Passions of War (14 page)

Nine

In Calais, as winter turned slowly to spring, life at Lamarck continued in the same routine. Casualties were collected from the trains and transported to the hospitals or, in the case of the most severely wounded, directly to the hospital ships in the harbour. The patients had to be fed and bathed, dressings had to be changed, and there was the occasional variation of a trip up to the front line to distribute comforts and collect casualties. The work was unremitting and carried out against a background of Zeppelin raids, limited rations and inadequate sleep. Amazingly, in the middle of it all, Grace Ashley-Smith found time to get married and became Mrs MacDougall – known from then on to everyone as Mac.

There were more vehicles now. They had three ambulances, converted trucks with canvas hoods and no windscreens; two lorries, which were used for carrying supplies; and of course Sparky, who was pressed into service to carry the less seriously wounded – designated ‘sitters' rather than ‘liers' (a terminology that gave rise to some considerable amusement among the troops). Leo saw less of Victoria these days, because as one of the most experienced drivers she was more often put in charge of this side of the work.

Every day at ten in the morning they all met in the common room at the top of the building, in the steamy fug produced by the freshly laundered sheets that hung on clothes horses around the big black stove. There, for a few precious minutes, they drank tea, ate biscuits and swapped stories. One morning Victoria rushed in, breathless with amusement.

‘I say, girls, come and look at this!'

They crowded to the window and Leo saw in the courtyard below a quite extraordinary-looking vehicle.

‘What on earth is it?' she asked.

‘Mobile baths,' Victoria replied.

They all clattered down the stone stairs and found ‘Boss' talking to two unknown young women in FANY uniform. The elder of the two turned to greet them.

‘Good morning. I'm Gamwell – Marion – and this is my sister, Hope.'

‘Is it really a mobile bath?' Leo asked.

‘Baths, plural,' was the reply. ‘Come and have a look.' As many of them as possible crowded into the vehicle and Marion went on: ‘It's a forty-horsepower Daimler engine and the chassis has been specially fitted out. There's a boiler here – you see? – with a tank and a pump, and six canvas baths on either side, all divided off with these canvas screens.'

‘That's marvellous!' Leo exclaimed. ‘And it really works?'

‘Well, proof of the pudding and all that . . .' Marion said with a grin. ‘But we've tested all the equipment and we should be able to bathe twelve men every fifteen minutes – say forty-eight an hour. And what's more, we can boil up their clothes as well.'

‘It's exactly what's needed,' Lilian Franklin said. ‘Most of the men are ridden with lice, poor things. No wonder there is so much typhus.'

Leo found that the days began to blur into each other, each of them a long round of back-breaking labour. To her intense distress, she discovered that the resilience and self-confidence which had carried her through the mud of Chataldzha and the squalor of Adrianople seemed to have deserted her. Then, she had been buoyed up by the excitement of strange surroundings and new experiences; and there had been, of course, the vital frisson of knowing that Sasha Malkovic was somewhere nearby. Now, the work had become a matter of routine, there were few distractions in Calais, and she was more acutely aware than ever of the pointless waste and misery of war.

Her depression was deepened by the news from the front. She knew from letters forwarded from Sussex Gardens that Tom and Ralph were somewhere in the Ypres salient and she dreaded going to pick up casualties from the train one morning and finding one or both of them there. But her worst imaginings were centred on what was happening in Serbia. In November the Austrians had occupied Belgrade but then, in a determined counter-attack, the Serbs had retaken it and pushed forward into Bosnia and Croatia. Max had ceased to write and she had no way of knowing whether he had been killed in the fighting, or had fled the country, or whether he was still at his post but unable to get letters out. Either way, she had no news of Sasha and no way of knowing if he was alive or dead.

Strangely, it was the behaviour of her colleagues that she found hardest to tolerate. At the outset, she had had private doubts about how some of her fellow FANYs, with their highly privileged upbringing, would react when faced with real casualties. It was one thing to be full of fun and enthusiasm at camp in England but could they cope with the real thing? She soon had to recognize that they coped superbly. Their main resource was humour – much of it of a fairly black variety. They had the capacity to transform even the most gruesome occurrences into jokes that left them all doubled up with giggles. All except Leo. She found herself unable to join in the laughter and every day it grated more and more on her nerves.

One morning in the common room she found herself screaming at the top of her voice. ‘Stop it! Stop it! It's not funny! How can you laugh like that? You're like a lot of little children! Stop it, for God's sake!' In the stunned silence that followed she was overwhelmed by a wave of anguish. She clasped her hands over her ears and sank down on a bale of blankets that served as a stool, sobbing desolately.

Victoria was by her side instantly, wrapping her arms round her. ‘Leo, don't, don't! Whatever is it? Come on, old thing, this is not like you.'

‘It is, it is!' Leo sobbed. ‘I'm such a bitch, Vita. I've been so full of my own importance, as if I'm the only one who knows what to do. And I'm the feeblest of you all. I can't bear it. I can't face it any more.'

Victoria's arm was removed and Leo felt her shoulders gripped by less kindly hands. Sister Wicks' voice cut through her paroxysms of self-flagellation. ‘Now, that's quite enough of that. Pull yourself together. We've got enough to cope with. The last thing we need is you sobbing and screaming.' Then, as Leo looked up and gulped back her tears, she went on more gently: ‘You're tired. We all are. But you're one of the strong ones. We need you to help the rest to keep going. Now, you've had your little outburst. Go and wash your face and get back to work.'

Later, Victoria sought Leo out on the ward. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Yes. I'm sorry about earlier.'

‘What you said, about being the only one who knows what to do . . .'

Leo shook her head and brushed the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘I'm so ashamed of myself, Vita. You know once, years ago, I heard my grandmother tell someone I was arrogant. And she was right. I've always had this idea of myself as being stronger and braver and cleverer than other people and I'm not. I can't compete with the likes of Mac or Boss or . . . or any of the others.'

‘That's not true!' Victoria said, with quiet conviction. ‘You've been terrific with the typhoid patients. Most of the others were scared stiff to begin with and they looked to you to show them what to do. They still do.'

Leo sighed. ‘I don't know. Maybe I am just tired. It's all such a mess, such a waste.'

‘I know,' Victoria responded. ‘But what can we do? We just have to keep going and hope for the best. But just remember, you've got nothing to be ashamed of.'

Two days later Leo received a letter, forwarded as usual from Sussex Gardens. As soon as she had finished reading it she hurried to find Victoria, who was down in the courtyard with her head, as usual, under the bonnet of one of the ambulances.

‘Vita, I've had a letter from Mabel Stobart!'

Victoria straightened up. ‘Really? The last rumour we heard was that she'd been arrested as a spy by the Germans. Was it true?'

‘I don't know, she doesn't say. The point is, Vita, she's going back to Serbia. She's got another convoy together and they're sailing from Liverpool on the first of April.'

Victoria resumed her work on the engine. ‘Good for her!'

‘But don't you see?' Leo persisted. ‘We have to go with her.'

‘Oh, no, we don't!'

‘You mean, you won't come?'

Victoria stood up again. ‘Leo, you are not seriously considering going back there, are you?'

‘Of course I am. I must!'

‘Why?'

‘You know why.'

Victoria wiped her hands on a rag and reached out to touch Leo's arm. ‘What's the point? The chances are you'd never catch up with him – assuming he's still alive. And even if you did, he's married. You know that.'

‘Married to a girl he doesn't love.'

‘But still . . .'

‘It wouldn't matter! She won't be with him. She'll be on the family estate, or perhaps evacuated to Greece or somewhere safe. If I can just find him, Vita . . . if we can just have a few weeks, a few days even . . .'

‘You mean, an affair?'

‘If that's what you want to call it. And you can't criticize me, you of all people. Not after Luke.'

‘I'm not criticizing. I'm just afraid that you'll go out there, into heaven knows what dangers, and then discover that he's miles away, or . . . or dead . . . or . . .'

‘Or what?'

‘It's been nearly two years, Leo. A lot can have changed in that time.'

‘He won't have changed,' Leo said with conviction. ‘And if I go, at least I shall be able to find out where he is, and if he's still alive. I have to go, Vita. You must understand that.'

Victoria sighed. ‘I suppose so. You're not happy here, that's obvious. It's got to be your decision.'

‘And you won't come with me?'

Their eyes met and Victoria shook her head slowly. ‘No, I'm sorry, Leo. Not this time. I like what I'm doing here. You know I've always preferred the driving to the nursing, and I don't imagine the Serbs will have many motor ambulances. I know I can be useful here and I've always felt that my first loyalty is to the FANY. So, no, I'm afraid I won't come with you.'

Leo held her gaze for a moment, tempted to try to persuade her, but what she saw convinced her that she would be wasting her time. She turned away sadly. ‘All right, if that's how you feel. I'd better go and break the news that I'm leaving to Boss.'

Grace MacDougall was away, attending a meeting somewhere, so Leo had an uncomfortable interview with Lilian Franklin.

‘I know you were involved with Stobart in Bulgaria, but you're a FANY first and foremost. I don't understand why you feel you have any obligation to rejoin her.'

Leo could not explain her real reasons so she said, ‘I feel an obligation to the people I worked with out there. The Serbs are fighting the Austrians all on their own and we haven't lifted a finger to help, and their soldiers need nursing just as badly as ours.'

‘But it was the Bulgarians you worked with, wasn't it?'

‘It was both. They were fighting on the same side then. Now the Serbs are with us and the Bulgars have chosen to remain neutral.'

‘But don't you have a duty to our men? Why do you want to go off and nurse the Serbs instead?'

‘I'm not nursing “our“ men, am I?' Leo pointed out. ‘What is the difference between nursing Belgians or Serbs, when we are all fighting on the same side?'

That effectively finished the argument and Franklin conceded stiffly that, since Leo was a volunteer and under no obligation to remain, she could do as she pleased. The other FANYs were stunned to learn that she was leaving and it was equally hard to convince them that she had good reasons, since only Victoria knew the true story. One or two even implied that she was running away. Leo shrugged and would have ignored them, but Victoria leapt to her defence, with a graphic account of the conditions they had endured on their previous expedition. Leo left her to it and went to pack, although she had a suspicion, from the changed attitudes she met when she went to say goodbye, that her friend had dropped a few hints that there was more to her decision than they had been told.

Victoria drove her to the ferry. On the quayside they hugged each other and Leo murmured, ‘I wish you were coming with me.'

‘I wish you were staying here,' Victoria responded, ‘but all I can do is wish you luck. I hope you find him – and if you do, don't let old-fashioned Victorian morality stand in your way. Take a leaf out of my book!'

‘I shall,' Leo promised. ‘Take care, Vita. For goodness' sake, mind how you drive. Stay on the bloody
pavé
!'

‘I'll try!' Victoria forced a laugh but Leo saw that there were tears in her eyes. ‘Take care, yourself.'

‘I will.' They looked at each other in silence for a minute, then Leo said, ‘I expect the war will be over by the time we see each other again.'

Victoria hugged her again. ‘Then let's hope it ends soon! I won't say goodbye. Just
au revoir
.'

‘
Au revoir
,' Leo echoed. Then she turned away and hurried up the gangplank without stopping to look back.

Mabel Stobart's convoy sailed from Liverpool on 1 April, with Leo among them. It was a larger group than the one which had manned the hospital in Lozengrad, including among others seven women doctors. They were not the only medical expedition on the ship. It was crammed with Red Cross volunteers and VADs, all bound for the same destination. The first few days were tense, as they had been told to anticipate attacks from the Germans' new submarines in the Irish Sea, but the danger did not materialize and on 8 April they reached Gibraltar. On 15 April they sailed into the harbour at Salonika. Standing on the deck, watching the towers and domes appear out of the mist, Leo was almost swamped by nostalgia. Two and a half years had passed since she last saw this sight but now she could hardly recognize the naïve, excitable girl who had stood there then.

The same contrast between then and now persisted as they went ashore. She remembered the irritation and disbelief with which she and Victoria had been met on that first occasion. Now, the group was expected and welcomed and their onward passage was smoothed by the new British military attaché, Colonel Harrison, and Colonel Hunter, who was in charge of the Royal Army Medical Corps' mission. They were to go, they were informed, to Kragujevac, to the south of Belgrade, where they were to set up a field hospital.