Free Harvest of War by Hilary Green Page B

Something’s come up and Boss wants you, on the double.’
    Victoria dragged on her boots and her overcoat and plodded across the compound to Franklin’s office, her drowsy brain registering two facts: one, that all the ambulances except her own were absent, so presumably a barge or a hospital train had come in, and two, it was beginning to snow.
    Franklin greeted her briskly. ‘Sorry to drag you out of bed but we’ve had a call from army HQ. A car carrying two high-ranking officers has crashed on the road from Saint Omer, just the far side of Ardres, and the driver has been injured. They want us to send an ambulance to pick them up. You and Wilks are the only ones left in camp and you are the better driver, so I’m sending you. Take care. The roads are very treacherous.’
    Victoria cranked her converted Napier’s engine into life and climbed into the driving seat. The snow was coming down harder than ever and the road down the hill was as slippery as an ice rink. The car had no windscreen, and the snowflakes stung her face and caked on her eyelashes until it was almost impossible to keep her eyes open. She tried putting on her goggles, but the snow settled on them and rapidly obscured her vision. She found that the only solution was to drive with one eye open while she rubbed at the other to clear it. Soon both her hands were frozen, in spite of her fur-lined leather gloves, and her feet were so cold that she could hardly feel the pedals.
    The main road towards St Omer was hardly any better. The constant passing of heavy lorries, and more recently tanks, had broken up the pavé and churned the surface into ruts, which had now frozen hard as concrete and the ambulance skidded and bounced over them. In addition, there were frequent craters from bombs or shells to be negotiated. On either side, the road was lined with the snow-shrouded shapes of burnt-out vehicles and dead horses. Once through Ardres and closer to the front line conditions were even worse. Victoria’s eyes were streaming with the effort of seeing ahead through the driving snow and her shoulders ached with the struggle to keep the car on the road.
    Suddenly, above the noise of the engine she heard another sound, a rushing, rattling noise coming closer; then there was a loud explosion a few yards ahead of her. Snow and debris shot up in the air and a second later the blast wave hit the car, wrenching the steering wheel out of her hands. The car skidded, bounced, and toppled over into the ditch. The impact broke the ice, immersing Victoria in the freezing water beneath. She struggled to get her head clear, gasping for air, and realized that she was trapped inside. With numb fingers she grabbed the metal struts that supported the hood and tried to haul herself out, only to be brought up short by a tearing pain in her lower leg. Looking down, she saw that the muddy water was being further darkened by a spreading stain. Her leg was trapped under some part of the chassis and although she gritted her teeth and heaved with all her might she could not free it.
    The cold was penetrating through her clothes and into the core of her body. It numbed the pain in her leg but she knew that unless she was rescued soon she would die, either from exposure or from loss of blood. She drew a deep breath and shouted for help, but the road, often crowded with traffic, was uncannily silent. It struck her that she had not passed another vehicle, going in either direction, for several miles.
    How long she hung there she did not know, but when she was almost at the end of her strength and beginning to slip in and out of consciousness she became aware of a regular crunching sound getting closer and closer. It took a moment for her to realize that it was the sound of army boots marching through snow. She summoned her last strength and shouted for help. The boots came closer and she could hear whistling. She shouted again, but the boots kept marching