A Rose for the Anzac Boys (9 page)

‘As if poor Belgium didn’t have enough to cope with! The Boche and Dolores too!’

‘Look, could you give me a hand with the stretchers?’

‘Of course, darling. It’s going to be a quiet night once this lot are gone—unless you’ve heard otherwise?’

‘No big push on that I know of. Oh, it’s good to see you!’

‘You too! Do you have time to come back to the hotel? I’m sure Madame would love to make you one of her omelettes.’

Midge shook her head regretfully. ‘I need to do another run tonight for the morning train. Damn and hell…’ She gazed across the courtyard, but Kanga and Spangles’ van had left.

‘Darling, you are swearing wonderfully! One is quite, quite proud of you.’

‘No, really, I’ve just realised. My headlights went and Jumbo’s driven off with Kanga. We only made it because she walked in front with a lantern. I’m stuck here till the fog lifts. Or morning. Damn, damn, damn.’

‘I don’t suppose it’s all that hard to carry a lantern,’ said Anne drily. ‘I suppose one can get a lift back tomorrow?’

‘Easily. But, Anne, it’ll take hours to get back to the casualty station. That’s three hours’ walking, at least. And it’s cold. And wet. And—’

‘And we can enjoy sprightly conversation as we go, yelling to each over the engine noise. No, really, darling, I’m glad to help.’

Midge hugged her quickly. ‘You are an utter, utter brick. Come on, we’d better unload my poor chaps before the train goes without them.’

Midge watched Anne trudge along the road, the mist like flour sifting about her head. Boadicea’s engine grumbled. She didn’t like low gear. Somewhere across the fields the guns rumbled too. They
were
closer, Midge thought suddenly. One or both of the armies must have decided to make a move.

Trucks passed them coming the other way, their headlights vanishing too quickly to be much use. A rocket screamed across the night and then exploded somewhere in the darkness, so strong the windscreen rattled.

What was happening out there, wondered Midge.

The fog thinned, and finally vanished, leaving a moon sailing like an orange above the fields. A hunter’s moon, she thought involuntarily, remembering the night Gordon died. The sort of night when officers safe in their dugouts ordered men to creep across no-man’s-land with wire cutters, trying to slip through the barbed-wire entanglements to surprise the enemy.

‘Anne?’

Anne’s voice floated back. ‘Yes, darling?’

‘I think I can see enough by moonlight now if we go slowly.’

‘Thank goodness. Any slower and all the snails in France would have overtaken us. And one’s feet are—’ She stopped. ‘What’s that noise?’ she added sharply.

‘Aircraft.’

‘Ours or theirs?’

‘Don’t know. Blow the lantern out. Now!’

Midge gazed around at the shadowed fields. Surely there was somewhere they could shelter? Never a ditch when you needed one.

The aircraft was almost above them now. Midge could just make out the markings beneath the wings.

Enemy.

She started to scramble out of the car. Suddenly she knew what animals must feel: the terror of the moonlight that showed up hunted things.

The shock wave hit her before her feet touched the ground, pushing her back onto the seat. She heard Anne scream, from shock or pain she didn’t know. The world went black as debris rained down onto the windscreen. Dimly she heard the plane’s engine die away.

Had the pilot tried to hit them? Or was the plane damaged, trying to get rid of its explosive cargo before it ditched? But what mattered was it had missed. Boadicea was safe. And her, and Anne…

‘Anne? Anne, are you all right?’

No answer.

Midge peered into the moonlit shadows. ‘Anne! Speak to me!’

‘I’m all right.’ Anne’s voice was faint.

‘Are you sure?’

Midge struggled from the truck. Boadicea’s windscreen was cracked, she noticed vaguely. There were new scratches on her paint.

‘Where are you?’

‘Here.’ The voice was coming from just beyond the bonnet. ‘Darling, it’s cold. Cold and damp. Is it raining?’

‘No…Anne, I can’t see you—’

Midge stopped as something rose from the road in front of her. Something black. But it wasn’t black. It was blood.

Anne put a hand on Boadicea’s bonnet, as though to steady herself. ‘I’m wet,’ she complained faintly.

Midge stared, speechless, at the ruin of Anne’s face.

Norfolk

England

31 March 1917

Dearest Midge,

Well, one’s home and surviving. Just. They got all the shrapnel out except a little behind my ear. A souvenir, so to speak, like those hideous Toby jugs that say ‘A Present from Bournemouth’. The doctor said you probably saved my life. Just now one isn’t quite able to be glad that it’s been saved. Does that sound too, too ungrateful?

Everyone is being very tactful. My old room is full of amputees but Mummy settled me in the old tower. One needs two good legs and sound wind to climb up to the old tower. But at least one can be quiet there.

Mummy has put me to nursing the burns cases down in the ballroom. I think she decided that they were so used to grotesqueries they wouldn’t be shocked by my face. One would think they’d rather see a classic English rose complexion that would remind them of what life was once and might be again, not a mirror of what they face themselves. But the men are very kind, and very grateful for any kindness done for them.

Wilkins, our old butler, feels it worst. He nearly cried when he first saw the scars. Well, he did cry, but being Wilkins he couldn’t wipe the tears so they just trickled down his nose. I try to keep out of his way so I don’t upset him too much.

It’s funny, I just don’t care about anything any more. The revolt in Russia and the win at Gaza and the poor people sunk in that hospital ship—I make all the right noises at the breakfast table. But the war has just gone on too long. Or I’ve gone on too long. What use am I anyhow? No, don’t mind me. I am destined to be ‘good old Auntie Anne, a rock to her nieces and nephews’. Unless this war goes on forever and gets them too.

Don’t mind me. I’ve just got the pip, that’s all.

Well, that’s all now, my dear. Keep the cocoa pouring and all that now that Slogger is coming back to reclaim her beloved Boadicea.

Your loving friend,

Anne

Slogger ran an affectionate hand down the dusty side of Boadicea. ‘You’ve looked after the old girl then?’ Her fingers were still red and shiny with scar tissue, but at least the hand no longer oozed pus.

‘She’s done us proud.’

Midge was surprised to realise how much she’d miss driving the ambulance. Slogger had been supposed to go on holiday with her family in Scotland, and hadn’t been due back for another fortnight. But ‘Three months of playing the dutiful daughter was two months too many,’ Slogger had said. ‘And when Mother started telling me “how lovely you look, dear, now your hair is longer”—well, that was the last straw. A girl can stand just so much tea and scones and bandage-rolling.’

So now Slogger was back, and her driving job was gone, thought Midge, as she wandered from the courtyard into the entrance hall office. She needed to give the uniform back. And send a telegram to Ethel, to make sure there was a bed for her at the hotel and a place on the canteen roster again. The trees in the courtyard were covered in green. Spring was here.

It would have been good to stay. Each ambulance journey might be a short trip into hell, but it was also a slap in the face for the devil. The ambulances and their drivers brought a glimpse of hope and comfort into a world of mud and death.

How could she ever have thought war glorious—that necessary battle against the Hun—back in those impossibly
far-off days at school? Midge wearily tucked strands of hair back into her bun.

Captain Nancy was on the phone. She held up a finger to indicate she’d only be a minute. ‘No, I’m sorry, sir. Yes, sir, I do realise. But we just don’t have any spare drivers. Yes, sir. No, sir. No, I can’t take a driver off one of the ambulances. Yes, I do know who you are, sir, but I just don’t have a driver free…’

‘I’m free,’ said Midge. ‘Slogger got a lift back with Dimples and Char ten minutes ago.’

Suddenly she couldn’t face going back to the canteen again, having her life bounded night after day by the hundred yards of hotel, station and its courtyard. It was spring! At least in the ambulance you got to drive through the fields, see trees and hills.

‘Excuse me, sir.’ Captain Nancy put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Believe me, ducky,’ she said, ‘you
don’t
want this job.’

‘What is it?’

‘Driving Colonel Mannix over to Number 15 Casualty Station. He’s going to inspect the medical facilities down there. His regular driver’s sick.’

‘Number 15? My aunt’s down there!’

‘The nursing sister? Gawd help her if she’s under Colonel M’s command. He can very well get one of his men to drive, you know. He’s one of the wandering hand brigade.’ The phone emitted a tinny yapping. Captain Nancy sighed. ‘On your head be it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you, ducky.’ She uncovered the
mouthpiece. ‘Sir? I seem to have found a driver for the colonel.’

Midge had expected a military vehicle. But the car was a burgundy Ford, its controls and engine thankfully familiar to her, the upholstery a matching shade of wine-coloured leather. There was even a small silver vase on the back of the driver’s seat, though it was empty.

She stood by the car uncertainly. Her bag was on the roof rack. Captain Nancy had warned her that she would need to stay overnight, at least. She’d cleaned out her room at the chateau, but still wore the grey serge skirt, cape and jacket. It didn’t seem right, somehow, to wear her own, all too obviously civilian clothes.

The air thickened around her, not quite rain but not dry either. Midge shivered, then slid into the driver’s seat. Where was he?

An hour passed. Midge was beginning to wish she’d filled her thermos and grabbed some sandwiches from the kitchen. The rain grew heavier. No spring shower, this. Soldiers marched along the road, then vanished into the mist. A rooster crowed in the distance. It was strange to think of farm lives going on despite the war around them.

Finally a door slammed. A man approached: the colonel, Midge assumed. He was in his fifties, perhaps, red-faced, with a neat grey moustache and what Tim called a port-and-cigars nose. A young lieutenant scurried at his heels, holding an umbrella over the colonel’s head. A man with a captain’s insignia strode a pace behind.

The colonel stopped by the passenger’s door. ‘Ahem.’

‘What? Oh, sorry, sir.’

Midge hurried out of the driver’s seat and round to the other door. Her shoes squelched in the mud. She opened the door, and held it while the colonel climbed in.

‘Sorry, sir,’ she said again.

The colonel chuckled amiably. ‘Never driven an officer before?’

‘Only as patients, sir.’

‘You’ll soon get the hang of it, Miss Er…’

‘Macpherson, sir.’

The other two were waiting expectantly. She opened the back door for them to get in too, then trudged back to her side. The rain dripped down her collar as she be`gan the start-up process. She glanced behind. Were any of them going to offer to turn the crank for her? But the colonel was looking impatient and the captain and lieutenant were checking a list. She sighed, and squished back through the mud again.

The rain meant she had to concentrate. It was market day too. Even with the war, produce still must be bought and sold. The Ford edged around carts, an elderly man with a sack of potatoes on his shoulders, two old women tottering under a crate of chickens. If she’d been alone or with Jumbo she’d have offered them a lift, even if it left them cramped. But you couldn’t do that with a colonel.

She let the conversation flow over and around her while she focused on her driving. To begin with it was about the
movement of supplies—exactly what she didn’t know. Bandages? Medicines? It was all shipments, dates and numbers.

A couple of pigs loomed out of the rain, herded by a small girl in a faded and wet blue dress. By the time she’d guided the car around them (the pigs staring, unimpressed; the girl waving shyly, disappointed that none of the men waved back) the conversation had changed.

‘Most important thing,’ declared the colonel, ‘is to stop all this shell shock tommyrot. Have to put a stop to these doctors putting “shell shock” on the field medical cards.’

‘Excuse me, sir.’ Midge couldn’t help herself. ‘Why?’

The colonel stared at her, as though amazed that she could speak. For a moment she thought he was going to rebuke her. Then he patted her knee. His hand was white, apart from the dark hairs on the fingers. ‘Hard for little girls to understand these things! You see, my dear, shell shock counts as a war wound. Man can get a pension, don’t you know, for a war wound. But all these cases, why, it’s funk, that’s all.’

‘So, it’s just to save money?’ said Midge tentatively.

‘Not at all,’ said the colonel stiffly. ‘Blighters just too scared to do their duty. From now on medical officers are to write “Not yet diagnosed, nervous”.’

‘But…’ Midge remembered the screams on the platform; the shell-shock case who had tried to throw himself out of Kanga’s truck. Her hands clenched in anger, so hard the nails cut the skin. ‘Surely the men with shell shock really are sick. They can’t help themselves.’

‘Nonsense. Why should one blighter try to run away when his friends can take it? Bad for morale, all this nerve business. Can’t let men shirk their duty. Who knows what would happen.’ The colonel’s face grew redder. ‘You leave military matters to those who know, Miss Er…’

He made an obvious effort to change the subject. ‘You get any shooting last winter?’ he asked the captain.

For a moment Midge assumed he was talking about the war. But the captain shook his head. ‘Not much, sir. A few pigeons and a brace of rooks.’

‘Ha! Bagged three dozen pheasants in one morning last time I was down at Hillington.’

‘Oh, well done, sir,’ the captain replied.

The colonel looked complacent. ‘A fine bag. You shoot, Miss Er…?’

She tried to speak normally. ‘Miss Macpherson, sir. No, sir. Well, a little, sir. Mostly just potting rabbits, at home.’

‘And where is that?’

‘The South Island of New Zealand, sir.’

‘You’re a colonial! I’d never have known it.’

It was meant as a compliment. She said, ‘Thank you, sir.’ How was it possible, she thought, to despise a man so much? How many men like this were wandering through the war while the men she’d tended were dying?

The colonel smiled at her, as though his approval was a favour. ‘What brought you over here, my dear?’

Explanations lasted through two villages and past a broken-down truck, its wet soldier cargo smoking by the
side of the road. Midge expected the colonel to ask her to stop and help, but he didn’t.

Finally he looked at his watch.

‘Time for a little
déjeuner
, eh?’

‘Excellent idea, sir.’ That was the captain.

The colonel peered out of the window, through the rain. His moustache twitched in anticipation. ‘If I remember rightly there’s a hotel. Old Piggy Harbord and I dined here once, oh, a year ago. Jolly fine dinner they gave us too.
Quiche de Nancy, foie de mouton à la patraque
. Got a good memory for that sort of thing. You like French food, Miss Er…?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s the ticket. Jolly good. Ah, yes, there it is. Hôtel la Mère Brabant, the sign with the goose’s head. Better not park her in the street, Miss Er. Never know with these foreign blighters. Fingers all over the upholstery. Leave the car smelling of garlic, like as not. Ha, ha! Let us out here, then you can park it in the courtyard. That’s the ticket.’

The hotel was large, with a terrace along the front, too grand for red geraniums. Wet orange trees stood in barrels. Midge drew the car up by the dripping sign. This time she remembered to turn the engine off and get out first, to open the door for the colonel, and then the others in the back. They dashed for the doorway, out of the rain. Midge sighed, and slid in to start the controls before turning the crank again.

The courtyard at least was cobbled, with a minimum of mud and any horse droppings swept away. An elderly ostler opened the car door for her and promised what she hoped was an oath to guard the car from all garlic-smelling fingers. It was impossible to know which was the hotel’s back door, so she squelched round to the front again and up the stairs to the door.

A girl stared at her as she slipped inside. A wet-looking girl, with damp hair and a smudge of mud on one cheek. It was herself, she realised, reflected in the gold-framed mirror on the wall opposite. She leaned closer, brushed what moisture she could from her hair, and wiped off the smudge.

‘Er,
déjeuner
?’ she enquired at the desk.

A bark of French answered her and, more usefully, an elderly man with a white cloth over one arm ushered her tactfully down the corridor towards a smell of onions.

Her stomach rumbled. Breakfast, with its cup of coffee and sour bread, was a long time ago.

The room was large, made even larger by the mirrors on the walls. Gold-framed mirrors, gilt-edged columns, tables dressed in white and silver, the cutlery heavy and expensive. A smell of chicken and the tang of wine. Her stomach muttered in satisfaction.

The two men stood as she approached. It surprised her, after the way they had treated her as their servant in the car. But perhaps, she thought, etiquette in hotels was different.

‘That’s the ticket,’ said the colonel meaninglessly as she sat. His glass was already half empty. A waiter—also elderly, like so many of the civilians in France these days—glided over and filled the glass again.

It was strange to unroll a damask napkin again, to sip red wine from crystal. How could such luxury still exist? For men like the colonel, she supposed, glancing across at him.

‘Ah, let’s see.’ The colonel perused the menu. His moustache twitched again. ‘Mimosa soup. Sole
à la maison
, no, make it supreme of pike
à la Dijonnaise
. Sweetbreads
à la Napolitaine
. Leg of mutton
à la Muscovite
. Potatoes
mousseline
, green peas. Salad
Bagration
.’

The soup was rich, a taste of chicken with beans and chopped hard-boiled eggs. The pike was even richer, the fish itself almost unrecognisable in its creamy, winey sauce. She had thought the mutton might bring a scent of home. But it too had the tang of herbs and garlic, and its juices oozed pink, not grey. Only the peas were familiar. She would have liked a second helping—not from hunger, as already she felt slightly ill from the unaccustomed richness of the food, and her head spun from the wine. But simply because their greenness was the only sane and familiar thing in this meal.