17 April 191754 Squadron RFC
Chipilly, France
News from Wing. We will move soon, probably in the next 3 or 4 days. Flez aerodrome southeast of Peronne will be our new home. Quite a bit closer to the action. Yesterday’s Albatros was rejected.
C’est la guerre.
Chipilly was a bog. Standing water all over the field. Last night the rain swollen Étang came up and swamped the eastern end. Nobody was flying from here today.
Corporal Biggins approached looking furtively in all directions. What on earth was he doing?
“Message for you, sir.” He handed me a small envelope. “Top secret. Most hush-hush. I was told to await a reply, sir.”
It was from Eliza:
Moving tomorrow.
Request the pleasure of your company for tea this afternoon
If unable, send word through messenger.
-E
Messenger? What’s this? Biggins drawn into her nefarious plot. How? Ah, now I understood. He’d gone to see McElheny and Rogers and was there ensorcelled.
“I believe you were driving to Grovetown this afternoon, Corporal? 1500 was it?”
“Right you are, sir.”
Grovetown was at sixes and sevens. Orderlies and workmen bustled everywhere dismantling the camp. A six-car locomotive marked with white-squared red crosses sat in the station. Only the critical cases remained. I thought to visit McElhenny and Rogers, but they’d been evacuated already. I was glad they were still alive. Orderlies stretchered the remaining wounded onto the ambulance train which would depart soon to rear-area hospitals taking the medical staff with them. 34 CCS were moving, but where? Somewhere up forward most likely. It made sense. During the Somme battles they were barely 3 miles behind the lines, now the front lay 22 miles East.
Storm clouds, in open defiance of the Met Office, withheld their showers and ushered in the afternoon sun. I was soon boiling hot under my trench coat. Entering the reception tent an orderly kindly took my coat and sent for Eliza. As I waited, I walked the grounds of the now overgrown station garden where I’d seen Eliza arm-in-arm with He Who Strikes from Afar. I wonder if he’s up with the PBI or safely feasting on ambrosia back at Brigade.
Eliza entered the garden, face alight. “Oliver!” We moved quickly toward each other. Taking my hands as she always did, she kissed me once on each cheek in the French manner. This was new, but then we were very much in public. She looked at my left sleeve, and the wound stripe there. Her eyes flew wide in shock and her mouth formed the perfect circle of a silent O. In that instant of slow-time the many-layered armor, wrought so carefully and tempered by the Somme’s wounded thousands slid away. For a second, I thought she was going to cry. Then, as if lowering the visor of some invisible helm, Eliza’s visage shifted and the compassionate, imperturbable countenance of Nursing Sister Ludlow gazed back at me.
I thought back to her January letter. How many men in her care had she watched die, powerless to save them?
“You were wounded.”
“Just a graze on my thigh. It’s fine. I was lucky. Not like those poor devils on that train.”
“Oliver, an open wound like that can be tricky. Are you keeping it clean?
“Oh yes, Corporal Fredericks, Medical Orderly and apprentice torturer treats me four times daily. Debriding and irrigating, debriding, and irrigating. Something I look forward to after jousting with Huns.”
“You’re still flying? All that heavy clothing. Maybe we should have a look.”
That won’t be necessary. It’s healing fine.”
“Based on your expert opinion in such matters.”
“Miss Ludlow, you do realize I’d need to remove my trousers. Such an enterprise would be
sans-culottes as it were.
She straightened right away, and her face became a complete mask.
Oh no, Too far. You’ve done it again, Oliver. Always saying the wrong thing. In a cold clinical voice that brooked no refusal she said, “Lieutenant Winningstad, gangrene is not to be trifled with. Come with me. A King’s Officer deserves the best. We’ll have Matron give you a full examination. You’ll find her a bit rough I’m afraid but she’s extremely thorough.”
Mother of God! Is she serious?Then her eyes lit up again and she started laughing. “You should see the look on your face, Oliver.” Same old Eliza. Such a sport. She persisted, however, and what followed was a 5-minute interrogation on all aspects of my wound and its treatment.
“Let’s have a doctor see you. Please.” There was something in her voice that was more than professional concern.
She set up a partition in one of the wards and left me.
“Wait for me where we met last time. You remember the place, don’t you?"
Doctor Greenford gave me clean bill of health. “Your MO’s done a first-rate job, Lieutenant. I know how you RFC chaps like to be warm all the time but flight clothing causing you to sweat is a concern. Wear it only when necessary. Your dressing must be changed morning, evening and after every patrol, regardless of circumstance.”
I retrieved my coat then walked over the small rise toward the wood. I paused by the Oak where we’d said goodbye last time, where I’d tried to kiss her. I couldn’t find the path into the grove.
It was here, I know it. I walked about for a good 10 minutes, growing impatient, then irritated.
Be still Oliver. I closed my eyes and thought back to Eliza holding my hand and walking through the trees.
There! It was right in front of me all along. How odd. I followed the narrow path to the little clearing. It was exactly as I remembered. The bench, a thick plank of wood about 4 feet long, rested on two square-dressed stones, its edge brushing against a wide, ancient oak. Green shoots and tiny mushrooms poked through the dry mattress of leaves and needles on the forest floor.
I leaned back against the tree, recalling our last visit here. How excited we were, friends reunited after months apart. Wrapped in my trench coat, the filtering sun’s warmth made me drowsy. I listened to the frogs singing and my mind wandered the borderlands of sleep. Something warm touched my cheek. A gentle rocking. I woke to her looking down at me, hand on my shoulder. Eliza's head was uncovered, and the afternoon sunlight gave her brown hair a sheen of bronze. Despite the impending rain she wore no coat, only a shawl about her shoulders.
“How long have I ...?”
“A little while. You looked so peaceful napping there. Look, I’ve brought us tea and the last of your Fortnum & Mason treats.”
I stood and held the small basket while she unfolded a blanket on the bench. Eliza poured tea from a thermos and set the F&M tin between us.
“I was hoping you could get away. I heard the frogs singing and knew they would bring the rain.
The tea was lukewarm. She’d been watching me doze for longer than she’d let on.
“Did you set this bench here?”
“No. I found it last Fall, just as you see it. This was someone’s special place once, but no one else comes here now.
We were both moving. 55 CCS would relocate east to Peronne-la-Chapelle, only 8 miles northwest of Flez. She and the remaining medical staff would return there in 10 days’ time. Another stroke of luck! Our conversation then steered a wandering path through family, childhood, education, to the war and back again.
“And what do the Ludlows talk about at home?”
“Art, literature, science, the latest scandal, the usual things, but mostly we talk about politics. It’s our family trade.”
Her father was a successful lawyer and a leading progressive. Her mother moved at all levels of society and was deeply engaged in the movement that secured women the vote in 1913.
A suffragette. I knew it! The Ludlow home was a salon for political, literary, and artistic minds. I could see how Eliza would thrive in that environment. What she must have learned there. It explained a lot about her. Law, while a means to an end, held no fascination, much to her father’s disappointment.
We have something in common there.“I thought I’d become a doctor but when the war didn’t end in 1914 and America stood idly by, I knew I had to do something. I had to be involved, so I started nursing school during my second year at Northwestern.”
“But enough of that, tell me about life on
Astoria, of your travels in the Far East. Will you go back when the war ends?”
I’d not thought that far ahead until now, but the answer was clear.
“No. I won't be going back.
Astoria was an escape from the farm, and from a world grown small. All I knew came from books. A lot of books, to be sure, but I’d never even left northern California. Not like you, touring around Europe twice as a teenager. So I ran away to sea and found adventure and a second family. I became a man there.
Astoria will always be part of me, but it’s not my future, not anymore.
“When I saw that aeroplane in New York everything changed, and now, flying them in war, it’s thrilling beyond anything I imagined.
“I want to travel the world. I want to keep flying. There’s something about being up there piloting an aeroplane, riding the edge of cloud like it’s a wave, or turning off the engine and gliding in silence. I feel connected to the machine like it's part of me but also to something larger. I’d make a hash of it if I tried to explain. I’ll take you up one day and you’ll see for yourself.”
“Oh, I’d love that.”
“Doctoring. That surprised me. I never envisioned that.”
“Really. What then?” She seemed genuinely intrigued.
“I imagined you in more domestic role. Keeping house. Cooking, cleaning, perhaps managing a maid,” her expression now crossed out of shock, and marched at the double quick toward unbridled fury. I continued, “but with a husband to take care of the more complicated things for you…” I could restrain my laugh no longer and my straight face crumbled.
“If you could see look on your face now, Eliza.”
“You’re terrible!” With a laugh she then delivered a short crisp punch to the front of my left shoulder, at the junction where it joins the chest. Even through the uniform jacket it stung. I’d probably have a bruise there tomorrow.
“Striking an officer, Miss Ludlow! Outrageous!”
She said nothing, just sat there with a smirk, looking mischievous.
“So why leave college for nursing?”
Eliza picked the empty tin and the teacups off the blanket and placed them in the basket. She looked past my shoulder as if considering her answer.
“Oliver, I wasn’t entirely honest with you when we first met. I didn’t
leave early. I graduated in 3 years.”
“What a brain you have, Miss Ludlow!” I said, feigning shock and surprise. She looked as though she might punch me again.
“College in three years! Eliza, that’s amazing! Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“We were having such a lovely time and I didn’t want to put you off. Men can be so sensitive about these things.”
“Some men.”
“Oh Oliver, I know that now. I know you’re not bothered or threatened or scandalized. You don’t care. It’s marvelous that you don’t care. I love that about you, but you’re…” she paused, “different than most men.”
An odd duck. I’ll bet she was thinking ‘odd duck.’ She wouldn’t be the first. I nearly laughed but my poker face held.
“You were teasing me, Oliver, but can you imagine what it’s really like to dim your light, to hide some bright part of yourself in shadow so you don’t frighten people or make them feel small?”
Is that what it's like for her? That would be hell. Absolute hell.“A little, but I’m not in your league as far as that goes. Truth from now on?”
“Truth,” she said and held out a crooked pinkie to mine.
“Eliza, have you ever met someone for the first time and felt a kind of recognition; a familiarity, like you were greeting an old friend? Because I have and now the thought of her invades my every idle moment.”
“Someone like me, Leftenant?” She batted her eyelashes melodramatically. “Brilliant, witty, mysteriously beautiful?”
“Yes. Exactly like that. Except you left out, stubborn, independent, scandalously modern, bewitching…a Kalypso, 'shining among goddesses.’ ”
Her pretense vanished and she was silent.
Was she blushing? I took her hand. “When I woke and saw you smiling down at me, I knew then why your “poor boys” wrote you all those letters. I’m sure they loved this place too”
“I never brought anyone here. Only you, Oliver.”
I kissed her then, drawing her face to mine as in my dreams. Those full lips, slightly open, parted willingly. Her soft fierce tongue greeted mine. She tasted of orange peel and the flowers from the tea. I brushed my lips against her ear and kissed the soft skin below. She tasted salty. I smelled a hint of lavender. With a gasp, she grabbed my head in both hands as my kisses descended her neck, where at last the starched glacis of her uniform collar deflected any further exploration.
Blast this thing! It's like mating in armor. Our mouths met again, tongues abandoning their soft skirmish and committing all reserves to the main assault. My hand wandered down the small of her back and climbed the rising slope of that delightfully rounded bottom. She was no slip of a thing. There was strength here. I could feel the smooth muscles in her back and in her thighs as I gathered up a handful of her dress bunching it higher. I forget what dark whispered desires escaped me then.
Hands still holding my face, she drew back slightly.
“I know Oliver, I know. I want that too. I do. But not here, not like this. Not in my boots and dirty smock, stinking of work. Let me give myself to you the way I want to. There will be time.”
Time?! What time? NOW! Now is the time! We’re in the middle of a war. You’re moving tomorrow. I could die! Why is this happening?!“Kiss me Oliver, and then we go or neither of us will be able to stop.”
We strolled back towards the camp, arm in arm. I loved the feeling of her leaning against me, but the dread anticipation of our goodbye was hard to ignore. We’d spent so little time together. Brief scenes scribbled in the margins of a play. Behind the oak tree at the base of the hill, I kissed her again. When our mouths finally parted, we stood there, foreheads touching. I put my hands in the pockets of my trench coat and wrapped it around her. She snuggled close, arms tight around my waist, her ear against my chest and the full length of her body pressed to mine. Her hair smelled of lavender. We held each other there and listened to the frogs calling the rain.
My Effel, registering a Force 12 hurricane, angled roughly up my trousers.
Things Sgt. Major Mulvaney never mentioned about the Sam Browne. I was sure she could feel it, but neither of us moved away.
Not now, dammit! Didn’t you hear her? All flights cancelled!!“Is it terribly uncomfortable?” she asked, peering up at me with an impish grin.
“Why whatever do you mean, Miss Ludlow?”
“Poor dear. Abide here and recover yourself. Right now it proceeds you by a quarter of an hour.”
She kissed me then. A short hard kiss, hungry and full of promises. I tasted blood on my lip. She whispered in my ear, “Come back to me, Oliver. Please come back to me.” Then she walked down to the tents.