Suddenly the train began to slow once more and Rosie, bleary with sleep said, “Please tell me we are at Issoudun.” As if on cue, the conductor announced our destination and we hurriedly collected our belongings and stepped down onto the station platform, the only people leaving the train. The train, instead of settling down at the station for a rest as it had done all day, dashed off with more speed than I thought possible. As its last puffing diminished in the distance, I felt as if I were being swallowed up in an ocean of silence. We were alone in the middle of nowhere. There was not a soul around, and the clustered buildings that made up the town of Issoudun were shuttered, the streets deserted. It might have been a ghost town.
For the first time I began to wish I had not come. What was I, Valerie Winthrop of Chicago, doing standing in a deserted train station in the middle of war-time France? No one at home even knew where I was – not Papa, not Nanny, no one.
Rosie’s voice, harsh and grating, broke the silence. “All right, now what?” But in her belligerence I could hear the same uneasiness in her voice that I felt, and also the expectation that I would know what to do next. I realized that so far, I had been the leader of our twosome – the one who could translate a menu, negotiate the currency, find a street address, or handle the desk clerk. Rosie had been a resentful follower, but she had followed.
I looked around in mounting panic. Then I spotted a truck at the end of the platform.
“That looks like one of ours.”
It was a covered-wagon type, backed against the platform. As we stared at it eagerly, a soldier climbed down from the front seat and came towards us. He was an American, and soon I could see the Signal Corps braid on his cap.
“Are you the Red Cross girls for the Third AIC?” he asked.
We nodded in silent relief.
“Guess I dozed off. These damn trains don’t run on schedule. They told me to meet this one so I got here an hour early and now it’s two hours late. Got in a good nap though.”
He looked at our luggage. “I’d better drive the truck down here. It’ll save haulin’ that stuff.”
He walked off, and the silence of Issoudun was shattered by the roar of the motor. The truck careened noisily around the station house, and backed directly opposite our luggage. The soldier, in no particular hurry, loaded the bags into the huge vehicle.
“There’s room for both of you up with me,” he said nodding towards the front of the truck.
Rosie would have liked to pretend helplessness about climbing on the high seat. The soldier, however, when he had finished loading the bags took hids place behind the wheel without a glance in her direction. As I had already climbed aboard, there was nothing for her to do but to join me under her own stream. It did nothing to improve her outlook.
We were off with a roar.
“Miss Farleigh,” he shouted over the noise, “told me to tell you she couldn’t come to meet you because she’s alone in the canteen. The last worker left yesterday.”
With a dark look at me Rosie yelled back, “Why did she leave?”
“Work’s too hard, I guess. Or maybe there wasn’t enough extra work if you get what I mean.” He smiled and winked at Rosie who looked stonily out the muddy front windshield into the bleak countryside.
“How far is the --- center?” I asked taking care not to meet Rosie’s eyes.
“About seven miles from town. That’s the main field – you can see it from here—Number One, where the Headquarters is. There are ten fields spread all over the place. Nine for the living to learn how to get killed on and one, Field Ten, is the cemetery where they put the graduates.” He laughed at his own joke, but I had the feeling it was a very old one to the inhabitants of the Third AIC.
“Sounds like a great place,” muttered Rosie. And then under her breath so only I could hear, “I knew it would be awful. I don’t know why I listened to you.”
“Yup, a raw deal,” said the driver. “Who ain’t getting a raw deal though? Who wants to fight this war anyway?” I thought of the rampant patriotism at home emanating from homes like mine sunk in luxury, with no idea of what war was really like. And I had a feeling my education had only just begun.
I sat between the two negative voices trying to push the meaning of their words from my mind. Then, the yellow brick house rose unbidden before my eyes. The library with its walls of books, a bright fire crackling the fireplace, Josie bringing in the tea….”
We turned from the road, and now we could see rising from out of the treeless plain, giant hangars in various stages of building. Opposite, along an unpaved road leading from the gate, a line of one-story barracks squatting in the mud, their dreary gray walls resisting the oozing mud that looked as if it might suck them out of sight at any moment.
Before the gate, an armed sentry halted the truck, peered in curiously, and waved it on. At the first and smallest barracks, the driver stopped. Over the door a dilapidated, faded sign “American Red Cross Canteen” announced the end of our journey. Wading back and forth through the mud, the driver helped us stack our baggage on the small porch. “So long and good luck. You’ll need it,” he said with a final shot of pessimism.
I opened the door, and the two of us filed into the canteen. We found ourselves at the end of a long room with two rows of wooden tables circled with plain wooden chairs. Small windows were cut into the walls, and through wide cracks in the floor we could see the mud underneath. Beside the door was a counter that shut off a space about fifteen feet square with a stove, sink, shelves and two tables. The place was cold, and the dim December sun lit the room with a pale light.
“How awful,” breathed Rosie, her face set and angry.
At that moment, a woman raised a leaf in the top of the counter and came through it towards us. She was middle-aged, small, thin, dressed in a faded blue apron smock of the Canteen Service. She wore the directrice coif of blue silk, covering her hair and forehead to the eyebrows, giving her a nun-like appearance. Below it, her eyes were a clear hard blue. She spoke with a very precise voice.
“I am Margaret Farleigh. I’ll show you to your quarters.” We followed her numbed, not only by the cold, but the curtness of her greeting. She led us out the door at the rear, across a narrow stretch of mud, and into a smaller barrack with the same rough floor and walls as the canteen. There were four cots in a row with a wooden chair beside each, and a large pot-bellied stove opposite.
She turned to face us. “I will answer all your questions later, but right now we have an emergency on our hands. Please change as quickly as possible into your working uniform – that will be the smock and coif – and report to me in the canteen.”
“But ---“ Rosie’s face flushed angrily, “We’re – I’m tired ---“
“In this place being tired will never be a valid excuse for not doing your work when work is to be done. A squadron is coming in at five this afternoon. Unless we feed them they will go hungry until their kitchens can be set up tomorrow.” She looked squarely at each of us in turn. “And we are going to feed them.”
She turned abruptly and went out, her steps as crisp and determined as her words.
Rosie and I stood staring at the door that had closed behind Miss Farleigh. Rosie had been rendered silent, although I could see she was seething with unspoken rage. I, however, felt a small glimmer of hope. I suddenly realized that although my life had been soft and pampered in many ways, obedience to orders had been woven through it from my earliest memories. I might have had my tea brought in every morning, but no one asked me what I wanted with it or if I, indeed, wanted it. I might be walked in the park every afternoon as a child, but I also had no choice about going if I were tired. Complicated rules of etiquette and behavior had dictated every day of all my life. Here I was face to face with it again in the person of Miss Farleigh. Yet this time I did not mind, for I could see the purpose behind it, and it seemed more than worthwhile to me. A group of American soldiers was arriving, and unless I did something about it they would go hungry. I could do nothing about the cold and mud, but this I could do.
I hurriedly searched through my bags for the working uniform. Rosie, however, stood by her bed unmoving, and then announced to the room at large, “I’m tired and I’m hungry and if there were another train today I would leave. I’ll wait until tomorrow, and if things aren’t better I’ll go then, even if I have to walk – but I am not leaving this room.”
“Come on Rosie,” I said with as much gentleness as I could muster. “We are here now and there is an emergency. I will help you to leave tomorrow if you still want to go.” I rifled around in her bag and found her working uniform. “Come on and put this on. At least it will be warmer in the canteen, and there may be something to eat.”
I waited with bated breath as she warred with herself. Then she silently she took the uniform from me and put it on. In silence we walked over to the canteen together.
We found Miss Farleigh behind the counter in the small kitchen. She was on tiptoe before the stove stirring a huge can, just like a garbage can, the top of which appeared just level with her head.
Her only greeting was a gruff “You’re late. One of you take this paddle and stir. The other, sit at that table and make sandwiches.”
I found myself seated at a long table with Miss Farleigh opposite, stacks of sliced bread on her left, cans of sandwich filling on her right. Rosie had stepped up to the stove and was stirring as Miss Farleigh had done.
“Start spreading,” the Directrice said. “Don’t make unnecessary motions. We have one hour and twenty-five minutes before the squadron is due, and we’ll need at least four baskets of sandwiches.”
I noticed with dismay that the baskets referred to were the size and shape of the laundry baskets at home. Miss Farleigh eyed me, “By the way which are you, Bennett or ---“
“Winthrop. Valerie Winthrop.
“You’re wasting motion, Miss Winthrop. Take the bread with your left hand, spread with your right. Take care of the edges. The center will take care of itself. Miss Bennett that’s soup you’re stirring. It will be our supper too, if the men leave any. The marmite beside the soup is water for coffee. There’s another heating stove in the middle of the room. Our main difficulty is lack of stove space. We have running water in the sink, but it’s not hot. It takes a long time to heat all that cold water to the boiling point.’ The blue eyes returned to me. “You’re too slow, Miss Winthrop. One motion should spread a slice. Miss Bennett is the soup boiling?”
“Yes, Miss Farleigh.” Rosie sounded more confident than I had seen her all day.
“Are you any good at making sandwiches?’
“Yes, I am.” She said firmly with an enigmatic sidelong glance at me.
“Well, this girl isn’t”, Miss Farleigh said, the blue eyes fixed again on me. “You’d think she’d never made a sandwich in her life. You take her place. Miss Winthrop, try grinding coffee. Maybe you can do that. We need at least ten pounds.”
I was only too glad to remove myself from Miss Farleigh’s eagle eye, and watched enviously as Rosie sat down at the table, matching Miss Farleigh slice for slice with her flying knife.
I was not through the first pound of coffee when I realized I had stepped from the frying pan into the fire. My arm ached. I set my teeth and kept turning. A stop in the sound, and Miss Farleigh’s eyes were on me. I kept turning and turning, just to keep those eyes on the sandwiches and away from me. As the tenth pound disappeared into the monstrous machine, I felt as if my right arm would fall off.
Miss Farleigh was immediately at my side. “You have the ten pounds. Good. Next time will be faster.” She looked out the window. “The squadron is coming through the gate. Miss Bennett, take the sandwiches to the counter and get ready to serve. Miss Winthrop, add sugar and condensed milk to the coffee.”
Rosie carried the basket to the counter, and I noticed that her eyes were bright with excitement and this time her checks were flushed again but with excitement. She seated herself on a high stool next to the cups.
I measured out the prescribed six cups of sugar, and then stood looking at the cans of milk. Never in my life had I opened a can, or even seen one opened by anyone else. Mr. Brown’s doubtful face rose before my eyes, “There won’t be time to instruct a novice.” I was more of a liability than I had thought I would be. Instead of all the intricacies of manners and social etiquette that had marked my childhood, what I really had needed to learn was how to open a can. I could pour tea from a silver pot prepared by others, I could dance a waltz to perfection, I could chat respectfully with those older than I, but I could not open a can. Miss Farleigh was beside me again, and as she gave further orders to Rosie, she opened the cans with the casual ease of an expert and tossed them into the marmite. I watched her every move. I had promised Mr. Brown I would be a fast learner.
“Miss Winthrop, you’ve got to be quicker.”
With a clumping of boots, the squadron filed into the canteen. There were cries of “Line up, line up,” and in seconds the men arranged themselves, single file. Two of them carried the huge marmite of soup from the stove to the counter where Rosie served it into tin cups. Cups. There was another problem. There were only fifty of them, and at least two hundred men to be fed. It was my job to gather the cups as soon as they were empty, rush them back to the sink, wash them, and return them to Rosie. At least I could do this. Although dishwater and I were not acquainted.
Twice the line filed by --- first for soup and a meat sandwich, next for coffee and a jam sandwich. I lost count of the number of times I sped back and forth collecting, washing, collecting. Over it all I could hear Rosie’s voice above the clatter and talk of the men. She was laughing and talking a blue streak, confident and in her element while I floundered on the edge, skirting what seemed like looming disaster. It was midnight before the last man filed out, and the door finally closed.
“Now we’ll eat,” Miss Farleigh said. “The soup’s gone but there’s plenty of bread and jam and coffee and we’ll open a can of beans.” Never in my life had a meal been more welcome.
We ate in silence, too hungry to be aware of each other. One moment from the evening kept coming before my eyes like a living tableau. The captain of the squadron had been standing at one of the windows looking out into the darkness. His face had looked gray, his eyes unfocused. I knew, although it was then dark, he had been seeing again the Center as it had looked when he arrived: the unfinished, partially built camp spread helter-skelter over the French countryside; the ever- present mud; the primitive living conditions; Field Ten with its rows of white crosses. The end of the line. A place just as unprepared for war as the Americans who had come to inhabit it.
As if reading my thoughts, Miss Farleigh leaned forward over her empty plate. “The last few hours will have given you a taste of what life here will be like. Only more of it. Much more. I realize that you are volunteers and can go or stay, but I insist that you make that decision right now. You will either return to Paris on the first train tomorrow, or if you stay you will do so on my terms. You will be willing, cheerful, and conscientious twenty-four hours round. Miss Winthrop?”
My voice, subdued by the evenings revelations, I said quietly, “I’ll stay Miss Farleigh.”
“Miss Bennett?” I almost did not dare to look at Rosie. After this evening who would she be? The resentful girl in our barracks or the laughing girl who served soup. And if she went, I would have to go too. For reasons unclear to me in my exhausted state, I desperately wanted to stay.
“Of course, I’ll stay. This is so important.” Rosie’s face was pink from the exertion of the last hours, and under a mass of now tousled curls she looked happy and very complacent. She smiled warmly at Miss Farleigh who smiled back as if they shared a secret to which I was not privy. I could tell that Rosie had made her mark, while I had become the hapless sidekick. Mr. Brown would have sent me home immediately if he could have seen my first evening on duty. And Papa would be filled with silent satisfaction that my rebellion had failed as he had predicted it would.
Then Miss Farleigh brought me back to the grim present and said, “I’m going to let you two girls specialize. You will always pitch in wherever you are needed at the moment, but you will have special training. Miss Winthrop, you look the stronger of the two. I want you to take over marmites. Miss Bennett will do the sandwiches.”
From her apron pocket Miss Farleigh produced two slips of paper. “Here are your instructions. Read them tonight and tomorrow follow them exactly. Now go to bed. Morning comes early here.”
Rosie and I slithered back through the mud to the cold, dark little barracks behind the workroom. I looked at the still cold stove in the corner of the room, and wondered if it ever would be lit. Now it was I who was silent, slipping out of my uniform into my pajamas, and racing to get under the woolen blankets on the narrow cot. Rosie, however, chattered gaily.
“The work’s not so hard. I’ve done worse and without those hundreds of good-looking men.” She laughed as she had at the serving counter. Then her countenance changed. “What was wrong with you tonight?” With a sidelong glance and not very warm smile she said, “The lady of the manor has never before dirtied her hands with sink water, has she? Your pursers and French and lace petticoats are of no use here. You have entered my world. And with a triumphant gesture she pulled the blanket over her head. The space between our cots, only a mere two feet, suddenly yawned becoming an unbridgeable gulf.