Ambulance Girls

by Deborah Burrows

  The noise of someone knocking loudly on the door to my flat shattered my thoughts. Strangely reluctant, I walked to the door. The banging began again before I had reached it.

  When I opened the door, Jim stood there, his face flushed. My heart began to thump against my chest and when I spoke my voice was high and shrill.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Someone has . . .’ He paused and took a breath. ‘We may have found David’s body.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  It had been more than two weeks since Levy had disappeared. I backed into my living room and sat down with a thump, pressed my hand to my mouth, forced myself not to be sick. My skin felt clammy to my touch. My stomach swirled with bacon and toast and tea and bile and horror.

  Jim followed me in and stood above me, frowning ferociously.

  ‘Are you all right? I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that, Lily. I’m so sorry, please forgive me.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Tell me.’

  ‘Someone telephoned the police this morning to say that David’s body could be found in the ruins of a house in Caroline Place.’

  ‘Caroline Place? By Coram’s Fields? That’s just around the corner from here.’

  ‘Let me get you some water.’ He disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water. I took a gulping sip.

  ‘It’s been more than two weeks,’ I said, in a voice I scarcely recognised. ‘And Caroline Place was hit again last week. Oh, God.’

  ‘It could be a hoax. Drink some more.’ Jim’s voice was cool and reasonable and all at once I was furious with him.

  ‘Was it a man or woman who called?’ My voice was terse.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I took another sip of water, and felt better for it, so I drained the glass.

  ‘The police will be attending the site with a rescue crew to comb the ruins this afternoon. Mr Levy asked if I could be there to perform the initial identification if they find anything. Marcus and Simon, David’s brothers, are overseas on active service, and the Levys trust me.’

  ‘I’m off duty,’ I said. ‘Do you suppose the Levys would mind if I went there with you?’

  ‘I don’t know that it’s a good idea for you to be there.’

  ‘I’ve seen worse than a two-week-old body,’ I snapped. ‘He was my mate. I owe it to him.’

  Jim turned away and I couldn’t see his face.

  ‘I’ll be at Caroline Place this afternoon whether you like it or not.’

  ‘I gathered that.’ His voice was dry. ‘We’ll go together.’

  The scent of smoke and cordite still hung in the air, although it was raining heavily when Jim and I stood together outside what we thought was number 25. We had counted down from the corner, but it was difficult to tell whether this was the right one because so many of the houses were now rubble.

  I was cold and wet and miserable, huddled under my pretty tartan umbrella. It gave little protection from the sheeting rain that beat against us, driven by an icy wind. My raincoat kept most of me dry, but my legs and stockings were sopping wet from the knees down and my shoes were soaked.

  I wished I could have a tot of Lady Anne’s brandy.

  ‘What if the rescue crew insist on waiting until this downpour is over?’ I asked, clutching at Jim’s arm.

  ‘They’ll search for him, Lily. The police will make them search for him. Or I will. Trust me.’ There was a feverish look in his eyes although his hair was sodden and had clumped palely on his forehead. Water was dripping down his face.

  ‘Heavy rescue made the ruins safe last week,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t they find Levy’s body then?’

  ‘I don’t know, Lily.’

  ‘Maybe it’s been placed here since, for us to find.’

  ‘I think that’s unlikely.’

  I looked at my watch. ‘They’re late. It’s past three o’clock.’

  As I spoke, a black police sedan pulled up across the road, closely followed by a van towing a trailer and an ambulance. Doors opened and slammed shut and men spilled out: a constable and two men in dark suits whom I assumed were detectives, and four men in overalls and steel helmets who were obviously the heavy rescue crew. The ambulance belonged to light rescue and I didn’t know the driver or his assistant.

  The crew began to unload lamps and ropes and tarpaulins and heavy lifting equipment from the trailer attached to the van, while the detectives put up their umbrellas and squelched across the road towards us. The constable was wearing an oilskin cape. He walked to the corner and stood on guard under a large blue umbrella.

  I looked curiously at the detectives. The older of the two was a massive man with a thoughtful face and an unassuming manner that conveyed an air of quiet authority. He introduced himself as Detective Chief Inspector Wayland.

  He shook Jim’s hand. ‘You knew David Levy well, I understand.’

  ‘We were at Harrow together.’ Jim gestured to me. ‘Miss Lily Brennan. She worked at Bloomsbury auxiliary ambulance station with Mr Levy. They were close friends.’

  I shook Wayland’s hand. ‘I am so very glad to meet you, Miss Brennan,’ he said. I was surprised at the warmth of his greeting, and of his handshake.

  Wayland’s companion, Detective Sergeant Norris, was his opposite, a wiry man of average build, whose quick dark eyes summed me up with a glance. They moved on to Jim and lingered as Jim spoke to Wayland, before darting away to scan the site. When they returned to me, he smiled and held out his hand for me to shake.

  ‘It’s very nice indeed to meet you, Miss Brennan,’ he said. ‘You’re a bit of a legend around our bit of the Yard, I must say.’

  Wayland quelled him with a look as I gasped in surprise.

  ‘But that’s mad,’ I said to Norris. ‘I don’t know anyone at Scotland Yard. Why would Scotland Yard be interested in me?’

  Wayland cleared his throat gently. When I looked at him he ducked his big head and gave me an embarrassed smile.

  ‘I’m the reason for your notoriety, Miss Brennan.’ He had a nice smile, and I found myself returning it, despite having no idea what he was talking about. ‘I owe you an enormous debt, you see.’ His smile was even wider.

  I shook my head. ‘Why? I don’t understand.’

  ‘You saved my grandchildren, Miss Brennan. You crawled into a bombed house to bring them out. You’re known as “the train lady” in our house.’

  I laughed, forgetting Levy in my delight. ‘The little boy and Emily? You sent me a letter. How are they? And how is their mother?’

  ‘They’re both right as rain. Young Ted still talks about you a great deal. My daughter? Well, she’s had a tough time, but we think she’s on the mend now.’

  ‘I’m so glad to hear that.’

  His smile faded. ‘I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.’

  I nodded and looked away.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Jim asked Wayland.

  The detective became all business. ‘The crew will dig into the basement flat and see if Mr Levy’s body is there. If it is, it will be taken to the morgue and the forensic pathologist will examine it to see if there are any obvious suspicious circumstances. The family have said they won’t give permission for an autopsy without good reason.’

  ‘What do you know about the person who telephoned?’

  ‘Covered the phone with a handkerchief, we think. East London accent, but the constable who took the call couldn’t even tell if it was a man’s voice or a woman’s, let alone whether the accent was put on.’

  There was a shouted command from the ARP warden who was in charge of the heavy rescue unit. We turned to watch as the men put up tarpaulins to protect themselves from the rain as they dug into the site.

  ‘Wasn’t the site checked for survivors or bodies the day after the raid?’ asked Jim.

  ‘According to the warden, they were told that all the residents of the street had been accounted for, so a cursory check only was done – they called out and had a quick look
around when they were making the site safe the morning after the first raid, and again after the second. The roof caved in on the basement flat during the first air raid and they didn’t see the need to look further.’

  The tarpaulin was up, and the men began to dig into the rubble. The warden held what seemed to be a blueprint and referred to it as he shouted directions to the crew. When a sufficiently large hole had been dug, a rope was tied around one of the men. He switched on his torch and crawled inside.

  We waited. The rain eventually ceased, but the arctic wind remained. I furled my umbrella and stood close to Jim, shivering in the cold air. He put an arm around me and the wet wool scent of his greatcoat competed with the smell of bombed ruins and old smoke.

  There was a shout. The searcher had reappeared at the top of the hole. He exchanged words with the warden, who walked over to us.

  ‘He’s found a hand poking out of a mess of rubble.’

  I had a vivid image of Levy’s hands resting on the forehead of a patient, unfolding blankets, helping me to clean the Monster. The scene seemed to sway as nausea roiled in my stomach. Jim pulled me closer, but I pushed away from him and forced myself to stand firm, to wait as the team enlarged the hole and several other men went into the ruins. Eventually there were other shouts, and a large hessian sack, similar to those we used to collect bodies, was lowered into the hole. When it was hoisted up a short while later it clearly contained the weight of a man.

  Wayland turned to me. ‘It’s only if Flight Lieutenant Vassi . . . vassil—’

  ‘Vassilikov,’ I said.

  Wayland nodded an apology to Jim. ‘It’s only if he identifies the body as Mr Levy that we’ll need further identification by his parents.’

  I was unable to speak. He turned to Jim.

  ‘Ready, son?’

  At Jim’s curt nod, the two men walked over to the hessian bundle, which had been laid on the ground under the tarpaulin. Wayland pulled back the material to reveal what lay beneath, and I saw Jim’s head jerk back. He pulled away, before turning back to the body, and looking at it for what seemed a long moment. He nodded and then, to my surprise, raised his right hand and made the sign of the cross. He remained there as Wayland replaced the material and the attendant tucked it in more securely.

  As the stretcher-bearers carried Levy’s body to the waiting ambulance, I felt a strange sense of confusion. How could that bundle wrapped in canvas encompass Levy’s humour, intelligence, kindness, arrogance, and his delight in life? It made no sense.

  The rain began to fall again, dripping heavily on my umbrella, pattering onto the muddy ground in front of me. It is all too normal, I thought. That is Levy’s body. My friend is gone from the world and yet the rain still falls. The world has changed and nothing has changed.

  I had seen many dead bodies in the past year, but none had been the body of someone I loved. Denys had died on his ship and his body was never found. Even before his death he had vanished from my life, become merely a signature on a letter, a photograph in a frame. Denys had never been a canvas wrapped bundle carried past in the rain.

  Jim and Wayland walked towards me with heavy, sombre steps. As they drew nearer Jim looked straight at me, and again he nodded. There was a bleak look in his eyes.

  ‘Flight Lieutenant Vassilikov has identified the body as that of Mr Levy.’ Wayland pronounced Jim’s name slowly and correctly. His voice was coolly professional, but his face was sympathetic. ‘The team will have another look around and then close the site. Do you want us to take you anywhere? Where would you like to go, Miss Brennan?’

  ‘Home,’ I said. It sounded like a whimper. I meant Australia, but they assumed I was referring to St Andrew’s Court.

  ‘I’ll take her,’ said Jim.

  The ambulance drove away. The heavy rescue crew were packing up. Wayland and Norris walked back to their car. Jim stood still, staring at nothing with eyes devoid of expression as rain ran down his face. What had he seen when he looked at Levy?

  The needle sharp thread of pain I had been pushing away all day became suddenly intolerable. I made a small moan, and Jim was beside me, holding me close, keeping me upright. And then the tears came, but I was not sure if they were for Levy or for Jim or for myself.

  ‘Come,’ said Jim. ‘I’ll take you home.’

  But how could he do that? My home was ten thousand miles away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When my sobs had become whimpering little gulps and I was at last empty of tears I felt lightheaded, empty somehow, dazed. I became aware of the sound of rain on the window and the wind soughing through the tall trees outside. I realised I was sitting on my couch and Jim’s arms were tightly around me. We were in the warm shelter of my flat, but I had only a vague recollection as to how we had got there.

  Jim pushed away slightly and reached around to the table beside the couch. He poured brandy from a bottle into a glass.

  ‘Drink this,’ he said, handing it to me.

  He must have brought Lady Anne’s brandy with him, I thought, just like a St Bernard brings brandy to travellers lost in the mountains. I gave a hiccupping laugh and Jim looked at me with concern.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, and took a sip. It was like fire in my throat and it burned all the way into my stomach. ‘Thank you.’

  He poured himself a drink and swallowed it in one gulp. He poured himself another and when he turned to me his eyes were haunted. ‘One shouldn’t have friends in wartime. They die. Seeing David like that . . .’

  I reached an arm around his back and we held one another fast. His heart was thumping in hard, quick beats. After a minute or so he let go, to sit stiffly beside me on the couch, bending forward to rest his arms on his knees and frown at the carpet.

  ‘Nearly all the men I trained with have died since June.’ He made an impatient movement with his hand. ‘At twenty-five I was the oldest in my squadron. They called me Dad, thought I knew what I was doing.’

  He raised his head and when he looked at me his face seemed distorted, altered somehow.

  ‘I’m not brave, Lily. Not like you.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘We were all frightened, I think,’ he said, ‘but we couldn’t let anyone see it. So we put a bold front on it as our mess-mates bought it, one after another. Shot down in flames or drowned or shockingly disfigured.’

  He wrapped his arms around his stomach and crouched over, as if he were in pain. ‘We were running out of trained pilots, so they began to send us boys with a few hours’ flying experience, who said, “rather”, “wizard” and “gosh”, or “I’m such a dim”, just before a one-oh-nine came out of the clouds behind them with its guns blazing.’

  He took a noisy breath before continuing. ‘If they were lucky the poor little sods lasted a week. And do you know what the rest of us did?’ He raised his head to stare at me. I forced myself to hold his gaze. ‘We shared jokes, laughed it all off, kept that British upper lip stiff, and pretended not to care as name after name was rubbed off the board and new names of new boys who were destined to die were chalked into the empty places.’

  He sat up and reached into his jacket, presumably for his cigarettes. But his hand was shaking and he couldn’t find the packet.

  ‘This is stupid,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s just that . . .’ He took a gulping breath. ‘What was it all for? We didn’t stop the Germans. We might have forced them to postpone the invasion, but look at what they’re doing now to London and to the other cities. What was the point of all those boys dying if we couldn’t stop the Nazis from killing people like David? He – Oh, God, Lily, his face . . .’

  I leaned across and pulled him against me, held him as he sobbed.

  When his shoulders had stopped shaking and it seemed that, like me, he was empty of tears, Jim pushed away from me and refused to meet my eyes.

  ‘I’ll wash my face,’ I said, rising. I thought he probably needed some time alone.

  The b
athroom mirror showed me a blotchy face with red, puffy eyes. I bathed it in cold water and dried it carefully. I looked again. Now I could be mistaken for a fifteen-year-old with conjunctivitis. I paused before opening the door, wondering if Jim would still be waiting for me out there. A lot of Australian men would have fled, embarrassed to have shown such raw emotion, ashamed to have cried.

  So I made sure to open the bathroom door noisily, to give him some warning that I was coming back into the room. He was still sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, his head downcast as if he were examining the carpet. He seemed calm, however.

  ‘I am truly sorry about that,’ he said, without lifting his head. ‘It won’t happen again. Look, if you don’t mind, I’d best be off.’ Then, carefully avoiding my eyes, he began to look around the room. I assumed he wanted to find his hat and then he would leave.

  ‘Please don’t go. Would you like something to eat?’ I mentally ran through the little food in my pantry. ‘I have some dried egg and – er, pilchards and some bread.’ I decided to be honest. ‘Actually, the bread’s a bit stale and mouldy but,’ I finished brightly, ‘we can cut off the mould and toast it.’

  He shook his head and made to get up.

  ‘Jim, please don’t go. I think you need to eat. We both do.’

  ‘You sound like my nyanya,’ he said, sitting down again. ‘My Russian nursemaid. “Eat, Vanya,” she’d say. That was her panacea for any problem.’

  ‘So – I assume she was a large lady, your nyanya?’

  He laughed at that, and finally looked at me. ‘Actually, yes. Nyanya was large and loud and very loving. I adored her. When we left her behind in Russia I wept for months, until my mother lost patience.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She bought me a dog. I called it Nyanya, to her disgust. I really think I loved it as much as its namesake.’

  I walked across to sit beside him on the couch. When I took hold of his hand he did not pull away.