by John Masters
Naomi jumped down from her seat, jamming the helmet on to her hair and pulling the chinstrap under her chin. She began to run as she heard a long whistling sound and then a tremendous crash a hundred yards to her right, towards the village of St Sauveur up a gradual rise from the canal. The next bomb seemed to be coming straight at her and she flung herself flat on the ground. Waiting, she jammed her hand into her mouth, she must not, would not scream. The bomb struck in the reeds across the canal and burst with a heavy muffled explosion under water. A few seconds later a torrent of icy mud and water splashed down on her. She scrambled to her feet and began to run again …
She stopped. Where was she to go? Where was there cover on this flat wharf beside the canal, shining silver in the moonlight? Looking up she could see the bombers silhouetted against the moon … three, four, and now she heard the drone of their engines inextricably mingled with the whistling and intermittent thunder of their bombs. Dirty swine, deliberately aiming at ambulance barges, all clearly marked with red crosses … Those wounded men were alone, and they could not run for shelter.
She walked back to her ambulance, willing herself not to run, or crouch. She reached it and heard two voices calling, ‘What’s happening? Miss, miss, where are you? … Don’t leave us.’
She stuck her head in through the open back flap and called ‘It’s all right, fellows. I won’t leave you. The Germans are dropping a few bombs … the red crosses make good aiming marks but they haven’t hit one yet.’
A man chuckled and said, ‘You’re a good ’un, miss … Who are you?’
‘We’re the FANY,’ she said, sitting on the back floor of the ambulance, her legs dangling. In the moonlight she could see the three men – the one with no body, the mummy, and another – the one who had spoken just now. She began to talk in a low voice, but loud enough so that they could hear above the droning and the crashes – ‘I’m Naomi Rowland … my father’s a farmer in Walstone, Kent … my grandfather used to make Rowland motor cars … I was in the Women’s Volunteer Motor Drivers for a time, then I transferred to the FANY. We …’
The sound of the engines was fading, and the explosions had ceased. Footsteps were coming along the wharf, running. The lieutenant was there, peering in – ‘Rowland? Well done … We’re finishing loading now.’
‘Yes, madam.’ The lieutenant ran on. Naomi said to the men, ‘We’ll be moving off soon. The road’s pretty bumpy but I’ll do my best to dodge the biggest potholes.’
The wharf was alive with movement again in the moonlight. The fourth casualty for No. 9 was brought up and loaded in; Nos. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 were loaded. The lieutenant hurried down the line – ‘Move off in order, following me in No. 1.’
The RAMC orderly jumped in beside Naomi. Naomi moved slowly off in her turn, following No. 8 off the wharf on to the narrow road up to St Sauveur. The orderly said, ‘Wish I ’ad your nerve, miss. Feel proper ashamed of myself I do, lying under the ’edge while you was sitting on the back there … saw you plain as a pikestaff in the moonlight, and those bleeding, beg your pardon miss, those Jerries aiming at you.’
Naomi said briefly, ‘I doubt if they could really see the red crosses from where they were. They were very high … And we’d be less likely to be bombed if the army didn’t use barges to carry artillery ammunition up the canal … and put ammunition and ordnance depots right next to base hospitals and ambulance convoy quarters.’
He said something more, but she did not answer, for she had not listened. This was no time for small talk … driving a heavy ambulance with four desperately wounded men in it, on a narrow French road, only dim blue headlights, following the faint red spot of the tail light of the car in front … with army lorries likely to be crashing along the same road in the opposite direction, loaded with, petrol or high explosives, or guns moving up at a canter, or those ghastly monster tanks on their wide treads, clanking and growling through the night, taking up the whole road …
The convoy crawled through St Sauveur, turned west … five miles to go to Advanced Base Hospital Number 26 … change gear, touch the brake … swing carefully round something in the ditch, an ASC lorry, boxes strewn all over the place … slow still more … infantry marching up, steel helmets glinting in the moonlight, shoulders bowed, here and there a man looking up, but it was too dark in the cab for any of the soldiers to recognise that it was a woman driving …
Lights ahead … long lights, pointing lights, weaving back and forth. The orderly beside her whistled through his teeth – ‘Them Jerries is following us around.’ They were searchlights and now suddenly, directly over the dark hump of No. 8 ambulance in front of her, Naomi saw a Gotha caught in them, a silver moth, and at once dark blobs spouting all round. ‘The ack acks have got the bastard,’ the orderly shouted exultantly. Naomi looked down … the road, the road! The convoy was moving towards the searchlights. It must be another raid, different Gothas – the first lot had unloaded all they had on St Sauveur. An anti-aircraft battery was in action close beside the road, the long barrels jerking, the guns barking with sharp cracks. From the field beyond, a pair of searchlights sent up white needles to stab the sky. She heard again the crash of bombs and saw bursts of yellow and orange light, all from directly ahead.
‘They’re aiming at the hospital,’ the orderly muttered.
‘Or the ammunition depot,’ she said.
The convoy was slowing, but moving on. Here was the hospital drive; it had once been a big château set in lovely parklike grounds, now occupied by huts and shacks of every kind. There in front was the graceful three-storeyed facade of the château itself. Flames seemed to be rising from the back of the great building, mixed with clouds of black smoke, that grew thicker as the convoy of ambulances approached, crawling up the curving, gravelled drive. The car in front stopped and Naomi stopped, waiting. A voice from behind the canvas cried, ‘What’s up now, miss?’
She called back, ‘The Gothas have been following us from the wharf. It’s how they find their way home.’
They chuckled behind the canvas. The ambulance shuddered to the crash of bombs, none now very close, but the earth was shaking under their irregular explosions. The cars inched forward, as their casualties were unloaded, three cars at a time. The orderly jumped down and hurried forward to take his share in the unloading. As soon as a car was empty it swung on round the drive, ready to return to the FANY convoy camp.
Naomi’s turn came, and a gang of orderlies hurried up, opened the back, and began to carry out the stretchers. Searchlights were still wavering across the sky, but she could not hear engines. Or big bombs. There were a lot of smaller explosions, but they didn’t sound like bombs, and they fell into similar patterns … two or three, then suddenly half a dozen, like a string of crackers, now and then one much bigger.
A man came hurrying down the château’s main front steps and ran to Naomi’s ambulance. He peered in and said, ‘I’ve got to get some armoured electrical cable from the Engineer Stores Park … no other transport … will you take me?’
Naomi said, ‘We’re unloading casualties, sir.’
He peered closer. ‘A woman! In this?’
‘We’re the FANY, sir,’ she said, with some asperity.
‘It’s urgent, miss,’ he said. ‘They can’t operate in there without light and their cables have been burned out. I’ve got to get them hooked back on to the town supply. It really is a matter of life and death.’
Naomi hesitated then said, ‘There’s our lieutenant, at the foot of the steps. Ask her. If she says yes, I’ll take you.’
The man said, ‘Right,’ and hurried off. Naomi saw him in the diffused glare from the fire at the back of the château, gesticulating a little, the lieutenant looking up at him – she was short and the man was taller even than Naomi, who was 5' 10". Then they both came towards her, and the lieutenant leaned in. ‘You know what Lieutenant Gregory wants, corporal?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘Take him, get it, bring him and it back h
ere, then return to camp on your own. I’m taking the rest of the convoy back as soon as we’re all unloaded.’
‘Very good, madam.’
‘You’re unloaded now … hurry up and get that back fastened, please, men … All right, Rowland. Good luck.’
Lieutenant Gregory scrambled up beside her and she engaged gear and moved off, pulling out of line to pass the cars in front of her. She said, ‘You’ll have to tell me where to go, sir.’
‘All right … left out of the chateau gate … sorry to let you in for this.’
‘It shouldn’t take long.’
‘No … but all that crackling and flashing ahead is an ammunition dump going up – mostly 18-pounder and 4-5-inch howitzer shells, I believe. The Gothas dropped two smack in the middle … and we have to go past it to reach the Engineer Stores Park.’
Naomi said nothing. The moon was still high but its light was not bright as it had been earlier. Perhaps the smoke from the hospital fire, and the exploding ammunition, or other fires, was obscuring it. And she had no car to follow, but must find her own way, on a strange road. It was impossible to go faster than ten miles an hour.
She swerved violently to avoid something humped black in the road … a dead horse … on, even slower for a time until she regained her confidence … ‘Right at the next cross roads,’ the lieutenant said. His voice was a little unsteady and Naomi felt better. She said, ‘Are you a sapper?’
‘Yes. Temporary officer only, of course.’
‘Are you mad, married, or Methodist?’
‘Eh? I’m sorry, I don’t understand, miss.’
She kept her eyes on the dim road, the faint blue glow from her headlights illuminating it, now often overridden by brilliant flashes from the fields to the left. Things whistled overhead, whining away into the distance, or crashing into the earth, the trees, the road … shells or parts of shells from the exploding’ depot.
She said, ‘My uncle’s a Regular. Weald Light Infantry … I remember him saying that all Royal Engineer officers are mad, married, or Methodist.’
He managed a laugh then and said, ‘Not guilty on any count, miss – corporal … This is like something out of The Inferno … straight ahead here … God, that one was close …’
It had been, indeed, since it had ripped a long gash in the canvas cover over Naomi’s head, but it had not exploded, whatever it was. To their left an area of about a hundred acres was coruscating like a giant 5th of November firework display, yellow flashes bursting out of the ground, out of the scattered heaps of tarpaulin-covered shells, orange and red flares darting into the sky leaving trails of smoke.
They passed it and Gregory said, ‘Close now … left … there, that’s the gate. The cable store’s close.’ He jumped down and ran to the barbed wire kniferest pulled across the entrance to the Park. Then he ran to a small wooden hut close by, and banged on the door. It opened at once and a soldier appeared. He saluted, and came out. The two men hurried down between the huts beyond, and disappeared into one. Three minutes later they reappeared, each carrying two heavy coils of armoured electrical cable over his shoulders.
Naomi ran round and opened up the back flap of the ambulance. The men dumped the coils inside and the lieutenant helped her refasten the back. The soldier returned to his hut, and the lieutenant climbed back beside her. He said hesitantly, ‘There is another way round, to get back to the hospital … It’ll take us fifteen minutes longer, but …’
She said, ‘I thought it was a matter of life and death, sir.’
‘It is … yours, too.’
She said nothing, but headed back, retracing her course. Lieutenant Gregory was obviously a little nervous; and he really seemed to be worried for her safety, too. Because she was a woman … she’d not have any condescension from him, or any other man, ever again.
They were approaching the ammunition depot. It had lost none of its infernoesque qualities – if anything, they had increased. She felt herself crouching over the wheel, and forced herself to straighten up: she did not present any smaller target that way, and she could see the road much better. The lieutenant huddled beside her said, ‘Christ … well done, miss … pheeew!’ Light glared in her eyes now, as a dozen shells from a dump close to the road went off together. A splinter clanged against her steel helmet, jerking it off her head. The lieutenant grabbed it before it fell over the side. Now there was a hole in the canvas beside her as well as over her head … two hours’ work there, re-sewing all that, and redoping the patches: lucky nothing mechanical had been hit … yet.
The maniacal fury of the explosions fell behind. The lieutenant lit a cigarette with shaking hands and offered it to her. She shook her head, saying, ‘Thanks, no, sir.’
She had done it, forced the lieutenant to do what he really knew ought to be done – get back to the hospital by the fastest route. All her life till now she had relied on people, particularly men – her father, her brother Boy, Rodney Venable; but Boy was dead, her father a broken man, and Rodney Venable – a ripple in time past. They came to her for reliance now … the girls in the convoy; her father, when she was home on leave, she knew; this male lieutenant, She would stand on her own feet now; she wanted to, and she had no alternative … except grovel.
The lieutenant said, ‘I’m Ron Gregory, Miss Rowland. I’m really an electrical engineer – Manchester University. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more humble … or admired anyone more … than this past half-hour, watching you.’
‘We’re the FANY, sir,’ she said.
He said, ‘I know, but you’re even more, Miss Rowland. I’d … I’d very much like to meet you again. Do you get a few hours’ leave at any time … go into Amiens? Could I come and call on you?’
She turned into the driveway of the château. The fire at the back seemed to have been subdued, but black smoke still rose heavy and dark in the moonlight over the whole great building. She said, ‘We’re No. 16 Convoy, FANY … based at Ailly at the moment. But I don’t know when …’
He said, ‘I’ll come over tomorrow … to thank your CO for letting you drive me to the Park depot … and to tell her what a great job you did. Then we’ll fix something. Surely we can find some free time before the big German push starts? You’ve made me feel … well, a better man, Miss Rowland.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Here we are, sir.’
Major Guy Rowland, DSO, MC, commanding officer of No. 333 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, led his squadron round to the northwards in a gentle turn, maintaining his altitude at 12,000 feet. Ten other Sopwith Camels of the squadron followed round in tight formation of four Vs, each flanking aircraft stepped up slightly above its leader, each V slightly above the one ahead. The winter sun was climbing in the east, over his right shoulder, the rays now glistening on the thin layer of hard-packed snow covering the ground far below. The dark trench lines were to the left, for the squadron was ten miles the German side of the front.
Guy turned his head briefly to check the formation of his four flights … a plane short in A and C, one damaged on landing yesterday and one shot down the day before, no replacement arrived yet. The formation was good, just as he had ordered and practised it – flights and machines close enough to act in concert, far enough apart to give the individual pilots and flight leaders room to manoeuvre. They were well disciplined: his predecessor in command, ‘Sulphuric Sugden,’ had seen to that; but now they were more, they were almost of one mind, one spirit. When he led them into action, they opened fire simultaneously without any signal from him; if a pilot was about to be trapped by two or three Germans, suddenly four of the Three Threes appeared, trapping the Germans. His own score of kills had almost ceased to climb; but his squadron’s had doubled, in the two months since he took over. He felt now that he was a Master of Foxhounds, not himself killing foxes, but finding them, leading his pack to them, indicating the way to attack, then supervising the action to correct anything that went wrong, to whip then off on to more important scents if …
&n
bsp; ‘Tally ho!’ he shouted to himself, and waved his gloved hand, pointing downwards. Three dark specks were racing eastwards over the white mantle of snow. He stared hard as he flipped the Sopwith’s nose down … AEG bombers, probably G.IVs – machine-guns nose and tail, so attack from below: crew of two … on their way back from bombing the infantry in the trenches, probably. The flights were behind him, hurtling down at close to 150 miles an hour, guns cocked and ready. They’d intercept in a minute and a half, five or six miles further east … have to watch the petrol, as the wind was 25 to 30, dead in their faces for the trip home. He looked at his watch … 8.24 … cut off the action at 8.34 unless by chance it led back to westward. He was diving straight under the leading AEG now, about 400 yards away and at the same altitude. A short burst of tracer bullets flying over his head from behind made him frown in anger – the range was much too great yet … but he looked round quickly. It was B Flight leader who had fired, to attract his attention. He was pointing up now … specks glittering in the sun; probably Jasta 16s Trip lanes. Guy pushed his right hand out towards the specks, palm flat. B Flight leader waggled his wings in acknowledgment, and turned his flight up into the sun, to protect the others as they closed in on the AEGs.
