Cups of Tea and Gentle Hands

Dearest Meg,

I am writing this at half past eleven at night, snatching a few minutes before the next train arrives. The trains are the worst, you see — you can hear them coming from miles away, the whistle cutting through the dark, and you know what they’re bringing.

They come in waves, like the tide. Day after day, week after week. Since July the first, we have not stopped. The wards are full — every bed, every corridor, every tent. We are triaging on the platform now, making split-second decisions about who gets a bed and who gets a blanket on the floor. The walking wounded wait outside in the rain.

I held a boy today — he couldn’t have been older than eighteen. His leg was gone below the knee and his eyes were wide open, not from the pain but from the shock. He looked at me and said, “Am I going to be all right, sister?” and I said yes because that is what we say. He died in my arms forty minutes later. He called for his mother at the end. I told him I was there. I told him he was not alone. I hope that was true.

The smell is indescribable. Gas gangrene — sweet and sickly, like rotting meat mixed with flowers. The mud. The iodine. Blood and Lysol and sweat and fear. You never get used to it, but you learn to breathe through your mouth.

And yet — and this is the strangest thing, Meg — there is joy here too. The girls I work with are the bravest women I have ever known. We laugh at things that would make you weep. We drink tea in the store room and share chocolate sent from home and tell each other about the men we will marry when this is over. We are cups of tea and gentle hands in an ocean of chaos. It is not enough, I know. But it is something.

I worry about the Zeppelins. I heard last week that one raided London — did it come near Islington? Please write and tell me you are safe. Tell Mother I am well. Tell Father I am doing good work.

The whistle is blowing. Another train.

Your loving sister, Edith

P.S. — If you can spare any more of that lavender soap, send it. We wash our hands so often they bleed.