably long and impractical woolen dress of the uniform was shorter on her than on the other nurses. Not only could she move with greater ease, but soon she would avoid having her hemline drag in the never-ending mud, the bane of a nurse's life in France.
'How are you feeling, Dobbs?' asked the soft-spoken Bess, maintaining the discipline of hospital address.
'Much better, thank you. And a cup of tea would be just lovely.'
The women each unpacked their few belongings, washed faces and hands at the large white enameled stone sink, and brushed hair back into place. As usual Maisie struggled to fasten the stray tendrils of jet black hair that crept out from under her hat. When they left the room, the women looked almost as fresh as they had in the early hours of the morning, when they had joined their train at Charing Cross for the journey to Folkestone, their port of departure for France.
'Look at those cakes. My word, never seen a pastry like that before; it's a wonder they can do that in wartime,' said Dottie.
'No, and you've never tasted a cup of tea like this before either.'
Iris winced at the weak tea and reached out to take one of the delicate pastries from the china plate placed in the center of the table.
Maisie was quiet, looking around her at the rather aged grandeur of the dining room at the Hotel St. Georges. Large mirrors were positioned on each wall, and ornate archways led into the lounge on one side and the marble- floored lobby on the other. Waiters ran back and forth, elegant in black trousers that shone with too much pressing, white shirts, black ties, and long white aprons. They were all older men, for the younger men had gone to war.
The clientele was mainly military personnel, and the hotel was packed with officers going on leave or passing through on their way back to join their regiments. Some were with sweethearts or wives, still others with parents, the fortunate ones whose people could make a journey across the Channel to bid them farewell in France.
Maisie sipped her tea, feeling the warmth, if not the flavor, reach the core of her tired body. She was aware of the conversation at their table, a familiar to-ing and fro-ing of observations and opinions, a giggle here, a raised voice there. But for the most part, as the journey to France ebbed away behind her, Maisie was lost in her own thoughts.
