Complex sentence: The absence of the war from this fictional portrait means that Alfred is spared his crippling war wounds and Emily is spared her real-life role as nurse, enduring the agony of nursing desperately ill soldiers without the aid of morphine.
Split into simpler sentences: The absence of the war in this fictional portrait means Alfred is spared his crippling war wounds. Elsewhere Emily is spared her real-life role as nurse where she endured the agony of nursing desperately ill soldiers without the aid of morphine.