Free An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd

Dr. Buckley into the nearest ambulance. There was no room, with one ambulance destroyed, for six of us, and Sister Benning said, “Well, it’s shank’s mare, then.”
    The lorry with the dead was already pulling out, and the ambulances followed. We began to march in its wake, and I thought that all we needed now was for one of us to twist an ankle in the ruts and pits of the road. I was concerned as well for the wounded, bounced and shaken in spite of the care their drivers took to spare them the worst of the ride.
    Sister Davis was saying, “They’re getting ahead of us. What if the Germans are closer than we know?”
    “Keep walking,” Sister Williams answered her sternly. “And pay attention to where you’re putting your feet. There’s no one to carry you if you stumble or fall.”
    I looked over my shoulder. The black plume that marked where the German flier had gone down was dwindling, as the fire had consumed the wooden body of the Albatross and there was less and less fuel to feed on. I tried to put it out of my mind and did as Sister Williams had asked—silently concentrating on each step.
    My main worry was that another pilot from the same squadron, seeing the telltale black smoke, might come to investigate. We could still be spotted.
    We’d marched nearly three miles through desolation and the French summer sun, thirsty and wishing for nothing more than an hour’s rest. Sister Benning had already asked if we needed to find some shade for five minutes of respite from the heat, but we all knew it would be the height of foolishness.
    And then a lorry came barreling toward us, crashing about like an erratic monster, and it slowed in a shower of dust and loose stones.
    “Get in,” the sergeant at the wheel shouted to us, standing on no ceremony. “We lost this round, and the Hun will be at La Fleurette in twenty minutes.”
    We didn’t need a second invitation. We scrambled into the back of the lorry and held on tight as the driver swung it in a wide circle to make his turn. Then we were heading back the way he’d come, gripping whatever we could find to keep ourselves from being thrown about. I could feel the bruises accumulating. But we were safe, and that was all that mattered.
    The driver slowed after what seemed to be hours of torture, and he called back to us, “We should be in the clear. Sorry about the rough ride.”
    I asked if there was news of Dr. Buckley, but the driver shook his head. “No idea, Sister. But not to worry. We’ll be back in La Fleurette soon enough. Word is the Huns can’t hold what they’ve gained today.”
    And then he turned back to the wheel, and Sister Benning said,“Well. I know what it feels like to be on the rack, now,” as we gathered speed again.
    But I wasn’t fated to return to La Fleurette, although later I was told that we’d regained the lost ground, just as the sergeant had predicted, and a dozen yards beyond it. But at the cost of how many lives, how many wounded who would never be whole again?
    Dr. Buckley was being sent back to England. He resisted going at first, and then relented finally, asking if I could escort him—“She doesn’t fuss,” he had told the worried doctors who had examined him. At the same time I was informed that I was to be given leave, although I knew very well that in the rotation, I had weeks to go.
    I never knew—although I had my suspicions—if my leave had to do with Dr. Buckley, or if Inspector Herbert had had some say in it. That was rather far-fetched, but stranger things, I’d learned in dealing with the Army, could happen. It was entirely possible that Simon Brandon had pulled some strings. Between them, he and my father knew everyone from General Haig to the lowliest subaltern down the line of command.
    It was Simon who met my train as it came into London, and I’d sent no telegram.

C HAPTER S EVEN
    S IMON GREETED ME, took my satchel away from me, and walked with me to the motorcar that was waiting outside