Wednesday, 29th May, 1940
Who’d have thought such a disaster could happen! And that I would be caught up in the midst of it! Tonight I am in Dover, working fast to patch up the soldiers coming off the boats from Dunkirk. Hundreds of thousands of troops surrounded and trapped on a beach in France, the Luftwaffe strafing them with bullets, and all we can do is get everyone who has a boat to go off and rescue them, from fishing boats to ferries and yachts even. It’s as if we’ve gone back to medieval times!
Dover is a mass of activity. Teams of men pouring off boats of all shapes and sizes and tramping through the town to the railway station. Most of them, thank goodness, seem to be in good humor, overjoyed to be home. But many others look like they’ve been through a nightmare. Then there are those on stretchers, bleeding and delirious, or silently dying.
The thick mess of fresh blood, fresh casualties, is relentless in our surgery, an old workhouse converted into a hospital, reeking of human death lightly confused by the acidic stench of sterilization. The medics are too few for so many brutally wounded men. But we are trying our best, working from one patient to the next with gruesome practicality.
They picked me up at dawn in a bus packed with available doctors and nurses from the area, and we’re here for a few days at least. It’s now well past midnight, and I’m sitting in a dusty back room with an hour off to catch whatever rest I can. They’ve set up a few beds, but every time I close my eyes all I see is blood and gore, and I can still hear the screams of men as the pain gets too much, or worse, the sudden disconcerting quiet of death.
I’m trying not to think about David, but it’s like a throbbing beacon at the back of my brain. I know he was in France—almost all our troops were—so he must be somewhere in this chaos. I hope.
We have some desperate cases here. Earlier today I was called to help a bloody mess of a young officer by the name of Berkeley who had a vast gash of shrapnel in his side. I quickly realized that it was too late for surgery, too late for anything. His bleeding was relentless, spurts pulsating into the drenched poultice that I pushed desperately into his rib cage.
“You’re going to be all right. You’ll be just fine,” I said softly.
“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” he murmured, his refined tones sounding very young indeed. He must have been just out of school, the same as David.
“No, you’ll be fine,” I lied, inwardly panicking. What should I do? Should I tell him he’s going to die in case he has something he needs to say? I felt so utterly unprepared: What was I doing here? What was I playing at?
“If,” he stammered quietly. “If I die, w-will you give my ring to someone?” He tried to raise his hand, and I saw the gold band loose on his finger.
“Of course,” I said, slipping it off and holding it out in my hand. It was a man’s signet ring, heavy, old, valuable.
“Give it to Carrington,” he murmured, his voice breaking as he spoke the name. “In Parnham, near Litchfield.”
“That’s close, I can get it there,” I said gently. “Is there a message?”
“Say I love you,” he choked horribly.
“Of course I’ll give it to her,” I said.
“He’s a man,” he whispered, his eyes looking into mine, large with dread, scared that he’d asked too much, said too much. He could be hanged for this. If he wasn’t dead already.
A surge of blood rushed to my face. I’ve never met a homosexual before. I’d heard of them, of course, but always thought they were different, living in an underworld, as if they didn’t really exist at all. But here was a gentle, handsome, dying youth telling me to send his last message to his friend, who he loved. I was speechless for a moment, unraveling the dense mesh between morality and reality.
“I’ll tell him,” I whispered.
Then, as if something had suddenly occurred to him, he opened his eyes wide and gasped, “You won’t, you won’t hand him in, will you?”
“No,” I said, meeting his gaze. “You can trust me.”
“I, I wasn’t thinking. I forgot that I could land him in trouble. I couldn’t bear for anything to happen to him.” His lean body began to shudder with tears.
I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but I couldn’t take my hands away from the thickening maroon of blood flooding the dressing. All I could do was find his hand and squeeze it tight.
“You’re the brave one,” I said. “You’re the hero. Carrington will be fine. Don’t worry about him. Just rest and breathe easily.”
And his breath became easier, and easier, until it stopped. I looked around for help, someone to tell, someone to acknowledge this death.
But no one was there. They were too busy.
Another life just begun and already over. A faraway star glows brighter and then disappears into the void.
What an insignificant, unprepared army of souls we are.
AIR BASE 9463, DAWS HILL, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
Tuesday, 4th June, 1940