On another night, as Paul was taking a rest on the hospital roof, he watched in horror as a bomb exploded on the roof of the infant ward at nearby Royal Free Hospital. The roof collapsed, and Paul raced to the scene to help with the rescue. He took his place in line as the living and dead bodies of small children were removed from the rubble and moved to safety.
The work was grueling as night after night Paul dealt with people with broken or severed limbs or who had suffered jagged cuts from flying shards of glass. Some had been crushed by collapsing buildings. Paul learned how to deal with each new emergency.
Paul discovered that he was particularly interested in hand injuries, and there were lots of them. Some people had their hands cut to shreds by glass and other flying material, while the hands of others were pulverized by falling wood and bricks. Paul marveled at the integrity of the hand, the way it was formed, and how perfectly all of the muscles, tendons, bones, and nerves worked together to create the movements that most people took for granted.
Whole sections of London were laid waste by the ceaseless German bombing. The British government eventually decided that all medical students should be evacuated from the city. The students were worth too much to the war effort to stay in harm’s way. Paul was assigned to a hospital in Watford to the west of London. Meanwhile, Margaret Berry and some of the other female students were sent to Cardiff. Margaret stayed with Mrs. Morgan at Paul’s suggestion.
Sometimes when he had time off, Paul would persuade a friend to take him to Cardiff by motorbike. Even this took a lot of organizing, since gasoline was strictly rationed. He told himself that he was going to check up on Mrs. Morgan, but once there, he seemed to spend more and more time with Margaret.
At the beginning of 1942 the war was still going strong, though the nightly bombing of London and other British cities was no longer as intense as it had been. Paul was doing his obstetrics training when he learned that Margaret was returning to London to do her emergency room training. The students all thought that was ironic, since they had already seen more than their share of medical emergencies.
One night after a Christian Medical Students’ meeting, Paul walked Margaret home. It was a foggy night. Blackout conditions were in effect, and only faint lights flickered from the few cars that had gas and a reason to be out on the road. As they walked together, Paul found himself reaching for Margaret’s hand.
Chapter 7
Mister Brand
As 1942 began to unfold, the state of the war and concern about his future weighed heavily on Paul. In December 1941, Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into the war alongside Great Britain and her allies. It had been a great morale boost to many in England to know that America was now fighting on their side, yet Great Britain was still in a precarious situation. The Germans continued their night bombing raids over English cities, though more intermittently than before. Many British people still believed that Hitler had his sights set on invading England.
It seemed increasingly likely that Paul would be called up to serve in the military once he completed his medical instruction. Because Paul was a doctor in training, the Central Medical War Committee of the British Medical Association, in cooperation with the War Department, had deferred his military service. But when his training was over, Paul would be required to spend two years serving in the military. Despite the uncertainty, Paul was sure about one thing: whatever happened next in his life, he wanted Margaret Berry at his side.
On a beautiful spring morning in 1942, Paul and Margaret were walking in the bluebell woods near Margaret’s parents’ home in Northwood. As they stopped to rest and sat side by side atop a farm gate, the words tumbled out of Paul’s mouth. “Assuming one or the other of us gets called by God to serve Him in some other country, we shall go together. So, will you marry me?”
Paul realized that this was not the most romantic of marriage proposals, but he was delighted when Margaret beamed at him and answered, “Of course!”
When Paul and Margaret returned home from their walk, Paul formally asked Dr. Berry for Margaret’s hand in marriage. Good wishes were conveyed all around, and a few tears were shed. It was a difficult time to be planning any new venture, and it took a lot of faith for Paul to believe that everything would go well.
For the most part, things did work out. In May 1943, Paul and Margaret both graduated as doctors from the University College Medical School. A week later, on May 29, Dr. Paul Brand and Dr. Margaret Berry were married. Paul was twenty-eight years old, and Margaret was twenty-three. It had been six years since the two of them had been brought together at the worktable in their first chemistry lab by virtue of their “B” surnames.
The wedding was a modest affair held at Emmanuel Anglican Church in Northwood. One of Margaret’s father’s patients donated her clothing ration for the year so that Margaret could buy fabric for a wedding dress. Paul’s sister Connie, who was in missionary training herself, and Paul’s cousin Nancy wore borrowed bridesmaids dresses, and Paul’s aunts gave him his Grandmother Harris’s wedding ring to use during the ceremony. Paul’s family showed up in force, including his uncles and aunts and numerous cousins, but his mother could not make it to the event. Evelyn was still in India, experiencing her own turmoil of war.
The newlyweds enjoyed a weeklong honeymoon in the Wye Valley on the border between England and Wales. Both Paul and Margaret were exhausted from their last year at medical school and found the week away restful. During their final year of medical school, both had chosen to combine their studies with internships so that upon graduation they could go straight into medical practice.
Following the honeymoon, Paul and Margaret had to consider their next step. Now that he was a trained doctor, Paul had two paths before him. His military deferment was over, so he could either serve the required two years in the military as a doctor or undertake postgraduate medical training, in which case the Central Medical War Committee would extend his deferment. As a female, Margaret, on the other hand, would have to serve in the military only if she could not find a medical job at home.
After much prayer and discussion about the situation, the newlyweds decided that Margaret would live at her parents’ home in Northwood and join her father in his general medical practice. Meanwhile, Margaret’s father urged Paul to continue his medical studies, working to become a surgeon. At first Paul was reluctant, but Dr. Berry persuaded him that the two extra years of study would be worth it for a talented doctor like him. The couple decided that while Margaret lived at home with her parents in Northwood and practiced medicine with her father, Paul would stay in London and work in the hospital while pursuing becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. The decision was difficult for Paul, especially since it meant that he and Margaret would see each other only two weekends a month.
Meanwhile, Paul’s sister Connie had begun corresponding with David Wilmhurst, Paul’s classmate from the Livingstone Medical School. In what seemed no time at all, Connie announced that she and David had fallen in love while writing to each other and that she was sailing to Africa to marry him and assist him in his missionary work. Paul was envious of her freedom to make such a quick decision. He and Margaret longed to be on the mission field themselves, but he had an obligation to the Central Medical War Committee to serve in the armed forces, and there seemed no way out of that for him.
Paul went back to University College Hospital in London as a house surgeon. The night bombings continued, and the wounded still poured into the hospitals. During the day Paul assisted in routine surgeries on such things as clubfoot and inborn hip dislocations, and at night he treated bombing victims. Sometimes as he worked, he was so tired that he hardly knew what he was doing.
One morning as he was making his rounds of the hospital wards, Paul noticed that someone had prescribed a new drug to one of his patients. He called the nurse over. “Who signed off on this medication?” he asked.
She looked at him quizzically. “Why, you did, Dr. Brand—last night after you were done with the casualties.”
Paul picked up the chart again and ran his finger down it. Sure enough, there was his signature next to the new medication. He stepped back shocked. He had no recollection of being in that ward the previous night. Paul knew that he desperately needed a break, but when he looked around the hospital, he realized that everyone else working in the place did too. It was the nature of a long war to push everyone to his or her physical and mental limits.
Paul’s life was about to get more complicated. On one of his visits to Margaret, she announced that she was expecting a baby in March the following year. It was hardly the best of times to be having a baby, but Paul was grateful for a new life, and he prayed that Margaret would stay safe and healthy.
Early in 1944, Paul became the Resident Surgical Officer at the Hospital for Sick Children on Great Ormond Street, London. Here he seemed to be busier than he had been at University College Hospital. Nonetheless, when he was informed on March 8, 1944, that Margaret had gone into labor, he rushed to the Royal Northern Hospital, where they had agreed she would deliver the baby.
When Paul got to the hospital, the doctor informed the couple that Margaret still had a long time to wait before delivery of the baby. Paul had a cup of tea with his wife and returned to Great Ormond Street Hospital to resume his schedule. He waited and prayed for the rest of the day, but no word came on Margaret’s progress on giving birth.
That night Paul took his turn on fire watch atop the eight-story hospital building. His heart sank as he surveyed the night sky above London. It was a moonlit night, and flares of bright orange lit up the sky as bombed buildings burned to the east, sending plumes of acrid, black smoke into the air. It was all Paul could do not to leave his post and race over to the Royal Northern Hospital to be with Margaret. He managed to stay on the roof until his watch was over, and then he climbed down the stairs and back into the carnage of bombing victims coming through the hospital doors.
With no news yet from Margaret, Paul flopped into his bed at the hospital. He was so tired he fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke several hours later, he noticed a slip of paper on his nightstand. It read, “To inform you that you are the father of a bonny, bouncing boy.”
Paul jumped out of bed and dressed in record time. He took a bus across town and was relieved when the Royal Northern Hospital came into sight. The building had not been bombed during the night, but as the bus got closer, Paul noticed that the hospital had been cordoned off. He got off the bus, his heart pounding, and went to see what the problem was. He learned that several bombs had been dropped during the night in the vicinity of the hospital but had not exploded. Now they had to be defused and removed before it was safe for anyone to enter the hospital grounds.
Paul waited with the other visitors and patients at the hospital until the way was clear for him to go inside and find Margaret. She was exhausted from a long labor, but the baby, whom they were going to name Christopher, was fine and healthy. As he picked up the newborn child, Paul could hardly believe that he had a son.
Following their release from the hospital, Margaret and Christopher went back to live with Margaret’s parents. Margaret’s sister, Anna, and her baby daughter, Ruth, also lived at the house, as Anna’s husband, Anthony, was serving in the military.
Since everything in England and in their lives seemed to revolve around the war, Paul and Margaret prayed that it would soon end. They still wanted to be missionaries, but there was no way this was possible during wartime.
