The Storms of War (30 page)

‘Speaking of the commandant, what did she want with you, Witty?’ asked Shepherd. ‘She looked like she was telling a secret.’

‘Yes, Witty, do tell all,’ Warterton piped up. ‘Bosom buddies?’

‘She wants a ride to Hospital One to meet the director.’

‘Oh come on, Witty, that’s not all it is. We could see she was asking you something.’

‘I said. I have to take her to Hospital One.’

Warterton shook her head. ‘You’re a sly one, I’ll say that. Secret work with the commandant, eh? Put a good word in for us girls, won’t you? Tell her we could do with a nice pud or two after dinner. A French one if she wouldn’t mind.’

‘A chocolate mousse!’ said Fitzhugh, snorting with laughter.

‘You show your poor breeding with that, Fitz,’ said Warterton. ‘I thought you were a lady. Mousse is for the working classes. We ladies should eat mousseline.’

‘I’d like a chocolate éclair,’ said Shepherd.

‘I shall pass on the requests,’ said Celia. ‘French puddings only.’

‘I would be so grateful.’ Fitzhugh had been at finishing school when the war had been announced, learning about things, Celia supposed, like setting out wines, and fancy pudding recipes to give to the cook. She laughed it off when Warterton teased her about it. ‘Just like boarding school, except even more dull.’

‘I remember when I used to complain about our cook’s queen of puddings,’ said Shepherd. ‘Look at me now. What I would do for just a spoonful of that now.’

‘The food is terrible at the women’s colleges, you know, Shep.’ Warterton reached for a piece of bread. ‘They think those brainy girls can live off books.’ Shep had told them all she was hoping to go home to study after the war.

‘Ha, ha.’

‘True! They come out half the size they went in.’ Warterton turned to Fitz and began a conversation about tyre pressure.

Shepherd looked at Celia. ‘They’re even easier to get into now; fewer people wanting to go. And I am out here.’

‘Well, you can go back, you know,’ said Celia. ‘We can both go. We’ll toss a coin for which university. We’ll get rooms together and sit up late over cocoa talking about books.’

‘If this war ever ends.’

‘Hush.’ All the girls had an unspoken pact not to mention the end of the war.

Shepherd laid her fork on her plate. ‘I don’t know if I could go to university, knowing what’s happening out here. And what if we are fighting for ever?’

Celia put her hand on her friend’s. ‘Oh, Shep, you know it won’t be long now. They say we are nearly there.’

‘They said that even when it started. And now look at us. So many men coming through, every day. And still there are thousands out there. I don’t think it will ever stop.’ Her voice had risen. Warterton turned around, then went back to her discussion about tyre pressure.

Celia held tight to her friend’s hand. ‘What’s come over you? You don’t normally talk like this.’ Shep was usually the one keeping everybody else’s spirits up, saying that the war would soon be over, telling the jokes that made Fitzhugh groan.

‘The orderly at last night’s hospital said they are sending them out of the clearing stations faster than ever now; they just don’t have the space for men to stay there. So they come here when they are not ready, and they die. Three died on me last night.’

Celia rubbed her hand. ‘Poor old Shep. You should have said.’

‘I should be used to it now, you know? But I’m not. I’m driving along and I hear another one of the men make the throat rattle that means they’re for it, and I think: I can’t stand it. Why do I have to see so much death?’

Celia put her arm around her. She didn’t care that they weren’t supposed to do it, that the commandant would shout at her if she saw. She held her close, feeling the warmth of her flesh through the thin blouse. ‘Poor old Shep. I promise it will get better.’

*

‘Turn right here,’ said the commandant, pointing to a small road coming off the hill.

Celia cranked the wheel. ‘Won’t that take us past Hospital One?’

‘Yes, that’s the idea. Keep going.’

‘Oh.’

Celia had come to be rather fond of driving in the afternoons. Going to pick up a couple of sisters at the station and taking them to their hospital was an easy job. The sisters would sometimes complain that ‘you driving girls’ had an easy time of it. The doctor passengers were the most entertaining, making jokes about gals in uniform and smoking out of the windows. Celia would drive them fast over the potholes and bounce them, make them laugh. ‘I like a pretty girl who can find her way,’ one teased her last time, nudging his friend. Celia thought they didn’t look much older than her, could hardly believe they were really doctors. ‘Come over to Hospital Four, why don’t you, one day?’ he added.

‘Commandant would send me home.’

‘Where next?’ she asked Robinson now.

‘I will tell you. It’s best for you if you don’t spend too much time remembering the route. Left here, Witt.’

They turned into another small road and carried on past the great canvas sides of Hospital One. A few men were being walked around the exterior by nurses, holding tight as they stumbled forward, legs in splints, heads covered in bandages. It was at times like this that Celia wanted to be a VAD, taking men for walks and giving them comfort. But then she knew that inside they were scrubbing and cleaning, her ambulance nothing compared to what they had to face. Anyway, she reminded herself, she was too cowardly to even listen to the injured men in the back of her vehicle, let alone wash them and change their dressings every day.

‘Park here, Witt. That is it.’ They swung in next to a parked car – an expensive one, Celia realised. The two of them clambered down from the cab and the commandant led the way to a building made of corrugated iron. A soldier guarded the door – the first uninjured one Celia had seen in weeks – and saluted the commandant. Another one met them inside.

‘Follow me, Commandant Robinson.’ They walked behind him along a dark corridor.

‘The German ended up muddled up with our boys,’ the commandant explained. ‘He was thrown into one of our trenches by an explosion. It happens occasionally – things are so busy, the medics don’t have time to speak to them, and his uniform was largely torn off in the explosion. He has lost an eye and has bad burns, but he is pretty much patched up now. One of the VADs knows a little German and got the impression from him that he had been in intelligence. So we wanted to ask him more questions.’

They passed through a thick metal door to a room walled in aluminium. Celia almost jumped, for in the middle of it, a man lay on a metal bed about the height of her waist. She realised he was tied there, with bonds over his chest, thighs and knees. He turned his head to look at her and then returned to staring at the ceiling. One eye was entirely covered in a black patch. There were three soldiers with him.

‘Good afternoon,’ said the commandant briskly. ‘This is Miss Witt. She has a high standard of German. She will talk to the prisoner. What is it you want to ask him?’

A grey-haired soldier, the senior of the three, spoke up. He was small and wizened, with a peaked-looking forehead, a little gnome. ‘Miss Witt. Take up position by the prisoner. We will ask you questions and you will relay them.’ Celia was surprised by his failure to answer the commandant. She supposed he must be very superior, a general or similar.

‘Go on, Miss Witt.’ The commandant gave her a gentle push. Feeling painfully self-conscious, she walked over to stand by the man. He was very thin, his face craggy and his cheeks sunken. She thought he must be around twenty-one or so. He shut his good eye when she came close. There were red burns across his face and he had a bruise on his eye that looked fresh.

‘He has injuries,’ said the commandant.

‘He suffered an unfortunate fall while he was being moved.’

‘He looks in need of a sandwich, General,’ the commandant continued.

The general ignored her. ‘Now, Miss Witt, you will ask this man his name and age.’

She did so. The man stared at the ceiling and did not speak. She asked once more, trying to make her tone as kind as she could. Still he did not answer.

‘Right then. Ask him his regiment and the name of his officer.’

No reply. Celia heard the commandant shift behind her.

‘Is your command of the language quite correct, Miss Witt?’ demanded the other officer.

Celia nodded. She almost wanted to laugh. She could have asked such questions at the age of seven. Surely there must be one soldier in the army who could speak this level of German? She gazed at the man’s hand. It was so riven with scars that it looked like a sort of map. When she was younger, she had been forced by their governess to lie flat on a board in order to develop a straight back. She had found three hours of it painful. To do it for a whole afternoon must be terrible.

‘Ask his name and age again.’

Still silence.

‘Right then. We have tried to speak to him politely. No more! Tell him that he is from a country of despicable traitors, of people who wish to kill the innocent and will go immediately to hell.’

Celia looked back. The man’s eyes were still closed. ‘I cannot say that.’

‘You will do so, Witt. Otherwise you would be directly contravening my orders.’

‘I would thank you to remember that it is my role to discipline my officers,’ said the commandant.

‘She is under army orders and she must obey. Proceed, Witt.’

Celia opened her mouth but could not speak.

‘This is a very dangerous man. If he were not tied to this bed, he would be strangling you. He is evil and full of violence, like a demon. Save your pity for our men at the front, dying in their thousands.’

The man on the bed was edging out his hand.

‘You have a brother out here with us in France, do you not? As
a driver, you must have seen cases of gas. That’s what this man would like your brother to look like. His skin ripped off, his lungs full of fluid, a lump of flesh who would never come home to you.’

Celia thought of some of her gas cases – last night’s man who had screamed all the way to Hospital 6. She felt a tear forming in the corner of her eye. She would not wipe it away, otherwise they would know. The man’s eye opened and he looked at her.

She bowed her head and began the speech. The man closed his eyes again. She saw him clench his fist. She got as far as ‘kill the innocent’ and then she could not go on. She spoke fast. ‘I do not want to say this. They are making me. What have you done to make them like this?’ She managed to get to the end of it.

One eyelid flickered. ‘You are a prisoner too, then, miss?’ His voice was broken and throaty, as if his windpipe had been snapped.

‘What did he say?’ demanded the general.

‘He said he … does not want to talk.’

‘Continue. Ask him once more about his regiment.’

There was still silence.

‘You will call him a dirty bloodstained bastard and ask him about his regiment.’

‘My officer will not use such words,’ said the commandant, quickly. ‘You asked for an ambulance driver, General, not a girl from the gutter.’

‘She will do as I tell her.’

‘General, Miss Witt takes orders from me. And my girls – Miss Witt included – do not have time to waste.’

The general said something sarcastic about women’s participation in the war. The commandant replied angrily that they were not knitting in the depot, if that was what he thought. Celia stared at the prisoner. Then he opened his eyes and spoke to her. ‘Come closer,’ he said quietly.

The commandant and the general were still arguing. Celia bent down a little. ‘More,’ he said. ‘I will talk to you if you come near.’ He was whispering now, a cracked whisper that made Celia feel slightly afraid. She dipped her head. ‘Tell them this,’ he said. ‘Tell them that I might speak to you. I might tell you something. But
only if they go. All of them. Even that woman who came in with you.’

They were all watching her now. ‘What did he say?’ demanded the officer.

She took a deep breath and tried to look past him. ‘He said that if you all go, then he will speak to me.’

‘That is impossible. Tell him so.’

She shrugged. ‘Chief up there says no.’

‘Well they don’t get any words then,’ he whispered. She thought he might have winked, if he’d had both eyes.

She looked at the grey-haired officer. ‘He won’t speak unless you all go. Sir.’ She had a sudden flash of inspiration. He surely only had the power to ask the commandant to punish her for insubordination and Miss Robinson was hardly on his side. She continued. ‘And if you do not, I cannot see much point in my staying here.’

The officer raised an eyebrow. ‘Commandant, is this the way you have trained your girls? To question their orders?’

‘Witt takes orders from me. I have ordered her to listen and translate, which is what she is doing.’

The soldier beside the grey-haired one nudged him. ‘Sir. Perhaps there is some merit in the suggestion.’

‘Leave this girl with him? Who knows what he will say to her? He is a devil, Jenkins. God knows what he will do.’

‘Well, he can’t get free, sir. And she seems a strong enough kind of girl.’

‘My girls
are
strong!’ said the commandant, losing patience. ‘Now, General, Miss Witt and I have been here long enough. She cannot keep asking the same question all afternoon. She and her fellow ambulance drivers are here to help the sick. This army matter is something that appears to me to be quite out of our remit. I am sure that my senior officer would agree.’

The general thought. He cocked his head at the two soldiers beside him. ‘Tie up his hands and feet. Check the rest of the bindings.’

The men came forward and did his bidding. Celia stepped back
and looked away as they pulled the man’s hands down and tied them.

‘Now you really can’t get out,’ said the general with satisfaction. ‘Right, Miss Witt, you have twenty minutes. No more. Scream if you need us.’

They filed past her out of the room. Jenkins stopped at the door. ‘Commandant,’ he said. ‘You too.’

‘The prisoner did not mean me as well. I stay with Miss Witt.’

The man spoke up from the table. ‘She must go too. All of them.’