Terri Nixon - Kitty’s War

Evie sloshed her way through the icy mud to the ambulance, and I followed. ‘We’ve only got the one bus at the moment,’ she said, opening up the flap at the back. ‘Boxy and I saved up and brought her over, but we’re hoping for another one soon—we’ve raised some donations, and the Red Cross back home are awfully keen to help where they can. Meet Gertie.’

‘Gertie?’

‘Haven’t you seen that postcard? The one with the pig?’ I shook my head. ‘Well anyway, Boxy said the ambulance snorted like a pig, and we should paint her pink.’

‘She sounds fun,’ I ventured.

‘Oh, she is. We got on terribly well right from the off. As shall we, I’m sure,’ she assured me, giving my already frozen hand a squeeze. ‘Now, let’s get you settled in, and I can tell you a little bit about what we do.’ She gave me an encouraging smile, but her eyes seemed distant, as if her thoughts were anywhere but here. I remembered what I’d been told about her husband, and wondered if he was back with his unit, or if he’d even regained his memory…but she would surely not be here if he hadn’t. I couldn’t imagine how she felt, knowing he was back in the lines. Archie spent a lot of time in the field with his men, but it was so much easier to think of him sitting at HQ with the other officers, discussing tactics, than out there facing the kind of explosions that had just driven me to my knees.

I followed Evie into the cottage, a tiny two-roomed affair. ‘We’ll share the bedroom,’ she said. ‘There are two beds, but luckily they’re very narrow so there’s room to get between them to dress. You’ll sleep in your clothes most nights anyway, especially during winter. Have you got a flea bag?’

‘A…a what?’

‘For sleeping in.’

‘Oh, no, I haven’t.’

‘We’ll see what we can find for you,’ she said. ‘It’ll probably leave a lot to be desired in the hygiene department, but extra layers are not to be sneezed at.’ She grinned, looking like a grubby child for a moment. ‘And speaking of sneezing, you’ll be doing plenty of that, too.’

It seemed as if having me to show around, to explain things to and put at my ease, was helping her too. She made us both a very welcome cup of cocoa, and as she talked about the work, and what we were and were not permitted to do, she gradually lost the slightly dazed and distant look and I began to see the real Evie beneath—resilient, determined and with a sense of adventure that could barely be suppressed, even here. Even as she spoke, the guns were continuing their raucous shout, and I flinched more than once, but she didn’t seem to notice them.

‘Don’t they ever stop?’ I asked, wondering how on earth we were supposed to sleep.

‘Occasionally.’ She sobered a little then. ‘It’s not always a good thing when they do though; it means the bombardment’s stopped and our boys are ready to go out and try to regain some ground.’

‘And do they?’

‘The Front has barely moved in two and a half years. A few miles, that’s all.’

I considered that for a moment, and looked around me, trying to imagine having lived here all that time. How much longer could it go on?

But I was starting to learn already, that Evie would not be solemn or reflective for long. ‘Come on then,’ she said briskly, standing up. She put her mug by the tiny sink. ‘I’ll show you the cellar.’

I jumped up too, eager to show my enthusiasm, but as I reached out to pick up my own half-finished cocoa I knocked the cup over, and sent brown muck spreading across the table.

‘Oh! I’m so sorry,’ I said, looking around for a cloth. She tossed me the greasy rag from her belt and I mopped up the drink, blushing furiously at my clumsiness. She didn’t even blink as I tried again, and this time knocked the rolling cup to the floor. Luckily it was tin, and bounced instead of breaking.

Within a day I had earned the nickname that would stay with me for as long as Evie and I knew each other. We’d had word that a convoy was expected at the station and I was to stay behind and ready the cellar, while Evie took Gertie and fetched out those men whose wounds might be treated easily here instead of weighing down the clearing stations and hospitals. We’d just had a hastily thrown-together shepherd’s pie for dinner and I was clearing the plates, my heart thundering with renewed fear at the loudness of the guns now night had fallen. I turned from the table towards the sink, and, failing to notice Evie standing behind me buttoning her greatcoat, I cannoned into her. She staggered sideways, barely keeping her feet, and the plates crashed to the floor. They were the last of the crockery that had been left in the cottage before it had been evacuated, and Evie looked at the sharp-edged and useless pieces with a little sigh of disappointment.

Then she looked back at me, and to my enormous relief her mouth stretched into a grin. ‘Everything’s going down like ninepins since you’ve arrived. Going to have to start calling you Skittles.’

I closed my mouth, which had been hanging open in a kind of wordless and disbelieving dismay, and Evie kicked the pieces of china out of sight under the table and wiped the gravy off her coat with her sleeve. She flashed me a bright smile, jerked her head towards the cellar, and went out into the night alone. I knew then that, no matter how awful the job I’d be doing, Evie Davies was exactly the kind of person I’d want to be doing it with.

In February the Clearing Station just up the road from our ambulance base was badly hit by shellfire. Even after everything I’d seen and been horrified by in the past two months, that had a profound effect on me, that somewhere so clearly marked with the red cross of a recognised medical facility might be deliberately targeted; was there a line that must not be crossed? And if so, where was it?

In the meantime Oliver had still been trying to arrange his transfer to Dixmude, and it was only this that had persuaded our furious Father to abandon his intention of travelling out here to pull me back to Blighty by my hair. He’d managed it just a couple of days ago, and on the day after the Clearing Station was hit, he arrived in a general staff car with a friendly lieutenant colonel named Drewe, and, to my breathless delight, Archie.

We chatted for a while, although my nerves had resurfaced at the sight of a ‘brass hat’ in our little cottage, but Archie and Evie seemed to notice this and, between them, put me at my ease again. I watched Archie across the table as he chatted, and noticed new lines on his face I hadn’t seen before, but he looked completely at ease here, and I gathered he’d been a regular visitor in the past—I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, and saw his eyes linger on Evie a little more than I liked.

But she was deeply in love with her husband; I knew that. They talked about him today, and I was able to piece together what I hadn’t felt able to ask Evie since I’d arrived: Private Will Davies had become detached from his battalion last summer, during the battle of High Wood, and reported missing, and Archie had been the one to bring him home. Evidently he’d been risking his life to do so, and although the pride I took in his courage felt wrong, I enjoyed it anyway.

Sadly Will’s return to physical health was apparently not reflected in his emotional healing, and I gathered he and Evie were struggling. Oli, the great clot, ventured to say he was glad to hear that Will was back in active service, but Evie’s uncharacteristically cool reply ended that conversation, and we sat in uncomfortable silence for a minute before I turned the subject around to why Evie did not wear a wedding ring. It seemed important to remind myself that she was married, and, although I disliked myself for thinking it, to remind Archie of that, too. Conversation moved on to my driving, and I felt bad for those unformed but suspicious thoughts, as Evie praised me with real warmth.