When the World Turned Upside Down

Chapter III

In Dreams
Pack up your troubles in your old kitbag and smile, smile, smile...
Colin was drifting through warm cotton. The sounds of the field hospital rushed around him, but he was oblivious to it. The dreams would not let him go. He couldn't pull away, into full consciousness. Sometimes even as he dreamt of the garden or screamed with fear at the images of war which passed through his mind he could hear the voices of nurses and doctors. Their voices mixed with an eerie orchestra of birdsong and gunfire. He knew he had been taken to a field hospital, as he had regained consciousness for a time. Mostly, all he knew was pain. At first he had tried to grasp what the doctors had been saying about his injuries but there were so many injured men, and so many doctors and nurses rushing about, that he could hardly make sense of it. And the pain, the pain was so blinding he couldn't pinpoint what hurt. He knew one thing though, he no longer felt any pain in his legs, he wasn't sure he felt anything at all.
Oblivion was better. The morphine induced fog was free of pain, and if he was lucky,  free of dreams. When he did dream, he was in a perpetual nightmare. Often, it was the same repetitive dream which haunted him. He would be standing in front of the walls of the garden, reaching out his hand to open the door, as his hand touched the door and pushed it open the rumble of gunfire began. The walls shook but Colin could not run, he could only walk forward into the garden.
At first the garden was at its peak of beauty. Every flower was in bloom, the grass was green, and roses circled the landscape. The sky was beautifully blue and the sun shone in Colin's eyes. There was something wrong though. The beauty shimmered in a way which frightened him. It didn't seem real, the beauty seemed to mock him  in a sinister fashion. As the rumble of gunfire increased the beautiful sheen melted away. The walls of the garden began to crumble. The sky darkened, filling with clouds of smoke and poison gas. The ground rumbled and began to fall away. In place of the green grass there was dark churned mud. Bodies grew up from the depths of the mud, floating to the surface. The flowers shriveled and grew gray. There was a whistling overhead and a burst of flames, the grass and trees began to burn. Soon everything was consumed by the close choking air, the acrid smoke and licking flames. Everything except the roses. The roses shook in the ground, then they began moving. Crawling and creeping around the bodies, their flowers were red as blood. As Colin stepped towards one of the dead men, the man's eyes opened. His eyes were a sickly yellow. The roses and their vines had snaked their way up the man's rotting arm, as the man began to move, to sit, to reach his stinking fingers towards Colin, the vines crept over Colin's fingers binding the men together. As their fingers met Colin struggled to get away but to no avail. The dead man smiled and began to laugh, pulling his rotten lips over blackened teeth and bleeding gums. He pulled Colin towards him and as Colin began to fall towards the churning earth and the man's broken body, he recognised the face. It was Dickon.
Colin's eyes flew open and he let out an inhuman scream.
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Night Nursing
In the last ward I worked, boys would awaken in pain and mental anguish every night. Here most of the men are too weak even to reach out their arms and cry out. Here, they just lay there, weak, most in the slow process of wasting away into nothingness. The average life of a spinal patient is less than a year since injury. There are occasionally lads who are strong enough. Or more accurately, whose injuries were less severe. They fight the morphine, some of them regain some strength and the lucky of them can avoid the kidney damage and skin infections which plague spinal patients. Private Craven was one of these patients. Dr. Hawthorne says that he will probably show some recovery and may live a long life despite his injuries. He certainly fights harder than many spinal patients. He has been feverish since he got here and goes between bouts of delirium and long periods of silence. Although his fever is high and his color is not good, he passes water well, although he doesn't manage to drink much. He was injured nearly three weeks ago and doesn't show any sign of kidney or bladder infections which bodes very well for his chances of survival, particularly considering the conditions he had likely faced in the field hospital. Most field surgeons see spinal injuries as unsurvivable. Some will not treat the patient, leaving them to die of an injury which is "not to be treated." This is only partially because they do not know how to treat these patients, more it is because they could not see the worst cases as being able to live any kind of full life. They do not see the life of a man in a wheelchair as worth living. Others perform risky operations in a desperate attempt to heal the spine. These operations generally only cause further damage and increase the risk of infection. Anyway, he does seem to have some lucid moments. Dr. Hawthorne believes the fever is caused by inflammation of the fluid around the spine as a reaction to spinal shock rather than from infection because the wound on his back is, by some miracle, not septic. We can only hope that this is the case, many patients come in with sepsis already taken hold in bedsores or other open wounds. Most in this condition last only a few days. He came in in the same filthy condition as most of the men, he had still been in his uniform which was crusted with mud and fused to his body in places with dried blood. His feet especially were in a dangerous state when they first undressed him. The skin was rubbed raw in places and he had evidence of trench foot. This was made worse because of clearly poor circulation. Most field surgeons would not have known that blood pools in paralyzed limbs causing danger of gangrene, particularly when constricted by ill fitting army boots. Dr. Hawthorne ordered warm water baths and massage to encourage blood flow, hopefully his efforts will have been enough to save his feet but there really is no telling. Then again, it wasn't as though the poor boy's feet would be of much use to him now.

POV Switch: Third person omniscient
Colin was deep in his dream world, his forehead was drenched with sweat and his hands clutched weakly at the sheets
"No!" He cried out. The vision which had become so familiar was fading slowly, becoming the white walls and beds of a hospital, rather than the jumbled images of roses growing over corpses who smiled grotesquely out of Colin's nightmares.
Suddenly he felt something cold, and he began to wake.
"Hush, hush, everything will be alright lad, it's over, you're safe now, no more fighting" Colin clutched at the nurse's hand. His eyes were fever bright, and there were two bright red spots on his cheeks. 'Poor mite,' she thought, 'he looks no more than a boy.' She stroked his cheek with a cold cloth, soon he had begun to shiver.
He whispered "cold" as she touched the cloth to his cheek and tried to reach his hand towards the cloth but found himself too weak. Indeed his hands had become clammy, his lips tinged purplish blue, but he was still hot to the touch. 'Chills,' she thought, 'brought on by the fever.'
Nurse Anderson always tried to remain professional, but it became harder each day not to cry for these poor boys, to hold them and comfort them like their own mothers would, particularly now she felt the small secret life kicking inside her. The life, whose father was still on the Western Front, a moment away from the threat of death. She helped Colin change out of his sweat soaked pajamas and changed his soiled sheets.
"That's better isn't it?" She said as she lay Colin down on fresh pillows.
"Yes Miss, thank you. I just wish my back didn't ache so much. And there's this funny thing with my legs. I can't seem to move them, or feel them now that I think about it." The last came out as a murmur, he was drifting again, muttering to himself about a garden. His thickly lashed grey eyes began to close as she lifted a cup to his lips.
"You can sleep in a bit, but you've got to have a drink, come on, stay with me" he took the water and it seemed to revive him somewhat, though his eyes still looked distant and glassy. Nurse Anderson looked at his chart, he hadn't taken food or water in the evening, but he looked slightly more alert now and she thought she'd try again. Colin managed a few spoonfuls of clear broth and lay half awake for some time before drifting away from the ward again, into dreams. Nurse Anderson sat beside him until he dozed off. Holding his hand, cooling his forehead. Making sure that whatever nightmares he was facing in his fitful, fevered sleep, he knew there would be someone waiting on the other side.