Not So Quiet...

by Helen Zenna Smith

  Half-past five. And still Commandant has not sorted the letters.

  ·····

  At six o’clock the room is practically empty. Those who are hungry for letters have given up in despair and gone to lie down. The ten o’clock convoy may turn out a certainty, although the eight o’clock one is off. Five new drivers arrive straight out from England. They look half-dead. They have had a drive of about seventy miles in the snow in an ambulance on top of a filthy crossing to Boulogne. They are completely exhausted. The tea is finished, too. I am about to inquire of cook when Commandant comes in. She eyes the newcomers severely and, without any greeting, turns to me.

  “Smith, show these drivers to the vacant beds and see they report to me in five minutes.”

  What a welcome! No wonder the poor things look depressed. She leaves her door open. I simply dare not ask about the tea.

  There is a label on each camp bed with their names. Two of them are friends.

  “Can’t we share the two-bed cubicle?” they ask. “We stipulated we were not to be separated and they promised.”

  I shake my head. They insist on asking Commandant. I advise them not to, but they will not listen. I know exactly what will happen.

  “I’m dying for a cup of tea,” says one, “and then I’m going to have a sleep.”

  Poor deluded fool. She has no idea she will be sent straight out on an ambulance to learn the various localities of the different hospitals, to take over her own ambulance at midnight. She is lucky if she gets a cup of hot tea first. It all depends whether Commandant has closed her door and I can bully cook.

  “We go out with an experienced driver for a month on her ambulance for probation, don’t we?” asks one. “I suppose we’ll start to-morrow? I hope so, I’m awfully keen.”

  “I’ll see if I can get you some tea,” I reply evasively.

  Too late. The whistle blows.

  “Smith!”

  “Commandant is waiting. Will you come this way?”

  They file into the room. Commandant tells me to go. I depart thankfully to the kitchen for tea. I have no desire to listen. I know exactly what is going on. I know the scene and the dialogue word for word.

  COMMANDANT: I have your names here, but I will go over them now to verify them. (Does so.) Now you will put on your overcoats and gloves and each accompany one of the old drivers, who will show you the camp and the various hospitals. You will memorise these carefully, in order to be able to take your own ambulance at midnight when the convoy arrives.

  An awful silence, during which the drivers gulp and eye one another. Then one, a courageous fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread and who will pay for it every day of her life until she gets back to Blighty, steps forward.

  THE FOOL: Excuse me, Commandant, you don’t mean we take over an ambulance by ourselves at midnight?

  COMMANDANT: Certainly. Why not?

  THE FOOL: But I understand it’s a large, straggly camp with dozens and dozens of hospitals dotted all over the place.

  COMMANDANT: Each one is numbered. You are going out now to learn the numbers and the locations.

  THE FOOL: But none of us has ever driven an ambulance in the dark before.

  COMMANDANT: Then how dare you come out here as experienced drivers?

  THE FOOL: We didn’t ask to come, Commandant. We had our orders to catch a certain train and report here. But we were distinctly told we would be on probation for a month, to drive beside another girl and learn the ropes.

  COMMANDANT (with a sneer): Oh! You thought you had come out to slack, did you?

  THE FOOL: Oh no. Not to slack. We came out to work, and we wouldn’t shirk if we had the chance. It isn’t a question of slacking. It’s a question of competence. I don’t feel competent to take an ambulance out in a snowstorm in the dark for the first time on these rough roads in a strange place I don’t know. I don’t think it’s fair to the wounded men.

  COMMANDANT (playing her trump card): Oh! Perhaps you’d better go back to England, then.

  THE FOOL (hastily): Oh, no. Please! It’s only because I haven’t any idea what it means driving an ambulance of wounded in the dark. . . .

  COMMANDANT (sweetly): Then you’ll be able to tell us what it’s like at midnight to-night.

  (CURTAIN.)

  The door opens. The five newcomers emerge, drooping visibly. Commandant blows her whistle and scans the list. She selects the first four names, and turns to me. “You have finished tea-orderly, Smith. Take one of these new drivers. Preston, go with Smith.”

  A fair, fragile-looking girl of about eighteen turns apologetically to me. I try to look pleasant. It is not her fault.

  “Yes, Commandant,” I reply.

  Preston follows me out.

  ·····

  The snow is thick now. My engine, having been off all the afternoon, is stone-cold. It takes nearly twenty minutes to get going. I am so cold my fingers refuse to grip the wheel. Preston gets up beside me.

  “Station first,” I tell her.

  How am I going to point out landmarks when they are all snow-obscured? The black tree-stump on the left that leads to Number Eight, the shell-hole that indicates the turning to Number Five, and so on. Familiar as the landscape is to me, it takes me all my time to keep my bearings. We go on and on in silence till the station is reached. We couldn’t converse, even if we felt chatty. The snow gets in our mouths every time we open them.

  “In this gate—you can follow the others, so you’ll be all right. We back here into a straight line; I’ll show you the trick of that. You’ve got to toe the plimsoll or you’ll throw the line out of gear, and Commandant will be down on you.”

  “She’s rather hard, isn’t she? “asks Preston. “I mean—very efficient, isn’t she?”

  “Which of you said you were nervous of night-driving? You?” I ignore the timid criticism.

  “Yes.” Preston looks surprised. “Who told you?”

  “No one. I guessed. After you are loaded you make for the gate. The orderlies tell you your load at the train—so many stretchers and so many sitters. You tell the sergeant ‘Six stretchers and three sitters’—or whatever it is. Then he tells you the number of the hospital.”

  “I hope I find the right hospital in the dark,” says Preston. “Do you think—”

  “I think you’d better faint when you get back and stay unconscious until Commandant gets the doctor. Then you can learn the ropes by daylight to-morrow.” I am not joking. I always advise newcomers to do this. But only one out of every dozen has the sense to swing the lead. Newcomers are too conscientious for the first couple of weeks. After that they wangle whatever they can in the way of bed, like the rest of us. The callous way Commandant risks the lives of wounded men by placing them in charge of a nervous beginner who is as liable to drive them over the hill into the valley below as anywhere else makes my blood boil.

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” says Preston. “I—”

  “You must do your bit,” I interrupt sarcastically.

  “I came out for that, didn’t I?” she asks simply.

  Poor bloody fool. I savagely tread on the gas and tear up the hill.

  CHAPTER IV

  IT is after ten when we get back. I am so numb I cannot feel my feet. Preston is almost in hysterics. She will be no use at all for this work. She is one of those vague flustered creatures with no driving sense at all. How she passed her test is beyond me. Probably got 100 per cent. for theoretical driving, and scraped through on the practical. All the theory in the world will not help you when you are stuck in a snow-drift.

  I was bad enough when I began, but at least I can drive. Preston never will. If Commandant were at all approachable I would go to her and point out the danger she runs by trusting an ambulance load of wounded to Preston; but I have not been sent out to make a report. . . . Merely to enact the rôle of human road map. Commandant would resent any criticism of a newcomer’s driving. This girl has been twice round the camp . . . I am only supp
osed to take her once. But so worried am I at the possibility of the wounded men being ditched in the snow . . . or worse . . . I have exceeded my duty. The result is she has not located one hospital correctly.

  I have shown her the man-traps, the corner where if you do not slow down you are likely to crash, the hill with the double bend at the bottom, . . . but she is utterly bewildered. I hope she gets into a snow-drift on her way to the station and sticks there for the night—as a girl did last week. It will be a blessing if she does. I thankfully leave her in the mess-room with her companions, waiting for Commandant to allocate their respective ambulances. All I want is a hot drink, a fag, a hot-water bottle, and an hour’s stew in my flea-bag.

  The others are asleep. Will the kettle never boil? There are four letters on my camp-bed, . . . one from my sister Trix, one from mother, one in a handwriting I do not recognise, and one from Aunt Helen. They can wait until I am warm and cosy under my blankets.

  At last the kettle steams. Bovril, . . . a large, strong, boiling cup. I fill my hot-water bottle with the rest of the water. I tear my shoes and gaiters off. I cannot feel my toes. I snuggle into my flea-bag. The heat burns through my woollen soles. It will probably start my chilblains itching . . . but I don’t care. Oh, grateful, grateful, warmth. Were I a poet, I would not waste my time on moons and lovers and shining eyes . . . I would compose sonnets innumerable extolling the beauties of warmth; I would compose crushing stanzas denouncing snow and ice.

  Hateful snow and ice. . . . It is incredible that for years I have tried to induce my people to do Switzerland for the winter sports. I would not go now. Wild horses would never drag me anywhere near a cold country again. Sleighing? . . . Horrible! Ski-ing? . . . Worse! Skating? . . . Worse and worse! I never wish even to drink an ice-cream soda or eat an ice-cream sundae again. For me, from now on, tropical suns and punkahs and palm-decked islands, gay with red poinsettia flowers . . . sun-kissed yellow beaches . . . indigo-blue seas tipped by warm, gentle wavelets . . . sun . . . sun . . . sun. . . .

  I light a cigarette.

  Mother’s letter first.

  Committees . . . committees . . . committees . . . recruiting meetings. She has seventeen more recruits than Mrs. Evans-Mawnington up to date. Would I like a new body belt? She has a fearful cold in the head, but is “carrying on” (inverted commas) just the same. “Business as usual,” she writes playfully (also inverted commas). Father writing soon. . . . My brother Bertie expects to go to France soon. He is mad to go, . . . he won’t be satisfied till he gets to the trenches. . . . She doesn’t fancy the idea, but, of course, she is proud to think her son wants to do his duty to his country, to fight for the Dear Old Flag. The cat has had three kittens, . . . three dear fluffy balls of fur, . . . Mons, Wipers and Liège, . . . rather sweet, don’t I think? And the way the dog washes them is too charming. . . . Mrs. Evans-Mawnington boasting that Roy Evans-Mawnington is coming home on his last leave before going out to the trenches. Simply awful if Roy got out before Bertie. There’d be no holding Mrs. Evans-Mawnington . . . she’d be simply impossible. . . . I will look after myself, won’t I? Don’t go out in the cold after nightfall with my delicate chest, take my cod-liver oil regularly . . . and be sure to tell Commandant that Aunt Helen was at school with her sister. Aunt Helen says she must be a charming woman if she resembles her sister. . . . Darling, I don’t know how proud mother is of me and Trix and Bertie. My three heroes, she calls us, and it does so annoy Mrs. Evans-Mawnington, who has only Roy to give to the country. . . . So-and-so-and-so-and-so, my affectionate mother, whose little daughter is . . .

  “Doing her bit.” I turn the page. Yes, I am quite right!

  The strange handwriting belongs to Roy Evans-Mawnington. I know Roy well, but he has never written to me before. Good old Roy . . . jolly decent of him to write. He was at Oxford when I came out, . . . nice boy, nice clean blue-eyed ordinary English public-school boy. Not particularly intelligent or brainy . . . but just nice. A line to let me know he expects to be out in France by the time this reaches me. . . . Thought I’d be interested. Admired the photograph of me in uniform in Mother’s drawing-room, and if I have a Stepney. . . . What sort of a time am I having? . . . Lots of admirers? Don’t let us one-pippers down by getting mixed up with a brass hat, will I? . . . Writing to Trix, too, but rather hear from me really. . . . I look jolly smart in uniform. Suits me rather. . . . Don’t forget that spare photograph. He has a fairly decent one of himself taken in khaki the day he got his one pip, if I would like it. . . . Jolly glad he’s going out. Top-hole to be really in it. Sick of slacking at home, and drilling and route marching. . . .

  Poor Roy.

  Aunt Helen’s contribution is almost a replica of mother’s. Committees . . . committees . . . committees . . . recruiting meetings. Don’t forget to tell the Commandant she was at school with her sister Ada. Given a big sum to the Red Cross . . . also, so pleased with my patriotism and noble example to all girls of my age. She thinks it her duty to tell me she’s made a will in my favour. . . . (As she will probably outlive me by half a century, this does not thrill me as it ought. The best description of Aunt Helen is that no one has ever dared to call her Nellie—those kind of people do not die young.) What do I think—Annie Orpen is sure Fräulein at school is a spy! When they played “God Save the King” the other day, they all watched Fräulein, and she was seconds late standing to attention! Quite, quite reluctant, . . . so Annie says. Isn’t it appalling to have the enemy in our midst in this bare-faced fashion? . . . So hard to get butter . . . housekeeping is a dreadful trial. Altogether the War is a dreadful calamity. . . . Send if I want anything. By the way, my mother tells her Trix described someone as a “damn wash-out” in her last letter home. She is shocked beyond words . . . hopes I will never forget myself, and use such strong, vulgar expletives. It is for women in France to have a womanly, refining, softening effect on the troops. After all, a refining influence means a great deal in war-time, doesn’t it? . . . She is writing a strong protest to Trix, and is mine affly.

  I have kept the best wine last. I tear open Trix’s letter with real anticipation. A fat six-paged letter in Trix’s tiny handwriting. News . . . news . . . news. . . . Dear Trix. She and I have always been together until now. There is fifteen months’ difference between our ages, . . . but we might be twins, we are so inseparable. We have every taste in common; we have attended the same schools; we know each other’s most intimate secrets; we go everywhere together. If she had not been too young we would have come here together. I am thankful for that fifteen months’ difference in our ages. Had Commandant treated Trix as she treats me I should have let myself go the first few days. . . . Of that I am certain.

  “No. 4 Washing-Up Alley,

  “Workustohellandback Hospital,

  “B.E.F., France.

  “(God knows the date . . . I don’t.)

  “DEAR SIS,

  “If you write me a cheery, brown-haired-lass - in - khaki - doing-her-bit-for-her-country letter again, I’ll go mad and bite someone. I get quite enough of that muck from home. We have a lorry driver here who was in your shop about four months ago . . . Nipper Dale. She knows you and she says you have got as thin as a rail. She says your shop is one of the worst in France. It’s notorious everywhere. She says it’s merry hell. She says there are only about thirty girls out of a hundred who have stuck it longer than six weeks or so. Is this true? Let me know, and if it is, you’ve jolly well got to transfer.

  “Here it isn’t too bad. Our hours are awful. We never get any time off and the sisters treat us like lumps of dirt. They simply loathe the V.A.D.’s, and seem determined to make us sorry we ever enlisted. Still, we survive. It would take more than a few sisters to quell me. I wash up dishes from morn to dewy eve. Snitch and I share a wash-house . . . note above address . . . so it’s not too bad. You’ve no idea how many dirty dishes there are in the world, Sis. I am bounded on the north by plates, on the south by bowls, on the east by cups, and on the west by saucers. If
all the dirty dishes I have washed up were placed end-to-end they’d reach to the moon. When I am not washing up dishes, I take in meals on little wagons on wheels to the wards. My entrance is the signal for all the beds to chuck bits of paper and tooth-brushes at me. They have no respect for my uniform. The sisters get furious. I shall be taken off breakfasts soon, I have no doubt. The convalescents come out and dry up for us sometimes; some of them are topping. I do a bit of flirting in between plates. Snitch is a good sort. A man she was a bit keen on from her village was brought in wounded the other day. Snitch was terribly thrilled, and asked Matron if she could go and see him.

  “Now, Matron isn’t a bad old stick at all; a bit Stone Age in her outlook, but not a bad old bird. We all like her, but she has one bee in her Sister Dora cap, and that’s w.c.’s. ‘Certainly, my child,’ she said to Snitch, ‘you can go and sit with your friend; but you must not be idle. Take this.’ So she hands poor old Snitch a big wad of tissue paper and a pair of scissors, ‘While you are talking to your friend,’ says Matron, ‘you can cut squares of paper for the w.c. I will give you some string, and every hundred sheets you can string them ready to hang up.’ Wasn’t it a howl? Matron was quite annoyed when Snitch refused point-blank. She said it was false modesty. But poor old Snitch was furious. Aids to romance . . . what? Fancy cutting squares of lav. paper while talking to the wounded hero you’re a bit gone on? The story has gone the rounds, and the patients are calling poor old Snitch Lavatory Liz. They keep on bringing her parcels of tissue paper to the wash-house, and bits of string and scissors. Snitch will never live it down. She hasn’t seen the hero yet. She won’t give in and Matron won’t. Besides, she’s afraid the story will have got to his ears, and she’s afraid to face him. If it was me I should shout with laughter, but poor old Snitch is afflicted with blushing modesty.