Ardnish Was Home Read online

  *

  For a few days, it is, indeed, like a holiday. The leaves are coming out on the trees and everyone walks around with a smile on their faces. It is hard to comprehend that a battle has been lost and tens of thousands slaughtered so close to here, as we relax on the beach in the warmth, drinking lemonade and dining on delicious fish. Prissie joins us when she’s not in the naval ward room – pretty girls are always welcome there. I receive a full medical check-up from one of the ship’s medics. The shoulder is stronger now, but I need lots of exercise to build up the muscle again. I’m still skin and bones, of course, but with Louise’s care I’ll soon put on weight.

  He tells me that my bad eye is permanently damaged. ‘It’s a patch for life, Gillies, I’m sorry to say. But you’re a very lucky man – the right eye is looking pretty good and you may well regain reasonable vision. Avoid too much bright light for now and rest your eyes frequently.’

  *

  The harbour at Malta is exhilarating. Our senses are bombarded with the hustle and bustle of the port, people rushing to and fro, and above all the constant backdrop of English voices. We have been away from civilisation for such a long time.

  We talk often about what we’re most looking forward to when we reach home. For me, it’s a big breakfast of eggs, bacon and sausages. Prissie can’t wait to go dancing again, while Louise wants a comfortable bed in which she’ll stay for a whole day and night.

  We report to the army HQ and log in our details. I am immediately sent to the Cottonera Hospital in Valletta for two days, where the doctors, including an eye surgeon, look over me. Louise tells me he is the best one, because that was where the Royal Army Medical Corps was based. All he does is confirm what the ship’s medic had said in Lemnos, but it is a relief in a way.

  I am wildly impatient to find out when I might be shipped home, but manage to keep it to myself. I know they won’t hold onto wounded soldiers any longer than necessary, and that I am far from being the only one yearning for home.

  Meanwhile, Louise and Prissie report to the Queen Alexandra Corps. Louise later tells me that they were met by a junior nurse who took their details and then consulted with an officer. To everyone’s surprise, the most senior Queen Alexandra officer came to introduce herself.

  ‘Staff Nurses Jones and O’Hara, I’m Colonel Thomas. I’ve just heard about your escape from Gallipoli. My congratulations. You will be talked about throughout the whole service. Not only that, but I gather it was you two who took the initiative and led the nurses onto Suvla beach to help out when the medical services were so stretched.’

  She then invited the girls through to the staff room, where they were introduced to various nurses and doctors and made polite conversation as best they could.

  Colonel Thomas clapped her hands. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have two remarkable nurses here. Nurse O’Hara, why don’t you tell us all about the mission to the beach in Gallipoli and then the trek back to Malta with your patient?’

  Louise says that Prissie was in her element. With much gesturing and colourful language, she described our escape so vividly that even Louise was impressed by our bravery and daring.

  When Prissie finished, there was much applause and shouts of ‘bravo!’ Colonel Thomas announced, ‘The senior doctor on board the Gloucester Castle has written a citation, which I shall now read to you.’ She took a letter from her coat pocket and began. ‘“Nurses Jones and O’Hara were stationed on the hospital ship Gloucester Castle and were going about their duties. However, they could see that the ship was not coping with the volume of casualties. They arranged a team of fellow Queen Alexandra Corps nurse volunteers and went onto the beach, where they made a huge difference, evoking comparisons among the soldiers there of Florence Nightingale. I strongly recommend that their bravery and initiative be recognised with an award. Yours sincerely, Brigadier Doctor Pease.” I am delighted to award you the Royal Red Cross Medal.’

  Louise and Prissie had blushed with pleasure as Colonel Thomas pulled two medals from her pocket and pinned them onto their uniforms to much whooping and clapping.

  *

  ‘Your family will be so proud,’ I say, as I look at the medal in my hand.

  ‘I know. I just wish Dad was still alive. He’d be bragging down the pub like he’d won it himself.’

  With time to kill while we await news of what is to happen to us, we find a room in the town and spend the days together. Louise becomes tanned, but I have to be careful; with my red hair and fair skin I burn easily, even in the weak spring sunshine.

  The island is full of injured soldiers back from Gallipoli, with hospitals at every corner, it seems. Louise tells me she can see the hospital ships in the Grand Harbour from our room.

  Louise takes my weight as her personal responsibility and devises a diet that involves a lot of green vegetables and eggs. She manages to get her hands on some cuts of meat most days, too. To my joy, she manages to persuade the hospital that what I most need is rest and good food, and that my bed in the hospital would be better used for other more seriously injured patients.

  After their few days’ leave, Louise and Prissie are set to work. Louise is sent to a hospital for the severely injured. She tells me of patients with third-degree burns all over their body and missing limbs. Prissie works in the officers’ hospital, the Dragunara, where there are forty patients. It is run by the Red Cross, which is chronically understaffed.

  Prissie loves seeing the big ships in the harbour. ‘There’s the Braemar Castle! And the Dunluce!’ she exclaims. They had been passenger ships before the war, journeying to New York, Australia and places like that, and Prissie recognises them from their glory days, when they set sail from Liverpool on expensive long-distance cruises.

  *

  After two weeks, I receive a big bag of post. Louise tactfully leaves me alone with a cup of coffee, and I read my mail again and again. There are several letters from Mother, who thinks I am still in Gallipoli, asking what my trench is like and if I am getting fed properly. The last one is full of concern that she hasn’t heard from me for two months, I’ve always been so good about keeping in touch.

  The winter on the west coast has been a bad one, very cold with some snow. The milk cow has two calves and they are doing well. Christmas was a subdued affair, with no young people around, but everyone in Peanmeanach enjoyed a meal together and the Whaler and Aggie had some family over from Glenuig, so that was nice. She finishes up by writing: ‘We need to hear from you, DP, are you still all right? We pray for you and Angus every day.’

  Sheena has written a long letter from Canada. She’s enjoying her work but wishes there were more young folk around. Winters are cold and the days short. She has read and re-read her books, and there are no more around. She’s been learning to play the fiddle, as she’s found to her delight that there’s a great tradition of fiddle playing there. ‘Every Monday night I walk an hour to Glencoe Mills and meet many others and we play together. We are practising for a ceilidh at New Year.’ She hopes I am well and that Gallipoli wasn’t as bad as was being reported in the papers.

  There are two letters from Father Angus which I save for later. Suddenly, it is all too much. Although I wrote to my parents as soon as we arrived, I doubt whether they have received my letter, and it pains me to think of their suffering with worry. Peanmeanach may still be a long way away, but in my mind I can see my home as clear as day. I can smell the seaweed and the cattle, taste the fresh herring fried in oatmeal with tatties from the field.

  I may be in a kind of paradise here in Malta with Louise, but my heart aches for home.

  *

  One night, we meet up with Prissie in a bar on the hill. Prissie puts her arm around Louise’s shoulder. ‘Are you well, darling? Feeling good?’

  I remember this intimacy later. The bar is full of naval officers. Prissie loves being around officers, she always has. She tells us about the hospital where she is working. ‘It’s beautiful. It’s in a villa owned by the Marchesa S
cicluna – she gives the Red Cross the money to run it, too. The Marchesa lives in a cottage in the garden and comes up to talk to the officers every day. She’s lovely.’

  Prissie is determined to find out where Charlie has been posted, but so far has had no luck. She has written to him in Gibraltar.

  Louise advises her tactfully to forget him. ‘It was fun, Prissie, but you need to look forward now.’

  Louise and I are like a married couple, living together in our one room; her coming home from work and me cooking dinner. My mother always had me helping to cook at home, so I have an idea of what to do. I buy a chicken and pluck it, add tomatoes, herbs, onions and peppers like the locals do, and we eat like royalty.

  ‘Food will seem so bland when we get home,’ I say to Louise, and apparently I repeat this every day.

  All sorts of things happen in war that would not happen back home. If my father knew that I was sleeping with a girl without being married to her there would be a hell of a row. Louise thinks her mother would be much more understanding, but if her father were alive he would beat her to within an inch of her life. He was a real hypocrite, though, she says; she was sure he had another woman in a town nearby.

  And so the days pass with me sleeping, eating and trying to improve my strength and fitness as well as gain weight. There are a lot of injured soldiers doing various sorts of rehabilitation when allowed leave from the hospitals. Many of us meet up at the port and sit on a wall, talk and play cards.

  The Anzacs among us have a lot of money. They are paid six times as much as we are, but we all have enough, as we’ve been given our back pay from when we were at the front. With plentiful wine, good company and a warm sun, things are pretty good. I think of my parents, who have never come across wine. It’s whisky or nothing at home. What would they think of their boy if they could see him now, sitting on the wall in shorts, a pretty girl on his arm, and a glass in his hand? I smile at the thought and the ache in my heart subsides a little.

  I love so many things about being in Malta with Louise, but my anxiety to get home is growing. My parents need me to help sow the grass and make the hay. There are so few ships heading back to Britain. I am on a list, and if a vacancy becomes available I will hear, but the wait is now agonising.

  Chapter 13

  One Sunday morning, with the bells of the church ringing throughout the town, Louise tells me she has a picnic planned. She’s bought cheese and chicken, and she’s packed a gourd of wine and taken a blanket from the bed. After Mass, we walk to the main road out of town and hitch a lift from an army truck. We settle down on a beach and relax in the sunshine. Louise pours me some wine and lights a cigarette.

  Unpacking the basket, and holding my gaze, she pulls out a tiny pair of canvas shoes and lays them in my hand.

  It takes me a few seconds before I understand. ‘Really? Really?’

  She takes my hand and presses it to her stomach. ‘Your baby is in there,’ she says, looking into my eyes, willing me to be pleased. Which I am.

  I raise my hand to her cheek, and she holds it there. I hold her close while tears of relief and joy stream down her face.

  Louise thinks it must have happened on the night Prissie went into town in Turkey and met the priest. The first time we’d made love, to anyone, ever – and along comes a baby!

  She had been feeling nauseous for some time but assumed that it must be the aftermath of the dysentery or the awful sea crossing. I confess that every time we have made love I’ve been sure she would get pregnant – and is that not what has now happened?

  We lie in the sand all afternoon, talking about how our lives will change and what our families will think. The first grandchild in either family. I know my mother will be delighted.

  I ask Louise to marry me and come back to Ardnish and have lots more babies. She sobs and sobs, saying it would make her the happiest girl in the world and that she has dreamed of it since our encounter on the train.

  Blissfully happy, we head back into town. Louise chatters away like a starling while I am quiet and reflective, savouring the excitement of it all. Louise is sure that she’ll be sent back to Britain with me when she tells Matron – that is what happens when nurses fall pregnant.

  ‘Does Prissie know about the baby?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course!’ Louise laughs, as if it is the natural thing for the father not to hear first. I am a bit taken aback hearing this, but I know how close the girls are.

  Prissie is waiting for us when we get back. Louise and I share our excitement with her, with Louise holding my hand and jumping up and down with the thrill of it all.

  Prissie has been talking to Colonel Macdonald, one of the officers in her hospital, and she’s discovered that, yes, he knows a piper named Donald Peter Gillies well. He has heard all about our getting cut off from the British troops and having to make our way inland. He hadn’t given us any chance of getting back alive and is keen for us to go and visit him.

  ‘He has something for you,’ Prissie says.

  I am overjoyed. Colonel Macdonald saw me at my very worst, straight after I had been freed by the Scouts. He is a practical man with whom I have always felt I could discuss anything, and as a long-term ally of my father he would no doubt offer me sound advice. Prissie tells me that he has severe dysentery, and that the hospitals are very low on medicines for it – not that they were particularly effective anyway.

  After Louise comes off duty the next night, we visit him. Both of us are in uniform, keen to impress.

  ‘Ciamar a tha thu, DP,’ he says, using the Gaelic. ‘And how are you doing, laddie? Excuse me for not getting up.’ He has a twinkle in his eye. ‘Not dressed to receive visitors.’

  He has some lemonade brought over for us and sits us down.

  ‘Your eyes don’t look too bad at all,’ he says. ‘And how’s the shoulder?’

  ‘Well, I’ll be a one-eyed man from now on, but the other one is well on the mend,’ I explain. I tell him I’m still very weak and am finding it difficult to put on weight, that the doctors have no idea what the problem is but Louise is force-feeding me.

  I introduce Louise.

  ‘Yes, your nurse friend told me about you,’ he says with a friendly knowing wink. ‘I have something for you, DP. You don’t look right without them, somehow.’ He calls out to the nurse to bring over what’s in the cupboard.

  It’s Prissie. She comes over, opens the leather case and places my bagpipes in my arms.

  I am so shocked I can hardly speak. ‘What a great thing, Colonel! Thank you so much. I had not dared believe they would find their way off Suvla beach.’

  I take the chanter in my hands, and finger a few silent notes.

  ‘We’ll want a tune, DP,’ says the Colonel. ‘Best not play in here, though. It might polish off a few of the sick. In the street outside when you leave, eh?’

  ‘All right, sir, maybe not now. I need to get them going again. And my fingers need a bit of practice, too. I’ll play Skinner’s “The Lovat Scouts” the next time I see you, sir.’

  ‘Grand. I’m glad you’re here to take them, DP. I feared that I would be walking to Ardnish and giving them to your father with commiserations about your departure from this life . . . Have you heard from your parents?’

  ‘Yes, but the last letter was written two months ago. It was all talk of me in the trenches. I’ve written to them, so hopefully they’ll know the good news by now.’

  He turns to Louise. ‘And how are you, young lady? Nurse says you were looking after DP in the Casualty Clearing Station and you have been together ever since.’

  Louise immediately tells him everything: about meeting me on the train in England and then looking after me, and that we are engaged and expecting a baby.

  He shakes us firmly by the hand. ‘There’s not many good things coming out of this war,’ he said. ‘What splendid news.’

  Everyone in the ward is smiling by this stage. ‘We will have to get you married, quickly,’ he says. ‘Make everythin
g legit. Are you Catholic, Louise?’

  Louise shakes her head.

  ‘Well, let me see what I can do. Come back in a couple of days.’

  We leave the hospital, stunned, but it does seem the perfect solution. ‘Mother, Father, meet Louise, Mrs Donald Peter Gillies . . . and we are expecting a baby.’

  Two days later, we return and it is all organised. Father Tom Mullen, an army padre, is to carry out the service at a Catholic church in the town, Colonel Willie will be my best man, Prissie the bridesmaid, and it is to happen on Saturday.

  I think of Sandy, how we had promised to be each other’s best men.

  Louise and Prissie worry about their hair and getting flowers for the church and generally get themselves wound up into a state of panic. We are both going to get married in uniform. I have only standard green military trousers issued by stores in Valletta, but the Colonel gets his hands on a Lovat Scout bonnet for me.

  Several of the men who had joined me on the wall in town are there, plus three sisters from Louise’s hospital, who look stunning in their scarlet-and-white uniforms. Also there is the lady who owns the room we rent. To my delight, the Colonel has found a piper – Willie Fraser, whom I know well – and as we emerge as husband and wife, he has a few choice tunes for us.

  ‘Can you play “Cuir sa’ chiste mhòir mi”?’ I request, smiling at Willie, and the Colonel and I laugh uproariously.

  ‘What does that mean? Why is it so funny?’ Louise asks.

  ‘It means “put me in the big chest”,’ I reply. ‘There’s a story behind the name. I’ll tell you some other time.’

  Both Louise and Prissie are crying with the excitement as we walk out and flowers are thrown over the bride by our new friends. We sit in a café and have lunch, after which we talk and drink into the early hours.

  A wonderful and memorable day.

  *

  Louise needed to get permission from the corps to marry, but a word from the Colonel advising that she is pregnant definitely helped. They agreed that she should accompany me back to England and then hand over her uniform and be dismissed.