Chapter 31
At first light, Tilly was woken by sounds around them.
There were male voices speaking in a foreign language, but not German.
Thank God for that, Tilly thought. She woke Fliss and the two of them listened and prayed.
The voices got closer and around the side of the upturned ambulance came several men, mounted on camels.
When they saw Tilly and Fliss, they shouted at the camels who responded to their instructions by kneeling.
One man jumped off and approached the two women.
Tilly and Fliss clung on to one another, both wondering what these wandering tribesmen would do.
Were they the same ones they had seen on their outward journey?
They indicated to the two women that they should stand and then pointed at the stranded ambulance.
Tilly wondered if she could make them understand that they needed their help to get the vehicle upright.
Through a process of sign language and demonstration, she managed to make them get the message.
They produced rope from their saddlebags and proceeded to hitch their camels up and attached the other ends of the ropes to the ambulance.
They hissed and shouted at the beasts, who spat at them and complained bitterly.
Men and beasts combined got the vehicle into an upright position, and Tilly and Fliss applauded them.
They watched in amazement as Tilly checked the ambulance over and tried the engine.
When it wouldn’t start, she raised the bonnet and used various tools to adjust parts.
She tried it again and the ambulance sprang to life.
It was their turn to applaud her. The two friends thanked the men, climbed back into the cab and waved to the departing tribesmen.
Tilly knew the answer to her question now about whether the travelling tribesmen would help them or not.
They had been very lucky that the camel riders had turned up when they did, otherwise they might not have survived at all.
Once Tilly had managed to get the engine functioning, they were about to set out to continue their journey when they noticed a sandstorm rising in the desert in exactly the direction of their route to Tobruk.
Tilly calculated that if they turned around and headed back to Alexandria, rather than try to continue, they might be able to outrun the storm.
Either way they faced danger but if they tried to sit it out, sand might well get into the workings of the engine and make travel in either direction impossible.
Reluctantly, they turned around and returned to Alexandria.
They were lucky enough to reach the army encampment just in time before the sandstorm hit.
They hunkered down with the rest of the troops to wait it out.
They were relieved that by the time it reached them, it had largely blown itself out and no great damage was caused.
The two women reported back to Captain Banks who was pleased to see they were safe.
‘I’m sorry to hear about Sapper Wilson, but thank God you’re all right,’ he said. ‘When we saw what was coming, we were doubtful that you would survive.’
‘We’d like to think you’d have sent out a rescue party after the storm had died down,’ Fliss said.
‘Undoubtedly,’ Captain Banks replied, his gaze firmly on Fliss.
They were taken to the mess tent where they ate a substantial meal and were then shown to a tent where they could bed down for the night. They were told to report to Captain Banks in the morning.
‘I’ve had intelligence that the situation in Tobruk is not good,’ the captain said, when he received them in his office.
‘It looks like it will fall to the Germans any day now. I’m not going to send you back into a situation where you will, more likely than not, be taken prisoners of war.
Therefore, my suggestion is that you remain with my battalion and join our medical team.
We have been ordered to join the forces under the command of Field Marshal Montgomery at El Alamein.
This has all the signs of becoming a key battle in the Western Desert Campaign.
We will need all the doctors and nurses we can get. ’
From that moment on for the next few months, Tilly and Fliss became part of the team supporting the Eighth Army in their bid to oust Rommel and his Panzer divisions from the Western Desert.
Tilly and Fliss had never experienced such a vicious bombardment.
The noise was deafening and the ground shook with the impact of the bombs.
The medical tents were under constant pressure to cope with the ever-increasing numbers of dead and injured.
Everything the two nurses had witnessed so far in this war was nothing compared to the perpetual line of seriously injured overwhelming them now.
The floor was constantly slippery with the flow of British blood.
The air was full of the screams of men suffering from horrific injuries.
The constant pleas for help echoed in Tilly’s and Fliss’s ears, and the numbers of stretchers blocking the alleyways between the beds seemed to be endless.
Too many men were taken outside and added to the rows of dead that they were too late to save.
Tilly thought that she would collapse under the strain of staying alert into the night.
Fliss was called upon to assist in the operating theatre and came out of there, hours later, for some air.
Tilly saw her head for the door of the tent only to be grabbed by the sister to apply pressure to a gushing wound while she tried to apply a tourniquet.
Tilly glanced across at her friend and they exchanged looks of desperation.
They were working flat out and yet the bodies kept coming.
The following day, after only a few hours’ sleep, they were back on duty. At a hurriedly eaten breakfast, they heard some infantrymen talking.
‘This just about takes the biscuit, doesn’t it?’ one soldier said. ‘Did you hear what they’ve got up their sleeve now? Operation Crusader, they’re calling it. It’s to be a surprise attack, but it sounds pretty risky to me.’
‘Doesn’t exactly fill a man with a great desire to step into it, but I guess we get no choice, chaps,’ added another soldier, with a grimace.
Tilly reported to the main serious-casualty ward that morning, while Fliss was tasked with assisting in the operating theatre again.
Much to Tilly’s surprise, Fliss had taken on that most onerous and deeply upsetting of all the nursing duties with a stoic dedication that Tilly had thought her incapable of before the war.
Somehow, Fliss had found a different side to herself that Tilly could only respect.
They both had another long and extremely taxing day and collapsed onto their camp beds that evening with hardly the energy to undress.
Tilly had almost fallen asleep when Fliss murmured, ‘You’ll never guess who I saw, carrying his kit bag across the camp, this evening. ’
‘Who?’ Tilly asked.
‘Jed,’ Fliss replied.
Tilly sat bolt upright in bed. ‘You’re kidding,’ she said, suddenly awake and alert. ‘How is that possible?’
‘Well, he’s here. Sent out with Monty’s unit. Field Marshal Montgomery has now taken charge of this unit, apparently. Jed’s a top-notch surgeon. He was never going to be away from the action for long.’
‘But what’s the likelihood of him being sent here?’ Tilly asked.
‘Likely or not. Here he is. I don’t suppose it’s any slip of the tongue that he told me which part of the camp he was in, either,’ Fliss said. ‘Just two rows of tents away from ours.’
Tilly wasted no time in setting out to find him.
She flung her coat over her shoulders and made her way immediately to the area of the camp where Fliss said she could find him.
She called his name outside two tents before she found the right one and stepped inside when his familiar voice told her to come in.
When he saw her, his face lit up and she rushed towards him to be folded in his welcoming arms. The other doctor sharing his tent stood up and said, ‘Looks like I should leave.’
Jed insisted that he needn’t go, but it was quite obvious by the way they fell into each other’s arms that they needed to be alone.
‘I know when I’m surplus to requirements,’ the doctor said and left them together.
They wasted no time in falling upon each other and tore their clothes off then and there without any need for conversation.
Their passion was spent far too soon and they lay curled together in one another’s arms, holding on to each other as if it was their last night together.
They didn’t speak about the fact that that might well be the case.
Jed’s tent companion came back in what seemed like the briefest of moments and Tilly made her way back through the encampment with Jed by her side.
When they kissed goodnight, they vowed to find each other tomorrow evening in the canteen where they would drink to their own survival along with friends and family.
‘Perhaps we can get Captain Banks and Fliss to join us,’ Tilly said.
‘Captain Banks?’ Jed enquired.
‘Yes. I’m surprised it’s taken Fliss so long, to be honest. I thought she’d have worked her way through quite a few willing officers by now, but this Captain Banks is the first one. Perhaps this is the real thing,’ Tilly replied.
‘And what might that be?’ Jed grinned.
Tilly punched him on the arm and pulled a face at him, and they both laughed. A moment of pure joy, flying in the face of whatever new hell tomorrow might bring.