by Peggy Savage
She had been indignant. ‘Elizabeth Garrett Anderson didn’t give it up,’ she said. ‘She went on practising. There are a lot of women doctors who are married and still practising.’
‘Well I wouldn’t let my wife work,’ he said.
And that seemed to be the usual attitude. Men seemed to regard it as some kind of slur on themselves if their wives worked. It implied that he wasn’t able to support her.
Then she sighed to herself in the dark. What on earth was she doing, even thinking about marriage? Johnny had never given the slightest sign that that was in his mind. She was worrying about nothing. There were much more important things to worry about than that. This war was going on and on. In the face of such disaster her worries were nothing. She turned over and went to sleep.
A letter arrived from Dan.
Dear Amy
I want to thank you for your kindness in dining with me. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it. I hope that we shall be able to do it again one day.
There isn’t much to say about life here, you know what it is like. It gets more and more difficult to cope. We have large numbers of German wounded as well as our own. Still, we struggle on.
Please write back as promised.
Best wishes
Dan Fielding
PS Peter is well.
No, she thought, I don’t really know what it is like. It was difficult enough here in Paris, but to be working under those conditions, shelling, attacks by aircraft dropping bombs, numbers they could hardly cope with. She didn’t know what that was like. Not that Paris was immune. While autumn had crept into Paris and the poplars by the river had turned to golden glory, the Germans had dropped bombs near Nôtre Dame and several people were killed. Nôtre Dame! Why did they have to try to destroy all beauty?
She found Helen. ‘I’ve had a letter from Dan,’ she said. ‘He says Peter is well.’
Helen coloured. ‘I’ve had one from Peter. He says it’s just possible that they might get to Paris at Christmas.’ She bounced away down the ward. Amy smiled after her. Helen was so … uncomplicated. She seemed to have clean, clear paths in her life. Apart, that was, from risking loving someone.
The weeks went by, unchanging, relentless. Amy received four letters from Johnny, reporting on his progress: I am on my feet now, with a crutch; I am walking with a stick and feel about ninety; I am walking without a stick, almost back to normal; I have been riding. His letters were brief, factual, without any kind of emotion, and for that she was grateful. She was torn, wanting him to be well again, and not wanting him to be well enough to go back.
‘Christmas is coming,’ Helen said. ‘The goose is getting fat.’
Christmas, Amy thought. What would that be like this year, this terrible year? What would it be like for all those families at home whose sons were not coming back? So much for it all being over by Christmas.
She had a card from Johnny that she kept in the drawer beside her bed. It had a beautiful scene in watercolour of the English countryside in the snow. Inside, under his name, he had drawn a small biplane, and beside it the word ‘soon’. Did he mean that he would be flying soon, or that he would see her soon?
‘Amy.’ Dr Hanfield looked contrite. ‘We’ve had an urgent message about some men in one of the villages, wounded, I hardly need say. There’s only one way to get them out. Someone will have to go. I realize it’s near to Christmas, but I know I can always rely on you.’
‘It’s all right,’ Amy said. ‘Of course I’ll go.’
‘But we’ll need two ambulances. I wonder if Helen…?’
‘I’m sure she will,’ Amy said. ‘She’ll mark it down for votes for women.’
Dr Hanfield smiled. ‘She’ll have my backing as soon as all this is over.’
‘When do we go?’ Amy asked.
‘Tomorrow, first light. The village is very close to the front, Amy. It may not be easy.’
Amy sought out Helen. ‘Of course I’ll come,’ she said.
They were given the evening off to go to bed early. Helen seemed to drop off at once. Amy lay awake for a while. Near to the front, Dr Hanfield had said. How near? Not that it mattered. They would go anyway.
They set off before dawn, Amy with Bill and Helen with another driver in the other ambulance. As they left Paris behind them the sun rose in the east, painting the countryside with gold.
‘Lovely morning,’ Bill said. ‘Cold though.’
Amy nodded, thinking of the men in the trenches, the freezing snow and frozen mud. Christmas must mean very little to them.
The morning star shone in the indigo and golden sky. ‘Venus,’ Bill said. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’
They drew up at a crossroads and Bill got out his map. The other driver and Helen came to the door and the two men conferred.
‘It’s cold,’ Helen said, ‘But I needed to stretch my legs. We have to find these men before they freeze to death.’
‘The villagers will help them,’ Amy said. ‘They always do.’
The drivers seemed to have reached a decision and they climbed back aboard and set off again. The daylight slowly revealed the ravaged countryside: abandoned farms, shattered and broken trees, trees that had grown for decades, perhaps a hundred years. Now they were just jagged stumps in the blasted earth.
They joined a road where the army was moving, lorries and horses and mules struggling in the snowdrifts and frozen mud.
‘This’ll slow us down,’ Bill said. ‘Perhaps I can find a side road.’
Wherever it could the traffic drew aside to let them through and they crept along.
‘What’s that?’ Bill said.
Amy peered out of the window. A speck on the horizon grew bigger.
‘It’s a plane,’ Bill said. He stared out of the window for a few moments. ‘It’s a bloody German plane. Sorry for the language.’ The plane came on. ‘Get out, Miss Amy,’ Bill said suddenly. ‘Get out and get in the ditch, now. Some of those planes have started carrying a bomb.’
They jumped out of the doors, together with Helen and her driver. Many of the men got out of the army lorries and began to fire their rifles at the plane. They crouched in the ditch. The plane flew over them and then circled to fly over them again. ‘He’s coming back,’ Bill said. ‘He’s probably just reconnaissance, but you never know. Keep down.’
They heard another sound, another plane. ‘Oh my God,’ Amy whispered.
They watched it approach and then Bill cheered. ‘Look, it’s one of ours. It’s a BE2.’ The plane pounced upon the German. They watched, fascinated, as they circled one another in the sky above them. They were so low that they could see the pilots firing at each other with pistols. Then suddenly, the German plane slipped and dipped and a stream of smoke spiralled out behind it. It seemed to fall so slowly, sliding and turning, and then it hit the earth with an explosion of sound and flame. Amy closed her eyes, thinking of the man inside it, but Bill jumped to his feet, cheering and waving his arms. ‘He got him,’ he shouted. ‘He bloody got him.’ Amy could only think of the pilot, dead, without a doubt. It could be Johnny, was all that she could think. It could be Johnny.
They climbed out of the ditch and back into the ambulance and set off again. ‘Those planes,’ Bill said. ‘They should put something on them so you know which is which. Those boys in the trenches mostly don’t know. Half the time they’re firing at their own side.’
They found the village at last and the four of them stepped out into the village street. The men were in the church again, lying in straw in the bitter cold. The villagers had brought in some charcoal burners, but they had made little difference. The men seemed too sick to greet them, half conscious with the effort to fight the cold and the pain of their wounds. Amy and Helen automatically tried to breathe through their mouths. The stench was overpowering, but at least they were used to it now; they knew what to expect.
They moved among the men, giving morphine, applying new dressings over the blood and pus-soaked dressings that we
re already there. One of the nurses on a hospital train at the station had said that they now thought it was better to leave on the old dressing until they got the men to hospital. There appeared to be less infection and less shock.
‘I think we can take them all,’ Helen said. ‘Even him.’ One of the wounded – a bullet in the shoulder – was a German. He was lying alone in a corner. ‘Or shall we leave him behind?’
‘No,’ Amy said sharply. ‘Of course not.’
‘I didn’t mean it,’ Helen said. ‘It’s just a bit strange, that’s all – saving the enemy.’
We don’t choose who we help, Amy thought. Medicine doesn’t work that way. We do the best we can, whoever it is, whatever we feel about them. ‘Love your enemies,’ she said.
Helen pulled a face. ‘We don’t have to love them, do we?’
They loaded the men into the ambulances and drove away, the villagers behind them smiling and waving.
They stopped on the way to give the men water. Amy bent over one of the men on a stretcher. She looked down at him and closed her eyes in pity and sadness. They were too late; he was already dead. She said nothing and did not cover his face, not wanting to upset the other men. Not that they had not seen a corpse before. They lived with them every day, under their feet, half concealed in the walls of the trenches, lying in the mud in no-man’s land. Death was all around them.
They arrived at the hospital in the dark, too late for the usual group of Parisians. The men were unloaded from the ambulances and were led or carried away to be assessed, given more pain control, washed, de-loused. The lights were already on in the operating theatre; there were the busy sounds of preparation, the staff hurrying in and out. The young German looked terrified, Amy thought. He probably thought that they were going to torture him and kill him. Heaven knew what lies they had been told.
She and Helen bathed and went early to bed. Amy lay awake for a while, thinking about the young German. She had noticed a strange schism in her own mind. If an allied victory was reported and she heard that a few thousand Germans were dead, she would rejoice with everyone else, but if the report said that a few thousand men were dead, she would be filled with horror and pity, even though the men were German. What has happened to us, she thought? We have lost our humanity. That very word, ‘German’, ‘Hun’, seemed to have taken on a life of its own, conjuring up menace, cruelty and barbarism. That boy downstairs was just a boy, after all, a boy just like the British boys, caught up in something they didn’t want and didn’t understand. Dying for some crazy useless power struggle invented by their leaders. She hoped the boy was sleeping now and had realized that he was going to be taken care of.
In the wards a kind of Christmas fever was beginning. The men were making paper chains with a lot of glue and muttered language and laughter. Flags of all nations were fixed to the beds. Two of the doctors were organizing a short pantomime, Little Red Riding Hood, and Helen was selected to be the heroine. ‘Can’t get much redder than that,’ one of the sisters said, pointing to her hair. A very large sergeant was chosen to be the wolf and kitted out with huge cardboard teeth and ears and a great false beard. Someone had provided a spiked German helmet for the wolf to wear, much to everyone’s amusement.
‘Well he certainly frightens me,’ Helen said.
M. Le Blanc promised that he had found some turkeys, and a consignment of Christmas puddings was on its way from England. Just for the day they were determined to help the men to forget what had happened – what was still happening.
Christmas morning started bright and early. Many of the men had parcels from home and the beds were littered with socks, gloves, scarves, books and cigarettes. Breakfast was good old British bacon and eggs and pints and pints of tea. Amy worked in the general ward. Some of the men that she and Helen had brought in needed their dressings changed. The young German boy had had the bullet removed from his shoulder and medically was doing well. He was lying with his face to the wall. Amy watched as one of the older men went up to him and touched him gently on the shoulder but the boy shrugged him away. So much for ‘love your enemy’, Amy thought. The boy didn’t want to be loved, not by the English anyway. She wondered what they were told by their officers – that the British were vicious and cruel, perhaps? Did he think he was being disloyal, just to join in with Christmas? They had no alternative but to leave him be.
Breakfast over, the men who could leave their beds assembled in the hall and the ward doors were left open so that everyone could hear. A group of choirboys from the local church had come to sing carols. They were singing in French, of course, but it was such a reminder of home that many of the men had tears in their eyes.
Lunch was a great success. M. Le Blanc had turned up trumps with the turkeys and the puddings had arrived on time from England. M. Le Blanc had also found enough beer to go round. All the staff, including the doctors, waited at table. Then a cab arrived with the gifts from Princess Mary. The gifts were just a small brass box with a card and some pipe tobacco and cigarettes and a writing case for the non-smokers, but they were highly appreciated by the men. A young corporal, wounded in the knee, tucked his into his pocket. ‘It shows they haven’t forgotten us,’ he said. ‘I’m going to send mine home to my wife. A present from Royalty! She’ll be that pleased.’
Most of the men had a sleep after lunch and an unusual quiet fell on the hospital.
‘I did hope Peter and Dan would come.’ Helen had been looking pensive all morning, looking often at the main door as if willing them to walk through it.
‘I suppose we shouldn’t look forward to anything too much,’ Amy said, ‘But the day’s not over yet.’
Helen smiled. ‘I wish I had your optimism.’
At five o’clock they all gathered in the hall again for the concert. Matron played some Chopin on the piano, which was very politely received. Then came some recitations and a large sergeant major with a fine bass voice led the men in a sing-song, ‘Pack up your troubles’ and ‘Good bye Dolly’ and all the popular songs. There was a stir of anticipation as the curtains, (two sheets) opened on Little Red Riding Hood. All the men were familiar with pantomimes and there were constant cheers and boos and shouts of ‘oh yes you are’, and ‘it’s behind you’. Helen got loud cheers and whistles and the wolf in his German helmet got boos that rattled the windows.
Amy was sitting at the back, near the main door. She heard the door open and turned around. Dan and Peter were standing just inside muffled up in their greatcoats. She got up at once and went to meet them, smiling. They both took off their caps and grinned broadly.
‘We got here,’ Dan said softly. ‘Just.’
‘It’s nearly over,’ she whispered. ‘Let me take your coats.’ Peter looked around the hall, obviously looking for Helen, and not finding her. Amy touched his arm and pointed to the stage. ‘Up there.’ His look of relief was almost comical and he laughed loudly at the wolf. ‘If he touches her I’ll kill him,’ he said. He got as close to the stage as he could, clapping loudly whenever Helen appeared.
‘How are you, Amy?’ Dan looked down at her, brown eyes smiling.
‘I’m very well. And you?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘but tired, I have to admit. We don’t get much sleep.’
He looked even leaner, she thought, sharper. ‘Have you had anything to eat?’ she said. ‘I’m sure we can find you something. There must be a lot left over from lunch.’
‘A sandwich would be nice,’ he said. ‘We’ve been travelling most of the day.’
‘I’ll go and talk to cook.’ Amy came back after a few moments. ‘Turkey sandwich do? And perhaps some cold Christmas pudding?’
‘Excellent.’
The pantomime ended with a burst of applause and the men began to move from the hall. She and Dan sat down on one of the settees.
‘How long will you be in Paris?’ Amy asked.
‘Just this evening,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to go back early in the morning. We’re staying at a hotel we fou
nd that still had some rooms. I’m really looking forward to an uninterrupted sleep.’
Amy was almost shocked. ‘You’ve come all this way?’ she said. ‘Just for one evening?’
He smiled at her, a slow, warm smile, looking into her eyes. ‘There was no way to keep Peter back,’ he said. ‘So of course I had to come too.’ His smile turned into a speculative, amused look. She knew then perfectly well what he was saying without words – ‘I wanted to come too; I wanted to see you.’ She didn’t know what to say, she just gave him a brief smile. ‘I don’t suppose you and Helen can come out, can you?’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not, but I’m sure you’ll be welcome to spend the evening here. There’ll be dozens of people here till all hours. Lots of the local people have come in and brought things for the men – a lot of it alcoholic.’
He laughed. ‘Maybe we can help them get rid of some of it.’
Peter came back to them. ‘Helen’s gone up to change.’
When Helen came down they all went into the dining-room while the men ate their sandwiches.
‘I’m going to ask Matron if I can go out for a walk,’ Helen said. She and Peter looked at each other. They were obviously very eager to be alone, even if it was cold outside.
After they had gone she and Dan sat on a settee in the main hall. Later on, in bed, she couldn’t really remember much of what they had talked about. He told her a bit more about himself, his GP father, his sisters, his ambitions for his career in surgery after the war. She had told him about her father, and her lost mother. They had been joined by other people, staff members and some of the French visitors. Peter and Helen came back, Helen looking a bit flushed, and eventually they said their goodbyes.
Helen was humming, brushing her hair before bed.
‘You sound very happy,’ Amy said.
‘Oh, Amy.’ Her eyes were shining. ‘I know we’ve only met twice, but he’s so nice. And I’m going to see him again, somehow.’
