Road to War

by Valerie Wilding

  18th November

  The concert was last night. I’m glad it was, as I had such an upsetting day. I was at the canal quay this morning, and when they loaded my blessés, one of them tried to grasp my hand, but his grip was too weak. I smoothed the hair from his forehead and he whispered, “Pocket.” Oh, gosh, it brings a lump to my throat just to write about it.

  What happened was that he asked me to find a photo, and I was surprised when I saw it, since it was of himself. He begged me to send it to his mother, and I said, “You’ll be able to send it yourself when you’re better.”

  But when we arrived at the hospital, the poor boy was dead. I was the last person to speak to him and I didn’t even know his name. The attendant who came with me promised he would see that the photo reaches the boy’s mother, and I believe him.

  So what a relief it was to get back and find concert preparations in full swing. We held it in a huge Army tent. Jolliphant was worried there wouldn’t be enough room for the audience, but Meldrew said, “If there isn’t, we shall just do the whole thing twice.” She and Sutton had somehow produced some shiny yellow curtains, and one of the mechanics had rigged up some very decent lighting.

  I was on the point of telling them I didn’t expect to sing, when I heard Meldrew saying how brilliant it was that every single one of us was having a go, even though we were all complete amateurs. And I thought, why shouldn’t I have a go? I only hoped I wouldn’t get booed off.

  We’d just got to the stage when we thought no one was coming, when the first of the Tommies wandered in. He was followed by more soldiers, a few Navy men, and quite a number of nurses and sisters from the various hospitals round about. There was even a smattering of French people, some of whom looked as if they were daring you to make them smile.

  I was due to go on first after the interval, and I was jolly nervous. But then Meldrew came over and whispered to me, “Sutton says she’ll be sick if she doesn’t get her act over and done with soon. Would you mind awfully giving her your slot after the interval?”

  “No, of course I don’t mind, but what about—”

  “Actually, we wanted to ask you a huge favour. We’ve decided it would be fun to have a sing-song at the end, for the audience to join in, and it would be a really big finish, don’t you think?”

  “Well, yes,” I said, “but—”

  “So what we wondered was this,” said Meldrew hurriedly. “Would you be a bird and, instead of just doing your one song, lead the whole sing-song for us, get all the audience on their feet, singing their hearts out? It would be so good for morale.”

  “Gosh!” I said. “That’s very flattering.”

  “Oh, please say yes,” begged Meldrew. “None of us has a voice as, well, as big as yours. We’d never be heard, but you would.”

  I smiled. “Of course.”

  She looked awfully relieved as she went off and got into a huddle with some of the other girls. I hastily gathered together a list of songs that everybody would know, and soon it was my turn.

  I hesitate to say that it was a triumph, but from the minute I opened my mouth, the combined voices practically lifted the tent into the air! The girls were, of course, ranged behind me, and they sang their hearts out from the start.

  Halfway through, I looked at all the faces in front of me and thought, if only Archie was among them. I still haven’t rid myself of the habit of scanning every soldier’s face I pass. I don’t suppose I ever will.

  We girls all got into our nightclothes afterwards and celebrated with two bottles of French wine that one of the officers gave us. It was rather sharp, but fun to drink.

  I slept well. The last thing I remember was vowing to myself that tomorrow I would go down to the hospital, speak to Charles, and be perfectly plain about my feelings. Then I would say goodbye.

  But now it’s early morning. I’m lying in my flea-bag writing this, my mouth tastes yellow and I don’t feel like doing that at all.

  Maybe I had too much wine.

  20th November

  My sponge was frozen this morning, and I had to thaw it over the oil stove. And I swear there was ice on my pillow, where my breath had frozen. Oh, I hate this weather. My hands feel raw all the time I’m driving.

  Thankfully, four of us had a break from barges and trains today, so we set about cleaning the hut. It goes for days without a proper clean-out. Honeycomb wouldn’t stand for such squalor! I worked slowly, and I think I was putting off the moment when I’d have to face Charles and tell him exactly how I felt. Then I knocked over the clothes horse and had to re-wash everybody’s undies.

  So, one way and another, I didn’t get a chance to go down to see him until teatime this afternoon.

  And he’s gone.

  The ward sister said Captain Wensley-Croft was well enough to rejoin his regiment, though he won’t be firing a gun for quite a while.

  He left me a note. I took it back to my car to read. It said:

  Dearest Daffy,

  I’ve looked for you every day. I’m so sad not to see you, just as we’re becoming close. We are becoming close, aren’t we? And now I must leave without saying goodbye – or rather, au revoir.

  As soon as I can, I will come back and see you. I hope we can pick up our friendship where we left off.

  Your affectionate

  Charles

  Your affectionate Charles, indeed! He’s not mine. He’s Mabel’s. And she’s welcome to him. I wouldn’t want a man who would betray anyone, let alone a wife. Or fiancée – or even a sweetheart – it’s all the same.

  30th November

  What do I remember?

  At first, all I could remember was waking up here in the hospital. But it’s coming back to me.

  My leg hurts. They tell me I was shot, but I can’t remember that. The nurses give me medicine to help the pain, but it never goes completely. I do what I can to take my mind off it. I can’t walk, of course, not yet. But I can read. I even played a game of cards with Jolliphant, who comes to see me whenever she can. Several of the girls have been. They don’t stay long. I get tired.

  Later

  Even writing tires me. The doctor says it’s probably shock.

  What do I remember?

  I remember Westerling and I driving a car each down into Calais late one afternoon. We collected mountains of Red Cross supplies – the stretcher spaces were packed tight. I took a passenger – a Red Cross man, Eric, who was going up to one of the casualty clearing stations near the front to distribute all the stuff. I didn’t envy him. We’d had nothing but rain for several days before, and it had suddenly turned bitterly cold and the roads were treacherous with patchy ice. Driving conditions were atrocious, and I knew the conditions at the front must be horrendous. I had never been so glad of my fur coat.

  The sky darkened earlier than usual.

  “A rainstorm’s on its way,” said Eric, his voice sounding muffled because of the big scarf he’d wrapped round his neck and face.

  I couldn’t reply, because my lips were numb.

  The weather worsened, and it was soon clear that we were heading right into the worst of it. One good thing was that more rain would mean the ice on the roads would melt.

  I remember little of the journey except the bleakness of the landscape. Oh yes, I remember the level crossing, and Sleepy Suzanne ignoring my hooter. Eric jumped out and lifted the barriers, which meant Westerling had to close them again.

  Nearer the front everything was dead or dying. Shelled houses crumbled and decayed, almost before your eyes. There was no sign of life. Even the chickens we sometimes saw scratching around must have been sheltering where they could. Perhaps they’d been caught and eaten. There were no scavenging dogs or cats. The burned and shattered trees stood like stalagmites, pointing towards the blackening sky, where there wasn’t a bird to be seen. In the distance, flashes and flames and the constant booming of the guns guided us to our destination.

  I remember passing a ruined farmhouse, and in the little b
lasted orchard beside it, three white-painted crosses gleamed in the darkness. I remember hooded figures unloading the Red Cross supplies and I remember saying goodbye to Eric against a background of explosions. I remember having my first experience of hearing a shell really close to, and both hearing and seeing the explosion. Thank heaven it landed in empty ground.

  Westerling ran over to me, holding her coat above her head. “Let’s get out of here!” she cried.

  I couldn’t have agreed more. I ran round to the driver’s door and screamed as something hit me hard in the face. It was hail. And not ordinary hail – these were lumps of ice, some as big as gooseberries.

  I pulled in behind Westerling and we set off. I was determined to stay close to her – it wouldn’t do to get separated or, worse, stranded in those conditions. Our cars slithered as we struggled to get a tyre-hold in the mud and icy slush, and the hail drove straight into my face, stinging me. It was going to be a hellish journey home.

  1st December

  Now I remember. I remember an officer standing on the side of the road. His car had gone off into a ditch and was well and truly embedded in mud. The front wheels had all but disappeared. We slowed, he exchanged a few words with Westerling, then climbed into her car.

  Thankfully, the hail turned to sleety rain, but once darkness had truly fallen I had a struggle to keep sight of the car in front. Westerling had her own problems, as she was very much the pathfinder. Visibility must have been even worse for her. I didn’t expect her to keep checking to see if I was behind. It was up to me to keep up.

  After a few kilometres the cloud began to break up a little, and on a couple of occasions I briefly glimpsed the moon. The rain eased, and the outline of Westerling’s vehicle in front became more visible. We still had to wrestle to stay on the road, though, as it was awash with mud and all sorts of debris.

  We drove down into a dip, crossed a swollen stream or ditch and, as we climbed the slope on the other side I suddenly saw something – an animal – moving, just off to the right, in front. It all happened at once.

  “Billie!” I screamed, but of course it wasn’t. It was an Airedale though, and the poor thing was dragging a hind leg. Almost at the moment I realized what it was, my foot slammed on the brake. The car slithered to the edge of the road and first one front wheel slipped over, then the other. For once I was grateful that I didn’t have a proper windscreen, because I would have gone through it, head first. As it was I nearly went out the front over the bonnet.

  I forced the door open and jumped out, up to my knees in foul-smelling sloppy mud, which oozed over the tops of my boots. Slipping and sliding, I climbed back on to the road and ran to the dog.

  “Hey there, old chap,” I said gently. “You’re hurt, aren’t you? Scared, too,” I added, as the boom-boom-boom of the guns suddenly seemed louder than ever. “Never mind, I’ve got an ambulance. I’ll take care of you.”

  Airedales are too big to carry, so I helped the poor creature along the road, back towards the car. Westerling had driven on. She obviously hadn’t noticed I’d stopped. I was alone. I looked around. Darkness was everywhere. I couldn’t see a single light anywhere. Not a glimmer.

  I stopped every couple of steps, to give the poor, soaking wet dog a rest. As we finally neared the car I became aware of movement on my right and heard the sound of panting. My heart tumbled over.

  “Aus dem Wege!” said a deep voice. “Out of the way! Move, please!”

  A German. I was face to face with a German. “The dog,” I squeaked. “He’s hurt. I just want to—”

  He raised a gun. “Move! Lass den Hund! Leave the dog!”

  “Please,” I begged. “Bitte?” Why hadn’t I bothered to learn a few words of German? But it didn’t matter. He had enough English to make me understand.

  “The dog. Er muss sterben. It must die. You will please move. Move!”

  I don’t know why I did it. I’m not brave. Maybe I thought of Billie, although there was hardly time. But I couldn’t let him kill the poor animal in cold blood. He would kill me anyway, so it didn’t matter. As he raised the gun to fire, I threw myself in front of the dog.

  There was a flash and a brain-bursting explosion, and something thumped me in the knee. Moments later came excruciating pain, then … nothing.

  2nd December

  I feel better today. The pain is easing, but I’m told it will be a long time before my leg is better. At least I remember how I came to be shot. I still can’t believe it. Someone must have written to Mimi, because I’ve had a very sorrowful letter from her, all about how I promised I wouldn’t drive into danger. She didn’t mention being shot, so I think she’s been spared the details. How will she feel when she knows what really happened? That I was shot trying to save a dog. Not a very noble deed, I suppose, in these dreadful times when men and boys are being killed in their thousands or, like Archie, just disappearing.

  4th December

  Gosh. I’ve had an unexpected visitor. Westerling, who I last saw disappearing into the rainy blackness, came to see me, and brought an Army officer with her. At first I thought she must have found herself a sweetheart, but then she introduced him to me. He was the officer she picked up that dreadful night, after we left the casualty clearing station. He asked us to call him Nigel, and he’s very sweet, in an old-fashioned sort of way. Rather like my papa, in fact.

  “Rowntree, you were incredibly brave,” Westerling said, shoving a paper bag of jam tarts into my hand. “We’re all so desperately proud of you.” She sat in a chair beside my bed.

  “It didn’t take much bravery to get shot,” I said. “I didn’t know it was coming and, to be frank, if I’d known how much it would hurt, I’d definitely have run the other way.”

  Nigel smiled. “I’m glad you didn’t. May I?” He patted the bed.

  I nodded and he sat down. Instantly, the ward sister beetled across and said, “No sitting on beds.”

  Nigel leapt up. “Sorry! Sorry, Sister!”

  It always amazes me that these officers put themselves in front of German shells and bullets and bombs every day, yet they’re terrified by a nurse.

  “I’ll fetch you a chair if you need to sit,” she said, smoothing my bedspread.

  “No, no thank you,” said Nigel. “We won’t be here long.”

  “That’s right,” said the sister.

  Nigel relaxed once she’d left the ward. I offered him a jam tart, then caught Westerling’s eye. She was trying hard not to laugh at him.

  “So what happened that night?” I asked. “I still don’t know how I got here. What did you do when you got back and discovered I was missing?”

  “We didn’t,” she said. “When we set off, I could hardly see anything in front of me, and I was terrified of driving into a shell hole, or going off the road nose down into a canal or ditch. So I told Nigel I’d concentrate on the road, if he kept checking to see that you were behind us. There came a point when he said you’d disappeared.”

  “So Miss Westerling slowed down, and I was to let her know when you caught up,” said Nigel, helping himself to a second jam tart. I took a bite of mine. It was delicious.

  “And of course, you didn’t catch up,” continued Westerling. “So I did about a 23-point turn—”

  “Thank goodness for all that practice on the Calais quay,” I said. “What then?”

  The ward sister bustled in with a chair. “Sit down, please,” she said to Nigel. “You make the room look untidy.”

  “Then,” said Westerling, “then came the exciting bit. Thanks to the dreadful weather and the racket from the front, not to mention star shells exploding in the sky, your German didn’t notice us coming until we were almost upon him. Nigel here, who’s an absolute hero, leapt out while we were still moving, and knocked him to the ground! He banged the German’s arm again and again until he dropped the gun and, in seconds, it was all over. I, of course, was attending to you, and when I turned round, I found I had a trussed-up German prisoner in the ba
ck of my dear little ambulance!”

  “And me?”

  “I’m afraid you were put in the back above him,” said Nigel. “If you’d opened your eyes, we didn’t want the first person you saw to be the man who’d just shot you!”

  Westerling laughed. “You’ll be pleased to know you bled on him.”

  I laughed, too, for the first time since I woke in hospital. Unfortunately I spluttered crumbs on the bedsheets. Sister would be cross about that. Maybe I could sweeten her up with a tart or two.

  “I think that’s everything,” said Westerling.

  “The dog? What about the dog? Did someone take care of it?”

  They both smiled. “We brought the dog back in the ambulance.” Westerling looked at Nigel. “We had to, didn’t we?”

  Nigel nodded. “You see, Miss Rowntree, when I said I was glad you hadn’t run the other way, it doesn’t mean I was glad you got shot. I was glad you didn’t leave the dog to the German.”

  I smiled. “Poor thing. How could I? I’ve got an Airedale exactly like him at home.”

  A lump came into my throat as I thought of home, and Mimi, Freddie and May, and of Honeycomb and Billie and even Gulliver.

  “Nigel,” I said. “My brother, Archibald Rowntree, he’s—”

  “Yes, Miss Westerling told me. I’ll do all I can, Miss Rowntree, but I have to tell you that it’s most unlikely—”

  “I know.” I pulled the blankets up to my chin. “Actually, I think I’d like to rest now. Thank you for coming to visit me. And – thank you for saving my life.”

  Nigel rose and looked down at me seriously. “You haven’t let me finish telling you about the dog. He wasn’t an ordinary dog. He was a messenger dog.” He crouched down so his face was level with mine. “Your Airedale was carrying a message, and if that message hadn’t got through, many, many lives would have been lost.”

  I didn’t trust myself to speak. Westerling smoothed my hair back. “You thanked us for saving your life, Rowntree, but the truth is, you’ve saved many more.”