Chapter 19 #3
Tilly hadn’t realised that part of their job would be assisting German soldiers but she accepted that their job was to sustain human life, even that of the enemy’s.
She and Fliss were picking up some French soldiers one day and took in two injured German POWs with them.
On the way back to the field hospital, the ambulance started coughing and spluttering.
Tilly suggested they pull into the farm they were passing, so that she could investigate the problem.
When they entered the farmyard, they were greeted by a large woman with a severe look upon her face.
Tilly explained with the aid of gestures and minimal French that she needed to repair the ambulance.
While Tilly was under the bonnet and Fliss was attending one French soldier in the back of the ambulance, one of the German soldiers indicated that he wanted to get out for a smoke.
The farmer’s wife approached the French soldier with a cup of water and handed it to him.
She asked to look at the French soldier’s gun.
Tilly thought this strange, but the soldier handed it over.
The woman glared at the German with a cold blackness in her eyes and Tilly wondered exactly what her intentions were.
Tilly watched, open-mouthed, as the woman raised the gun and shot the German, her expressionless face hardened to the task.
She said nothing, but returned the revolver to the soldier and went back into the house, closing the door.
The French soldier told her later that the Germans had dragged her son out of the house a few days earlier and shot him in front of her. An eye for an eye and a son for a son.
The cold-blooded killing was difficult for Tilly to witness and yet she understood what had made the woman do it.
She and Fliss drove back in stunned silence.
That evening Tilly wanted to erase the sight of the shooting from her mind and, once they were back in camp, she sought out the refuge of some company and several glasses of wine.
Fliss declined to join her, saying she badly needed to wash the day’s events away in the shower.
Tilly joined a group of nurses and doctors in the mess tent, who seemed to be all letting off steam.
Among them were the two surgeons, Jed and Ralph.
She bought herself a drink and joined them.
She spent the evening hearing all about Pennsylvania, where Jed came from.
Tilly had this fixed image of America as a place where everyone owned a fast car and led a Hollywood lifestyle.
She had seen photographs of the Grand Canyon and the west, of the beaches in California and the Rocky Mountains, but she knew little of the rest of the country.
She heard all about Jed’s family, who worked in the iron and steel works and managed to find out that he had no girlfriend that he had left at home.
She found that difficult to believe. Perhaps he didn’t want to confess it in order to make his chances with the nurses and female ambulance drivers better.
She told him about her birth village of Micklewell and her upbringing on the Isle of Wight.
They both marvelled about how they had ended up here, in this place.
Two people who’d started life on different continents, thrown together because of the actions of one dictator with a desire to build an empire for himself and fulfil his vision of a pure Aryan race.
When the evening got late, people began drifting away, leaving just Tilly and Jed.
They walked together back to her ambulance bedroom and as they said goodnight under the stars of a clear sky, Jed kissed her gently on the lips.
So, he found her attractive. She was cautious about how she should respond, however, for she had been warned that relationships formed under war conditions were short-lived.
One of you could be wiped out under mortar fire or your ambulance could be blown up by a landmine.
She returned his kiss, though, for there was a lot to be said for taking what you could from life when life could be taken from you at any moment.
When she crept into the tent, Fliss turned over on her camp bed. ‘You’re late,’ she said.
‘Mmm,’ Tilly murmured. ‘You missed a good night over at the canteen.’
‘Too exhausted to even drink wine.’ Fliss groaned. ‘What a day we’ve had.’
‘Me too,’ Tilly replied, almost glowing bright enough for Fliss to see. Her voice betrayed her excitement.
‘I want to hear all about it . . . In the morning, though,’ Fliss said, almost falling back to sleep before her head hit the pillow again.
The following morning, Tilly was awake before Fliss even stirred.
Tilly was fizzing with what had happened last evening, but sharing the full details would have to wait until later.
She went to get breakfast and was about to leave for her first assignment of the day, when she saw Jed heading for the operating theatre.
He looked her way and smiled a broad smile.
She hoped the experience of the previous night would be repeated.