“If only I could go back to bed!”
Tosh stirs the fire with her toe and watches the kitchen door gloomily. Breakfast is a minute late.
“You got Thirteen last night, didn’t you?”
“And spotted-fever twice,” I add, firmly, not to be cheated of my full share of woe.
There is a concerted murmur of sympathy, and I immediately feel better. It is amazing what a little sympathy can effect. The story of Mrs. Bitch’s bullying draws forth another murmur. “Poor old Smithy, what a rotten shame. . . .” Really, life isn’t so bad. I feel almost human by the time breakfast arrives.
We gather round the canteen table, chattering, our tongues loosened by the hot tea. The table is a long, American-cloth-covered affair supported on trestles. One can buy post cards of the canteen, in which smiling white-capped V.A.D.’s stand by waiting on the drivers. But we think they must have been photographer’s models hired for the occasion. We have never seen them in our time. Also the bowl of flowers that graces the centre . . . that must have been hired, too. There have been no flowers in the memory of the “oldest inhabitant,” a driver called “Chutney.” Against the wall stands a piano, which we each get soaked “one shilling-weekly-for-the-use-of,” and which we have never yet seen opened, much less heard played. A lot of time we have for playing pianos. That weekly shilling has caused more indignation in the convoy than the invasion of Belgium caused the Belgians.
Breakfast is worse than ever. The bread is hard . . . what there is of it; and the margarine smells of . . . I hesitate for a comparison, and Tosh supplies it unhesitatingly. It is carried unanimously. Still, the tea is wet and hot, and for a wonder plentiful. It will run to a cup and a quarter each. We cheer up. After all, we are young and easily cheered up. The latest war story goes the rounds of the table. Something General Joffre is supposed to have said when first he saw the Scottish kilt. . . . Of course he didn’t say it, but it is fun to pretend he did. “Pour la guerre ce n’est pas bon, mais pour l’amour c’est magnifique!” We are immensely tickled.
And there may be a mail to-day. We tell one another there is sure to be. We have all written home for supplies. Tosh for Bovril and Huntley and Palmer’s Best Assorted and potted meat. Me for Bovril and ginger biscuits. We have a heated argument as to the rival merits of Best Assorted and ginger. Ginger wins easily. Ginger warms you up, sustains you. . . .
Edwards is engaged. We give her a cheer for giving us a thrill. Tosh accuses her of being in the f.w., and having to get married. Edwards denies this hotly. Then more by luck than good management, says Tosh, with a grin. Edwards hits Tosh in the eye with a piece of hard bread. We implore details. Is it the Aussie? The one who sends her those chocolate biscuits every mail? It is. We approve. We like the Aussie’s chocolate biscuits. After the War they will live in Sydney. The Aussie doesn’t know he is engaged yet. He proposed last mail, but Edwards only wrote yesterday and accepted him. He has lost a leg in the War, but Edwards is glad because the trenches won’t get him again.
“No man of mine will ever go to any war again,” says Edwards. “I know too much. Let the people who make the wars fight them. I would rather see a child of mine dead than see him a soldier.”
“I don’t think that’s very patriotic, dear,” says The B.F.
“You wouldn’t,” replies Edwards. “You’re the type that loses her son in the War and erects a tablet in the village church. . . . ‘A mother’s proud memory.’ Proud? Because her son has been murdered after murdering some other mother’s sons?”
“It isn’t murder to kill your enemies in wartime, darling,” protests The B.F. complacently.
“Enemies? Our enemies aren’t the Germans. Our enemies are the politicians we pay to keep us out of war and who are too damned inefficient to do their jobs properly. After two thousand years of civilisation, this folly happens. It is time women took a hand. The men are failures . . . this war shows that. Women will be the ones to stop war, you’ll see. If they can’t do anything else, they can refuse to bring children into the world to be maimed and murdered when they grow big enough. Once women buckled on their men’s swords. Once they believed in that ‘death-or-glory-boys’ jingo. But this time they’re in it themselves. They’re seeing for themselves. . . . And the pretty romance has gone. War is dirty. There’s no glory in it. Vomit and blood. Look at us. We came out here puffed out with patriotism. There isn’t one of us who wouldn’t go back to-morrow. The glory of the War . . . my God! . . .”
“Oh, darling, we are doing our bit,” says The B.F.
“B.F.,” says Edwards, “you’re the most dangerous type of fool there is. Someone ought to collect women like you in a big hall and drop a bomb . . . wipe you out . . . before you can do any more damage . . . a whacking big one. You’re a true chip of the old block . . . the pigheaded, sentimental, brainless old block that got us out here . . . patriotic speeches . . . ‘fighting for world freedom.’ . . . I don’t know what we’re fighting for . . . who does? But it isn’t for world freedom. Nothing so pretty.”
“We had to fight. We are in the right, aren’t we?” The B.F. flushes pettishly. “The Church says so, dear.”
“God is on our side!” Edwards bangs the table. “They even drag poor God into it. Priests upholding war from the pulpit, the blasphemous . . .”
The argument goes on. My thoughts wander. I am glad I am not Edwards. She will never be able to forget these days and nights of war and horror. All her life she will have the reminder with her in the Australian husband with one leg. Limp, limp, limp. . . .
When I marry it will be someone whose straightness and strength will erase from my mind these mangled things I drive night after night.
“All the same, I don’t think you’re very patriotic, dear,” says The B.F.
“Oh, pass the ruddy Maggie-Ann. What’s the use? The closed mind, . . . you can’t cope with it. The Book of Common Prayer, . . . Kensington High Street, . . . the Union Jack, . . . and Debrett. What’s the use?”
At 10 a.m. I report to Commandant for punishment. I listen to her harangue in silence. Once I used to argue with her. But it only means more punishment. I am to take tea-orderly to-day and clean Commandant’s car in addition to my own. I wonder what she would do if I suddenly sprang at her and dug my fingers into her throat, her strong, red, thick throat that is never sore, that laughs scornfully at germs, that needs no wrapping up even when the snow is whirling, blinding and smothering. . . .
I go without reply. She calls me back.
“Have you nothing to say, Smith?”
“I don’t understand, Commandant. What do you expect me to say? Thank you very much?” I retort, unguardedly. Fool . . . fool. . . . I could kick myself. She has been egging me on to answer back. Fool . . . fool. . . .
“Insolence!” Her cold grey eyes narrow. She compresses her thin lips. . . . “You had better clean the w.c. as well. Perhaps that will teach you discipline. Stand to attention while I am addressing you, please.”
One of these days I shall lose control. . . .
CHAPTER III
CLEANING an ambulance is the foulest and most disgusting job it is possible to imagine. We are unanimous on this point. Even yet we hardened old-timers cannot manage it without “catting” on exceptionally bad mornings. We do not mind cleaning the engines, doing repairs and keeping the outsides presentable—it is dealing with the insides we hate.
The stench that comes out as we open the doors each morning nearly knocks us down. Pools of stale vomit from the poor wretches we have carried the night before, corners the sitters have turned into temporary lavatories for all purposes, blood and mud and vermin and the stale stench of stinking trench feet and gangrenous wounds. Poor souls, they cannot help it. No one blames them. Half the time they are unconscious of what they are doing, wracked with pain and jolted about on the rough roads, for, try as we may—and the cases all agree that women drivers are ten times more thoughtful than the men drivers—we cannot altogether evade the snow-covered stone
s and potholes.
How we dread the morning clean-out of the insides of our cars, we gently-bred, educated women they insist on so rigidly for this work that apparently cannot be done by women incapable of speaking English with a public-school accent!
“Our ambulance women take entire control of their cars, doing all running repairs and all cleaning.”
This appeared in a signed article by one of our head officials in London, forwarded to me by Mother last week. It was entitled “Our Splendid Women.” I wondered then how many people comfortably reading it over the breakfast table realized what that “all cleaning” entailed. None, I should imagine; much less the writer of the muck. Certainly we ourselves had no idea before we got here.
I wonder afresh as I don my overalls and rubber boots. I know what to expect this morning, remembering that poor wretched soul I carried on my last trek to Number Thirteen, who will be buried by one of us to-day.
I am nearly sick on the spot at the sight greeting me, but I have no time for squeamishness. I have Commandant’s bus in addition to my own to get through.
The snow is coming down pretty heavily now, the waterproof sheet over my bonnet is full, and the red cross over the front of the driving seat totally obscured by a white pall. Blue-nosed, blue-overalled drivers in knee-high waterproof boots are diligently carrying buckets of water and getting out cloths in readiness for the great attack. The smell of disinfectant is everywhere. No one speaks much. It is a wretched morning and the less one talks the sooner one will be out of these whirling flakes.
The inside of my ambulance is at last cleared of its filth. I swill it with water. More water. Now with disinfectant. I examine it minutely. Commandant’s 11 to 12 inspection is no idle formality. She goes over every square inch of each ambulance, inside and out, the engines are revved up, the tyre pressures tested, everything. With all her faults, she knows her job. If only she had a little heart, she would be an ideal woman for this sort of work. Why is it that women in authority almost invariably fall victims to megalomania?
Now for the engine. I start up after ten minutes’ hard work, for the engine is stone-cold. Something is wrong. A choked carburettor? I clean it. No better. She doesn’t seem to be getting the petrol quickly enough. A dirty feed? Or a plug? I test the plugs. They are O.K. It must be the petrol pipe. It is. I listen. She is running sweetly enough now.
Tyres are all right, thank heaven. Perhaps a little more air in the offside rear? Done.
Ten thirty-five. How time is flying! I shall never get the Commandant’s ambulance ready for eleven o’clock inspection. I polish the outside of mine hurriedly. A lot of good it is washing and polishing in this weather; by the time we have turned round at the bottom of the lane we will be splashed all over. But Commandant insists on it being done—wet, fine, mud, sleet, or snow.
Ten forty. Can I do it? I make a bee-line for Commandant’s bus. First in the line, of course. Who would dare swipe her place? Heroes have earned the V.C. for less daring than that brave deed would require. I open the doors. Oh God!—gangrene. My stomach heaves up and down. I run behind the ambulance, where the others cannot see.
Ten forty-five. Five precious minutes wasted. I creep back, furious with myself. I ought to be accustomed to gangrene by now. With clenched teeth I set to work, swilling, scrubbing, disinfecting. I cannot see, and nothing on this earth will ever make me see, why the hospital orderlies cannot clean the insides of the ambulances while the women drivers sleep after their gruelling night-work.
Sleep? When shall I ever sleep again? In at 3.15, up at 7.30—four and a quarter hours—all I shall get to-day—all the others are likely to get to-day. With luck we may snatch an hour or so before the midnight convoy.
Ten fifty-five. I am safe if her engine is in good running order. I manage a jug of boiling water for the radiator. She starts fairly easily. She sounds pretty good to me. A hasty polish.
Eleven o’clock. Done it. I am sweating all over. My chilblains are smarting where the disinfectant has got into the cracks, but I don’t care. Here comes Commandant, punctual to the tick, hoping for victims.
Inspection over. I have escaped with a caution. Being a snowy day, she will overlook the two small spots I have omitted to clean off the bonnet.
To our rooms to change back into uniforms. No post in yet. That means eating the canteen filth to-day. We shall probably be poisoned, but we are so starving after our work in the snow we are prepared to eat anything.
Commandant’s whistle blows.
“Potter!”
Etta Potato runs. Two sisters to be met and taken to Number One. Poor old Etta Potato—the train will be hours late and she will miss dinner, such as it is. She cannot possibly get back in time. Any driver out on duty during mealtimes simply misses the meal. No one dreams of saving it for her.
The whistle blows again.
“Smith!”
My turn.
“I thought I told you to clean the w.c.?”
I was going to do that after dinner, I explain. Commandant does not believe me. I had forgotten. Don’t lie to her, please. Tea-orderly to-morrow as well as to-day will perhaps assist my memory in future.
I change back into overalls, get a pail, and stagger to the w.c. These are the occasions on which I rejoice that we have only one w.c. for forty-five people. I lock the door. A constant stream of people try the handle and implore admission. I refuse. They plead urgency. I am left completely cold. The Bug arrives. I cannot let my own room down. She can come in if she gives me a cigarette. She agrees.
I surreptitiously light up while she goes inside, one eye on the end of the corridor, ready to douse light if Commandant appears. Smoking on duty will probably mean being hanged, drawn and quartered, in the mood she is in to-day. The Bug emerges and I lock myself in again.
The w.c. is scrubbed, fresh newspaper cut, the seat polished, the pan scoured, the chain pulled on the cigarette butt. I take the pail to the outhouse. I meet Tosh coming in, and she asks me what I have been doing. I tell her, cleaning the w.c.
“You ladies with influence,” gibes Tosh.
Dinner is nearly over by the time I have changed. One mouthful and I finish. The soup-stew literally stinks.
“Dead dog,” says Tosh.
I bag a hunk of bread and an infinitesimal piece of margarine and munch.
Being tea-orderly has its compensations on a foul day like this. I am not sorry to be kept busy in the canteen setting cups and saucers and cutting bread. At least there is a fire there, although it means waiting on forty odd impatient drivers from 3 till 6.30, carrying their dirty dishes to and from the kitchen, filling cups and tea-urns and so on. Cook condescends to make the tea, but there she finishes. It is a fatiguing business when one has had no sleep, and usually one bitterly envies the others, snatching a few minutes’ rest between jobs. But this afternoon there is very little rest. There are eleven funerals from different hospitals and a record number of evacuations. An evacuation is the jolliest job of all—the cases who are well enough to stand the long journey to Blighty. It is a joy to hear them singing. Sometimes we join in and forget the empty hospital beds so soon to be filled up by the next pain-wracked convoy. Unhappily, a record number of evacuations means a record number of convoys. We know what to expect to-night.
The Bug bursts in full of news. There is a mail in. It is being sorted now. Someone told her two hours ago. Two hours? That means the first batch may be delivered any time now. . . .
An hour passes. One by one the drivers come in, frozen, add their names to the bottom of the list, and demand refreshment. As fast as one name is signed Commandant has the top name out again. That whistle is driving us mad this afternoon. A sister to be met here, another funeral, another evacuation, a parcel of medicine from the station to such and such a hospital, bustle, bustle, bustle. I fall over myself to get the girls fed before they are sent out again. A fresh arrival brings a rumour of two extra convoys—one at eight o’clock and one at ten. We groan. Is it merely a canteen
rumour or has it a foundation?
It is nearly dark now, and the wind is rising. Snow is whirling against the window. A blizzard would not surprise us. And still the mail does not arrive. Someone complains that the tea is stone-cold. It is not my fault. If I have asked that lazy beast of a cook once to keep the tea hot, I have asked her a dozen times. The girl does not believe me. I advise her to tackle cook herself. She retorts that it is my business, not hers. Is she tea-orderly or am I? I retort suitably—and in the middle of the argument the mail arrives, a big batch of letters and a huge bag of parcels. The letters are taken to Commandant’s room to be sorted. Heaven knows when they will be out. It is a queer thing that, though efficient beyond words at everything else, Commandant seems to take a delight in seeing how slowly she can sort the mail. It is the only thing she cannot do twice as quickly as anyone else. I have known her keep letters back till next afternoon, producing them just as the recipient had dismally decided everyone had forgotten her at home. But I am not terribly interested in letters. As tea-orderly it is my job to sort the parcels.
I spread them on the bare boards. The crowd nearly knocks me over in its eagerness. There are two dozen or more. One for Tosh, two for me. I leave the others to sort out their own and fly to the w.c. with my spoil. The first, Bovril—three large bottles, two tins of ginger biscuits, slabs of chocolate to eat with them, a hundred cigarettes. Cheers! Poor Mother, she doesn’t know I smoke. She thinks I give them to the wounded Tommies; that is why she keeps me so liberally supplied. I open the second parcel. Handkerchiefs, smelling-salts, Keating’s, a lavender bag, a writing-pad, a cake of carbolic soap, and my fifth carbolised body-belt. From my godmother, Aunt Ellen. I rush to the bedroom and fill my suitcase. Back to the canteen, where more drivers are clamouring for tea. I give cook a piece of my mind because it is cold and washy, and she threatens to report me to the Commandant. I tell her to report and be damned to her. The room is filled. Everyone is laughing and jolly and expectant. Edwards is nearest Commandant’s office. We tease her good-naturedly about the Aussie. Some wit dramatically recites his supposed love-letter—“My own sweetheart darling: how can I live longer without thee. . . .” Wholesale trading is going on, body-belts for Bovril, biscuits for cigarettes, hairpins for saccharine. . . .
Not So Quiet... Page 4