Somewhere in France

by Jennifer Robson

  “A very little progress, Miss Ashford, and only because you were helping me. But I’m forgetting myself; I should be congratulating you on your transfer. I’m just typing everything up now.”

  All you have to do is ask, Lilly told herself. Simply ask, as nicely as possible. The worst you can expect is a no. “Thank you very much. I was wondering . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I have a very large favor to ask of you. So large that I will quite understand if you aren’t able to help me.”

  “Go on,” Miss Blythe said eagerly.

  “I have a friend, working at one of the clearing hospitals. A very dear friend.” She was careful not to specify the gender of said friend. “And I was hoping that, ah, if it’s not too much trouble, you could—”

  “Arrange to send you to the same hospital?”

  “Yes. But only if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “It’s not any trouble at all. I haven’t forgotten how you stepped in and took over from Corporal Pike that day. Such a disagreeable man,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the memory. “Let’s see if your friend’s hospital is on the list.”

  “It’s the Fifty-First. I believe they’re located near Aire-sur-la-Lys.”

  “Hmm . . . Fifty-First . . . ah, here it is. But they’re not in Aire anymore. Does Merville sound right?”

  “I suppose. My friend had said they might be moved.”

  “There you are. Now, then, what does it say here? Ah, yes—they’re meant to be receiving drivers from Boulogne.”

  “I see,” Lilly said, her hopes deflated. “I’m so sorry to have bothered you.”

  “Don’t give up so easily. I can easily change it around. I’ll just need to telegraph our offices in Boulogne.”

  “Thank you so much. You don’t know how grateful I am.”

  “It’s the least I can do, Miss Ashford.” Squeezing past Lilly, she disappeared down the hallway. “I won’t be a minute,” she called back cheerily.

  Miss Blythe reappeared a half hour later, a sheaf of papers tucked under her arm. “I’m sorry that took so long. They were having some trouble with the direct lines, so the telegraph operator had to do some complicated kind of rerouting.”

  “And . . . ?” Lilly prompted.

  “It’s all arranged,” Miss Blythe confirmed. “We’ll send four drivers to the Fifty-First and they’ll send four to the Twenty-Second, where you were supposed to go. Now, tell me, which of the other WAACs should go with you?”

  This was turning out far, far better than Lilly had hoped. “Constance Evans, Annie Dowd, and Bridget Gallagher, if that’s quite all right with you. Thank you—”

  “As I’ve said already, Miss Ashford, it’s no trouble at all.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, at nine o’clock on the dot, RMS Invicta departed Folkestone harbor, its decks crammed with troops as well as a modest contingent of WAACs. Lilly, Constance, and the rest of the women, thirty all told, were confined to a smallish dining room for the two-hour crossing. Ostensibly it was for their comfort, but Lilly suspected the intention was to keep them separate from the men for as long as possible.

  Within minutes the air was foul with the unmistakable odor of seasickness, as well as the exhalations of nervous smokers. Constance had found a pair of seats near the windows, but the occasional waft of salt-sweet air did little to lessen Lilly’s discomfort, and before long she was wondering if she would have to beg for one of the enameled pails that were being handed round to her indisposed companions. Even Annie and Bridget had been silenced, too weakened by mal de mer to do anything more than groan and retch into their shared pail.

  Just as Lilly was certain she could bear it no longer, a shout went up from the men on deck.

  “What is it? Has someone spotted a U-boat?” she asked Constance worriedly.

  “No, you goose. We’re coming into Boulogne harbor. If you’ll only take your head out of your hands and look up you’ll see what I mean.”

  Lilly peered out of the window nearest her, which Constance had wrenched halfway open when they boarded, and surveyed the promised view. It was true—they were in France.

  “What time is it?” Constance asked.

  “A quarter past eleven. Or, rather, a quarter past twelve. We’re on continental time now.” Lilly adjusted her watch, then slumped back in her seat as her nose was assailed, yet again, by the stench that permeated the cabin.

  An unspeakably endless hour passed before they were released from purgatory and allowed on the upper deck, empty now of Tommies. A WAAC official marshaled the women, and they dutifully formed a neat column, two abreast, as they departed the ship and marched to the railway hub that had been set up some two hundred yards distant. It was a shock, as they walked along the docks, some of the women wobbling a little on their sea legs, to hear French being spoken around them. At last they were on foreign soil, and only hours from their destination.

  “Attention, everyone!”

  “Hush, girls—it’s the deputy controller. Quiet, now, so she can speak.” Constance ought to have been one of the officers, Lilly reflected, hearing her speak so authoritatively.

  “A show of hands, please, for those of you who are being posted onward to Saint-Omer and points west. Ah—there you are. Please make your way to Platform Three. One of our officials is waiting for you there. As for the rest of you, I believe you are all staying in Boulogne? No one is being sent on to Étaples? Right, then. If you are going to Saint-Omer, walk ahead and follow the signs; everyone else, come with me.”

  And with that she turned her back and marched off with her charges, leaving Lilly, her friends, and four other WAACs where they stood.

  “She said to follow the signs—”

  “Did she say Platform Three?”

  “I don’t see any signs for Platform Three.”

  “What if we can’t find it before our train leaves? What will we do then?”

  “I know where to go.”

  Only Constance heard Lilly at first. “What’s that, Lilly?”

  “I know where to go. I can read French. We want a sign that says ‘quai numéro trois,’ or words to that effect. It might be quai followed by a three with an e after it. Oh, wait—I think I see it!”

  “What are you waiting for, then?” Constance laughed. “Come on, everyone. Lilly’s saved us. Follow her.”

  In a matter of moments they had arrived at the correct platform, and were greeted by a young WAAC who was clearly relieved to see her charges appear more or less on time.

  “Hello, everyone. Please take your seats on the train; your lockers have already been loaded.”

  She had a pleasant face, Lilly thought, and the clipped, rather nasal accent of someone who had attended a good school, and possibly even university. Just the sort of woman Lilly herself had once aspired to be.

  Once they had settled in the carriage, which had banks of seats rather than compartments, the WAAC official clapped her hands and waited, her expression inscrutable, until everyone was silent.

  “Thank you very much. As you all know, we are traveling on to Saint-Omer now. It’s thirty miles from here, as the crow flies, so we won’t arrive until the late afternoon. If you need to use the facilities, I suggest you do so while we are stationary. The lavatory is at the far end of the carriage.”

  More pressing, at least to Lilly’s mind, was the question of what they would eat, although the hour for dinner had come and gone more than an hour ago. Probably they would have to wait until Saint-Omer for a decent meal. Her stomach rumbled but there was nothing to be done; even Constance, who was normally so organized, hadn’t brought so much as a square of chocolate.

  She hugged her arms about her middle and, gazing out the window, turned her attention to the French countryside, so similar to England, but still, somehow, indefinably unique. Perhaps it was the houses, she thought, with their tiled roofs and whitewashed walls.

  The weather was fine, and it seemed to Lilly, as she admired the lush fields, dotted here and there
with flocks of plump sheep, that the war must belong to another world entirely. How else could she reconcile this sylvan bliss, now slipping so gently by her window, with the fact that guns were blazing, shell fire was raining down, and legions of men were fighting, killing, and dying, somewhere in France, all less than a hundred miles away?

  Chapter 19

  A WAAC forewoman was waiting when their train pulled into Saint-Omer late that afternoon.

  “I’m taking four of you to the Fifty-First and the other four to the Fifty-Fourth—correct? Good. I can take two up front with me; the rest of you will have to go in the back.”

  Ordinarily the journey ought to have taken no more than an hour and a half, at most, to cover; but the lorry they rode in, a decrepit three-ton Dennis, could only manage five miles at a stretch without overheating, so they spent many long minutes by the side of the road, waiting for the radiator to cool so their driver could refill it and safely restart the engine.

  As much as Lilly longed to arrive in Merville, she was grateful for the respite provided by the stops, not least because it offered a break from the teeth-jarring, bone-crumbling confines of the lorry’s smelly interior.

  By the time they halted for the fourth or fifth time, she threw propriety to the wind and lay down on the road’s grassy verge. It felt like the loftiest of feather beds in comparison to the lorry’s unforgiving wooden benches.

  Bridget followed Lilly’s lead and, chuckling a little, flopped down in the grass as well. “Grand idea, this. Wouldn’t mind staying here all day.”

  “If only we could,” Lilly agreed. “Anything to avoid getting back in that lorry.”

  “You all right, duck?” her friend asked. “You aren’t yourself today, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “I’m fine. Just wondering what things will be like for us at our new posting.”

  “You ’n me both. I dunno how I’ll tell my Gordon. When I signed up I swore up and down I wouldn’t let them send me anywhere dangerous—and now look at me!”

  “Do you think he’ll be upset when he finds out?”

  “Ooh, yes. Gets as mad as a wet hen when I cross him! But he’ll come round soon enough. Always does.”

  Lilly smiled but made no reply, instead tilting her face to the sun. How long now, she asked herself for the thousandth time that day, until I see him? And what will that moment be like? Will he be angry? Or, despite everything, will he be glad to see me?

  The sun was giving her a headache, so she turned her face away and tried to focus on the crisscrossing leaves of grass beneath her outstretched hand. She felt a whispery tickle and saw that a ladybird had clambered onto her forefinger. It sat, folding and refolding its lacquered wings, appearing to enjoy the warmth of its perch.

  Behind her, the engine sputtered to life. Lilly placed the little beetle on a dandelion bud, making sure it was well settled, then climbed into the lorry with her friends. With a bit of luck they would be in Merville before dusk.

  AFTER THAT FINAL stop by the side of the road, the lorry had behaved, and had rumbled meekly along for the remainder of the journey. The women had fallen silent, tired of shouting to make themselves heard, and it was then that Lilly had become aware of an odd noise. At first she thought it must be thunder, but the timbre of the sound was disturbingly low, and its arrhythmic, discordant drumbeat never ceased.

  To begin with the sound was so indistinct she could hardly make it out above the irritable hiss of the lorry’s radiator, but with every passing mile it grew louder and stronger, and Lilly began to suppose she could feel the ground rumbling beneath them. She caught Constance’s eye, and in that moment she understood.

  It was the guns. Monstrous guns, German and British and French, spewing out shells to pound the fields and villages of this gentle landscape into ruination.

  She knew that Edward could hear them, too. Not as a distant roar, but as a deafening curtain of falling, endlessly falling shells that exterminated every living thing in their path. And nothing, no shelter, no armor, could protect her brother, or any other man on the front lines, from the remorseless anger of those guns. Only fate.

  It was a mercy she was already sitting, otherwise her knees surely would have buckled. She reached out, blindly, and felt Constance grip her hand, anchoring her to sanity.

  “I expect we’ll get used to it,” she heard herself saying.

  “Of course we will. Rather like having a train at the bottom of the garden,” Constance offered. Lilly could only nod.

  The lorry slowed abruptly, the driver struggling to change down, and Lilly saw they were entering a village. A shout from the front told them they had reached Merville. Peering out the back of the lorry, she could see a church, not especially grand, flanked by modest brick buildings, a forge, the clipped lawn of a common green.

  The lorry continued along for another five minutes, then lurched to a halt in what appeared, from Lilly’s perspective, to be nothing more than a fallow field.

  “Is this it?” Bridget asked. “Are we here?”

  From the front, Annie’s voice could be heard, faintly, above the rumble of the engine. They’d arrived.

  Lilly jumped down and immediately saw they were stopped behind a line of ambulances. Just beyond, a village-size group of huts and tents had been erected in the field, their entrances linked by yard after yard of mud-stained duckboard walkways.

  There seemed to be no one about, so Lilly helped Constance, Annie, and Bridget lower their lockers to the ground. No sooner had they finished unloading their belongings than the driver shouted a perfunctory good-bye and drove off, much to the surprise of the remaining WAACs in the back of the lorry.

  Lilly had begun to worry there must have been some kind of mistake, for there’d been no signs to mark the way, when a woman emerged from a tent at the far end of the compound. She waved to them, hastening over to where they stood. Lilly saw that she wore the uniform of a WAAC official, so did her best to stand a little straighter, despite her fatigue.

  “At last you’ve arrived. We’ve been expecting you all day,” the official said. “I am Assistant Administrator Diana Jeffries, and I will be your supervisor here at the Fifty-First. Simply call me Miss Jeffries; ‘assistant administrator’ is a bit of a mouthful. Now, let me show you to your quarters. Leave your lockers; you can come back and collect them once I’ve shown you around.”

  She set off at a trot, clearly a woman disinclined to waste time, and led them back to the tent from which she had emerged only moments before. “My quarters, as well as my office. I like to be close to my girls, and I want you to know that if you have any concerns, or difficulties of any kind, you should not hesitate to come to me.”

  She smiled at them brightly, then flung back the entrance flap of a larger tent, mere inches away. “This will be your quarters. Just poke your noses in for the moment. You’ll be sharing with our other WAACs here. Cooks, both of them. Ethel Finlayson and Rose Thompson. Lovely girls. Has everyone had a look? Excellent. Now I’ll take you to the mess tent. Supper is over, but I asked them to keep something warm for you.”

  The mess tent, capacious and light, with a high ceiling and duckboard floors, had four distinct banks of tables. Miss Jeffries directed them to the nearest, and smallest, table. “This is where you will eat. And of course you are welcome to come here when you are off duty.”

  “Where is everyone else, Miss Jeffries?” Constance asked politely.

  “I expect most are at work in the wards. It’s been nonstop here for the past few weeks. Our poor doctors and nurses are run off their feet. Enough talk, now. Sit down and I’ll have something sent out to you.”

  That had been the extent of their tour. After a supper of tea, toast, margarine, and applesauce, even though it was only half-past seven, Miss Jeffries had whisked them back to their tent, pausing only to show them the latrine, separate from its fellows, that had been set aside for the nurses and WAACs.

  “Off to bed, all of you. We get started bright and early here, wi
th breakfast at half-past six.” She began to leave, then turned back, her expression serious. “You are bound to notice that military discipline is rather, ah, relaxed here. One might go so far as to say it is somewhat slack. That, of course, is for Colonel Lewis to determine, and in his opinion it benefits morale here at the hospital if officers and other ranks are not prohibited from socializing with one another.

  “That laxity does not, however, extend to the women under my care. I must tell you that I will not tolerate any infraction of our code of conduct. If any of you is so unwise as to engage in inappropriate fraternization with any of the soldiers or officers, you will be sent home immediately. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Miss Jeffries,” they replied.

  “Very well, then. I am glad we understand one another. Good night to all of you. Sleep well.”

  LILLY WOKE WITH a start, blinking her eyes in the half-light of dawn. It had been a long night. She had slept fitfully, her dreams invaded by harrowing images, only half-remembered now, their dissonant score the rumble of distant guns.

  Looking around sleepily, she assessed her surroundings, which she had been too tired to notice the night before. She and her friends were quartered in a canvas tent, not especially large, with rough deal planking on the floor. Two modest openings, now covered with flaps, served as windows. The center of the space was marked by a compact coal-burning stove. Their beds, actually folding cots, were arranged around the tent’s perimeter, with the WAACs’ wooden lockers at the foot of each cot. A single nail, hammered into one of the tent’s support posts, held a kerosene lantern.

  Lilly peered at her wristwatch: it was almost six o’clock. A little less than twelve hours, then, since they had arrived at the 51st.

  “Constance,” she hissed. “Constance, wake up. It’s just gone six. If we want any breakfast before we start, we have to get up now.”

  “Mmph . . . all right. Are Annie and Bridget awake?”

  “Not yet. I’ll wake them. We daren’t be late, not on our first day.”

  Lilly roused her friends, dressed hurriedly, then began the tiresome task of brushing and braiding her hair. After she’d coiled the plait into a knot at the nape of her neck, and secured it with her diminishing store of hairpins, Lilly made up her cot and waited, rather impatiently, for the others to be ready. The walk from their quarters to the mess tent, no more than twenty yards, seemed to stretch into infinity. Would Robbie be at breakfast, sitting with the other officers at their table?