The Storms of War (32 page)

‘Of course that is not true, sir. I am English by birth. I was born in London.’

He sighed. ‘Tell me again, Miss de Witt. What is your name?’

‘Emmeline.’

‘And your age?’

‘Twenty-one.’

‘I do not believe you.’ His words, harsh and sharp, dropped into the air.

‘I am telling the truth.’

‘You know, Miss de Witt, you are very plausible, but I do not think this is the case. We made a few rudimentary investigations, and concluded that you are not Miss Emmeline de Witt, but Miss Celia. This would make you too young to be on service, let alone here.’

She bowed her head. ‘That is not correct.’

‘Really, Miss de Witt. I am afraid the evidence bears against you. You have quite clearly lied. You understand that that is an offence? False impersonation. Did you know that?’

She had been right. It was worse than anything that had happened at Winterbourne.

‘I doubt the authorities would be sympathetic. You are young, Miss de Witt. Could you really face prison?’

‘I’m Emmeline.’

‘Oh, come now. We both know that is incorrect. I would only have to return and ask your father. Miss Witt, I will keep your secret. But in return for something we want. You will come and work for us.’

‘They need me at the ambulance station.’

‘And what about your father? He is incarcerated, is he not? As a suspicious individual. I am sure the authorities would do anything to collect evidence on him.’

I won’t listen to this!
she wanted to cry. Something was tugging at the back of her mind. ‘You can speak German. You can all speak German. You did not want me here for that.’
I think you have passed your test,
Schmidt had said. ‘You wanted to watch me!’ she realised, speaking it out loud in the same moment that she understood it.

‘See, Miss Witt, we knew you were intelligent.’

You have tricked me!
she wanted to say. ‘But he was the one who said I had to talk to him alone.’

‘We hoped he would. He’s rather suggestible, as you might have seen. Another officer – one of our cleverest men – had a
conversation before and planted the seed of thought in his mind. If he had not, I would have proposed it.’

Celia opened her mouth but could say nothing. Schmidt had been right: they weren’t in the Black Forest any more.

‘It is all for the good of the country,’ the general said. ‘As you understand.’ He held out the piece of paper. ‘Here! Sign this and you will not go to jail. Instead, you will come to help us. There is a lot of work you can do for us. Questioning, charming the prisoners, talking to them. And out in the field. The soldiers would think you a typical German girl. You might even get to travel there. What would you think of that?’

‘But … I wish to stay where I am.’

‘Look, Miss Witt, I am offering you the chance of glory, honour, and proper pay – as well as work that could stretch your intelligence. Work that might continue after the war. I thought that was what all you girls in trousers wanted: responsibility and a job. And you are saying no, you want to stay with your plump tin-pot tyrant over at Station Three, doing ridiculous tasks that anyone could carry out.’

‘I like it there.’

The general sighed. He took off his glasses and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. ‘I am baffled, Miss Witt, by you young women. What else could you possibly require?’

She looked at him. He didn’t seem as terrifying as he had before; instead, with his glasses off, he was more like an old man, weary, like … her father.

‘I would like my father back at home again, sir.’

He laughed. ‘Of course you would, Miss Witt. But such a thing is impossible. I have no power with government.’

She shrugged. ‘Well then. I don’t want anything else.’

He put his glasses down. ‘You seriously suggest I should obtain your father’s freedom? Miss Witt, he is an enemy alien, a suspected spy. Should we set them all free to go running around England, spying for the Kaiser?’

‘My father is not a spy. He’s no more an enemy alien than I am.’

The general raised his eyebrows. ‘Indeed.’

‘Well, that’s what I would like. Otherwise, I go back to the ambulances. Sir.’

‘Honestly, Miss Witt, I would say I am shocked by your insubordination. But this sort of independence of spirit is, to an extent, what we are looking for, so I suppose I cannot be surprised.’

‘Those are my terms, sir.’ Her mind was wavering. He was right: work, proper work, was what Jemima and the others were demanding. What she was being offered was men’s work, surely, like doctors or bus drivers.

‘They are impossible.’

‘In that case, I cannot help you. Would you let me depart?’

He sighed again. ‘All this debate has made me even more keen to employ you. We need negotiators who do not stir from their course. Let me look into the matter.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ She fought hard to keep the smile off her face.

‘I can make no guarantees. I shall look into it, that is all.’ He gazed at her. ‘Miss Witt, this is our bargain. If I free your father, then you come to work for me. Even if it takes some time, you will come. If you are no longer at Station Three, I will find you.’

She nodded. Rudolf smiled in her head, walking towards her at Stoneythorpe. She blocked out the other pictures: men she might have to ask questions of, bound to seats or beds. ‘Yes, sir.’

He picked up the paper and scribbled on it. ‘Right, the adjusted forms. It is just a matter of signing. Then matters can begin as we require.’

She looked down at it, miserably. Her heart was beating painfully. She picked up the pen and etched her name.
I am doing it for you, Papa,
she said to the picture of the river on the wall.

There was a knock at the door. The general ignored it. It came again. ‘Please, sir. It is urgent.’

The general sighed and rose. ‘What is it?’

A soldier poked a worried-looking face through. ‘Miss Witt’s commandant is making a fuss outside. She says she wants her girl back otherwise she is going to the top about it.’

The general took the paper back. ‘Thank you, Witt. Don’t forget our arrangement, will you?’

She shook her head. ‘No, sir.’

‘Take Miss Witt with you to the commandant, Wilkins.’

Celia stood up, not looking back at the picture. Wilkins ushered her in front of him and closed the door. They passed down corridors, around corners, then out of a door to where the commandant was waiting on the grass.

‘Come along, Miss Witt. What has been happening?’

‘The general talked a lot, Commandant.’

‘Let’s go now. I have half a mind to report him for wasting my time.’ She turned to Wilkins. ‘If I get back and the place has gone into mutiny, then I will hold you entirely responsible.’ She gestured towards the ambulance. ‘Go ahead and take the wheel, Miss Witt.’

Celia settled behind the wheel. ‘Commandant—’

Robinson held up her hand. ‘I do not want to hear it. Turn right here, that’s it. No more conversation, thank you.’

Celia drove, feeling the gearstick in her hand, allowing the road to take her forward, concentrating on the simple pleasure of driving, trying to halt the panicked tumble of thoughts in her mind.

On 10 May, the bomb siren went off. Warterton leapt up to look out of the window. ‘Hey, girls, I reckon I can see the planes.’ Celia plunged into her sleeping bag. She did not want to see the things. ‘They’re coming,’ Warterton was calling. She tore off a little more of the black paper over the window so she could peer out.

‘Don’t do that!’ called Shep. ‘They’ll see us. The Kaiser is sitting up there in that thing, having a good old look.’ She crouched by her sleeping bag. ‘Babb said to me he couldn’t understand why Fritz had been so quiet. Last year, apparently, he was going like the clappers as soon as it got a bit warmer. Too cold for him up there in winter.’

Celia had never imagined that bombs could fall so close and so loud.
Where are they?
she wanted to say, but was too afraid. She pushed herself further down into her sleeping bag, but still the bombs pounded through into her ears. The moments between were even worse, for she was so tense she was almost in pain, waiting for the next one. After they had stopped, she lay shaking for what seemed like half an hour until Warterton called, ‘All clear, girls!’

Celia looked up. Tears were running down her face. Shep came over and stroked her hair. ‘We will have to learn to sleep through it, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I thought boarding school was noisy.’

‘Mine too.’ Celia began rooting in her bag for a biscuit.

‘How will we cope when we have to drive in it?’

Celia looked at her. ‘Oh God. We will have to, won’t we?’ A tiny scrap of canvas between her head and a bomber.

‘I’ll say.’

‘Don’t worry, girls.’ Warterton plopped herself down on Shep’s pallet. ‘Pass me a biccy, old thing. Safer out than in. At least we
are moving about in our vehicles. Here we are sitting ducks under our big shiny roof.’

Warterton was right. At first, Celia found driving through bombs terrifying. Then she grew more used to it. Finally, she was ashamed to admit to herself, she became a sort of machine. She consoled herself that you couldn’t feel fear all the time. The round of driving all night, cleaning, and barely being able to sleep was so dulling that Celia sometimes felt as if she was a vehicle herself, driven by someone else. She wondered if there was anything she could not get used to, anything at all.

She wrote letters to Verena, Michael, Emmeline, Miss Webb and Tom, telling them that she was enjoying the work, not mentioning bombs. She heard back from Miss Webb most often. There was no word from Rudolf, and Verena’s only letter hadn’t mentioned him, had said not much at all other than that the factories weren’t making so much money these days. Mr Lewis expected things would soon improve. In the days after the afternoon with Tibor Schmidt and the general, Celia had thought constantly about her father. But after a month had elapsed, she found herself giving less thought to him. Living and working with the other girls, her time in the ambulance station seemed increasingly to be a strange dream. Her fear of the general and her euphoria at the thought of Rudolf being freed fading into something less highly coloured, a thin occasional misgiving.

One night in June, she had been desperate to talk to take her mind off the bombs she felt sure were due to fall soon – the sky had been too quiet beforehand. She asked the sitter next to her at the front about himself, and he spoke briefly about his home in the West Country, how he had fallen on his side into a trench, his fall broken by two fat rats who exploded under him. ‘Rat flesh all over me.’ He struck her as familiar, and finally, when they were nearing the turn for Hospital 5, she realised. ‘I know you. I recognise you.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Sorry, miss. Where would it be from?’

‘I met you in London, I am sure of it. Outside a recruiting station.’

‘In London? I’m from Sidmouth, miss. Don’t spend much time in London.’ Every time he spoke, she was convinced it was him.

‘It was earlier this year. Were you in London then?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe passing through. I don’t think so.’

‘I know it was you. A recruiting station in Bloomsbury. We talked of the nurses. And now here I am!’

He scratched his head. ‘I am sorry, miss. I don’t remember.’

‘But you must!’

He shook his head. She shifted into third gear. She had wondered, from time to time, about the man, imagined him. And now, when she really had encountered him, the meeting meant nothing to him. He sat staring, his eyes glazed; she knew that he was thinking about the trenches, death and pain.

At the hospital, she wished him goodbye quietly as he left. He did not look back. That night, she finally took Warterton up on her offer of a cigarette. The end in her mouth tasted like poison, made her cough. ‘Why on earth do you like these things?’ she said.

‘You will see!’ And she did. Within a few weeks, she was smoking with the rest of them, hands shaking.

In the summer, the girls started falling ill. Johnson was sent to the hospital with scarlet fever. Her mother had demanded her home as soon as she was ready to travel, but word was she was determined to stay. She returned to work, sick and pale, often fainted in her cab. Five other girls had the fever as well. Fitzhugh caught pneumonia and was sent home in early July. At her goodbye party, they drank lukewarm cocoa and ate the biscuits sent to Warterton by her mother. Fitzhugh promised to come back, ‘Just as soon as I have got myself shipshape.’

‘I doubt she will,’ said Warterton later that night while they were queuing for the WC. ‘Once the countess gets her hands on her darling daughter and hears what has been going on, we won’t see her for dust.’

‘No, Fitz will come back,’ said Shep. ‘She’s different.’

But now it was the end of July and another girl, Shaw, the
round-faced daughter of a Manchester mill owner, had taken Fitz’s place in the dorm.

There was still no word from Rudolf, and Celia told herself that it was hardly worth thinking about. The general was right: he simply could do nothing about it. Rudolf would remain in prison whatever she did. It was almost ridiculous of her to have imagined that she was worth enough to exchange for him, insignificant as she was.

You must be pleased over there that the weather has cheered up,
wrote Emmeline. Celia replied saying yes, of course. Not adding that the downside of early summer was that the air raids had become so much worse. A clear, sunny day always filled them with dread, for it made it much more likely that by nightfall the bombs would be falling.

The bugs and lice had got worse as well. Celia woke to find cockroaches crawling over her hands, if she fell asleep with them outside her sleeping bag. The few times she had lain awake, she heard the rats scraping at the walls. She was always itching, sure that the lice had got into her uniform. Worst of all, they were in her hair. Poor English had scratched so much that the side of her head was bleeding. Finally, after a night convoy when she was so infuriated by them that she could have screamed as loud as her soldier cargo, Celia had had enough. The next day, rather than go to lunch, she took Warterton’s scissors from her bag and used her fusty little mirror to pull straight her hair and cut it. She gave up trying to get it straight and snipped willy-nilly. She began to enjoy it, conjuring Verena’s voice in her mind:
I would be heartbroken if I lost my hair! Well, Mama,
she wanted to say,
I’m losing my hair and I am going to be happier!

Shep appeared at the door. ‘Witty! What are you doing?’

Celia looked at the hair all over her legs, her feet, on the floor. ‘I couldn’t stand it any more. I can’t keep it clean.’

Shep came over and touched her hand. ‘Poor Witty. But your hair was lovely.’

‘It wasn’t really. My mother’s lady’s maid said I would lose it by the time I was fifty.’

‘Cooper and Mill would scream.’ Cooper and Mill were new girls, out for a month and already the man-hunters of the station. Warterton had even seen Mill sneaking off to meet one of the orderlies after the end of duties. She said they would get them all into trouble. Celia knew she should disapprove too, but she watched them sometimes, creeping out, and wondered if it might make you happier to be like that.

‘They might like it. What do you say, Sheppie? I can do yours if you like?’ She held out the scissors and snapped them at her. ‘Come along!’

Shep screamed, laughing. ‘No!’

Celia advanced. ‘Come here! I will make you look splendid!’ Shep dodged out of her way. Celia snapped her scissors again and Shep reached down, caught up a biscuit and threw it straight at her. Celia ducked. ‘I surrender! Biscuit attack!’ She dropped her scissors and put out her hand to shake.

Shep grasped her in a rough hug. ‘Don’t cut it again, will you?’

‘You’ll never get a husband like that,’ said Warterton, sauntering into the room. ‘It’s far too short!’

‘I’m not looking for a husband.’ Tom came into her mind, and she put him away at the back. Shep released her from the hug. ‘Anyway, what husband wants a girl with fleas in her hair?’

‘You’ll never find a lover either, Shep. Not like Cooper.’

‘I don’t want to be like Cooper!’ Celia blushed. Shep and Warterton both disapproved of Cooper. Celia would never admit that she sometimes lay awake at night wondering what the other girl was doing, out around the back of the station.

Warterton sat on her bed, pulled out another packet of biscuits. Her mother had started to send them regularly, now, along with letters about how there was
nothing wrong with coming home, dear, you are always a heroine to me.
They all supposed that some of the other volunteers had started describing how things were, blood and death.

‘Cooper’ll have us all sent home sooner or later, the longer she carries on trying to take men into her ambulance.’

‘I would have been shocked by that sort of talk a year ago, Shep,’
said Warterton. ‘In fact I don’t think I would have understood.’ Celia still didn’t understand. Not what Cooper did in there – she had pieced that together, more or less, she thought, from what the other girls had said. What she wanted to ask Cooper was
Why are you happy?
She seemed to shrug off the war.

‘Hmm,’ said Shep. ‘What did the captain say to the virgin VAD?’ They shook their heads. ‘Court martial for not doing your bit for the war effort!’

‘Shep, you are
terrible.’
Warterton threw her pillow. Celia patted her hair, tried not to think about Cooper. It would grow back, she supposed.

Dear Sis,

How are you gals getting on out there? The chaps here are thrilled when I tell them that my little sister (twenty-one, of course!) is out there working. We know we romanticise you ambulance ladies. As I told you, Belton’s cousin’s friend said it was hard work and a lot of housekeeping too. I look forward to hearing all about it when the war is done.

Not much to report from out here. We are still keeping Fritz on his toes.

Another letter from Michael. He had written two, both sent to Emmeline to forward to Celia. She supposed he thought a letter to a girl out serving might be looked at more zealously by the commanding officers. But the letters didn’t seem much different to her whether they were sent to England or the ambulance station. He was always so jolly, said she must be having a splendid time too. The words sounded nothing like him, her nervous, shaky brother with his head in a book. It was another man, practical, cheerful, like Johnson before she fell ill. With his early letters, she had thought he was merely pretending; now, after seeing so many soldiers, she thought that he had actually come to be that man every day, simply because it was the way he had to be.

‘Another secret admirer?’ called Shepherd.

Celia shook her head. ‘My brother.’

She had been hoping to sit and read it in the back of the dorm hidden from everyone, even Shepherd. Letters were like chocolate or cakes from home, there to be shared out among all the girls. Those from men out fighting were highly prized.

‘Give it me!’ Shepherd cried, rushing forward, her hands out. ‘You know I’m in love with your brother.’

Celia held it away from her. ‘Stop that! I haven’t finished it yet.’

‘Oh, not fair! He is my future fiancé, remember? I come first.’ Shepherd always teased that she was going to marry Michael. ‘We’ll live happily ever after,’ she said. ‘Occasionally we’ll allow you to visit us in our castle.’

She lunged again for the paper and Celia batted her off. ‘I will show you
later.
Patience.’ Her friend shuffled off to the stove to boil up some water, and Celia settled back to the letter.

Michael was continuing being jolly.

We had a good little concert last night. We still have our chap who was an actor, pretty invaluable man to have. The other battalions want to take him, but our senior has said he is ours. Mind you, the other battalions don’t like us much anyway. We have got a reputation for giving Fritz a pounding, so the chaps who come after us think they are going to get a battering in return.

We are pretty busy here and things are getting busier.

‘That means they are gearing up for a push.’ Celia jumped. Shepherd was standing over her. ‘That’s all they can say, but it is what they mean. Busy! I know it’s true. I heard one of the MOs talking to the commandant about it. They have been told that the expectation is of low casualties, but to be prepared just in case.’

‘Shep, you shouldn’t listen in on conversations.’

‘It is important for us to know. And how else would we? From letters like this? Anyway, they like to put it around, if you ask me. Otherwise we would all be asking, two years at war, and what have we done? Moved forward a couple of inches.’

Celia nodded gloomily. Emmeline had sent her a leaflet that
was being handed out around London, full of pictures of shops empty of sweets and bread.
The war will go on for another ten years,
it read. That had made Celia cry when so much had not. She had sobbed on Shep’s shoulder. ‘Another ten years of this. We’ll be old by the time it is over and all our youth will be lost.’

‘What rot,’ Shep had said, tearing up the leaflet. ‘Your sister is a silly thing. My father says we’ll be home by Christmas.’