Not So Quiet...

by Helen Zenna Smith

  Crawl, crawl, crawl up the hill. . . . The men are mercifully quiet. Too exhausted to groan very audibly, poor wretches. . . . Number Thirteen at last . . . unloaded, back to the disinfecting section. . . . “Hullo, again? You seem to like us tonight” in response to my pleas . . . a little quicker this time, or not so thorough, . . . I neither know nor care. Down the hill at a hell of a rate, the old bus skidding and shaking. I shall be over the hill if I don’t slow up. . . . I don’t care. I am past caring about my personal safety. Once the ambulance is empty I can let her rip, and to hell with the consequences. The station yard at last. . . . Have I escaped Commandant?

  Alas, I have not! She was waiting for me. Obviously on the warpath. Something had upset her apple-cart. She was out for victims, and I am the victim she would rather nab than anyone in the convoy. It is a most extraordinary thing that whenever I do anything right, there is no sign of Mrs. Bitch. But let me do the slightest thing wrong, and she materialises like a Jack-in-the-box from nowhere. She drives an ambulance herself, but, being Commandant, she is able to choose the nearest and easiest hospitals in order to supervise the convoy. I am not blaming her for this. If I were in her place, I would choose the cushiest runs. What is the use of being Commandant if you can’t?

  Not late again? Another spotted fever case? Number Thirteen very far out? She is allowing for all these things. I had better report for punishment in the morning at 10.30. I would be cleaning my ambulance at 10.30? Ten o’clock then. She could have done Number Thirteen in half the time. Less. How—unless she had flown there and back—one does not ask. Nothing is impossible to a superwoman. Tosh says Mrs. Bitch must give God the inferiority complex twice daily. He took seven days to make the world, according to Genesis. Mrs. Bitch could have done it in half the time. She can do anything in half the time it takes anyone else.

  One of these days I will murder her slowly and reverently and very painfully. I will take lots of time over it—unless I meet her coming up the hill with dim lights, denoting an empty ambulance, in which case I will crash her bus head-on and take the risk of my own skidding into the valley afterwards.

  Twice more to Number Thirteen. A man vomiting the whole of the last trip. Never ceased for a second, poor fellow. We clean our own ambulances, so I knew what that would mean in the morning. He died as the stretcher-bearers lifted him out. I was glad. . . . Out of hell at last.

  Again to the station, to be told by the sergeant I could go home to headquarters: the train was unloaded. I was, he added, unnecessarily, the last out by a good half-hour.

  Back at last. I pull into the ambulance line, switch my engine off, crawl down, stiff and creaking in every joint, bang my chilled hands together to restore the circulation, switch my lights off, and tramp into the mess-room. The fire dead . . . of course. Everyone gone. Roll-call over. Clump, clump, clump. . . . The door opens. Commandant pokes her head in. She gives me a baleful glare. The roll-book is in her hand. “H. Z. SMITH,” she barks. “Present,” I retort, springing smartly to attention. She bangs the door without saying goodnight. Silly bitch! Clump, clump, clump. . . . I wish she would drop dead in her tracks. I childishly poke out my tongue at the receding steps on the bare boards and inspect the cocoa jugs, hoping someone has had the decency to leave a spoonful in one. No luck. Empty, as I anticipated. Every night the cook makes a certain number of jugs of cocoa, from which the drivers are supposed to take a ration . . . one cup each. But as there is never enough to go round, the last poor half-dozen swine have to go to bed frozen to the marrow, after two to five hours’ duty in the bitter cold. It is no joke on these rough French roads . . . sometimes snowing, sometimes windy, and sometimes raining. Both the snow and the rain drip down your collar and wet you to the skin. But the wind cuts your face to pieces until your lips bleed. It is difficult to say which is worst. And then to bed without a hot drink on top of it. It would be easy enough to make a few extra jugs in order to allow everyone to have a second cup, if necessary. But no, Commandant’s rules once made are as unalterable as the orbits of the heavenly planets. Her arithmetic, though opposed to ordinary reckoning, is unanswerable. If she says thirty cups of cocoa will go into forty ambulance drivers . . . they go, and no argument.

  I could, of course, make cocoa in my bedroom if I liked. . . . Surprisingly, there is no rule forbidding this up to date. But it means fetching water from the pantry . . . incidentally going outside for it across the snow-covered yard, carrying it to the bedroom, digging out the cocoa and sugar from under Tosh’s bed . . . and I am too dog-tired. Besides, I suddenly remember we have run out of provisions. I wish I had a cigarette. But I have run out of those too. I turn the mess-room lights off.

  The bedroom is in darkness. Tosh and the others are already asleep. Where are the matches? From across the corridor I hear whispers and stifled giggles. Someone is awake there, though the light is extinguished too. The last drivers in before me, I suppose. What can they find to amuse them in this life, I wonder resentfully. Where are the matches? I stumble over a shoe in the darkness, and Tosh mutters, “For Christ’s sake keep quiet, can’t you?” I angrily demand how in hell I can keep quiet when she leaves her shoes in the middle of the room and hides the matches . . . find them as I am speaking, and light a candle, shielding the glare from the sleepers with a magazine. . . . All dead to the world. Not a sign of a cigarette, either. Hidden them, knowing I’d run out. Suspicious beasts. Do they think I’d condescend to swipe their rotten fags, even if they left them strewn all over the place?

  Go on, . . . sleep, all of you. Snore away, . . . blast you all. I wish to God I had a room of my own, where I could have a little peace now and again, without having to listen to you grunting and snoring like pigs. Sleep, sleep, sleep, . . . that’s all you think of. Never mind if I’m cold and hungry and without a smoke.

  I hate them for sleeping so soundly. That means they are warm. One can’t sleep unless one is warm. God, it is freezing in here! No water in the kettle. No hot bottle. Damn them for swiping all the water. How can I pluck up courage to undress in this icy room? . . . Shall I strip to the skin, or shall I dig into my flea-bag as I am, merely removing my uniform, shoes and gaiters? . . . Etta Potato gives a grunt and turns over. Damn her for being asleep. Damn them all for being asleep. Damn them for drinking my cocoa. Damn them for swiping all the hot water . . . they might have left me enough for a bottle. They knew I was doing Number Thirteen. Selfish beasts, all of them. Snore, snore, snore. . . . A sudden rage takes possession of me. My lips tremble. Tears burn the back of my throat. I nearly take the magazine away from the candle to let the light shine full in their faces. . . .

  I will not undress fully. Supposing another convoy is signalled. Supposing that hellish whistle blows just as I have stripped to the pyjamas. If I undress completely, it is ten to one I shall be late for roll-call at 7.30. No . . . I will remove my uniform and keep the rest on, shoes and stockings, too. Fuggy . . . but what does it matter providing I unfreeze and get to sleep. My teeth are chattering. My fingers are blue. A chilblain has burst on a knuckle. And no water for a hot-water bottle. I stare. . . . What is that under Tosh’s pillow? A half-smoked cigarette? It is. I commandeer it stealthily with an unholy joy. Saving it for the morning, was she? I smirk malevolently. I light it at the candle. Drink my cocoa, and snore, warm and snug, while I am freezing, will they? Use up all the water and leave me none for a hot bottle, will they? . . .

  Booma-boom-booma-boom-boommm!

  The guns are going it with a vengeance. No sleep for the men in the trenches to-night. Poor wretches, are they as cold and unhappy and homesick as I am? I can hardly believe it possible. A distant glow on the sky-line shows clearly through the window, yellow and warm, like London from the outskirts. . . . The Front. Now and again there is a distant explosion, the flash quite visible, the explosion quite audible and distinguishable above the guns. A mine or a bomb attack. More killed . . . more wounded . . . more convoys. More hell . . . more bloody, bloody hell.

  The cigaret
te is finished, . . . the butt carefully secreted. To-morrow I shall deny all knowledge of it. As I am about to blow out the candle, I make the discovery that Skinny is not in her bed. Probably in the w.c. again, poor devil, for the night. The canteen food either does that or has the reverse effect. The luminous hands of my watch say 3.15. I worm my body into the flea-bag. It is surprisingly warm. My feet touch something, . . . something hot. A hot-water bottle? They have made a hot-water bottle for me. My friends! They have not forgotten me. This touch of kindliness finishes me completely. The tears roll down my cheeks. I feel a rotter . . . a beast. I have been calling them everything vile, and all the time they have done this for me. Cold, miserable, worn-out themselves, they thought of me doing Number Thirteen, and I repaid them by cursing them and swiping Tosh’s last cigarette. . . . Her last. What a cad I am. To-morrow I shall present her with every single one mother sends me, if there is a mail. Comforted, I dry my tears. I am beginning to thaw. Soon I shall doze off. God bless the man who invented hot-water bottles. Or was it a woman? . . . I don’t know. But God bless whoever it was. A statue should be erected to him (or her) . . . a large hot-water bottle. Far more amusing than the silly-faced statesmen in stone trousers. . . .

  A suppressed giggle comes from across the corridor. Telling dirty stories, I suppose. The laugh does not irritate me this time. I am too gloriously drowsy. The grateful warmth steals over my aching limbs. . . .

  ·····

  “Roll-call. Wake up!”

  Tosh’s voice. But I was already awake. That whistle would rouse the dead . . . no chance of further sleep while it shrills forth the triumphant news that sleep is at an end. I spring from bed. The others are furiously dressing. I begin. We do not speak. How I envy Tosh her short hair. My own is full of knots. Our hot breath pants from us in little jets of steam. It is colder than ever. The snow is falling outside, but it has not warmed the atmosphere one degree. What is the time? Seven twenty-six. Four minutes to go. “Where the hell is that cigarette?” Tosh mutters. I pretend not to hear. Seven twenty-seven. Three minutes.

  When this war is over . . . how like the first line of a comic song that is . . . if ever it is over, and I am safely back in Blighty, the sound of an ordinary police whistle will always travel me back faster than Aladdin’s magic carpet, to this bare bedroom with Tosh, The Bug, Skinny, The B.F. and Etta Potato. For a second I shall spring to alert wakefulness, then, realising I am no longer a uniformed automaton, I shall run like a rabbit . . . in the opposite direction, as far from the loathly arrogant summons as I can possibly run, nor shall I stop my headlong flight while the sound is even faintly audible. But if I travel swift as a lightning flash, I shall not be able to leave behind the hatred that will possess me to my dying day of Commandant’s police whistle.

  Commandant’s police whistle is ruining my pre-War disposition entirely. It rouses everything vile within me. Not long ago I was a gentle pliable creature of no particular virtues or vices, my temper was even, my nature amiable, and my emotions practically non-existent. Now I am a sullen, smouldering thing, liable to burst Vesuvius fashion into a flaming fire of rage without the slightest warning. Commandant’s police whistle. . . .

  If I am bathing or attending to my body with carbolic ointment or soothing lotion . . . it orders me to stop. If I am writing a hasty letter, or glancing at a newspaper . . . it shrieks its mocking summons. Whatever I am doing it gives me no peace. But worst of all, whenever I am asleep . . . it wakens me, and gloats and glories in the action. If only I could ram it down Commandant’s throat, I could die happy in the knowledge that I had not lived in vain.

  We are dressed . . . fully. We give each other a short survey. Skinny has a wrinkled stocking, and Tosh’s tie is hanging out. My neck is dirty, but it is too late to remedy that. Etta Potato pulls my collar higher. That camouflages it excellently. Commandant insists that we are carefully and neatly dressed for 7.30 roll-call, . . . white shirts, ties, smoothly-dressed hair, brushed uncrumpled uniforms . . . even though we may have been driving till 5 a.m. In that case we may return after roll-call, and sleep until 9, but as this means missing breakfast altogether, we can only do it when our private provisions permit. Woe betide a kind friend sneaking a cup of tea from the mess-room for a driver who has a headache and feels too ill to stay up for 8 o’clock breakfast.

  We have tried not dressing fully for roll-call. For a whole glorious week our room roll-called in pyjamas tucked cleverly beneath uniforms, after which we returned to our flea-bags till 9, and breakfasted comfortably on tea and potted meat. But we were discovered and made an example of. Commandant delights in making examples. Now we are severely inspected during roll-call, to ensure that our morning toilet is complete.

  “All ready!”

  We arrive just in time. Commandant has been up since dawn, by all accounts. She would have made a good wife for Napoleon. He didn’t need any sleep, either. The room is packed with heavy-eyed pasty-faced girls with weary drooping mouths and dejected expressions. They are ill for want of sleep. Some of them look on the verge of collapse. A girl who arrived three days ago is coughing badly, . . . she caught a chill on the boat. But Commandant will work her till she drops. I cast an experienced glance over her. Within three weeks she will be back in Blighty—marked unfit. Lucky devil. I envy her. I wish I wasn’t constitutionally strong. But although I get an occasional dose of food poisoning, my health is good. Even being wet to the skin doesn’t seem to harm me, and when the roof leaks and my canvas bed is soaked through, I wake up without anything worse than a sniffy nose. The girl coughs so badly that Commandant has to wait until the paroxysm is over, but she is merely annoyed, not concerned, at the interruption. Like all efficient machines, she has no humanity. There are no such things as coughs, colds, chills, headaches, or stomach-aches in this convoy. Commandant regards any illness not requiring actual hospital treatment as mere feminine affectation. They say she is a married woman with daughters of her own. . . . I cannot believe it. No woman who has suffered the pangs of childbirth could have so little understanding of pain in other women’s daughters. Should one acquire a temp., the doctor is called in . . . it may be something infectious. Should he order you to bed, Commandant obeys him—to the letter. The Bug was ordered to bed with a chill last week. “Stay in bed for the afternoon,” said the doctor. And The Bug stayed. But Commandant turfed her out immediately the afternoon had passed. The doctor had said nothing about the evening. So The Bug drove for five hours in the pouring rain, and next day went into hospital with a temp. of 103. She was there till last Monday. If she could have wangled it, she would still be there.

  Roll-call is over. Having been in bed before 5 a.m., there is no going back till 9. We crowd round the fire. It is my day to do cook’s room. There are many fatigues I detest, but cleaning cook’s room gets my back up more than anything. Why should I clean it? Why cannot she clean her own as we all do? She has about quarter the work we have. She is a fat, common, lazy, impertinent slut who leaves little dusty rings of hair littered about for us to collect. She fills the chamber to overflowing with dirty slops, bits of torn letters, and any other rubbish she can find. Her room reeks of stale sweat, for she sleeps with the window hermetically sealed. It astounds me why the powers-that-be at the London headquarters stipulate that refined women of decent education are essential for this ambulance work. Why should they want this class to do the work of strong navvies on the cars, in addition to the work of scullery maids under conditions no professional scullery-maid would tolerate for a day? Possibly this is because this is the only class that suffers in silence, that scorns to carry tales. We are such cowards. We dare not face being called “cowards” and “slackers,” which we certainly shall be if we complain. What did we think we came out to France for? . . . A holiday? Don’t we realise there is a war on? . . . So we say nothing. Poor fools, we deserve all we get.

  We would, perhaps, feel less badly about cook if she were a good cook. But she is not. She is the worst cook it is possible to i
magine in one’s worst nightmare moments. Not only is the food badly cooked, but it is actually dirty. One is liable to find hair-combings in the greasy gravy; bits of plate-leavings from the day before and an odd hairpin. The principal dinner dish is a sort of disgusting soup-stew made of meat that hangs over a drain until it is cut up . . . sinister-looking joints of some strange animal—what, we cannot decide. We often go outside in groups to examine it . . . carefully holding our noses meanwhile . . . but we cannot determine its origin. It is certainly not beef or mutton. No wonder we have all had food poisoning. No wonder we have so many dysentery cases. No wonder our smallest cuts fester and have to be treated in hospital. I grazed my thumb cleaning the fireplace the other day, and went septic immediately. The hospital orderlies say they would never stand our rations. They have Army rations, of course.

  The canteen is, like the rest of the quarters, a bare-boarded room with no floor covering. It is the duty of the drivers to keep the fire going all day. The drivers clean the mess-room. In fact, they do the housework of the whole quarters, in addition to driving doctors and sisters to and from the station, doing “evacuations,” funerals, and convoys. The ambulance drivers have no fixed hours. They can be called out any one of the twenty-four. As each driver comes in she writes her name on a list on the notice-board, and when the names preceding hers have been crossed out, her turn for duty comes again. This is during the day, of course. At night we all turn out en masse for convoy work. We have no fixed rest times after driving all night, and consider ourselves lucky to get two consecutive hours’ sleep during the afternoon. We are supposed to have an afternoon off weekly; . . . I have never had mine once. For, apart from our set duties, there are Commandant’s punishment duties.