Daughters of War (3 page)

Leonora set down her fork. ‘That makes sense. But will the generals ever let you get near a battlefield?’

‘They won’t be able to stop us!’ Victoria declared.

She beckoned a waiter for the bill and when she had paid they made their way out to where the yellow motor car stood, still encircled by a group of curious small boys.

‘What kind of car is it?’ Leo asked.

‘A Sunbeam. I call him Sparky.’

‘I thought cars were feminine, like ships.’

‘Well, this one is definitely male.’

‘Is this the one you drove in the race?’

‘Goodness, no! This is a tourer, not a racing car. I drove Toodles, the Sunbeam racing model. Can I offer you a lift?’

Leo caught her breath. ‘Would you really? I’ve never been in a motor car.’

‘Good Lord! Why ever not?’

‘Grandma thinks they are a creation of the devil.’

‘Well, she’ll just have to get used to them. Jump in and I’ll take you for a spin.’

In a surprisingly short time they were out on the Great West Road and racing along at a speed that took Leonora’s breath away.

‘How fast are we going?’ she yelled, clinging to her hat.

‘Thirty-five miles an hour,’ Victoria shouted back. ‘And to think that not long ago some fool of a doctor said that the human body would not be able to withstand speeds above thirty!’

‘I thought the speed limit was twenty.’

Victoria flung back her head and laughed. ‘So it is, officially. But who cares?’

‘I’ve never travelled as fast as this! It’s thrilling!’

‘This is nothing,’ Victoria yelled. ‘I touched fifty-five on the track at Brooklands.’

After another mile or two she turned the car and they headed back into London. As they drove along Knightsbridge Leo plucked up courage to say, ‘Will you teach me to drive?’

Victoria looked at her and gave her the mischievous smile that she found so attractive. ‘On one condition. You must join the FANY.’

‘Me? Oh, I couldn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘My grandmother wouldn’t approve.’

‘Are you going to let her rule your life until you’re twenty-one? How old are you now?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘Two more years of being under her thumb – or a chance to strike out for yourself and do something exciting. It’s your choice.’

Leo drew a deep breath. ‘You’re right. How do I join?’

Two

Leo’s next encounter with her grandmother was stormy. When she told her that she intended to join the FANY and explained what the initials stood for the old lady sniffed dismissively. ‘Romantic nonsense!’

‘It’s not nonsense!’ Leo retorted sharply. Then she checked herself and took a deep breath. This was exactly the sort of behaviour that gave rise to her grandmother’s accusation of arrogance. ‘I’m sorry, Grandmama. I didn’t intend to be rude. But I think it is a wonderful idea.’

‘Young women setting themselves up as some kind of military organization? I can’t think what their parents are thinking of. No one with any breeding would countenance it for a moment.’

‘Actually, all the members are gentlewomen. That’s why it’s called a yeomanry. And some of them are married ladies, I believe. One or two of them have titles.’ Leo was struggling to restrain her temper.

‘And their husbands permit it! The world is going mad.’

‘Why should a woman need her husband’s permission to do anything?’ Leo demanded. ‘It’s so unfair! Anyway, I still think it’s a good idea and I’m going to join.’

‘You most certainly will not! I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.’

‘It’s not ridiculous, Grandmother,’ Leo protested. ‘It’s a very respectable organization run by women who only want to serve their country in the event of a war.’

‘The best way any woman can serve her country is by doing her duty, which is to stay at home and care for her family,’ Amelia snapped.

‘But she may not have a family,’ Leo objected. ‘And anyway, I don’t see that there is anything wrong with learning some first aid. It could be useful wherever she is.’

‘That is enough, Leonora,’ was the response. ‘I am not going to discuss the matter any further. You have heard my decision.’

Leo was about to declare that she intended to join, whatever her grandmother thought, but she checked the impulse. Instead she said, as calmly as she could, ‘Grandmama, I’m not a child any more. Don’t you think it’s time I was allowed to make some decisions for myself?’

Her grandmother rose to her feet. ‘When you are of age you will be able to ruin your reputation in whatever way you choose. I shall not be able to stop you. Until then, you will do as you are told or I shall pack you off to Cheshire tomorrow. You can stay there until you come to your senses.’

‘I won’t go. If you try to make me I shall go and stay with Victoria.’

‘Go to your room at once! If you continue to defy me I shall have you locked in.’

‘Then I shall open the window and shout for help. Think what a scandal that would make. It might even get into the newspapers.’

For a long moment they stared at each other in silence. Then Leo said, ‘I don’t want to upset you, Grandmother. But this is something I am really determined to do and I can’t see anything wrong with it. Please don’t let us quarrel.’

Amelia held her gaze for a few seconds longer, then she turned away. ‘So this is all the gratitude I get for the time and care I have lavished on you. Do as you please. If you want to ruin your reputation I can’t stop you. But I don’t imagine Tom Devenish will approve.’

Leo was tempted to say that she did not care whether Tom approved or not but she felt that she had won a victory and decided not to push it any further.

Five days later she presented herself at the offices of the FANY at 83 Lexham Gardens. She was interviewed by a young woman who introduced herself as Sergeant Major Ashley Smith, a tall Scot with a superb figure and a mass of curly brown hair.

‘What makes you want to join the FANY?’ she asked.

Leo, well briefed by Victoria, was prepared for that. ‘I think it is a way of showing that women can be more than just mothers and wives – and it shows that we are ready to serve our country if the need arises.’

‘Good.’ Ashley Smith nodded. ‘If you had said that you thought it would be fun, I should have turned you down. You must understand that if you join us you must be prepared for hard work and ready to accept discipline. Are you?’

‘Yes,’ Leo said, silently wondering what that would entail. She knew herself well enough to recognize that she was not good at taking orders.

‘Can you ride?’

‘Oh yes. I’ve ridden all my life.’

‘Do you have a horse of your own?’

‘Yes, but she’s up in Cheshire, at our country place.’

‘In that case you will have to hire a horse here and pay for its upkeep. You will also have to buy your uniform and first-aid kit. Are you in a position to do that?’

Leo thought a moment. Her father’s will had made provision for a generous allowance until such time as she inherited the money he had put in trust for her, but that was supposed to be spent on clothes and other necessaries. Well, new dresses would have to wait. ‘Yes,’ she said.

Ashley Smith seemed to find no further impediment to her joining and a few minutes later she paid her enrolment fee of ten shillings and signed the form that officially confirmed her membership.

From that day on Leo’s horizons, which had contracted so oppressively when she was sent back to England, began to expand again. She attended cavalry drills at the Hounslow barracks run by a sergeant major in the 19th Hussars, where her expertise on horseback quickly earned her the respect of her colleagues. On other days there were training sessions in first aid and stretcher drill, and signalling, both in Morse code and semaphore, and instruction from an army vet in how to care for horses. And fitted in between these were the promised driving lessons from Victoria. From being aimless and boring her life was suddenly full of purpose.

One afternoon, when she and other recruits were practising bandaging each other, someone mentioned Stobart’s lot. The tone was dismissive but Leo sensed a story.

‘Who were Stobart’s lot?’ she asked Victoria.

‘Not were, are,’ her friend corrected. ‘Mabel Stobart was a FANY but she decided a couple of years ago that we were never going to achieve anything practical and went off and founded her own outfit – the Women’s Sick and Wounded Convoy. She took a lot of FANY members with her, which is why there’s a certain amount of hostility from the old hands. They’re still going.’

‘Were you a member then?’

‘I’d just joined. If I hadn’t been so new I think I might have gone with Stobart. She’s an impressive character – very practical and down-to-earth. The sort of woman who gets things done.’

There was another, more pressing topic of conversation – the forthcoming camp. The corps was to spend a week under canvas outside the town of Bourne End on the River Thames. Her grandmother was horrified at the idea of women going under canvas ‘like common soldiers’ but her attitude to the FANY had mellowed somewhat on discovering that Leo had been telling the truth when she said that there were several titled ladies in their ranks. To Leo’s regret, it was her brother Ralph who remained firmly opposed to her involvement. It hurt her deeply to find that, far from supporting her in her bid for independence, he had joined the forces of convention. As children they had always been close but now she felt she hardly knew him.

Victoria had become a regular visitor to the house and it seemed natural that when Ralph was off duty he and Tom should make up a foursome with the two girls for tennis and cards. Unfortunately, it was apparent from the start that Ralph and Victoria had taken an instant dislike to one another. Things came to a head one evening at dinner when the subject of the forthcoming camp was raised. Ralph was at his most pompous, mocking the whole idea that women might have any part to play in a future conflict.

‘The battlefield is no place for a lady,’ he said. ‘You have no idea of the horrors you might encounter,’

‘Have you?’ Victoria asked bluntly.

Leo saw her brother flush. ‘It is something that every soldier is prepared to face, in the defence of his country,’ he said stiffly. ‘It is a matter of honour.’

‘And are women to have no honour?’ Victoria demanded.

‘Surely,’ Tom Devenish said, ‘a woman’s honour consists in supporting her husband and providing him with heirs to carry on the struggle.’

‘Well said, Tom!’ Ralph exclaimed.

Victoria turned to him with a look of contempt. ‘So that is all we are to you? Walking wombs. No more than hens or brood mares.’

It was Tom’s turn to blush. ‘Not at all. That is not what I intended to imply. I have the greatest respect for women, but the battlefield is not the right place for them.’

‘Not as fighters,’ Leo said, ‘but surely you can’t deny that there would be a use for us in caring for the wounded.’

Ralph laughed. ‘Would that be before or after you had recovered from your faint?’

‘And how would delicately brought up young ladies, like yourselves, have the strength to lift a man and carry him back to the clearing station?’ Tom asked.

‘It’s what we train for all the time,’ Leo said.

‘And it’s what we shall be practising when we go to camp,’ Victoria added.

Ralph sat back in his chair and gave a snort of laughter. ‘Women under canvas! You won’t last two days.’

‘Don’t be silly, Ralph,’ Leo retorted. ‘I’ve camped out in Egypt with father when we were at a dig.’

‘Yes, in a nice dry climate, with servants to fetch and carry for you. And men around to protect you. You wait till you try it on your own in a muddy English field. You’ll be back after the first night.’

‘No, we won’t! You wait and see.’

‘What do you think, Mr Devenish?’ Victoria asked, a challenge in her look.

Tom hesitated. ‘I think you’re being rather brave, actually.’

Ralph turned on him. ‘For heavens sake, Tom! Whose side are you on? I expected you to have more sense.’

It was the first time Leo could remember Tom failing to back up whatever her brother said and she was shocked by the violence of Ralph’s reaction. She saw Tom blanch and he turned his head away as if he had been struck.

Later, they left the two men to their brandy and cigars and retired to the drawing room. Leo’s grandmother had a headache and had had dinner sent up to her room, so she and Victoria were alone.

Victoria helped herself to a cigarette from the box on the table and remarked, ‘I suppose you realize that the only reason Tom Devenish wants to marry you is because he can’t marry your brother.’

Leo gasped. ‘That’s a terrible thing to say!’

‘I don’t see why. I’ve met a lot of men like that. You can’t blame them. We send them off to school at the age of twelve and shut them up together where they don’t see a woman for weeks on end. To them we’re a race apart. They don’t know how to deal with us. Is it surprising that they fall in love with each other?’

‘And you think that is what has happened to Ralph and Tom?’

‘I’d put money on it. They may not have done anything about it. They probably aren’t even fully aware of it. But that’s the way things are, take my word for it.’

The following evening Leonora was sitting alone in her room writing letters when Ralph came in. It seemed that he was in a more conciliatory mood. He sat down opposite her at her writing table and laid a hand on her wrist.

‘Leo, I want to talk to you, seriously.’

She put down her pen. ‘Yes?’

‘All this galloping about in uniform pretending to be nurses is great fun, I’m sure, but you really should be thinking about your future, you know.’

‘We are not “pretending”. We are absolutely serious. It’s time you men learned that women are good for more than just bringing children into the world.’