As the two ambulances drew away from the now empty barn, the shelling started. It had taken them all day and the night too, for as soon as they thought they had loaded the last of the wounded, another seventeen, who had just been retrieved from the area between the trenches under cover of darkness, were brought into the barn. And then, with the first light of dawn, the bombardment had started. Now, almost dropping with fatigue, dishevelled and hungry, the team headed back to the hospital with shells exploding all around them.
‘Want me to drive, Miss Pips?’ William asked.
Pips shook her head. ‘You’re exhausted, but you’ve done a grand job today, William.’
‘You must be tired an’ all.’
‘A bit,’ was all Pips would admit. ‘Robert says we must get some sleep whenever and wherever we can. And eat, William. You must eat and drink whenever you can too.’
‘I will, but first I need to mend my jacket. One poor feller clutched at it and tore my sleeve.’
In their spare moments, the stretcher bearers sat together and swapped stories whilst they mended their uniforms. Talking about their experiences together helped to deal with the horrors they were now witnessing.
The hospital was overwhelmed with the new arrivals and there was no rest for anyone yet. After a quick wash and something to eat, Pips and Alice went into the wards to help. Robert and Giles had remained on duty too through the night, helping their colleagues wherever they could. Their eyes were dark with exhaustion, but whilst there were still wounded to attend to, they kept on working. The two nurses, Sister Leonore and Brigitta, were still at their sides.
When at last they were able to leave their patients they fell into bed without even talking to one another, so great was their weariness, but later that morning, over a hurried meal before they set out again, Pips wanted to know how those they had already brought back had fared.
‘The young boy with the bad thigh wound? How is he?’
‘There were several of them, Pips,’ Robert said. ‘Which one do you mean?’
‘He was a very young boy – probably not even old enough to be fighting, but his wound was swollen and turning grey.’
‘Ah yes, I know the one you mean. It was gas gangrene.’
‘Gas? You mean – the enemy are using gas?’
Robert shook his head. ‘No, nothing to do with that. It’s that the wound creates a kind of gas within it and bubbles. You can actually hear it crackling. We think it’s caused by infection from lying on the open ground or in muddy shell holes for hours before being rescued. There’s still so much we don’t know yet.’ He looked straight into her eyes. ‘There’s little we can do once they’ve got it and I’m sorry to tell you, Pips, that the boy died early this morning.’
Pips brushed away the tears that sprang to her eyes. She must not cry, she told herself fiercely. She would have to face this sort of thing every day from now on. ‘Would – would it have helped if we could have got to him sooner?’
‘I expect so, yes.’ Trying to divert her away from thoughts of the boy, Robert said, ‘And talking of using gas as a weapon, it’s not widely known but the French used tear gas grenades against the Germans in August. I think we can expect retaliation from them and I fully expect they will come up with something even more deadly.’
Pips was silent for a few moments before saying softly, ‘This isn’t going to be over by Christmas, is it?’
Grimly, Robert shook his head. ‘No, Pips, it isn’t.’