The Bannister Girls (27 page)

‘Good-bye-ee … Don't Cry-ee … Wipe the tear from your eye … Good-bye-ee…'

The Battle of the Somme began on July 1st. News of the long-awaited onslaught was greeted in England with cheers and optimism. Soon it would all be over. The noise of the artillery bombardment prior to the day was so tremendous that it could clearly be heard across the Channel in England.

Since most of the Allied losses at Verdun had been French, their numbers were depleted, and the majority of the army at the Somme were British. In the battlefields and trenches of the once-lovely valley of the Somme, the two opposing armies were separated by a fifty-yard stretch of barbed wire and desolation, each wanting desperately to win a war that refused to end.

It was a perfect summer day, the sky a cloudless blue, the larks singing their hearts out. The Germans were deep in their superior dug-outs, but already alerted to the approaching attack by the heavy bombardment of days before, intended to blow up the worst of the wire. Because of the expected certainty of the Allied cause, the British leaders gave the complacent orders to the soldiers to march at a steady pace towards the tangled barbed wire, where the enemy would undoubtedly surrender.

It was the worst possible command. As the soldiers went over the top of the trenches, they were slaughtered, wave upon wave of them, by the waiting German machine guns.

When the numbers of dead and wounded were reckoned up, on that day alone, British casualties numbered sixty
thousand, a number too staggering to comprehend unless you were personally involved: unless it was your leg that was sheared off, or your guts that were spewing out into the mud, unless you were one of the exhausted doctors or nurses or ambulance drivers, or the hapless V.A.D. workers, even now totally unprepared for the effect of an endless succession of human debris.

There was no time to think of personal matters. No time to worry over a loved one, or to leave the confines of the hospital or unit where you were assigned. The thought of Jacques de Ville's fate was pushed from Angel's mind. It was one of the penalties of war that there was no time to weep or to mourn. There was always another soldier's hand to be held to ease his suffering, another drink to be given gently to a mouth that couldn't hold any liquid because only half of it remained, another bone-shattered boy to be guided along the road to death.

Every hospital in the vicinity of the Front was strained to desperation point with the sheer numbers of wounded. It was a lasting nightmare, week after week after week … By September everyone's job had become a dual or a triple role. Doctors became aides, nurses were stretcher-bearers, anyone who could drive took turns with the sorely-pressed ambulance drivers to go to the Front and bring back the wounded…

‘You'll go out tonight, Bannister,' Sister Yard ordered, her voice wooden with strain. ‘Doctor Lancing wants every ambulance we've got sent out on the road. Follow the others, and keep your head down. And good luck.'

Angel's mouth was as dry as dust, her stomach a hollow emptiness as she was given her instructions. So far she had no real knowledge of the Front. Only what she had heard from the men and boys reliving their own nightmares, and she and Margot had both thanked God that their hospital wasn't in sight of the Front Line fighting. And now she had to drive right into it.

‘Oh God, Angel, don't go!' Margot said in a fright when she heard. She gripped Angel's arms, her once-elegant fingernails chipped and digging into Angel's flesh. ‘Say you've got the runs, say anything, but for God's sake, don't go! You'll be killed –'

Angel slapped her hard, thankful they were in their own room where no one else could hear. Lately Margot had been going rapidly downhill, succumbing to the trench nerve that affected men and nurses alike. Strong-willed or weak, trench nerve took no account of personality. When it struck, it reduced a person to a shivering wreck, until they could finally shake it off. But strangely, Margot's snivelling strengthened Angel's own reserves.

‘Don't be ridiculous,' Angel snapped. ‘Of course I shall go. I didn't come to France to whimper like a baby. And of course I shan't be killed. I have to bring the wounded back here, so a fat lot of good I shall be, stopping a Jerry's bullet. Besides – I've promised myself that I shall survive – at least until I know for certain what's happened to Jacques. No bloody Kaiser's going to wipe the two of us off the earth without giving us the chance to find each other again.'

Margot hugged her without speaking, her tears damp against Angel's face, her voice husky with emotion.

‘You're so damn brave, Angel. You look as though a strong wind would blow you away, but although you may bend a little, you'll never break. I envy you so much. And I'll pray for you, every minute until you get back.'

‘All right. But save most of your prayers for the poor devils I'll be carting back here. It won't be much fun for them to have me jolting them about.'

She tried to make light of it, because she wasn't feeling brave at all. She was more scared than she had ever been in her life before, but so was everyone. It didn't need putting into words. She got ready as calmly as possible, reporting to the ambulance shed at dusk and being allocated her vehicle. From then on, it was a case of following the one in front, a
long snaking convoy of rescue trucks winding through the French countryside, the only lifeline for an army of wounded soldiers…

Afterwards, Angel could only think of that night in a series of vivid, nightmarish impressions, like some garish modernist painting. Brilliant orange glows in the blue-black night that burned the eyes; explosions that rocked the eardrums with a pain more intense than anything she had known; gunfire, incessant and deafening; screams and shouting, hoarse and desperate; no longer merely classed ‘the wounded', but young men, mere boys, crying for their mothers, entreating God to let them die.

She lost count of the number of times she drove the ambulance to and from the Front Line. Stretchers were bundled into the rear and she was given the shout to go. She tried not to listen to the moaning, tried to block out every sound but the drone of the engine, praying that it wouldn't let her down, that there wouldn't be a puncture, or some other horror to stop her being relieved of each new cargo…

‘Angel. Is that you, Angel?'

She heard the croaking voice as if from another world. It reminded her instantly of poor Hobbs, returning to Temple Meads station, coming home to die. But this wasn't their chauffeur. She leaned over the stretcher case being put none too gently into her ambulance, his legs and feet wrapped in some evil-smelling bandages, his anguished mouth coughing blood, still more seeping from a gaping wound in his chest.

‘My God!'

She couldn't say the words out loud. It was as though they were snatched from her throat as she recognised the cheery young face. It wasn't cheery now as she had last seen it. It was drawn with agony, old before its time, the smell of death emanating from it. She caught at his hand, still so young, with all of life ahead … tears almost blinded her for a moment.

‘Edward! Oh, God, Edward!' She was a shivering mass of
nerves as she recognised Margot's young brother. He was here, at the Somme, and being sent to Piersville hospital to die. She knew it as surely as she breathed. She looked up desperately as the orderly told her curtly to make room for a few more, and was forced to move out of Edward's hearing.

‘I know that one,'she stuttered. ‘He's my friend's brother. What are his chances?'

The orderly looked briefly sympathetic.

‘I'm no doctor, Miss, but I know the smell of death when I sniff it. He'll be a gonner before the night's out if I'm any judge. Best get on the road quickly if you don't want a stiff on your hands.'

He spoke as he did, knowing there was no point in dressing up what was so obvious to them both. In an odd way, the clumsy words helped stem the appalling reality of what was happening. She climbed past the other casualties to cling to Edward's hand a moment longer before driving back to Piersville.

‘Just hold on tight, Eddie. Margot's working with me at the hospital, and she'll be so thrilled to see you.'

‘Margot? Didn't think she'd know how to tie a bandage!' He tried to be pleased, but the pain made the smile a grimace, and Angel knew there was no time to spare. She started the engine, spun the wheels in a fury at the bloody outrage of war, the sheer waste of so many young lives, and drove as if possessed on the road back to Piersville hospital.

Other hands took over as soon as she arrived. It was her last run of the night. She was near to dropping with sleep, but there was no way she could sleep. She wanted to prepare Margot…

The moment Margot heard the news, she rushed past Angel and into the ward where Doctor Lancing was bending over Edward Lacey's bedside. The girls heard him speak sharply to a nurse to give him some morphine, and then he moved on to the next patient. As Margot knelt down beside
her brother, tears blinding her eyes, Angel caught at the doctor's arm.

‘Can anything be done for him, Doctor?' she stuttered. ‘He's her brother –'

‘They're all somebody's brother, Miss,' the doctor said tersely. ‘The boy's got trench foot. His feet are rotting. There'd be no point taking them off, gangrene would have galloped up his legs before I began. Besides, the hole in his chest is going to kill him in a matter of minutes or hours. His lungs are full of blood. He's breathing it. We don't have the staff or the ether or the time. I'm sorry.'

He moved along the line of beds, while Angel stared after him, tears stinging her own eyes. Damn him! He didn't mean to be callous, just practical. What was the use in trying to keep one boy alive for a few hours longer, when there were others more likely to live, who needed all his skill and attention? She turned back to Margot and Edward, fighting back the emotion.

‘We'll soon have you well, Eddie. Just be brave, old thing,' Margot was saying shakily. ‘The nurse will give you something for the pain –'

A swish of starched skirts, and a nurse leaned over with a hypodermic, injecting the precious morphine into Edward's vein.

‘That hurt more than the bloody bullet,' the boy muttered, a shine of tears on his lashes as she moved away.

‘Language, Eddie!' Margot reproved him, in the same way her mother and Angel's mother used to speak, a lifetime ago.

Edward began a paroxysm of coughing, and when it was over, he lay back, his face ashen and waxy.

‘Do – something for me – old girl,' his breathing was harsh and laboured, the words a mere whisper.

‘Of course.' Margot leaned forward to catch them.

‘My train set – for Stinky Hughes – always wanted it – see to it, Margot –'

‘You'll see to it yourself, you ninny –'

‘Promise me –'

Angel pressed Margot's arm. Humour him, for God's sake, she entreated her silently. Margot nodded, her throat nearly too full to speak.

‘I promise, Eddie, darling. Get some sleep now.'

His eyes closed obediently, and she kissed the cold cheek and smoothed back the unruly dark hair from his forehead. She gave a sudden gasp, and Angel reached for the boy's hand, feeling frantically for a pulse in his wrist. There was nothing.

Margot's nerve went completely after Edward's death. She spent the rest of the night weeping torrential tears, unable to be comforted, blaspheming at war, at God, at creation. Angel was so afraid for her, but in the morning, after neither of them had got more than the occasional cat nap, Margot emerged, strangely calm, insisting that she see Sister Yard at once.

‘I want to take my brother home for burial,' she said imperiously. ‘There's no question of him being buried in France. The Laceys have a family plot in Norfolk, where generations of Laceys have been buried. My mother would insist on it, and I shall take full responsibility for escorting my brother back to England. Money is not a problem, naturally, for the very best coffin to be found. You'll see that his body is released as soon as possible, I trust?'

But for the circumstances, Sister Yard would have put this young miss severely in her place. But the other girl, Bannister, had already alerted her of Lacey's wishes, and was hovering in the corridor outside the cramped office. She was beckoned inside and Sister spoke briskly.

‘Bannister, you will escort Lacey and her brother to England. There will be five other deceased to go, and you'll leave the ambulance at the depot at Calais. You'll merely need to sign over the coffins on arrival, making your own arrangements for Private Lacey as you wish. Lacey will take
compassionate leave. You will take whatever time is necessary before reporting back here, considering Lacey's emotional state. I know I can rely on you. You'll cope, of course.'

Angel gulped. Driving an ambulance, even with badly wounded men was one thing. Nobody liked driving the ‘dead wagon', but one look at Margot's agonised face, and she nodded at once. She would cope.

They left in the early afternoon. Coffins were always taken out of the back door of the hospital in consideration of other patients, and loaded into the ‘dead wagon'. Margot sat in the passenger seat, so grim and silent, she might well have been a corpse herself. She refused to speak one word for the entire journey to the ship.

The silence unnerved Angel more than anything. Despite herself, she couldn't help remembering conversations among the less sensitive V.A.D.s, regarding similar journeys.

‘They douse the stiffs with preservative, o' course, otherwise they'd stink out the whole ship when they putrify. They have to plug 'em too – every orifice, to put it politely – so that nothing starts to leak out when rigor mortis ends and they go limp again.'

‘Poor devils. Limp when they're born and limp when they die,' another one sniggered. ‘I don't fancy the thought of being plugged, do you, Mabel?'