Somewhere in France: A Novel of the Great War (12 page)

Chapter 21

P
rivate Gillespie set a measured pace for their first trip to the ADS, tracing a painstaking course around the mud-filled potholes that had left the road a stippled ruin. Lilly saw very little of the surrounding landscape, so intent was she on following in his wake, but several times she was obliged to bring her ambulance to a halt as his Ford inched past an especially large crater. In those moments, Lilly was able to survey the devastation that war had visited upon the countryside.

The farmhouses they passed were abandoned, tiled roofs shattered, shutters swinging wide, their vegetable gardens choked with weeds. Fields and hedgerows, once green and lush, had been drained of color and life, the skies above empty of birdsong. Where trees once towered, only jagged stumps now remained, marking the graves of vanished groves and thickets.

The lead ambulance was slowing; they had arrived at the ADS. She parked her vehicle carefully, taking care to turn around, as Private Gillespie was doing, so the ambulance was ready for the return journey.

The ADS was unmarked and, from the roadside, appeared to be little more than an embankment of sandbags, not especially high, with a gap in their middle about a yard wide. The women now followed Private Gillespie through the gap, stepping down into a crude, poorly lit dugout, where men sat silently on wooden benches as medics worked to bandage their wounds. At the far end of the chamber, stretchers crowded the dirt floor. A crude field dressing, already soaked with blood, was wrapped around one soldier’s head, covering his eyes and much of his face; another man, now mercifully unconscious, seemed to have been wounded in the abdomen. His dressings, too, were stained rust red.

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Lilly turned, her heart pounding, and attempted to formulate a reply. The man who had approached them seemed to be a sergeant, although it was hard to be certain in the chamber’s dim light.

Before she could say anything, Private Gillespie slipped past her, once again crimson with embarrassment. “These are the WAACs who’ll be our new drivers. We meant to set off earlier, but I had to show them around first. Sorry we’re late.”

“WAACs?
Women
drivers?” The sergeant’s face was, if possible, even redder than Private Gillespie’s. He sighed, heavily, and Lilly’s toes curled in her boots as she waited for the inevitable. “Bugger it, Gillespie, you could have warned me. Now I’ve gone and said ‘fuck’ in front of them.”

“That’s twice now,” Bridget pointed out.

The sergeant sighed loudly, then held out his hand for them to shake. “Sorry about that. I’m Sergeant Barnes, ladies, but you can call me Bill. Now let’s get these men loaded and on their way.” He walked to the door and whistled loudly. “Just calling for some help with these stretcher cases. Who’s going to take them?”

“I will,” answered Private Gillespie. “The ladies haven’t driven the route before, so—”

“Well, they’ll be driving it soon enough. And better now than in the rain, or in the middle of the night. It’s just the two ambulances, right?”

Muttering under his breath, Bill walked to the back of the dugout and surveyed the men who lay on its rough floor, their only cushion the thin canvas of their stretchers. “Him . . . and him . . . those two in the corner . . . the head wound there . . . and this one. Gutshot, but Captain Fraser might be able to pull him through. Do you have room for anyone up front?”

“We do,” Lilly offered.

“Then take this one. Shell fragments in the arm.”

Constance had already taken the uninjured arm of the soldier and was gingerly leading him out of the dugout. Before Lilly could follow, she was brushed aside by two stretcher-bearers, who carried their patient up the rough-hewn steps with surprising grace. First one stretcher, then another, was loaded into the back of her ambulance, the wounded men groaning a little as they were deposited on the thinly padded benches. Last of all was the man, hardly more than a boy, with the frightful abdominal wounds. Tellingly, he made no noise as the stretcher-bearers placed him on the floor between the other two stretchers.

Lilly began to pull the ambulance’s canvas covers into place, but a shout from the dugout stopped her. It was Bill, who for some reason was carrying a pair of battered tin canteens.

“They’re filled with hot water,” he explained, tucking the canteens under the blanket that covered the boy. “He’s gone into shock. They’ll keep him warm. And mind you bring them back—they’re as scarce as hen’s teeth.”

Blinking hard, Lilly looked away, hoping she would not shame herself, here, by shedding tears. Her vision clearing, she saw that Constance was waiting for her; clearly their passenger needed some assistance to climb into the ambulance.

Together they settled him in the center of the front seat, and then Lilly sat behind the steering wheel as Constance cranked the engine to life. She put the ambulance into gear as gently as possible, and it rewarded her by rolling forward without so much as a hiccup. So far, so good.

If the drive to the dressing station had been challenging, their return to the CCS was doubly so. Try as she might, Lilly was unable to avoid all of the potholes, for it seemed as if there were more of them than actual road. With every lurch and bounce of the chassis, a chorus of groans could be heard from the back, a daunting reminder of the urgency of her task.

“How far, do you think?” she asked Constance after many long minutes, praying the man hunched on the seat between them would not notice the anxiety percolating behind her words. But he made no sign of having heard.

“It’s so hard to tell. There’s no odometer on this thing, is there?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Well, let’s see what we can recognize. That farmhouse over there, to the right—do you remember it? The whole thing is tilting at such a funny angle. I can’t imagine why it hasn’t fallen down yet.”

“Constance,” Lilly warned, gritting her teeth. “We’re not meant to be sightseeing.”

“Calm down! I remember it from earlier. We’d only been driving a few minutes when we passed it. So we’re nearly there.”

Constance was right. Ahead, Private Gillespie’s ambulance rounded a bend in the road, passing the ruined house, which in other circumstances would have looked quite comical, and there, only a few hundred yards distant, was the CCS.

Chapter 22

I
’m here so I can make a difference. Just like you promised I would.

He’d been lying on his cot for more than an hour, desperately tired yet miserably awake. Try as he might, Robbie couldn’t erase the memory of Lilly’s words. Or the look on her face as she’d stared him down. She was right; he
had
encouraged her to join the WAAC. So why should he oppose her now?

The answer was clear enough, and it shamed him. He was afraid. More afraid than he’d been for a long, long time.

Sickening visions crowded in on him: a shell flattening her ambulance on the road to the dressing station, a gas attack on the ADS, a German raiding party breaking through the lines and reaching the ADS or even the 51st. It had happened before, elsewhere along the Front.

And then there were the horrors that Lilly was certain to face each and every day. He’d described them, as graphically as he dared, when she’d met him at the tea shop last October. But no secondhand account could possibly convey the morass of suffering, despair, and limitless loss into which she and her friends were about to wade.

Yet he’d never experienced so much as a twinge of concern over any of the other women he worked with, nor would any of them have welcomed such sentiments. They were here to do a job, to win the war, and had no time for old-fashioned notions about the so-called weaker sex.

It was time to face up to his role in this. He had encouraged her to apply to the WAAC. Bugger it, he’d even sung her praises to the corps’ chief controller.

She was here now; nothing he said or did would change that. He had to accept it. Would force himself to accept it. So why not embrace this twist of fate for what it was? A gift, pure and simple. The gift of time with Lilly.

He could see her lovely face whenever their paths crossed in the mess tent or the reception marquee. He could talk with her discreetly, share a cup of tea from time to time.

“Captain Fraser? Sorry to disturb you.”

It was Private Dixon; most likely Matron was sending him from tent to tent to rouse the surgeons.

“What time is it?”

“Nearly half-past nine. You’re wanted in surgery, sir. First lot of wounded just arrived.”

“Thanks. I’ll be right there.”

Robbie sat up, swung his feet over the side of the cot, and began to lace up his boots and gaiters. He hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, hadn’t washed, and he would stay that way—tired, hungry, and unshaven—for many hours more.

He would work until there were no more patients waiting in the reception marquee, and then he would eat. He would have a bath, possibly a warm one if the cistern hadn’t been emptied, and would shave.

And then—he would have to be careful; he didn’t want to get her in trouble already—he would seek Lilly out, apologize, and make everything right between them.

A
S THE
CCS came into sight, Lilly breathed a sigh of relief, fractionally relaxed her grip on the steering wheel, and promptly drove over a block of fieldstone that had become lodged in the mud of the road. From the back of the ambulance, piteous moans were her reward for a moment of inattention.

The road had smoothed a little, now, and she sped up as the tents and sheds of their destination grew closer. Private Gillespie had parked already, and she could see Bridget and Annie standing solemnly by as orderlies and nurses began their work.

Lilly pulled to a stop; even before she had switched off the engine, the canvas covers at the back of the ambulance were being pulled aside. By the time she and Constance had helped the soldier sitting between them to descend, all three stretchers had been removed from the ambulance; a flurry of activity surrounded each of their occupants.

“We’d best be off again, ladies,” Private Gillespie said. “We’ve got to move out all those men we saw, back there at the ADS, before we dare take a break. I’ll bring around a third ambulance so you have some extra help this morning.”

With that, they were off again. Another load of stretcher cases, another mutely suffering Tommy squashed into the front compartment, and then the journey home.

And again.

And again.

By the time they had cleared the last patient from the ADS, the sun was descending in the sky. Bill bid the WAACs a cheery good-bye, instructing them to return at first light. “They try not to move the wounded men from the front lines in daylight,” he explained. “Too dangerous. Most come to us overnight, so try and be here at dawn, or even earlier, if you can stand it.”

Lilly nodded, too weary to answer, and put the ambulance into gear. Only that morning, the pockmarked road in front of her had been as unfamiliar as the surface of the moon. And now? Now she knew every crater, every rut, every splintered branch and shattered boulder as well as she knew the rooms and hallways of Cumbermere Hall.

The ambulance, too, felt like an old friend. It was much easier to drive than the Crossley, to begin with, displaying none of the temperamental eccentricities that had made the lorry so difficult to manage. Lilly decided it ought to have a name.

“I think we should call the ambulance Henry,” she announced to Constance. On this trip, fortunately, they did not have a front-seat passenger.

“What was that? Did you say you want to name the ambulance?”

“Why not? Horses have names. Let’s call it Henry, after Mr. Ford. From all accounts he’s a detestable man, but his company has made us a fine ambulance.”

“But shouldn’t it have a female name? Like a ship?”

For the first time since that morning, Lilly felt her face relax into a smile. “Of course it should. What about Henrietta?”

“Henrietta it is.”

Chapter 23

L
illy had been looking forward to a cup of tea, and perhaps even something to eat, upon their return to the CCS. But first there was the disagreeable business of washing out the back of the ambulance. By the time she and Constance had filled their buckets and found some brushes and soap, the water, not very hot to begin with, had cooled to lukewarm; but the soap, which smelled strongly of carbolic, did a fine job of erasing the stench that permeated the ambulance’s interior.

At last it was done. Constance went off in search of some tea, though it was less than an hour until supper, while Lilly sat on one of Henrietta’s running boards and tried to ignore her growling stomach.

Seconds stretched into minutes; where was Constance with that tea? Lilly leaned back, tilting her face to the sun, and closed her eyes. Only for a moment, though. She still had to refill the radiator, check the oil, clean the spark plugs—

“Lilly?”

Why now? Why did he have to seek her out now, when she was dirty and disheveled and completely out of sorts? If only she’d taken a moment to wash her face when she’d gone to the lavatory earlier.

“I’m not bothering you, am I?” he asked.

“Not at all. I was waiting . . . that is, Constance is getting us some tea. We’ve only just finished.”

“Do you mind if I sit?” Robbie asked. “Is there room?”

Lilly shuffled to the end of the running board. “Of course there is.”

“I owe you an apology. My behavior, this morning, was inexcusable. Your friends must think me a brute.”

“No, they don’t. And it was my fault. Seeing me, like that, must have been a shock.”

“It was,” he admitted.

“Do you forgive me?”

“Aye, but with one condition. Agree to start over. Pretend this morning never happened.”

“How good to see you again, Captain Fraser,” she began, trying not to giggle.

“Likewise, Miss Ashford. How has your day been so far?”

“Quite fine, Captain Fraser, thank you.”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly? No. It’s been awful. Every bit as bad as you warned me it would be. I’m exhausted, and hungry, and I look a fright—”

“You’re wrong about that,” he interrupted.

Lilly decided to ignore the compliment. “I’m not complaining, Robbie. I’m just admitting that it’s bad. But I’ll manage.”

“Of course you will.”

“It wasn’t all bad. My ambulance is much easier to drive than the lorries we drove in Kent. So that’s one good thing. I’ve decided to call her Henrietta. After Mr. Ford.”

“I’m sure he would be flattered.”

“Robbie . . . did that boy survive? He had ginger hair, and the most terrible wounds to his abdomen. We brought him from the ADS around nine o’clock this morning.”

“I’m sorry, Lilly. By the time he arrived he had lost too much blood. We tried transfusing him, but it wasn’t enough. He died before I could operate.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, acid and unbidden. “I ought to have driven faster. If only I had known the road, I could have got him to you sooner . . .”

But Robbie was shaking his head. “No, Lilly. Even if I’d seen him hours earlier, he would have died. There was nothing that you, or I, or anyone could have done to save him. But he wasn’t alone. We weren’t very busy today, so one of the nurses was at his side to hold his hand, and make sure he was comfortable. Sometimes that’s all we can give them.”

She closed her eyes and pictured the soldier’s face. He’d been so young. “Do you know his name?”

“No,” Robbie replied. “But I’ll learn it soon enough. As soon as I have some time, I’ll write to his mother, since I doubt he was old enough to have a wife, and tell her what happened.”

“Surely you won’t tell her the truth?” Lilly asked, aghast.

“I’ll tell her what I just told you. Nothing clinical. Just that he didn’t suffer at the end, and that he wasn’t alone. I expect I’ll say something about his bravery, and the sacrifice he made for King and Country.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lilly saw a familiar khaki uniform moving toward them. If Miss Jeffries were to see them together—

“Is anything the matter, Lilly?”

“No, I . . .” The figure moved closer and she saw that it was Constance, walking slowly, her hands full. “I thought I saw Miss Jeffries, that’s all.”

“Is she as much of a dragon as she looks?”

Lilly couldn’t help but laugh. “More, I think. I have to be careful. If she were to see us . . .”

“This is innocent enough, isn’t it? Simply two friends sitting together and talking?”

“Of course it is. But I doubt she’d agree with you.”

“Then I’d best be on my way. Before I go, may I tell you something?”

Her throat suddenly dry, she could only nod in agreement.

“I’m glad to see you here. In spite of everything I said this morning, I am glad.” He turned to her, his eyes scanning her face, and it seemed to Lilly that he was trying to gauge her reaction.

Just then, a low “ahem” alerted Lilly to Constance’s arrival. Her friend was carrying two mugs of tea, as well as a small packet of biscuits.

“My mum sent me these last week,” Constance explained, “and since today was so long, and awful, I thought we deserved a treat.”

“How very kind of you,” Lilly replied cheerily, hoping her irritation wasn’t evident. “Constance, may I introduce you to my friend Captain Robert Fraser?” Turning to Robbie, she completed the introduction. “Robbie, I should like to introduce you to Miss Constance Evans.”

Their greetings complete, Lilly took one of the cups of tea and offered it to Robbie. “You probably need this more than I do.”

“I’m fine, Lilly, but thank you all the same. I ought to be going. Enjoy your tea and biscuits, ladies. Perhaps I’ll see you in the mess tent later on.”

As soon as he was out of earshot, Lilly turned to her friend, who was now seated in the spot that Robbie had just vacated. “Don’t say it. Please don’t.”

Constance sipped her tea delicately, then selected a biscuit and began to eat it. “Say what?” she asked between nibbles. “Say that it’s such a fortunate coincidence? Because, you know, it really is. Out of all the clearing hospitals along the Front, somehow we end up at this one. The very same one where your Captain Fraser happens to work.”

“Constance, I—”

“It was Miss Davies’s aide who helped you, wasn’t it? That poor girl who had such a hard time with Corporal Pike?”

“Yes. Please don’t be upset with me.”

“I’m not. Honestly, Lilly, I’m not. If I had a sweetheart, and there was a chance I could be nearer to him, I would take that chance.”

“He’s not my sweetheart,” Lilly insisted.

Constance fixed Lilly with a hard look, her eyebrows raised. “Sweetheart or not, you understand that you’re taking an awful risk, don’t you? Think what would have happened if Miss Jeffries had come along just now.”

“He only wanted to apologize, and see how I am.”

“He’s done that now. And let’s be thankful you didn’t get caught.”

“Surely Miss Jeffries wouldn’t consider
that
to be fraternization,” Lilly protested feebly.

“I have no idea what she thinks. But do you really want to misjudge her and end up being sent home?”

Lilly knew Constance was right. “So what should I do? He’s my friend, after all. I can’t ignore him.”

“I’m not saying you should. Say hello when your paths cross; even ask him how he is. But don’t sit alone with him, and for heaven’s sake, hide your feelings for him in front of everyone but me. Will you promise to try?”

Lilly nodded wearily. “I suppose it won’t be that hard to avoid him. He spends most of his time in surgery or taking care of his patients, and I’ll be driving back and forth to the ADS all day long.”

Constance reached across Lilly’s shoulders and gave her a brief hug. “That’s the spirit. Now let’s get Henrietta settled for the night. I think we still have some time before supper.”

Supper. He had said he might see her there. Would she be able to talk with him? Probably not. But she would be able to see him, exchange a smile or even a brief greeting. And that would have to do.