Ambulance Girls

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘It came down – whack! – just beyond the glass canopy last night,’ he said. He grimaced expressively and waved his hand around the restaurant. ‘It is no wonder we have so few diners here. This Blitz is terrible for business.’

  ‘I suppose people worry that they won’t be able to get home,’ said Jim.

  Mr Ratazzini smiled. ‘I have camp beds available for my customers. There is no need to hurry your meal.’

  The nightly raid began just as the soup was set before us. Jim looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I shrugged.

  ‘Nothing to say they’ll hit Mayfair tonight.’

  ‘We’re probably safer here than in Bloomsbury.’

  ‘Very likely.’

  ‘He has camp beds available.’

  ‘And I’m starving.’

  We ate to the accompaniment of aeroplanes roaring overhead and the thunder of the guns on Primrose Hill. The food was beautifully cooked and delicious. We toasted each other as our cutlery rattled on the table and the bottles in the bar clinked together alarmingly. We lingered over our coffee, hoping for the All Clear; the idea of camping out in the restaurant was not one that really appealed to me.

  Jim ordered brandy and when it came I held the glass under my nose, inhaling the warmth of the fumes. If scents had colours, I thought, this would be golden with a hint of fiery red. Like the flames of burning buildings in a Blitz. And yet, not all the buildings burned, no matter how bad the raid.

  ‘Because London is just so damn big,’ I mused.

  ‘Biggest city in the world,’ agreed Jim. ‘But I’m not sure I follow you.’

  ‘That’s Hitler’s problem.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘He can’t wipe London off the map, no matter what he throws against it. Look how hard he’s been hitting the City. A lot of it is destroyed, but most of it remains. And that’s only a tiny part of Greater London. We’re just too big.’

  ‘Unlike Coventry. Or Southampton. Or Bristol.’

  I nodded glumly. ‘I hate it when he hits the smaller towns and cities. It’s unsportsmanlike.’

  ‘Just not cricket?’

  I made a face at him. ‘Yes, I’m a little tipsy. But I’m very happy.’

  ‘Good.’

  I looked at Jim over my glass.

  ‘I feel so terribly sorry for Mrs Levy, being unable to hold a proper funeral. Don’t you think it’s suspicious? That we can’t find Levy’s body, I mean?’

  He seemed troubled. ‘I doubt it. Some bodies are too damaged ever to be properly identified. Some will have disintegrated entirely.’

  I shook my head in disagreement. ‘Very few bodies are not claimed.’

  It was remarkable to me that so few persons were missing, given the scale of the Blitz. The authorities made great efforts to identify everyone who was killed in the bombing, by scraps of clothing, effects and witness accounts. In most cases it was known that someone had been in a particular place when it was bombed and it could be assumed that they died there, even if there was nothing recognisable left. I knew that an Australian ambulance officer had been recently identified only by the cufflinks her husband had given her.

  I took another sip of brandy. ‘What if his body has been hidden? I can’t stop thinking that Levy made quite a few enemies in the last few weeks.’

  ‘You know I think that’s fanciful, Lily. Look, I asked some questions about your former station officer, Mrs Coke. The upshot is that the Ambulance service accepts she has engaged in fraudulent activities but it didn’t want to charge her.’

  ‘I heard today that she’s already taken a job with the Ministry of Food,’ I said. ‘She’ll just do the same there. I don’t understand why she wasn’t prosecuted.’

  ‘Morale, I expect,’ replied Jim. ‘The authorities would not want people to know that crooks are running our ambulance stations during a Blitz.’

  ‘They should have prosecuted her,’ I said, annoyed. ‘What about Knaggs, then? “I’ll get you for this,” he said to Levy, in front of the ARP warden.’

  I was talking too fast and could feel my face getting flushed, but it was all coming up and I couldn’t stop it.

  ‘And Knaggs was in the black market with Sadler, and Levy reported them,’ I went on. ‘Sadler was very odd on the night Levy didn’t turn up for work. Remember – I told you he said that Levy had been killed in an air raid in Soho, or assaulted at Holborn. Now he says he was just teasing me, but what if there’s more to it than that?’

  Jim gave me a look such as one might give to a child telling a particularly unlikely story.

  ‘And now there’s Moray and Fripp.’

  ‘What about them?’

  I told Jim about the conversation I had overheard, and about Fripp’s reference to meetings and the German book. As I had expected, he was unimpressed.

  ‘There are several possible explanations, all of which are more likely than there being a nest of fifth columnists at your ambulance station. This Fripp woman and Moray may meet to discuss Goethe or Hegel or other German philosophers. Or they could be communists. Marx’s Communist Manifesto was first published in German, remember.’

  ‘They’re not communists,’ I said, annoyed at his tone.

  ‘How can you be sure of that?’

  ‘Fripp’s a fascist, not a communist,’ I said. ‘She spouts defeatist views, saying we should parley with Hitler to stop the bombing and she thinks that he would treat the British differently because he likes us.’

  ‘She may have lied to you about her political views.’

  ‘I’ve just spent all week with her. Fripp is not a communist.’

  His fingers began to tap out a tune on an imaginary piano, so I knew he was troubled.

  ‘Lily, Military Intelligence has people all over London watching and listening for traitors. Let them do their job and you do yours.’

  ‘So I should simply ignore signs of fifth column activity?’

  He did not respond. I picked up my cup and took a sip of the really excellent coffee and looked around the room. The tiny dance floor was empty, but the band continued to play. The thumping of the guns and the roar of the planes had faded and I hoped we would soon hear the All Clear. I wanted to go home. Alone.

  We were silent for a while, listening to the band, and my attention wandered. Something was bothering me about Fripp and Moray. Something one of them had said some time ago, and I could not remember what it was. I was jolted back to the present by Jim’s voice.

  ‘Look,’ he said, in a conciliatory voice, ‘I’ll mention what you overheard to my superior officer, see if he thinks it should be discreetly investigated. Don’t let’s quarrel about it. And please, Lily, don’t go turning the tragedy of David’s death into a murder mystery.’

  The All Clear sounded and I let the matter drop, pleased that he was going to at least tell his superior about Moray and Fripp. He left me at my door with a promise to take me to dinner the following Saturday, after his return from the country.

  ‘This week I’m on night shifts with Fripp,’ I said. ‘I’m sure I’ll need some comfort, material and emotional, by Saturday.’

  ‘Happy to oblige.’

  I thought about it all in bed that night. It was most unusual for people to disappear entirely. Levy had been my mate and that brought obligations, especially if he had met with foul play. Despite what Jim said, I knew it was suspicious that his body had not been found. Jim had said he would follow up on my concerns about Moray and Fripp. I now thought it unlikely that Mrs Coke was involved, given her plush new job. That left the spivs.

  The question was, how could I even begin to investigate them?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The final week of November brought strong south-westerly weather that was impartial to both sides. The nights alternated between brilliant pro-German skies and pro-British clouds and heavy rain. Daylight air raids seemed to have ceased, apart from incendiary drops around dusk, but night raids continued unabated and they were fierce.

 
We were all thrilled to finally receive our uniforms from the Ambulance Service. That morning we also welcomed Levy’s replacement. He was Rupert Purvis, a young artist with dark hair brushed back from a high forehead and clear blue eyes behind round glasses. Purvis was a conscientious objector, and Sadler immediately began referring to him sarcastically as ‘the conchie’.

  Maisie was interested though. ‘What did you tell the tribunal?’ she asked Purvis. All conscientious objectors had to have their case determined by a special tribunal.

  ‘I said that as every individual human being was the holder of values such as beauty, truth and goodness, to destroy another human being was to destroy those ultimate values too. I said I was not prepared to put myself into a situation where I might have to take another’s life.’

  ‘And they really bought that?’ Maisie sounded frankly amazed.

  He shrugged. ‘I meant it sincerely. I’m not a coward. The tribunal gave me an exemption from military service on the condition that I undertake civilian war service. So I joined the Ambulance Service and here I am.’

  Moray partnered Purvis with Maisie. That meant I still had to go out with Fripp, and she was as difficult as ever. I mentioned this to Jim in our telephone conversation the next evening.

  ‘She calls me insane, screams at me when I’m trying to drive through a raid. We need to reach the injured. Does she really think I’m not just as scared as she is?’

  ‘Probably. David told me he’d never seen you look the least bit afraid when you were attending an incident.’

  ‘Well, that’s just silly. I’m always terrified, but when I’m busy I forget. It’s later, once we’ve arrived back at the station, that I remember and then I start shaking like a leaf.’

  ‘It was like that for me, when I was flying.’ He paused. ‘What is courage anyway? If it is doing something despite your fears, then in a way, it’s admirable really that your Miss Fripp forces herself to go out and do her job.’

  ‘She’s not my Miss Fripp and it’s all very well to say that, but she makes it bloody hard for me to do my job.’

  On Wednesday night the German planes came in waves. There were several local All Clears during the night, followed by Warnings and raids of varying intensity. We were sent out during one of the lulls to a serious incident near Euston station.

  Not long after we were on the road a local Warning siren sounded and soon the roar of enemy aircraft was loud overhead. The anti-aircraft guns started up, firing non-stop. Their thunder competed with the cacophony of thuds and shrieks and whistles and crumps as bombs and shells landed too close for comfort, and a menacing red glow in the sky in front of us indicated that we were heading towards large conflagrations.

  I ignored Fripp’s rising hysteria to concentrate on driving the Monster on a road that shook with each explosion. I had skirted a large pothole when, without warning, she shrieked into my ear. I was startled and the Monster swerved alarmingly. Then I understood.

  ‘Crikey!’ I whispered.

  The ambulance and all around it was lit up in the sudden, shocking illumination of a flare. My heart seemed to stop. There was safety in darkness. In this day-bright radiance the Monster was clearly visible to any passing German who felt the inclination to annihilate us. And yet, it was beautiful. The bright chandelier dripped stars as it slowly descended.

  ‘There’s a shelter,’ Fripp shrieked. ‘Over there. Pull over, Brennan. Pull over.’ She tugged at my arm, trying to force me to the side of the road. In response I elbowed her savagely.

  ‘We’re far better off if we keep moving,’ I yelled. ‘Makes us a harder target to hit.’

  Four bombs fell close by in quick succession and sparks and debris shot up into the air.

  Fripp slumped down against her door, repeating a shrill mantra of fear: ‘I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it,’ punctuated by sad little hiccupping sobs that made me actually sorry for her.

  As soon as we arrived at the incident, Fripp wrenched open her door and ran to a nearby wall, to crouch there with some of the other rescue workers. We had been taught that keeping low was a protection against blast, but I thought she had picked a daft place to shelter as walls were liable to collapse without warning.

  The whole sky was now ablaze with light; a vast tent of searchlight beams were waving and weaving around what looked like three or four small silver flies that turned and twisted in the lights. Anti-aircraft guns kept up a tremendous barrage, but the shell bursts fell far short of their targets.

  Bits of shrapnel were falling, drifting almost like snowflakes through the air in an aimless, leisurely way. They clinked as they landed on the Monster’s roof and the road beside me. I jumped down from the cabin and ran over to the warden, slipping a little on the wet and muddy ground. The air was smoky and I could taste brick dust. Bombs were still falling and the ground shook under my feet with each explosion. Fires burned fiercely nearby and the air was hot as a Kookynie summer; I could hear the hiss of fire hoses whenever there was a lull in the gun barrage.

  The warden glanced over at Fripp. ‘Bit of a ’fraidy cat, that one,’ he said, shouting over the noise.

  ‘It’s a bad raid,’ I shrugged.

  Once I had helped the stretcher-bearers to load the wounded into the Monster, I called out to Fripp, who was still huddled against her wall.

  ‘Are you coming?’

  Great tongues of flames licked the building behind me, illuminating the scene, and I could see the fear and indecision in her face as clearly as if it were day.

  I climbed into the cab and started the engine. Fripp jumped up and scurried over to the back of the ambulance. I heard her high voice trying to reassure the wounded and assumed that she had decided it would be more terrifying to be left behind than to drive with me through the mayhem. I pressed down on the accelerator and the Monster rattled away over the rubble, shrapnel and debris.

  Fripp said nothing to me when she climbed back into the cab after our wounded had been unloaded at the hospital, and we drove back to Woburn Place in an ominous silence. As soon as I had parked, Fripp pushed open her door, jumped down from the ambulance and almost ran out of the garage. At the door she turned around to shriek at me that I was a suicidal idiot and she never wanted to ride with me again.

  I muttered, ‘Good,’ and stepped down from the cabin. I felt a little dizzy and leaned against the Monster until the garage stopped spinning and I had forced away the tears.

  When I entered the common room I could see Fripp remonstrating with McIver, who was duty officer that night. McIver looked up and saw me, and motioned me into the office.

  ‘We are supposed to take cover during an air raid,’ said Fripp to me when I entered. ‘You know that, Brennan.’ She turned to McIver. ‘I’ve told her time and again and she won’t listen. I will not sacrifice my life because Brennan’s a suicidal lunatic.’

  ‘We can’t just park the ambulance and run off to a shelter until the local All Clear.’ I tried to sound reasonable. ‘If we don’t get to the incidents quickly then people might die.’

  Fripp opened her mouth, but McIver forestalled her. ‘You can drive, can’t you, Fripp?’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t drive an ambulance, and I won’t drive during an air raid. It’s suicidally dangerous and—’

  ‘Quite,’ said McIver. ‘I think it would be best if you take over Ashwin’s duties, driving the saloon to pick up walking wounded. There’s not so much urgency with them and you can wait out the raid in safety.’ She turned to me. ‘Ashwin will act as your assistant until further notice.’

  I was happy with that. I would prefer Celia Ashwin, who was cool under fire and as dedicated as I was to helping save lives.

  Celia said she had no objection to swapping duties with Fripp, throwing the girl a look of barely disguised contempt as she did so.

  Fripp flushed an angry red, saying, ‘I’m not going to get myself killed just so people think I’m brave.’

  Celia looked at me. ‘Do your w
orst, Brennan,’ she said with a smile. ‘I quite like being out in the maelstrom.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Friday night was my first shift with Celia Ashwin as attendant and it was entirely different from being on duty with Fripp. Celia seemed almost to glory in the danger, and I wondered what risks she had taken when she was on her own in the saloon car. And yet, she was also a competent and caring assistant. Like Levy, her cool upper-class voice and manner struck a note of calm into a frenzied scene, and habits of deference that seemed ingrained meant that wardens, rescue workers and patients alike took note of what she said and followed her orders without question.

  With one exception. We had crawled into a shattered house to collect an old woman, who was partially paralysed after a stroke. When we found her she was grubbing around in what was left of her bedroom.

  ‘Come along,’ said Celia, taking hold of her arm. ‘The house is going to collapse at any moment.’

  The old woman shook off Celia’s hand. ‘I’m not going out without me corsets on,’ she replied with some asperity. ‘I never ’ave and that beastly ’Itler won’t make me.’ Once Celia and I had found her corset and helped her into it, she went with us like a lamb.

  I had never really got to know Celia, mainly because of her fascist husband, but also, I was embarrassed to realise, because of my feelings against her class in general. We would be spending a great deal of time together in future, so I decided to try to break down my self-imposed barrier.

  ‘Did you grow up in London?’ I asked her, after we had dropped the old lady off in hospital.

  ‘Good heavens, no. I mean, I had to come here for the season and to be presented to the King, but my family has a mouldy old pile in the country and I grew up there.’

  ‘Whereabouts in the country?’

  ‘In Kent. It’s a big old place, on the Greensand Ridge overlooking the Weald. The coldest house imaginable. Nobody would come to stay with us in the winter.’

  ‘I thought you lot all lived in luxury,’ I said, surprised.

  ‘We weren’t rich. Not really.’