Passions of War (24 page)

‘The war? I quite agree with you, but it isn't going to – not for a long time yet.'

‘You know quite well that I'm not referring to the war in general.'

‘What, then?'

‘The way you are behaving towards me.'

‘Have I been less than correct in my behaviour?'

‘No. I'm not talking about manners or military correctness! I'm talking about the way you turn me down every time I volunteer for anything with the slightest risk.'

‘I simply feel that you are better employed here rather than out there between the lines.'

‘Are you afraid that I'll panic? Do you think I haven't got the guts for operations like that?'

At last Ralph looked up from the maps he was studying. ‘Good God, no, Tom! I know you're as brave as any man here.'

‘Then why are you giving everyone else the impression that you think I'm not up to the job?'

‘That's not my intention.' He paused and looked at Tom with an intentness that made him feel uncomfortable. ‘It's just . . . Look, you've got more to give the world than some of us. You're an artist. In all this mindless slaughter some people have to be preserved, and you're one of them.'

‘Codswallop!' Tom said energetically. ‘If I was Reubens or da Vinci there might be some justification, but my talent, if I have any, is a very minor one. There are plenty of other men out here with far more to offer in that line than me. What about some of the poetry that's being written? That fellow Graves is writing some brilliant stuff but I bet his CO doesn't go out of his way to keep him out of danger.'

‘Well, I'm not his CO,' Ralph replied. ‘It's my decision, Tom, and you'll just have to live with it –
live
being the operative word.'

Tom stared at him in despair for a moment, then he used his last ammunition.

‘You know what people are saying, don't you?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘People know that we were at school together. They think you are giving me special treatment because . . . well, because we have a certain kind of relationship.'

He saw the colour rise in Ralph's face. ‘Who is saying that? Tell me his name and, by God, I'll call him out!'

‘Don't be ridiculous, Ralph! What century do you think we're living in – the seventeenth? You can't fight a duel these days. If you even suggested it you would be in contravention of the King's regulations. You'd be cashiered. Anyway, it isn't one particular person. It's just a vague rumour, a series of innuendoes. But it isn't good for morale.'

That was his trump card. ‘Morale' was all important and Ralph would go to great lengths to maintain it. Ralph glared at him for a moment, then he got up and turned his back. ‘Very well, come if you want to. Come and get your stupid head blown off, for all I care. Tell young Carver that I've changed my mind.'

As darkness fell Tom stood with Ralph at the corner of a traverse and heard the whispered word passed along the line: ‘Officer's patrol going out.' This was an essential precaution in case a sentry, seeing movement in the dark, took a pot shot at them. Ralph got up on the firing step and raised his head cautiously above the parapet. After studying the expanse of no-man's-land for a few moments he glanced back at Tom and made a forward gesture with one arm. Then he wriggled over the top and disappeared. Tom hoisted himself up, his heart pounding, and followed. Flat on their bellies they inched forward, under their own barbed wire, and out into the shell-pocked land beyond. There was no moon and the sky was overcast, so the darkness was absolute. Every few yards they stopped and lay motionless, watching and listening for any movement. It was well known that the Germans also sent out patrols during the night. Then they crawled on again, sometimes skirting the shell-holes, sometimes finding no way forward but by descending into their waterlogged depths and then climbing out on the far side. Once a German flare went up, casting an unearthly light over the whole expanse, and they lay still, shamming dead, until it went out. Once Tom felt something slimy under his hand and recognized with horror that he had put it on the face of a corpse that had been left lying there for months.

After crawling for what felt like miles Ralph beckoned him close and breathed in his ear, ‘This is roughly where they think the sap has got to. We'll get down into this shell crater and hope we're near enough.'

The bottom of the crater was covered in a couple of inches of icy water. Tom tried crouching, so that only his boots were in it, but that position soon became untenable. It hit him that they were going to be there all through the next day until darkness fell again. He told himself that wounded men survived in similar conditions, so there was no reason why two healthy ones should not do the same. Nevertheless, the prospect was grim. A hand nudged his arm, and a flask was pressed into his hand. It contained strong coffee, well laced with rum. Tom drank and felt a little better.

Dawn came at last but once the protective veil of darkness was withdrawn he felt dangerously exposed. Ralph wriggled carefully to the edge of the crater and peered over.

‘We're about twenty yards from the German wire,' he whispered. ‘If we're in the right place we should be able to hear them working on the sap.'

They hunkered down, keeping well below the rim of the crater, and drank more coffee and ate some of their iron rations. Tom eased his position with a suppressed groan and caught Ralph's eye. Suddenly they both grinned and Ralph whispered, ‘Well, you wanted to come.'

It was a quiet morning. There was no bombardment and except for the occasional crack of a sniper's rifle no firing of any sort. Then Tom's ears caught a faint sound. He tapped Ralph's knee to get his attention and cocked his head in an attitude of listening. From somewhere a short way to his right he could hear the unmistakable noise of a pick striking earth. Moments later it was joined by the muffled sound of voices. Ralph caught his eye and nodded triumphantly. He inched his way up the side of the crater until he could just peer over the rim, then slid back again.

‘Got a pencil and paper with you?'

‘As always.'

‘See if you can identify any landmarks to pinpoint the area where the noise is coming from.'

In his turn, Tom squirmed to the rim of the crater and peered over. The whole area had been reduced to an almost featureless waste ground but a short way off a broken tree stump stuck up out of the mud. Nearer at hand, there was a more gruesome landmark, the skeleton of a dead horse. Tom's eyes raked the scene, estimating the distance from the German wire, and the angle of their travel from their own base, committing the details to memory. He slid back into the crater, got out his sketch pad, which he carried in a waterproof pouch slung round his neck under his tunic, and rapidly laid out all the salient features. When he had done he handed the pad to Ralph, who returned it with a gleam in his eyes.

‘You were right. You're the right man for the job.'

There was nothing to do after that but wait out the daylight, listening to the sounds of work nearby and eating and drinking sparingly from the supplies they had brought with them. Tom thanked heaven it was winter and the days were short, even if the cold had penetrated to his very bones. When darkness fell again and all was quiet they hauled themselves out of the shell-hole and began the crawl back. Stiff and chilled, they found it harder going than on the way out, though Tom was amazed to see, from his reconnoitre earlier, how short the actual distance was. It took them nearly two hours to regain their own trench. When they reached it Ralph beckoned Tom forward and he slid over the rim and dropped on to the fire step, where his platoon sergeant was waiting to welcome them.

‘Well done, sir! Good to see you back . . .'

His words were lost in the crack of a sniper's rifle. Tom turned to say, ‘That was a close one . . .' and was just in time to catch Ralph as he fell into the trench.

Sixteen

‘Forty-eight, forty-nine – start, damn you!' Victoria muttered breathlessly as she cranked the starting handle of the Napier. ‘Fifty, fifty-one – oh, thank God!' as the engine coughed into reluctant life.

The new base for what was being called ‘the Calais convoy' was on the top of a windswept hill just outside the town. The accommodation was in tents, set round an open square in which the ambulances, all converted motor cars, were parked. It was a bitterly cold January and Victoria had grown accustomed to waking in the morning to find icicles on the outside of her sleeping bag; but it was the cars that caused the most problems. They had been filled, supposedly, with antifreeze, but still starting them in the mornings was a nightmare. Start they must, because every morning a hospital train, marked with red crosses, came into the Gare Centrale loaded with wounded who must be conveyed either to one of the hospitals in the area or, when the hospitals were full, as they often were, to ships in the harbour.

As soon as all the vehicles had been started a procession formed behind Lilian Franklin's car and they drove through the town to the station. When the train came in the casualties were sorted by the duty medical officers and then allocated to different vehicles. Victoria helped to carry two stretchers to the Napier and load them in. One of the men was writhing and groaning in pain; the other was silent and so pale that Victoria wondered if he was still alive. She placed her fingers on his neck and found a faint, unsteady pulse. Climbing into the driver's seat, she wondered if he would survive the journey.

As carefully as possible she eased the car out of the station yard and over several sets of railway lines. The inevitable jolting provoked a stream of obscenities from the man who was conscious, and then a shamefaced apology.

‘Never mind me, miss,' he called. ‘Just go as fast as you can and get it over with.'

Victoria paid no heed and nursed the car along the potholed road as gently as she could. When they finally reached the hospital the man apologized again and thanked her. One of the nurses bent over the second man and felt his pulse.

‘Is he still alive?' Victoria asked.

The nurse looked up. ‘Just. Any longer and we would have been too late.'

Victoria turned the car and set off back towards the camp. Now that there was no need to avoid the bumps she drove flat out, using all her skill to cover the distance as quickly as possible. It concentrated her mind and helped to wipe out the memory of those screams of pain.

She was almost there when the engine lost power, choked once or twice and died. Cursing under her breath, she climbed out and swung the handle. It took her a long time to get the Napier going again and by the time she got back to camp all the other ambulances were parked in their allotted places. Victoria ignored the friendly jibes of her fellow drivers and went to find Beryl Hutchinson, who was in charge of the mechanical upkeep of the cars. In passing she paused to pat Sparky's bonnet. He had been deemed too small for ambulance duty and was kept as a general run-about, but she felt sure he would not have let her down.

She explained what had happened to Hutchinson. ‘It's probably a fuel blockage, I should think.'

Hutchinson grimaced. ‘That means it'll have to go into the depot for an overhaul, and I've just been warned that Captain Goff, who's in charge, gets almost apoplectic at the very idea of women drivers.'

Victoria groaned. ‘You know what that means. Our job will go to the back of the queue and every vehicle that comes in with a male driver will get done first. Wretched man! Why should it be a male prerogative to drive? Most of them haven't the foggiest idea how to maintain a car.'

‘Because it's a male prerogative to do most things that are fun,' Hutchinson responded. ‘But you've given me an idea. We'll show him that we do know how to look after our cars. We'll clean the engine up till it looks as if it has only just come out of the showroom and we'll oil all the bolts that might have to be undone and loosen them off and then do them up just tight enough to get us to the depot. That way, they will have the minimum amount of work to do and Goff won't be able to find anything to complain about.'

‘Brilliant!' Victoria said with a grin. ‘Right, let's get to work.'

An hour later she wriggled out from under the car and got to her feet, rubbing her back. ‘Well, I reckon you could go under there in full evening dress without having to worry about getting dirty.'

Hutchinson was wrestling with a spanner. ‘I've slackened off every one except this and I can't move the beastly thing.'

‘Let me try,' Victoria offered. She took the spanner but after a few minutes she, too, had to admit defeat. ‘Wait a mo! I've got an idea.'

A number of bathing machines had been parked around the site and served various useful purposes. She went to the one which Hutchinson used as an office and came back a few minutes later carrying a label. Hutchinson took it and read out ‘I'm afraid this one was too hard for a poor weak woman to undo. It needs a man's touch.'

‘That is brilliant!' she declared. ‘Clever you!'

‘Well, it never does any harm to flatter the poor creatures' egos, in my experience,' Victoria said with a chuckle. ‘And they never seem to realize that we're laughing behind their backs.'

They drove the Napier to the depot and reported to Captain Goff. He looked them up and down and blew through his nostrils – like an impatient horse, Victoria thought.

‘You'll be two of these Fannies I've heard tell of. Why some fool thought it would be a good idea to put women behind the wheel of a car I shall never understand.'

‘We're here to do a job, sir, like you,' Hutchinson said. ‘We do a lot of our own maintenance but I'm afraid this is a bit beyond our resources.' She detailed the symptoms and added: ‘We think it may be a fuel blockage.'

‘Oh, you do, do you?' The sneer in the captain's voice was barely hidden. ‘Well, leave it here. I'll see when we can get round to it.'