Heart of War (93 page)

The sergeant barked, ‘Change!'

Johnny doubled back to the post of Cannoneer Number 5. His hands were freezing in the cold wind, and his ears were blue and numb with pain. The cords on his hat were that colour – infantry blue … one day, five or six weeks from now, they'd be the red of the Field Artillery … no, they wouldn't, they'd be the gold and black of an officer….

‘March order!'

I'm Number 5, Johnny thought to himself – so, replace or otherwise dispose of unused ammunition … but there isn't any … help Number 3 lower and secure the caisson door and
raise and secure the caisson apron … secure aiming stakes on the right side of the piece's trail … take post …

Change … change … change … Prepare for action … March order … change …

The hours wore on.

The electric lights burned bright overhead in one of the hutted lecture rooms of the School of Fire. There was no heat, and all the students and instructors alike were wearing thick uniforms and heavy coats, either long greatcoats, or shorter coats lined and collared with wool. The instructor, a 1st Lieutenant of Field Artillery, stood by the blackboard, which was marked with a diagram of four field pieces labelled G1, G2, G3, and G4, and parallel dotted and solid lines labelled by other letters and figures. Under all was scrawled in the lieutenant's handwriting DEFLECTION DIFFERENCE.

Johnny listened, eyeing the lieutenant the while. His name was George Burress and he was a tall, scholarly man of about thirty, not unlike President Wilson in general appearance. He smelled of the classroom, not of the gun park or the stables … his wife Jean was a year or two younger and was very pretty – in Stella's roses and peaches sort of way … she liked entertaining the young officer candidates … so lonely and far from home, she chirped … Heaven knew there were enough of them here to keep her knee deep in admirers: that's what she seemed to want …

Lieutenant Burress was speaking, ‘The deflection difference is the difference in deflection which is applied to the several pieces so that each piece may be brought to bear on its own part of the target … What are the planes of fire of the various pieces, taken as a whole, called? Private Anspach?'

‘The sheaf, sir.'

‘Right … the base piece – G1 on the diagram there – having been established on the base line, the other pieces may be laid parallel to it by the use of a common aiming point … establishing each of the other pieces individually parallel to the base line by using an aiming circle or some other angle measuring instrument, or … Corporal Merritt?'

‘Reciprocal laying in the base piece, sir.'

‘Right … Now, let's form a parallel sheaf by using a common aiming point … The aiming point may be …'

Corrections for angle site … determination of the
deflection difference … convergence difference … distribution difference … For distributed fire the deflection difference is equal to the convergence difference increased algebraically by the distribution difference; or DD = p – t + F/N – 1…

Johnny's head swam. At least, he realized, he wasn't thinking of Stella and the lost baby …

Application of rules … formation of a parallel sheaf using a director … First case – Orienting line materialized …

He jerked himself awake. He must learn, he must graduate, or he'd never get back to France, or England …

Lady Helen Durand-Beaulieu walked briskly down Walstone's winding street, a basket of tinned goods on her arm. Her boots crunched satisfyingly into the frosty gravel of the road, a sharp wind made her cheeks tingle and glow. It was three o'clock of a Sunday afternoon and few people were about except some boys dribbling a soccer ball past Mr Fulcher's cottage and police station. A train was chuffing out of the station, headed for Ashford, its steam a dense cloud in the damp air, the clanking of its coupling rods to be heard a mile away in the general winter silence.

Lady Helen left the village proper behind her and a few minutes later came to Probyn Gorse's cottage, made her way through the gap in the hedge, and walked through the frost-starched grass to the front door. No dog barked; so Probyn was out, with the Duke of Clarence, she thought. That would make it easier, though he would know as soon as he came in, for the Woman would tell him, as she should.

The Woman opened the door and Helen said, ‘May I come in?'

The Woman stood back, but said nothing. Helen walked in and put the basket on the table. She said, ‘Mr and Mrs Rowland wanted you to have these in good time before Christmas. They're not very exciting, but we all hope you'll like them – baked beans, bully beef, stew, some jam … and a bottle of rum.'

‘All from H.U.S.L.,' the Woman said, glancing at the labels. ‘Mrs Rowland wouldn't have gone there six months ago.'

‘We're having a hard time at High Staining,' Helen said simply. ‘Not compared with others, but we can't afford to be
extravagant.' She began taking the tins out of the basket. She said, over her shoulder, ‘This is not what I really came about.' She turned to face the Woman squarely – ‘I'm going to have a baby.'

‘Captain Charles's.' It was a statement, not a question, but she nodded. ‘You want me to get rid of it, now that he's been killed…'

‘Certainly not! Will you help me find a place where I can live, earn some money, do something useful, while I'm waiting for the baby? And will you come and help me have him when the time comes, wherever I am?'

The Woman's naturally harsh face softened. She said, ‘It will be a boy. You're sure, are you not?'

Helen nodded. ‘Yes.'

The Woman said, ‘Sit down, milady. There.' She put some slivers of wood into the stove and moved a simmering pot a few inches. Then – ‘You'll best go to London. There's work everywhere for women these days, but London has more … and it will be harder to find you.'

‘I'm not ashamed,' Helen said. ‘I'm glad. But my father will be terribly upset … My mother, too, for a time, I suppose. And Mr and Mrs Rowland. I don't want to rub all their noses in it by staying.'

The Woman said suddenly, ‘Do you know Ethel Stratton, that was? Mrs Fagioletti?'

Helen said, ‘Yes, vaguely … She married an Italian waiter and then he divorced her or something. Mr and Mrs Rowland have talked of her.'

The Woman said, ‘They're back together – except that he's in the Army, in France. She has two rooms in London, and has been trying to find a boarder, to make a little money, till Fagioletti comes home. Fletcher wrote us about her …'

‘Do you have her address?' Helen asked eagerly.

‘No, but I know who will have it – her sister, Ruth Hoggin, or her mother, Mrs Stratton. Mrs Stratton's living with the Hoggins now.'

‘I'll go and …' Helen began.

The Woman raised a hand, ‘You'll go home and get yourself ready. Probyn will give you the address tomorrow.'

‘Then I'll leave at once.'

‘When will you have the baby?'

‘About the end of March.'

‘Is it kicking?'

‘Just started. Here, feel.' She stood up, unbuttoned her overcoat and jacket, and laid the Woman's hand on her belly. Through the thick wool of her shirt she felt the baby kick once against the Woman's hand, then lie still, a minute, more … another. She found herself smiling with joy.

The Woman said, ‘I'd best take a look to make sure everything's all right. It's cold in here, but I won't be long. Take off your breeches, milady.'

Helen began undressing, tears filling her eyes. The Woman said gently, ‘I'm sorry about the captain. But the boy will make it better for you.'

‘I know. But now … I remember, too much.'

She lay down on the little table and the Woman began gently palpating, while tears ran down Helen's cheeks onto the bare wood.

Fiona Rowland stared at the letter uncomprehending … token of esteem … happy to give the young couple goods to the value of one hundred pounds from the H.U.S.L. stores in Hedlington, or Aldershot … small compared with what Battery Sergeant Major Robinson has given for his country … modest start on married life … obedient servant, Bill Hoggin … What on earth was this about? She had been looking for a letter from Archie … or from Quentin about Archie … but this? Ah, it was to do with Virginia's engagement, which had now been announced in the papers: that dreadful man Hoggin was offering to give them a present.

She hurled the letter to the floor and began to pace the flat like a caged tigress. It was a week since Quentin's letter had reached her. But where was Archie? Quentin should have sent a telegram at once, then perhaps she might have been able to get out to France and intercept him on his way back through the Base Hospital … She was being silly. That would have been impossible. And Quentin had probably done right not even to write until he knew that Archie had survived at least through the first sort of hospital. Quentin had written, ‘You will be as sorry as I to learn that Archie Campbell was severely wounded on November 6, in Nollehoek. I know he reached the C.C.S. (that's Casualty Clearing Station) all right, but he had just been evacuated when I was able to visit it the day before yesterday. I spoke to
a doctor who told me he was not out of danger, from complications, because the bullet had chipped a piece out of his liver and punctured the intestine. That is the last I have heard…'

Archie would write soon – as soon as he could. He knew she would do anything for him, and now he needed her … now he was free of Quentin and the awful magnetic pull of Quentin's sacred ‘regiment.' He would come back to her now, for he had done what he had said he must – face the same dangers that Quentin did. He would live, he must, for her … but
where – was – he?

Why didn't he get a doctor or another patient to write, just a few words to say he was alive and
where – he – was
, that was all she needed. Then she'd be out of her misery … why hadn't she read the casualty lists more closely? Once she knew he was wounded, she hadn't looked at the lists of the killed and died of wounds … suppose he'd died of wounds in some cold miserable tent in French mud …

Where – was – he?

She stopped her pacing, mesmerized by a new realization. The first person he'd write to, when he could, was Quentin. She'd have to beg Quentin to tell her where he was as soon as he learned. She found herself staring at a pen-and-ink drawing of Quentin, sitting in a dugout drinking cocoa, by candlelight, muffled in his British warm, wearing mittens, his steel helmet on. It was signed CAMPBELL … one of the best things Archie had ever done …

Did Quentin know? Surely not, or he would have had Archie transferred to another battalion, even another regiment.

Well, even if he did, she must write and beg. She must know where Archie was.

I wish my mother could see me now with a grease-gun under my car
,

Filling my differential, ere I start for the camp from afar
,

A top a sheet of frozen iron, in cold that'd make you cry
.

‘Why do we do it?' you ask, ‘Why? We're the F.A.N.Y.'

I used to be in Society once;

Danced, hunted, and flirted – once;

Had white hands and complexion – once;

Now I'm a F.A.N.Y.!

The twenty women chanted exuberantly to a mournful psalm tune, conducted by Trooper Jelkes, the short fleece-lined greatcoat open at the neck, showing her khaki scarf, lace-up field boots on her slender legs, and a steel helmet on the back of her head, the chinstrap on her dimpled chin keeping it in place as she waved her arms imperiously, the right hand holding a long French loaf as a baton.

Naomi Rowland sang with the rest until the turn of another girl's head, a look in her eye, reminded her of Boy. She stopped singing. How could she be enjoying herself so much, with Boy gone? In another week or two she'd find herself praying that this awful war would go on for ever.

But she could not hold herself against the current in the room; and soon began to sing again with the rest:

That is what we are known as, that is what you must call
.

If you want ‘Officers' Luggage,' ‘Sister,' ‘Patients' an' all
,

Ring up the Ambulance Convoy, ‘Turn out the F.A.N.Y.'

They used to say we were idling – once;

Joy-riding round the battlefield
–
once;

Wasting petrol and carbide – once;

Now we're the F.A.N.Y
.

That is what we are known as: we are the children to blame
,

For begging the loan of
…

From outside the shrill cry of ‘Barges! Barges!' cut through the massed trebles and contraltoes. Trooper Jelkes broke off in mid verse, shouting ‘Barges!' and jumped down from the bench on which she had been standing. With the others Naomi ran for her steel helmet, hanging on a peg on the wall by the door – she was already wearing her greatcoat, for the hut was not heated, except once in a blue moon when they could scrounge enough wood or coal for the derisory fireplace. Gauntlets on, she shoved through the door with the rest and out into the night.

It was blowing hard, driving snow horizontally into her face from the north-west. The snow lay only four inches deep as yet, she saw by the dim lights, but it would be slippery, especially on the slope down to the canal wharf where the barges unloaded the wounded. The Convoy would be lucky if another girl didn't follow Trooper Bainbridge's feat of last month, and go sliding into the canal. She reached her
ambulance … the lieutenant was there, leaning in as she arranged the spark and mixture – ‘You'll have an orderly, Rowland. Wait for him … They'll be a minute.'

‘All right, madam,' she shouted back into the wind, and climbed out with the starting handle in her gauntleted hand. Turn gently, turn again, and again, switched off … It wasn't cold enough for the Convoy to carry out what, they had told her, was the real cold weather drill, when drivers had to get out of bed every hour, start the lorries and ambulances, and run them for five minutes, so that they would start quickly in just such emergencies as this.