Join or Sign In
Sign in to customize your TV listings
By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.
The Crimson Field Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
6 Episodes 2014 - 2014
Episode 1
Episode #1.1
Sun, Jun 21, 201557 mins
In 1915 volunteer nurses Kitty, Flora and Rosalie arrive at a field hospital in France to work under Matron Grace Carter and her stiff assistant Sister Margaret Quayle. They are unprepared for the rigorous life and dizzy Flora is ordered to wash off her scent so as not to excite the soldiers. Patriotic Rosalie rubs up against the more cynical Kitty, who accuses her of volunteering in order to escape a dull home life though she later apologizes but Kitty's rebellious attitude does not endear her to Matron, who wants to send her home. However her handling of the severely disturbed private Molloy impresses Matron, who allows her to stay. All the while Matron, head surgeon Colonel Brett and his doctors, captains Gillan and Hesketh-Thorne are trying to prevent arrogant, ill-informed superiors from returning psychologically damaged men to the war. Then a fourth nurse arrives, down-to-earth Joan Livesey, who claims she is a qualified sister though Margaret is suspicious. That night all the nurses gather to watch the boys march off to the trenches.
Episode 2
Episode #1.2
Sun, Jun 28, 201559 mins
The first wave of casualties are brought to the hospital, including down-to-earth Major Crecy, whose legs have been amputated, and Jackie Byeford, the young private who saved his life, making them the only two survivors from their unit. Crecy's imperious wife Adelinde arrives and is disruptive, demanding her husband be moved to another ward though he wants to stay with Jackie and Kitty breaks the rules by allowing Jackie to say goodbye to the major, who is despairing and suicidal . Joan impresses Rosalie with her feminist attitude though Margaret makes clear her lack of confidence in the volunteers whilst Matron works out that Kitty, anxious for a letter from her lover, has had his child. A further two hundred casualties come in and Joan puts Rosalie in charge of their care though it is Flora who takes over when Rosalie flees, shocked at the sight of a nude man. Kitty eventually gets her letter and it is one of rejection. However she encourages Adelinde Crecy to stand by her husband and not let him give in to despair.
Episode 3
Episode #1.3
Sun, Jul 5, 201559 mins
Private Albert Nicholls has had a hand shot off but loathsome Major Yelland claims he is a malingerer who wounded himself to get out of the war and, despite the efforts of Colonel Brett and Matron, he is court-martialled and shot. Yelland, an incompetent and snobbish surgeon, taunts Thomas Gillan over his experimental treatment to save a patient's leg with a prosthetic, though Thomas is successful and Yelland is moved away. Meanwhile young Irishman Enda Peach stages a naked revolt against the hated British, drawing an unusual response from the sergeant who sees him as his adoptive son and Joan confesses to Belgian refugee Jaco that her lover is actually a German she met prior to the war. However Rosalie notices the engagement ring Joan wears around her neck.
Episode 4
Episode #1.4
Sun, Jul 12, 201559 mins
Kitty goes to a hotel to see Elliot Vincent, who is actually the husband on whom she cheated and who makes her sign papers for a divorce. When he tricks her into thinking she can see her daughter he attacks her and she is saved by Miles, though she later rejects both his and Peter's attentions. The colonel is angry when shell-shocked young soldier Lawrie Prentiss is returned, now epileptic as he had told Margaret to give him a ticket home. In fact she hid the ticket and claimed to have lost it, a fact used by Matron to have her transferred to another hospital. A group of patients calling themselves the Lucky Thirteen arrives, believing themselves to survive provided that they all stay together. The eldest, whom the others call Dad, has pleurisy and Joan is anxious that he stays behind for treatment but the youngest member Charlie discovers that Joan has a German lover and uses it to blackmail her into allowing Dad to join the others when they leave the hospital.
Episode 5
Episode #1.5
Sun, Jul 19, 201558 mins
The disruptive Major Ballard, head of a troop of Indian Sepoys, arrives at the hospital, desperate to return to the fighting. Establishing that, like himself, Matron has lived in India, he asks for her personal attention but she discovers that he is going blind. As a career soldier he is angry at the thought of being invalided back home and Matron has to stop him fighting a potentially suicidal duel. After he has gone she pulls out a photo of an Indian man. Jaco, who has been trying to locate Joan's lover Anton, is attacked and, when Kitty tends to his wounds, he mistakes her for Joan, inadvertently revealing her secret. Whilst the volunteers are staging a concert for the patients Joan slips out to meet Anton, who has escaped from a POW train but she is followed by Sergeant Soper, who confronts her.
Episode 6
Episode #1.6
Sun, Jul 26, 201559 mins
Joan is arrested and charged with aiding an enemy to escape. With news of the killing of British nurse Edith Cavell by Germans her accuser, Colonel Purbright, is keen to make an example of her and only the reappearance of Anton prevents her from being shot. Purbright believes Joan's actions reflect badly on Colonel Brett, himself distraught as he has learned of the death of his son in action, and Matron is perturbed when Margaret returns to give evidence on the colonel's running of the hospital. Although Soper wants Margaret to testify against the colonel as he wants her to be Matron she gives him a glowing reference, saving his reputation, at the same time reminding Matron Grace that she knows of something in Matron's past which gives her some power. Kitty, meanwhile, is still sought after by both the young officers, Flora discovers that orderly Peter is gay but keeps it to herself and Rosalie overcomes her aversion to male nudity to help another damaged patient.