I found the position much more rewarding than being in the tent ward.

‘You wanted to rise through the ranks, Gertie,’ Josephine said. ‘Now, we’re so short-staffed there are no restrictions on how far you may go. Just work hard and be eager.’

The operations were fascinating. My first theatre experience was a leg amputation, which reminded me of handsome Corporal Perkins, and the operation I’d missed on the island of Kea.

Josephine was the anaesthetist, and her being there took away some of my nerves.

The surgeon, Rumley, was a highly respected Australian. ‘Ready?’ he called as he entered the stone-built theatre with two orderlies and a poor wretch on a stretcher.

‘Yes, sir,’ we all replied.

‘You, new girl,’ he said to me. ‘Stand next to the anaesthetist and do whatever I or she says, and don’t speak. I can’t abide chattering nurses.’

The patient writhed vigorously, his eyes staring in unashamed terror as he struggled against the orderlies.

Josephine spoke calmly over his whining. ‘You’ll be fine in a moment, soldier. Count ten for me. Come on now, let me hear you. One, two . . .’

She handed me a bottle with a glass stopper. ‘Open when I say and close immediately after I’ve filled the dropper – and don’t inhale the fumes.’ I nodded. She had what looked like a miniature bullhorn, with a pad of cotton inside. ‘Open.’ I did. She took a dropper of liquid and said, ‘Close’. Josephine emptied the chloroform dropper into the contraption and held it over the patient’s mouth and nose. The hypnotising smell wafted around us like oriental silk. The patient continued to writhe while Josephine talked soothingly, but soon he became dopey. The red-faced orderlies let go of his limbs. Josephine continued until he lay still, then she pulled his eyelid back to check his pupil.

‘Ready to go, sir,’ she said, adding more drops to the mask.

‘When nurse says so, open a window,’ Rumley ordered, nodding at me.

‘Right, give me the bottle and open the window,’ Josephine said moments later. Then she instructed me to apply a blood pressure cuff and tell her the reading.

The surgeon and the theatre nurse cut away the filthy bandages that tied the leg to a length of wood. Then they cut away what remained of the shredded uniform trousers.

‘There’s a mess,’ Rumley said, examining the two ragged wounds where shattered bones protruded. ‘Hit in the back of the knee. Blown off his entire knee and the ends of the tibia, fibula, and femur. We can’t repair what isn’t there. Let’s get on with it and amputate at the lower femur as close to the knee as possible.’ He prodded and peered. ‘No sepsis. Right, let’s have a belt tourniquet on the thigh and get started. How are you doing, nurses?’