1
A stump of candle in the neck of a bottle flickered once or twice and
threatened to go out. Getting up, Stephen found a fresh candle and lit
it, then she returned to her packing-case upon which had been placed the
remnants of a chair minus its legs and arms.
The room had once been the much prized salon of a large and prosperous
villa in Compiègne, but now the glass was gone from its windows; there
remained only battered and splintered shutters which creaked eerily in
the bitter wind of a March night in 1918. The walls of the salon had
fared little better than its windows, their brocade was detached and
hanging, while a recent rainstorm had lashed through the roof making
ugly splotches on the delicate fabric—a dark stain on the ceiling was
perpetually dripping. The remnants of what had once been a home, little
broken tables, an old photograph in a tarnished frame, a child’s wooden
horse, added to the infinite desolation of this villa that now housed
the Breakspeare Unit—a Unit composed of Englishwomen, that had been
serving in France just over six months, attached to the French Army
Ambulance Corps.
The place seemed full of grotesquely large shadows cast by figures that
sat or sprawled on the floor. Miss Peel in her Jaeger sleeping-bag
snored loudly, then choked because of her cold. Miss Delmé-Howard was
gravely engaged upon making the best of a difficult toilet—she was
brushing out her magnificent hair which gleamed in the light of the
candle. Miss Bless was sewing a button on her tunic; Miss Thurloe was
peering at a half-finished letter; but most of the women who were herded
together in this, the safest place in the villa and none too safe at
that be it said, were apparently sleeping quite soundly. An uncanny
stillness had descended on the town; after many hours of intensive
bombardment, the Germans were having a breathing space before training
their batteries once more upon Compiègne.
Stephen stared down at the girl who lay curled up at her feet in an army
blanket. The girl slept the sleep of complete exhaustion, breathing
heavily with her head on her arm; her pale and rather triangular face
was that of some one who was still very young, not much more than
nineteen or twenty. The pallor of her skin was accentuated by the short
black lashes which curled back abruptly, by the black arched eyebrows
and dark brown hair—sleek hair which grew to a peak on the forehead,
and had recently been bobbed for the sake of convenience. For the rest
her nose was slightly tip-tilted, and her mouth resolute considering her
youth; the lips were well-modelled and fine in texture, having deeply
indented corners. For more than a minute Stephen considered the immature
figure of Mary Llewellyn. This latest recruit to the Breakspeare Unit
had joined it only five weeks ago, replacing a member who was suffering
from shell-shock. Mrs. Breakspeare had shaken her head over Mary, but in
these harassed days of the German offensive she could not afford to
remain short-handed, so in spite of many misgivings she had kept her.
Still shaking her head she had said to Stephen: ‘Needs must when the
Bodies get busy, Miss Gordon! Have an eye to her, will you? She may
stick it all right, but between you and me I very much doubt it. You
might try her out as your second driver.’ And so far Mary Llewellyn had
stuck it.
Stephen looked away again, closing her eyes, and after a while forgot
about Mary. The events that had preceded her own coming to France, began
to pass through her brain in procession. Her chief in The London
Ambulance Column, through whom she had first met Mrs. Claude
Breakspeare—a good sort, the chief, she had been a staunch friend. The
great news that she, Stephen, had been accepted and would go to the
front as an ambulance driver. Then Puddle’s grave face: ‘I must write to
your mother, this means that you will be in real danger.’ Her mother’s
brief letter: ‘Before you leave I should very much like you to come and
see me,’ the rest of the letter mere polite empty phrases. The impulse
to resist, the longing to go, culminating in that hurried visit to
Morton. Morton so changed and yet so changeless. Changed because of
those blue-clad figures, the lame, the halt and the partially blinded
who had sought its peace and its kindly protection. Changeless because
that protection and peace belonged to the very spirit of Morton. Mrs.
Williams a widow; her niece melancholic ever since the groom Jim had
been wounded and missing—they had married while he had been home on
leave, and quite soon the poor soul was expecting a baby. Williams now
dead of his third and last stroke, after having survived pneumonia. The
swan called Peter no longer gliding across the lake on his white
reflection, and in his stead an unmannerly offspring who struck out with
his wings and tried to bite Stephen. The family vault where her father
lay buried—the vault was in urgent need of repair—‘No men left, Miss
Stephen, we’re that short of stonemasons; her ladyship’s bin complainin’
already, but it don’t be no use complainin’ these times.’ Raftery’s
grave—a slab of rough granite: ‘In memory of a gentle and courageous
friend, whose name was Raftery, after the poet.’ Moss on the granite
half effacing the words; the thick hedge growing wild for the want of
clipping. And her mother—a woman with snow-white hair and a face that
was worn almost down to the spirit; a woman of quiet but uncertain
movements, with a new trick of twisting the rings on her fingers. ‘It
was good of you to come.’ ‘You sent for me, Mother.’ Long silences
filled with the realization that all they dared hope for was peace
between them—too late to go back—they could not retrace their steps
even though there was now peace between them. Then those last poignant
moments in the study together—memory, the old room was haunted by it—a
man dying with love in his eyes that was deathless—a woman holding him
in her arms, speaking words such as lovers will speak to each other.
Memory—they’re the one perfect thing about me. ‘Stephen, promise to
write when you’re out in France, I shall want to hear from you.’ ‘I
promise, Mother.’ The return to London; Puddle’s anxious voice: ‘Well,
how was she?’ ‘Very frail, you must go to Morton.’ Puddle’s sudden and
almost fierce rebellion: ‘I would rather not go, I’ve made my choice,
Stephen.’ ‘But I ask this for my sake, I’m worried about her—even if I
weren’t going away, I couldn’t go back now and live at Morton—our
living together would make us remember.’ ‘I remember too, Stephen, and
what I remember is hard to forgive. It’s hard to forgive an injury done
to some one one loves. . . .’ Puddle’s face, very white, very
stern—strange to hear such words as these on the kind lips of Puddle.
‘I know, I know, but she’s terribly alone, and I can’t forget that my
father loved her.’ A long silence, and then: ‘I’ve never yet failed
you—and you’re right—I must go to Morton.’
Stephen’s thoughts stopped abruptly. Some one had come in and was
stumping down the room in squeaky trench boots. It was Blakeney holding
the time-sheet in her hand—funny old monosyllabic Blakeney, with her
curly white hair cropped as close as an Uhlan’s, and her face that
suggested a sensitive monkey.
‘Service, Gordon; wake the kid! Howard—Thurloe—ready?’
They got up and hustled into their trench coats, found their gas masks
and finally put on their helmets.
Then Stephen shook Mary Llewellyn very gently: ‘It’s time.’
Mary opened her clear, grey eyes: ‘Who? What?’ she stammered.
‘It’s time. Get up, Mary.’
The girl staggered to her feet, still stupid with fatigue. Through the
cracks in the shutters the dawn showed faintly.
2
The grey of a bitter, starved-looking morning. The town like a mortally
wounded creature, torn by shells, gashed open by bombs. Dead
streets—streets of death—death in streets and their houses; yet people
still able to sleep and still sleeping.
‘Stephen.’
‘Yes, Mary?’
‘How far is the Poste?’
‘I think about thirty kilometres; why?’
‘Oh, nothing—I only wondered.’
The long stretch of an open country road. On either side of the road
wire netting hung with pieces of crudely painted rag—a camouflage this
to represent leaves. A road bordered by rag leaves on tall wire hedges.
Every few yards or so a deep shell-hole.
‘Are they following, Mary? Is Howard all right?’
The girl glanced back: ‘Yes, it’s all right, she’s coming.’
They drove on in silence for a couple of miles. The morning was terribly
cold; Mary shivered. ‘What’s that?’ It was rather a foolish question for
she knew what it was, knew only too well!
‘They’re at it again,’ Stephen muttered.
A shell burst in a paddock, uprooting some trees. ‘All right, Mary?’
‘Yes—look out! We’re coming to a crater!’ They skimmed it by less than
an inch and dashed on, Mary suddenly moving nearer to Stephen.
‘Don’t joggle my arm, for the Lord’s sake, child!’
‘Did I? I’m sorry.’
‘Yes—don’t do it again,’ and once more they drove forward in silence.
Farther down the road they were blocked by a farm cart: ‘Militaires!
Militaires! Militaires!’ Stephen shouted.
Rather languidly the farmer got down and went to the heads of his thin,
stumbling horses. ‘Il faut vivre,’ he explained, as he pointed to the
cart, which appeared to be full of potatoes.
In a field on the right worked three very old women; they were hoeing
with a diligent and fatalistic patience. At any moment a stray shell
might burst and then, presto! little left of the very old women. But
what will you? There is war—there has been war so long—one must eat,
even under the noses of the Germans; the bon Dieu knows this, He alone
can protect—so meanwhile one just goes on diligently hoeing. A
blackbird was singing to himself in a tree, the tree was horribly maimed
and blasted; all the same he had known it the previous spring and so
now, in spite of its wounds, he had found it. Came a sudden lull when
they heard him distinctly.
And Mary saw him: ‘Look,’ she said, ‘there’s a blackbird!’ Just for a
moment she forgot about war.
Yet Stephen could now very seldom forget, and this was because of the
girl at her side. A queer, tight feeling would come round her heart, she
would know the fear that can go hand in hand with personal courage, the
fear for another.
But now she looked down for a moment and smiled: ‘Bless that blackbird
for letting you see him, Mary.’ She knew that Mary loved little, wild
birds, that indeed she loved all the humbler creatures.
They turned into a lane and were comparatively safe, but the roar of the
guns had grown much more insistent. They must be nearing the Poste de
Secours, so they spoke very little because of those guns, and after a
while because of the wounded.
3
The Poste de Secours was a ruined auberge at the cross-roads, about
fifty yards behind the trenches. From what had once been its spacious
cellar, they were hurriedly carrying up the wounded, maimed and mangled
creatures who, a few hours ago, had been young and vigorous men. None
too gently the stretchers were lowered to the ground beside the two
waiting ambulances—none too gently because there were so many of them,
and because there must come a time in all wars when custom stales even
compassion.
The wounded were patient and fatalistic, like the very old women back in
the field. The only difference between them being that the men had
themselves become as a field laid bare to a ruthless and bloody hoeing.
Some of them had not even a blanket to protect them from the biting cold
of the wind. A Poilu with a mighty wound in the belly, must lie with the
blood congealing on the bandage. Next to him lay a man with his face
half blown away, who, God alone knew why, remained conscious. The
abdominal case was the first to be handled, Stephen herself helped to
lift his stretcher. He was probably dying, but he did not complain
except inasmuch as he wanted his mother. The voice that emerged from his
coarse, bearded throat was the voice of a child demanding its mother.
The man with the terrible face tried to speak, but when he did so the
sound was not human. His bandage had slipped a little to one side, so
that Stephen must step between him and Mary, and hastily readjust the
bandage.
‘Get back to the ambulance! I shall want you to drive.’
In silence Mary obeyed her.
And now began the first of those endless journeys from the Poste de
Secours to the Field Hospital. For twenty-four hours they would ply back
and forth with their light Ford ambulances. Driving quickly because the
lives of the wounded might depend on their speed, yet with every nerve
taut to avoid, as far as might be, the jarring of the hazardous roads
full of ruts and shell-holes.
The man with the shattered face started again, they could hear him above
the throb of the motor. For a moment they stopped while Stephen
listened, but his lips were not there . . . an intolerable sound.
‘Faster, drive faster, Mary!’
Pale, but with firmly set, resolute mouth, Mary Llewellyn drove faster.
When at last they reached the Field Hospital, the bearded Poilu with the
wound in his belly was lying very placidly on his stretcher; his hairy
chin pointing slightly upward. He had ceased to speak as a little
child—perhaps, after all, he had found his mother.
The day went on and the sun shone out brightly, dazzling the tired eyes
of the drivers. Dusk fell, and the roads grew treacherous and vague.
Night came—they dared not risk having lights, so that they must just
stare and stare into the darkness. In the distance the sky turned
ominously red, some stray shells might well have set fire to a village,
that tall column of flame was probably the church; and the Boches were
punishing Compiègne again, to judge from the heavy sounds of
bombardment. Yet by now there was nothing real in the world but that
thick and almost impenetrable darkness, and the ache of the eyes that
must stare and stare, and the dreadful, patient pain of the
wounded—there had never been anything else in the world but black night
shot through with the pain of the wounded.
4
On the following morning the two ambulances crept back to their base at
the villa in Compiègne. It had been a tough job, long hours of strain,
and to make matters worse the reliefs had been late, one of them having
had a breakdown. Moving stiffly, and with red rimmed and watering eyes,
the four women swallowed large cups of coffee; then just as they were
they lay down on the floor, wrapped in their trench coats and army
blankets. In less than a quarter of an hour they slept, though the villa
shook and rocked with the bombardment.