He looked at me, his eyes so tired that they seemed sunk in his head, lined and puffy with lack of sleep.
'I'm well,' he told me irritably. 'Don't hover.'
I said nothing more, letting him go back to work without protest.
And then as suddenly as the flood had begun, it started to taper off.
I saw Dr. Buckley huddled with one of the ambulance drivers, their faces grim.
We had reached a point where we could actually catch our collective breath when Dr. Buckley began to load the wounded, ambulatory and stretcher cases, into whatever vehicles we had, sending them back down the line. The empty vehicles were returning for their next load when I quietly asked what was happening.
'The Germans are about to break through along the Front. We're moving out as quickly as possible. The Army is trying to hold them, but I don't think there's much of a chance now. Best to be prepared.'
It was the story of this war-a few yards gained at horrendous cost, then lost again with even more casualties from trying to hold on against all odds. A retreat today, an advance tomorrow, and then retreat again before the next advance, like a bloody tug of war.
I nodded, and went about helping him, smiling and offering comfort where I could, assuring the soldiers we'd just patched up that this was too exposed a location and they'd be better off in one of the trench hospitals down the line.
One of the Scots officers agreed. 'This wasn't supposed to happen. We'd won the ground, HQ told us we could hold on to it. But their intelligence was wrong.'
We were down to the last half dozen walking wounded, who were being handed into ambulances, and the staff was packing one with what was left of our stock of supplies. A lorry was filled with the dead.
I looked around in the pale morning light, feeling rather exposed here in this shattered place. I'd been too busy to notice before this. Still, I was tired enough to sink to the ground and sleep where I was.
Dr. Buckley had come out of the barn to supervise the last of the stretcher cases, those he had waited as long as possible before moving. I was just about to go and help when I heard a faint new sound in the distance.
Almost in the same instant, I recognized what I was hearing above the rumble of the German guns down the line. It was an aircraft, and it was coming closer.
Searching the sky for it, I felt my heart rate rise. I don't know why, but something, some instinct born of working so near war at its worst, warned me. Why was an aircraft heading this way? The British aerodromes were west of here. Was it in trouble? And then I saw it, coming low and fast. The shape was distinctive-the two wings and the different body of an Albatross. I had only a second to wonder how a German pilot could have flown this far behind our lines, and then remembered that our lines were collapsing. I was already running, pointing, shouting to everyone to take cover, one eye still to the sky.
The orderlies, patients, and nurses clustered around the great doors of the barn probably couldn't see what I did, but my alarm was all too apparent. They glanced up, then heard the aircraft's motor, and dashed for the security of the barn.
The German flier, perhaps on a simple reconnaissance mission to see how the wavering front was holding, had seen us as well, and he veered in our direction, one of the Spandau machine guns already stuttering angrily, ripping up the earth and tracing a line across the bonnet of one of the ambulances. It burst into flames as the orderly who had taken cover behind it flung himself to one side. I could see the bullets coming my way and dove behind one of the horse troughs, and then he was gone, only to swoop past and swing around to bear down on the barn itself.
I saw one of the wounded with a rifle in his hand, and he stood there, in full view, carefully taking his aim, firing and then waiting for death to come. But the pilot hadn't seen him and fired at the barn instead. I could see Dr. Buckley standing there, his mouth opened wide in a wordless shout, his fists raised above his head, cursing the pilot.
I realized he was trying to distract the German at the stick, and just as the pilot veered, a tiny plume of white smoke showed beneath the aircraft, turning black quickly and growing larger by the second, until it was a column trailing the aircraft like the shadow of death. I knew what was coming-I'd seen Lieutenant Evanson's burns and those of other fliers.
Dr. Buckley and the barn were forgotten as the pilot pulled up sharply and turned away in a frantic dash for his own lines.
By some marvel of aim, that soldier must have hit the German.
I was already at the barn, climbing into one of the other ambulances, ramming the burning one to one side, where it could do no harm to the barn's wooden doors. Just at that moment, the German Albatross exploded into flames, spiraling toward the earth. A cheer went up, and then Sister Benning was pointing, saying something to me that I couldn't hear over the explosive sound of the crash.
I closed my eyes for a second against the sound, then turned in the direction she'd indicated, and there was Dr. Buckley on the ground in a heap. All I could think of was that he'd been hit.
I ran to him as Sister Davis asked, 'Isn't anyone going to see if that pilot survived?' No one stopped to tell her that he'd burned alive in that conflagration.
Bending over Dr. Buckley, I searched for blood, a wound, then felt for his pulse. It was slow, labored. An orderly was there, and I told him to put Dr. Buckley into one of the ambulances. 'We ought to be going,' I added. 'If that Albatross got through our lines, the rest of the German army may be on its heels.'
Sister Williams caught my own alarm and called, 'Hurry!'
We got Dr. Buckley into the nearest ambulance. There was no room, with one ambulance destroyed, for six of us, and Sister Benning said, 'Well, it's shank's mare, then.'
The lorry with the dead was already pulling out, and the ambulances followed. We began to march in its wake, and I thought that all we needed now was for one of us to twist an ankle in the ruts and pits of the road. I was concerned as well for the wounded, bounced and shaken in spite of the care their drivers took to spare them the worst of the ride.
Sister Davis was saying, 'They're getting ahead of us. What if the Germans are closer than we know?'
'Keep walking,' Sister Williams answered her sternly. 'And pay attention to where you're putting your feet. There's no one to carry you if you stumble or fall.'
I looked over my shoulder. The black plume that marked where the German flier had gone down was dwindling, as the fire had consumed the wooden body of the Albatross and there was less and less fuel to feed on. I tried to put it out of my mind and did as Sister Williams had asked-silently concentrating on each step.
My main worry was that another pilot from the same squadron, seeing the telltale black smoke, might come to investigate. We could still be spotted.
We'd marched nearly three miles through desolation and the French summer sun, thirsty and wishing for nothing more than an hour's rest. Sister Benning had already asked if we needed to find some shade for five minutes of respite from the heat, but we all knew it would be the height of foolishness.
And then a lorry came barreling toward us, crashing about like an erratic monster, and it slowed in a shower of dust and loose stones.
'Get in,' the sergeant at the wheel shouted to us, standing on no ceremony. 'We lost this round, and the Hun will be at La Fleurette in twenty minutes.'
We didn't need a second invitation. We scrambled into the back of the lorry and held on tight as the driver swung it in a wide circle to make his turn. Then we were heading back the way he'd come, gripping whatever we could find to keep ourselves from being thrown about. I could feel the bruises accumulating. But we were safe, and that was all that mattered.
The driver slowed after what seemed to be hours of torture, and he called back to us, 'We should be in the clear. Sorry about the rough ride.'
I asked if there was news of Dr. Buckley, but the driver shook his head. 'No idea, Sister. But not to worry. We'll be back in La Fleurette soon enough. Word is the Huns can't hold what they've gained today.'
And then he turned back to the wheel, and Sister Benning said, 'Well. I know what it feels like to be on the rack, now,' as we gathered speed again.
But I wasn't fated to return to La Fleurette, although later I was told that we'd regained the lost ground, just as the sergeant had predicted, and a dozen yards beyond it. But at the cost of how many lives, how many wounded who would never be whole again?
