For many reasons, Pips was glad to be back; she was kept busy and she felt wanted and needed, though she missed Daisy painfully. But at least she was able to talk about her often, for William wanted to know all about his niece. Eagerly, she awaited any news from home and scanned hurriedly through the letters to reach the paragraphs about the baby. Luckily, each member of her family wrote regularly and they, too, never tired of giving her regular updates on her niece. Even Robert, finding a good reason to practise writing with his left hand, sent frequent letters full of news about her. With each letter, she could see an improvement in his handwriting and told him so.
And then, he sent a photograph. ‘Look, William, oh do look! Isn’t she just adorable?’
‘She is,’ William said, gazing at the photograph. ‘I wonder if I will ever see her.’
‘Of course you will,’ Pips said firmly. ‘When she’s old enough, I will bring her to see you and Brigitta.’ She chuckled. ‘To meet her uncle and aunty – and her cousins.’
For a moment, William looked startled and then he grinned. ‘I hope you will, Pips.’
‘Oh I will, make no mistake about that.’
‘D’you know what they’ve done now?’ Bess demanded.
Ma glanced up at her with a smile. ‘Who and what, Bess?’
‘The Government, I suppose. They’ve only gone and brought in rationing. What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?’
‘Oh aye, Norah did mention it, but I don’t expect it’ll affect us here in the country very much, will it?’
Bess folded her arms. ‘Why won’t it? They’re saying every man, woman and child is only going to be allowed so much to eat each week.’
‘Only certain items, I think.’
‘That’s as maybe, but it won’t keep a mouse alive.’
Ma tactfully averted her eyes from the large woman standing in front of her and hid her smile. Bess Cooper would hardly waste away.
Norah came into the kitchen carrying a large basket of washing she had just collected from the clothes line in the back garden.
‘I’ll do a bit of ironing later, duck,’ Ma said. ‘Just you fold it all and leave it on the table.’
‘You’ve heard about this rationing, Norah?’ Bess went on. ‘They reckon it’s going to apply to meat, butter and sugar.’
‘Yes, Bess, I have. We should be all right for meat and butter, living near farms, but sugar might be in short supply.’
‘What I don’t understand is why it’s necessary.’
‘The German submarines have sunk a lot of the ships bringing supplies to this country, but more importantly, Bess, have you heard that President Wilson has suggested a fourteen-point peace plan?’
Bess gaped at her. ‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’
‘The President of the United States.’
‘Oh.’ Bess wriggled her shoulders. Matters outside her own back yard didn’t really concern her – except, of course, the war, which was affecting everyone. Wasn’t it the fault of this war that she now had an illegitimate grandson? This war had a lot to answer for. ‘Let’s hope he can do summat, then. Whoever he is.’
Norah hid her smile and dared not meet Ma’s eyes for she knew they would both fall into fits of laughter.
In March, Robert wrote almost a full letter in code to Pips. It held worrying news.
The Peace Plan doesn’t seem to be having any effect. Like he suspected at New Year, Basil says it is thought that the enemy are planning a series of offensives. At present, because of armies released from the Eastern Front, they are superior in numbers to us and yet they know the Americans are to arrive shortly. Basil thinks that Ludendorff’s plan might be to attack at the weakest points, probably along a fifty-mile front. He believes that the French will defend Paris to the last man, whilst the British will defend the ports because of the supplies and troops coming through them.
So goodness knows where Stephen will decide you should be . . .
‘So, are we staying here or going further south to Thiepval?’ Pips asked Stephen when she’d told him the news.
‘I think you could take a skeleton first-aid post there first. You can get in touch with the casualty-clearing stations at Albert. It’s only about five miles from Thiepval, whereas we’re about twenty from there. I’m reluctant to move us all – we have three units now to think of moving – at least until we see how long it’s going to last.’
‘It could be a while,’ Pips said. ‘Like Robert says, the Germans have got more troops to reinforce the Western Front now that Russia has withdrawn from the war.’
The events in Russia throughout 1917 had appalled everyone and had robbed the Allies of a strong partner.
‘Then we’ll just keep moving wherever we’re needed the most,’ Stephen said. ‘Let’s just hope the Americans aren’t too long in getting here.’
It was a bad time for the Allies. General Erich Ludendorff planned a major offensive known as the Kaiser’s Battle along a fifty-mile front from Arras southwards to St Quentin, just as the major had predicted. The bombardment of high-explosive and gas shells began on 21 March and lasted for five hours. That was followed by storm troopers and the enemy made significant advances, and all Pips and her colleagues could do was move to relative safety and attend to the wounded as they always had done. But Pips could tell from the mood of the casualties that the men were losing heart, and this concerned her more than anything. The Allied armies were stretched so thinly. Two days later, the Germans began a bombardment of Paris and they started to march towards Amiens.
At the end of March, Pips wrote to Robert.
The Germans launched an attack on Arras so that our advanced post went scuttling back. The offensive failed, but the casualties were high. We’ve been run off our feet . . . And now they’re bombarding Paris again.
His reply to her at the beginning of April told her:
The British Third Army have halted the Germans north of the Somme with the help of air support. The Royal Air Force has come into being. I wonder where your pilot, Mitch, is now. He left here a while ago . . .
Ludendorff had abandoned the German offensives along the River Somme and, by 12 April, concentrated his attacks on the area around the River Lys, one of their objectives being Hazebrouck, to the south-west of Ypres, in an effort to command the Channel ports. Sir Douglas Haig, the British commander-in-chief, issued a ‘fight on to the end’ statement.
‘It’s serious when the top brass start issuing orders like that,’ Pips muttered.
‘You know the Brits.’ William was determinedly optimistic. ‘It’ll toughen their resolve. You mark my words.’
‘Poor Ypres. I think there’s always going to be fighting there,’ Pips said. ‘Right, that settles it. I must talk to Stephen. I think we need to go back to Ypres.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘Back home.’ And silently, she thought, I wonder if George will be there again.
The British, aided by French troops, halted the Germans along the River Lys, though there followed attacks and counter-attacks until, by the end of the month, it was accepted that the German attempt to reach the ports had failed.
‘He’s not done yet,’ Pips remarked wisely. ‘He’ll just move his offensive elsewhere.’
It came soon enough near the River Aisne, and brought the enemy ever nearer to Paris. Through June and July there were more attacks but, forewarned by German deserters, the Allied defences were prepared.
Ludendorff’s fifth offensive of the year was a diversionary tactic near the River Marne to draw the Allies away from northern France so that he could still seize the Channel ports. But, through aerial reconnaissance and the questioning of enemy deserters, the French began an attack and Ludendorff was halted. British, French and now US forces combined to launch an attack in what became known as the Second Battle of the Marne River. By early August, the battle proved to be a disaster for the Germans when they were forced to abandon Soissons and fall back, losing recently captured land. But worse was to come for them when Field Marshall Haig launched the Amiens Offensive, led by General Sir Henry Rawlinson’s British Fourth Army, the first day of which became known as ‘Black Day for the German Army’. The Germans were forced back over ten miles and many of their soldiers were captured or fled from the fighting.
By the beginning of September, the German Army began falling back to the Hindenburg Line.
A letter from Robert in the middle of the month heartened Pips:
Old Basil is convinced this is the beginning of the end. He has heard – though how and from whom your guess is as good as mine – that even Ludendorff no longer believes that Germany can win the war. With the combined attack by the Americans and the French on the area to the south of Verdun, which has been held by the Germans almost from the beginning, the enemy’s resistance is futile.
Various offensives were taking place along the Western Front, but the one that affected Pips and the teams was the one at the end of September by the Group of Armies of Flanders who drove the Germans from the high ground near Ypres. The push by all the Allied armies continued and by the beginning of November, the German resistance had collapsed.
‘What an irony it is,’ Pips said to William. ‘They’re saying that the last shot fired in the war was in almost the same place as the first shot that was fired four years ago. What a tragic waste of young lives, and for what?’
The team packed up all their equipment and medical supplies, making sure that there was no one else needing their immediate attention.
‘The RAMC will have to cope now,’ Dr Hazelwood said when he came out to say a final farewell. ‘We’ve all done our bit. And now I’m going to take the whole team into Poperinghe for a farewell meal.’
The members from the original team sat together.
‘It’s so nice to see you, Mrs Parrott,’ Pips greeted her. ‘We didn’t see much of you through the war, but I don’t know how we’d have managed without you.’
‘Marigold, please. Well, I just hope we can meet up in England some time in happier circumstances.’
‘I’d like that,’ Pips said.
‘I’ll take you for a ride on my bus,’ Hugh said. ‘Show you the sights.’
‘That’s if you get your bus back – and your job,’ Peter reminded him.
‘Boss said before we left that our jobs’d be there for us. Mind you, me ol’ bus might not be, specially if the old girl’s been out here.’
Pips smiled across the table at the two cockney brothers. She’d grown very fond of them both. Their unfailing cheerfulness had kept the corps going in the darkest of times. But tonight, they all tried to reminisce about the good times they’d had, for, strangely, there had been some even amidst the horror. More than anything it had been the comradeship that had carried them through. At the end of the evening, there were hugs and kisses and a few tears.
‘Leonore,’ Pips murmured. ‘I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done. You’ve held us together many a time.’
‘And you – and Alice – were a revelation to me. I never thought you’d stick it.’ She laughed. ‘Is that the right English word?’
Pips laughed through tears that threatened to fall. ‘Perfect and, yes, I’m sure we did surprise you.’
Pips found the hardest goodbye was to William.
‘I’m not even going to suggest you coming back to England because I can see how happy you both are,’ she said to William and Brigitta as they stood with their arms around one another. ‘But if you need any references or anything when you apply to stay here – I’m not quite sure what you’re going to have to do – be sure to let me know.’
‘We will, Pips. And thank you for everything. Give my love to Alice, won’t you?’ William hesitated and then added haltingly, ‘and – if you get the chance – to Mam and Ma.’
Pips squeezed his hand. ‘I will, William. I promise. And don’t forget to send me an invitation to the wedding.’
Brigitta blushed. ‘Of course not.’
‘Dahlings, you weren’t going off to your new home without saying goodbye to me, were you?’ Milly flung her arms wide and embraced an embarrassed William and a smiling Brigitta together. Then she turned to Pips. ‘And as for you, Miss Maitland, I want a solemn promise that you will come and stay with me in London. Daddy said he’d buy me a flat in town if I came home in one piece, so I’m determined to make him keep his promise. I’ll show you all the sights and take you dancing. Do say you will? I’ve got your address, so I’ll write to you. And if you don’t come, I’ll turn up on the doorstep and drag you back with me.’
Pips laughed. ‘Milly, I couldn’t think of anything nicer to do after all we’ve been through. A little frivolity will do us the world of good.’
Apart from William, Brigitta and Leonore, they all said their final goodbyes when they reached England, all promising to keep in touch; and then, at last, Pips was on her way home – this time for good.