They couldn’t wait any longer. Kitty’s rage was rocking the ambulance. She had found Dolores’s kitbag and packed it with the rest of the luggage.
‘Where the hell is that girl? She knew we were on standby.’
‘Calm down,’ soothed Doug. ‘Dolores can’t be far away. By the way, do we have enough catgut?’
‘Yes,’ Kitty snapped.
‘I can’t see her anywhere,’ said Felix miserably, returning to the ambulance. ‘I can’t think where else to look.’ The knowledge she was hiding felt like granite inside her. It seemed to slow every movement she made.
From the cab, Charlie called out something.
‘What was that?’ said Kitty.
‘I said, there’ll be plenty of other vehicles coming after us. She’ll just have to get a ride with one of those.’
‘She’s probably found somewhere quiet to sleep and conked out. I can’t think where though. God knows, I’ve looked hard enough,’ said Kitty. ‘What lousy timing.’
‘I reckon she needed a rest,’ said Doug. ‘She’s been looking awful peaky, don’t you think?’
He looked thoughtful. What else had he noticed? Felix avoided his eye.
Kitty grunted.
‘Never mind,’ said Doug. ‘She’ll catch up with us by sundown, I dare say. At least we can cram in the other autoclave now, the small one. Better there than here, I reckon. Run and get it, would you, Felix?’
Inside the sterilising room, Felix hesitated, taking longer than necessary to empty out the autoclave, pouring the tepid water into a basin. She washed her hands a second time, checked her face against the steriliser’s shiny side, and double-checked her hands, and her clothes, and her boots, and then her face again.
Time to go. She could hardly move. Come on. Come on.
She heaved the autoclave up into the back of the ambulance, terrified of what she might hear next. Didn’t I see you going up the road with Dolores earlier, Felix? You must know where she’s got to. Had Ramón said something?
‘Ride up front with me if you like,’ said Charlie. ‘You can watch the sky.’
A truck full of Brigaders passed as Felix climbed up, and she turned to look. She couldn’t stop herself. They were singing of course. It was hard at the front, but so much harder to be away. Seeing a serious face under a peaked cap, Felix nearly called out. Stop. But it wasn’t Nat. Of course it couldn’t be.
The ambulance pulled off the verge, and joined the convoy. As the weather grew worse, vehicle after vehicle ground to a halt on the steepening road. From time to time, their own skidding tyres gave up too, and they all got out and pushed, sliding precious blankets under the wheels to help them grip. Occasionally they sang, as if the words might keep them warm. Cigarettes took the edge off hunger, and for the first time ever Felix was tempted.
The last six miles took the longest. Snow was drifting in the pass, and the windscreen kept icing over on the inside. Their route was lined with work-gangs, trying to keep open the artery that was this road. Among them walked the lightly wounded, heading away from Teruel, towards safety, hoping for a lift on a returning camion. In their handmade ponchos – just holes cut in blankets – they made Felix think of shipwrecked mariners or discoloured ghosts.
Eventually she heard Doug saying: ‘This is it. Cuevas Labradas.’
Two other nurses came out to greet them.
‘Good to see you. What have you got for us?’ An Australian moved swiftly in to inspect the contents of the ambulance. ‘Any blood?’
The other introduced herself as Unity. Perhaps it was her real name.
‘The village women will be here to help shortly. They only come out of the caves when it gets dark. You can’t blame them. They’ve had a rotten time.’
They’d never expected to find themselves so close to the front line, the nurses told them, but the front had come to them. The village had just been bombed and their little hospital was half-full already.
‘So what do you do when the planes come? Where do you go?’ asked Kitty. ‘Any ditches?’
‘Oh, we can’t leave the patients. Anyway, there’s nowhere to go. I try to find bowls, basins . . . that kind of thing.’ Unity giggled and gestured towards a pile of enamel dishes on the floor in a corner. ‘If you put them over the patients’ faces, it does seem to help, somehow.’
They unpacked on autopilot. No time to think. Now the lights for the operating theatre could run off the ambulance’s batteries, and they also had a few torches between them. Condensed milk tins were fashioned into lamps, their edges beaten into spouts to hold a wick, and filled with oil.
They knew the fighting was bad because the operating table was occupied all night. To keep the temperature from freezing, Kitty poured alcohol into basins, setting them at the patients’ head and feet. Whup! They went up with a hollow-sounding flare, at the touch of a spark. Like an eternal flame. But these flames lasted no time at all.
Limbs were collected, to be buried later with corpses when there was time. Blankets were borrowed from the dead. It was heartbreaking to hear the cries of the wounded when they emerged from the ether and found they could still hear the noise of artillery. ‘Evacuarme,’ they begged. Evacuate me.
Nobody had time to wonder about Dolores. Then it was morning and still nobody mentioned her name. Felix realised then that either people were there, or they weren’t there. For whatever reason. But you didn’t talk about it.
By daylight, she looked about her and thought Cuevas Labradas was the most miserable place she’d ever been. Just what she deserved. The mountains rose black and bare, formed from twisting folds of rock. The houses were carved from the rock face, barely even hovels. Doorways spewed rubble. Such poverty. Felix saw women and children barelegged, their limbs blue, as they headed back from the caves. No coats of course. Just black frocks and shawls. And fear.
No more stretchers now till darkness returned. Unity yawned, offered coffee (more condensed milk tins for cups) and tidied away some papers.
‘We managed some reading classes a few weeks ago, believe it or not. Luchamos en el campo. ¡Leed!’
Felix forced a smile. She knew the slogan. She’d seen the posters. We are fighting illiteracy among the peasants. Read!
‘Para ser cultos, para ser fuertes, para ser humanos,’ she replied.
Read! To be educated, to be strong, to be human.