Ambulance Girls Under Fire

by Deborah Burrows

  I barely gave him time to reply before I dashed into the darkness, heading for where I had left my patient. Squire was still kneeling on the ground, holding her head cradled on his lap, but now Simon squatted beside them. He appeared to be feeling for a pulse in Mrs Whitely’s wrist.

  Simon shook his head and, very gently, lowered Mrs Whitely’s hand to lie on her chest. He shone his torch into her eyes, prising open each lid in turn with his finger and thumb. And then placed his fingers over her jugular vein. That would be just to make sure, I thought. Simon would always want to make sure, because he so hated to lose his battles with Death.

  ‘Is she—?’ My voice was raspy, and louder than I had intended.

  It was Squire who answered. ‘Afraid so, Duchess. Internal injuries, the doc thinks. Very sad. She slipped away just after you left.’

  Slipped away. He made it sound so peaceful, her death. Made it sound the antithesis of what had happened to cause it. Mrs Whitely, who was someone’s wife and someone’s daughter and maybe someone’s mother and who had not wanted to die, had slipped away into the darkness.

  Simon remained motionless beside her, seemingly fixated on Mrs Whitely’s pale face. Then he swayed and almost toppled. Squire put out a big hand and grasped his arm to hold him upright, then glanced at me.

  ‘Why don’t you take the doc home, Duchess? Take him with you in the car, drop off your patients and then drop him home on your way back to the station. He lives in the Bloomsbury area, told me so earlier tonight. He was with us, down there, earlier. It was… as bad as it gets, down there.’ He looked at me for a few seconds, and it was shocking to see the misery in his eyes. Squire was stolid, always utterly dependable no matter what horrors we faced. I wondered what he and Armstrong and Simon had seen in the devastated underground station.

  I nodded.

  ‘All he really needs now is a good kip,’ said Squire.

  Simon shook his head, but slowly as if he found the movement to be a challenge. ‘The patient…’

  ‘Now don’t you worry about the poor lady, Doc,’ Squire assured him. ‘I’ll carry her to the van. Doc Hamble can certify her.’

  I walked over to them and knelt beside Simon. ‘How long since you last slept?’ I asked.

  His eyes were bloodshot and his face drawn, but he managed a slight smile. ‘Was at the hospital most of last night and all day. Then I heard of this disaster and came over to help.’ He raised his shoulder in a slight shrug. ‘Two days? I’ve been catnapping, though.’

  I took hold of his arm and pulled him with me as I stood. Squire helped and together we got him upright.

  ‘Come on, Simon,’ I said. ‘I’ll take you home.’

  He made no demur as I led him to the sedan. I was pleased to see that my three patients were standing beside the tea car, sipping hot drinks. Sally was munching a cookie.

  ‘Mrs Whitely won’t be coming with us,’ I said. ‘But we’ve got Dr Levy instead. He’s along for the ride.’

  By the time I’d dropped off the Goldmans and Sally at the first-aid depot, it was close to seven on a cold, wet morning. It was a while yet until dawn, though, as with the continuance of summer time we didn’t see the sun until around nine o’clock. I headed for Bloomsbury with Simon stretched out along the back seat. When I pulled up outside his parents’ house I twisted around to him, lighting his form with my dim torchlight.

  Simon was fast asleep, sprawled across the seat. His arms were crossed over his chest in a protective gesture, but the lines of worry and responsibility in his face had been smoothed by unconsciousness. His dark hair was messy and dusted with plaster and his face was streaked with blood and dirt and ash. Asleep, he looked absurdly young, far too young to be a doctor with all the responsibility that came with that knowledge and training.

  David had been so proud of his doctor brother. Simon was only eleven months the younger, and David had said that they were as close as twins. ‘Simon’s the family dreamer,’ David had said. ‘He wants to save the world and that’s why he took up medicine. You’d love him, Celia. He’s so damn good.’ He had laughed then, and said, ‘I make him seem like a prig, and he’s not. Actually, he’s such a casual-seeming devil, it takes a while to realise that he’s tough as they come.’

  Tough as they come.

  ‘Why do you take so many risks, Simon?’ I whispered. ‘Is it because you had to leave those wounded men behind at Dunkirk? You can’t save everyone, no matter how much you try. I wish you’d realise that.’

  I stared at him by the light of my masked torch for longer than politeness allowed but could see nothing more than a hint, if as much as that, of his brother in his face. He slept so peacefully that I was sorry to wake him, but I had to return the sedan to the station and have it spick and span before the next shift arrived at seven-thirty.

  ‘Simon,’ I hissed. ‘Simon, wake up. You’re home.’

  Nothing. He did not so much as twitch.

  ‘Simon,’ I said, in a louder voice. ‘Wake up.’

  Again, nothing. So I climbed out of the car, marched around to the rear door and pulled it open. If I couldn’t wake him I’d either have to knock up the Levys, which I did not want to do, or comb the streets for a policeman or milkman or someone who could help me to drag him up to the front door. Then we’d have to search him for his key and get him inside. A light rain was falling, which added to my impatience.

  I leaned across the seat, took hold of his shoulders and shook him vigorously. ‘Simon, wake up.’

  His eyes fluttered open and he blinked a few times. Then he saw me, hovering over him. If I had had any doubts about how Simon Levy thought of Celia Ashwin, they were dispelled by his look of utter contempt and loathing.

  ‘Good God,’ he said, ‘can I never escape you? Leave me alone, why don’t you. Go away.’ He raised his hand as if to strike me.

  I dropped him on to the seat as if he was electrically charged and pulled myself out of the car. On the way I bumped my head and hot tears filled my eyes at the pain. I blinked them away furiously and stalked around the car to stand by the driver’s door where I waited for Simon to emerge. There was no point in driving off if Simon had not fully extricated himself from the vehicle.

  In a few clumsy movements Simon twisted himself out of the back seat and slouched against the side of the car, knuckling his eyes and shaking his head.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘That was insufferably rude. I wasn’t awake… I thought … didn’t realise…’ He sucked in a breath. ‘Please, Celia, forgive me.’ He looked around and shook his head again. ‘What am I doing here?’

  He looked so exhausted, and so unhappy that I couldn’t remain angry. I had always known how he felt about me. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but I had not expected such an unguarded look of raw anger and loathing as the one he had just given me.

  ‘Are you all right to get into the house?’ I asked, keeping my tone cool and disinterested. ‘You were dead on your feet, and Squire – he’s the big ambulance driver who was with Mrs Whitely, the woman who died – he suggested that I drop you off on my way back to the station.’

  He pushed a hand over his face and took a shuddering breath. When he looked at me his utter misery and guilt were clear in his face. ‘I certified her fit to go to the first-aid depot rather than to hospital. I should have realised.’

  ‘How could you have known? You had no X-ray machine. It was too dark to properly examine her. It’s not your fault, Simon.’

  ‘I should have known how seriously injured she was. I do, sometimes. I just know. I can’t explain how.’

  ‘It was her time to go. You can’t save everyone.’

  ‘I can try, can’t I?’ he said sharply, then moderated his voice to repeat, ‘I am so very sorry about… I thought it was a dream.’

  ‘You thought it was a nightmare, obviously,’ I snapped.

  He flinched at that. ‘How many times do I have to apologise? I didn’t strike you. I would never strike you. I was asleep. I thou
ght you were…’ His voice trailed away.

  ‘Celia Ashwin. You thought I was me.’ My voice was dry. Simon may not have struck me, but he had wanted to do so.

  His voice hardened. ‘I’ve sincerely apologised. What do you want from me? Blood?’

  We glared at each other. His eyes were bloodshot and unutterably weary, but had a spark that showed his annoyance. I preferred annoyance to the utter defeat of the minute before. Blood? There was a trickle of dried blood running down his neck. Something must have nicked him in the darkness.

  I tried to enter the bluebell glade; it eluded me, but again my anger drained away. Simon had been working without respite for the past two days. He had gone into the devastated underground station and dealt with who knew what horrors. And then his last patient of the night had died, after he had declared her to be well. He may not like Celia Ashwin, he might even hate her, but Simon Levy had behaved, as usual, with utmost bravery and concern for his patients and he deserved my respect.

  Head high and walk tall. I raised my chin. ‘Think nothing of it. As you say, you were asleep.’ I managed a smile and looked straight into his eyes. ‘I’ve forgotten about it already.’

  He opened his mouth as if to say something, but obviously thought better of it and just nodded.

  ‘Are you all right to get into the house?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. I have a latchkey.’ He grimaced. ‘Celia… Thank you for the lift home.’

  ‘Please, don’t mention it. I’d best be off. I need to report back to the station and clean the car before the next shift arrives.’

  As I drove away he was still standing in the middle of the road, watching me go.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I arrived back at the Bloomsbury ambulance station in time for breakfast. All of the officers in my shift had returned, but everyone was picking listlessly at the watery scrambled eggs. I had never seen the group so miserable.

  We had all become expert at black humour, because otherwise we would never have been able to cope with the daily horrors we experienced. My time in Bloomsbury ambulance station had been a time of laughter as well as tears. I could not attempt to reproduce the humour we used to ‘carry on’, as Churchill demanded, because it was often questionable. Black humour is of the moment, and is usually childish and sometimes crude, and not at all amusing unless nerves are stretched to breaking point and need release. But it was important to us, and when I think of that time it is as if a ribbon of laughter wound around us, binding us together, keeping us whole. They were some of the happiest months of my life.

  That morning, however, it seemed that what had happened at Bank Underground was too distressing for the usual jokes. It was unusual for ambulance crew to enter a bombed building to collect wounded, as this was the job of light-rescue recovery teams, but the scale of the disaster last night was such that everyone had been expected to help. So the Bloomsbury men, Moray, Squire, Armstrong, Sadler and Purvis, had gone underground to assist the rescue teams and work as stretcher-bearers. And now they could not stop talking about the night’s horror.

  ‘I heard the bomb fall into the booking hall,’ said Squire, as I sat beside him with my plate. ‘They reckon at least sixty died at the scene, and others in hospital afterwards.’

  ‘Casualties were high because it fell right at the entry to the concourse,’ Moray explained. ‘That meant most of the blast went down the escalator shafts and straight on to the platform areas. Most of those sleeping at the bottom of the escalator were killed outright, and also others who were sleeping on the platform.’

  ‘Some were blown on to the electric line and killed that way,’ said Armstrong, who was very pale and had not looked up from his plate. He picked at the food without any enthusiasm.

  ‘Dr Levy and I were sent on to a train that had stopped halfway into the station.’ Purvis shook his head and I caught an echo of the horror in his eyes. ‘Mercifully it was almost empty. Dr Levy did what he could, but…’ He sighed. ‘We took out five, but all the rest were dead. We had to leave the bodies for the clean-up crews.’

  ‘Lights went out, of course,’ said Moray. ‘The air was so thick with dust on the Central Line platform that our torches were of little use. It was utter chaos.’

  ‘There should have been emergency lighting,’ said Harris. ‘It’s disgraceful that you had to feel around for casualties in the dark.’

  ‘Things got better once the soldiers arrived,’ said Armstrong, looking up at last. ‘They had arc lights. Hundreds of soldiers came to clear the debris.’

  ‘They pulled out a little girl, just like my Alice at that age,’ said Squire, in a tight thin voice that I’d not heard before. ‘She’d lost her mother and she just kept calling, “Mummy. Mummy.” And then there was that poor woman what just up and died in my arms. Doc Levy was devastated. First time I’d really seen him close to cracking.’ He looked across at me. ‘That’s why I sent him home with you, Duchess. Had to get him out of there. No, I’ll never forget last night.’ He dashed a hand across his eyes, and frowned down at his breakfast.

  Moray spoke up. ‘The deaths at Bank Underground Station just go to prove that being underground isn’t necessarily a safe haven.’

  ‘Tell us something we don’t know,’ said Sadler. He had a fixed look, as if he were holding back pain, and his lips were flat against his lips. ‘I know you lot think I’m – well, maybe I am, but this is London. Those people last night, they were my—’ He looked up, directly at me. ‘It’s a good thing your Hitler-loving old man is in quod. Because I’d like to lay hands on that New Order bastard.’ His hands closed into fists.

  ‘Language,’ said a shocked female voice.

  I said nothing, but stared at Sadler until he looked down at his plate. My relationship with my husband was none of his business, nor was the fact that Cedric would soon be out of gaol.

  Squire patted my shoulder as if I were one of the greyhounds he had bred before the war and Moray went on as if Sadler hadn’t spoken.

  ‘And because being underground is not necessarily safe, I’ll arrange for you all to start revising your first-aid training.’ He looked across at me. ‘Another thing. When I say that an officer is not fit for duties, I expect that the officer will stay here in the station.’

  I opened my mouth to remonstrate, but before I could speak he went on, ‘May I see you in the office, Fripp. Now, please.’

  Fripp followed Moray into the office with dragging feet and trembling lips as Powell unwittingly cheered us up with her latest rumour.

  ‘My Aunt Glad told me that they were using a new weapon last night,’ she said, in the confidential tone she used for her more outrageous theories. Aunt Glad was often the source of such rumours. ‘It uses vibration to disintegrate buildings. And that’s why there was such a strange glow in the sky.’

  ‘What poppycock,’ said Harris dismissively.

  ‘No,’ said Purvis, in a low and suspiciously sombre voice. ‘Powell’s absolutely right. There was a bright glow all around us last night. I heard that the Nazis even have a word for it.’

  ‘What do they call it?’ asked Powell, her eyes wide.

  ‘Mondlicht.’

  Even Powell could work out the German for moonlight. She flounced out of the room followed by laughter. My mood lifted. If we could laugh, we could get through the worst Hitler threw at us.

  ‘When in doubt, brew up,’ said Harris, getting to her feet. ‘Who wants another cuppa?’

  I had a tailwind as I rode my bicycle back to St Andrew’s Court. It was the first nice thing to have happened in the past twenty-four hours, I thought. The second nice thing was seeing Lily as I emerged from the basement where I parked my bicycle. She was coming out of the service restaurant with her friend Katherine Carlow.

  I was a trifle wary of Katherine, who was clever and sarcastic. More than that, she was always so beautifully attired that I felt like a positive dowd beside her. Katherine had been a junior couturier at one of the big fashion salons in London befo
re the war and now was Deputy Station Leader in the Berkeley Square Depot, to where Lily had transferred before Christmas. Katherine’s husband was in the army and stationed in Egypt.

  Lily caught sight of me and said, in a sing-song voice, ‘Thirteen days. Thirteen days. It’s only thirteen days.’

  I feigned ignorance. ‘Thirteen days? Whatever do you mean?’

  Katherine smiled at Lily’s outraged expression. ‘Celia’s joking, Lily. How could anyone forget when you remind them constantly?’

  Lily and Jim were to be married in the Westminster Register Office on the twenty-fifth of January.

  ‘Do you have your outfit all ready?’ I asked.

  Lily had told me that Katherine had used her contacts in the fashion world to obtain a length of robin’s-egg-blue silk and had spent the past two weeks making Lily’s wedding dress. ‘It’s not a long dress,’ Lily had assured me. ‘There’s a war on, and ostentation is infra dig nowadays. It’s a day dress that I can wear afterwards.’

  Katherine smiled. ‘It’ll be ready by the day, and she’ll look divine.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘And I must love and leave you both. Family duties. My mother-in-law is coming up to Town to buy linen. She does it every year, and that man is not going to stop her this year, no matter how many bombs he drops. Or so she informed me in her last letter. She’s arriving from Tunbridge Wells on the ten o’clock and my job is to settle her into her hotel.’ She laughed. ‘She’ll be shocked at the state of Selfridges. I’ll get yet another lecture about the perfidy of that man.’ And with that Katherine hurried away up the stairs.

  I looked at Lily. ‘I have some scented soap for you. Sadler got it from a man who…’ I touched the corner of my nose and Lily laughed.

  ‘How sweet of you. Thanks so much.’

  I began to root around in my satchel for the soap, when Lily put a hand on my arm.