HER HANDS #6

Please note. There are descriptions of religious beliefs and practices contained in HER HANDS. They are intended for use as setting, cultural context and character development. They are not intended to promote or criticize any religious belief or practice.

HER HANDS

Installment 6

Chapter 3

Scenes 21-24

Sarah and Sister Claire settled into their routine as did all of the women working their twelve hour shifts. The Ypres battles continued into November, the days shortened and the torrent of damaged men barely abated. The cannons roared every day and long into the nights, yet never grew closer. The ambulance drivers brought the news that the armies had been fighting back and forth over a few hectares and a hilltop for the past few weeks. To Sarah it was beyond senseless, beyond evil. She could not comprehend what kind of men would decide to continue the carnage to gain a patch of land. Once, it occurred to her that no men were responsible at this point, that it all just continued of its own volition. She shared that thought with Sister Claire who responded. “I don’t see why not.”

Then, almost three weeks after the first wave of wounded flooded the hospital and the village, the cannons stopped. The stream of men brought from the front reduced to a trickle that same day. The ambulance drivers’ sunken eyes danced when they reported that the Germans had relented. Mother Clothilde received the news first, waited as additional elated reports came in confirming the initial accounts. She decided, after hearing from a few men, that they weren’t silly dreamers; the reports were so consistent they couldn’t have all lost their minds at once. Besides, the cannon had been silent into midmorning. It was then she dispatched her assistant to the cottages that held the longer term patients to inform the nurses, the aides and the men who had their senses that the Germans had been stopped. Before sending the woman off she pronounced “Vive Le France” then made the sign of the cross.

The senior nun went to proclaim the news to the women and the wounded in the hospital. As Mother Clothilde crossed the square, two boys, racing through, slowed to a hurried walk as they passed her and took their caps off in her presence, then ran off as soon as they were a few meters beyond her. She knew their intent: to ring the church’s bells. She caught sight of Father Balthus hurrying to the bell tower from the opposite direction, clutching a ring of keys. She knew his intent as well: to unlock the door to the tower before the boys broke it down.

As the mother superior entered the hallway, the bells pealed riotously, all meaning abandoned to joy. She smiled and quickened her pace. The nun at the hall entrance nodded and smiled, followed the hospital administrator into the great hall packed with the lame and the mutilated and the young women who attended to them; all in various states of suspension, which had been the feeling throughout the morning, all aware of the guns’ silence crowned with the sudden exaltation of the bells, releasing into wide, crooked, broken, beaming smiles at the sight of Mother Clothilde before them.

The sight of them awaiting her overwhelmed the staid woman. She managed to utter “Vive le France.” Regaining her composure, she proclaimed. “The Germans have been defeated. Vive le France.”

There was no uproar, only tears and smiles. Hands grasped hands, placed on brows and shoulders, brushed at tears. Sarah bent to the man she had been attending to, placed her mouth close to the bandage where his ear had been and whispered. “The Germans are gone.” He didn’t hear her words but sensed her relieved tone, felt her joy in the squeeze she gave his shoulder, understood the joy and relief by the fact of her hand remaining. It didn’t matter that the information was not correct.

Sarah held the rapture that filled her like a precious gift. It was a gift to still have the capacity for rapture and she knew she must share it or it would dissolve. She went to the next man who hadn’t been able to receive the message and presented the wonderful news with her eyes, her touch, her breath. Then to the next and the next. At one point Sarah noticed Sister Claire watching her. All the while the clamor from the square filled the hall.

***

The morning flew by. Throughout, there were gestures, glances, small touches exchanged between the caregivers and those in need of care, and between the caregivers themselves. It was as if it was safe now to reach out, albeit in small measures. The movements and words of all those in the hall embodied hope, yet none dared to express it explicitly.

Around noon a small fleet of ambulances arrived from the front, fewer than in weeks past, bearing men in less immediate distress. The women’s routine was so pat, they gathered the men and promptly addressed their needs efficiently. Soiled clothing was stripped away, bodies were washed, bandages changed, antibiotics and morphine administered.

In exchange a number of the stabilized wounded were loaded onto the ambulances for transport to the railroad sidings, bundled in wool blankets against the November chill. Sarah was able to look into these men’s eyes. She saw, or perhaps imagined, their hope. There was a glint she had not seen in many weeks, a knowing. Oh, if it were as they wished; peace, everlasting calm. No one knew otherwise, so it was fitting to believe. Some of the men looked back at her as they were carried or assisted to the waiting trucks. She held their gaze, each a moment, and nodded to let them know she believed in peace as well, and with them wished it everlasting.

Sister Claire came up beside Sarah. “Do you pray for the soldiers who pass through here?”

“I did, when I knew the men more clearly. Do you?”

The nun nodded. “Yes, although I don’t know what my prayers mean. Words from my heart, yes, but where do they land? How are they received, if they are received at all? And by whom?

Sarah turned to face the nun, saw her eyes well with tears. She held her hand, and the other woman gulped back a sob, turning away from the wounded so they would not see her, would not have this moment of light dimmed. Sarah’s companion needed her, the men embarking needed her. She whispered, “I can handle our duties. Please allow yourself…”

Sister Claire buried her face in Sarah’s shoulder and wept silently, her body gently heaving against Sarah’s body, She broke away, wiped the tears with her sleeve. “You’re very kind. She hugged Sarah, separated. “Perhaps I need a bit to compose myself. Elsewhere.” The nun left in the direction of the hall entrance and the charge nurse.

Sarah turned back to the huge hall, to the damaged men who needed her help gathering themselves for the next leg of their journey. A couple men who had paused from their efforts to watch the exchange between the two women nodded at Sarah as if to say they understood this hope is fleeting, no more than a ripple of breeze; that this light instant didn’t banish the dark mass that had collected in each of them, the young women tending the wounded as much as the men who stared at death from their destroyed bodies.

Sarah sensed their blessing, their inclusion, that she was no less a part of them, a part of the whole that contained them all. With that thought, a surge of grief overtook Sarah; these men, so many men who needed so much, more than she could provide because there were so many, too much, she couldn’t. She knew she would explode into sobs if she did not move.

Sarah walked to the two men, who were now clumsily packing their few items of gear. As she approached, they stopped what they were doing. She asked if she could assist them. The soldier with the seeping neck wound was holding open a canvas knapsack for his one-armed comrade to deposit his belongings. The man without an arm answered “no”. She understood; they had each other, which was enough. The man with the neck wound rasped. “May it be over. May a merciful God decide there should be no more destruction.” Sarah did not hear a plea nor a challenge. She heard the unflinching sentiment that bound them all together.

***

There were days of quiet calm. Days when the war seemed impossibly far away except for the occasional straggler, shell shocked behind lost eyes, drifting away from what life had determined. It was not so many days but each second contained a small eternity. Sarah, Sister Claire, Cecile were inseparable throughout.

They knew this peace was created, and they suspected it had been created for them. With that they took greater pleasure in each snatch of conversation, each touch, each moment of grace that accompanied the taste of a dried pear or cold glass of sheep’s milk. They were correct that their respite had been created; Mother Clothilde had forcibly argued to her superior that these young women, Sarah and all the rest were exceptional and had performed brilliantly in savage conditions. She insisted if they were taken away to serve at the developing new front lines, they may be lost forever. Unless the need was dire elsewhere, they should remain for now. The trustees of the nursing corps heeded Mother Clothildes’ advice and did not call upon these young women to serve at the front then. For then the numbers of wounded had diminished so that the reserve hospitals in the cities were able to manage as they were then staffed. Of course that lull would soon end with the First Battle of Artois, but in those few blessed weeks no one knew enough to disregard the return of simple pleasure and to dread the days to come.

Sarah, Cecile and Sister Claire, with the others, spent their days making bandages from spare linen and discarded clothing. They packaged the bandages tightly in crates that were then stacked in two local barns. The barns no longer sheltered livestock which had been slaughtered to feed the thousands who had descended on the village. Instead, the villagers were satisfied with duck eggs and sheep’s milk, with talk of some day raising cattle again. For now the barns were meant to serve the cause of war, with its need for stockpiled bandages.

Nurses and aides did leave a few at a time. When an ambulance would bring a few wounded, they almost always took a couple women away. The word would circulate that the women were headed to a city hospital far behind the lines. The men who were brought suffered from various wounds but all had lost their minds to what was then called shell shock. They came and remained.

The young women knew this sequestration must be deliberate. As Sister Claire had suggested, “Perhaps the commanders think they are bad for morale to have them among the others.” Sarah agreed yet she did not find their damage any more distressing than the gaping wounds and shattered limbs she had treated just weeks before.

There was the stillness of the village, since the war’s next offensive was occurring away. The pace of living was similar to what had once been, the quality of purposefulness resembled the pre-war time, yet undeniable change prevailed. The townspeople had shared the experience of those gruesome weeks although they did not speak of it except in close knit, urgent whispers.. All of the village’s young men were gone, but they continued present among their families and neighbors, limited to memories and the amount of detail they shared in their letters home. They dwelled incorporeal in the village, beloved phantoms.

The nurses and aides who remained at the vestige of the hospital curiously observed the shift in the spirit of the town. They helped with the peoples’ communal efforts and ate at the tables of those whom they were coming to know. They were regarded and treated as honored guests, these outsiders who had shared a searing experience.

Sarah learned she had a bit of a knack for football when playing with the children in a field at the edge of town. She was no competition, though, with Sister Claire, who dribbled and feinted so deftly that the children whooped with joy when she would dart past Sarah or Cecile or any of the other young women on the pitch. She was gracious enough to allow the children to swarm her and pluck the ball away, again to joyous whoops.

Sarah loved the feeling of the brisk November air filling her lungs, the burning glow on her cheeks that lasted long after the play had ended and she was back at work in the ward or at supper. She loved the look of the glow on the cheeks of Sister Claire and Cecile and the other women she worked with. That, and the way their eyes shined. We are alive. She once thought. Together. She had to smile when Mother Clothilde stood at the edge of the field watching and Sister Claire called her to join them. The mother superior refused and refused again until she took a brief turn in goal. To the amazement of the children and the young women, she was remarkably nimble despite her age and her cumbersome skirts and veil and wimple. Everyone cheered when she blocked a couple shots, and cheered louder when she retired to the sidelines after a few minutes.

That night at supper, the matron appeared in the dining hall and greeted her corps with small hellos and gestures before she returned to her quarters for her meal. All of the women, the twelve or so remaining, were astonished to see her in the dining hall.

At their table, after Mother Clothilda had left, Cecile asked what the visit might portend, adding “This all just seems a delightful holiday.”

Sarah agreed but cautioned, “We know the war rages on. We know we will be called upon again, most likely soon, but I say we just allow ourselves this pleasure.”

Sister Claire rubbed the rim of her pewter mug of cider against her lip, enjoying that sensation as she contributed, “Of course, but we may be called in ways we can’t expect.”

The two other women simultaneously asked her what she meant. The nun placed her mug down, “I’m not sure why I said that. There’s something I can’t place, something to do with this hospital, with us. Something about Mother Clothilde has removed the distance between us, It is so unusual, it tells me something.”

Sarah agreed there was a feeling about but there was nothing that wasn’t unusual anymore. “You are suggesting something fateful? Something of Divine Providence guiding us forward?” Sister Claire raised her eyebrow.

Cecile responded. “I think the two of you are just spouting off from the effects of a good game of football. How can we be talking of Divine Providence, seriously. The killing and the maiming hasn’t stopped, it’s only away. If you want to attribute a pleasurable day we shared to God’s will, then fine. I think God is busy elsewhere, don’t you know, and left us in peace for a change. Beyond that, I don’t believe I share your thoughts about there being something special in store for us.”

Sarah and Sister Claire nodded. Neither had the words to refute their friend. There weren’t words for what would be called intuition in later years, or synchronicity. There were just strong feelings seeded deep in both women’s guts. That something was about to unfold, like watching a wave about to break, a slight gripping anticipation.

***

The next day the first transport of shell shocked soldiers arrived at the small hospital. They were not caked with dust. They did not carry the scent of gears grinded by desperate drivers, brakes burnt by stop and go bursts from the midst of calamity. The three clean vehicles arrived calmly, no breakneck speed, and parked at the hospital’s main entrance.

Townspeople immediately gathered, curious. They watched an attendant exit the rear of each truck then turn to assist the next person departing. To all of their surprise, including that of the couple nurses who had joined the small crowd, the men next leaving the trucks wore clean uniforms and showed no signs of bodily wounds needing immediate attention. There were wounds; missing limbs, sightless eyes, but they had all been tended to, clearly some time ago. The confusion of the crowd was wordless, expressed in an agitation. If one were to ask what they thought, each person gathered would have queried, “Why are they here?” No one asked.

As the men disembarked, the attendants handed them over to the nurses, nuns and aides present. Those gathered noticed the soldiers’ halting, crabbed or flinching gait; their heads buried in their chests, or swaying from side to side, or covered by their forearms as shields against the sea of eyes that assaulted them, tearing away the partition to the perpetually burning sphere of their brain. The crowd’s agitation settled as they focused on determining individually, and as a group what it was they were witnessing. Even the typically rambunctious boys watched, earnestly needing to know what was taking place. The town square was silent except for the sound of the wounded men’s shuffling and the click of the women’s boot heels on the cobblestone as they guided the men into the hospital.

Cecile, standing by Sarah, thought of the circus that had come to her town not so long ago. Her friends and neighbors gawked at the strange animals and people who had come to entertain them, much like these townspeople were doing. Only then, her familiars could grin and point and elbow each other over the creatures because they had license to do so; it was expected to behave in such a way. On this day there were no rules to guide their reaction until one of the old farm hands removed his knit cap and placed it over his heart. Immediately, all gathered showed some sign of respect, mostly just lowering their eyes to allow these men, now understood as deeply wounded despite the viewers’ lack of comprehension as to what those wounds may be.