Somewhere in France: A Novel of the Great War (9 page)

Chapter 15

Devonshire House

Piccadilly

London W1

Monday, 26 March

Dear Miss Ashford,

Further to your interview with Dr. Chalmers-Watson, I am pleased to offer you a position with the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. You have been assigned the grade of Worker and will be attached to the motor transport division in France after you complete your training at our facility in Shorncliffe, Kent. Your pay will be 35 s. a week, including accommodation, with a weekly charge of 12/6 deducted for food.

Before you commence your service with the WAAC, you must pass a medical examination. I have scheduled your examination for Thursday, 29 March, at 2:00
P.M.
It will take place at our offices in Devonshire House; please ask the official on duty at the front desk for directions.

You are requested to report for duty on Monday, 2 April, at WAAC headquarters, the Connaught Club, near Marble Arch. From there you will be provided with transportation to Kent.

Enclosed is a list of required clothing and personal items, as well as details of the uniform provided by the corps.

Kindly respond by return post to advise me if you intend to accept this position with the WAAC.

Yours faithfully,

Miss Annabelle Hopkinson

Assistant Administrator

Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps

T
HE GRAND ENTRANCE
hall of the Connaught Club, stripped of its finery for the duration, was a hive of activity, with queues of young women, some in uniform, some in civilian clothing, crisscrossing the chamber. Lilly had just stepped forward, looking for someone whom she could approach for advice, when she felt a brisk tap on her shoulder. Turning, she felt a twinge of anxiety as she took in the severely tailored uniform and no-nonsense coiffure of the woman who now faced her.

“I believe you are one of the new girls. May I help you?” The woman’s voice was friendly, however, and she had a reassuring smile.

“Yes, please. Yes, ma’am, I mean. I was told to report here for duty today, but I’m afraid I don’t know where to go next.”

“That’s simple enough, my dear. See the queue at the far right-hand side of the hall? That’s where you belong.”

Lilly thanked the woman, silently praying that everyone she encountered that morning would be as helpful, and joined the end of the queue. The other women were happily chatting with one another, sharing names and hometowns, and after a minute or so one of them grinned and held out her hand for Lilly to shake.

“Hello there. My name is Constance Evans.”

“Oh, yes, hello. My name is Lilly. Elizabeth, really, but everyone calls me Lilly. Lilly Ashford.”

Constance didn’t seem to notice Lilly’s nervousness. “Where are you from?”

“Cumbria, near Penrith.”

“You don’t sound like a northerner,” Constance observed.

“I suppose I don’t, do I? I’ve been in London for a while now, working at the LGOC.” Better to gloss over the truth of her upbringing, at least for now. “Where are you from?”

“Peterborough. My father works in the head office of London Brick. I worked there, too, after I left school. As a typist. But I was never very good at it, so I’ve asked them to let me join the motor corps.”

“That’s where I’m assigned, too. When did you learn to drive?”

“Ages ago. My father taught me. We’d motor out into the countryside, switch seats, and I’d drive us back. At first I kept veering into the hedgerows, but I got better in time.”

By the time the queue reached the back office, Lilly had learned a great deal more about Constance. She was twenty-one, an only child, a Methodist and teetotaler, an enthusiastic walker, a cat lover, and a passionate devotee of Gilbert and Sullivan. It was impossible not to like Constance, with her round, freckled face, bright ginger hair, and warm but direct manner.

Of her own background Lilly said as little as possible, just as she’d done with her fellow clippies in London. She did intend to tell the truth to her friends, one day, but it could wait. For now, she simply wanted to fit in, share the same experiences, share the same stories. And the only way she could do so was as plain Lilly Ashford.

Lilly also met some of the other women in the queue, most of them destined for jobs in the catering and clerical corps. They’d come from every corner of Britain, looking for work and adventure. They talked of the homes they’d left behind and their families. They talked of the work they had done since leaving school: long days in biscuit factories, weaving sheds, offices, potteries, and the parlors and kitchens of grand homes. Most movingly, they shared the names of their beaux and husbands, gone for many months, some gone forever.

At last they reached the front of the queue and it was Lilly’s turn. A WAAC official took her name, disappeared into the back of the office, and emerged with a fat file. She then gave Lilly a sheaf of vouchers, as well as a timetable that told her where she ought to be, and when, for the remainder of the week.

Her next stop was at the quartermaster’s office. Some of the other women complained loudly as they received their uniforms, but Lilly rather liked hers. The wool khaki coat had enormous pockets and smelled strongly of damp sheep, but it fit well, as did its matching skirt. She was also given a gabardine blouse and matching tie, and a small, tight-fitting khaki cap, which apparently was standard issue for drivers. The official on duty gave her a further voucher that entitled her to goggles and a thick sheepskin coat, explaining they would be issued once she was posted to France.

After dinner in the mess hall, Lilly and the other new recruits, about sixty altogether, piled into buses for the journey to Charing Cross Station and from there were ushered onto a train for Kent. Although they’d be spending their days at the training facility at Shorncliffe Camp, they would be lodged in rooms at several hotels in Folkestone.

Her quarters in the Burlington Hotel came as a shock to Lilly, though she tried hard to conceal her surprise. Her roommates were happy enough, however, and seemed not to care that the room was furnished only with six metal beds, six thin mattress rolls, and one lone electric sconce on the wall by the door. Her mattress, unrolled, had more lumps than actual mattress, but it looked clean. Disappointingly, Constance was not one of Lilly’s roommates, although her room was on the same floor of the hotel.

The next morning began with roll call at Shorncliffe Camp, then the women were divided into their respective trades for training. Lilly and her fellows from the motor transport division were taken out to a large, open field, which had a track of sorts, gravel in some places, tarmac in others, laid out rather haphazardly around its perimeter. After queuing up, each woman, one after the other, had to take the wheel of the one vehicle available for training, an elderly Daimler that was wonderfully easy to drive.

The remainder of the day was taken up with drill, which Lilly quickly learned to dread, lectures, dinner, more driver training, more drill, and an early supper at camp. After their return to the hotel, roll call was completed and the women were given two hours before lights-out.

The next day was the same, and the next and the next. The only variation to this routine came on Sunday, their day off, when the WAACs were shepherded to church in the morning and then had the afternoon to themselves.

Late one evening, a fortnight after they’d all arrived in Folkestone, Lilly’s roommates initiated a whispered discussion on the subject of beaux. Ada was the first to submit to the interrogation, which was led by Annie and Bridget, tough-as-nails millworkers from Birmingham. She happily answered a series of questions that rapidly escalated from the mundane to the intimate: “What’s his name? Where’d you meet him? Has he kissed you? Have you let him take any liberties?”

Ada confessed that she loved a man called William, that they had been walking out together for two years, including the year he had been in France, and that, yes, they had kissed a number of times, and once she had let him reach under her skirts and touch her leg
above the knee,
but that had been all.

And then it had been Lilly’s turn.

“Eh, there,” Annie hissed at her. “We know you’re not sleeping, so it’s no use pretending. Come on now, tell us everything.”

“There isn’t much to say, I’m afraid.”

“Listen to you, all prim and proper. As if you’ve never had a man of your own. A pretty girl like you.”

“I . . . I’d rather not say.”

Derisive snorts punctuated the close air of the hotel room. “Be like that, then. We was only trying to be friendly, like.”

“I’m sorry,” Lilly whispered, but they had moved on to Minnie, who seemed more than happy to regale her new friends with stories of her amorous adventures.

The following night, as soon as the light had been switched off, it began again. Lilly was pointedly excluded from the discussion, which now revolved around Annie and Bridget and their beaux. In fond and, to Lilly’s ears, unimaginably salacious detail, they described their escapades with Jim and Gordon. Although nearly two years had passed since the men’s departure for France, Annie’s and Bridget’s recollections made it clear that time had not dulled the flame of their collective ardor.

By the time the conversation petered out, well into the wee hours, Lilly had received a thorough education in the finer details of lovemaking, for Annie and Bridget had been most forthcoming in describing everything, simply
everything,
to the other girls in the room. She had learned of the many positions in which a man and woman might perform the deed, just how much men liked it when a woman “did for them,” and the drama associated with Annie’s once having been “late.”

Lilly’s mother certainly would never have enlightened her or her sisters in such a fashion, or indeed in any fashion. Thinking back, Lilly tried to remember what she had once imagined married people—or, for that matter, defiantly
un
married people—did in the privacy of their bedchamber. She’d often heard her sisters allude to something exceedingly disagreeable and undignified, something to which, as wives, they were bound to dutifully submit, but she had never dared ask them for a fuller explanation.

Well, now she knew, and she probably had a better idea of what lovemaking entailed than had either of her sisters on their wedding nights. Most surprising of all was Annie’s assertion, contrary to everything her sisters had intimated, that lovemaking was a pleasant activity and something a woman might ardently anticipate.

Lilly’s mind flew, unbidden, to those precious moments with Robbie at Victoria Station. He was stooping to kiss her, his hands encircling her face so gently. She was leaning into his embrace, standing on her tiptoes, and her trembling hands were clutching at the lapels of his coat. They stood so close that she could feel his warmth, smell the lingering scent of the soap he had used that morning, even feel the rush of his breath against her face.

Merely thinking of his kiss was enough to make Lilly feel feverish, yet also chilled to the marrow. Thank goodness she was hidden from prying eyes, swathed as she was in blankets and the blessed cocoon of night. Could
this
be desire, this unearthly sense of yearning, of emptiness, of longing for the touch of another?

And could it be that Robbie felt it, too, lying alone in his cot, kept awake by a mysterious hunger? It seemed improbable. To begin with, he hadn’t meant to properly kiss her. She was the one who had, by accident, turned her head and caught his lips with her own. Yet he hadn’t broken off the kiss straightaway, as he ought to have done. Instead he had deepened it, held her closer, and had ended it rather reluctantly.

She would give almost anything to know what he had thought of their kiss, of her, at that moment. But he’d betrayed nothing of his deeper feelings in his subsequent letters, telling only of his long days in surgery, his pride in her accomplishments, and his hope that they might see each other before too long.

He missed her; he hadn’t said so outright, of course, but she felt certain of it. And that would have to sustain her until they met again.

Chapter 16

T
rue to her name, Constance proved herself a loyal friend over the first weeks of their acquaintance, always saving a seat for Lilly at mealtimes and lectures, and making a point of including her on group outings on their Sunday afternoon half holidays.

Walking along the Leas cliff-top promenade, with its striking views across the Channel, was Constance’s favorite outing, and nearly every week she persuaded her roommates, as well as Lilly, to join her.

When they’d first ventured out today, just after dinner, the weather had been blustery and chill, and the other girls had protested; but before long the clouds parted, the wind died to a breeze, and the sun emerged for the first time in days. Walking east along the promenade, they discovered a zigzagging footpath down to the beachfront far below.

The beach was deserted, apart from clusters of wheeling gulls. Abandoned by the others, who had walked ahead to the pier, Lilly and Constance soon fell into a comfortable silence, each woman lost in her own thoughts.

For her part, Lilly was preoccupied by the view across the Channel. From where they stood, France was only twenty, perhaps twenty-five miles away. Near enough, in clearer weather, to make out the blur of the coast, but not today.

Constance was the first to break the silence. “Promise me that you won’t be offended, Lilly, but I’m concerned about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t look so alarmed! It’s just that our conversations are always so one-sided. Me prattling on about my mum and dad, or some lark I got up to when I was at home, but I never hear you talk about your people. And I would love to know about them, truly I would. Is anything wrong? Anything that you’d like to talk about?”

Looking at Constance, her brow knitted in an anxious furrow, Lilly felt a surge of affection for her friend. Stumbling over her words, she answered as honestly as she dared. “Thank you, Constance. You’re so kind to think of me. I’m quite all right. And I’m sorry I haven’t said much about my family. It’s just that . . . well, there isn’t much to tell. I’m not very close to my parents, and my life, before I came here, was very dull. So there’s not a lot to say.” There, then. A few truths hidden amid the prevarications.

“So who is writing you all those letters? Oh, Lilly, come on. You should see your face when the post is handed out. It’s all you can do not to tear open the envelopes straightaway.”

“They’re from my brother Edward. He’s been in France for more than two years. And from Charlotte, a friend. I knew her at, ah, at school.”

“Where is she now?”

“She’s a nurse in London. Isn’t one of your friends working for the VAD now?”

Constance rolled her eyes and laughed. “Good try, Lilly, but I’m not going to let you change the subject, not just yet. Are the letters only from your brother and Charlotte?”

Lilly made no reply, and somehow this only encouraged her friend. Constance reached out, took one of her hands, and squeezed it reassuringly. “Go on. You can tell me.”

“My brother has a friend. His best friend, for many years. And also, I suppose, my friend. I’m very fond of him . . . in a sisterly way, of course.”

“Of course.” Constance couldn’t keep the glee out of her voice.

“But my parents dislike him, and I’ve, well, I’ve grown used to not talking about him.”

“Surely you can tell
me
about him,” Constance pressed on. “What’s his name?”

“Robert. Robert Fraser. But I call him Robbie.”

“You said he’s a friend of your brother’s. Were they school friends?”

“Yes, they went to university together.”

“
University
. My goodness. What does he do now? Or I suppose I should ask what he did before the war.”

“He’s with the RAMC, in France. He works at a field hospital as a surgeon.”

“Even more impressive. Is your brother a doctor, too?”

This was a trickier question to answer. “No, just an infantry officer. He’s with the Border Regiment, near Ypres.”

That seemed to satisfy Constance, at least for the moment. “See how easy that was? All you need is a little more practice.”

“I’ll do my best from now on. I promise.”

“And will you let me know if the chaffing from Annie and Bridget gets any worse?”

“It isn’t that bad, honestly—”

“It sounds pretty bad to me. Ada let slip about their goings-on after lights-out. They should be ashamed of themselves. As if
that’s
something to be proud of. You mustn’t mind them, Lilly, really you shouldn’t. They’re just jealous.”

“Of me? No, I don’t think so.”

“Of course they are. They’d kill to have your fine manners. You’re a lady down to your toes. That’s why they try to shock you with their off-color talk.”

“I don’t blame them. I ought to have been friendlier, back when we first arrived here.”

“Then be friendly now. Offer to share something from home with them. Anyone can see they haven’t tuppence to rub together. Now,” Constance continued, her voice brightening, “what time does that fancy wristwatch of yours say it is?”

“Half-past four.”

“Time to head back. Let’s try and catch up with the others. Hallooo, there!” she shouted ahead to the rest of the group, then surprised Lilly by breaking into a run. It was so unexpected that Lilly could only stand and stare, then, clutching her hat, madly chase Constance along the shifting sands of the beach.

A
FTER A SOLID
month of practice on the Daimler, Lilly and her fellow driver trainees arrived at the garage one morning to find Miss Davies, the unit administrator who was supervising their training, waiting with an unfamiliar instructor.

“Good morning, ladies. You have all made such splendid progress that I feel it is time you switched over to larger motor vehicles. Corporal Pike is our resident expert on the Crossley 20/25 lorry and has been seconded from his work with the ASC in order to teach you.”

“Humph,” said Corporal Pike.

“Now, has anyone here any experience with the Crossley? Anyone? Never mind; that’s what you are all here for. Over to you, Corporal Pike.”

Lilly’s hope that Corporal Pike might be impressed by their collective mastery of the Crossley died as soon as the first WAAC climbed into the driving seat of the lorry.

“Stop right there!” the corporal bellowed. “There’s your first mistake. Do any of you lot know what your friend here failed to do? What’s your name?”

“Blythe, sir. Ellen Blythe.”

“Don’t call me sir; I’m not an officer. Corporal will do.”

“Yes, si—I mean, yes, Corporal.”

“Rule number one, Miss Blythe. Always check under the bonnet. The last driver before you might have topped up the fluids, or they might not. So get on down, miss, and make sure the petrol, oil, and water are as they should be. Go on, now, and tell me what you see.”

“The radiator is full, Corporal.”

“And what about the gearbox? Is there enough oil?”

“Um . . . yes, there is, Corporal.”

“And what about the chassis? The clutch bridle? The brake-rod joints? Have they been greased?”

And on it went. By the time she finally clambered behind the steering wheel again, Ellen Blythe had been reduced to a red-faced, quivering wreck. Corporal Pike cranked the engine for her, muttering all the while about “useless females,” and Ellen handily got the Crossley moving across the tarmacked courtyard. He seemed to be directing her toward an open area, presumably meant for parking in off-hours, when the vehicle shuddered to a sudden halt and the corporal could be heard shouting again. When the lorry returned to the group several minutes later, Miss Blythe had been relegated to the passenger seat.

“Look, you lot,” the corporal began, evidently at breaking point, or possibly past it, “I don’t have all day to waste. One of you must be able to handle a lorry—isn’t that why you’re here? To help us out? Otherwise you’re only making more work for me and my mates!”

Lilly knew it was now or never. If no one volunteered, they all risked being reassigned to canteen duty or worse. She stepped forward, feeling her cheeks flush as everyone’s attention fell on her. “Excuse me, Corporal. I am familiar with Thornycroft lorries, which I believe are similar to the Crossley. May I try?”

“Be my guest, miss,” the corporal replied wearily. “Don’t bother with checking her over; we’ve already done that. Let’s skip to the part where you drive her.”

“Yes, Corporal.” Lilly hoisted herself into the driver’s seat and felt for the foot pedals; the clutch was awfully far away, and she found she had to perch on the very edge of the seat in order to reach it. Her heart racing, she put the lorry in gear and slowly drove off.

Corporal Pike directed her to drive around the perimeter of the parking area, which she did, eventually reaching fourth gear. They were almost at the end of the pavement, so she began to switch down, carefully depressing the clutch to put the lorry in neutral, revving the engine a bit to better align the gears, then engaging the clutch a second time as she shifted into the lower gear.

The corporal let out a low whistle. “Well, I never. Thank God one of you knows what to do. Pull to a stop, now, and put her in reverse. Good job. Right, then. Time to take her back.”

Lilly drew the lorry to a halt a few yards from the group of WAACs and swung her legs out to descend from the driver’s seat. “Oh, no, you don’t,” ordered the corporal.

“Ladies,” he continued, turning his attention to the other women, “your friend here is going to be your new instructor. I’ll give you the rest of the day, and if you haven’t figured out what you’re doing by then, you’ve got no place in this war. Good luck to all of you.” And then, under his breath, “You’re going to need it.”

Miss Davies made a few feeble sounds of protest, but to no avail; Corporal Pike had already marched away. “Goodness, gracious . . . I don’t know what to say. I suppose we’ll have to make do. Miss Ashford, how do you suggest we proceed?”

“It depends on what the others prefer, ma’am. Perhaps we should start with the preparatory steps?”

“Please do,” Constance broke in. “I wasn’t able to see what Corporal Pike was doing before.” The other women also chimed in their assent, even Annie and Bridget, and at a nod from Miss Davies, Lilly switched off the engine and walked round to the front of the lorry.

“I might as well start at the very beginning. As the corporal said, it’s important to check everything is topped up and well greased before you set off. Let’s start with the gearbox. You’ll need to fill it up to the center of the bottom shaft so that all of the bottom wheels are covered. Once it’s filled, the oil should last for four hundred miles, but check it every time, just in case.”

Step-by-step, Lilly ran through the checklist that John Pringle had insisted she learn by heart, making sure that all the other WAACs understood and were capable of following before she moved on to the next step. With maintenance of the vehicle mastered, Lilly decided to move to the driver’s seat, where she mimed and described starting a cold engine, moving out of first gear, braking without skidding, and of course the all-important step of double-clutching when changing down gears.

They broke for dinner at half-past twelve, and as they walked back to the canteen Lilly felt a ridiculous sense of pleasure to hear the other girls thank and compliment her, one after the other. Even Annie and Bridget offered shy smiles, which Lilly returned wholeheartedly.

The afternoon’s lessons were equally satisfying, with each woman taking a turn to drive the modest circuit. By the time they finished, early that evening, Lilly’s arms and shoulders were numb from having cranked the lorry’s engine so many times, and her throat was raw from shouting out instructions above its rumble and hum, but she felt strangely content.

It was a wonderful feeling, Lilly decided. Wholly unfamiliar, and simply wonderful. She’d done a really hard day’s work, had helped her fellow WAACs, and was now so tired that she was about to do the unthinkable: she would go to bed, for the second day in a row, without writing a letter.

Today, Lilly had planned on writing to Robbie, and part of her yearned to put down on paper everything that had happened to her. But not tonight. Robbie’s letter would keep for tomorrow; and if not tomorrow, then the day after. For Robbie, of all people, would surely understand.