Ambulance Girls

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘I know, you’re saying Jim is out of my class. I got the message the last time we had this conversation.’

  ‘How much do you know about his background?’

  ‘He’s White Russian and has some sort of title that he refuses to use. A friend of his mother’s paid his fees at Harrow and Cambridge, because the Revolution left his mother with very little money. But he became a barrister on his own merit, and I know that Jim isn’t in the least concerned about the issue of class.’

  ‘His mother is, let me tell you. And she is a very formidable woman.’

  ‘You’ve said that before.’

  ‘She scares the life out of me, to be honest.’

  I laughed. ‘What rot.’

  Celia laughed as well. ‘Actually, it’s true.’

  Outside, it appeared the fog was lifting somewhat. I hoped it was, as I did not want the conversation to continue.

  ‘I think it’s lifting,’ I said. ‘Should we try to get on?’

  Without waiting for a reply I pressed the starter, rolled forward and turned into a main thoroughfare. I drove slowly, keeping my eyes riveted to the road.

  ‘Turn left here,’ said Celia.

  With some relief I recognised the battered Doric columns of St Pancras Church. They had been badly hit by shrapnel, but somehow the church itself had escaped the bombs. It sat on the corner of Upper Tavistock Place, which meant we were nearly back at the station.

  That evening I dressed with some trepidation. Jim was to pick me up at six and we were joining some of his RAF friends at the Hungaria restaurant. This would be the first time I had met any of his friends.

  And there was also the frisson of excitement, for we would go first to his flat to drop off the small holdall that lay on my bed – the change of clothes and other necessaries I would need to again spend the night in Jim’s flat.

  ‘Living over the broom.’ That was how the English referred to couples who lived together but were not married. No one could say that Jim and I were living over the broom; my shift work made that impossible and I would never do so anyway. I supposed that his class would call me his mistress. It did not feel that way to me. But at the same time, I did not really know what we were. We had never spoken of love – the closest either of us had come to a declaration were Jim’s words that first morning. Nor had we spoken of the future – but how could anyone talk of the future when the present was so uncertain?

  If I dared to think about what I really wanted, it was a fantasy. Celia would certainly call it a fantasy, and she would probably be right. In my fantasy, Jim would give up his English life and come to Australia. For a while I had loved being in London, but I didn’t want to stay in Britain after the war. I wanted to return to my family and my friends and a country that I deeply loved. And more than that, I did not want to enter this rigid and prehistoric class system. If I married Jim, his and Celia’s would be the class from which our friends would come.

  My friends in England were other Australians such as Pam, or women like Katherine, who came from the same sort of middle-class background as I did. And even with Katherine, it was difficult sometimes to understand her views of the world and her acceptance of the rigid structure she was bound in.

  I once read a newspaper article on the Japanese practice of bowing. It said that the Japanese know exactly how low they should bow to people according to age or station in life. It was crucial for your social standing to perform the correct bow. If you bowed too deeply to someone who merited only a shallow bob, or not deeply enough to someone who was due the full treatment, it was social death. Westerners always got it wrong, because it was not something that could be taught to you as an adult; it had to be learned at your mother’s knee.

  That was how I felt about the English class system. I was an outsider and I could not appreciate the subtle gradations of social standing given by accent or dress or schooling or family. How, therefore, could I ever really fit in? And did I want to? My mother had taught me to treat everyone the same and to face the world with kindness and pluck. Would that get me through if faced with women like Celia’s sister? Or Jim’s formidable mother? Or Celia, if we weren’t in an ambulance in the Blitz together?

  I had finished dressing, and regarded myself in the long mirror. My silk dinner gown looked well enough, though I really did not know if it was sufficiently de rigueur for the occasion. I dabbed some Je Reviens behind each ear and on each wrist. The bottle was getting low and I wondered if Celia had meant it about giving me one of hers. I slipped into my warmest coat – a heavy black wool I had bought in Prague, that completely covered my flimsy dinner gown – and slung my gas mask over my shoulder. Finally, I leaned towards the mirror in the tiny hallway to put on my lipstick.

  ‘Bugger Celia Ashwin,’ I said to my reflection. ‘And bugger the English class system. I’ll take it one day at a time.’

  There was a knock at the door. Jim was punctual, as always. I opened the door, smiling.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ‘Where’s your car?’ I asked when we emerged on to the street. Jim gave a groan of annoyance.

  ‘The blighter didn’t wait. I arrived in a taxi and asked him to. Obviously had a better offer.’

  ‘But where’s your car?’

  ‘Shredded a tyre yesterday. I put on the spare, but I can’t replace the one that’s shredded, because there’s simply no rubber available. Anyway, it’s impossible to drive on these roads. As soon as they clear them there’s another raid and more tyre-shredding glass and debris. And it’s only a matter of time before they abolish the basic petrol rationing for civilians.’

  I laughed at his glum face. ‘So where is your car?’

  ‘Up on blocks in an underground garage in Mayfair. Next to a Rolls-Royce, I might add.’

  ‘In elevated company then.’

  ‘Yes. The Roller is up on blocks, too.’

  He peered down the gloomy street. There were no cars or taxis to be seen. ‘We could wait for a bus, or brave the Underground.’

  ‘Have you been in the Underground after dark?’

  ‘Recently? No. I use it in the daytime occasionally, but evenings I’ve been driving my car around.’

  ‘Then I vote for the Underground,’ I said. ‘I think you need to see what’s going on down there each night.’

  ‘Why not? With luck we can catch a taxi near my flat. The Hungaria is in Lower Regent Street.’

  It was raining steadily, so I pushed up my tartan umbrella as Jim unfurled his big black one and we walked down Gray’s Inn Road. Jim’s flat was near Oxford Circus, so we could take the Piccadilly Line from Russell Square station and change at Holborn.

  The rain had eased by the time I caught sight of the sandbags around the Underground entrance. Inside the station, a few people milled around in the dim light, laden with bags and blankets and pillows. These were the latecomers; people began queuing in the afternoon for a good spot on the platform. We bought our tickets and allowed ourselves to be swept along and down the precipitous stairs. The lift didn’t operate at night.

  The heavily laden figures around me brought back memories of Praha Hlavní Nádraží, the main railway station in Prague. Czech refugees, fleeing Nazi occupation, were far less orderly than this flood of humanity that swarmed in decorous uncertainty towards the platform.

  The platform lights were dim, and revealed what looked like the result of some terrible catastrophe – a battlefield, or a city stricken by the plague. A path barely a yard wide allowed passengers to enter and leave the train and another yard of space beside the track was marked with a white line, but all the remainder of the platform was a mass of bodies. Londoners of both sexes and all ages sprawled around on coverlets or rugs with only some pillows for comfort against the cold concrete.

  The men were mainly in shirtsleeves, having folded their coats for pillows, but most of the women were fully dressed. Some chattered together comfortably; others lay gazing mutely up at the curved ceiling. Most of the women appeared to be
knitting. There were card parties and a game of chess, people reading newspapers. An elderly man appeared to be utterly engrossed with the subtleties of the Torquemada crossword puzzle in the Observer. Children were everywhere, playing cards or board games, or running around unchecked. Some of the smaller children were asleep, with arms flung out or clutching a favourite toy; in the platform light even their fresh faces appeared grey and hollow.

  Jim looked quietly fascinated by the Tube shelterers, who in return regarded him with undisguised affection. Londoners loved RAF pilots.

  ‘Shot down any Jerries?’ asked a young boy, while a small girl stroked the arm of his greatcoat.

  ‘A few,’ replied Jim, to the boy’s delight.

  ‘In a Spitfire?’ called out another boy.

  ‘Hurricane.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said the boy, with real sympathy, ‘maybe they’ll let ya fly a Spitfire soon.’

  We stepped past the shelterers to stand on the clear section at the edge of the platform.

  ‘It’s putrid down here,’ observed Jim.

  The air was indeed fetid and I glanced at the two hessian screens at either end of the platform, wondering how the sanitary facilities were arranged.

  ‘I don’t know if the ventilation system is working,’ I said. ‘The atmosphere is terribly thick. And it’s so hot.’

  Jim shrugged. ‘Too many people and not enough trains coming through to move the air. It must be abominable when the trains stop running. Speaking of trains, here it comes.’

  I felt the welcome rush of air through the tunnel, and a few seconds later the train roared into the station with a squeal of brakes. Its arrival produced no visible effect on the people lying on the platform, whether they were awake or asleep. We stepped hurriedly into the brightly lit carriage and sat down. In startling contrast to the packed horizontal humanity in the station only two or three people were sitting with us as the train roared off into the tunnel.

  ‘The government has put in chemical toilets at Gloucester Road, so I suppose they’re going into all the platforms,’ I said. ‘And there are plans to put first aid centres and refreshment services in all the stations.’

  Jim gave a short laugh. ‘All the comforts of home,’ he said dryly. ‘This has been an education.’

  ‘Oh, there’s more,’ I said. ‘The regulars all have their own spots that they come to each night, but the authorities are going to introduce ticketing to prevent the necessity for afternoon queues. That means a specific place on the platform for each ticket-holder.’

  ‘Luxury,’ he said. ‘How on earth do you know all this?’

  ‘My friend Pam,’ I told him. ‘She’s a shelter officer at Gloucester Road Tube station.’

  When we changed at Holborn, stepping over even greater numbers of people, I found myself looking out for any man handing out leaflets who might resemble Levy. I saw no one remotely like him, but what did that prove?

  Meanwhile, women wearing green frocks with bright red kerchiefs on their heads and red armbands lettered ‘TR’ were moving around the platform. I assumed the letters stood for Tube Refreshments, because one carried a tray of food – buns and pieces of cake (1d); apples (1½d); meat pies (1½d); chocolate bars (2d) and packets of biscuits (2d); the other held a giant teapot from which she was pouring tea at a penny a pop.

  Jim’s face brightened when he saw them. ‘At least they’re feeding the poor blighters,’ he whispered to me.

  I thought of the incongruity of the people around us carrying out all the routine functions of their lives – eating, sleeping, socialising and using the primitive toilets – in such close proximity to hordes of others. No one seemed to be in distress or annoyed. In fact, many of them were smiling or laughing with their neighbours. Others sat quietly, or slept, although I couldn’t comprehend how they could sleep in all the light and noise. A lone policeman patrolled, stopping now and again to have a quiet word with someone.

  The escalator at Oxford Circus station was not running. Instead, it was packed with people, two to a stair. They would have an uncomfortable night’s sleep I thought, as we carefully picked our way past them. Men were also lying on the narrow shelf behind the bannisters, sprawled out, head to foot, the entire way up.

  Jim’s lips made a hard, angry line by the time we emerged into the blackout gloom of Oxford Circus.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, worried about his lungs. It had been a long and steep climb up to the surface.

  ‘It makes me so angry,’ he said, in a hissing whisper as we walked past the ruins of Peter Robinson’s department store on our way to his flat. I had tight hold of his arm and we stepped carefully on the cracked paving.

  ‘What does?’ I had never seen him angry, so I found this mood interesting.

  ‘People having to put up with that, night after night. There were thousands of people down there, in appalling conditions. And it’s like that in all the Tube stations?’

  ‘Welcome to London in the Blitz. Personally, I think it’s a good solution to the problem of keeping safe from the bombs. Honestly, Jim, where else can they go? Pam says that in Aldwych Underground they’ve organised ENSA concerts, bunks and a library.’

  Because of my job, I knew well that the Tube stations were not necessarily safe refuges. Only six weeks before, Trafalgar Square station had been hit; half a dozen or so shelterers had been killed and scores injured, but for reasons of morale the incident hadn’t been publicised. Much worse, of course, had been the Balham station disaster two nights later.

  Despite such dangers, every night thousands of Londoners sought the shelter of the Underground. Where else could they go? If they had no back yard they could not have their own Anderson shelter. There were not enough public shelters, and anyway, as these had often been built at street level people did not trust them in an air raid. It was an instinctive craving, I thought. When the raiders were in the sky, Londoners felt safer underground.

  Jim had recovered his equanimity. ‘It’s funny how this war brings you face to face with other people – people you’d never have been so close to without the Blitz.’

  ‘Well, there’s a difference between us. I’ve always been face to face with all sorts of people. We’re a lot more democratic in Australia, and I grew up in an outback pub, don’t forget.’

  He laughed. ‘I had forgotten! Well, it’s decidedly unusual in this country. I’ve a hunch that all this –’ he waved a hand around us ‘– will do funny things to the world we’ve known in Britain. When it’s all over I think people won’t put up with the way things have been.’

  ‘Some having a lot and others having very little?’

  ‘No, not exactly. There will always be the very rich and the terribly poor. I’m talking about the heaving masses in between. I think that after we’ve been through all this together, ordinary people will expect a bit more from their country.’

  ‘Fair enough. Good luck to them, I say. I’m on the side of the heaving British masses.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Jim.

  ‘Not that I’ll be here to see what happens to them.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m going back to Australia as soon as the war is over.’

  He murmured something in Russian. He might have been disappointed, but really, it was hard to tell.

  At his flat I dumped my holdall and freshened up. Jim managed to find a taxi to take us to Lower Regent Street and the very smart Hungaria restaurant, where goulash and other peasant dishes were served at the cost of a royal banquet.

  We entered the below-ground grill room to the gipsy music of a Tzigane orchestra. Flowery murals decorated the walls, but hanging among them were red and silver picks and shovels, mounted like military trophies. They were a nod to the grill room’s reputation for being invulnerable. It was apparently bomb-proof, splinter-proof, blast-proof, smoke-proof and gas-proof. The decorations would have been more amusing if I had not seen so many people dug out of basement shelters and ruined buildings.

  The re
staurant was crowded with men and women in uniform, some men in evening dress and women in glamorous evening gowns. My oyster silk gown with its sequined shoulder straps, for which I had paid a month’s salary in Prague, did not let me down. It clung beautifully, and when I emerged from the cloakroom I basked in the admiration in Jim’s eyes.

  There was an atmosphere of hectic gaiety in the place, fuelled by champagne, bright lights and frenetic music, but I thought it a little forced.

  ‘Eat, drink and be merry,’ I murmured.

  Jim glanced at me and I did not finish the quote. The two couples we were joining were waiting at the bar. They all looked to be in their early twenties; the men were in Royal Air Force uniforms and the women in evening gowns. Jim threw me a broad smile, as though he had a surprise for me.

  ‘What?’ I said, smiling in return.

  ‘Meet the Australian contingent in my squadron,’ he said. ‘Fred Harland and Mike Corrs. Fred’s from Sydney, Mike from Brisbane.’

  I stared at him, scarcely able to believe it. He’d brought me here to meet his Australian friends, not the group of upper-class nobs I’d been expecting. I beamed at Jim, trying to let him know how happy I was, before turning to the slightly built man with a sandy moustache and vividly blue eyes.

  ‘G’day, Lily,’ said Fred, giving me a nonchalant wave by way of greeting. I smiled in response, thinking how much I had missed the casual friendliness of my compatriots.

  Fred was standing beside a tawny-haired woman in an emerald green dress. Her tan had not quite faded, and she was introduced as his wife, Frances.

  ‘Jim tells us you’re a Perth girl,’ said Frances. ‘One of my cousins lives there. Raves about the place.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s—’

  Before I could say more a dark-haired dreamboat with a movie star smile leaned in. ‘I’m Mike. Good to meet you, Lily. This is my missus, Annette. We were married last month.’