Amy (7 page)

After an hour they stopped in a quiet country road that was lined and hidden by trees. ‘They’ll need some water,’ Amy said. ‘It’s warm. They must be thirsty.’

She got out and opened the ambulance door. The foul smell swept out again. She turned her head away and took a few deep breaths of clean air. She had a sudden memory of a day when she was a little girl at home. Somehow a piece of raw meat had fallen behind a cupboard in the pantry. By the time they tracked it down it was crawling with maggots and the smell of rotting flesh had pervaded most of the house. This smell was the same. Rotting flesh.

She closed her mouth firmly and climbed inside. She gave out water, helping the men to drink. She came at last to the lieutenant. She
realized
that she had left him to the last, almost deliberately. She didn’t want any more time-wasting arguments about who came first. He was conscious now, lying rigidly still, staring at the ambulance roof. As she
came to him with the water he turned his cold, clear eyes towards her.

‘You disobeyed me,’ he said. ‘You deliberately disobeyed my order.’

In spite of what had happened to him, Amy was suddenly annoyed. She was tired and dirty, and wouldn’t feel that the men were safe until they were back in Paris. They were never absolutely sure that they were in friendly territory. Was that all that he could say? You disobeyed my order.

‘I’m not one of your soldiers, Lieutenant,’ she said sharply.

He hesitated; looked puzzled. ‘What are you then? What is that uniform?’

‘I’m a nursing orderly. With the Women’s Surgical Group.’

‘Never heard of it.’

Amy held out the mug. ‘Drink the water. We must be getting on.’

He drank and lay back again, staring at the roof again. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To Paris, to our hospital. The Group hospital.’

‘I don’t need women,’ he said, ‘I need a surgeon. We all need a surgeon.’

Amy forced down her annoyance. ‘We have surgeons,’ she said. ‘Excellent surgeons.’

His eyes shot round to her again. ‘Women surgeons?’

‘Yes,’ Amy said firmly, and with pride. ‘Women surgeons.’

‘Oh my God,’ he said, and closed his eyes.

Amy got out of the ambulance and closed the door. She climbed in beside Bill and they set off again.

‘It makes me so mad,’ she said.

‘What?’ Bill glanced at her briefly.

‘The way everyone reacts to women doctors.’

‘What?’ he said again.

‘They all seem to think that women aren’t capable of doing anything apart from staying at home and doing the cooking and running a house. We can’t even vote. Any drunken half-witted man can vote, but not a woman. Oh no.’

‘They’ll change their minds when we get there,’ he said, ‘when they see it’s a bit of all right.’

‘It’s not the men,’ she said. ‘It’s that lieutenant. You’d think he would be grateful.’

‘Officers!’ Bill said.

They drove on in silence. Amy gazed out of the window, not seeing the countryside going by. Why, she thought? Why is it like this? Why can’t we vote? Why can’t women be doctors, or anything they pleased? Even many women were against it. The row of men at the General Medical Council was seldom far from her mind. Perhaps this war would change their minds, the starch-collared, starched-brained
establishment
.

They drove over a bump in the road and she heard a muffled cry from the ambulance behind her.

‘How long now, Bill?’

‘We’re getting on,’ he said. ‘There’s that dead horse.’

T
HEY
arrived in Paris and drove down the broad street to the
hospital
. The late afternoon sun lit up the trees that lined the pavements and glittered, orange and red, in the windows as they passed. Amy was weary to her bones. Her uniform was stained and soiled, blood and earth clinging to her skirt and jacket. The men behind her were
moaning
now, the effects of the morphine wearing off.

‘We’re there, Bill,’ she said. ‘We can get them inside, thank God. They’ve had enough.’ She could not allow herself to think of the men they had left behind.

‘Usual reception committee,’ Bill said.

Every time they came home, they were there – a group of Parisians, a dozen or so, waiting by the hotel door. The individuals were not always the same, but the group seemed to have an individuality of its own. There were elderly men in black frock coats and top hats; their best clothes. There were women, dressed in black up to the neck, some of them with widow’s veils. Their stricken faces seemed to Amy to be disembodied, pale, haunted ovals floating in a sea of black. The scene had etched itself into her mind like an Impressionist painting, but devoid of beauty or colour. As the ambulance approached, the faces would turn towards them, and the old men, in a gesture that brought a lump to her throat, took off their hats.

‘It’s a shame, isn’t it?’ Bill said. ‘They can’t really do anything.’

‘I know.’ Amy said, ‘but it shows they care.’

‘Oh they care all right.’ Bill slowed down. The moans from behind
them increased.

‘They just want to be part of it,’ Amy said. ‘They just want to feel they are helping.’ They are helping, she thought. They help the men and they help me. Sometimes, like today, she felt utterly drained, unable to feel anything, a fatigue of the spirit. These people helped to bring her back, to restore her spirit with a gentle word or touch.

There was usually someone in the crowd who spoke English, usually a man. She knew now what he would say, ‘What can we do? Is there any news,
mam’selle
? What is happening?’ She wished she knew. She wished she had something to tell them, something of hope. They filled her with sadness. They should have their families around them, their grandchildren on their knees; not like this, desperate for any news, frightened and alone. They should be able to see life renewing and growing. Instead it was bleeding away, their sons and all the
children
they would never have, dying on some battlefield.

Bill drew up outside the hotel and they got out. They opened the ambulance doors and helped out those who could walk. The hotel doors flew open and the orderlies and porters came out with stretchers and wheelchairs. The men came out of the ambulance, blinking in the light, many of them crying with relief.

The people crowded round them. As ever, an elderly man turned to her, his old hands shaking, his eyes rheumy and glistening. ‘What can we do,
mam’selle
? Can we carry in their bags, their weapons? Can we help them?’

‘Thank you,’ she said gently, ‘But I don’t think they have anything.’ Most of the men had lost all their kit and had nothing but the filthy clothes they lay in.

Then came the women, weeping and touching, stroking a forehead, taking a hand, ‘
Oh, les pauvres, les pauvres garçons.
’ They showered the soldiers with gifts, cigarettes, sweets and flowers. It seemed that these women could do so little, but Amy knew what this meant to the men, to come back from that hell to a kindly face and a motherly touch. Many of them were just boys, crying for their mothers.

Sometimes a woman would hold up a photograph, ‘Have you seen my son?’ Once, on a day that Amy would never forget, one of the women in the crowd had actually found her own son being carried out of the ambulance. He was wounded and sick, but he was alive. She had screamed with joy and covered him, and then Amy, with kisses – her
cheeks and her hands. Amy, and most of the other women in the crowd, cried too and Amy found that she couldn’t stop. The tears had gone on and on until she could lie down on her bed and fall into an exhausted sleep.

Once again, the last out of the ambulance was the lieutenant. As his stretcher was lowered from the ambulance she could see that the lines of pain had come back to his face. He closed his eyes and groaned through his teeth as they moved him. Amy stood beside the stretcher looking down at him, and suddenly he opened his eyes. For a moment he seemed confused, his eyes empty and expressionless, and then he smiled at her.

The smile took her by surprise. If he said anything she expected more annoyed remarks about her disobeying his orders. She
understood
his annoyance, it came from concern for his men, but she didn’t think that she could take any more today, no more pain or annoyance or anger. So the smile took her by surprise and she smiled back.

He said nothing, but his smile changed his face completely. Despite his pain the hardness and strength faded away, and he looked young again. His blond hair stuck to his brow and the long fair lashes drooped over his cheeks. He opened his mouth as if to speak to her, but he was carried away inside.

She turned and watched him go. She had the strangest feeling, as if he had communicated something to her, something of importance. Ridiculous, she thought, and yet she felt a new feeling, of something like pleasure and hope. His smile seemed to have the future in it, a future where beauty had returned, and joy and laughter.

‘That’s everybody, Miss Amy,’ Bill said beside her.

‘Thank you, Bill.’ She closed the ambulance doors and Bill drove away.

The old man came to her again. ‘Is there any news,
mam’selle
? What is happening?’ There was nothing that she could tell him.

She stood for a moment in the cooling day. The birds were beginning to gather in the trees and the soft rustlings and twitterings soothed her. Nature went on, the trees still grew and blossomed, the birds still
gathered
for the night. She wondered if the lieutenant had felt anything when he smiled at her. Could such a feeling be one-sided? She didn’t know. Nothing was normal any more.

She followed the men inside, trying to tuck her hair back into the
straggling bun. She almost bumped into the RAMC officer who was standing just inside the door. He took off his cap when he saw her and smiled down at her.

‘Do you remember me?’ he said. ‘Captain Fielding? I was hoping to see you before I left.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I remember.’ She was acutely conscious of her dishevelled clothes, the stains and the smell. He looked so clean and well ordered, his Sam Brown polished, and his buttons gleaming.

‘You look as if you’ve been busy,’ he said.

Busy? The remark was about to annoy her until she saw the look in his eye, of understanding, of pain.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’re always busy. It never stops.’

‘I know.’ He smiled, a grim, tired smile. His face changed. It seemed to slip, the smile twisting away, his eyes set deeper, hooded and guarded.

He does know, she thought. He’s been there.

He looked at her in disturbed silence, his face working as if he were struggling to find his words. His distress was palpable. She knew that he, like her, was battling with images too terrible to forget. She wanted to touch him, to bring him back.

‘The men all seem to have been looked after,’ she said quickly. The new arrivals had already gone into the wards to be washed, de-loused, assessed. One of the group’s surgeons and two nurses hurried across the hall to the operating theatre and the lights were turned on. For a moment she looked at the lights, trying not to feel anything, no anger, no bitterness.

‘I shall have to leave very shortly,’ he said.

She turned back to him and nodded, with some relief. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘You must be very tired,’ he said, ‘But I wonder if I could talk to you for a moment? Perhaps we could sit over there.’

‘Captain Fielding,’ she said, ‘I really am very tired, and very dirty, as you see.’

‘I would be most grateful,’ he said. ‘I have to write a report for the army on what your group is doing. They have directed me to do that. I might not have another chance. I really should have left an hour ago.’

‘I see,’ she said. ‘Very well then.’ She led the way across the hall and they sat down on one of the sofas.

‘A report?’ she said. ‘Are you telling me the army is having second thoughts?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Oh fine. Now that they see how good the women are they will generously agree to accept their help.’

‘Miss Osborne,’ he said, ‘I would like to say that I think the army was wrong. I have never been against women doctors.’

She looked into his face and could see only honesty. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It isn’t your fault, but it makes me so angry. Women are treated as if we don’t really exist. We can’t vote. The doctors can’t officially even treat our own wounded.’

‘I think it’s all wrong,’ he said. ‘My mother went to Oxford. She has a much better mind than mine but some of the top local tradesmen can vote and she can’t.’

Amy laughed and relaxed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

Across the hall came the sounds of voices, the rattle of instruments being put into the sterilizer, the operating theatre being prepared.

‘I spent most of the day in theatre with Miss Hanfield,’ he said. ‘She seems enormously competent – much more experienced than I am.’

He sounded perfectly sincere. How old was he? Thirty, perhaps? And he could do what he had been trained to do, while she….

Her feelings must have shown in her face. ‘Have I upset you?’ he asked. ‘Have I said something to annoy you?’

She shook her head. ‘No, of course not. I just get angry sometimes. The women doctors here are just as competent as any man. It’s just the same for them.’

He said nothing for a moment, looking down at his hands, his fingers clenched. That isn’t quite right, she thought. It isn’t the same. If she decided that she couldn’t take any more she could go home and no one would ever blame her. If any man ran away they would be caught, and probably shot. This wasn’t the time for recriminations. There were worse things going on in this terrifying world than her own problems, or even of the problems of women in general. The thought made her even more determined to stay, to see it through. After the war, that would be the time to fight. She had no weapons now. The British Army wouldn’t accept women surgeons. They certainly wouldn’t accept one who had been branded as she had been.

‘Perhaps it isn’t the time,’ she said, ‘for political ructions.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But it is the time to use competent doctors. The army is beginning to run short here, let alone what’s going on at home. The hospitals in England are bursting at the seams. They’re trying to recruit more doctors but it’s getting difficult already, and heaven knows how long this is going to go on.’

‘So – maybe they’ll change their minds?’

He nodded. ‘I hope so.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ She began to get up. ‘If you’ll excuse me….’

He looked up at her, contrite. ‘Please don’t go.’

She looked down at him, her surprise clear on her face. The tips of his ears turned pink. ‘I would be most grateful,’ he said, ‘if you would just tell me what you do when you go out with the ambulance. Where do you go?’

She sat down again. ‘As I told you,’ she said, ‘we go wherever the men are. Sometimes they come into Paris on the trains and we go to the station. Sometimes they come from the clearing hospitals, in army ambulances, or buses, or taxis, or whatever kind of vehicle they can requisition. But sometimes they are just lost, lost in the chaos. The army orderlies bring them back somehow, away from the trenches and we pick them up wherever we can. They manage to get word to us about where they are.’

His face was grave. ‘Are you ever under fire?’

She shook her head. ‘Not so far, but I expect it will happen sooner or later.’

Three men came out of the wards, wearing the blue uniform of the wounded. They sat down on the other side of the hall and got out their cigarettes. One of them had a bandage over his eyes and one of the others lit a cigarette and put it into his hand. They were quiet, subdued, not talking.

‘Have you done anything like this before?’ he said. ‘Nursing, or anything?’

She hesitated considering her words. ‘I have never been a nurse.’ He seemed to be expecting more. ‘I wanted to do something and this group seemed perfect. Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson has formed one too.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I believe someone is going to see her too.’

Her head began to droop. ‘Captain Fielding,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, but I really am very tired and I’d sell my soul for a cup of tea.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m a brute. Please forgive me.’

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I hope it helps us.’

He stood up, and she stood up beside him.

‘I wonder,’ he said.

She looked up at him. The tips of his ears were really pink now.

‘I shall be back in Paris sometime,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you might dine with me one evening? They’ve allowed music in the restaurants since we beat the Germans back at the Marne. We might even be able to dance.’

She was almost shocked. It hardly seemed the time to be dining and dancing, and she didn’t know him. It was also not the time to gain any kind of reputation. Her surprise and hesitation must have been very obvious to him. She could feel the colour rising in her face and she
stiffened
slightly, drawing a little away from him.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I would not ask you alone; I would hope that you would bring a friend, and I can find another officer to join us. And I would, of course, ask permission from your matron.’

Amy still hesitated. She was sure that Helen would come. Helen was always ready for a lark, and within the bounds of a certain
respectability
she was quite prepared to break the social rules. She wasn’t sure, though. It was so easy to give the wrong impression. There were some English girls in Paris, happily not in this group, who had very dubious reputations indeed.