Greek Island of Lemnos, 1916.

THE RED CROSS VADS AND nurses rushed from patient to patient, doing their best for each in turn, reluctant to dwell on what they were dealing with. One soldier started screaming and thrashing with such violence it took four orderlies to hold him down. The surgeon rushed down the ramp with a pad and a bottle which he shoved at Josephine.

‘Chloroform him!’ he ordered abruptly before moving on to another invalid.

Eager to learn the technique, I stood at Josephine’s side. She sensed what was going through my mind. ‘Hold the pad near his mouth and nose, and be careful not to breathe any fumes.’ I did as she said and watched as she dripped the sedating liquid onto the pad. As the fumes doped the soldier, he shuddered and the violence left him. The procedure took two or three minutes. The four orderlies sighed, sweating from the exertion of restraining the patient. They moved on without a word.

‘Look at them all! Where are they coming from?’ I asked Josephine.

‘It’s called triage. Soldiers, sorted into categories. Those not expected to survive are delivered last, the ones needing urgent attention, first; and various stages in between.’ She turned to the chloroformed soldier before us. ‘Poor lad,’ she muttered, fixing the pad to his face and adding the doping drops. ‘Call me if he stirs. Clean the wound while he’s unconscious, Gertie. Cover it with a gauze pad, then find me. There’s a trolley with all you need over there.’

‘Yes, nurse.’ I fetched the dressings trolley, sucked in a breath and lifted the sheet. Shrapnel had taken a sideswipe at him and cut away the front of his abdomen. His internal organs were throbbing in clear view and, horror of horrors, part lifted with the sheet that had stuck to them.

I was a VAD, not a nurse. My job was the tedium, the chores not worthy of detaining a skilled nurse, yet here I was dealing with living body parts that could have come straight out of my father’s anatomy books. Stale saliva rushed into my mouth. I dropped the sheet, ran to the edge of the dock, and hurled my breakfast into the water. Shallow breathing and a thudding heart told me I was in shock . . . no use to anyone in that state. After pulling myself together, I got a grip on the situation and returned to the soldier.