‘Forty-eight, forty-nine, start, damn you!’ Victoria muttered breathlessly as she cranked the starting handle of the Napier. ‘Fifty, fifty-one, oh thank God!’ as the engine coughed into reluctant life.
The new base for what was being called ‘the Calais convoy’ was on the top of a windswept hill just outside the town. The accommodation was in tents, set round an open square in which the ambulances, all converted motorcars, were parked. It was a bitterly cold January, and Victoria had grown accustomed to waking in the morning to find icicles on the outside of her sleeping bag; but it was the cars that caused the most problems. They had been filled, supposedly, with antifreeze, but still starting them in the mornings was a nightmare. Start they must, because every morning a hospital train, marked with Red Crosses, came into the Gare Centrale loaded with wounded who must be conveyed either to one of the hospitals in the area or, when the hospitals were full, as they often were, to ships in the harbour.
As soon as all the vehicles had been started a procession formed behind Lilian Franklin’s car, and they drove through the town to the station. When the train came in, the casualties were sorted by the duty medical officers and then allocated to different vehicles. Victoria helped to carry two stretchers to the Napier and load them in. One of the men was writhing and groaning in pain; the other was silent and so pale that Victoria wondered if he was still alive. She placed her fingers on his neck and found a faint, unsteady pulse. Climbing into the driver’s seat, she wondered if he would survive the journey.
As carefully as possible she eased the car out of the station yard and over several sets of railway lines. The inevitable jolting provoked a stream of obscenities from the man who was conscious, and then a shamefaced apology.
‘Never mind me, miss,’ he called. ‘Just go as fast as you can and get it over with.’
Victoria paid no heed and nursed the car along the potholed road as gently as she could. When they finally reached the hospital, the man apologised again and thanked her. One of the nurses bent over the second man and felt his pulse.
‘Is he still alive?’ Victoria asked.
The nurse looked up. ‘Just. Any longer and we would have been too late.’
Victoria turned the car and set off back towards the camp. Now that there was no need to avoid the bumps she drove flat out, using all her skill to cover the distance as quickly as possible. It concentrated her mind and helped to wipe out the memory of those screams of pain.
She was almost there when the engine lost power, choked once or twice and died. Cursing under her breath, she climbed out and swung the handle. It took her a long time to get the Napier going again and by the time she got back to camp all the other ambulances were parked in their allotted places. Victoria ignored the friendly jibes of her fellow drivers and went to find Beryl Hutchinson, who was in charge of the mechanical upkeep of the cars. In passing she paused to pat Sparky’s bonnet. He had been deemed too small for ambulance duty and was kept as a general run-about, but she felt sure he would not have let her down.
She explained what had happened to Hutchinson. ‘It’s probably a fuel blockage, I should think.’
Hutchinson grimaced. ‘That means it’ll have to go into the depot for an overhaul, and I’ve just been warned that Captain Goff, who’s in charge, gets almost apoplectic at the very idea of women drivers.’
Victoria groaned. ‘You know what that means. Our job will go to the back of the queue and every vehicle that comes in with a male driver will get done first. Wretched man! Why should it be a male prerogative to drive? Most of them haven’t the foggiest idea how to maintain a car.’
‘Because it’s a male prerogative to do most things that are fun,’ Hutchinson responded. ‘But you’ve given me an idea. We’ll show him that we do know how to look after our cars. We’ll clean the engine up till it looks as if it has only just come out of the showroom and we’ll oil all the bolts that might have to be undone and loosen them off and then do them up just tight enough to get us to the depot. That way, they will have the minimum amount of work to do and Goff won’t be able to find anything to complain about.’
‘Brilliant!’ Victoria said with a grin. ‘Right, let’s get to work.’
An hour later she wriggled out from under the car and got to her feet, rubbing her back. ‘Well, I reckon you could go under there in full evening dress without having to worry about getting dirty.’
Hutchinson was wrestling with a spanner. ‘I’ve slackened off every one except this and I can’t move the beastly thing.’
‘Let me try,’ Victoria offered. She took the spanner but after a few minutes she, too, had to admit defeat. ‘Wait a mo! I’ve got an idea.’
A number of bathing machines had been parked around the site and served various useful purposes. She went to the one which Hutchinson used as an office and came back a few minutes later carrying a label. Hutchinson took it and read out: ‘I’m afraid this one was too hard for a poor weak woman to undo. It needs a man’s touch.’
‘That is brilliant!’ she declared. ‘Clever you!’
‘Well, it never does any harm to flatter the poor creatures’ egos, in my experience,’ Victoria said with a chuckle. ‘And they never seem to realise that we’re laughing behind their backs.’
They drove the Napier to the depot and reported to Captain Goff. He looked them up and down and blew through his nostrils – like an impatient horse, Victoria thought.
‘You’ll be two of these FANYs I’ve heard tell of. Why some fool thought it would be a good idea to put women behind the wheel of a car I shall never understand.’
‘We’re here to do a job, sir, like you,’ Hutchinson said. ‘We do a lot of our own maintenance but I’m afraid this is a bit beyond our resources.’ She detailed the symptoms and added, ‘We think it may be a fuel blockage.’
‘Oh, you do, do you?’ The sneer in the captain’s voice was barely hidden. ‘Well, leave it here. I’ll see when we can get round to it.’
Victoria had been patient long enough. ‘We need it back by the end of the day, captain. Tomorrow we have to collect more wounded from the train and we have barely enough vehicles for the job as it is. A man nearly died in my ambulance today. If it had broken down on the way to the hospital, instead of on the way back, he would have done. So, if you care about the lives of our boys, please do your best to get the repairs done quickly.’
Goff looked at her, nostrils quivering. Then he turned away. ‘I’ll see what can be done but I make no promises. Come back later on this afternoon.’
When they returned, the Napier was standing ready and Goff’s face bore a grudging smile. ‘Well, I’ll have to give you credit. I’ve never seen an engine so well maintained.’ He patted the Napier’s bonnet. ‘She’ll give you no more trouble, I’ll guarantee it. And I’ll see all your vehicles get priority treatment in future.’
Once in the cab and away from the depot, Victoria and Hutchinson gave way to a fit of giggling that lasted all the way back to the camp.
Later, in the mess tent, someone came in waving a newspaper. ‘I say, chaps, has anyone else seen this?’
‘Seen what?’ several voices enquired.
‘This article. It’s about women who drive cars. Hang on, I’ll read you a bit. “The uncongenial atmosphere of the garage, yard and workshops, the alien companionship of mechanics and chauffeurs, the ceaseless days and dull monotony of labour will not only rob her of much feminine charm but will instil into her mind bitterness that will eat from her heart all capacity for joy.” How about it, girls? Have we lost all capacity for joy?’
A roar of laughter gave her her answer, but when it died down a plaintive voice remarked, ‘I can see his point in one way. I don’t think I shall ever be presentable enough to show my face in a London drawing room again. Driving around in the snow and the rain and the wind, I’m going to have a complexion like an old washerwoman by the time we’re finished.’
Victoria rubbed her cheeks and recognised the truth of the comment. None of the vehicles had windscreens and as a result her face was chapped and her lips were cracked, and she had run out of cold cream to put on them.
‘Never mind faces,’ someone said. ‘Look at my hands!’
‘Snap!’ Victoria said, holding out her own. ‘I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed but I can’t get the grease out of my fingernails.’
‘Never mind,’ Hutchinson said, ‘when the war is over we’ll start a new fashion. We’ll call it washerwoman chic!’
Next evening, coming into the mess tent, Victoria found a small group standing in front of the noticeboard, on which was pinned a sheet of paper torn from a notebook. Over their shoulders she read:
I wish my mother could see me now, with a grease gun under my car,
Filling my differential ’ere I start for the camp afar,
Atop a sheet of frozen iron, in cold that would make you cry.
‘Why do we do it?’ you ask.
‘Why? We’re the F – A – N – Y.’
I used to be in society once;
Danced and hunted and flirted once;
Had white hands and complexion – once.
Now I’m F – A – N – Y.
The daily routine continued; the hospital train convoy went out every morning and often, later in the day, the cry would go up – ‘Barges!’ – and everyone would drop what they were doing and run for the ambulances. Barges were used to convey the most seriously wounded along the canals, because they caused less jolting than the train journey. But there were lighter moments. Calais was always full of troops, either passing through or based there as part of the garrison, and the officers were glad to have female company – even with ‘washerwoman’ complexions. There were frequent invitations to dinners and dances and a number of flirtatious liaisons were begun. Victoria’s first impulse was to steer clear of all such involvements. Her affair with Luke was still a very present memory and she had no intention of letting anything similar happen now. What changed her mind was the realisation that these officers had horses at their disposal and were happy to lend them. A good gallop along the sands was second only to driving a racing car flat out in her estimation, and so she began to accept the invitations, though she was careful to make it clear that all she was offering in return was a cheerful comradeship.
When she started work at Lamarck, she had sometimes wondered how long it would be before she found herself treating someone she recognised. She had had a wide circle of friends in London before the war, and many of the men were now serving in the army. It was something she dreaded, but as the days passed she forgot about it and now the blanket shrouded figures she loaded into her ambulance had acquired a kind of anonymity. They were patients, some more seriously wounded than others, some noisy, some quiet – but just patients. One morning, stooping to pick up a stretcher, she suddenly found herself looking down at a face she knew. As she stared, momentarily caught off-guard, the man opened his eyes.
‘Oh, bloody hell! Not you, of all people!’ said Ralph, and shut his eyes again.