Maura lost count of the number of trips they made between Plugstreet and Armentieres over the next fifteen hours. At one point they were diverted further north and ended up delivering wounded New Zealanders to Ypres. By late afternoon they'd been roped into transporting German POWs back to Armentieres and escorting them to a makeshift depot. When they made these trips Badr and a member of the Military Police sat in the back while Jane and Maura, for their own safety, rode up front with Jane driving. It was slow going. The roads were thick with ambulances and artillery limbers. Throngs of walking wounded and prisoners rested on the sides of the road in the heat.
Being alone in the cab together meant that Maura and Jane could talk some more. They were both so tired that it was a good way of keeping themselves awake. Maura offered to drive so that Jane could rest, but Jane refused. Instead they resumed the chat they started in the dark when the attack first got underway. Maura learnt all about Jane's family – how Jane's mother Angela had supported the family by running a successful restaurant in Boston. And how Jane made it into Radcliffe but nearly flunked out because she fell in with the wrong crowd.
"Thankfully America entered the war. I dropped out to enlist as a nurse and my mother never found out about my school results," she said, laughing throatily. Maura laughed along with her. "She was livid, of course. But she couldn't stop me. Just like she couldn't stop Frankie from enlisting either. At least she has Tommy. He's running a bank."
Maura then told her about her own history. How she was orphaned and then adopted by a wealthy family friend. Raised just outside of London on a rolling estate, Maura had been a lonely child - finding solace in books and horses. She was a proficient rider and a very intelligent woman. Jane was impressed by Maura's drive, especially at the breadth of her medical knowledge. Maura was 19 when war broke out and she had already been nursing for several years. But she left her job and enlisted in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, accompanying the first wave of British soldiers across the channel. She'd been based around Armentieres since late 1914 and knew the area like the back of her hand.
"Christ," Jane said. "I've only been here a few months and I'm already sick of the place."
Maura laughed. "It's not too bad. I'd rather be here than at Wipers."
They both fell silent at this comment. They'd seen the carnage at Ypres, mispronouned Wipers, that day. The magnificent Cloth Hall had been reduced to a pile of rubble. Entire streets were now graveyards for buildings, and the pervasive stench of death hung over the town like a pall. Everywhere they went it was in their nostrils, filling their lungs and reminding them of their proximity to mortality. The only way to rid themselves of its clammy fingers was to chainsmoke, and very few people in Ypres went around without a lit cigarette between their lips.
"I'd rather be home," Jane said quietly. Maura nodded.
"Me, too."
"Maybe after the war we can visit one another," Jane said, throwing her a brief smile.
"Yeah, I'd like that," Maura replied, surprised to find she actually did.
The three of them caught a brief few hours sleep after that trip. Badr then continued making prisoner runs while Jane and Maura teamed up to transport more wounded, this time closer to the action. Together they crossed No Mans Land, now under Allied control, and helped direct medics and stretcher-bearers to the new drop-off point. Darkness fell quickly as they worked close behind the new front line near Warneton. The advance had stopped after a German counter-attack had been repulsed in the afternoon. Now the Allied troops, two Australian divisions, were hunkered down attempting to reinforce their hasty positions.
Maura would never have admitted it to Jane, but she was terrified. The pair dodged shrapnel and errant machine gun fire as they accompanied wave after wave of wounded back across the battlefield. They got right into the trenches, organising soldiers to help them find injured men. At one point Maura led Jane by the hand as Jane piggy-backed a Private who had shattered both feet. There were simply too many wounded for the medics to handle.
Then, around midnight, they found themselves once more in the front line. It was quieter now. Just a few shells popping over every now and then, and the odd burst of machine gun fire. Maura and Jane had to pick their way over the sprawling legs of prone men. In the dark it was hard to tell whether they were sleeping or dead. They walked doubled over because the trench was shallow, hastily dug when the fire got too intense for the men to advance any further.
Just as they sent a group of injured men on their way, Maura paused.
"Did you hear that?" she said.
"Hear what?" Jane asked.
"A voice. Someone's calling for help."
Maura crouched forwards and moved towards the makeshift parapet. She knelt and leaned against the dirt, craning to hear. Then she heard it – a plaintive cry travelling across the moonscape of shell-holes.
"There it is again! There's someone out there," Maura said.
"Don't even think about it," Jane said, appearing at her shoulder. "I'm all for going above and beyond the call of duty, but going out there is suicide."
Maura shot her a look, then turned back to face the new No Mans Land.
"Hello there!" she called, pitching her voice over the stitch of machine gun bullets peppering the earth nearby. She and Jane ducked as a precautionary measure, then popped back up. "Can you crawl to my voice?"
"I can't," came the cry back. "I'm hung up on the wire."
"Where are you wounded?"
"The leg! My knee is buggered."
"Okay, hold on!"
Maura and Jane slid back down to the bottom of the trench. "We have to help him," Maura said, more attempting to convince herself than Jane. "He doesn't sound that far away. I'll stay here, you go find some wirecutters."
"Maura -" Jane began.
"I'm not going to argue about this," Maura replied flatly. "Go."
Jane held her gaze for a second, her dark eyes awash with both fear and pride. Then she got to her feet and ran, hunched over, back towards the soldiers while Maura sat silently at the bottom of the trench, steeling herself for what was to come.