Somewhere in France: A Novel of the Great War (29 page)

The one service that fit, the one I knew would make historical as well as narrative sense, was the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. Founded in 1917 with the intention of replacing men with women in noncombat roles, thus freeing up men for frontline duty, the WAAC had nearly sixty thousand members by the end of the war. Although it was organized along lines that in retrospect appear elitist, with its senior positions filled almost entirely by upper-middle-class women, most of its members were women from decidedly modest backgrounds.

Unearthing detailed information about the WAAC proved to be unexpectedly difficult. Most of the official records relating to the WAAC were destroyed during the Blitz, and though the remaining information has been digitized and is accessible via the National Archives in the UK, it still provides an incomplete picture of the corps and its members. Most of all, I needed to confirm the presence of WAACs at clearing hospitals closer to the Front, but reliable evidence was difficult to find.

One novel often cited by historians is
The Story of a WAAC
, and it does place the narrator and a colleague firmly at a CCS, where they work not only as drivers but also as impromptu nurses.
The Story of a WAAC
is, however, a fictionalized memoir, its author anonymous, and so I felt the evidence it provided was unreliable. I did eventually discover several memoirs and contemporary accounts, mainly letters and diaries, that do mention the presence of WAACs in several clearing hospitals near the Front, so I felt safe enough in sending Lilly and her friends to the 51st CCS, where their presence would have been unusual but not wholly improbable.

Fortunately there was no shortage of sources, both primary and secondary, on the experiences of First World War ambulance drivers.
Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War
, written by Helen Zenna Smith in 1930, presents the most vivid and compelling descriptions I have yet found of the life of an ambulance driver during the Great War. Though
Not So Quiet
is a novel, Smith based it on the actual war diaries of ambulance driver Winifred Young, and it shows. Here, the narrator describes her first night ferrying wounded soldiers from a railhead to a nearby hospital:

I drove til dawn to and fro—station, Number Five Hospital—Number Five Hospital, station . . . sick, numb, frozen-fingered, frozen-hearted . . . station, Number Five Hospital—Number Five Hospital, station . . .

It ended, just as I thought it would never end. Back again at the depot I collapsed with my head on the steering wheel [and] I whimpered like a puppy . . . I couldn’t go on . . . I was a coward . . . I couldn’t face those stretchers of moaning men again . . . men torn and bleeding and raving.

As I continued to research the work of ambulance drivers, I learned it was every bit as difficult, exhausting, unpleasant, and emotionally draining as recounted by Helen Zenna Smith. The vehicles were difficult to drive and maintain, particularly so in cold or rainy weather. The routes the drivers traveled were exceptionally treacherous and the hours they worked were very long. Worst of all was the suffering of their passengers, to which they were witness day after day, night after night, month after soul-destroying month. Ernest Hemingway, himself a volunteer ambulance driver with the Red Cross, described it simply in a letter to his parents. “The ambulance is no slacker’s job.”

Through my portrayal of Lilly and her friends, I hope I have been able to shine some light on the contributions of the almost sixty thousand members of the WAAC and, in particular, the work of its ambulance drivers. It isn’t much by way of thanks to those remarkable women, but I offer it wholeheartedly all the same.

Reading Group Guide

  1. If you had the chance to grow up as the daughter of Lord and Lady Cumberland—knowing that you would live in unimaginable luxury but would also be denied an education, the chance to work, and very likely the chance to choose your own spouse—would you do it?

  2. Do you feel Lady Cumberland’s treatment of Lilly is motivated by sincere concern for her daughter’s welfare? Or is it a case of her obsessively adhering to the conventions of aristocratic society, no matter the cost?

  3. Do Robbie’s motivations in pushing Lilly away after the bombardment of the 51st make sense to you? Do you sympathize with him or do you think he allows tunnel vision to cloud his judgment?

  4. What about Lilly’s motivations? Is she right to insist on staying at the 51st no matter what? Wouldn’t it be reasonable for her to compromise and take up a position elsewhere in France?

  5. Before reading
Somewhere in France
, if someone had mentioned the First World War to you, what would have come to mind? Has your perception of the First World War changed as a result?

  6. 
Somewhere in France
is set in the recent past, a century ago. Were there any aspects of life in the novel that surprised you by their modernity? Did its characters feel familiar to you, or more like inhabitants of “a different country,” to paraphrase a well-known description of the past?

  7. Do you think Robbie and Lilly’s relationship would have been possible without the war and the changes it brought to British society?

  8. Do you think it really would have been possible for Lilly to become friends with women like Annie and Bridget? Could such a disparity in wealth, privilege, and class truly be bridged in that era?

  9. How do you think Lilly and her friends were changed by their experiences in the WAAC? Would it have been easy for them to return to ordinary life and the status quo after the war?

10. Do you think the war still matters? Why? It was fought a century ago, every one of its veterans is now dead, and memories of it are fading from our collective consciousness. Should we just leave it to the professional historians and concentrate on more recent events?

Read on

Suggestions for Further Reading

The following is a selective list of some of the books that inspired me as I was writing
Somewhere in France
. I have also included a brief list of websites that I found both reliable and informative.

Nonfiction:

The First World War
by Stuart Robson

Nurses at the Front: Writing the Wounds of the Great War
, edited by Margaret Higonnet

The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm
by Juliet Nicolson

Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age
by Modris Eksteins

The Roses of No Man’s Land
by Lyn Macdonald

Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History
by Jay Winter

Women in the British Army: War and the Gentle Sex, 1907–1948
by Lucy Noakes

Memoir:

The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, Last Veteran of the Trenches, 1898–2009
by Harry Patch

Testament of Youth
by Vera Brittain

The War Diary of Clare Gass: 1915–1918
by Clare Gass

Poetry:

The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen

Collected Poems, 1908–1956
by Siegfried Sassoon

Scars Upon My Heart: Women’s Poetry and Verse of the First World War
, edited by Catherine Reilly

Fiction:

Birdsong
by Sebastian Faulks

The Passing Bells Trilogy by Phillip Rock

The Regeneration Trilogy (
Regeneration
,
The Eye in the Door
,
The Ghost Road
) by Pat Barker

The Stone Carvers
by Jane Urquhart

Three Day Road
by Joseph Boyden

The Wars
by Timothy Findley

Websites:

The Long, Long Trail www.1914-1918.net

The Great War Archive www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa

The Last Tommy www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/last_tommy_gallery.shtml

The Great War www.greatwar.co.uk

This Intrepid Band greatwarnurses.blogspot.com

The Western Front Association www.westernfrontassociation.com

Edwardian Promenade www.edwardianpromenade.com