Somewhere in France

by Jennifer Robson

  R

  He folded the single sheet of paper in three and stuffed it into an envelope, which, after a moment’s hesitation, he left blank. He’d told her where she might deliver her reply, but where could he leave this?

  Slipping into her tent and leaving it on her cot, not that he had the faintest idea which one was Lilly’s, was too dangerous. Perhaps her ambulance? It was worth a look.

  Dawn was approaching; he’d better be quick about it. He made his way across the compound, skidding once or twice on the dew-slicked duckboards thrown down over the muddy ground. He hesitated as he approached the row of ambulances next to the marquee tent. Lilly had parked her ambulance at the end of the row yesterday afternoon, when he had seen her last, but had she moved it since then?

  He approached the vehicle: it looked exactly the same as its fellows, with nothing to distinguish it from any other American-made ambulance along the Western Front. He was about to turn away when he noticed the word that had been painted, in rather shaky script, on the bonnet. Henrietta.

  She’d named the ambulance, he remembered. So this was the one. Now he only had to find a place to hide the envelope. Plucking at the seat cushion, he found it wasn’t affixed to the bench seat. He slipped the envelope underneath, patted the cushion in place, said a silent prayer, and walked away.

  Instead of going back to his tent, he went to the ward tent to see how his surgery patients had fared overnight, then tackled the heaps of paperwork on his desk. The clock chimed six o’clock; a good time, he judged, to go to breakfast. He’d have time to eat his meal and perhaps even spend a few minutes in conversation with his colleagues before Lilly and the other WAACs arrived.

  Robbie had been cradling a half-empty cup of coffee for a half hour before the first of the WAACs walked in. He made his way to the mess tent’s exit, standing aside so that Miss Evans might pass.

  Lilly was just behind her. He stepped forward into the doorway and there was an awkward moment as each attempted to step aside. They exchanged murmured apologies and then, before she could move past, he bent his head and whispered in her ear.

  “Look under the cushion on the driver’s seat of your ambulance.”

  The look of astonishment on her face nearly made him laugh out loud. “Your ambulance. Under the seat,” he repeated. She nodded, but did she understand?

  LILLY HAD BEEN in and out of the reception marquee all day, but always at a distance, and always with her watchdog, Miss Evans, in close proximity.

  It was the end of the afternoon; the marquee tent had cleared and Robbie was standing outside the operating hut, trying to clear his head before returning for one final surgery.

  A movement, just at the periphery of his vision, caught his attention. It was Lilly, carrying a leather bucket full of soapy water. She looked tired and disheveled and was probably desperate for her supper. But first she and Miss Evans were going to wash out the ambulance, as he knew they did every day. It was an unpleasant task, yet she seemed oddly cheerful.

  He almost called out to her, but before he could say anything, she looked at him, held his gaze for an endless moment, and then, as bold as any music-hall actress, she winked at him.

  That evening she came to the ward tent, as was her habit, and read to the men for more than an hour. She walked by Robbie on her way out of the tent, her only greeting a soft hello as she passed. An envelope slipped from her hand onto his desk; he covered it swiftly with one of his files in case anyone should pass by.

  Robbie surveyed the tent: of his colleagues, only Lawson was on duty, and he was preoccupied with his charts. The nurses were at their stations and the wounded were asleep or unconscious, leaving him, for a change, alone.

  He used his penknife to open the envelope. Only one sheet of paper inside, but then, she wouldn’t have had much time to craft her reply.

  13 August 1917

  Dear R,

  Thank you very much for your letter. I, too, have been feeling quite desperate about our lapse in correspondence, and not only because I miss receiving your letters. There is so much I want to tell you, for I know you will understand. I will send a longer response as soon as I am able. Until then, I remain,

  Your devoted friend,

  L

  Chapter 25

  The main thing, Lilly told herself, was to avoid sitting on her cot. That was the only way she would stay awake long enough to finish the letter.

  She’d been at the 51st for six weeks now, and life had settled into something that resembled a routine. Awake at first light, breakfast, trip after trip to the ADS, a break for dinner, then back to the ADS, again and again, until it had been cleared.

  Today had been no different. By noon, they had driven back and forth four times, working to empty the ADS of the scores of wounded men that had arrived in the wake of yet another Allied push on the Ypres salient. Four unspeakable journeys, punctuated by horrors that Lilly knew would be branded into her consciousness forever, no matter how commonplace they had become in this war of horrors.

  A man so badly gutshot that his entrails were barely held in place by the field dressings that encircled his torso. Another, white-faced with shock, both legs shattered, pulling piteously at Lilly’s sleeve as his stretcher was carried past.

  “Please, miss, don’t let them take me legs. Miss, please, you must tell them.”

  Lilly had patted his arm reassuringly, murmured some anodyne platitude, and felt like the worst sort of fraud, because of course they were going to take off his legs. For that was the only way he would live. That was the future that awaited him, now that he had done his duty to King and Country.

  It was seven o’clock; her friends, sensibly, had made for their respective beds as soon as supper was finished. Annie and Bridget were snoring away peacefully, but Constance was still awake as Lilly sat at the wobbly table and chair at the far end of their tent.

  “Put that letter away and get to bed. You know we’ve an early start tomorrow. And it’s impossible to sleep properly with that lantern flickering away.”

  “I’ve only the one letter. I’ll be done soon.”

  Monday, 3 Sept. 1917

  Here I am again. I had hoped to finish this last night, but the lantern in my tent ran out of kerosene and it was too late to fetch any more. No—that’s not precisely true. I was too tired to fetch any more. I was in my cot by a quarter to eight and slept so soundly that Constance had to shake me awake at dawn.

  I blame the mud. I do not think it an exaggeration to say it is the chief torment of my life here. The route to the ADS is awash in it, although “awash” gives the unfortunate impression that it bears some resemblance to liquid. It’s more like molten wax, clinging to everything, making any kind of fluid movement impossible. But wax can be chipped away when it hardens, whereas this cursed stuff never dries. How can it? There’s no sunshine, no warmth—just rain and rain and more rain. Even my trusty Henrietta balks at it.

  Yet how can I complain? I sleep in a tent that is dry, walk on duckboards that (mostly) keep the mud away, am able to wash my person and my uniform in clean (if not hot) water, and eat meals that are warm and nourishing. The wounded men who ride in my ambulance have been wet, cold, dirty, and hungry for what must seem like forever to them. And they never complain. Or, if they do, they manage to make a joke of it. What sort of world is this, where men learn to joke about rats and lice and dysentery?

  They don’t joke about the men who drown. I believed this war held no fresh horrors for me, until I heard two men talking of what had happened to their friend at Langemarck last month. He was shot, but not badly enough to kill him outright. He fell into a shell hole, at least a yard deep, filled to the brim with mud and muck and gore, and they heard him drown. Heard him begging for help, but could do nothing.

  When this war is over I want to go somewhere with no mud, a place where the people have never seen mud—where they have no word to describe it, even. Does such a place exist? In Arabia, perhaps, or the central plains of Asia? I�
�ve never been much of a traveler but I’m determined to go there one day.

  Lilly peered at the tent’s ceiling, which had begun to sag near the corners. She tiptoed to Bridget’s cot and reached underneath it for the old broom handle her friend had managed to scavenge a few weeks ago, when the rain first began to seep through the tent’s worn canvas. Using the handle to push at several strategic spots, she heard the satisfying noise of water splashing harmlessly to the ground outside.

  We just learned of the ceilidh that’s being planned. Would you believe Miss Jeffries has decided to relax her rules for the evening? Not only may we attend, but we may also dance with the men—providing, of course, that we ONLY dance. The slightest hint of anything more, and it’s back to quarters for all of us.

  The other girls are very excited, naturally, and I suppose I am, too. Certainly there will be no shortage of dance partners for us all, even though I’m the only one who knows how to do the reels. I’ve promised to teach them the basics, if we have any time beforehand. I wonder if I’ll remember, for it’s at least fifteen years since Nanny Gee took me to a ceilidh on the estate.

  Now it really is getting late, and I must finish this letter. Please don’t worry about replying straightaway—I know you will do so as soon as you have time. Until then, I remain,

  Your devoted friend,

  L

  The letter, stretching to four closely penciled sheets of paper, was rather difficult to stuff into the envelope. Lilly tucked it into her jacket pocket, which she had kept on in deference to the chilly evening, tidied away her writing things in her locker, and extracted a book from its depths. She turned down the lantern and slipped outside, her footsteps hurried. Dusk had already begun to color the sky; the sun would set in less than an hour.

  Matron was not on duty in the ward tent tonight. In her place, a younger woman sat at the nurses’ station. Nurse Greenhalgh. Not especially friendly, and fond of reminding the WAACs, whenever their paths crossed, that she had been “in the thick of it” since 1915. But she made no protest when Lilly entered. Perhaps she looked forward to an hour of Sherlock Holmes as much as her patients.

  Ever since her arrival at the 51st, Lilly had made a point of spending her spare time, usually an hour or two after supper each evening, reading to patients in the ward tent. Some of the men were so badly injured that she couldn’t be certain if they even heard her voice. But most were grateful for the company, so much so that Lilly suspected she could have read from a telephone directory without complaint.

  At the far end of the tent, well away from the men who were recovering from surgeries, was a group of patients who’d been at the 51st for several weeks; their injuries hadn’t allowed them to be moved on to Saint-Omer. The men—a wagon driver whose pelvis had been broken when a horse had fallen on him, and two Australians who had been burned by incendiary grenades—had evidently been waiting for her arrival. They smiled shyly, returning her “good evening” with soft-spoken hellos.

  Lilly found a stool and placed it between the wagon driver’s cot and his neighbor’s. Then, opening her much-loved copy of The Return of Sherlock Holmes, she found the page where she’d stopped the night before, roughly halfway through “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.”

  “When we left off yesterday evening,” she began, “Mr. Holmes had just told Dr. Watson that he meant to burgle Mr. Milverton’s house. Shall I reread a few paragraphs? Just to help us get back into the story?

  “ ‘Watson, I mean to burgle Milverton’s house to-night.’

  “I had a catching of the breath, and my skin went cold at the words, which were slowly uttered in a tone of concentrated resolution. As a flash of lightning in the night shows up in an instant every detail of a wild landscape, so at one glance I seemed to see every possible result of such an action—the detection, the capture, the honored career ending in irreparable failure and disgrace, my friend himself lying at the mercy of the odious Milverton.”

  The ward tent was eerily quiet, the only sounds the scratch of the nurse’s pen, an occasional moan from one of the men, and the measured tones of Lilly’s voice. Quiet, and oddly peaceful.

  She’d been reading for about a quarter of an hour when she heard footsteps, then the sound of someone sitting at the surgeons’ desk immediately behind her. She stifled the urge to turn, focusing instead on the page before her.

  She lost her place, briefly, when the unseen doctor and Nurse Greenhalgh began to discuss some detail of a patient’s care. She knew, even before she heard his voice, that it would be Robbie.

  When was the last time she’d seen him, heard him speak? Three days? Four? No matter. Soon she would finish the story, and then, only then, would she turn and look at him.

  At last it was done: Milverton the blackmailer was dead, shot by one of his victims, and Mr. Holmes had refused to assist Inspector Lestrade in Scotland Yard’s efforts to find the murderer.

  Wishing the men good night, she tidied away the stool and approached the desks that flanked the tent’s entrance. By a stroke of good luck, Nurse Greenhalgh was busy at the other end of the tent, conducting an inventory of the stores locker.

  “Good evening, Captain Fraser.” Lilly pulled the letter from her jacket pocket and placed it on the desk, sliding it toward him without comment. He set down his pen and tucked the envelope under a pile of charts that lay before him.

  “Good evening, Miss Ashford,” he answered, at last looking up at her. “I’m glad to hear that you and the other WAACs will be joining us at the ceilidh.”

  “Everyone is very excited, Captain Fraser. These, ah, diversions come so rarely.”

  What a ridiculous conversation; if only they—

  “Captain Fraser? Could you assist me in lifting these crates at the top of the stores locker? We seem to have lost our orderlies.”

  “I’ll be with you presently, Nurse Greenhalgh,” he replied. Then, in a whisper, “Promise to save me a dance?”

  As he moved past her, she felt his fingers brush against hers. For an instant he held her hand, her pulse quickening at the warmth of his touch. And then it was over, and he was striding across the tent, coming to the aid of the nurse, and Lilly was walking away, too, out into the dying light of the setting sun.

  Chapter 26

  At last the day of the ceilidh was at hand. The 51st had closed to new patients the day before, so Lilly and her fellow drivers had only to see to their vehicles and quarters before readying themselves for the dance.

  Lilly’s morning was occupied in scrubbing out Henrietta from top to bottom, replacing a valve spring that had broken the day before, tightening the spring clips on the back axle, oiling the magneto, and adjusting the ignition coils. Once those chores were accomplished, and dinner was eaten, Miss Jeffries directed the women to clean their quarters. What time remained in the afternoon would be theirs to enjoy.

  Tidying, sweeping, and scouring of the rough deal floor of the tent took up little more than an hour, and no sooner had the WAACs finished than they learned the boiler in the women’s washhouse was lit and there would be hot water for baths. It was a rare luxury, for normally they had to be content with sponge baths in cold water.

  Lilly washed her hair twice, shivering a little as she knelt in the cramped wood-framed canvas washtub. Not wanting to take more than her fair share of time or hot water, she hurriedly scrubbed herself top to bottom with her last sliver of scented soap, a birthday gift from Charlotte. It was the first time in weeks that she had felt clean.

  Before emptying the tub, she checked the water and was relieved to find no evidence of lice. A month earlier, she’d been horrified to discover nits when combing her hair before bed. Persian insect powder, mixed into a paste with petroleum jelly, had killed the lice in her hair, but then she’d inspected her clothes and found them infested with body lice, likely picked up from one of the walking wounded who sat next to her in the ambulance. Matron had given her a tin of NCI powder, which smelled simply awful, and had instructed her t
o lay out her greatcoat, jacket, and skirt on a white sheet, find and squash anything that moved, then rub powder into all of the seams. Since then, all the WAACs had been affected, and it was a rare night indeed when their quarters smelled of anything nicer than delousing agents.

  After her bath, basking in the smelly but welcome warmth of the tent’s little stove, Lilly felt as content as she’d been for months. But she’d promised to teach the other women at least a few of the reels, and only an hour remained before dinner.

  “Why aren’t we having a proper dance?” asked Rose. “I don’t understand why it’s these country dances. None of us know the steps.”

  “The men do,” Lilly countered. “Most of the other ranks are from Scottish regiments. That’s why it’s nicknamed the ‘Highland’ CCS.”

  “How couldn’t you notice? The kilties are as thick as flies here.” Annie laughed.

  “Don’t worry, Rose. It’s much more fun than waltzing,” Lilly promised. “Now let’s get our beds and lockers moved so we can practice.”

  “How is it you know the reels?” asked Constance as they were pushing the furniture out of the way.

  The truth was that she’d learned at the servants’ dances at Cumbermere Hall, which Nanny Gee had allowed her and the other children to attend when their parents were away. Once or twice a year, space would be cleared in one of the estate’s ancient tithe barns, the musicians would take up their fiddles, and Lilly would dance and dance until it was so far past her bedtime that she could scarcely stay awake the next day.

  She couldn’t tell Constance the precise truth, but she could supply some of it. “I learned when I was a little girl. Children were always welcome at the dances where I lived.” True enough, if the children in question were the progeny of the Earl and Countess of Cumberland. “I expect many of the people there were Scottish, or had family in Scotland. We were only thirty miles or so from the border.”

  It had been more than fifteen years, however, since Lilly had last attended a ceilidh. “I hope I still remember the steps.”