by Hilary Green
Outside, the whistle summoning her to roll-call sounded. She dragged a comb through her hair, grimacing at the pallor of her face, and hurried out of her cabin. All along the corridor doors were banging open and women were appearing buttoning tunics, pushing hair under caps. One or two were wearing top coats and boots and Victoria suspected that underneath they were still in their pyjamas. It was not surprising. An ambulance train had been scheduled for eight o’clock the previous night but had been delayed until ten. After each ambulance had made three round trips lasting about an hour, none of them had got back to camp until after one a.m., exhausted from driving their casualties over roads full of potholes by the light of one dimmed headlight. In addition to her other ills, Victoria felt light-headed from lack of sleep.
After roll-call they had a hasty breakfast, which she was unable to stomach, and then it was time to get the ambulances started. They were all Napiers now and Victoria had named hers Nancy. As she cranked the starting wheel the three possible solutions to her dilemma went round and round in her head. She was checking the oil pressure and the fuel gauge when the cry went up, ‘Barges!’ and all around her colleagues scrambled into the driving seats. Victoria followed the rest down the long road from the camp and on to the wharf beside the canal. She had just backed her vehicle up to the edge of the water when the first barge came slipping gently under the bridge. The stretchers came up on lifts and were placed in the back of the waiting ambulances and for the next hour her mind was fully occupied as she eased the Napier over bumps and culverts on the way to the hospital. But on the return drive to camp her predicament came back to her in full force.
She managed to keep some lunch down, but as she left the mess tent Beryl Hutchinson stopped her.
‘I say, old thing, you look a bit green about the gills. Are you all right?’
‘No, actually. I’m feeling a bit under the weather,’ Victoria admitted. ‘I think I may have picked up some kind of tummy bug.’
‘Why don’t you go and ask Boss to give you the rest of the day off?’ Hutchinson asked. ‘There’s no shame in going sick, if you’re really not up to the job, you know.’
‘I know,’ Victoria agreed. ‘But I’ll keep going for the time being. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.’ If she was going to go for the sickness option, it had to be something more serious than an attack of diarrhoea.
As she crossed the compound Lilian Franklin called her over.
‘Colonel Martin needs someone to drive him to Pont du Beurre this afternoon. I thought it would be a good job for you and Sparky.’
Victoria’s heart sank. She had been looking forward to an hour’s rest in her cabin but she could only nod and respond cheerfully, ‘Righto, Boss. What time does he want me?’
‘Right away. He’s waiting at HQ for you to pick him up.’
Victoria made her way to where Sparky was parked and pulled out the starting handle. The little car was usually very cooperative and started on the second or third turn, but on this occasion he refused to oblige. Victoria cranked and cranked, swearing under her breath. Suddenly, there was an explosion and she felt a violent, wrenching pain in her arm and was thrown bodily sideways to land on the bonnet. Her cry of pain and the subsequent extremely unparliamentary language brought Hutchinson out of her office.
‘What happened?’
‘Sparky backfired.’
‘I heard. Are you all right? Let’s have a look at that arm.’
She ran expert hands over Victoria’s right arm and grimaced. ‘If you ask me, that’s broken. I’ll get someone to run you to the hospital.’
‘But what about the colonel?’ Victoria protested. ‘I’m supposed to pick him up.’
‘Someone else can do that. Come on, let’s get you settled.’
Victoria reached into the front seat with her good arm and grabbed the haversack that held her first aid kit and a few personal possessions. She patted the steering wheel and whispered, ‘Good old Sparky! You never let me down!’
After that, events took on a momentum that left little time for reflection. The doctor at the hospital confirmed that the arm was indeed broken, but it was a clean break that could be set without surgery, and by dinner time Victoria was back in camp, standing in front of the CO’s desk with her arm in a sling.
‘Boss’ Franklin looked her up and down and remarked, ‘Well, you’re not going to be much use to us here, in that condition. You’d better go home until the arm is usable again. I’m sure the London office can find plenty for you to do. There’s a hospital ship leaving tomorrow morning. I’ll see if I can get you on board.’
By the following afternoon Victoria was letting herself into her flat in Mayfair. Next day, she reported to the London HQ in the Earls Court Road. Janette Lean, the Secretary of the Corps, regarded her sympathetically.
‘Oh, poor you! What rotten luck! Well, we can certainly use some extra help. There’s a flood of new recruits coming through, and great loads of comforts for the troops to be dealt with, apart from the general effort to raise funds. But you look really done up. Why don’t you take a few days off and have a good rest? Then you can come back and really make yourself useful.’
By mid-afternoon, Victoria was sitting in the comfortably appointed consulting room of the doctor whose name she had been given all those years ago. She had changed out of her FANY uniform and put on a dove-grey coat and skirt, the soberest items in her wardrobe. She had decided that she was likely to get a more sympathetic hearing if the doctor did not know how she had spent the last two years, and she had her story ready.
After a cursory examination and a few routine questions he said, ‘So, you are quite sure that you really don’t want this baby?’
‘Quite sure,’ she replied.
‘And the child’s father? Have you consulted him?’
‘I can’t. He was killed by a sniper’s bullet a month ago. He’d just been home on leave. That’s when . . .’
‘When the child was conceived. And you are not married to this man?’
‘No. We were engaged. We wanted to wait until the war was over before we got married, but then . . . it seemed cruel to let him go back without . . . you know.’
‘It’s a story I am hearing far too often these days,’ the doctor said. ‘And your family? What do they think?’
‘I have no family, really. My parents are both dead and I’m an only child.’ That part, at least, was true.
He put his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. ‘There are only two grounds upon which a pregnancy can be legally terminated. One, that the physical health of the woman would be in danger if it was allowed to continue. The second is that her mental health would suffer irreparable damage. You seem to me to be in good physical health. Tell me, if I were to refer you to a colleague of mine who is a psychiatrist, do you think he might conclude that your mental health was at risk?’
‘Oh, yes!’ Victoria said earnestly. ‘I really think I might have a nervous breakdown.’
He nodded. ‘There is one further point. I have a nursing home, quite small but well equipped and very discreet. I am sure we could find a room for you there, but it is not cheap.’
‘That won’t be a problem,’ she assured him. ‘My father left me quite well off.’
He smiled. ‘Then I will get my secretary to make an appointment for you with my colleague.’
The psychiatrist had consulting rooms a few doors away in Harley Street. His manner was less unctuous than the first doctor’s but it was clear to Victoria that the interview was purely a matter of form. After a few questions he said, ‘What happened to your arm?’
‘I fell down some stairs.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, I . . . I suppose I wasn’t looking where I was going.’ If he thought that she had thrown herself down the stairs in an attempt to produce a miscarriage, so much the better.
‘Dr Congreve is of the opinion that to be forced to continue this unwanted pregnancy would severely damage your menta
l health. Is he right?’
Victoria stretched her eyes wide until she felt tears pricking them and when she spoke the tremor in her voice was only partly assumed. ‘Oh, yes! I’m sure I couldn’t go through with it. I think I should go mad.’
The next morning she checked into the nursing home in a quiet street in St John’s Wood. Three days later she presented herself again at the Corps HQ.
‘Oh, you look better,’ Janette said. ‘Do you feel it?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Victoria replied. ‘Much better.’
Twenty-Two
Leo was relaxing at the Papadakis house. Melinda had given her a small suite of rooms to herself and she was in the sitting room, reading by an open window. Summer had come, and the day had been oppressively hot, but now there was a faint breeze off the sea, carrying the smell of jasmine and roses from the garden. She had exchanged her FANY uniform for a dress of white linen so fine that it was almost transparent, cut low enough in the neck to reveal the swell of her breasts. Melinda had succeeded in her aim of feeding her up to the extent that she now had breasts that would make it very hard for her to disguise herself as a boy again.
There was a tap on the door and Melinda’s maid came in. ‘Excuse me, madam, but Colonel Malkovic is here. He says he has something important to tell you. Shall I send him up?’
Leo felt a momentary confusion. She was not dressed for receiving visitors. She took up a light shawl and put it round her shoulders. ‘Yes, ask him to come up, please.’
Sasha came into the room with a rapid step and a light in his eyes that told her he had good news. ‘It’s come! We’re on the move at last.’
‘Where to?’
‘Salonika. The whole force is being transported there to join the garrison of French and British troops. Once there, we can make plans for a joint attack. With our allies’ help we shall be able to break though the Bulgarian lines and then the way is clear for an advance on Belgrade.’
Leo smiled at him. For months he had been morose and withdrawn and it was good to see him so animated. ‘That’s excellent news. When do we leave?’
‘We can begin embarking an advance guard before the end of the week. French ships are on their way to pick us up.’ He stopped and looked at her, his face darkening. ‘Now, you must go back to England.’
‘Why?’ His words struck her like a physical blow.
His brows drew together. ‘There is no place for you with the army. You have no role to play. It is not fitting for a respectable single woman to trail round Europe like a camp follower.’
Leo rose and drew herself up. ‘Is that all you think of me?’
‘I am concerned for your reputation.’
‘What do I care about my reputation? Don’t you know that, wed or unwed, I would follow you to the ends of the earth? All that matters to me is that we should be together.’
For a moment he stood gazing at her with an intensity that frightened her. Then he reached out and took hold of her hands. ‘Very well, then, so be it. Let us be . . . together.’
The next instant she was folded in the embrace she had dreamed of for four long years. But this time his kiss was not the tender farewell she remembered from the first occasion. It was fierce and urgent and after a moment he swept her up in his arms and carried her through into the bedroom. There he set her on her feet and began to struggle with the fastenings of her dress. Realizing that he would rip it in his haste she took a step backwards.
‘Let me.’
He drew back then, but instead of turning away, as she had expected, he stood watching her, devouring her with his eyes. For a brief moment she felt ashamed. Then she remembered that it was courage he admired and it was courage he expected of her now. Swiftly she discarded her clothes until she stood naked in front of him. He reached out and touched her cheek.
‘My lioness! Come!’
He carried her to the bed and stripped himself in a few rapid movements. Once in his arms she forgot all doubts and hesitation. She had dreamed, of course, of a moment like this, and feared it a little; but his hands were skilful and her body opened to him like a flower. He came with a great sobbing groan, and she knew that he had waited and longed for this just as she had.
Later they lay looking into each other’s faces and she recalled the first time she had seen him. Those dark eyes that seemed now to caress her face had been full of pride and contempt barely veiled by formal courtesy, and yet even then she had known, in some deep half-conscious part of her mind, that she had found her soulmate.
As if his mind had been running along the same lines he touched her cheek and murmured, ‘So, at last, we are one, as fate intended.’
‘You didn’t think like that when we first met,’ she reminded him.
‘You forget. For months I thought you were a boy. It was a great relief to discover you were not.’ His hand slid downwards to cup her breast, triggering a new upsurge of desire. ‘How could I have been so blind?’
He kissed her throat, then lifted his head and looked into her eyes, his expression suddenly grave. ‘I want to tell you something.’
‘Tell me what?’ she asked, with a tremor of fear.
‘My marriage to Eudoxie was never consummated.’
‘What?’
‘It was not that I did not try to honour my obligation as a husband. But every time I approached her it brought on an attack of asthma. After a while, I realized that it was distressing her and I left her alone. Then I was recalled to my regiment and we have not met since.’
‘I see,’ Leo murmured, keeping her voice neutral to suppress the laugh of pure triumph that rose in her throat.
His smile gave licence to her delight. ‘When this war is over, I shall apply to have the marriage annulled and then we can be wed. That is, if you can reconcile yourself to life as the wife of a Serbian country gentleman, which is what I intend to be.’
She smoothed the thick dark hair on his brow. ‘Oh, Sasha! There is nothing in the world I should like more than that.’
They made love again then, this time slowly and with infinite tenderness.
A week later Leo stood beside Sasha on the foredeck of the French warship as it steamed towards the Greek coast.
‘Salonika!’ she murmured. ‘Again! Strange how fate seems to lay down certain pathways for one’s life, so that you keep returning to the same places. Was it really only four years ago? It feels like a lifetime.’
‘When did you come here first?’ he asked.
‘The day we met for the first time, when we walked into your hotel and demanded to be sent to Chataldzha. What a silly, naïve pair you must have thought us!’
He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Naïve? Yes, I suppose so. But silly? I’m not so sure about that. I do remember thinking that one of you could be quite attractive, if only she was more suitably dressed, and not so damned arrogant!’
Leo laughed. ‘Arrogant? Talk about pots and kettles!’ She slipped her hand into his. ‘Never mind. They say like calls to like. Perhaps we’ve both met our match – to coin a phrase.’
He squeezed her fingers. ‘And what a pair we make! Look, we’re entering the harbour. This is the end of the long retreat. From now on we go forward. And nothing less than victory will do.’
She leaned into him and looked up at his face, fired with pride and determination. She thought, This is the only victory that I really need, but she did not voice the thought. Instead she said, ‘We may have a long road ahead of us. But as long as we can travel it together nothing else matters.’
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