It was about ten o’clock on Sunday evening. I had been working for nearly fourteen hours without a break. I scarcely knew what I was doing.
Men came into the rest station, without ceasing. Man after man after man. Tall ones, short ones, thin ones, young ones. A few older ones, but not many. By then they were all the same to me. I hate that. When I got to France, I cared about every man, and I saw each as an individual with his own story. Now they’re just men, and I treat them all the same. I have become blunted to them, I can no longer feel for them. But I sense their terror as a single huge monster.
Occasionally I see death in front of me on a living man’s face, but even that no longer shocks me. I have seen it so much.
But every death reminds me of Edgar, and reminds me of Tom.
Suddenly I was plucked from the slow hell of the rest station dressing suite.
“Hibbert!”
I was so lost in my work, so exhausted, that I heard the name called maybe only the third time.
“Hibbert!”
Dimly I wondered who McAndrew was shouting at; then I saw the other nurses looking at me.
With a sickening fear I realized that it was me she was calling.
“Come with me,” she snapped.
McAndrew walked briskly down the corridor until she reached the superintendent’s office.
“In here.”
I went in, expecting to find someone waiting for me, but the room was empty.
McAndrew closed the door behind us.
“Who are you?” she said, her voice quiet now in the closed room.
I hesitated, tiredness fuddling my thinking.
“Miriam,” I said. “Miriam Hibbert.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said, again quietly. She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. A telegram.
“Just so you know there’s no point lying,” she said, flourishing it in my face. “I wired the Dyke Road on Friday. I’ve just received this reply. They say Miriam Hibbert is in England, some problem over her papers, it seems. So who are you?”
I was speechless.
All around me, and yet as if from a great distance, I could hear the noise of the rest station, of the railway station that it still was. I could hear shouts along the platform outside, the hiss of steam from the engines.
“So, you refuse to speak, do you?” McAndrew said. I couldn’t help noticing that she seemed to be enjoying this drama. “Well, I have warned the commandant of my suspicions. I’m going to fetch him now.”
She opened the door, taking the key from the lock. She paused, and looked at me.
“They shoot spies, you know,” she said, her voice full of threat.
Then she closed the door and locked it behind her.
A spy? Surely they couldn’t think I was a spy?
Of course they could. I was silly and weak. I could almost hear Edgar telling me so. I had got into something way over my head.
Breathlessly, I waited.
I had no idea how long I waited, but as I said, the war saved me.
Outside on the platform, I heard a train getting ready to roll out of the station. Shouts came from the head of the line.
I heard footsteps running.
“Come on,” shouted a voice, teasingly. “We’ll go without you!”
McAndrew may have locked the door, but I suppose the police game was new to her. Either that, or it never crossed her mind that a young woman would do such a thing as climb out of a window, even a young woman who’s a spy.
But there was a window from the office onto the platform, and it was not locked.
I opened it a crack, and saw an RAMC doctor hurrying for the train.
“Bethune, then!” he shouted, leaping aboard. “Here we come!”
Bethune.
From that moment on I didn’t think.
Everything I did, I did with complete calm, and I swear not a further thought ran through my head.
Bethune. The train was heading for the casualty clearing station in Bethune, the nearest point to the La Bassée canal.
I opened the window fully, and looked up and down the platform. There were people everywhere: wounded soldiers, nurses, RAMC, orderlies. I ignored them all.
With a loud hiss and a heaving of pistons, the train started to move. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, I pulled a chair to the window, sat on the ledge, swung my legs over and dropped to the platform. I walked steadily but without panicking toward the train, and was in time to step calmly onto the last carriage as it passed me.
Avoiding any chance of being seen from the platform, I opened the carriage door, and went inside. I came face to face with a VAD sister, and although she was a sister, she looked only a few years older than me.
“Hello,” I said, smiling. “They sent me along too.”
She nodded.
“I nearly missed my train,” I added, trying to make her laugh.
She smiled, but it was a thin, unfriendly smile.
“Very good,” she said. “We need all the help we can get. Have you been on an ambulance before?”
I shook my head.
“Then I hope you learn fast.”
The train picked up speed, but was still traveling quite slowly, and I knew it probably wouldn’t go much faster. Many of the trains are a mixture of carriages from different French railway companies, and I’ve heard that the tracks are patched up in places. It isn’t safe to go very fast.
I settled down for the journey, with failing hope and little knowledge of what might happen to me, but I was sure of one thing.
There was no going back.
27
“What’s your name?” the sister asked me.
“Alexandra,” I said, without thinking, but if the sister wondered why my face suddenly flushed, she didn’t say anything.
“We use surnames here,” she said.
As she waited for me to reply, it occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to have given my real name. If anyone was coming after me, they would be looking for a girl called Hibbert.
“Fox,” I said. “Sorry, Sister.”
She was a tall, well-built woman. From the white eight-pointed star on her apron, I saw she belonged to a St. Johns VAD unit, but I saw other nurses with the red cross on their uniforms, like me, and relaxed. But it made me realize there were so many tiny things that might give me away.
“There’s not much to do on the way,” Sister said. “It’s the journey back that . . .”
She trailed off.
“Well, you’ll see.”
“How long does it take?”
“Hours. It’s barely fifty miles, but you see how slowly we’re going. It’s a long train, can’t go that fast. Then sometimes we have to stop and wait for the line to be cleared. Or if there’s an air raid.”
She called to the other nurse in the carriage.
“Nurse Goode, this is Fox. Show her the ropes. She can help you with the brechots. Then you should both try to get some sleep.”
Nurse Goode came over to me as Sister made her way through the connecting door to the next carriage.
“What’s a . . . ?” I hadn’t even heard what she’d said properly.
Goode smiled.
“A brechot? See where the stretchers go? The brechot is the rack that holds them. We have to check they’re all ready, with sets of clean sheets for when the men are brought in.”
I nodded.
“She’s not so bad,” she said. “Sister, I mean. She meant what she said about getting some sleep.”
After we had finished, we went along to the carriage at the end of the train set aside for nurses. There we lay down on the low bunks, and slept our way toward Belgium.
Toward the front, toward the war.
26
The lights in the carriage were low and the blinds were drawn so that no light would show to enemy aircraft. This was a newer train, I could tell, because the lights were electric. The carriage even had radiators warmed by steam
from the engine.
I lifted a blind, and peered out into the night. I could see nothing. No stars, no moon. I could only guess at the shape of the countryside through which we were moving.
The train rattled on, click-clacking over points from time to time, rocking us slowly into oblivion.
But I could not sleep, and I needed to talk.
Goode was snoring gently opposite me.
I felt bad, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“Wake up,” I said, shaking her shoulder gently. “Wake up.”
After a while, she opened her eyes and lifted her head.
“What is it? Are we there?”
“No.”
“Then let me sleep, will you?”
“Please,” I said. “I’m scared.”
She sat up.
“I know,” she said. “So was I, first time.”
“How many times have you done this?”
“Once.”
“How close do we get to the front line?”
“Depends,” Goode said. “Bethune Casualty Clearing Station. I think it’s just a couple of miles out to the front at the moment. But listen, when we get there, you’ll be so busy, you won’t have time to be scared.”
I looked at my watch.
It had gone midnight.
“Go to sleep,” she said. “We’ll be there soon enough.”
She couldn’t know about what was happening to me, about Tom. I wondered if we’d really be there soon enough.
I lay down on the bench seat again, taking my apron off to use as a pillow. It was softer than it had been—it had not seen starch for a long time by then—but still, it didn’t make for comfortable rest. I had been working since early that morning, and I could stay awake no longer. My mind began to drift, but not at random. I felt my mind drifting out ahead of us. I was on high, looking down at the steaming train, churning through the dark French air. Occasionally the driver would stoke the boiler and I saw the orange flash of fire from the coal in the furnace.
If I looked I could see all the way back across the sea to England. Over the water, past the piers, to Brighton. Into my home. I could not see Mother and Father, I had no sense of them. I wondered what they were doing. I knew they would be worrying about me, but they would have no idea where I had gone.
Then, from somewhere ahead, I saw other, different flashes of light. After each one came a thunderous rumble. I drifted on, far ahead of the train now, and began to feel the souls of those who had died and were dying.
It scared me because I thought I was still awake. I pulled my mind back from what lay ahead and tried to form a plan. I had come straight from the rest station, with only the uniform I was wearing, with no money. When we got to the CCS at Bethune, I knew it would be pandemonium. There would be a chance for me to slip away if I wanted, but where to? With no money, and no idea how to find Tom.
And what about the men? I wasn’t supposed to be on the train, but I was. If I was looking for Tom, it would mean turning my back on men I could help.
Somewhere along the line, I did sleep, and I dreamt. The sound of the train rumbling became the sound of wing beats. And there in my dreams, as I expected, the raven was waiting for me.
I was almost glad to see it, because I needed it to talk to me. I needed it to tell me what it meant, but it said nothing this time. It hopped around on the stump of a blasted tree, and flapped its wings. It cocked its head on one side and opened its beak, but no words came. It mocked me with its silence.
It told me nothing, and I woke, cursing it, still unable to understand why it keeps appearing to me.
And then I realized the train had stopped.
25
As I lifted the blind on the carriage window for a second time, my hand was trembling. It was early morning, and a weak dawn light spread across the landscape.
I felt more alone than I have ever done in my life. We had trundled through the night, traveled east, inland, and reached the railhead at Bethune, being used as the casualty clearing station. It’s a squalid little place, a drab provincial town suddenly made important because a war has happened to come by. I was watching the scene at the platform when the door of our carriage opened, and Sister came back in.
“Right, you two. This is it. Look sharp.”
I forced myself to think. I had to decide what to do, and I had to decide quickly, but I was tired, and before I knew what was happening, the first of our men were being carried in on their stretchers.
The smell hit me first. They were fresh from the battlefield and reeked of death and disintegration. But as Nurse Goode had said, there was no time to be scared. And there was no time to make choices. I had to help get the men stowed aboard. As soon as our carriage was full we began to cut their uniforms from the worst wounds where possible.
As I worked I began to talk to the men. After the initial shock I gathered my wits. I had to take this opportunity because if I went back, my time would have run out.
I asked each man I tended about Tom’s regiment, but no one knew anything about it.
I felt desperate. Already the train was taking on new supplies of water and coal; as soon as we had everyone loaded we would be setting off back to Boulogne. I would just have to slip off the train and take my chances.
Then one of the last men aboard heard me talking to another soldier.
“I’m trying to find out where my husband is,” I was saying, thinking that might move someone enough to talk to me.
“You said he’s in the Twentieth Royal Fusiliers?”
I turned and saw a man in the top of the brechot behind me. He was in a mess, but he seemed sensible enough.
“Yes,” I said. “I know they’re around here. I heard they were at the Red Dragon crater. Do you know where that is?”
“The Twentieth?” the man asked again. “They’re in Thirty-third Division, aren’t they?”
I shook my head, desperately. I didn’t know what he meant.
“Thirty-third,” he said. “Look. You see that man there?”
He nodded through the window. There was enough light sweeping across the platform now to see well enough, but there were a lot of men, and I didn’t know who he meant.
“Him, the corporal. The short one. He’s in the Royal Welch. They’re in the Thirty-third, too. Ask him.”
I saw who he meant.
The train gave a powerful lurch as the engine was uncoupled and started to move to the other end for the journey back.
I jumped from the train onto the platform, and ran to the corporal from the Royal Welch.
I grabbed him.
“Do you know where the Twentieth Royal Fusiliers are?”
He turned and his eyes widened when he saw me.
“The Twentieth. Have you seen them?”
He said nothing, still too surprised to speak. I saw him look over my shoulder, but I kept on, begging him to understand, and finally he did.
“The Twentieth,” he said. He voice was just like Evans’. “Yes. They were with us. But the whole division has moved, we were relieved a couple of days ago. I’m the last of the Royal Welch. I got stuck. The rest of the boys have gone, and the Twentieth would have been with them.”
I felt sick, almost too sick to speak.
“Where?” I said, my voice failing. “Do you know where they’ve gone?”
He shook his head, and I thought it meant he didn’t know, but that wasn’t the reason.
“The Somme,” he said. “They’ve all gone to the Somme. It’s all quiet here now. That’s where they need the men. What’s all this about?”
I was in completely the wrong place.
In a daze, I was aware that the corporal glanced over my shoulder again.
“I think someone wants to talk to you.”
I turned and saw in front of me two burly-looking soldiers, wearing the red caps that I knew marked them as military police. A third stood by the steps to the train, talking to the sister who I’d met on board. She was pointing in my direc
tion.
“I’m not a spy,” I said, but it was no good.
They weren’t listening.
24
They’re too busy to know what to do with me. That’s what it seems to come down to.
On the face of it I’m just a crazy girl who got herself dressed up as a nurse, but there’s always the possibility I’m a German spy. I wouldn’t be the first. And if they think that I am and they prove it, then I’ll be shot.
I can’t speak a word of German, but then, I’d pretend not to, if I was a spy. So I might be a spy or I might just be a nurse who’s gone a bit mad, or I might not be a nurse at all. The trouble is they’re too busy to find out which. A young woman does not travel around freely in a war. Even nurses are confined to certain times and places: in hospitals, in billets, on trains. I didn’t know how to be a nurse in a war well enough, and so I was discovered and traced eventually.
I was brought here, to this army base.
I have no idea where I am. I’m being kept in a tent, which doesn’t seem much of a prison, but then I suppose they’re not used to having female prisoners. Anyway, there’s always a guard on the door, so I can’t go anywhere. And even if I could, what would I do?
I was brought here on Monday. I’ve been interrogated by all sorts of people; there have been cables and ’phone calls, I know, but they still don’t know who I am. For the time being I think they’ve given up.
I’ve told them my real name, and that I’m not a spy, and that my father is an important doctor and if they shoot me they’ll be in awful trouble. But that’s all I’ve said. I hope it’s enough.
The worst thing is thinking about Tom.
I have felt nothing of him for days, and I fear that it might be too late.
That it might be over.
23
I’ve had the best part of three days to sit and think.
I’ve been thinking about Tom mostly, but Edgar keeps coming to my mind too. I’ve had a glimpse of what he went through, and it makes me angry and sad to think of it. What it did to him, how it made him and Tom fight. And all of us. It pulled us all apart.