The War is Over

“Maybe in our hypothesising, we’ve accidentally robbed the moment of its landing,” the humour in her gaze is pinned on the cigarette between her fingertips. Her other hand subtly mimes the fingering of a piano piece against the stack of cinderblocks we’re sitting on, her only tell being the rhythmic flex in her littlest finger. We’d set up this hermitage six or so months ago. She’d argued that respectable ladies discussed any matters worth the interest in private- that the troopers had no rights to our discourse. The canvas marquee housed two dozen conscript nurses and soldiers- more than enough to be considered hazardous. Most were too encumbered in workload or too soused in opium to follow her gossip. The conditions of our endeavour were entirely dissimilar from a charming townhouse in Mayfair, but I’d stifled every pragmatic retort to her folly.

A sparse canopy atop a dwarfish hill was all the privacy and privilege that the war allowed us, but the seclusion invigorated our conversation regardless. Mousy dialogue and hushy snickers evolved into theatrical retellings, punctuated with gesture. Amidst the war-toned bleakness, in the foggy serenity, each morning dawned with more ardour than the last, and something shifted from superficial to sentimental. We shared catty remarks at the expense of our fellow nurses and naughty means of snagging more cigarettes than our rations allowed. Certain exchanges became quotidian; that the war would not have been half as catastrophic had women led the negotiations; that the starchy nursing uniforms were criminally unflattering; that the only benefit of conflict was this frantic sense of community- of us against them.

“Maybe this wasteland robbed the moment of its landing,” I could barely make out the grey figures within the cloud of dust suspended around the drab canvas tents. We aren’t far enough to muffle the whoops and songs from below. They still ring rife with jubilation, belting a hymn of sweet salvation. We’d been dispersed within the crowd when the good news came. It scurried through camp, sweeping through marquee after marquee and leaving an uproar in its wake. The split-second glance us was inconspicuous and fleeting and loaded with meaning.

She huffs a laugh and takes another drag. I’m sure it was intended to be casual and light, but it carries something cryptic. A quiet beat passes between us before she inhales slightly, as if preparing to speak. Another beat passes and she exhales; her words shy and disband. She takes another drag. “This morning, they were dying. Now, we’re going home. It doesn’t seem a bit sudden to you?”

‘We’re going home’. The soldiers had chanted the exact same words amidst their mobbish celebrations, tugging at the others’ shirts until they formed a clamouring mass. Scepticisms and conspiracies run through her blood. They are the foundation of our debates, more often than not and her vehemence made her a formidable opponent. Sophistically reasoned, poorly supported and entirely hypothetical- they hold no objective importance. A private debate between two meek nurses has no foothold on the political front. The chance to escape being ourselves for a morning at a time is valuable to us and us alone. “A conspiracy befitting the day it befalls. What now? Is the armistice a tactical bluff? A false sense of security?”

“I heard they were looking at psychological means of attack,” She didn’t even miss a beat. In retrospect, I can’t recall her ever doing so. She was almost feline in her sure-footedness, anyone would admire that in her.

“We’re registered casualty nurses on the Western Front,” I counter, “Can’t get much more in-our-heads than that.” The day we assembled this hill-top stronghold, we’d laughed about her hostile initial impression of me. It was the first week of assignment and we were a group of doe-eyed, rosy-cheeked maidens that had left everything to be there and had nothing of significance except a unit and a purpose. Going from cleaning food-stained mouths to sterilising gaping wounds had wiped the joie-de-vivre from most of us. What she thought was hostile, was scared- I was scared of the sounds and scared of the soldiers and scared of the damning realisation that my coming here was a fatal mistake. Sacrilege and treason both warrant heavy sentencing, they lay more guilt onto my precarious psyche. I’d kept my distance from the others, deciding it safer to look isolated than insolent. I’d have died with that secret had she not made a jarringly heinous remark about a shark-chum business venture that solves two problems at once.

“Not off the cards yet,” her voice chokes on the drag she’s just taken. “I guess it’s just weird to be going back. No lead-up, no wind-down. Just point blank. I know its cynical but it just seems so implausible to me that so much muchness can end so abruptly.”

“Are you calling the war a farce?” I tease. “How satirical.”

“Anything but! I’m saying that something that grave in impact shouldn’t have the flexibility to flip in an instant. The farce is dragging us out here for months on end, then dropping us back where they found us. As if it was all a fever dream. As we can get just slip back into the ruins, into the shells of the people we were before.” She’s heavy on her gesticulation. Leans fingers click at the ‘flip’ of her instant, they press into her temple for her ‘fever dream’, they sway and dance and add a mesmerising je-ne-sais-quoi to her point.

“I’ve a duty to report shell-shock, madam. War might be over but they’d stick you in still,” I bump her shoulder with mine. I can feel the agitation in her chest; it aggregates in the air around us with each exhale. War farce or not, falling out on the day of our endeavour would never be worth the vindication. “The transport convoys arrive at 0700 tomorrow morning. We’re going home, hun.”

“I know we’re going home,” she’s quick. She’s stoic. There isn’t a crack of emotion on her entire face. Her gaze scrutinizes the woodland floor. She takes the last drag of her cigarette, pointedly tosses the butt and turns to meet my gaze. “It’s a good thing. I’m not trying to disparage the armistice, or what it means for our nation. For our people. God knows the men down there would leave tonight if they had any idea which way to go. They don’t. They were dragged out here and at 0700, they’ll be dragged back. From teenage boys to national treasures to needy veterans.”

“And your solution is to never go home?” she scolds my ridicule with a jeer and continues.

“The things we’ve seen out here, the things we’ve learned out here, the people we’ve had to become,” she holds up another finger with each listing, “where do those fit into our polite society? Either we tamp it down or we have it tamped down for us.”

“You’re slighted by what awaits the soldiers upon our return? You liken them to cattle every chance that you get but their reassimilation concerns you?” my tone sounds incredulous even to my own ears, but her whiplash change of heart is enigmatic. She’d been consistently frugal with any show of emotion or compassion for the soldiers and their injuries. She stitched quick and moved on, working her way through patients with a dry swiftness that earned her many accolades from Nurse Superior.

“I’m slighted,” she starts, then lowers her voice back to normal, “in the fact that this blunt end is inhumane. The war is over and we’re leaving tomorrow. That’s barely any time for goodbye or closure or-”

“Nurse Superior is likely in her tent. You can kiss her goodbye like a true gentleman-” her hand grabs my wrist brutishly, with more force and purpose than she’s ever showed towards me. The quip dies on my tongue as she looks at me. Face to face, we’re sitting closer than I realised. She exaggerates a breath, inhale, hold, exhale.

“Will you write to me? Once we return, that is,” My heart beat slows in my eardrums. The low, rhythmic thump adds something carnal to the paralysing effect of her stare down. “It’s just that the war is over and we’re going home and..” she trails off. She slips off of me entirely; her hand from my skin, her gaze from my soul- she recoils back into herself.

“We came here to keep these men alive. We united to do the same for each other. You are not a means for survival to me, our bond has more behind it than that. I need you to know that. I need you to read my letters and write me back vividly because,” a dawning realisation. The implications of this armistice ricocheted all over my mind. This wasteland companionship should fade into insignificance against the bright future and everyday comforts that accompany the promise of peace. It doesn’t. “At 0700 tomorrow morning, we are to be relieved of our duty. It’s a comfort and a cruelty that we are never coming back.”