Leo woke with a start from an uneasy sleep as the train jolted to a sudden stop. It was not the first abrupt halt, for no apparent reason. For a day and a night, the train had dragged itself up through bare, uninhabited mountains and down across river valleys that must have been, in better times, fertile oases. Now they had been transformed into a featureless landscape of mud and broken trees, whose contours disappeared into a lowering sky. From time to time they had passed through villages which had been reduced to rubble by the advancing forces. In some, a few shrouded figures picked through the blackened remains, but mostly they seemed devoid of life.
‘Where have all the people gone?’ Victoria asked at one point.
‘Fled into the mountains, perhaps,’ Leo said.
‘Poor souls! In this weather!’ Victoria murmured.
Now, in the first light of dawn, Leo sat up, shivering. The major had very gallantly allowed them a compartment to themselves, so they had been able to stretch out on the seats. They had brought with them the down-filled sleeping bags that they had used in FANY camp and covered themselves with the car rugs as well, but the cold still penetrated. She peered out of the window and saw a flat, dun-coloured plain with no sign of a station. She yawned and was about to lie down again when the major tapped on the door of the compartment.
‘Forgive me, ladies, but this is as far as we can go. The Turks have cut the line ahead to prevent reinforcements reaching Chataldzha. We have to detrain here.’
‘Oh God! I can’t bear it!’ Victoria moaned, sitting up.
‘Cheer up.’ Leo responded. ‘At least we seem to have arrived somewhere.’
Muzzy-headed from lack of sleep, they gathered their belongings and scrambled down onto the track, to be met by a blast of icy wind from the Rhodope Mountains to the north. All round them soldiers were descending and the howitzers and machine guns and horses and other paraphernalia of war were being off-loaded, but above, or rather below, the clatter and the shouting there was another sound, a low, continuous rumble that Leo felt through the soles of her feet. Seeking its origin she raised her head and caught Victoria’s arm.
‘Look!’
There in the middle distance was a walled city, its domes and towers and minarets gilded by the rays of the just risen sun, like an illustration from a book of fairy tales. But the walls were surrounded by concentric circles of dark lines, one within another, and beyond them were the tents of a vast army encampment. It was from here that the noise came and, as they watched, the scene was obscured by a rolling pall of smoke.
‘Adrianople,’ said the major, who had followed them out of the train.
‘And that noise is gunfire?’ Victoria asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What are the dark lines all round the city?’ Leo enquired.
‘Trenches, ours and theirs. Some times only a hundred yards apart, I’m told.’
Between them and the city a group of horsemen could be seen cantering in their direction. The major shaded his eyes, then turned briefly to the two women. ‘Excuse me. That looks like the commander of the Bulgarian forces, coming to greet us. I’ll introduce you when I get a chance.’
He moved away and Leo and Victoria watched as the horsemen drew rein beside him and dismounted. When greetings had been exchanged the major shouted an order and the troops from the train began to form up into a column. Then the major came towards them, with a small man in Bulgarian uniform.
‘This is General Dimitriev, the commandant of the Bulgarian forces here. General, may I present Miss Leonora Malham Brown and Miss Victoria Langford?’
The General clicked his heels and saluted and said in excellent German, ‘Ladies, I am charmed to make your acquaintance, but I fear you have had a long and uncomfortable journey for no purpose. Major Dragitch tells me you are looking for some other English ladies who have bravely volunteered to nurse our soldiers. I have to tell you that I have no knowledge of any such ladies.’
Leo and Victoria exchanged looks. This was a blow.
‘We think they are probably at Chataldzha,’ Victoria said. ‘Their purpose is to transport the wounded from the battlefield to the hospitals.’
The general shook his head. ‘That is impossible. It is our policy not to allow any foreign nationals so close to the front lines. But I have a suggestion. We have our own Red Cross unit here. Perhaps you would be prepared to stay with us and help them. I am sure the nurses will be glad of extra hands.’
Once again Leo and Victoria consulted each other with a glance. Then Leo said, ‘We appreciate your offer, General, and if we cannot locate Mrs Stobart and her companions we will do whatever we can to help here. But we feel we ought to try to join the others if at all possible.’
‘In that case,’ Dimitriev said, ‘let me suggest this. Stay with us tonight, and I will telegraph to my headquarters in Sophia and try to find out if they have any knowledge of these ladies. If not, then you can decide whether to remain here or to return to Salonika. Is that agreeable to you?’
The two girls nodded in unison. ‘Thank you, General,’ Victoria said. ‘That is very kind of you.’
A young corporal ran up, saluted and said something in Serbian to his commanding officer. Dragitch nodded and turned to Victoria. ‘Your motorcar has been unloaded quite safely, you will be glad to hear.’
The general’s eyebrows shot up. ‘A motorcar? You have a motorcar? But how is that possible?’
When Victoria explained that they had driven from England and then shipped the car from Marseilles, Dimitriev’s eyes opened wider, then he began to smile. ‘Well, well! You are two indomitable young ladies, that is clear.’
By this time the unloading was complete and the column of troops was ready to move, so they set off in procession, led by the general and his entourage on horseback, with Leo and Victoria following in Sparky and behind them Major Dragitch, also mounted, and the horse-drawn limbers carrying the guns and finally the foot soldiers. As they advanced the noise of the guns filled the air with a continuous thunder and Leo’s eyes stung with smoke. The air was choked with the smell of gunpowder and other even more obnoxious odours rising from the encampment that surrounded the besieged city.
The general had set up his headquarters on a slight rise, and when they reached it he insisted that the two women should make use of his tent, with the limited facilities it offered. An orderly brought them bowls of hot water to wash in, a welcome luxury after the long journey, and then they were given a breakfast of thick, sweet black coffee, dark rye bread and goat’s cheese.
They had just finished eating when a young lieutenant appeared in the entrance to the tent and introduced himself as Georgi Radic, explaining that the general had instructed him to look after them.
‘I understand you are nurses. Would you care to inspect our medical facilities?’
Leo was tempted to say that they lacked the experience to ‘inspect’ anything but before she could speak Victoria had accepted as if she found it the most natural thing in the world. As they followed Georgi out of the tent, Leo looked towards the city. Now they were closer she could see the damage to the walls and buildings that had been wrought by the guns, and the line upon line of trenches that scarred the plain.
‘How long have you been besieging Adrianople?’ she asked.
‘Since the end of October,’ he replied.
‘And is there no sign of a surrender?’
‘None at all, so far.’
‘Things must be terrible for the ordinary people in there,’ Leo said. ‘How do they get food?’
‘God knows! But it seems the Turks will let them starve rather than surrender.’
Leo shivered, and not just from the icy wind. She remembered what Colonel Malkovic had said, back in Salonika. ‘You have no conception of modern warfare. You imagine a romantic charge, a brief, violent conflict and then the combatants leave the field and it is empty except for the dead and wounded. Modern warfare is not like that.’ It was true, she admitted to herself. She had never imagined the filth, the stench, the sheer inhumanity of a war like this.
They reached a large tent set back someway from the main encampment and marked with a red cross. As they approached two stretcher bearers staggered up from the trenches, carrying a burden that left a trail of blood on the mud-churned soil. Following them into the tent Leo was brought up short by the smell – a sharp reek of disinfectant that failed to obscure the stench of blood and excrement and another sweetly cloying scent that reminded her of rotting meat. She glanced at Victoria and saw her put her hand over her mouth, struggling to repress the urge to retch. Leo swallowed hard and gritted her teeth. She had grown up with bad smells, in the back streets of Alexandria and the souks of Istanbul, though nothing as bad as this; but this, too, could be endured.
Looking ahead of her she saw two long rows of beds, all of them occupied, and at the far end of the tent a curtained-off area, into which the stretcher bearers and their load were just disappearing. A petite, dark-haired young woman in nurse’s uniform came quickly up the ward to meet them and spoke in what Leo was beginning to recognise as Serbian to the lieutenant. He replied and the nurse turned to Leo and Victoria.
‘Good day. My name is Sophie and I speak a little German. The lieutenant tells me you are English nurses.’
Leo felt a sudden flush of embarrassment. She was aware that they had been mis-representing themselves, or had at least allowed their hosts to assume that they were fully qualified, and they had not disillusioned them. Now, it seemed, their deception was about to be discovered. She glanced again at Victoria but she was obviously still struggling with nausea.
Leo said, ‘I am afraid there is a slight misunderstanding. We are not trained nurses. But we are fully qualified in advanced First Aid. We are on our way to join some other English ladies so we may not be here for long, but while we are here we shall be glad to help in any way we can.’
Sophie frowned for a moment while she absorbed this. Then she said, ‘I will explain to the doctors and ask what they wish you to do. Please wait a moment.’ Just then a long drawn-out scream of agony issued from behind the dividing curtain. Leo started with shock, her hand going involuntarily to her mouth, but looking around the tent she saw no sign of reaction from the long rows of beds. This, it seemed, was not an unusual occurrence.
Sophie said matter-of-factly, ‘There is a shortage of chloroform. We have to save it for the most acute cases. Excuse me.’
She moved away and Leo looked at her two companions. Victoria had turned her back and was taking deep breaths and the lieutenant, too, had gone pale. It occurred to Leo that the horror of what they were seeing was more acute for him, since he must feel that at any time he could become one of the patients undergoing whatever was happening behind that curtain.
‘Lieutenant,’ she said, ‘there is no need for you to stay. We shall probably be here for some time and I’m sure the doctor and the nurses will look after us. There really is no point in you waiting.’
He looked at her gratefully. ‘If you are really sure, gnädige Frau. I expect there are more useful things I could be doing.’
‘Of course there are,’ Leo agreed. ‘Please, feel free to go.’
He saluted briefly and stumbled out of the tent, and Leo thought she heard him being sick outside. Sophie came back.
‘I have spoken to the Herr Doctor and he says that, if you wish, you are welcome to stay. We are about to start doing the dressings. You can observe, or, if you like, help.’
Leo looked at Victoria, who appeared to have regained control. She nodded and Leo said, ‘Thank you. We will do whatever we can.’
A second nurse, slightly older than Sophie, came up the ward pushing a trolley laded with dressings and various instruments. Sophie said, ‘This is Magda. She does not speak German but I am sure she will be able to make herself understood. Perhaps—’ to Victoria ‘—you would go with her?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Victoria said, her tone uncharacteristically clipped.
Magda nodded and smiled and beckoned Victoria to follow her to the first bed on the right hand side of the ward. Sophie looked at Leo. ‘And we will start over here.’
The bed was occupied by a young man whose head was almost completely swathed in bandages. As they approached the one eye visible swivelled wildly from Sophie to Leo and she realised that he was frightened of what was to come. Sophie bent over him and began to undo the bandages, murmuring something in her own language.
She added in German, ‘It is difficult. I am Serbian but most of these soldiers are Bulgarian. The language is similar but sometimes it is hard for them to understand me. Perhaps you could support his head for me?’
Leo slid her hand under the boy’s head and felt that he was trembling. She longed to be able to reassure him. ‘I wish I could speak Serbian, or Bulgarian. It makes me feel useless.’
‘You speak very good German,’ Sophie said. ‘Better than mine. Now, I should warn you. The wound is bad. It is not a pretty sight.’
The boy cried out as she pulled away the final dressing and Leo had to hold her breath to prevent herself from doing the same. Half his face had been blown away, leaving an amorphous mess of blood and tissue, through which splinters of bone showed white. Working deftly, Sophie applied a new dressing and rebandaged the boy’s head and Leo, unable to communicate in any other way, found his hand and held it tightly.
‘What can be done for him?’ she asked.
Sophie shrugged slightly. ‘Keep the wound clean and hope that in due course it will heal. There is nothing else.’
When she had finished Sophie led the way to the next bed and Leo prepared herself for more horror, but nothing compared with that first baptism of fire. For nearly two hours she followed Sophie down the ward, supporting wounded arms and legs, handing bandages and instruments, and trying to offer some comfort in the form of smiles and handclasps. By the time they had finished she was shaking with exhaustion and delayed shock.
Their work was not over yet, however. Two orderlies appeared at the entrance carrying a huge vat of steaming soup and a basket of hard, black bread. As she ladled the soup into tin plates Sophie said, ‘Perhaps you can help some of those who cannot manage by themselves?’
Leo carried a plate over to the boy with the shattered face and helped him to prop himself up on his pillow. After the first spoonful of soup a faint smile touched his lips and he whispered the only word she had so far learned of his language.
‘Dobro!’
She smiled back at him. ‘Yes, dobro. Good!’
When all the patients had been fed, Sophie turned to Leo with a smile. ‘Now it is time for us to eat. Perhaps you would like to join us?’
Leo and Victoria followed her to the mess tent, which had been set up alongside the hospital tent. They were introduced to the two doctors, whose white coats were spattered with blood and whose faces were taut and lined with fatigue. The meal was the same soup and bread that had been served to the patients and Leo found to her surprise that she had a good appetite for it. As they ate, she turned to Sophie.
‘Did you say you are a Serb? I’m wondering how you come to be serving with the Bulgarian Red Cross.’
‘I am a Serb, yes,’ Sophia agreed. ‘But I come from Kavala in Macedonia. You will have passed through it on the train from Salonika.’
Leo nodded vaguely. The details of the journey were becoming indistinct.
‘It is one of the main towns in Macedonia,’ the other girl went on. ‘My father was a doctor there and he allowed me to work under him at the hospital. But when the fighting started the Turks took him away to care for their wounded. I have not seen him since.’
Leo looked at her. Her hair was drawn back smoothly from a broad brow and her eyes were large and dark. For the first time Leo noticed the signs of weariness on her face and, as Sophie turned her head away, she saw that her eyelashes were dewed with tears.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. ‘But how did that bring you here?’
‘I reasoned that the Turks would have taken him with them as they retreated, so as the Bulgarian army pursued them I thought that if I went too I might perhaps catch up with him.’ She forced a smile. ‘It has not happened yet, but it still may.’
‘I hope it will,’ Leo said.
They had just finished eating when Lieutenant Radic reappeared, looking his former cheerful self.
‘The general thinks that perhaps you should rest after your journey. He has placed his tent at your disposal and insists that you use it. Shall I take you back now?’
Leo looked at Victoria and saw that she appeared as drained of energy as she felt herself. She turned to Sophie. ‘I’m sure you could do with more help …’
Sophie shook her head. ‘No, the lieutenant is right. You should rest. Thank you for what you did this morning.’ She smiled at Leo. ‘You will be a good nurse. I can see that.’
Leo thanked her but as they walked back to the general’s tent the thought uppermost in her mind was that she could never, given the choice, dedicate herself to the kind of work that Sophia carried out so calmly. Once more, cruel reality had imposed itself over what she had imagined. Her grandma had been right. Her original conception had been romantic nonsense.
In the tent Victoria laid a hand on her arm. ‘Leo, you were wonderful this morning. I don’t think I could have faced those horrors if it hadn’t been for you.’
‘I didn’t do anything special,’ Leo mumbled.
‘Yes, you did. You were so calm, so … so stalwart. I’ve always thought of myself as brave, but not today.’
‘I wasn’t feeling very brave, either,’ Leo confessed.
‘That doesn’t matter. You just got on with the job.’
‘So did you.’
‘Yes, because I didn’t want to let you down.’
Leo put her arm round her. ‘Well, as long as we both try not to let each other down, we’ll be all right, won’t we.’
Victoria looked into her eyes. ‘I dragged you into this. I’m responsible. Are you furious with me?’
‘Of course not!’ Leo exclaimed. ‘However bad it gets, I’d still rather be here than sitting at home.’ She yawned suddenly. ‘I don’t know about you, but I feel as though I could sleep for a week.’
‘Me, too. Let’s take the opportunity while it’s offered. At least we can have an hour or two.’
An extra bed had been set up during their absence and they lay down, fully clothed, and both fell almost immediately into the first proper sleep they had had for forty-eight hours. They were woken by the steward calling to them from outside the tent. Leo sat up and realised that two things had changed. Darkness had fallen, and the guns had stopped firing. She called out to the steward to come in and he entered carrying a bucket of steaming water.
‘The general asks if you will do him the honour of joining him for dinner.’
Leo suppressed a laugh. The formality of the invitation was in such stark contrast to their circumstances that it seemed almost ludicrous. ‘Please thank the general and tell him we shall be delighted,’ she said.
They spruced themselves up as far as possible and the steward conducted them to a large tent which obviously served as an officers’ mess. As they entered Leo suppressed a gasp and looked at Victoria, whose eyes expressed the same mixture of surprise and amusement. The long table was covered with spotless linen, on which highly polished cutlery gleamed in the light of candles in silver candle-sticks. Orderlies stood along both sides with white napkins over their arms. Leo was reminded of the officers’ mess at the Guards’ Chelsea barracks, where she had been Ralph’s guest more than once. The only item that might have looked out of place there was the huge samovar which stood, glistening, in one corner. She quickly realised that the formality of the invitation had not been out of place. Although the officers present were swathed in muddy greatcoats against the cold they behaved as if they were entertaining ladies in their mess at headquarters. Indeed, they were treated with a gallant courtesy that surpassed anything Leo had experienced anywhere in England.
They were served potato soup with soured cream, and then a goulash spiced with paprika and enriched with more cream and finally pancakes with a chocolate sauce.
Victoria pushed the last of hers to the side of her plate and muttered in English, ‘If I eat any more I shall burst.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Leo replied. ‘I wonder what those poor boys in the hospital tent are getting.’
‘Not this, I’m willing to bet,’ her friend grunted.
When the meal was over they all adjourned outside, where they sat round a huge campfire while a soldier sang to the accompaniment of the gusla, a kind of single-stringed banjo, which produced a curious, monotonous buzzing sound. The song, too, had a limited musical range, repeating the same pattern over and over again. When it had gone on for some time, Leo leaned over to Major Dragitch and whispered, ‘What is the song about, Major?’
‘It is an old legend,’ he whispered back. ‘Every family in Serbia tells such stories, of how their ancestors fought the Turks back in the fourteenth century, or other historic battles.’
‘It sounds a very sad song,’ Leo murmured.’
‘We Serbs have a sad history,’ he replied.
Eventually the song came to an end and then, to Leo’s surprise, two soldiers rose to their feet and, linking arms, began to move in a slow, shuffling dance. Immediately the gusla began again and other men rose and joined the first two, until they had formed a circle. The pace quickened and the steps became more intricate, but the dance retained an inherent solemnity that seemed in keeping with the mood of the evening. With the ending of the bombardment a great silence had fallen over the camp and the skies had cleared to reveal stars that hung huge and lambent over the frozen plain. Leo looked up and drew a long breath. The discomforts of the journey and the horrors of the day faded and she knew that what she had said to Victoria was true. She would rather be here than in the most luxurious drawing room in London.
The following morning the general appeared at the entrance to the tent.
‘I have good news for you. I have a reply from the authorities in Sophia. Your friends are at Lozengrad – or Kirk-Kilisse, if you prefer the Turkish name.’
‘Where is that?’ Victoria asked eagerly.
‘I will show you.’ The general advanced to the table in the centre of the tent and unrolled a map. ‘Here is Adrianople. And here is Lozengrad, to the east and slightly north, about sixty kilometres away.’
‘They are not at Chataldzha then?’ Leo asked.
‘No, as I told you. Foreign non-combatants are not permitted so near the front line. But the casualties from Chataldzha are being taken to Lozengrad. I am told that your friends have set up a hospital there.’
‘Then we must go and join them,’ Victoria said. ‘Only sixty kilometres. We can be there in an hour in the car.’
The general shook his head reprovingly. ‘My dear lady, I could not possibly allow you to set off alone. The countryside between here and Lozengrad has been devastated by the war and there are desperate people out there. Who knows what might happen to two unprotected women? You must allow me to send an escort with you. They will not have cars, but you will find that it is impossible to travel fast over these roads.’
They both realised that it would be foolish to argue, so an hour later they set off in a cavalcade with Georgi Radic and two troopers riding ahead and two more soldiers standing on the running boards of the car. The general had insisted on providing them with a tent, which was strapped on top of the trunk carrying their possessions, and food supplies for two days.
‘This is ridiculous!’ Victoria muttered as they packed. ‘Anybody would think we were going six hundred kilometres, not sixty. Doesn’t he have any idea how fast a car can travel?’
They soon had their answer. The roads, if they could be called that, had been churned to liquid mud by the bullock wagons that were the main form of transport for the army. They had not covered more than two miles before the car stuck fast and they were glad of the power of the two burly soldiers to push them out. Another mile further on they stuck again and this time the two mounted troopers had to get off their horses and help. By the time the short winter daylight was fading they had covered less than half the distance and Georgi called a halt by a small copse of trees, whose upper branches had been ripped away by gunfire. The fallen timber was built up into a campfire, the tent was erected and a cooking pot was soon simmering for the inevitable soup. Conversation was difficult, since only Georgi spoke anything other than Serbian, but before long one of the men produced a gusla and this time Leo took comfort in the monotonous drone, which seemed to make the darkness beyond the fire less threatening. When the song finished they said their goodnights and crawled into their sleeping bags in the tent, snuggling together for warmth and comfort, while the men, except for one to keep watch, wrapped themselves in their blankets and lay down around the fire.
‘I say,’ Leo murmured, on the verge of sleep, ‘we wanted an adventure. Well, we’ve certainly found one.’
Victoria chuckled softly. ‘I don’t know about you, Malham Brown! Here we are, miles from anywhere, half frozen, with nothing but the hard ground to lie on, and I do believe you’re enjoying yourself!’
‘Do you know,’ Leo responded, ‘I believe I am.’