Marisa shook her head. ‘Sorry, you must have me muddled up with someone else. My name’s Flora. Gosh, you’re soaked through. Whatever happened to you?’
The ambulance driver was coming back, accompanied by a tall, straight-backed nursing sister in a red cape. ‘… wandering by the side of the road,’ she heard him explaining. ‘Hypothermia perhaps; she isn’t making much sense…’
‘Miss… Miss Ashby,’ said the nurse, visibly shocked. ‘We thought… They said you couldn’t possibly have survived the explosion. What on earth happened?’
Louisa stared at her, at a complete loss and suddenly on the verge of tears. ‘I… I’m sorry, I can’t remember,’ she stammered.
‘All right, well, no matter. Take Miss Ashby to be checked over by Major Patterson,’ Sister Andrews told Flora-Marisa. ‘Then take her back to your hut, warm her up and put her to bed. Mind to come straight back.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ said Flora, standing to attention.
Sister Andrews turned to Louisa. ‘Go with Miss Derwent-Hughes,’ she told her, ‘and we shall speak tomorrow.’
‘This way,’ said Flora. In the pale light from her oil lamp she looked quite magnificent – tall, confident and capable. Louisa couldn’t stop staring. All the verve that Marisa lacked, Flora appeared to have in buckets.
‘I say, you look as if you might be sick,’ Flora said, stopping. ‘Steady now! Deep breaths… that’s it. Better? Come along now.’
Louisa followed her inside, then through a maze of corridors, past hurrying nurses and other medical staff.
‘You’re just about the last person whose acquaintance I expected to make this evening,’ said Flora, striding ahead. ‘They told us you would have been killed immediately. You really can’t remember what happened?’
‘It’s a bit of a blur. What… what exactly did they tell you?’
‘Just that the lorry bringing you from Calais had been found blown sky high a few miles back. They found the driver’s remains but assumed your body must have been completely cremated. Sorry. Horrid, isn’t it? The truck was piled high with munitions; did you realise? Sister A was fearfully cross – mostly because she lost a badly needed new VAD. We’ve had three girls go sick in the last week alone. This awful cold gets right into your marrow. Gracious, fancy you walking about all on your own like that in this simply ghastly weather.’
Flora led them through a domed vestibule with a large God Save the King sign on the wall and flags hanging from the ceiling that Louisa realised must belong to the Allied nations – she recognised the Australian flag. Through double doors, over which hung a sign that read Heads, she spied a ward of men tucked up in iron-framed beds. Everything smelled of tobacco and a peppery carbolic odour. Flora took them to an office on the other side of the vestibule, where a man in military uniform under a white doctor’s coat was sitting hunched over a desk, writing. This, Louisa surmised, must be Major Patterson.
‘Yes, Nurse, what is it?’ he asked without looking up. ‘You’re aware it’s cocktail hour, I trust? I’m afraid I can’t be of service unless you’ve brought me a dry martini at the very least.’
Flora winked at Louisa, then relayed Sister Andrews’ message. The doctor turned. He looked tired, but he gave Louisa a smile that was so sincere her throat swelled with sudden emotion.
‘Well!’ he declared. ‘We don’t get many tales of exploding munitions that end well around here. Delighted to meet you, Nurse Ashby.’
He told her to sit down, and felt her forehead, listened to her chest and took her pulse. Then he looked into her eyes for a long time with an old-fashioned ophthalmoscope like a large magnifying glass. From somewhere outside came a plaintive bugle call.
‘Well, there’s not much amiss that I can see,’ said the doctor eventually. ‘It’s impossible you were even inside the vehicle when it exploded. You must have got out for some reason.’ He wiped a hand wearily across his face. ‘You’re clearly shocked, which is why you’re a bit mixed-up, but I dare say you’ll be fine. A brandy and a good night’s sleep are all the medicine you need. Then perhaps tomorrow we’ll send you up the line and put you in charge of the next show, eh? Show Jerry what true British grit looks like!’
Someone called for him, and he got up and headed for the door. ‘Oh, and welcome to France!’ he called back. Then he was gone.
‘You must have nine lives,’ said Flora, taking Louisa back out. ‘Of course, it’s awful about the poor driver, but you must think of your experience in a positive way, Rose – a sign of hope in these terrible times. Come on, this way.’
‘There’s someone I have to contact,’ Louisa said, hurrying after her, ‘very urgently. A lieutenant. In… in the South Middlesex regiment.’
‘You’ve a sweetheart?’ Flora smiled. ‘Well, listen, don’t let on to Sister A. She won’t take you at all seriously if she thinks you’re about to leave to be married. You can send your young man a letter first thing tomorrow.’
They went back outside into the blowing sleet. Flora led them around the back of the hospital, then across a lattice of filthy duckboards glittering with ice, to a row of wooden huts. Flora went to the last hut in the row but one and pushed open the door. They stepped into a room, sparsely furnished with two bunks against either wall, an old-fashioned metal stove in the middle, various mismatched wooden chairs and a packing-case table. The room smelled of newly sawn wood, kerosene and eau de cologne.
‘Come and warm up by the stove,’ Flora said, putting down her lantern. ‘I’ll turn up the heat.’ She put a wooden chair next to the stove, on top of which a large, dented metal teapot sat on a hotplate. ‘Here, give me your coat. Look, there’s your trunk – the orderlies brought it in first thing this morning. We were going to have it sent back tomorrow, as it made us all too sad and choky to look at it. That’s your cot on the right. The top bunk is Nina’s, but she’s on shift. There’s still tea in the pot, I think, although it’s probably rather stewed by now.’
Flora helped Louisa out of her old-fashioned, button-up black boots. ‘I’m afraid we’re out of cocoa,’ she said, ‘but let’s see about a cup of tea – although we’ve only condensed milk.’ She passed Louisa an enamel mug. ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I must dash. Do help yourself to anything to eat you can find. Oh, and there’s a chamber pot under the bed; the lav is miles away.’
And with that, she donned her coat and hat once more and was gone – and everything was strange and silent, but for the rattling of the windows, the distant boom of the guns and the hiss of the stove.
A chamber pot? Oh God.