Somewhere in France

by Jennifer Robson

  The difficulty in understanding the Edwards of this world is that we must put aside our penchant for labeling. That’s where taking one person, Edward in this case, and paying attention to all the vagaries without presupposing that the dots connect in a recognizable pattern is a very useful exercise.

  And then there’s a character like Robbie, whose reaction to the horrors around him seems, I think, fairly typical: you did what you had to do, you did it without whining (although grousing about the bad food, bugs, mud, and other inconveniences was perfectly acceptable), you looked out for your fellows, and you somehow managed to keep yourself from falling apart. Somehow, despite everything, they endured. They carried burdens we would think of as impossible, yet survived and even thrived in their lives after the war.

  Exactly. They knew they had a job to do, however nasty, and did it, period. The reward for doing it well was the chance to go home sooner rather than later, which meant fighting aggressively if one was on the line, and being a good surgeon if one was Robbie. They did their part in an unlovely situation and, if they lived, came home, said as little as possible about it, fought their demons as best they could, and carried on.

  I just recalled a question that you were famed for having used on the final exam for your course about the First World War: “Was the Great War great, and if so, why?” Care to take a crack at it?

  Historical change is often cited as evidence of the “great” impact of war, specifically the world wars. I’m not so sure. One has to mess around in the counterfactual with this: What would have happened had not the wars occurred? I would think most changes were in the works and that war, as Lenin said, served as the midwife of change. The shifting of borders, the collapse of dynasties and empires, and the emergence of new nations are often attributed to the wars but clearly would have happened in any case, if not, of course, in the same way.

  What war left to posterity was the brutalization of life. The great American physicist I. I. Rabi once observed that it was easy to kill people if you set your mind to it. He was thinking about the Manhattan Project, but it applies to the two world wars as well. They provided precedent, excuses for the angry, methods for the psychopathic, and opportunities for the “ordinary men” in, say, the Einsatzgruppen. This is where Wilfred Owen was prophetic:

  Now men will go content with what we spoiled,

  Or, discontent, boil blood, and be spilled.

  They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.

  None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

  My God, but he was right. Recently I’ve been reading some histories of the Second World War, and the accounts of the Eastern Front and the Pacific War are horrifying. I know where a lot of that originated: the trenches.

  Professor Stuart Robson grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1962. A Rhodes scholar, he attended the University of Oxford, where he obtained his doctorate in modern history. From 1966 to 2001 he taught at Trent University in Ontario; he then taught part-time at the University of Victoria in British Columbia until 2012. Although he specialized in modern German history, his heart was drawn to the cauldron of the two world wars for much of his teaching career. He is the author of the bestselling The First World War (Pearson, 1998 and 2007), now in its second edition.

  About the book

  Glossary of Terms Used in Somewhere in France

  A.B.C. tea shops: a chain of tea shops in Great Britain operated by the Aerated Bread Company from the 1860s to the early 1980s. Its largest competitor was the chain of tea shops operated by J. Lyons and Co.

  ADS: Advanced dressing station. After receiving first aid on the front lines, a soldier would be evacuated to the nearest ADS, and from there to a casualty clearing station.

  AOC: Army Ordnance Corps. Its members repaired and maintained small arms and artillery, and were also responsible for the disposal of unexploded, or “dud,” shells.

  ASC: Army Service Corps. Its members were responsible for military transport and supplies.

  Base hospitals: Larger facilities, well behind the lines, that received casualties from the casualty clearing stations.

  BEF: British Expeditionary Force. Generally used to refer to those forces in France before the end of the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914.

  Belgravia: A small district in central London notable for its grand squares of large Georgian houses. Lilly’s family lives in Belgrave Square, from which the district takes its name.

  Blighty: Soldiers’ slang for Britain. A Blighty wound was a coveted injury, just serious enough to merit evacuation from the front lines but not bad enough to kill or permanently maim a man, and ideally would result in a period of convalescence in England.

  Carrel-Dakin solution: An antiseptic solution, also known as Dakin’s fluid. Developed early in the war, it treated infected wounds with greater success than anything previously devised.

  CCS: Casualty clearing station. A hospital, in most cases situated within miles of the front lines, where soldiers were cared for until their condition was stable enough to allow evacuation to a base hospital. 

  Ceilidh: Pronounced “kay-leigh.” A social gathering that typically features traditional Gaelic music and dancing.

  Chilblains: Tissue injury that occurs when a person is exposed to cold and humid conditions, often resulting in swollen skin, itching, blisters, and infection.

  Clearing hospital: Another term for casualty clearing station.

  Clippie: Popular term, coined during the First World War, for women conductors on bus and tram lines.

  FANY: First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. One of the smallest and most selective of the women’s services, the FANY was founded in 1907 and provided nurses, motor ambulance drivers, and general volunteer aid in France during the war.

  First Week: Term used at the University of Oxford for the first week of each eight-week term, of which there are three in a year (Michelmas, Hilary, and Trinity).

  Frontline aid station: Also known as a regimental aid post, this is where a soldier would first receive care, typically by a medic, before being evacuated to an ADS.

  Gaiters: Protective covering for the lower leg, typically made of leather, which officers might wear instead of puttees (see below).

  Kiltie: Affectionate term for a Scottish soldier or member of a Scottish regiment. “Jock” was another common slang term for anyone Scottish.

  LGOC: London General Omnibus Company. Lilly works for the LGOC as a painter and then as a clippie. The LGOC was the largest bus operator in London from the mid-1850s to the mid-1930s and was eventually absorbed into what is now Transport for London.

  Mithering: To fuss or whine about something; popular term in central and northern England.

  Mufti: Civilian dress worn by someone who typically wore a uniform (such as a WAAC).

  NCI: Mix of naphthalene, creosote, and iodoform used in powder or paste form to control lice.

  Nought Week: Term used at the University of Oxford for the week immediately preceding the first week of term; typically the week when students arrive and settle into their lodgings.

  OC: Officer in command. The CCS where Robbie works has an OC—a colonel, rather than a CO (commanding officer). A CO would typically command a larger entity than would an OC.

  Other ranks: All ranks that are not commissioned officers. This usually includes noncommissioned officers such as sergeants and warrant officers.

  Persian insect powder: A powder made from Pyrethrum flowers and used as an insecticide.

  Pipped: Soldiers’ slang for being hit by a bullet.

  Puttees: Lengths of fabric that were wrapped over a soldier’s trouser legs from the ankle to just below the knee; meant to serve as further protection from damp and cold.

  RAMC: Royal Army Medical Corps. Its members included not only medical staff such as physicians but also support workers such as orderlies. By 1918 it had 13,000 officers and 154,000 other ranks serving in all theaters
of war.

  RAP: Regimental aid post. See frontline aid station.

  Receiving room: Roughly the equivalent of today’s emergency room, it was the area of a hospital where patients with acute and often life-threatening conditions were examined on a triage basis. Robbie worked in the receiving room of the London Hospital for several years after first qualifying as a physician.

  Reception marquee: The large tent where wounded soldiers were brought upon arrival at a casualty clearing station.

  Resuss: The tent or building at a CCS where grievously wounded soldiers were stabilized before surgery or were sent for palliative care.

  Sam Browne belt: A wide belt, typically made of leather, with an additional support strap that passes over the right soldier. Worn exclusively by officers.

  Scout: A servant, typically male, who saw to housekeeping and other chores for undergraduates in residence at Oxford colleges.

  Tommies: Term for British soldiers, usually other ranks, derived from “Tommy Atkins,” and popular for at least a hundred years before the Great War.

  VAD: Voluntary Aid Detachment. The VAD was founded in 1909 with the aim of providing nursing and support services throughout the British Empire. Nearly forty thousand women served with the VAD during the war, among them Vera Brittain, Agatha Christie, and Amelia Earhart.

  WAAC: Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. The WAAC was renamed Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps in late 1918 in recognition of its members’ achievements. Nearly sixty thousand women served in the WAAC during the war. WAAC was also the term used for an individual member of the corps.

  A note on currency: Before British currency was decimalized in 1971—that is, before pounds and pence were measured in divisions of one hundred—it was measured in pounds, shillings, and pence. Twelve pence made up one shilling and twenty shillings made up one pound, with a total of 240 pence in a pound. Written in numeric form, a pound was symbolized by the term still in use, “£,” while a shilling was “s” and a penny was “d.” Other coins were circulated: the farthing (worth one quarter of one pence); the halfpenny, threepence, and sixpence; the crown (worth five shillings); and the half-crown (worth two shillings and sixpence). Less commonly seen were the florin, worth two shillings, and the guinea, which actually referred to a gold coin no longer in circulation, and in practice was simply the amount of one pound and one shilling.

  Women Ambulance Drivers in the Great War

  by Jennifer Robson

  WHEN I BEGAN TO WRITE Somewhere in France, the character of Lilly came to me straightaway, together with the notion that over the course of the novel she would break free of her conventional upbringing through the work she does during the Great War. What I wasn’t sure of, and in fact took months to decide upon, was the exact nature of that work.

  At first I thought I would make Lilly a nurse, just like Vera Brittain, author of the classic memoir Testament of Youth. But since Lilly had no formal education, at least as I imagined her, and would have required several years of schooling in order to be considered for even the most junior of nursing positions, I knew I had to consider other possibilities.

  There were many jobs she might have done as a volunteer or member of the women’s services, few of them requiring the sort of specialized training necessary for nursing. I could have made her a clerk, a laundress, a mechanic, a cook. But the work that intrigued me most was that of ambulance driver.

  In the early years of the war, ambulance drivers (both of motor vehicles and horse-drawn wagons) were as likely to be volunteers as members of the military. The Army Service Corps (ASC) provided the lion’s share of drivers, all of them men. There were American volunteers, too, most notably the 2,500 members of the American Field Service, though this number decreased once the United States entered the war in 1917 and AFS members moved to join the U.S. military.

  And there were many hundreds of women drivers among the members of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD), and the International Red Cross (IRC). Yet none of these fit my narrative, for I wanted a service that would accept Lilly even if she were estranged from her family and could provide little in the way of references. I wanted her to belong to a service that would have ordinary women as its members, with little of the veneer of exclusivity that characterized the FANY, for instance.

  The one service that fit, the one I knew would make historical as well as narrative sense, was the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. Founded in 1917 with the intention of replacing men with women in noncombat roles, thus freeing up men for frontline duty, the WAAC had nearly sixty thousand members by the end of the war. Although it was organized along lines that in retrospect appear elitist, with its senior positions filled almost entirely by upper-middle-class women, most of its members were women from decidedly modest backgrounds.

  Unearthing detailed information about the WAAC proved to be unexpectedly difficult. Most of the official records relating to the WAAC were destroyed during the Blitz, and though the remaining information has been digitized and is accessible via the National Archives in the UK, it still provides an incomplete picture of the corps and its members. Most of all, I needed to confirm the presence of WAACs at clearing hospitals closer to the Front, but reliable evidence was difficult to find.

  One novel often cited by historians is The Story of a WAAC, and it does place the narrator and a colleague firmly at a CCS, where they work not only as drivers but also as impromptu nurses. The Story of a WAAC is, however, a fictionalized memoir, its author anonymous, and so I felt the evidence it provided was unreliable. I did eventually discover several memoirs and contemporary accounts, mainly letters and diaries, that do mention the presence of WAACs in several clearing hospitals near the Front, so I felt safe enough in sending Lilly and her friends to the 51st CCS, where their presence would have been unusual but not wholly improbable.

  Fortunately there was no shortage of sources, both primary and secondary, on the experiences of First World War ambulance drivers. Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War, written by Helen Zenna Smith in 1930, presents the most vivid and compelling descriptions I have yet found of the life of an ambulance driver during the Great War. Though Not So Quiet is a novel, Smith based it on the actual war diaries of ambulance driver Winifred Young, and it shows. Here, the narrator describes her first night ferrying wounded soldiers from a railhead to a nearby hospital:

  I drove til dawn to and fro—station, Number Five Hospital—Number Five Hospital, station . . . sick, numb, frozen-fingered, frozen-hearted . . . station, Number Five Hospital—Number Five Hospital, station . . .

  It ended, just as I thought it would never end. Back again at the depot I collapsed with my head on the steering wheel [and] I whimpered like a puppy . . . I couldn’t go on . . . I was a coward . . . I couldn’t face those stretchers of moaning men again . . . men torn and bleeding and raving.

  As I continued to research the work of ambulance drivers, I learned it was every bit as difficult, exhausting, unpleasant, and emotionally draining as recounted by Helen Zenna Smith. The vehicles were difficult to drive and maintain, particularly so in cold or rainy weather. The routes the drivers traveled were exceptionally treacherous and the hours they worked were very long. Worst of all was the suffering of their passengers, to which they were witness day after day, night after night, month after soul-destroying month. Ernest Hemingway, himself a volunteer ambulance driver with the Red Cross, described it simply in a letter to his parents. “The ambulance is no slacker’s job.”

  Through my portrayal of Lilly and her friends, I hope I have been able to shine some light on the contributions of the almost sixty thousand members of the WAAC and, in particular, the work of its ambulance drivers. It isn’t much by way of thanks to those remarkable women, but I offer it wholeheartedly all the same.

  Reading Group Guide

  1. If you had the chance to grow up as the daughter of Lord and Lady Cumberland—knowing that you would
live in unimaginable luxury but would also be denied an education, the chance to work, and very likely the chance to choose your own spouse—would you do it?

  2. Do you feel Lady Cumberland’s treatment of Lilly is motivated by sincere concern for her daughter’s welfare? Or is it a case of her obsessively adhering to the conventions of aristocratic society, no matter the cost?

  3. Do Robbie’s motivations in pushing Lilly away after the bombardment of the 51st make sense to you? Do you sympathize with him or do you think he allows tunnel vision to cloud his judgment?

  4. What about Lilly’s motivations? Is she right to insist on staying at the 51st no matter what? Wouldn’t it be reasonable for her to compromise and take up a position elsewhere in France?

  5. Before reading Somewhere in France, if someone had mentioned the First World War to you, what would have come to mind? Has your perception of the First World War changed as a result?

  6. Somewhere in France is set in the recent past, a century ago. Were there any aspects of life in the novel that surprised you by their modernity? Did its characters feel familiar to you, or more like inhabitants of “a different country,” to paraphrase a well-known description of the past?

  7. Do you think Robbie and Lilly’s relationship would have been possible without the war and the changes it brought to British society?

  8. Do you think it really would have been possible for Lilly to become friends with women like Annie and Bridget? Could such a disparity in wealth, privilege, and class truly be bridged in that era?

  9. How do you think Lilly and her friends were changed by their experiences in the WAAC? Would it have been easy for them to return to ordinary life and the status quo after the war?

  10. Do you think the war still matters? Why? It was fought a century ago, every one of its veterans is now dead, and memories of it are fading from our collective consciousness. Should we just leave it to the professional historians and concentrate on more recent events?