A Rose In Flanders Fields (25 page)

Anne and Elise were pleasant enough, as always, but I felt quite the intruder in my own home; I had only been gone a few days and already the little cottage, and the cellar beneath, carried the stamp of their own lives and methods. I couldn’t blame them, of course, times were strange, and every little thing that helped you feel at home took on far greater importance than usual. They had worked together from the start, these two, knew each other’s habits and dislikes, had their own shared humour, and I was not part of it, it was that simple. There was no room for resentment; Boxy and I had been the same, and Kitty and I would have been too, if someone else had blown in and tried to do things differently. As far as Anne and Elise were concerned I was now the blower-in, but, with Colonel Drewe’s help we arranged with their commandant that they would stay on awhile, and pair up in the new vehicle until someone was able to return to Kent and collect the one Kitty would have brought back.

As the more experienced mechanic, I went back to driving Gertie, with no sense of disappointment; in fact it felt quite good to be rattling along the familiar, potted road, and predicting where the next clunking sound would come from. Whenever work allowed a breather, and Will came into my head, I learned to turn my memories to happier days. That little trick he, Lizzy and I had played on Ruth Wilkins in my father’s study, the paper rose he’d made me, and his earnest and hopeful promise that he’d never make one for anyone else. I still treasured both the promise and the rose; if someone had offered to return the Kalteng Star to me and demanded that tatty piece of paper as payment, I would have refused.

It wasn’t Will, or the rose, that I was thinking of though, as I bumped into the lane by one of the dressing stations one night, two weeks after I’d returned. Instead I was kept firmly anchored in reality at the sound of shells crumping continuously in the distance, and the urgent cries: ‘Blessés, blessés!’ We didn’t usually go out until the all-clear was given, but now and again, as Kitty had told Lizzy, urgency outweighed caution and today the runner had conveyed the need for all hands. There had been no question of lying low.

I pulled open the back of the ambulance, and secured the flap before going into the church hall. Emergency procedures were being carried out by harried-looking nurses and doctors, and VADs were rushing everywhere clutching bowls and bandages; one girl, clearly newly arrived, stood with the dead weight of an amputated leg in her hands, her eyes wide with shock, until the sister snapped at her to put it in the corner and get back to work.

The smell was tremendous. Although I thought I was used to it I was still knocked back every time I went inside; even in this unbelievably cold winter there was the warm smell of filthy, unwashed bodies crammed close together, of excrement and blood, fear and sweat. The air was choked with it, and with the sense of despair and terror that permeated the room. I prayed Will would never have to see the inside of a place like this.

The orderlies saw me, and immediately began selecting those deemed fit to travel. With the ease of long practice they moved into action, and in a matter of a few minutes we were back outside and loaded up. I was almost ready to go, and turned to declare room for a sitter up front, when a familiar face appeared. It was rounded and kind, but without the cheery smile I’d seen before.

‘Colonel Drewe,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry, are these your boys?’

‘Afraid so.’ He looked tired and dispirited, not surprisingly. ‘I wondered, my dear, might I go with you? I have an urgent message for one of my officers at the hospital.’

I hesitated. It seemed wrong to be taking up the space a wounded man might have taken, even if it would, by necessity, have been one of the more lightly wounded casualties. A loud groan from the back of the ambulance forced the decision quickly; had the situation been different I would have risked the officer’s annoyance, and stood my ground and taken a Tommy instead, I think we both knew that.

‘Hop in, Colonel,’ I said instead, as I closed the flap down. ‘And hold tight.’

The road into town had become a mass of small craters and debris, and every journey was a torturous series of lurches and crunches. The shelling was heavier now; the cold, clear air was good for ranging, and Fritz was taking full advantage. Explosions and buzzing whines brought the night to life with their deadly music, and then I became aware of an even more sinister sound; a droning that came from much higher above. My pulse hammered and I made myself take long, deep breaths, but the way Colonel Drewe was craning his neck to look into the sky told me I wasn’t imagining things.

We were still only just nearing the outskirts of town when the noise faded and, as relief swept in I realised I’d been hunched into my shoulders, and straightened again. But as the plane veered away I heard another sound, one that struck me in the heart with terror; a high, keening shriek, growing louder and louder until it felt as if it were coming from inside my own head. Through the roaring in my ears, and the furious, unearthly cry from above, my panicked mind turned to how best to protect my charges, and in the split second it took to wrench the wheel hard to the right, and off the road, I knew I couldn’t.

Chapter Fifteen

Gertie gave a bone-jarring shudder as she hit the scrubland alongside the road, and then she was flying. The absence of cries from the wounded was more horrifying than their screams had been, and when ambulance and ground crashed together again the impact knocked my teeth so hard I felt one of them splinter, shredding my gum. The floor of the ambulance shuddered as shrapnel tore into her, and I was hit by horrified realisation of the further danger. There was no time to wait for the vehicle to stop sliding; I was already punching forward and out, through her shattered half-windscreen, as she crashed into a half-demolished wall and spun away again. The jerk pulled me halfway back in, and I was dimly aware of a thin, burning pain as a jagged glass edge sliced into my forearm. I heard Colonel Drewe spitting curses as he tumbled sideways into the space I had vacated, and then I was sliding out onto the ground, cool air on my skin and wet mud instantly plastering my hair to my head.

The rumble of the explosion died away and then I heard the groans from the back. Thank God, it sounded as though at least two of the men had survived, but now they had to be pulled out before Gertie’s fuel tank went up.

‘Colonel,’ I shouted, ‘if you can move, help me!’ I tore open the flap and began to pull the stretchers clear. I tried not to jolt the men more than necessary but haste was making me clumsy; my fingers were slick and slippery with my own blood, and in the jumping light from the nearby burning trees I could see fresh seepage on the newly applied bandages of the soldiers.

Drewe appeared at my side, and together we managed to get all four men out and clear, pulling them behind the half-wall for shelter. I bent over one of them, and Drewe covered two more as best he could, but after a couple of minutes had passed without further explosions we cautiously raised our heads. I realised then that the man whose body I was covering had no further need of help: his wounds, and the shock of the crash, had finally sent him west. Hardened as I’d thought I was to this, the utter hopelessness was too much, and I turned away.

Drewe patted my shoulder. ‘Dear girl, you’ve saved us all,’ he said. ‘This poor chap was never going to make it, no matter what.’

It didn’t matter whether he was right or not, the man had been alive when I’d collected him and now he was dead. And we were stranded out here with no means of getting the three remaining soldiers the help they so desperately needed. I ached in every bone and muscle, and my arm stung horribly. I couldn’t see well enough to judge how bad it was, and I wasn’t wholly certain I wanted to anyway, I felt quite queasy at the thought of it.

‘Do you think it’d be safe to go back?’ I said, gesturing at the sorry-looking Gertie lying on her side. Her chassis was facing away from me but I knew it would be ripped apart and completely useless now.

Drewe sniffed the air. ‘I should say so, can’t smell fuel yet. Do you want me to go and get the first-aid box?’

I sank to my heels, relieved. ‘Oh yes, please, if you could. I feel a bit faint, to be honest.’

‘Then sit tight.’ Drewe rose, but as he took a step towards the ambulance he gave a groan and stopped with one foot raised, reluctant to replace it. ‘Dash it all, I don’t think I can walk after all,’ he said.

I swallowed a surge of nausea, and clambered to my feet, my head swimming. ‘Sit down, Colonel, it’s all right, I’ll fetch it.’

‘I’m so sorry, dear girl.’ He squeezed my hand, and I dismissed the apology but eyed the overturned ambulance with trepidation. Best do it quickly. Without allowing myself time to think, I ran across to where the contents had spilled out of the back in our frantic race to get the men out. The heavy first-aid box lay, burst open and spilling snow-white entrails across the ground, and I hastily shoved them all back in and took the box back behind the wall, where I checked the wounded and replaced bandages. ‘We must get to the hospital somehow, and borrow an ambulance,’ I said, as I worked. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to walk in a minute or two? I’ll have to stay and look after these boys.’

He shook his head and his voice was filled with regret. ‘I think I might have broken my ankle. You’d be faster on your feet.’

I looked out at the night, at the flashes that split the sky up ahead, and the awful road we had abandoned. Not for the first time that night, I experienced the cold thrill of fear; the hospital was still at least two miles away.

‘Are you sure?’ I hated the sound of my own cowardice, but I hurt everywhere and was feeling light-headed and woozy. I wasn’t trained for this, as he was. Besides, if I collapsed on the road there would be no ambulance, and doubtless more fatalities among the men, left here in the biting cold.

‘Quite sure, I’m afraid,’ Drewe said apologetically. ‘I wouldn’t be half so quick as you.’

Looking at the way he winced with the slightest movement, I admitted he was probably right. I checked the three survivors one last time and, gathering every last bit of courage I possessed, I stepped out from behind the dubious shelter of the wall and back onto the road.

Fear and pain were my dark companions on that seemingly endless walk. I wanted to run, urgency was pushing at me with every step, but the footing was too uncertain, and I still felt sick and dizzy. The hollow boom of guns faded a little, but now and again a shell would whine overhead to strike one of the buildings, reminding me that these three men I was trying so desperately hard to save would soon be replaced by three more, and three more, and three more. And the dead man replaced by countless numbers of the same.

Finally the hospital came into sight, and then I did break into a run until, sliding on the loose rubble of the streets, I slipped and fell. When I got up again, shaken, I forced myself to slow down again to a fast hobble; I’d be no good to anyone if I broke my leg out here. At last I reached the hospital and seized a passing orderly, babbling out my story. After a seemingly interminable wait I was given an ambulance and a VAD, who came with me back to the sorry little group I’d left behind. She helped me load the wounded into the back, and climbed in with them once we’d made the difficult decision to leave the dead man where he lay.

‘Can’t be helped, my dear,’ Drewe said gently. ‘He’ll be brought in with the others tomorrow.’

‘I hate it,’ I said, tiredness sweeping through me now the end of this long night was so close. ‘It’s wrong to just leave him there.’

‘Let’s concern ourselves with the living,’ he said, and limped around to the front. ‘And you must get that arm looked at while we’re there.’

Despite the number of wounded being tended at the hospital, Colonel Drewe insisted one of the surgeons look at my arm, and when the man eased my coat off, he agreed it was a good job he had. I still couldn’t look at it myself, but turned my head away and kept spitting into the little bowl at my side as my mouth watered with incipient sickness. There was blood too, from the shattered tooth in the back of my mouth, but I didn’t want to draw attention to that in case they decided to pull it out. I couldn’t have borne that tonight, not on top of everything else.

The doctor handed me over to a nursing sister, who cleaned and disinfected the wound. ‘The last thing we need is one of you girls going down with gas gangrene,’ she said briskly, as she swabbed and dabbed. Once finished, she put in a few stitches and gave me an injection. ‘There. Good as new.’

Colonel Drewe, who’d reappeared after delivering his message, looked on approvingly. ‘Quite so. And you can prove it by driving me back to HQ if you’d be so kind? I appreciate it’s slightly out of your way.’

‘Of course,’ I mumbled, too exhausted to care now, as long as I could crawl into my bed within the next couple of hours.

I felt a pang of sadness as we drove past Gertie on the way back. She’d been an absolute trouper, and I’d deliberately thrown her into a wall and now she lay, like some kind of exotic dead beast, useless and made ugly by her final sacrifice. This borrowed ambulance would have to go back tomorrow and I had no idea how long I’d have to wait before I could get back to Blighty for the one I’d had to leave behind last time. Perhaps someone might be able to bring it over…I started to think about people I could write to, who might be willing or able to help, but I was too bone-weary to get very far – tomorrow would see me with a clearer head.

I dropped the colonel back to HQ, and was glad to see he was walking quite easily now; he must have not broken that ankle after all. Likely someone had strapped it up for him while I was being tended, and I was glad he’d allowed it, he was such a dear. He waved one last time as he went inside, and I turned my thoughts, and the borrowed ambulance, back towards Number Twelve and the blessed luxury of my cold, hard little bed.

Chapter Sixteen

The next morning I cleaned the borrowed ambulance, ready to return it. I’d already decided I would go via the rebuilt Casualty Clearing Station so the trip wasn’t wasted, and since we were down to single-figures in the ambulance stakes, Elise offered to follow me out and give me a lift back. She and Anne had thawed considerably when they’d heard what had happened, and as Anne helped me redress my arm, while Elise made me a fresh cup of tea, I reflected that it was a sorry state of affairs when one had to get blown up in order to fit into the team under one’s own roof. Outside, I refuelled the ambulance, and was just dipping the oil when I heard a car crunch into the yard.