In the late afternoon, two weeks after leaving England, Leo stood beside Victoria as the ship sailed into the Thermatic Gulf and they saw the minarets and domes of Salonika appearing out of the haze. The drive through France had taken them four days, two punctures and three uncomfortable nights in run-down roadside inns; and when they had finally reached Marseilles it was to discover that there were no ships scheduled to leave for Salonika. It was only because Leo had overheard a conversation between a Greek ship-owner and one of his captains and begged his assistance that they had found themselves, with Sparky as deck cargo, first on a ship for Athens and then finally on a rusty tramp steamer heading up the coast to the Macedonian port.
‘It looks more Eastern than European,’ Victoria commented.
‘Well, it’s been Turkish for centuries,’ Leo pointed out, ‘but it’s a great mixture, architecturally speaking. There’s Greek, Roman, Byzantine, as well as Turkish influences.’
‘You sound as if you’ve been here before!’
‘I have. My father and I passed through on our way from Troy to the excavations at Mycenae.’
Victoria looked at her. ‘My word, you’re full of surprises. I didn’t know I’d brought my own walking guide book with me!’
As the ship docked they saw that the harbour was seething with vessels, many of them warships, and the streets were crowded with men in uniform. Every building, it seemed, was draped with the blue and white colours of the Greek flag. Platoons of armed soldiers marched to and fro and when the ship’s engines fell silent they heard a low rumble that seemed to come from the ground itself.
‘Thunder?’ Victoria queried.
Leo shook her head. ‘It’s too continuous for that. I think it might be gunfire, a long way off.’ She shivered. For the first time war had become a present reality instead of a distant dream. She looked at Victoria and saw from her expression that the same thoughts were going through her mind.
‘Oh well,’ Victoria said, ‘I suppose we knew what we were letting ourselves in for. I shall just be glad to get off this beastly ship. I’m sick and tired of being leered at by that first mate with the horrible teeth.’
‘What makes you think we shall be any better off on shore?’ Leo asked. ‘Soldiers can be just as bad as sailors, I imagine. We’re two women travelling alone. What did we expect?’
‘A bit of common respect, I hope!’ Victoria answered crisply.
Leo sighed inwardly. She was beginning to realise that sophisticated as Victoria appeared in her own setting she was dangerously naïve about the rest of the world.
When they disembarked they had to join a long line of other passengers in the Customs House. The desk was manned by soldiers in Greek uniform and it rapidly became clear that none of them spoke any language but their own, which resulted in long wrangles while the passengers ahead of them, who seemed to come from all round the Mediterranean and beyond, tried to explain their reasons for entering the city. When Leo addressed them in fluent demotic Greek they looked both relieved and bemused. What, they wanted to know, could two young English ladies be doing in war-torn Salonika?
‘We are nurses,’ Leo explained, stretching a point, ‘and we are going to join some other English ladies to care for the wounded. We need accommodation for tonight and transport tomorrow. Are the trains still running?’
The expression of disbelief on the soldier’s face changed to amusement and then to blank obstinacy. Women, he informed them, were not allowed anywhere near the front line.
‘But someone has to take care of the wounded Bulgarian soldiers,’ Leo persisted.
‘Bulgarians? Spff!’ he spat derisively.
‘I don’t understand,’ Leo said. ‘The Bulgarians are your allies, aren’t they? We’re all on the same side.’
The response was a shrug.
‘Tell him we want to speak to his superior officer,’ Victoria suggested.
Leo repeated the request and after some delay a captain arrived. He was heavy-eyed and clearly furious at having his afternoon nap disturbed. When Leo’s request was relayed to him he stared at her in disbelief.
‘What you suggest is quite impossible. Perhaps you do not realise it, madame, but we are in the middle of a war here. I cannot arrange for you to travel any further.’
‘Very well,’ Leo said. ‘Can you find us somewhere to sleep tonight? We will make our own arrangements in the morning.’
The officer spread his hands. ‘I am sorry, but the city is already overcrowded. All the good hotels have been taken over by the military. I suggest you return to your ship and book your passage back to England.’
Leo stood her ground obstinately. Her brother, or her grandma, would have told the captain that to inform her that what she wanted was impossible was the best way to strengthen her determination. ‘We don’t require a good hotel. We just need a roof over our heads for one night.’
The captain conferred with someone in an inner office. It was clear to Leo that he just wanted to be rid of these troublesome women. In the end, two men were ordered to escort them to an inn.
‘It is not grand, you understand,’ the captain said, ‘but it is the best we can do.’
By this time Sparky had been unloaded from the deck of the ship and was the cause of much excited comment when it became apparent that the driver was a woman. After some discussion, one of the soldiers got up on the running board and they set off through streets crowded with men in various uniforms, Greek, Serb and Bulgarian, together with the regular occupants of this most cosmopolitan of cities. Leo recognised Muslim women in their chadors, Jewish men wearing the yarmulke, Greek orthodox priests in beards and robes and tall black hats, and everywhere scrawny children of different complexions. She saw a group of Greek and Serbian soldiers, obviously off-duty and slightly drunk, slapping each other on the back and exchanging hats. The Bulgarians, however, kept together in tight bunches with their weapons at the ready. Allies they might be in name, she concluded, but there seemed to be no love lost in reality.
The soldiers led them through the narrow, rubbish-strewn streets of the Jewish quarter, where the daylight was almost blocked out by the tall houses, and then into the wider thoroughfares of the upper town, lined by the larger houses of the Turkish community with their red-painted facades. Eventually they came to a low, rambling building set round a series of courtyards. It had been a Turkish caravanserai but, as their guides explained, since the capture of the city it had been used first as a hospital and then, briefly, as a prison for captured Turkish soldiers. The owner, an extremely fat man, greeted them with anxious sideways looks at their escort and showed them into a large, draughty room, containing six beds. The floors were filthy, the window panes cracked and smeared with dirt and cockroaches lurked in the corners.
Leo and Victoria looked at each other and Leo read on her friend’s face the same disgust she knew must be plain on her own. Suddenly they both laughed.
‘Well, we’d better get busy and clean the place up,’ Victoria said. ‘We need brooms and scrubbing brushes. Do you think he speaks Greek?’
‘Probably not,’ Leo said, ‘but I speak Turkish.’ She turned to the man, who was lurking by the door rubbing his hands nervously. Brooms? Yes, he had brooms but no one to use them. All his staff had fled in the fighting. ‘Just give them to us,’ Leo said. ‘We will use them ourselves.’
‘Golly!’ Victoria exclaimed. ‘I’m terribly impressed by your command of languages. I can get by in French but the only one I’m reasonably fluent in is German.’
‘Well, that will probably be the most useful one to have when we get to Bulgaria,’ Leo said. ‘I suppose we shall have to try to learn Bulgarian but until then I expect we’ll get by somehow.’
For an hour they swept and scrubbed and by the time they had finished the rooms were, if not spotless, tolerably clean, and the worst of the draughts had been stopped up with rags. It was only then that their thoughts turned towards food. Here their host was no help at all. He had no kitchen staff and barely enough food to feed himself and his family. Most of the restaurants had closed down during the fighting and those that had not had been commandeered by the soldiers. Most shops were shut and there was a shortage of supplies. ‘They are like locusts, these soldiers,’ he protested. ‘They eat everything.’
Victoria turned to Leo. ‘Now what? I’m famished.’
‘Well, we shall just have to go and forage, I suppose.’ Leo’s spirits sank. She was exhausted and filthy and her clothes, which were sticking to her after her exertions, were becoming clammy now that she had stopped. She was beginning to shiver and to long for a hot bath, a good meal and a soft bed – none of which were likely to be forthcoming in the foreseeable future. ‘Come on. I don’t know what we will find, but we’ll do our best.’
As they crossed the courtyard where the car was parked Victoria said, ‘Just a minute,’ and lifted the bonnet.
‘What are you doing?’ Leo asked.
‘Removing the rotor arm,’ her friend replied. ‘I saw a few men giving Sparky some greedy looks. I don’t want to come back and find him gone.’
‘Are you sure it was the car they were looking at?’ Leo asked, and then regretted the words.
It was getting dark and the narrow streets of the old town were badly lit. Leo began to wonder if they would ever find their way back to the inn. The shops were either boarded up or their windows had been shattered and the contents looted. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her uniform skirt and her fingers closed round the butt of a small revolver. It had been a gift from her father, a few months before he had sent her back to England. There had been an encounter with some local brigands and for a moment it had seemed that Leo might be abducted. On that occasion their own guides, who acted as bodyguards, had seen the aggressors off, but her father had made her take the pistol in case of future trouble and taught her how to use it. She realised now that it had been that incident that had decided him to send her away, and she had never used the weapon, but it was a comfort now to feel its weight in her pocket. She had never shown it to Victoria, unsure how she would react, and she hoped that it would never be necessary to produce it.
Light spilled onto the street ahead of them and they heard a clamour of voices. Both were coming from a restaurant whose windows were clouded with condensation. Peering in, they saw that every table was crowded with men in uniform.
‘It’s no good. The place is packed,’ Victoria said.
‘It’s worth a try, though,’ Leo insisted. ‘It may be the only chance we get.’
She pushed open the door and stepped inside, to be greeted with a roar of catcalls and whistles. A waiter hurried over.
‘Go, go! No women in here!’ he exclaimed.
‘We just want something to eat,’ Leo pleaded. ‘We’re …’
‘No. You go – now! Before there is trouble.’ He almost pushed them towards the door.
Victoria plucked at Leo’s sleeve. ‘Come on! This is no good.’
Out in the street, they plodded onwards and very soon Leo became aware of footsteps behind them. Looking round, she saw three soldiers had left the restaurant and were following them.
‘Let’s hurry on a bit,’ she said. ‘I don’t like these dark streets.’
They walked faster but the men behind them drew closer and began to call out to them. The words were in a language Leo did not understand but she had recognised the uniforms as Bulgarian. From the voices it was obvious that they were drunk. Victoria grabbed her hand and they began to run, and the men gave chase, laughing gleefully. They raced round a corner and found themselves in a small square at the junction of three roads. There, Leo came to a stop, dragging Victoria to a standstill, and turned to face their pursuers.
‘Well?’ she demanded, in Greek. ‘What do you want? Are you men, to behave like this, or animals?’
The three faced them, panting, exchanging looks and she knew instinctively that they were daring each other to be the first to attack. She closed her hand round the butt of the revolver. There was a sudden clatter of boots from one of the side streets and four Greek soldiers appeared. Leo turned to them and shouted, ‘Help us, please! These men are harassing us.’
She had gambled on the hostility she had sensed between the two occupying armies and it paid off. The newcomers exchanged looks and then plunged forwards and within seconds the little square was a melee of flying fists. Leo grabbed Victoria’s hand. ‘Now, run for it!’
They ran until they reached the wider and better lit streets in the city centre, but here, too, all the restaurants were packed with soldiers and they did not dare repeat their experience with the first one. Finally, they found themselves standing in front of the Makedonia Palace Hotel, the grandest in the city.
‘Let’s try in here,’ Victoria suggested.
In the foyer they were met by a flustered porter. ‘No, no!’ he cried in Greek. ‘You cannot come in here. Do you not see the notice?’ He pointed to a placard set prominently in the middle of the entrance.
‘What is he saying?’ Victoria asked.
‘The notice says “Reserved for Officers Only”.’
‘Tell him we are officers. We are both ensigns in the FANY.’
‘I don’t think that will cut much ice,’ Leo said, but she tried it anyway. The man only waved his hands in confusion. ‘No, no! No ladies! Only officers.’
Beyond him they could see the glass doors of the dining room and through them tables at which uniformed officers were tucking in. The smell of food made Leo feel suddenly faint.
‘Oh, I’ve had enough of this!’ she exclaimed. ‘Out of my way!’
She thrust the man aside and marched into the dining room with Victoria close behind her. She was aware of heads turning in their direction and then a complete hush as conversation died away and the clatter of knives and forks was silenced. In the hiatus, Leo suddenly realised what they must look like with their hair coming down and faces smeared with dirt. More like a pair of vagabonds than respectable ladies! No wonder the waiter had tried to turn them away.
For a moment nobody moved, and then a man in the uniform of a Serbian colonel rose from a table near the door and came towards them. He was tall and had the bearing of one used to command. Unlike most of his fellow officers, he was clean shaven, with high cheek bones and brooding dark eyes under arched brows.
He stopped and clicked his heels and said in German, ‘Excuse me. I can see you are not native to this area. I’m sure you will not speak Serbian. I hope you understand German.’ When they both answered in the affirmative he went on, ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Count Aleksander Malkovic. May I ask who you are?’
‘I am Leonora Malham Brown and this is my colleague, Miss Victoria Langford. We have just arrived from England.’
‘From England! But, dear ladies, you must be aware that you have come to a war zone. Until a few weeks ago this city was under bombardment and the Turks were still in occupation.’
‘We are perfectly aware of the situation,’ Leo responded stiffly. ‘That is why we are here. We have come to join the Women’s Sick and Wounded Convoy. We are on our way to Chataldzha to offer our services.’
‘To Chataldzha!’ His lips curled in an expression that was somewhere between amusement and contempt. ‘Really, that is quite impossible. That is the front line of the Bulgarian advance. The fighting there is at its fiercest.’
‘Which is why that is where we are most needed,’ Leo retorted.
He laughed out loud then. ‘Dear ladies, I admire your courage and we are most grateful for your offer of help, but we cannot allow you to put yourselves at risk. Now, in what other way can I be of service?’
‘The risk is ours, and I think you do not have the authority to stop us,’ Leo said. ‘But there is one way in which you can help. We need food and there seems to be nowhere in the city where we can obtain a meal.’
‘But of course! Please,’ he gestured towards the table he had just left, ‘you must be my guests.’
Two officers courteously gave up their places and Leo and Victoria were soon tucking in to spicy meat balls in a rich tomato sauce. As they ate, the colonel made small talk, asking them about their journey and their accommodation.
‘And what is this Ladies’ Convoy of which you speak?’ he asked at length.
Between them, they explained about the FANY and its offshoot and the aims which both organisations shared. He listened with an expression of sceptical amusement, which Leo found infuriating.
‘So, why are you not travelling with the other ladies?’ he asked.
‘Because we did not know that they were leaving until it was too late,’ Leo explained. ‘We think they probably travelled by train to Sophia. Have you heard anything about them? We are sure they will be heading for the front line but we don’t know exactly where to find them.’
‘So you two ladies have set off entirely alone, without any clear idea of where you are going?’ Leo could not decide whether the expression in his eyes was admiration or disapproval.
‘We do know where we want to go,’ she said firmly. ‘Once we get near the front people are bound to know where the rest of the convoy is.’
He looked at her, with that inscrutable gaze. ‘I have to admire your determination, even though I think your enterprise is foolhardy.’
‘Then you will help us to get to Chataldzha?’
The courteous mask faded and his eyes hardened. ‘I am sorry. I have explained to you that the whole idea of women anywhere near the front line is unacceptable. You have no conception of modern warfare. You imagine a romantic charge, a brief, violent conflict and then the combatants leave the field empty except for the dead and wounded. In such a battle you might have played a part, but not now. War is no longer like that. It is about guns and shells and bombs and grenades. There is no peaceful interval during which we can collect our wounded and bury our dead. Your presence would merely be a distraction to the troops, who would feel they had to protect you instead of concentrating on defeating the enemy.’ He paused, as if to regain control of himself. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I shall leave you. But please feel free to use the facilities of the hotel. Coffee will be served in the lounge and I am sure some of the other officers will be happy to entertain you.’
He rose and went out through the doors into the foyer. ‘Wretched man!’ Victoria exclaimed bitterly. ‘What arrogance!’
Leo nodded. It was true that his whole demeanour had suggested a man who was unused to having his orders questioned, and yet … and yet … ‘I think he means well,’ she said. ‘He believes what he said.’
While they were eating some of the officers had retired to the lounge to smoke and drink the local brandy. Leo was aware of many curious looks directed towards them from the communicating doors and when they had finished their meal one of the men came through to invite them to join him and his colleagues.
They were a mixed party of Greeks and Serbs, who were clearly delighted to have some feminine company, though Leo noticed that Malkovic remained aloof, sitting apart with one or two senior officers. Conversation was impeded by the fact that the Greeks did not speak Serbian and the Serbs did not speak Greek, while some of them understood German and others French but few spoke both, so Leo was much in demand as an interpreter. After a while she found herself chatting to a Serbian major, who introduced himself as Milan Dragitch.
‘Tell me, why is it that there are only Serbs and Greeks here? I have seen Bulgarian uniforms in the streets. Where are their officers?’
‘In a different hotel,’ he said with a grin, ‘to prevent fights breaking out.’
‘Why? I thought you were all allies.’
‘So we are, in theory. But the Bulgars cannot forgive the fact that the Greeks took the city one day before they got here. They wanted to occupy Salonika, you see, to strengthen their claim over the whole of Macedonia. The Greeks had to let some of them in as “guests”, including Prince Kyril and Crown Prince Boris, but it’s an uneasy situation.’
‘So I see,’ Leo said.
‘Is it true that you and the other lady were planning to go to the front line to nurse the wounded?’
‘Not to nurse, exactly. Our function is to collect the wounded, give them essential First Aid, and then transport them back to the casualty clearing stations.’
‘But that would mean going out under fire!’
‘Yes, we understand that.’
‘You are very brave. But the colonel will not let you go, you know.’
‘I don’t understand why not.’
‘Sasha Malkovic is notorious for his attitude to women. He believes a woman’s place is at home. He will not tolerate them anywhere near the troops. To him they are all camp followers – by which he means women of easy virtue.’ He stopped and blushed. ‘Forgive me, I don’t mean to suggest that that could be applied to you and your friend.’
Leo smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not easily shocked. And whatever your Colonel Malkovic says, we are still determined to get to Chataldzha.’
He frowned. ‘I can’t say you aren’t needed. I’ve seen enough during the recent weeks to know that we don’t have good enough systems in place for dealing with casualties. But whether it’s suitable work for women …?’
‘Why should men take all the risks? If they are prepared to fight and die for their country, shouldn’t we women be ready to do the same? At least, surely, we should be able to prevent them dying just through the lack of basic First Aid.’
He looked at her and she had the impression that he was coming to a decision. ‘Look, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I might be able to help.’
‘Help? How?’
‘Tomorrow I am leading a detachment to reinforce the Bulgarians who are besieging Adrianople. If you and your friend want to travel with us I won’t turn you away. It’s not Chataldzha, but it’s a good deal nearer to the front line than this is.’
Leo caught her breath. ‘You would really take us with you? Thank you! Thank you so much!’
He smiled ruefully. ‘I shall probably live to regret it. Just don’t, for God’s sake, mention it to the colonel. I should probably be cashiered.’
Leo smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry. We won’t say a word. When do we leave? How do we get there?’
‘You need to be at the station by half past six tomorrow morning. The train leaves at seven o’clock.’
By the time Leo crawled into bed everything was settled. The major was dubious about whether Sparky could go on the train but when Victoria declared that if he could not she would drive to Adrianople he agreed that it would be managed somehow.
‘I’m in enough trouble already,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’
Leo remembered the look in his eyes. All through their conversation she had been aware of his gaze and known that he found her attractive – and she knew that half-consciously she had traded on the fact. It was a not an unpleasant feeling to realise that she had that power, but it was not his face that floated across her imagination as she hovered on the brink of sleep. It was the dark, imperious eyes and the arrogant mouth of Aleksander ‘Sasha’ Malkovic.