Teardrops in the Moon

by Crosse, Tania

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Silence.

  Earth-shattering silence. Or was it? Perhaps it was rather the devastation of shock so deep that it numbs all the senses.

  Every muscle of Marianne’s body was locked in paralysis, her wide eyes staring blindly across her cramped cubicle. Somewhere in her brain it finally registered that her lungs had not moved for too long as if the life had been sucked out of her. In sudden response, her chest expanded in an enormous, painful effort and she saw stars as she regained her full senses.

  God Almighty! There was a hole in the outer wall where a large shard of shrapnel had sliced through it and embedded itself in the mattress – just where Marianne had been sitting on the edge of the bed. The blast that had exploded the deadly piece of metal into her cubicle had also saved her life – by flinging her across the tiny room – even if she had been winded as she crashed against the door.

  Slowly, she turned the handle and sidled out into the corridor, moving in some strange, silent dream. Her comrades were emerging from their cubicles, white-faced, pale lips moving without sound, shaking their heads, hands over their ears. A trickle of blood was running down Phyllis’s terrified cheek. A splinter of bomb was stuck in Lucinda’s door.

  Suddenly Mac was there, shaking a sharp piece of metal from her coat. ‘Is everyone all right?’ Marianne read her lips, noticing Mac’s demented frown as she clearly couldn’t hear her own words. ‘The deafness will pass,’ she appeared to mouth. ‘Follow me to the dug-out,’ she beckoned, hoping they would all understand her sign language.

  Wordlessly, they all grabbed their coats and metal hats, and spilled out into the darkness. Even these brave, courageous young women who risked their lives constantly had never come so close to meeting their maker. They slid outside in various degrees of shock, only to gasp at the sight that met their eyes: a small crater where until a minute earlier, their bath-house and kitchen had stood.

  ‘Was anyone in there?’ Marianne realized that she was just about able to make out Mac’s horrified words, so at least the shattering effect of the blast on her eardrums was already beginning to wear off. But it didn’t stop the excruciating churning in her stomach. Had anyone been in the two service huts at that late hour? She glanced fearfully around her. Her little group of five were all accounted for, but what of everyone else? It was impossible to tell.

  More flashes cutting through the ice-black night and explosions coming faintly to her hearing but making the ground shake, made her instinctively duck. Thank God they had the dug-out to shelter in! But at that moment, Tanky appeared and as she raised her booming voice even higher than normal, everyone heard her to some extent.

  ‘Sorry, chaps! Message just come through. Train already arrived.’

  Marianne and her companions visibly drew breath. It was the last thing they needed when they had been but yards away from a direct hit and still didn’t know if everyone had survived. But on the other hand, perhaps having their treacherous task to focus on would distract them. Certainly getting the reluctant engines to splutter into life gave them something to concentrate on. November had rapidly turned into the depths of winter with continuous rain and sleet, and that night, with the first clear skies all month, the temperature had plummeted further, turning the roads to ribbons of glass.

  As they slid into the station, Marianne couldn’t believe her eyes. News had filtered through of a new tactic being employed around the town of Cambrai. Instead of beginning an offensive with the usual intense bombardment, the enemy had been taken entirely by surprise by a sudden, concentrated tank attack. The initial advantage had been followed by a gradual chipping away of the German defences, and the Allies were slowly gaining ground. But the costs of this success had been high.

  In the frosty glimmer from a partial moon, a sea of stretchers had been laid out on the platform. Glinting in the moonlight, the train itself was too obvious a target for the bombers, and it must have been decided to off-load the wounded and take the train out of the station as soon as possible. An ominous fear blackened Marianne’s heart, cramping the pit of her belly. She sensed something in her bones as she turned the ambulance around, ready to load up its broken human cargo.

  They each took on as many of the walking wounded as they possibly could, mainly to free up space between the rows of tightly packed prostrate bodies. Even with their uniform skirts only reaching to their calves, the FANY girls were almost falling over them as they guided the less badly wounded into the backs of the ambulances, squeezing them in and piling one or two onto the passenger seat in the open cab as well.

  ‘Don’t mind me, miss,’ the soldier beside Marianne nodded as she accidentally elbowed him whilst changing gear, they were jammed together so closely. ‘I’m just so bloody relieved to get here.’

  Not as relieved as she was to realize her hearing was returning, Marianne thought grimly, as she squinted into the glacial darkness – although a split second later, the sky flashed like a beacon as another resounding crash heralded a further explosion.

  ‘Cor, blimey, didn’t realize you was getting raids like this. Take me hat off to you, I would, if I could.’ He held up two heavily bandaged hands, his teeth flashing tombstone white as he grinned.

  ‘Where were you?’ Marianne asked as she swerved round a new crater in the road.

  ‘Near Cambrai, miss. Beating the Hun. Slowly. Worst casualties I’ve seen in me two years out in this hell. Just hope these hands are bloody bad enough to get me discharged. Give both of them gladly, I would, if it meant I didn’t have to go back.’

  ‘I hope it doesn’t come to that,’ Marianne managed to grimace.

  By the time she drove with Stella back to the station, the train had left, hopefully no longer attracting the enemy bombers. In the gloom, all they could make out was an undulating field of writhing, groaning bodies. Some cried out in agony, others were worryingly still. Heads, eyes bandaged. Some with breathing holes in a mask. Missing limbs, torsos encased in scarlet or yellow stained dressings beneath filthy, sodden blankets. The fetid stench of mud, blood, urine and vomit. And the nauseating stink of gangrene.

  ‘Got a bleeder here, sir!’ The clerk where Marianne had been directed to park was using a dimmed torch to read the labels on the soldiers’ coats, and now he called out to the nearest army medical officer. ‘Double leg amputee.’

  Marianne and Stella exchanged glances. Poor devil. The MO lifted the blanket wearily. Even in the deep shadows, they could see the glistening dark patch rapidly spreading onto the stretcher from the blood-soaked bandages swathing one of the stumps.

  ‘Leave him,’ the MO sighed. ‘He’s unlikely to make it, and he’ll be better off dead.’

  As he went to turn away, Marianne caught his arm, powerless to restrain her sudden rage. ‘No! You can’t decide that! You have no right!’

  The army doctor lifted his chin. He wasn’t used to insubordination. But these headstrong, lionhearted young women were subject to no one else’s rules, military or otherwise. And you had to admire them, if the truth be told.

  ‘Get a tourniquet, Stell,’ Marianne instructed as she defiantly attempted to rip open the blood-drenched remains of the trouser-leg. ‘Scissors, too!’ she called as her friend jumped up into the ambulance.

  The MO shrugged and moved off, the clerk in tow, as between them, Marianne and Stella applied the tourniquet, a task made so much more difficult because they were groping in the obscurity of the night. They pulled the band as tight as possible, praying it would at least stem the bleeding long enough to get him to the hospital. The patient was unconscious, whether from blood-loss, shock or a recent shot of morphine, they couldn’t tell. They doubted the latter. Drugs were getting scarcer by the day, and in all this chaos, the soldier was a drop in the ocean. He barely moaned as they lifted the stretcher and staggered with him the few feet to the ambulance.

  Three others joined him, crippled mounds
of humanity, faceless in the terrors of pain and darkness. One cried out at every lurch of the vehicle no matter how smoothly Marianne was able to drive through the shell-pocked streets. Stella tried to comfort him, helpless, while she could hear another grinding his teeth in his efforts to control his agony. The fourth one, whose opened chest could not be held together by any amount of bandaging, was silent. He was dead by the time they reached the hospital.

  ‘God knows how he lasted this long,’ the receiving MO sighed, pulling the foul blanket over the corpse’s head. ‘So what else have we got?’

  ‘Suspected multiple fractures to the left humerus and ribs, shrapnel in the side and a double leg amputee,’ Marianne heard Stella say efficiently as she joined her at the rear of the ambulance. ‘We had to put a tourniquet on the right stump.’

  ‘Let’s have him first, then!’ The doctor’s voice rose and he clicked his fingers impatiently at the band of waiting orderlies. Two of them sprang forward with a trolley and helped heave the man onto it before rushing it into the dimly lit corridor.

  ‘Do we have a rank?’ Marianne caught the doctor’s question as she turned back to help Stella with their other charges.

  ‘Er, yes,’ she faintly heard the orderly’s reply as he lifted the blanket from the soldier’s sleeve. ‘Major. And. . . .’ He turned his attention to the identity disc around the patient’s neck. It glinted like metal, so it was clearly of the aluminium type issued prior to the war or in the very early stages before they were replaced by the thick fibre lozenges sported by the majority of soldiers nowadays. The orderly obviously noticed as he went on, ‘This chap must have been around for a long time. Looks like A.G. Thorneycroft.’

  Marianne’s world suddenly shattered into splinters at her feet. She almost dropped the next patient as they slid the stretcher off the runners, and she had to gird up her tortured mind to regain control of herself. Dear God, Albert! No! It couldn’t be! She’d have recognized him! But would she, in the darkness, caked in mud and filth? But . . . yes. She’d have known. She’d have felt it.

  Wouldn’t she?

  They carried the next case inside, Marianne’s head spinning in a fragmented dance. The bewilderment on Stella’s face as she suddenly lowered their patient onto the corridor floor barely registered with her as she raced after the rapidly disappearing trolley. She couldn’t believe it was him. They weren’t using the cavalry. He was safe behind the lines with his horse, Captain. But as she caught up with him, her heart was rearing in her chest. She had felt it, hadn’t she? That sinking sensation in her belly as they had arrived at the station.

  The savage fear must have shown on her face, for the MO and the orderly instinctively stopped their headlong rush.

  ‘Do you know him?’ The doctor’s voice cracked with sympathy.

  Marianne’s trembling hand lifted the lock of hair from the deathly white forehead. Beneath the filth, it was sandy-coloured. The finely sculptured brow, the strong jaw.

  She nodded as the tearing anguish ripped at her throat.

  ‘Then let us save him,’ the MO said firmly, and Marianne was left standing in a pool of pain as Albert was rushed on, leaving a trail of crimson droplets on the floor.

  ‘Marianne?’ Stella asked anxiously at her elbow.

  ‘Albert,’ Marianne croaked. ‘It’s Albert.’

  ‘Oh, good God. But, Marianne,’ Stella said gently, ‘there’s nothing you can do now. We have the others. Come on. I’ll drive. You’re in no fit state—’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Marianne insisted, but how she dragged herself through the rest of the night, her soul crumbling inside her, she didn’t know. When every man had been delivered to his destination, Stella drove her back to the hospital. Dropping with fatigue, she searched dimly lit corridors littered with the injured, accosting orderlies who shook their heads and passed her on. It was utter, demonic chaos.

  On the brink of despair, she found him at last, his face as grey as the pillow behind his head. They brought her a chair as she swooned beside him, let her sit by his bed. They had successfully operated to stop the haemorrhage and given him a blood transfusion. With careful nursing to prevent infection, he should live. But who knew what deadly bacteria were already in his blood despite anti-tetanus and other vaccinations?

  Marianne sat there, like an effigy, staring at his ashen face in the candlelight, her heart and soul empty and withered in her breast.

  ‘Of course I understand.’ Mac’s smile was full of sympathy. ‘The major has no family or anyone else to look after him. Without you, he’d end up in some sort of institution for the rest of his life, and God knows there’ll be enough of them who will. But I’ll be sorry to lose you, Warrington. Your service has been exemplary. And,’ she broke off to raise an eyebrow, ‘it’s very likely you saved my own life. I’d like to give you a medal if we had one to give. You’ve been here a year, so you’ve done your bit. So.’ She stood up and held out her hand. ‘Good luck, Private.’

  ‘Thank you, Commandant.’

  ‘Major Thorneycroft will be fit to travel in a few days, you say? So you’ll be home for Christmas.’

  ‘In Blighty, yes. But the major will be in a military hospital wherever they send him for a while yet. Home will eventually be Devon.’

  ‘Of course. Your West Country burr hasn’t gone unnoticed. I’ll have your papers ready and waiting.’

  ‘Thank you again, Commandant.’

  Marianne stood to attention and saluted, which Mac returned. Once outside the office, Marianne drew in a deep breath. She was going to hate leaving her comrades, knowing the dangers they would be facing daily and wishing she was still part of it. But whatever the future held for her and Albert, he needed her. For a while, at least. And maybe later she would return – if this God-damned war was still raging.

  Stella parked the ambulance by the hospital entrance and turned to Marianne with a watery smile. Marianne gave a jerky nod, her mouth closed in a curve. There was a lump in her throat, too.

  The four patients to be transported to the docks, Albert among them, were waiting just inside the entrance. Marianne’s last duty for the FANY would be to accompany them across the Channel, praying they had a safe crossing in the winter weather and weren’t attacked either by sea or air. She jumped down from the vehicle, avoiding her little case containing her few personal possessions that she had crammed at her feet. But before they went to collect their charges, Stella enveloped her in a bear-hug.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ the other girl choked.

  ‘With any luck, my replacement will be bigger and stronger than me which will make things easier for you!’ Marianne attempted to joke.

  ‘I should hope so, too!’ Stella gave a forced laugh as they pulled apart. ‘You will write?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘And good luck. And I’ll see you après la guerre.’ Stella stood back and they saluted each other, a tiny gesture that meant so much. The dangers they had faced, shared together. Come through. Yes. After the war, they would meet again.

  They turned towards the hospital doors, their farewells over. But just as they did so, the sound of running feet caught Marianne’s attention. A figure in a Red Cross uniform was hurrying up the road towards them, quite puffed out.

  ‘Mary!’

  ‘Oh, thank goodness I caught you!’ Mary’s face was red from exertion but also alight with some other emotion Marianne couldn’t identify. ‘I ran all the way from my own hospital,’ Mary panted. ‘I just had to tell you. I’ve just received a letter. From Michael! He’s alive! In a POW camp in Germany!’

  Marianne’s heart erupted and overflowed with joy for her friend, and her face broke into a huge grin. ‘That’s amazing!’ she cried, and waltzed Mary in a circle.

  ‘Seems he was one of the lucky ones to be plucked out of the water by the Germans who sank his ship,’ Mary explained, her eyes sparkling like diamo
nds. ‘A few others of the crew survived as well, but it’s the first time he’s been allowed to write and, of course, the letter went home first. So now we can write to each other and he’ll be safe until the end of the war. Whenever that is.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t tell you how happy I am for you!’ But then Marianne’s face clouded. ‘But I was the one who persuaded you to come out here, and now I’m leaving you.’

  ‘Marianne, I wouldn’t be anywhere else. And you’ve done your bit and it’s my turn to do mine. You go home and nurse Albert back to full health. Now give me a hug, and then I must go. I’m on duty in five minutes.’

  A few seconds later, Mary was dashing back the way she had come. Marianne watched her give a little skip of joy as she turned the corner. That was a miracle indeed. Marianne met Stella’s beaming face. One happy ending, at least. Marianne prayed that Mary herself survived the continuing air-raids on Calais. If anything happened to her, she would feel utterly responsible.

  She turned once more towards the hospital entrance, Albert waiting inside. They had a long journey to travel yet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Did you have a good ride, my dear?’

  Albert was sat in his wheelchair on the terrace that ran along the back of Fencott Place, apparently enjoying the April sunshine. Marianne smiled across at him as she returned from the stableyard, having seen to Pegasus’s needs after a long morning ride over the moor. Her face was flushed with exhilaration, her heart lifted with contentment, but she was brought up short by the forced tone in Albert’s question.

  ‘Yes, thank you, I did. But. . . .’ She broke off, frowning, and noticed the letter on Albert’s lap. ‘Is anything wrong?’

  Albert drew in a deep breath and held it as he met her gaze, and she could see the pain in his eyes. ‘Sadly, yes,’ he breathed out. ‘As if Bourdon Wood wasn’t bad enough, A Squadron was annihilated a couple of weeks ago. It’s thought just a handful survived, and they were taken prisoner.’