What is happening up there? Centaine asked them.
All hell is what is happening Will the line hold? Nobody knows that, miss, and the two of them were washed away on the slowly moving river of misery.
The soup and bread were soon finished, and they wheeled the cart back to the chAteau to prepare more.
Remembering the wounded soldiers pleas, Centaine raided the cupboard in the gunroom. where the comte kept his hoard of tobacco, and when she and Anna returned to their post at the end of the lane, she was able for a short time to give that extra little comfort to some of them.
There is so little we can do, she lamented.
We are doing all we can, Anna pointed out. No sense in grieving for the impossible. They laboured on after dark, by the feeble yellow light of the storm lantern, and the stream of suffering never dried up, rather it seemed to grow ever denser, so that the pale ravaged faces in the lantern light blurred before Centaine's exhausted eyes and became indistinguishable one from the other, and the feeble words of cheer which she gave each of them were repetitive and meaningless in her own ears.
At last, well after midnight, Anna led her back to the chateau, and they slept in each other's arms, still in their muddy, bloodstained clothes, and woke in the dawn to boil up fresh kettles of soup and bake more bread.
Standing over the stove, Centaine cocked her head as she heard the distant roar of engines.
The airplanes! she cried. I forgot them! They will fly without me today, that is bad luck! Today there will be many suffering from bad luck, Anna grunted as she wrapped a blanket around one of the soup kettles to prevent it cooling too quickly, and then lugged it to the kitchen door.
Halfway down the lane Centaine straightened up from the handle of the cart. Look, Anna, over there on the edge of North Field! The fields were swarming with men. They had discarded their heavy back-packs and helmets and weapons, and they were labouring in the early summer sun, stripped to the waist or in grubby vests. What are they doing, Arma? There were thousands of them, working under the direction of their officers. They were armed with pointed shovels, tearing at the yellow earth, piling it up in long lines, sinking into it so swiftly that as they watched, many of them were already knee-deep, then waist-deep behind the rising earth parapets.
Trenches. Centaine found the answer to her own question. Trenches, Anna, they are digging new trenches."Why, why are they doing that?
Because, Centaine hesitated. She did not want to say it aloud, Because they are not going to be able to hold the ridges, she said softly, and both of them looked up to the high ground where the shellfire sullied the bright morning with its sulphurous yellow mists.
When they reached the end of the lane, they found that the roadway was clogged with traffic, the opposing streams of vehicles and men hopelessly interlocked, defying the efforts of the military police to disentangle them and get them moving again. One of the ambulances had slid off the road into the muddy ditch, adding to the confusion, and a doctor and the ambulance driver were struggling to unload the stretchers from the back of the stranded vehicle. Anna, we must help them. Anna was as strong as a man, and Centaine was as determined. Between them they seized the handles of one of the stretchers and dragged it up out of the ditch.
The doctor scrambled out of the mud.
Well done, he panted. He was bare-headed but his tunic sported the serpent and staff insignia of the medical corps at the collar, and the white armbands with the scarlet crosses.
Ah, Mademoiselle de Thiry! He recognized Centaine, over the wounded man on the stretcher between them. I should have known it was you. Doctor, of course- It was the same officer who had arrived on the motor-cycle with Lord Andrew, and who had helped the comte with the consumption of Napoleon cognac on the day that Michael crashed in North Field.
They set the stretcher down under the hedgerow and the young doctor knelt beside it, working over the still figure under the grey blanket.
He might make it, if we can get help for him soon. He jumped up. But there are others still in there. We must get them out. Between them they unloaded the other stretchers from the back of the ambulance and laid them in a row.
This one is finished. With his thumb and forefinger the doctor closed the lids of the staring eyes, and then covered the dead man's face with the flap of the blanket.
The road is blocked, it's hopeless trying to get through, and we are going to lose these others, he indicated the row of stretchers, unless we can get them under cover, where we can work on them. He was looking directly at Centaine, and for a moment she did not understand his enquiring gaze.
The cottages at Mort Homme are overfilled, and the road is blocked he repeated.
Of course, Centaine cut in quickly. You must bring them up to the chateau.
. . .
The comte met them on the staircase of the chdteau and when Centaine hastily explained their needs, he joined enthusiastically in transforming the grand salon into a hospital ward.
They pushed the furniture against the walls to clear the centre of the floor and then stripped the mattresses from the upstairs bedrooms and bundled them down the stairs. Assisted by the ambulance driver and three medical orderlies the young doctor had recruited, they laid the mattresses out on the fine woollen Aubusson carpet.
In the meantime the military police, under instructions from the doctor, were signalling the ambulances out of the stalled traffic on the main road and directing them up the lane to the chAteau. The doctor rode on the running-board of the leading vehicle, and when he saw Centaine, he jumped down and seized her arm urgently.
Mademoiselle! Is there another way to reach the field hospital at Mort Homme? I need supplies, chloroform, disinfectant, bandages, and another doctor to help me. His French was passable, but Centaine answered him in English. I can ride across the fields. You're a champion. I'll give you a note. He pulled the pad from his top pocket and scribbled a short message. Ask for Major Sinclair, he tore out the sheet of paper and folded it, the advance hospital is in the cottages. Yes, I know it. Who are you? Who must I tell them sent me? With recent practice, the English words came more readily to Centaine's lips.
Forgive me, Mademoiselle, I haven't had a chance to introduce myself before. My name is Clarke, Captain Robert Clarke, but they call me Bobby. Nuage seemed to sense from her the urgency of their mission and he flew furiously at the jumps and threw clods of mud from his hooves as he raced across the fields and down the rows of vineyards. The streets of the village were jammed with men and vehicles, and the advance hospital in the row of cottages was chaotic.
The officer she had been sent to find was a big man with arms like a bear, and thick greying curls that flopped forward on his forehead as he leaned over the soldier on whom he was operating.
Where the hell is Bobby? he demanded, without looking up at Centaine, concentrating on the neat stitches he was pulling into the deep gash across the soldiers back.
As be pulled the thread tight and knotted it the flesh rose in a peak and Centaine's gorge rose with it but she explained quickly.
All right, tell Bobby I'll send what I can, but we are running short of dressing ourselves. They lifted his patient off the table, and in his place laid a boy with his entrails hanging out of him in an untidy bunch.
I can't spare anybody to help him either. Off you go, and tell him. The soldier writhed and shrieked as the doctor began to stuff his stomach back into him.
If you give me the supplies, I will carry them back with me. Centaine stood her ground, and he glanced up at her and gave her the ghost of a smile.
You don't give up easily, he grudged. All right, speak to him. He pointed across the crowded room of the cottage with the scalpel in his right hand. Tell him I sent you, and good luck, young lady."To you also, doctor. God knows, we all need it, he agreed, and stooped once more to his work.