Ambulance Girls Under Fire

by Deborah Burrows

  Simon stood up. ‘Patient’s name is Cedric Ashwin. He has a ruptured brachial artery and has lost a lot of blood. It’s a make-do sort of bandage, so take care with the wound. I’m also worried about blast lung because his breathing appears to be compromised. Where are you taking him?’

  ‘Charing Cross hospital. The dead go to the Rialto Cinema next door.’

  ‘Let me help you lift him,’ said Simon. With great care, he and the man lifted Cedric on to the stretcher.

  As they did so I asked his female attendant which station they were from.

  ‘Number forty-one, in Bruton Mews. It’s been quite a night. Buckingham Palace was hit again. And there was a frightful incident at Garland’s Hotel in Suffolk Street.’ Her voice shook. ‘This is the worst, though. I’ve never seen anything like this.’

  ‘New to the job, are you?’ I asked. I had seen incidents as bad, and the realisation made me feel old and tired.

  She didn’t answer. Instead she took her end of the stretcher. She and the man hoisted it and left with Cedric, picking their way carefully over the debris still scattered across the floor.

  I turned to Simon, who was looking at the carnage that surrounded us. His features might be hidden under the layer of soot and blood, but nothing could disguise his air of self-command and purpose, the quiet and unassuming dignity with which he surveyed the devastation to see if anyone else needed his help.

  It is your innate kindness that defines you, I thought.

  He turned, caught my eye and gave me a puzzled smile. ‘What? What’s that look?’

  ‘You do know that I love you, Simon. So very, very much. More than anyone, ever.’

  Simon’s expression became at once bashful and exultant. ‘I had an inkling. I love you too, of course. Have done since … probably for ever. Seems like for ever.’

  He rubbed at his blackened face and flicked another glance around the room. ‘Not the time to discuss it, though.’ I thought he looked ready to collapse, but he said, ‘I want to stay a bit longer down here. See if I can help.’

  I reached out to touch his arm, felt the wool of his tunic, gloried in the fact that he was alive and I was alive and we were together.

  ‘Of course you do,’ I said.

  Simon ran a finger gently down my cheek. ‘You should go home. You look done in.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing. Not while I can help, and not without you.’

  We walked towards the wrecked stage, where the Incident Officer seemed to be giving instructions. I slipped on a patch of liquid and stumbled over a body, a young man in a RAF uniform, who groaned. Blood had pooled on the floor under his head.

  ‘Dead men don’t groan,’ said Simon. ‘Let’s take a look at him.’

  Simon knelt beside the body, oblivious to the bloody floor, and shone his torch at the man’s head. He grunted when the deep penetrating head wound was revealed.

  ‘The rescue workers must have overlooked him,’ I said, and handed over a couple of the strips I’d cut from my silk dress. Simon folded one into a pad and used the other to bandage it in place. He stood, looked around, called a stretcher party over and told them off for missing the man.

  ‘It’s a bloody shambles in here,’ the man said. ‘He seemed to be dead.’

  ‘Dead don’t bleed. He was dripping blood.’

  After that, Simon insisted on checking every body we saw, of course. I was happy just to be with him and followed him around like a puppy, until we were both stumbling with fatigue. Time seemed to have shifted, stretched. There was always more to do, more patients to see, more people to declare dead.

  I was not the only woman that night who cut up her evening dress for bandages and Simon was not the only person there to continue beyond the limits of endurance. The lower floor was filled with firemen, wardens, nurses, first-aid workers, doctors, stretcher-bearers, police and others, giving what they could to help those who could be helped and deal fittingly with those who couldn’t. But with the heights come the depths. I began to notice men running around and bending over the dead, sometimes over the wounded. At first I thought they were listening for a heartbeat, but when I saw one of them pocket a wallet, I realised they had come in from the street and were looting.

  I jumped up and ran over to the man, grabbed his arm, and called out, ‘Here’s a thief.’ He shook off my hold and disappeared into the gloom before anyone could help me.

  ‘Sorry I wasn’t fast enough, miss. Where’d he go?’ A policeman, a big man with tired eyes, had appeared beside me.

  ‘Over there.’ I pointed into a gloomy corner beyond the pillars.

  ‘They’re like rats, these Soho thugs. They scurry away into the dark. What’d he take?’

  ‘A wallet, from that man there.’ I pointed to the corpse.

  ‘They’ve done worse than that,’ he said, and rubbed at his eyes. ‘It’s impossible with the dead, the injured, the firemen and wardens and everyone everywhere down here, it’s impossible for us to know who’s who. Easy for them to snap off a necklace, cut away a finger for its ring.’ He silenced my exclamation with, ‘It’s awful, of course it is. This is my beat and nothing surprises me here. But, miss, you have to remember that the Soho rats are outnumbered – far outnumbered, down here – by those who just want to help. Like your young man there, and that nurse.’

  The policeman pointed to Simon, who was helping a nursing sister to bandage a woman’s leg wound. My young man.

  ‘Where did you get the bandages?’ I asked the sister.

  ‘They’re field dressings. Got them from the Scots Guard soldiers who’ve cordoned off the entrance. They’re trying to keep out looters and hold back the crowd.’

  ‘Crowd?’

  ‘Ghouls,’ she said, dismissively. ‘Watching the smart set come out with their finery in tatters.’

  Eventually, Simon realised that exhaustion was making him a liability to the rescue efforts. We clung to each other as we ascended the staircase to the lobby where we rifled through the cloakroom for our coats. It seemed a long way up the stairs to the entrance. We pushed aside the curtain and, at last, escaped into the night.

  Far above London the moon was tranquil and almost unbearably beautiful. When I looked back, the untouched doorway to the Café de Paris was clearly illuminated by moonlight. It gave not a hint of the horror inside. The air raid had ceased, but the inevitable fires had taken hold and we stood in a pink landscape that changed every so often to a throbbing red, like arterial blood. The acrid smell of smoke was thick around us. A morbid crowd had indeed gathered outside in the chilly darkness, and their faces shone white in the moonlight. The cordon of Scots Guards kept them back.

  Simon and I slipped through the cordon and entered the crowd. We used our elbows to force our way through and we tottered along Coventry Street until we reached Leicester Square. There we clung to each other in silence. When I lifted up my head, Simon kissed me. He tasted of ash and dust and blood, and I gripped him with a fierce energy that belied my exhaustion. Eventually, we pulled apart and stood, just looking at each other in the ruddy firelight.

  ‘We’ll never find a cab,’ he said, in his careless way.

  ‘Shanks’s pony then.’

  He gave me a smile and kissed me again, hard and quick. Then he put his arm around my shoulder and wheeled us both around, so we were facing up Wardour Street. And we began our long trek home to Bloomsbury.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  We arrived at St Andrew’s Court with the dawn. Albert gave us a look that was so astonished it was almost comical. I could understand why. Simon’s uniform was filthy and bloodstained, his face was blast-blackened and a crusty-brown rivulet of dried blood ran from his forehead to his chin. I knew my face was also black with blast, plaster had whitened my hair and under my coat my silk evening gown had been lopped off until it reached an inch or so above my grubby knees.

  ‘We’ve been at an incident,’ I said, in my most imperious tones. ‘I’ve offered Dr Levy a bath.’

&nb
sp; Simon brushed at his uniform and rubbed at his face. ‘Which is much needed,’ he said. Albert gave him a grin in reply.

  When we arrived at my flat Simon took off his tunic, hung it on the back of a chair and sat on the sofa in his shirtsleeves.

  ‘You have first bath,’ he said.

  I opened my mouth to protest, when he cut across me. ‘Don’t even begin to be unctuously polite and suggest that I must bathe before you. Because I’ll be fine, sitting here on your ludicrously comfortable sofa until you’ve finished. And, frankly my dear, you stink.’ He yawned.

  I blew him a kiss and went into the bathroom. While the water filled the tub to the regulation five inches, I peeled off my dirty, blood-soaked clothes and dropped them on the floor. Then I slipped into the hot water with a moan of utter bliss. I wasn’t satisfied until I had scrubbed my entire body and washed my hair. I drained the now black bathwater, refilled the bath and climbed in again. Only then did I feel clean and only then did I relax. I poured in a heady concentration of bath oil – Simon’s remark about my odour rankled – and luxuriated for ten minutes or so until guilt about Simon got the better of me.

  When I climbed out I was scented with attar of roses. I left the water in, as I thought Simon could use it as a first wash, and then refill with fresh water as I had done. I combed my wet hair back from my forehead and when I checked my reflection I thought I’d pass muster, even if my right cheek was discoloured by Cedric’s bruise.

  Cedric. The events of the past day flooded into my mind. Had Cedric really intended to kill Leo, or was it merely a drunken show of strength to punish me? He had asked Eddie to kill Simon. Or had Eddie misunderstood what was simply a muttered, meaningless threat? Was Cedric still alive? I didn’t want freedom from the marriage by his death and I smiled to think of Simon telling Cedric that he would keep him alive to spite him. No. Divorce was my way out of the marriage. Cedric would have to agree. I would make him agree.

  I made an entrance, wafting into the sitting room in my best silk pyjamas on a cloud of attar of roses. Simon was fast asleep on the sofa, lying on his side in an uncomfortable-looking half-crouch. He didn’t wake when I removed his shoes and lifted his legs up so that he was lying along the sofa. I went into my bedroom and pulled a couple of pillows off the bed along with my bedspread. I returned to Simon, gently lifted his head on to one of the pillows, and dropped a rug over him. I put the other pillow on the floor by the sofa, wrapped myself in the bedspread and fell asleep on the floor beside him, listening to him breathe.

  I awoke some hours later, swimming up from a pleasant dream that slipped away as I drifted back to consciousness. I had the impression that Tom and David and Nanny had been in it, all smiling and happy in the bluebell glade beside the river. I lay for a minute or so, disorientated, then realised I was lying in my bed, under my bedspread. The sound of running water was not the river, but was coming from the bathroom and was accompanied by splashing. It seemed that Simon was washing away the grime of the night before. I lay still, listening sleepily, enjoying the sounds and the relaxed warmth of my body. The bathwater was let out. Then came soft splashing sounds and softer swearing. I could only assume that Simon was using my razor, the one I used for my legs, to shave his face. I drifted back into a doze and woke at a soft knock on my bedroom door.

  ‘Come in,’ I said.

  I turned sleepy eyes towards the door. It opened to reveal Simon standing in the doorway with a cup of tea. His hair was wet and there were spots of blood on his cheeks from a hasty attempt at shaving. He was wearing his uniform.

  He walked across and put the cup and saucer on the bedside table. When he sat on the bed it heaved drunkenly under his weight.

  ‘I hauled you over from the sitting room,’ he said. ‘Thought you’d be more comfortable here. Feeling better?’

  ‘Better for seeing you,’ I said. ‘You’ve dressed. Your uniform must be in a state. I was going to sponge it for you.’

  ‘I sponged the uniform myself,’ he said. ‘Ruined one of your flannels. Sorry.’ He tilted his head up to look at the ceiling. ‘I thought it would be – safer – if I was dressed. I really am crazy about you, Celia. I love you and I want you, but not when you’re still married—’

  ‘To Cedric Ashwin,’ I finished bitterly.

  He shook his head. ‘To anyone.’ He said, in his cool way, as if it didn’t matter, ‘Call me old-fashioned. Let’s wait for the divorce.’

  ‘Simon…’ I began, and stopped, unsure of how to tell him what he needed to know. ‘I think we must talk about David.’

  He became very still, and a fluttering pulse began to throb in his neck, but he said nothing.

  ‘David changed everything for me,’ I said, haltingly. ‘I had always thought I was stupid, but David refused to believe that. He – he taught me so much. In many ways I was still so young, unformed, unsure of almost everything, and David forced me to think for myself, to be more than I had been.’ I hesitated, plucking at the sheets, my face flaming. There was no nice way of putting it. ‘It was more than that, though. Cedric had led me to believe that I was – was frigid. But David…’

  ‘Proved you weren’t?’ Simon put in dryly.

  ‘Yes.’ I reached out and took his hand. He flinched when I did so, and I became very still. ‘Does it matter so much?’

  Simon looked down at the rumpled sheets. David had never been to my flat, but he couldn’t know that.

  ‘He was my brother, Celia. Of course it matters.’

  ‘I was infatuated with David. How I feel about you – it’s entirely different. It’s so much more than anything I’ve felt before.’

  Simon sucked in a shuddering breath, then looked up and gave me a slight, twisted smile. ‘When I first met you I was surprised at how young you seemed. I knew nothing about you, really, except that you were married to Cedric Ashwin and you had had an affair with my brother and treated my parents shamefully. I’d expected—’

  ‘A femme fatale?’

  His smile became less forced. ‘Yes. I’d expected a shallow sophisticate who had ensnared my brother with her beauty.’

  ‘And you found me.’

  ‘I found you. A frightened girl trapped in a ruined house and a loveless marriage, tormented by the deaths of those you loved, including my brother. Facing what life threw at you with understated, possibly unconscious, bravery. You were nothing at all what I had expected.’ His face softened. ‘You were so much more.’

  He leaned across, cupped my face between his hands and kissed me in an intense, almost furious way. He released me and leaned back on his elbow, looking at me. The give-away was his breathing, faster than usual. ‘And I fell in love with you.’

  ‘I do love you, Simon,’ I said. ‘More than anyone, ever.’

  He smiled at me, stood, and walked to the doorway. ‘We’ll make it work. Somehow we will make it work. But right now, I must be off. I’m due at the hospital in…’ He looked at his watch. ‘God, in fifteen minutes.’ He ducked out of the door.

  I lay, thinking about what he had said. Hardly daring to believe it.

  Simon came in again, walked over to the bed and bent down to me. Again he kissed me, making my senses whirl and my heart race. When he pulled away he gave me his infectious smile. ‘My family will hate this.’

  ‘No more than mine will.’

  ‘A plague on both our houses. We’ll work it out somehow.’

  And then he really did leave the flat.

  I went back to sleep, but this time I had the first of many nightmares about the Café de Paris bombing. The dream shifted abruptly into the scene in my flat when Cedric threatened Leo. I woke when someone cried out. It took me a few seconds to realise it had been me.

  The horror of the nightmare had vanished and now I felt invigorated. Simon loved me and we would work it out somehow. There was no point worrying about how this would be achieved, I told myself; I just had to believe that it would.

  It was ten o’clock and I was very hungry. The hour w
as long past breakfast but too early for lunch, but I thought I could sweet talk the cook in the service restaurant into giving me at least some bread and margarine. I also had to telephone Jack Moray at the Ambulance Station to explain my absence.

  In the kitchen, my luck held. Agnes, the cook, took pity on me and gave me a late breakfast, saying, ‘I wouldn’t do this for everyone, miss, but I do admire you ambulance drivers.’

  Feeling refreshed after three cups of tea and a decent breakfast I left the dining room and headed for the telephone booth in the foyer. Albert caught me before I picked up the receiver. He had a worried expression and was carrying a telegram.

  ‘Mrs Ashwin,’ he said hesitantly, ‘this arrived a few minutes ago.’ He shoved the envelope at me. ‘I do hope it’s not bad news.’

  I thanked him, took the envelope and pulled out the flimsy telegram paper. It had been sent earlier that morning. Its message was short and simple and changed everything:

  REGRET TO INFORM YOU CEDRIC DIED THIS MORNING CHARING CROSS HOSPITAL STOP HORACE ASHWIN.

  Horace Ashwin was my father-in-law.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Cedric’s funeral took place a week later. I remember little about it, except that he was buried in the rain. I had thought that I wouldn’t cry, but as the coffin was lowered into the wet earth, I did cry. My tears mingled with the raindrops on my face as I thought about what Cedric could have been, but wasn’t. I wept to think of all the wasted potential of that charming, charismatic man who had chosen to follow his dream of what Britain should be, even after the Nazis’ subjugation of Europe had shown so clearly that the dream was in fact a nightmare.

  In the following weeks Cedric was proved wrong. The German invasion did not come with the spring, or indeed at all. As Hitler’s army became embroiled in the Balkan and North African campaigns, we shelved our fear of invasion and got down to the business of coping with yet more air raids.

  As I had feared, Mrs Levy’s attitude towards me cooled after she heard of Cedric’s Gestapo-like behaviour towards Leo, and Eddie Hollis’s attack on Simon. Also, I suspected, because Simon had told her about our romance. She found an excuse to prevent Leo from visiting my flat on the Saturday after Cedric’s death.