care, in this hell?
The orderly smiled, perhaps seeing Mason’s emotion raw in his face, unguarded until too late. “Must have been a demon on the roads in Cambridgeshire, that one! She certainly is here.”
Mason smiled back. He thought of saying something about his intention of writing an article on women in the battlefield, and then stopped himself in time. It would be absurd, and certainly wouldn’t fool the orderly. “Thanks,” he said simply. He accepted a hot cup of tea, which tasted of oil and dirt, and sat down to wait for a chance to speak to Cavan, and with the knowledge that in the next few hours Judith would come to this station.
The shelling grew heavier, but was still falling some distance from them. More wounded came in, but most of the injuries were superficial. Cavan acknowledged Mason briefly. He finished his operation on the man who had lost his leg, but could not leave him until the ambulance came. The rain never ceased its steady downpour, drumming on the canvas roof and adding to the already swimming craters outside. The wounded men’s hair was plastered to their heads, their faces shone wet, their uniforms stained dark. Some were covered in mud up to their armpits and must have been manually hauled out of the shell craters before they could drown.
It was nearly an hour before the ambulance arrived. They did not hear it in the noise of guns and the beat of rain. Mason noticed the movement at the entrance and looked up to see Wil Sloan. He looked tired, pale-skinned, and filthy, but had the same cheerful smile on his face that Mason remembered from a year ago. “Hi, Doc,” he said casually, looking across at Cavan. “Anyone for us?” His eyes went to the man on the table, who was still mercifully unconscious.
“Have you got a driver?” Cavan asked. “Someone’ll have to sit with him. He’s in a bad way.”
Sloan’s face tightened and he nodded. “Sure. If anyone can get us through this bloody bog, it’s Judith…Miss Reavley.”
Mason’s heart lurched.
The ghost of a smile touched Cavan’s face. “You’re picking up our bad language, Wil? You’ll shock them at home. I’ll help you carry him out.” He turned back to the table, his shoulders bent a little, a long smear of blood down his arm.
Mason stood up quickly. “I’ll give you a hand,” he offered. “I’m doing nothing. I’ll get the stretcher.”
Wil followed Cavan inside to help the other men who would take up the rest of the space in the ambulance. It would be only those who could not walk.
The minute Mason was outside the shelter of the tent the rain drenched him again. He could hardly discern the square outline of the ambulance through the gloom. His feet slipped in the mud and he found himself floundering. God knew what it must be like trying to struggle through it with ninety pounds of equipment and ammunition on your back and a rifle, knowing the bullets and shrapnel could tear into you any moment.
He saw Judith step out of the driver’s seat of the ambulance and come forward to help him, mistaking him for a wounded soldier. He straightened up, feeling foolish. He wanted to think of something engaging to say, but his mind was racing futilely.
“There’s an amputee coming out on a stretcher,” he said instead. “Still unconscious. We’re bringing him now. Wil Sloan’s going to have to ride in the back—” The rest was cut off by the roar and crash of a shell landing five hundred yards away. It sent a tower of earth and mud high into the air, which rained down on the roof of the tent behind them, and onto the ambulance with the dull thud of metal.
Judith took no notice at all. Her face showed surprise and an instant of pleasure as she recognized him, then she went straight around to the back of the ambulance and opened the doors. She pulled out the stretcher without waiting for his help. She was swift, efficient, even oddly graceful.
Next moment Wil Sloan was there as well and all their thoughts were overtaken by the need to load the unconscious man. They carried him as carefully as possible in the wind and rain, and then had to decide which of the others were most in need of riding along with him, bearing in mind that there had to be room for Wil also.
“How’s the road, Miss Reavley?” Cavan asked Judith when they were ready to go. The rain had eased a little but the heavy, overcast sky had brought darkness early and they were no more than outlines in the gloom.
“Bad,” she answered, her voice strained with anxiety. “But there’s no choice.” She knew the amputee had to reach a hospital soon if he was to live.
“Wil can’t leave him,” Cavan warned her. “I’m sorry.” They stood a yard away from each other and neither made a move or a gesture, but there was an intense gentleness in Cavan’s face in the headlights, and Judith’s eyes did not once waver from his. Mason saw it and was stung by a surge of jealousy so powerful it clenched his whole body. He was astonished at himself.
“Can I help?” he said immediately. “I can speak to you another time…sir.”
“Yes,” Cavan said. “Ride in the front with Miss Reavley. If there’s a wheel to be changed, or debris to move from the road, she’ll need another pair of hands.” He did not ask Judith; it was an order.
“Yes, sir.” Mason was pleased to obey. He splashed around to the other side and climbed in.
Cavan bent and cranked the engine, and it fired easily. Judith slipped in the clutch. There was a violent spurt of mud and they were jerked backward. Mason was startled, thinking she had forgotten which gear she was in.
She laughed. “On a slope,” she explained. “Going uphill the tank drains backward and we get no power. Drive in reverse and we’re fine. I’ll turn here.” She stopped and slewed around as she spoke, her hands strong on the wheel, muscles taut, then she drove forward along the dim, cratered road.
Every now and then star shells went up, lighting the landscape with its jagged tree stumps and erratic gouges out of the clay now filled with mud and water. There were wrecked vehicles by the side of the road and here and there carcasses of horses, even sometimes helmets to mark where men had died. Broken gun carriages and burned-out tanks showed up in the glare, and once the barrel of a great cannon projecting from a crater angled at the sky. Then the shell would fall and the darkness seemed more intense, in spite of the headlights, which showed little more than the slanting rain and the wilderness.
“How on earth do you know where you’re going?” he asked her incredulously.
“Habit,” she said frankly. “Believe me, I know this stretch of road better than I know my own village. Only trouble is we can’t get Jerry to put the craters in the same place each time. He’s a damn awful shot. All over the place like a drunken sailor.”
He forced himself to smile, although he knew she could not see him, and the lunacy of the whole thing almost choked him. Didn’t she see it, too? Was she deliberately blinding herself to it in order to survive? How could anyone tolerate being imprisoned in this, knowing the rest of the world was clean and sane? Somewhere beyond the endless violence, dirt, and incessant noise there were cities and villages where the sun shone, women wore pretty dresses, and people picked flowers, talked about crops and church fetes, and gossiped. They ate around tables, washed in clean water, and slept in beds.
Another ambulance passed, lurching over the ruts, going toward the front line. For a moment its headlights lit Judith’s face as she raised her hand in salute. He saw her high cheekbones and beautiful, vulnerable mouth. She looked older, more finely honed by horror and exhaustion, but the spirit was back as he had first known her.
He was amazed. How did she do that? Did she simply refuse to think? Had she no idea what was going on everywhere else, the suffering and monumental loss, the crushing futility of it all?
They barged over a rut and came down hard. Mason felt the bones of his spine jar. What must it be like for the injured men in the back, especially the one he had seen operated on?
He could not see Judith’s face anymore as they lurched forward. He could just make out her shoulders as she clung on to the wheel, struggling to keep the vehicle on the road. The rain was harder again.
It was she who broke the silence.
“Did you come here to interview Captain Cavan?”
“Not particularly,” he replied. “It seemed like a good opportunity. Does he deserve the V.C.?”
“Oh, yes.” She could not keep the lift of excitement out of her voice as if there were new hope, and new life because of it. “His courage was extraordinary.”
He had known she would say that and it frightened him. It was so easy! One man’s heroism changed nothing, it was just a candle lit against the night. It would be quenched by the next gust of wind, and then the darkness would seem even worse. She was still just as naive as ever. How many other men and women were there here just like her, believing the impossible, giving their lives pointlessly to defend a mirage?
“Did he really hold off a German attack practically single-handedly, and save his patients?”
“Not single-handedly,” she corrected him. “We all fought. But he commanded. He was the one who defied
