In the gray queue of ambulances, I slumped against the painted red cross, smoking the latest in a series of gaspers. In the distance, the guns boomed their incessant thunder, yellow bursts flashing ominously along the darkening horizon. This French countryside should have been quaintly bucolic with green grass and woolly sheep instead of ripped asunder, the long rows of trenches and barbed wire plowed remorselessly into the earth. Around the cigarette, my chapped fingers shook.
“Ta ra, Knox.” It was my rangy Australian bunkmate, calling from the depot door. “Long run?”
I coughed, watching the cigarette smoke snake upward like a ghost in the mist. “Heaps of casualties plus two cases of spotted fever—and that blasted marker for Hospital Number Eight’s turnoff has gone missing again.”
“Dinky die. Almost slid into a ditch with my lot. Sodding mud. If I was a rum driver like—”
Involuntarily, our eyes traveled to the sagging ambulance at the end of the queue—all ugly twisted metal and smashed windscreen. Aussie’s habitual scowl softened.
“Don’t tear yourself up, Knox. She’s gone, and good luck to her.” She jerked a grubby thumb at a handsome staff car and the two tall, uniformed Tommies polishing its bonnet. “And now the Pommie brass are nosin’ around with their fool questions. Bugger it. Little Turnip’s a better sight off.” She scraped her boots on the step. “We saved you some cocoa and stale biscuits. A sweet offer and no mistake. Come out of this damp.’’
“In a moment.’’
“Some happy new year, eh. Nineteen bloody sixteen.” She glared toward the thumping distance. “Bloody guns.” With a snort, she dove inside, the warped door as usual failing to completely close.
I should heed her advice, choke down lukewarm cocoa and hard biscuits, talk to the other girls, snatch at sleep on the narrow camp bed in the guise of a normal human being. It was difficult to be normal after the daily scrubbing out of my bus with its blood and vomit from soldiers mangled by shrapnel; hard to blot out the sobs of pain, the stench of gangrene and decay. The fortunate ones died before the hospital door, escaping the ordeal of amputation or the hemorrhaging of lungs from gas or the prospect of an alien and uncomprehending home front.
Others died instantly, shot through the head by a sniper...
I inhaled the blessed, steadying smoke deeply. Such was the work expected of middle- and upper-class women, bred for perfect marriages, idyllic motherhood, and the laundering of the battlefield.
Through the cracked door, the murmur of voices rose and fell.
“Was her ambulance in good order?” An older male voice, gruff and official.
“Certainly. Part of our duties, maintenance. Most likely she skidded in the snow. The ice can be fearful,” said Finn, one of the other drivers.
“Could have been a tire,” suggested another girl, Blake. “We puncture all the time. Did anyone look at the tires?”
“Of course, you twit,” snapped Finn. “The left front is as flat as a board. But she smashed into the tree—it could have punctured before, during, after—it’s anyone’s guess.”
“Perhaps,” answered the gruff voice. “Or someone tampered with her brakes.”
“Rubbish,” returned our firm commandant. “Forgive me, General Ravenswood, but you wouldn’t say such things if you were stationed here. This place is like Paddington Station. Who would have the opportunity?”
One of us, I thought. That’s what was in the general’s mind. One of us could mess about with Turnip’s ambulance without challenge, and spout something about assisting an exhausted friend. My resentment rose. In the grayest dawn and the blackest night, we drivers depended upon each other—was that trust to be destroyed by misdirected military inquiry?
“Another driver, Commandant,” replied Finn, expressing my thoughts.
Aussie said a rude word.
“I have to agree with the sentiment of our Colonial cousin, if not her language,” said the commandant. “My girls work hard, General, and don’t merit idle accusations.”
“No one is accusing anyone.”
“Too right,” said Aussie with scorn. “No sense to it. Can’t see us fighting over Turnip’s sparklers, or swish kit, or battalion of beaus—if they existed. The poor blighters are bleeding too much to paw us about.”
“Not all of the men in France are wounded.”
“We drive during the day,” said Blake, “and are called out at night for the convoys. When we’re not driving, we’re usually asleep. Alone,” she added with a gulp and probably a blush.
“The rules are quite clear about fraternization,” noted the commandant, and I wondered if Blake was now the shade of a ripe tomato.
The general tried another tack. “May I ask where you all were when the incident occurred?”
“Oh, I see.” Finn again, patrician and cool. “Gather the suspects into one room and someone will break down and confess?”
“I have to ask the question, Miss Finlay.”
“If you must,” said Finn. “Very well—we were on duty. At the time Turnip had gone west, I was driving a boy with pneumonia, two poilus with reeking cases of trench foot, and a Scottish sergeant with a terrific chest wound to Number Eleven. I’m sure they can vouch for me—if they were conscious, that is.”
“I was transporting a doctor and a nurse,” said Aussie. “From hospital to casualty clearing station and every aid station in between. Of course, I could have gone walkabout between appointments, but the Doc would hardly wear it.”
Blake was reported at No. 24—although longer than she should have been—and the other girls were either at the railway station or en route to one of the other hospitals.
“And I was at the railway station as well. I hope those answers are sufficient, General?” said the commandant, satisfaction plain.
“For the moment, ma’am.”
Another man—smooth, officious, somehow familiar— spoke up. “Was Miss Turnball troubled? Overwrought?”
“She wasn’t unbalanced, if that’s what you mean.” Finn again, sounding more and more exasperated. “A little shallow, perhaps, a little silly, but not a lunatic.”
“She did get all up in the air over that Times clipping,” offered Blake.
“And came down again,” Finn countered.
“Too right. You don’t kill yourself over a society do,” said Aussie. “So one of her mates got spliced to some posh fellow and is swanning about among the quality. A dead bore, if you ask me. Not worth a sausage.”
“You never liked her,” shot back Blake as if stung. “Said you’d wring her blood—blooming—neck.”
“Because she nearly ran me and my lot off the road. Bloody stupid thing to do.” I could practically see Aussie’s shrug. “But it don’t mean I was plotting to do her a bit of no good. Savin’ that for the Huns and their ruddy guns.”
“I think I feel sorry for the enemy,” remarked the general.
“Ta, mate,” said the gratified Aussie.
“Turnip could be thoughtless, but she was as sane as any of us,” asserted Finn. “Unless you believe, Captain, we all are on the verge of running off the rails?”
“It’s a dangerous and difficult job—” started the captain.
“Perhaps we should be stowed away in a little ivory box in a high cupboard somewhere.”
“Here, here,” chimed in the irrepressible Aussie. “You tell ’im, Finn.”
“We’re not angels of mercy or delicate bits of porcelain. We have a job. Captain, the same as you. And we do it.” Finn took a deep, aggravated breath. “Look, Turnip did not crash her bus due to a fit of the dismals. If she had cracked, she would have chosen something more dramatic.”
“Such as—?”
“Wandering into the path of a convenient shell. Lord knows there are enough of them.”
Finn was right. Although dying behind the wheel would possess a certain glamour to the parents back home, it would be insufficient for Turnip. Turnball, I reminded myself. Her real name. In our world, nearly every new arrival was rechristened with a shorter—and not necessarily flattering—form. We tended to forget the human being behind the amputated form...
I closed my eyes. She had only been nineteen, and had lied about her age to the Red Cross to join up. “So handsome. So charming,” she had sighed about the officer she was secretly seeing under the nose of our hawk-like commandant. Fresh from glittering balls and tennis parties and sophisticated nightclubs, she believed life could once again be gay. Only two years her senior, I knew otherwise.
“She was tired, poor cow,” remarked Aussie. “Like all of us. And everyone knew she was a crook driver. She missed the turnoff and hit the tree. Dead easy. It’s absurd that so many lives hang on a bit of ribbon.”
“Ribbon?”
“Marks the turnoff. It’s gone missing. Probably stuck in the mud like everything else.”
“You said she nearly ran you off the road. How bad a driver was she?” asked the general.
“Don’t you know? Christ.” Aussie was contemptuous. “You should leave the chateau every so often.”
The commandant rapped out a reproof—the man was a general, after all, and Aussie’s behavior was unlikely to reap praise for either herself or the commandant.
“Let her continue,” commanded General Ravenswood.
There was a distinctive snort—Aussie, uncowed. “Turnip cracked her bus up a fortnight ago and sent five of our boys to the graveyard before their time.”
“Accident?”
So she had said. “It was an accident, Knox.”
I held out a cup of Bovril, and she shook her head, lips compressing, almost turning green. “My tummy’s giving me the gyp.”
A common occurrence among us, given our strange hours and even stranger meals. I ignored it, occupied with the more vital issue. “I don’t understand. There was a full moon. The road was clear. I checked that ambulance myself, just as you asked. What happened?”
“It’s not my fault.” Her tone was petulant. “The road is pocked with shell holes.”
“If you wore your glasses—”
“I don’t need them, silly. They’re just for reading.” She shrugged, leaning closer to her mirror. “Anyway, it’s perfectly all right. I told the commandant a shell hit near me and knocked my bus off the road.” She giggled, fluffing out her curls. “She swallowed it, the stupid sow.”
I felt sick, as if I had the gypy tummy.
“They were bashed up pretty badly. They would have bought it in hospital, I’m sure.”
My lips felt numb. “What about that man who did survive? He had two legs before the accident.”
“Well, naturally I’m very sorry for him and all that, but I can’t concentrate with all that beastly screaming and moaning. Honestly, how am I supposed to drive in the pitch black with all that racket?”
“Shock is hardly their fault, Turnip.”
“They ought to have more self-control. They’re trained soldiers, aren’t they?”
“Training means little if you’ve just seen your mate blown to bits.” A thought struck me. “How fast were you traveling?”
Her eyes skittered from mine and she did not reply, absorbed in her reflection.
“Turnip. How fast?”
“I don’t recall.”
I turned on my heel, marched by the chattering mess room, and headed for the wrecked Vulcan that had been dragged back to camp. On a hunch, I felt under the driver’s seat and produced a bottle. A slightly cracked, very empty bottle.
“Just to ward off the damp,” said she, flushed, at my elbow.
“You were drunk.”
“For heaven’s sake, it’s only red wine. The Frogs practically are weaned on the stuff.”
“They don’t drink and smash up their wounded.” I jerked back, slamming the door.
“Are you going to the commandant?”
“I won’t, if you move to day duty.”
“Can’t be done,” she said airily. “Franklin’s been shipped home and Hills is in hospital with a septic thumb. We’re short-handed.”
“Then you come out with me on your time off. We’ll drive the routes together.”
“I’d like to see myself,” she sniffed. “I have better things to do in my precious few hours off.”
“Then I’ll accompany you when I’m off.”
“Oh, really. I’m not taking on a minder, for heaven’s sake. Too, too humiliating.”
“Turnip...don’t you realize what you’ve done?”
“How you do rattle on, Knox.” She cocked her dusky head. “I believe you’re jealous.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“It isn’t. I see it all. I have a chap and you don’t.”
“A married chap.”
“You would say that. You want to spoil my romance because you don’t have one. Well, I won’t let you. He loves me, and I love him.” Her voice dropped to a purr. “And we don’t just have tea and sandwiches, don’t you know.”
“Go on and sleep with the entire Royal Flying Corps if you care to,” I retorted. “What I care about are soldiers with mothers, sisters, and sweethearts who won’t be going home to them.”
She pouted. “You used to be such fun; now it’s Granny Sobersides day in, day out.”
“This isn’t a game, Turnip. I will tell the commandant.”
“Go ahead. Tattle your head off. See what good it does you.” She plunged a hand into her kit bag, withdrawing a brightly colored scarf. “Do you think this suits me? I thought so in Camiers, but now I’m not so certain. It might do for Mother; she’s been agitating for a souvenir to show her club.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Then spare me the sermon, Padre Knox, do.” She clasped my arm, wheedling. “You’re ever so much nicer than that. You’re like a sister.”
I exhaled. “What do you want?”
“I need your help again...”
“Accident?” Aussie was saying. “Sure, you could call it that if an accident can be caused by her own vanity. She was shortsighted and wouldn’t wear her glasses. Just a matter of time before she killed herself, I reckon. At least she took no poor sod with her this time.”
“Sir—” The commandant cleared her throat, sounding less assured than when I had confronted her. “Nothing to be done, Miss Knox,” she had said. “We are short staffed and new drivers won’t be arriving from England any time soon.”
“You could borrow some drivers from Calais. Move her to a desk job—hospital—canteen—anything but behind the wheel.”
“Calais is handling heavier casualties than we are. And her aunt is a prominent patroness of the Red Cross. Funds could be cut; questions would be asked—”
“God forbid,” I snarled.
“You don’t understand the situation. At home there is a vocal segment who question the wisdom and capability of female ambulance drivers. What do you suppose would happen if word got out about the wounded dying at the hands of Miss Turnball?”
I was very still. “Are you saying the Red Cross would shut us down?”
“Precisely.”
“But you said yourself that we’re overworked and there are no replacements. What are the wounded going to do—hail a cab?”
The commandant turned over her palms eloquently.
“We’ve done good work—Aussie was even decorated.”
“No one said life was fair, Miss Knox.”
Brilliant choice, I reflected. Expose Turnip, and we all were on the block. Keep mum, and the wounded were at risk. “No. I suppose not.”
“Influence is the ranking officer here, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, you’re quite right, Commandant. Influence is the key.”
“I’m as aware of Miss Turnball’s connections as you are,” said the general, all steel, echoing my thoughts. “But I should have been informed. Two accidents are significant. It would tend to confirm what Miss Finlay has denied—someone who was looking for a way to die.”
“Look here, mate,” interjected the unabashed Aussie, “If you really want to know about Turnip, you should talk to the driver outside. Turnip confided in her. Best in the unit. And before you ask the question. General, she was at Number Eight when Turnip bashed herself into potato and mash.”
The voices murmured on. An officer emerged, straightening his service cap—a captain with a clipped mustache, clean chin, and shiny Sam Browne belt—the immaculate signs of a man well removed from the front line.
I stiffened, dropping the smoldering stub of cigarette behind my back. Smoking on duty was not the done thing, especially by a woman. He paused, staring at me.
“Why, Miss Knox. This is an unexpected pleasure.” The plummy male voice—no wonder it had sounded familiar. My mind raced as he strolled over.
“Captain Blight—Brightman.” I bit back the near slip of “Blighty” and ground the forbidden cigarette under my boot heel.
“I remember that Eton Garden Party. Can it be—five years ago? There were roses on your hat.” He smirked. “I pinched one of them for my buttonhole, do you know. And you wore a particularly fetching yellow silk frock.”
With my hair now hacked off to discourage nesting fleas and the stained khaki uniform hanging from my ill-nourished frame, I was a faint shadow of that fashionable and complacent figure. Still, his eyes wandered over the curves of my bosom and my tightly belted waist as they had not dared to linger at the garden party with my vigilant brother in attendance. “And here you are doing your bit. Splendid. Much more useful than Somerville.”
I swallowed sarcasm. More useful than he. At Oxford, I’d been favored for a First in English, whereas Anthony Brightman would barely escape with a Second in History. The dim Blighty, however, was entitled to a degree, while I, a voteless woman, was not. My brother, responsible for Brightman’s new and more fitting name, had scoffed at the irony, declaring, “All the boys will be left behind by your brains, Kath.”
Far behind.
His voice dropped. “I was sorry about your brother.”
“Thank you,” I said woodenly.
“Did you know we were at Cambridge together? Yes, I suppose you must; Geoffrey said you were close.”
Close. An inadequate word that did not encompass impromptu and hilarious jaunts on his motorcycle; the patient, good-natured instruction behind the wheel of Daddy’s balky motorcar; the ready ear and equally sympathetic shoulder to cry on during schoolgirl crises. And I would never know if I had returned that boundless generosity even in part, or if he knew how much I had loved him.
The smooth voice went on, oozing like treacle. “A good soldier, Geoff, very gallant. I could scarcely believe when we were posted to the same unit and I became his CO. He was fortunate to see more action than I. Served his country bravely.”
I remained silent, my opinion about military intelligence best kept to myself.
“Perhaps we can have tea together soon. There is a very jolly hotel in Hardelot-Plage.”
“Yes, I know.” No doubt planning for after tea, the cheeky bugger. “It’s not possible. We re rather busy here, Captain.”
“Such formality. There’s no need. The wife’s in London, you know,” he said confidently, as if I had never spoken. “A Lady-in-Waiting at the Palace. Safely away. Unless you’re thinking of your dragon the commandant. Strict segregation between the sexes and all that tosh.” He stepped closer to me, his fingers wandering down my sleeve. “You’re a woman of the world. Surely you know the old rules don’t apply here, Miss Knox?”
The hand intruded on more than just my sleeve, and I met his gaze squarely. “Indeed I do. Captain Brightman. I think you knew Miss Turnball?”
His eyes shifted. “We were—acquainted. Nice little creature. No one seems to know the cause of the accident. No witnesses. Pity.”
So that was why he had accompanied the general—to put on a properly sorrowful countenance and ensure his name was not linked to the dead girl. “You must be so distressed,” I cooed. “She spoke of you so often.” My eyes bored into his, and his shifted again.
“Er, quite. I—I believe she missed home a great deal.”
“She did.” We all did. But home was a fairy tale now, a place of magical hot baths and faraway comforts and impenetrable ignorance, where war was noble and tidy. Not betrayal, not horror, not hopeless yearning for an only brother rotting in the ground with his comrades.
I swayed. Captain Brightman grasped my arm, and my hand brushed against his breast pocket. “Are you all right?
“Yes, thank you.” I straightened and stepped back. “I missed dinner. A momentary weakness.”
“You should eat. Shall we go and—”
“I cannot, Captain. Waiting for the call out.” To the trains and their inevitable cargo.
“Yes. Yes of course. Well.” He took my hand and kissed it. His lips were damp. “It’s been a pleasure. Miss Knox. Katharine.” He lingered over my name. “I look forward to seeing you again.”
Not likely, I reflected. How quickly Turnip was replaced. I pulled my arm free. “Goodbye, Captain.”
With a puzzled glance at me, he walked off, no doubt accustomed to women fawning over an officer’s uniform. For them, I had only to look as far as the letters from old school friends who were busily awarding white feathers of cowardice to young men in civilian dress. Those fortunate ones, safely out of it. As Geoff might have been. I scrubbed my fingers against my sleeve.
Aussie’s “Pommie brass” emerged from the depot, pulling on his gloves. My patience in the cold twilight rewarded, I tugged my uniform tunic into more regulation shape. “Excuse me, sir?”
His grizzled face drawn, he snapped, “Who are you?”
“Katharine Knox. One of the ambulance drivers, sir.”
“Oh. Right.” Then he stopped and examined me more intently. “Half a mo—not Sir Peter Knox’s daughter?”
I nodded.
“Well, I’m blowed.” He grasped my hand warmly. “How do you do. He and I served together. Boer War.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Splendid on horseback. He had great panache then.” “Yes, sir. My brother Geoff and I thrilled to his stories.” Too much—the skirmish in France had seemed an easy passport to the adventure of the Transvaal. So Geoff had declared and I, as usual, had to follow where he led.
“And Peter was a remarkably fine shot.”
“He still is.”
“Oh, does he still hunt?”
“On occasion. He’s an engineer, sir.”
“Building things instead of demolishing them. Fitting.”
“He speaks of you with great affection.”
“Does he?” The general brightened. “Good man. Knew his duty. You’re like him—straightforward, blue eyes, fair hair. Dashed good-looking, if I may. Yes. Doing your bit now, I daresay, just as Peter did.”
“Yes, sir. I came out with Geoff, but he died at Ypres. Sniper.”
His craggy face sagged—he who must have seen an endless roll of death, in both wars. “Sad business. Damn waste.”
I warmed to his laconic but honest sorrow. “Thank you. General, about the girl—”
He shook his head. “Strange. Received a message to come here—from your commandant, I assumed, but she tells me I was unexpected.”
“I thought some of your questions sounded odd.”
“Heard that, did you? Would have looked into the Turnball matter anyway. Niece of an old school chum who is now a Member of Parliament—wants answers.” He rubbed his chin. “That rather brash Australian has very definite ideas about the case—and my own shortcomings, I must say.”
“Aussie’s a good sort, sir, and brave as a lion. She—”
But he waved off my defense. “I saw the Military Medal pinned to her tunic. Unlike some of my counterparts, I don’t punish candor or transfer a good man for a frivolous cause. Your Miss Blake, however, may be an entirely different kettle of fish. If that girl doesn’t have something to hide, I don’t know who does. I can’t remember when I’ve seen such a shade of crimson.”
“It’s not for a nefarious reason, sir. Blake’s worried that the commandant will find out about her young man at Etaples.”
He gave me a shrewd look. “I thought you girls had no time for anything but driving.”
“Some do manage. Miss Turnball, for one.”
“Excellent. I’ve been hoping to run into someone like you, Miss Knox. A lass I can trust who knows the people.” He lowered his voice confidentially. “Absent the company of your very decided commandant and equally decided friends.”
“They are that, sir.”
“Well, two ambulance accidents so closely together do raise uncomfortable questions. Only natural to feel besieged and close ranks. You knew her well, I gather?”
“I did, sir.” I hesitated delicately, like the properly bred young woman I was, and he prompted me.
“Distressing for you, naturally. But if you know anything that can shed light on this incident, m’dear, you must tell me. Ease the family’s grief.”
“Yes, sir.” I coughed, murmuring an apology for a throat taxed by cold, damp, and other unpleasantness while weighing my words carefully. “Well, Turnip—Miss Turnball, sir—did talk to me. She was keeping company with Captain Brightman. I tried to warn her about regulations, but she was young, and fancied herself in love.”
“I see. And did he return her feelings?”
“She said so, General. But she did discover from the Times that he was married to an acquaintance of hers.”
“Ah. So that was the way of it.”
“Yes, sir. My brother was at school with Captain Brightman and served under him, so he couldn’t pretend to me that he was unmarried.”
“Risky. You could have told her.”
“I did, sir. But it had no effect. She thought I was carping on her idol out of jealousy.”
“Awkward business. His wife has deep pockets and pull at the Palace.”
“So I gather, sir. And I have reason to believe Miss Turnball was in the family way.” I had remembered the gypy tummy.
“Not a new tale. Poor child.” He gave a gusty sigh. “Difficult to prove any of this, though.”
“No, not especially. I expect if you search him and his belongings, you will find her letters. She was an indiscreet child, and Captain Brightman is, shall we say, sir, fond of trophies.”
“Indeed. And if Miss Turnball was in the habit of writing letters to her uncle—” He fell silent and let the implication hang in the air between us.
“Yes, sir. Awkward indeed, for Captain Brightman.”
The guns stopped, the abrupt silence equally deafening, and our heads turned as one.
“Ah. You will have to fill that ambulance soon, I regret to say.”
“Yes, sir. I look forward to the day when I am out of work.”
“As do I. Then perhaps your father and I can go bag some pheasants instead of more deadly game.” He sighed. “My best to him.”
“I’ll tell him, sir, in my next letter.” Softer than the harsher business of Geoff...
He saluted me, then marched to his aides milling by his car and barked a curt order. The commandant’s whistle blew, the shrill summons to our convoy, and the girls rushed out of the depot to their ambulances.
I cranked the engine, my coughing matching the engine’s sputtering to life, the weather, tobacco, and the unaccustomed necessity of imitating the commandant on the telephone finally taking their toll on my throat.
I climbed creakily behind the wheel. In the swarm of people and vehicles, I saw Captain Brightman pushed into the staff car by the two very stern Tommies. The self-confident voice unleashed a string of protests as they rumbled away.
From my pocket I took out a fluttering of white ribbon, neatly snipped, and stared at it. The marker for the No. 8 turnoff. Because of the convenient “fainting spell,” the other half now rested in Brightman’s breast pocket, to be discovered by the ever-thorough military police.
Blighty was right. The rules were changed here—especially for Turnip, who saw no sin in betraying the men who had suffered so much and gave us their trust; and for Blighty, who had sent Geoff out on the perilous line while he, safely removed from the guns and the carnage, plotted his next sordid rendezvous. He deserved not to fall in battle, as more honorable men were doing, but to be hung by the neck until dead.
As the general had said, I knew my duty to my brother and my unit—and my Classics back at faraway Oxford. The Furies, pursuers of the murderer Orestes, were the daughters of Nox, or Night. Fitting my name, I had become a part of the black void all about me.
How simple it was to take a young girl’s dreams of romance with an officer and twist them to one’s own advantage. Listening to her confidences. Suggesting the route for a secret rendezvous at the jolly hotel in Hardelot-Plage. Making a few adjustments to her brakes.
Turnip was a casualty of war.
As were we all.
Repocketing the ribbon, I shoved the ambulance into gear and drove off into the dark.