Ambulance Girls

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘Helen Markham is a nasty witch,’ I whispered to Levy.

  He smiled. ‘She was polite, at least.’

  The bus for the railway station arrived and the queue began to shuffle slowly forwards.

  ‘Only just,’ I said. ‘And Ashwin should have offered us a lift back to London. She’s as bad as her ghastly sister.’

  He shrugged as he ushered me into the bus. ‘Ashwin’s not that bad,’ he said when we had sat down. ‘I can’t see Helen Markham squatting in the dirt beside a dying old man, holding his hand with raiders dead overhead and strings of bombs falling nearby.’

  ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Mrs Helen bloody Markham wouldn’t do that.’ My rage boiled over. ‘He used to be in love with her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jim. He was in love with Ashwin’s wretched sister when he was at Cambridge. He told me so. I’ve lost all respect for him now.’

  ‘Cambridge was years ago, Brennan. Gallons of water under the bridge since then.’

  I wasn’t so sure. He had told me he was part of her set at Cambridge. Levy might have been his friend at school, but that fact alone did not mean Jim was not anti-Semitic in general. It was easy to like Levy once you got to know him. Jim, like Squire, might simply consider Levy to be ‘different’ from the rest of his people. I detested such prejudice. When I was seventeen there had been race riots in the Eastern Goldfields, near to Kookynie. Angry mobs set fire to the homes of Italians and Slavs who had done absolutely nothing to harm anyone, and a man had died. The violence I had seen in Prague was far worse, but it all sprang from the same source: ignorant prejudice fanned by unscrupulous people.

  ‘Jim was frightfully embarrassed at Mrs Markham’s behaviour, as was Ashwin, I think,’ said Levy.

  ‘You’ve not been close to Jim for years. How do you know that? How do you know what he believes in?’

  ‘He’s no fascist, Brennan. I’m quite sure of that.’

  I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. ‘I bet Helen Markham’s husband is a fascist, just like Ashwin’s ghastly husband and Oswald Mosley.’

  Levy shook his head. ‘You’d lose that bet. Major Markham, who is a fair deal older than his wife, is a friend of Churchill’s. He’s high up in the War Office.’ Levy’s smile was bitter. ‘He probably does loathe Jews, though. Anti-Semitism is a fact of life in their class.’

  ‘I hate it. Hate them all.’

  ‘Don’t hate Ashwin for not offering a lift. She did us a favour. Just imagine the horror of a couple of hours trapped in a car with Helen Markham.’

  ‘Too true.’ I laughed. ‘Thank you Ashwin.’

  ‘And don’t hate Vassy,’ he said. ‘No matter how he felt about the woman when he was a lad of eighteen or so, he’s not in love with her any more.’

  I snorted my disbelief.

  ‘Jim’s eyes did not light up when he saw Helen bloody Markham. They most certainly did when he saw Lily Brennan.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  November came in a flurry of crackling leaves, thick and golden-brown on the pavements, blowing in crisp eddies, shushing under my feet. And for the first days of the new month daylight raids ceased entirely; the night raids seemed to have become lighter and they brought far less damage. We all began to hope.

  There was no air raid on the night of the third of November. At half-past five in the evening the sirens sounded their monotonous prelude, but an hour later we heard the All Clear. I waited. Nothing happened. After fifty-seven consecutive nights of warnings and bombings, the darkness brought no German planes over London. In the morning there was talk on the streets. Had the English weather become too bad even for the Nazis? Could this be the finish of the Blitz?

  The next night dashed our hope. The raiders returned, and the following morning the street sweepers again swept up glass with the leaves. Every night thereafter the raiders came. They attacked us in all weather, through gusty autumn showers and nights of great moonlit beauty, through black soaking rain and through thick clouds and fog, their deluge of bombs falling equally on the just and the unjust. Squire reported at the station one morning that he had been bombed out for the third time. The following day Mrs Coke’s ‘charming little place in Kensington’ was a pile of rubble.

  In the West End, a dogged crowd of revellers and working girls defied the danger, but otherwise the darkness of blacked-out London was now almost entirely the haunt of wardens and police and rescue workers. Levy and I were among the few who saw the beauty of a London under siege, lit by the dusty bluish glow of ‘star-lighting’, as we called the hazy shimmer of the filtered street-lamps, and by the thin crosses of red, green and yellow that shone through masked traffic lights. Passing buses glimmered blue inside their curtained windows, and in the early evening sharp flashes of torchlight on the footpaths illuminated the quick-stepping feet of the few pedestrians.

  On clear nights the stars blazed overhead in a glittering curtain that was invisible in the neon lights of peacetime. We saw the city’s austere beauty under a bombers’ moon that bleached the grand buildings to bone-white skeletons. By moonlight even the most overdone Victorian monstrosity assumed a remote and classic magnificence.

  Each evening the city seemed to hold its breath. Then the wailing notes of the Warning siren would sound. The drone of approaching bombers would become louder, until at last the world fragmented into colour and light: sharp flashes of gunfire, whitish-green and hissing incendiaries, the blazing brightness of exploding bombs. Tall yellow flares of burning gas mains raged at the sky and the inevitable fires saturated everything in a fierce orange-red glow.

  With daylight, the raiders retreated and Londoners emerged to see what destruction they had wrought in the night. Each morning we would be reminded anew that we lived now in a wartime landscape, one that shifted and changed overnight. Anything – buildings, people, a lifetime of memories – could disappear without warning into the maelstrom known as the Blitz.

  And still, as far as was possible, it was ‘business as usual’. We became used to the new timetable of life, with all its discomforts and uncertainties. Life went on. Unsafe buildings were flattened by demolition charges, paths were pushed through to re-open streets, bridges were rebuilt, gas and water mains re-laid, telephones reconnected. When the main sewer was damaged, sewage was diverted into Levy’s beloved Thames.

  Everyday life continued, despite the destruction that came every night, and some of the changes were welcome ones. English men and women of different classes, localities, sets and tastes talked to each other now without constraint. We smiled at strangers in the street, swapped Blitz stories and lived with the unimaginable. Children played among the rubble on the bomb sites, looters continued their dirty business, babies were born – one in our ambulance on the way to hospital – people died, and people fell in love.

  I arrived back at St Andrew’s two weeks after our visit to the RAF hospital to find in my letterbox a postcard from Jim Vassilikov, asking me to join him at the National Gallery for a concert the following week. He left a number for me to call and added, ‘I think it is your week on nights, so you choose the day.’

  I was impressed that he knew my schedule, and supposed he had asked Levy.

  Katherine entered the lobby as I stood looking at the postcard, which was a rather garishly coloured photograph of Trafalgar Square.

  ‘Bad news?’ she asked.

  I laughed. ‘No. Surprising.’ I handed her the postcard and she too laughed.

  ‘Not the most romantic of men,’ she said. ‘First an invitation to a concert that wasn’t really an invitation. Now an offhand, “If you’re free, would you care to attend another concert?”’ She turned it over to look at the picture. ‘It’s always music with him. Are you going?’

  ‘Yes, I will. Friday, I think. He was shot down a few weeks ago and is just out of hospital.’

  ‘Hmm. A Mayfair number. What will you wear?’

  ‘It’s not always about clothes, you know.’ I smiled at her. ‘Not alwa
ys.’

  ‘Heresy.’ Katherine smiled and handed back the postcard.

  * * *

  I slept badly on the Thursday night. We had been expecting a heavy raid, because the moon was full and it was a fairly clear night, but the Warning had not sounded by the time I went to bed. I was so used to the air raid din that silence was uncanny; it kept me edgy and wakeful. In the early hours I was woken by a couple of planes that came in low over St Andrew’s. I held my breath, wondering if we were the target, and cringed at the whistle of falling bombs. It sounded as if they had fallen very near because the building shook alarmingly a second or so later. There were no further disturbances that night.

  It was when I turned on the wireless the following morning that the reason for the quiet night over London became clear. While I had tossed and turned, expecting aeroplanes that did not arrive, Coventry had been just about annihilated. The medieval centre of the city was gone, Coventry Cathedral had been practically destroyed, and there were around a thousand casualties.

  At breakfast, everyone in the restaurant was sombre and upset. We Londoners knew that other towns were being bombed, some very badly, but London was bearing the brunt of German attacks and London could take it. It seemed ‘unsporting’ to so devastate a small town such as Coventry.

  ‘And the news from the Balkans is bad too,’ said Katherine. ‘The Germans have virtually occupied Romania. It won’t be long before Herr Hitler adds another country to his list.’

  ‘I shall never bother with Germans or any other foreigners ever again,’ said Pam. ‘Never. Even after we win this war.’

  ‘Yes you will,’ said Katherine. ‘British are bad at hating.’ She picked at her breakfast. ‘I think I’d sell my firstborn child for a real egg.’

  Pam sniffed. ‘I’m Australian, and you don’t have any children.’

  ‘What about the Greeks?’ I said. ‘They’ve supported us throughout.’

  ‘I like the Greeks,’ admitted Pam.

  ‘Czechs?’ I asked. ‘And the Free French forces? You were saying what wonderful dancers they were.’

  ‘I don’t mind Czechs. Or the Free French. Except when they recite Verlaine at me, with soulful expressions. My French isn’t good enough.’

  ‘The Dutch?’ asked Katherine, obviously teasing. ‘Belgians? You must like Norwegians and Danes.’

  ‘The gallant Finns?’ I put in.

  ‘Albanians?’ said Katherine. ‘How can you dislike a people whose king is named Zog?’

  ‘And what about the poor Poles? Their pilots are wonderful, I hear.’

  ‘So, Lily, you’re meeting your flight lieutenant again today,’ said Pam, changing the subject in a very determined voice.

  I admitted I was. Pam glanced at Katherine, who nodded.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Katherine and I have decided we will make you presentable.’

  I laughed. ‘What do you mean? I’m fine as I am.’

  Pam shook her head. ‘Your hair is a mess, and your nails – well, Lily – frankly, they’re a disgrace.’

  ‘I’m an ambulance driver. I don’t have time—’

  ‘Pam’s right,’ said Katherine, pushing her plate away. ‘If Celia Ashwin’s sister was his best girl at Cambridge then he has an eye for a well-turned out woman.’ She gave a decided nod. ‘So we’re going to assist you. We will brook no argument.’

  They put in a good two hours that morning to make me ‘presentable’. My hair was coiffed, my nails manicured and my eyebrows plucked. Katherine went through my closet and picked out a navy blue coat dress with embroidery on the neckline and cuffs.

  ‘It’ll do as well for a Lyons as for the Ritz,’ she said, as she tied a sash of scarlet ribbon at the waist.

  When I left the building they were smiling like a pair of fairy godmothers sending their charge off to the ball.

  It was a rainy, blustery morning and my umbrella was constantly blown inside out. My rain bonnet kept my hair dry but my face was dripping wet when I found Jim at the Gallery. The doors opened at twelve-thirty, half an hour before the concert began, but long queues always formed in Trafalgar Square well before then, so we had arranged to meet at noon.

  He was already in the line, close to the front of the queue, sheltered under the enormous portico, his greatcoat firmly buttoned against the weather. I had forgotten how tall he was. When I first saw him he had a grave expression, but his smile was sweet and rather boyish when he caught sight of me.

  I wiped my face with my handkerchief. It was so wet there was no point worrying about my lipstick, or the face powder so carefully applied an hour before. I wrung out the dripping hankie, tucked it in my handbag and looked up at him with a smile. ‘How long have you been waiting?’

  ‘About half an hour. I didn’t want us to miss out. They’re using the basement shelter because of the possibility of daylight bombing, and there’s room for only three or four hundred people down there.’

  I undid the rain bonnet and fluffed up my hair. ‘I picked a bad day for this. Sorry to make you queue in the rain.’

  ‘No need to apologise for the rain, not if it might keep Jerry away. And it’s a marvellous programme. The Griller Quartet playing Dvořák and Sibelius. Worth a bit of water.’

  Before the programme began, Myra Hess said a few words about Coventry and how music, at such a time, was surely an assertion of eternal values. Then the quartet began to play. We sat, gently steaming, in the crowded basement and were entranced. In common with half the audience I found myself in tears. As I gave myself up to the joy of the performance I thought that wars were undoubtedly barbaric, but if human beings could also conceive, perform and appreciate such music then there was some hope for us.

  Afterwards, we walked through the largely empty galleries to the exit. The art had been shipped out to God knew where at the start of the war and they had put up exhibitions of sketches and paintings done by the official war painters.

  In the basement Jim had appeared to be fully recovered from his injuries; in better light he had the pinched look of men who have suffered great pain. Deep lines furrowed his forehead and his uniform hung loosely. Despite his calm demeanour I sensed an agitation that was being held firmly in check.

  ‘How long do I have you for?’ he asked.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘When do you start your night shift?’

  ‘Oh. I should be back at the flat by four-fifteen at the latest, to change and get to the station by five.’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Two hours, then. Are you hungry?’

  ‘Starving.’

  He laughed. ‘What about the Lyons on the Strand for lunch?’

  I wondered if Levy had reported my comment about being more a Lyons girl than a Dorchester lady. The Lyons on the Strand was a Corner House. It was grander than a teashop, which had a cafeteria counter, but nowhere near as grand as the Dorchester.

  ‘I’d like that,’ I said.

  An elderly nippy showed us to our table. She wore the black dress, white apron and little lace cap of all the J. Lyons & Co. waitresses. She did not speak Russian or French to Jim, although she was obviously impressed by his uniform. Nor was there a wiggle in her walk as she left to deliver our order.

  On our way to the Corner House we had spoken of innocuous things – the weather, the raid on Coventry, how prices had skyrocketed with the war, what we thought the government would put under the ration next – but now we seemed to have run out of conversation.

  Jim sat back in his chair. On his face was the grave, rather melancholy expression that seemed habitual when he was not smiling. The long fingers of his right hand slowly tapped on the table, as if he were playing a piano.

  ‘Do you play?’ I asked.

  He seemed surprised at my question, and I nodded at his hand, still tapping the table. He laughed.

  ‘Just adequately, but with great enthusiasm. Or so my piano teacher always said. You?’

  ‘Piano. Also only adequately. And perc
ussion in my school orchestra.’

  Jim laughed.

  ‘People always laugh when I tell them that,’ I said, with some dignity.

  His smile was remorseful. ‘I suppose because you’re so small, and percussion is loud,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not always loud. Sometimes it’s very soft and subtle. What about the celesta?’

  Jim bowed his head in apology. ‘I give you the angelic celesta,’ he said. ‘Beloved by Tchaikovsky and all sugar plum fairies.’

  ‘Sometimes, I admit, I could be very loud,’ I conceded, smiling at him. ‘Especially with the cymbals.’

  ‘Is that why you chose it? To make a noise? To stand out?’

  I shrugged. ‘They needed a percussionist and no one else volunteered, so I said I’d give it a go.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Jim. ‘Isn’t that what you Aussies say?’

  ‘Too right.’

  Our glances met, slid away. He straightened his knife, then his spoon. Looking at him now I thought that Levy might well be right, that Jim was shy.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘had you always wanted to be a pilot?’

  He looked up at me. ‘I joined the Cambridge University air squadron when I first arrived at university. That meant I went straight into the RAF as a pilot officer.’

  ‘You must love flying.’

  ‘I do love flying.’ A spasm of what might have been pain twisted his face. ‘Only now I’m now a ground wallah.’

  I gave him a quizzical look.

  ‘An RAF officer who does not fly,’ he explained.

  ‘You’ll never fly again?’

  ‘Not for a while, at least.’

  ‘Your mother must be pleased,’ I said.

  His smile became sardonic. ‘She doesn’t know. My mother resides in Paris. She’s been there since 1937.’

  ‘How is she coping with the German occupation?’

  ‘My mother survived the Bolsheviks; she doesn’t fear the Nazis. I don’t hear from her much. But then, I didn’t hear from her much before the war either. She’s not the doting kind of mother.’