War Girls

by Adele Geras

  They stopped in a village. The streets were empty, many of the inhabitants having fled west, in fear of being overrun if the Germans broke through. Unbelievably there was a café open. The owner made them hot chocolate, which she’d saved for just such an occasion, she told them. She would accept no payment. ‘I have two sons fighting. I haven’t heard from them in over a year. If you meet them, tell them their mother loves them and she is waiting for them at home.’

  They stretched their legs before continuing and Merle wandered into a nearby orchard. The trees were still bearing fruit, as if reluctant to surrender to winter. Yellow, garnet and gold; the canopy above her was the smudged paintbox of autumn.

  Her grandmother had come home unexpectedly early on the day of the caning. The front door slamming made the governess jump. She thrust the cane at the housemaid. ‘Return that to where it belongs.’

  The maid put her hands behind her back.

  Merle clenched her teeth, determined not to cry.

  And that was the scene which greeted her grandmother as she swept into the room, removing pins from her hat as she came. She tossed it onto a sofa and paused in the act of unbuttoning her gloves.

  ‘What’s amiss?’

  ‘This miss is amiss.’ The governess gave a harsh laugh.

  Merle watched the feather of her grandmother’s hat waft gently to and fro. A magnificent purple feather, fastened with the white, green and violet ribbons of the women’s suffrage movement.

  ‘How so?’ Her grandmother’s eyes narrowed as she took in the cane in the governess’s hand.

  ‘I find the girl’s nature very obdurate. I drew specific trees for her to colour in. I even placed the crayons in order, so she would not have to think too much. See for yourself what she has done!’ The governess’s voice railed with righteous indignation. ‘She broke every crayon. On purpose! Then she made a mess of the outlines.’

  ‘Did you ask her why?’

  ‘There is no point in asking her why. Children are born with a wickedness in them that needs to be driven out.’

  ‘Oh, I think there is always a point in asking why.’ Merle’s grandmother sat down on the chair opposite her. ‘Would you like to tell me why you broke the crayons?’

  Merle shook her head.

  ‘Ma’am,’ the housemaid began, ‘she’s a wee girl in a strange country and—’

  Merle’s grandmother held up her hand. ‘I’d like Merle herself to tell me. Please. S’il vous plaît.’ And, as the child’s gaze flickered to her face, she smiled and winked at her.

  ‘They are too big for my hand.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ the governess said. ‘She uses her slate pencil quite easily and that is longer than these crayons.’

  ‘I write with the pencil,’ said Merle. ‘With crayons, I draw.’

  ‘Show me,’ her grandmother prompted.

  Merle gripped the stub of a crayon in her fist and slid it on its side across the paper.

  ‘You see how ridiculous that is?’ said the governess. ‘One cannot possibly colour in properly using a crayon that way.’

  ‘What were you drawing, ma petite?’

  Merle pointed to the garden where the evening sun, coming through the overhanging branches, had created a cave of colour. ‘Trees,’ she said. ‘I draw trees.’

  ‘That’s unlike any tree I’ve ever seen,’ the governess snorted. ‘There’s no form, no lines.’

  Merle’s grandmother studied the multi-toned splashes of apricot and orange on the paper, the kaleidoscope of hues, the iridescent blend of rose-tinted cream overlapping brown and black to create warmth within shade. Then she stared out of the window into the garden, glowing with dappled light of russet, ochre, amber and yellow.

  ‘My granddaughter does not constrict herself to lines,’ she said. ‘Merle is drawing Life.’

  ‘I cannot teach a girl who will not obey a simple instruction.’

  ‘It’s perceptive of you to acknowledge that you cannot teach,’ said her grandmother, ‘because a true teacher would know that girls should be taught to think for themselves.’

  The following morning the governess was gone. The next week her grandmother engaged a drawing instructor and proudly accompanied Merle when, in her early teens, she enrolled as one of the youngest students at the Edinburgh College of Art.

  When they reached Trécourt the staff were wearing black mourning armbands. Doctor Elsie Inglis, who had been suffering from cancer, had died on the twenty-sixth of November, the day after coming back to England from the hospital she’d established in Serbia.

  Everyone assembled in the dining hall, where the supervisor of Trécourt Ambulance Station, Mrs Anne Thomson, read a lesson, and begged them not to be disheartened.

  ‘Doctor Inglis would have wanted us to carry on her good work. We aren’t a large unit here, unlike the main hospitals run by women at Abbaye de Royaumont and Villers-Cotterêts, but, being close to the railway, our work is crucial in ferrying the wounded to where they need to go.’

  The two new ambulances brought the number up to five, with ten drivers, including Merle and Grace. Mrs Thomson ran the unit, arranging staff shifts and ordering supplies. The work was unrelenting. The phone would ring or a bicycle messenger would bring word that a hospital train was due at the railway depot. Off they would go, backwards and forwards, shuttling the men to their designated hospitals. If they weren’t driving, they took their turn at cooking and cleaning, and, above everything else, ensuring the vans were ready for action. They slept on mattresses made from jute bags stuffed with hay and lugged sacks of anthracite from the coal store to fuel the stoves to keep themselves warm. There was little free time but Merle managed to draw or paint fairly regularly. As long as it did not interfere with the function of the unit the supervisor thought it an excellent idea to record their activities.

  Merle painted everything she saw: wounded soldiers with officers and orderlies moving amongst them; a doctor speaking to one of her patients; the ambulances, inside and out; Grace with engine parts spread around her; the girls working, eating or writing letters home. She was convinced of the importance of art in this context and it fulfilled a need within her, making Merle more content than she’d felt for years. She was allowed to make a studio in one of the attic rooms, and it was there Captain George Taylor found her one day when he came to call.

  ‘It’s marvellous how you reveal colour in a winter landscape,’ he said, examining her painting of two women standing in snow under a tree. ‘You have infused light into the barren branches.’

  ‘You sound knowledgeable about art,’ said Merle. ‘Do you paint?’

  ‘I did dabble. My art master said that I had a talent, but perhaps that was merely to keep himself employed.’

  Merle clipped fresh paper onto the easel and handed him a brush. With deft strokes he painted her standing beside her ambulance.

  ‘An accomplished representation,’ she said sincerely.

  ‘Mmm …’ He glanced from his painting to hers, now drying on the window shelf. ‘I’m more interested in what you’re doing with colour. At some point I will ask you to show me how you achieve those effects.’

  It was nearly Christmas before Merle saw George Taylor again. She and Grace had gone into Albert, a town east of Trécourt. They had decided to have their hair cut short. Most of the other drivers had done this already. It reduced the incidence of lice and made shampooing cheaper and faster. By chance they met George, who was in search of a new razor.

  ‘It’s so tedious to have to shave every day,’ he confided.

  The girls sympathised and explained the problems of long hair.

  ‘Oh, surely not!’ he said when they told him of their intention to have it cut. ‘Ladies’ hair is a joy to behold. If one is allowed to make that comment,’ he added.

  ‘We might have to report you to Supervisor Thomson,’ joked Grace.

  But Mrs Thomson was an admirer of Captain Taylor and had invited him as a guest to their Christmas dinner. ‘Since tha
t young man was appointed,’ she said, ‘patient transport is more efficient.’

  On Christmas Day he arrived at the unit in full dress uniform, which Merle deduced was borrowed, because it hung loose on his body and long in the sleeve.

  ‘He is attractive,’ murmured Grace, ‘you must admit.’

  ‘I’m not admitting to anything,’ said Merle, but she was laughing. Conversation was certainly less strained than the last dinner they’d eaten together.

  It was clear that Michel Vallon had also changed his opinion about Captain Taylor. During the meal he spoke warmly of the young officer’s re-organisation. Extra spur lines accommodated the trains coming and going. Throughout the journey wounds were assessed and a medical card pinned to each man. An up-to-date tally was kept on the sector’s operating theatre and bed availability. It meant savings in time and fuel, because patients were taken directly to the most appropriate hospital or surgical unit.

  ‘When the war is over,’ Monsieur Vallon promised, ‘I intend to recommend Captain Taylor for the Légion d’honneur.’

  ‘When do you think that will be?’ asked Grace. ‘We hear conflicting reports. The official Allied bulletins are very positive, yet our patients tell us a different story.’

  ‘It will be months yet,’ said Michel, ‘but we will win.’

  Merle saw George look away as the older man said this. ‘We are not children to be reassured with half-truths,’ she said.

  ‘It would be better if you were open with us,’ agreed Supervisor Thomson. ‘For if there is any doubt, then we should practise our evacuation drill more often.’

  ‘It would be a wise precaution.’ George spoke very definitely. ‘We are vulnerable in this sector. Fewer trenches have been built for defence and it has left the town of Albert and the surrounding area exposed.’

  ‘But I’ve heard you say that trench warfare is a vile stalemate,’ said Merle.

  ‘It is, but at least it affords some protection for those behind the line.’

  As the new year began, so did the rumours.

  ‘A patient I was transporting today said that the German army have been amassing reinforcements,’ one of the drivers announced at dinner.

  ‘Reinforcements?’ Grace was astonished. ‘How can they possibly have reinforcements?’

  ‘I fear it is true,’ said Supervisor Thomson. ‘Their elite forces have been recalled from the Russian Front. They may be planning a spring offensive.’

  ‘I heard that too.’ Another girl spoke up. ‘A doctor on the last train I picked up from mentioned heavy artillery and stormtroopers carrying flamethrowers.’

  Supervisor Thomson gave the girl a severe look. ‘Let’s not spread alarm. We will be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice, but we must continue to provide an ambulance service for as long as we are able.’

  At the supervisor’s instruction, they each packed a minimum of personal things and put them in the ambulances so that, if it became necessary, they could leave the base at once. Merle placed her paintings in her satchel and stowed it in her van. She remembered what George had said about this area being vulnerable. If the enemy did start to use long-range guns then Albert would be the target. She opened up the map she always carried in her coat pocket.

  Albert – only a few miles east of Trécourt.

  The bomb landed without warning.

  Above the clatter of the engine Merle didn’t hear the whine of its approach. One moment she was on a country road, almost empty apart from a group of soldiers standing outside their billet. The next moment there was a bang that shut off her hearing and seventy yards in front of her the earth erupted. The van rocked, steadied, and then – it seemed as if in slow motion – a torrent of stones and debris rained out of the sky. Rocks bounced off the roof and she was thrown forward. She hit the brake and skidded to a halt.

  Silence. Cries for help. Orders being shouted.

  Legs trembling, Merle got out of the van. Her first instinct was to crouch down and check that the tyres were intact.

  ‘Thank God! There’s an ambulance!’ Someone pulled at her arm. ‘You got stretchers in there, buddy?’

  She straightened up to face an American Army Sergeant.

  ‘Save my stars!’ he cried. ‘The driver’s a girl!’

  ‘Do you want me or not?’ Merle snapped. ‘I’ll drive on somewhere else if I’m not welcome here.’

  ‘You tell him, hen!’ said one of his men in a familiar broad accent. ‘He’s too crabbit, by far.’

  ‘You’re welcome. You’re welcome,’ the sergeant told her. ‘I’d lay the table for afternoon tea to show how welcome you are, but first I need to dig my boys out of that mess.’

  ‘All right!’ Merle was half laughing, half sobbing. ‘I’ll get the stretchers from my van.’

  They worked for an hour pulling bodies from the rubble. Of the group of twenty men in and around the shattered building, only four were alive. The last one, a boy, who looked about fifteen years old, they dug out with their bare hands. His pelvis and legs were crushed.

  With horn blaring, Merle drove to the nearest hospital. She jumped from the cab as the staff came running.

  ‘Unclassified wounded. Bomb hit on a US army billet. Four patients,’ Merle gasped out to the admitting nurse as she opened the ambulance doors. ‘This boy. This one here. The young one. His sergeant wants you to look at him first.’

  The nurse gave the boy a quick examination and beckoned Merle to one side.

  ‘He’s dying. It’s not worth moving him. We’ll admit the others and let him pass away here.’

  ‘What can I do?’ Merle asked desperately.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do except comfort him.’

  ‘What do I say?’ she asked, but the nurse had left, hurrying after the three casualties who were being carried inside.

  Merle got into the back of her ambulance.

  ‘They’ve not forgotten about me, have they?’ the boy asked her.

  ‘No, no, of course not.’ Merle thought quickly. ‘They’ve gone to get you morphine.’

  ‘Funny thing. I told the sergeant as he was digging me out, I’m not in pain. No pain at all.’

  ‘That’s good then. The hospital’s short of morphine. But you Americans are in the war now. And you’ve got supplies.’ Merle realised she was babbling but couldn’t stop. ‘I saw them being unloaded at Calais when I was there.’

  ‘I’m just a bit cold.’

  Merle took off her coat and spread it across his body. ‘Better now?’

  He nodded. Then he said in a low voice, ‘I’m a bit frightened too. Didn’t like to say it in front of the sergeant, but you’re a girl so I reckon it’s OK for you to know.’

  ‘Oh, everyone gets scared.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’ve had every rank in this ambulance. Majors, brigadiers, generals, the lot. Shaking like jellies they were. Getting wounded is very scary …’ Merle’s voice trailed off. The boy’s face had turned a colour she had never seen before.

  ‘I’m dying, aren’t I?’ The boy was struggling for breath now, the air rattling in his chest.

  Merle felt panic rising in her. She didn’t know how to deal with this. That was why she’d elected to be a driver. It was all very well for the nurse to say ‘comfort him’, but how was she supposed to do that?

  His eyes were shading into pools of darkness.

  With sudden inspiration Merle remembered the woman in the café of the village where she and Grace and Captain Taylor had stopped for lunch on their drive south. She kneeled down beside the dying boy. ‘Your mother loves you,’ she whispered. ‘She loves you very much.’

  The boy relaxed. He closed his eyes and quietly sighed his last breath.

  Merle stood up. There was a hard, tight pain across her chest. She stumbled out and climbed into the cabin. She bowed her head to rest it on the wheel as the stretcher-bearers took the boy to the mortuary.

  The next day she couldn’t paint, nor the day after, nor the
day after that.

  Sfumato …

  There was no light in the shadows.

  She did her work automatically and thought only in monochrome. Grace and the other girls tried to cheer her. Mrs Thomson was sympathetic and supportive. ‘A first death is always hard. Take some time to be in the fresh air.’

  Merle walked aimlessly. The sights of conflict – the ruined houses and despoiled earth – filled her waking moments, and at night the rumble of the guns disturbed her dreams. She began to believe that her presence in the ambulance unit would make no difference to the outcome of this terrible war, and concluded that she could not exist in a landscape where all forms of life were constantly under assault.

  She’d made up her mind that she would return to Edinburgh when George appeared. There was excitement in his face. ‘You must come with me. I have found treasure.’

  Reluctantly she followed him. It was kind of him to try to raise her spirits, but there was nothing she could think of that would ease the gloom that enveloped her.

  He took her into the barn where the coal was stored and stopped in front of a ladder that led to the hayloft.

  ‘Up here?’ Merle stared at him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there is something I want you to see.’

  She did as he said, and, as her eyes came level with the rafters, Merle saw a bird’s nest tucked in the crossbeam. Three speckled turquoise eggs lay snug among the twigs.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ George asked softly. ‘A miracle of engineering that has life within it.’

  Merle gazed at the nest.

  ‘I can tell by the eggs that it’s the nest of a blackbird,’ he said.

  Tears prickled Merle’s eyelids.

  ‘You understand why I brought you here?’

  Merle nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  Chante, chante,

  Petit oiseau,

  Chante pour moi,

  Mon petit merle.

  She was with her parents in a park, skipping on the grass as they sang her special song. Her father caught her and lifted her high in the air. ‘Come and kiss me, my Merle, my bonnie little blackbird.’

  Merle. Her name in French meant blackbird.

  The chicks began to hatch in early March. Merle drew them as fledglings, hopping about among the red poppies and les bleuets, the bright blue cornflowers. Mrs Thomson watched her paint. She put her hand on Merle’s shoulder. ‘It’s ironic that some plants thrive in soil that has been displaced. Due to the devastation around us, these flowers bloom more profusely, yet I find their tenacity and beauty uplifting.’