AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story has been sitting on my drive since August 2022, despite the rough draft being complete, because I fell very deep into the rabbit hole of research and kept tweaking all kinds of historical details. In the end I decided to publish it, realising I could spend literal years making it perfect otherwise, and I really wanted to tell this particular story. It is heavily based on real places, people and events, but it's not always historically accurate - sometimes due to gaps in my knowledge, for all my research, sometimes deliberately when I fudged certain details in the name of the plot. I will try to give references to all the main sources I have used.
Please note that the rating for this story is higher than for my previous works. There will be more direct references to sex, as well as pretty serious and disturbing themes connected to war and its consequences. Most of it would probably still qualify as T and I will indicate which chapters go beyond it, but I want to be on the safe side.
I hope you will enjoy this story!
He can barely think, his brain switched off from exhaustion and terror, reduced to sheer instincts, following orders and a horrible routine, ingrained into his very body by now. He is carrying Lewis, a grown man thrown over his back like a sack of potatoes. He has no idea how far he has been walking, focused solely on the next step and on hopefully avoiding shells falling all over them. There is an ambulance in sight, waiting for them, hands reaching to help him take Lewis off him without injuring him farther, and settle him promptly into the back of the car. He raises his head to look at the driver and freezes in shock, certain that he finally has snapped, that his mind could not take it anymore and went straight into hallucination.
The driver is a woman, not an uncommon sight those days, but this particular woman has no business being here, in the middle of most literal hell.
"Mary?" he rasps, disbelieving.
Her brown eyes are big and round, staring back at him in equal shock.
"Matthew," she gasps. "Are you alright?"
He cannot answer her, in his current state he is not sure if he even has the answer. He doesn't care right now anyway; he just wants to know what the hell she is doing here, why is she not back at Downton, safe and unchanged as she should be.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asks, in single minded focus. She rolls her eyes, as if they were discussing something back at Downton drawing room, not standing in mud surrounded by shell blasts.
"Driving an ambulance, obviously ," she answers in her perfect annunciation. "We are just waiting for one more wounded. Do you need medical attention or are you going back there?"
Her tone is casual, blasé even, but he can see the tension in her body, the intensity in her eyes trained on him, as if forcing him to be alright and well by her sheer willpower alone.
"Never mind me," he dismisses her concern, "How in the world could you come here? What for?! "
His last words are a hoarse cry and yet nearly drowned out by a shell exploding nearby. His heart clenches in fear, in sheer terror really, that the next one might land on her, might take her away from him forever. He is so furious at her for putting herself at risk, for coming here, that he is shaking.
She shocks him by laughing, even though it's not a merry laughter, not truly.
"Sybil," she says, as it was the whole explanation he needed. Maybe it is, actually. He mentally adds his youngest cousin to the list of people who he would love to strangle. "She insisted on nursing at the front. I could hardly allow her to come here alone. I didn't have time to undergo a nurse training, she was in too much hurry to go, so I made Edith teach me to drive and I joined the ambulance service attached to the field hospital Sybil works at."
"How could you two put yourself in danger like that?" his voice is shaking with rage and fear too, just like his body still is.
The look she gives him is pure steel.
"Just as well as you could."
"That's different!" he shouts, "You were supposed to be safe! How can I function knowing you are here, facing constant danger, not sure if you are hurt, if you are even still alive?!"
"You will manage," she says flatly. "I have been doing it for three years now."
They glare at each other, frozen in emotions too strong for farther words, when the orderly grabs Mary's arm and informs her that the ambulance is full.
"I have to go," says she, looking at him imploringly, "Please, be careful out there. I never want to have a cause to pick you up."
His heart is in his throat at the thought of her going away, driving among the mud and the shells, maybe to be never seen again. To think he considered saying goodbye to her at the train station hard!
He grasps her hand, desperate.
"You be careful," he says, "Oh God, Mary, please be careful."
She smiles at him, a smile which doesn't reach her eyes, and touches his face for a moment.
"Such good luck, Matthew. Please come see me when you have the time, if only to yell at me further. I must know that you survived this one."
Before he can answer, she gets behind the wheel and drives off.
xxx
He stumbles into his dugout, completely stunned. Mary, in France. Mary, driving. Mary, driving an ambulance through the bloody mud of battlefields, risking her very life at every moment. It is too much to comprehend.
How has nobody written to him with the news?
He shakes off his anger at them. Would it be any better if he learnt it in a letter instead of running into Mary during a battle? Their meeting would still be a shock, even if he could reasonably expect it. Seeing her here was an impossible contradiction, one which he could not reconcile. Mary belongs at Downton, in safety, peace and dining in splendour; battlefields, danger and unimaginable horrors belong to France. Those two could not merge together in his mind and yet here she was, stepping into this nightmare.
How could Robert allow it? He had to be bullied into allowing Sybil to become a nurse at the village hospital, where she was supervised by the family doctor and his mother and spent every night in her own bed – how could he agree to two of his daughters going to the front? He could not imagine his cousin ever giving his permission to such an escapade. Could they have done it without it?
He collapses on his cot, her good luck charm in his hand. His brain, for the hundredth time, conjures the image of Mary in her driver uniform.
His heart is full of dread.
xxx
They are sitting in a small house given to Mary and Sybil as their billet. It has been abandoned by the owners who ran away from the front but took quite a lot of their furniture with them, leaving the house half-empty and forlorn looking. Matthew feels completely surreal sitting in a kitchen with Lady Mary Crawley and looking at her making tea and toast by herself.
"We ran away, of course," says Mary calmly, sipping her tea. "Papa would not allow us to do it in a million years, but, as he found out, he had no power to drag his daughters away from the front once we were here."
"Couldn't he pull strings to have you reassigned?" asks Matthew with disbelief.
Mary shakes her head.
"The need here is too great to give up any volunteers because of parental disapproval."
"But why?" asks Matthew again, desperately trying to understand. "Why have you decided to come here ?!"
Mary purses her lips.
"I don't fully understand Sybil's desperation to be here," she admits. "When she was truly useful at Downton. We did read the reports from the front; we heard stories from the wounded soldiers and the orderlies how horrid the conditions here were, but still, it's not as she wasn't needed there. But when she got it into her head that she was coming here, come hell or high water, I knew I could not let her go alone. So I learnt to drive as fast as I could and we went to London to formally volunteer. We are both of age, Papa could do nothing to stop us, but we still only told them the day before our departure."
Matthew shakes his head incredulously.
"And what was the family's reaction?"
Mary smiles wryly.
"As you can probably imagine, rather explosive. Mama fainted. I think Granny wanted to pretend to faint, but when Mama really did, she took it as a point of pride to remain stoic. I was truly afraid Papa would get a heart attack, he was so red. But the deed was done, we were both of age and there was nothing they could truly do to stop us, so we went to the train station next morning. Edith drove us to the station, Branson was drafted by then."
Matthew hesitates before he asks the next question, but in the end he can not stop himself.
"And how are you managing?"
Mary looks pensive. He recognises the haunted look in her eyes and he hates, absolutely hates, that it is there, that the hell he has existed in for the last three years touched her too.
"I hate every minute of it," answers Mary decisively. "But I made my choice and I am needed here, so I must deal with it. Dwelling on things is not going to help anything."
She looks up at him.
"And how are you managing? You can be honest with me now."
He nearly lies or sidesteps the question, as he always did – but then he stops himself, realising that she would understand now, maybe not everything – she doesn't have to kill anyone, thank God – but enough of the rest for him to be honest.
"I hate every minute as well," he says hoarsely. "And I don't think I really am managing at all. I just force myself to focus on the task on hand and on taking care of my men instead of on my fear or rage at the absolute pointlessness of it all."
"It is rather pointless, isn't it?" answers Mary musingly. "I never saw the point before coming here and I see even less now. It all seems just senseless carnage for no reason at all. But I don't dwell on it. I cannot stop the war, but I can ensure that some of the wounded get to the field hospital where some of them receive enough help to save their life if not limbs. So that's what I'm focusing on."
Matthew looks at her in awe.
"Pragmatist as always," he says fondly. "I envy you that. This is the approach I am trying for, but I fail at it miserably much too often."
xxx
If sitting with Lady Mary Crawley in a kitchen was surreal, Matthew doesn't really have words for smoking cigarettes with the Crawleys' chauffeur in an overgrown garden while Lady Sybil is preparing tea for them both.
"How did you manage to wrangle the RAMC driver post? I thought that by now they were sending any able-bodied man straight into the trenches," asks Matthew curiously.
Branson smirks.
"When I told them I had more reasons to shoot British tommies than the Huns, they were for some reason reluctant to outfit me with a gun."
Matthew's eyebrows go up at the bold statement.
"But you don't mind pulling them out from under the fire?" he asks carefully.
Branson turns pensive.
"No," he says slowly. "Saving a man's life is a humane thing to do, a right thing to do, whoever he is. But I need a reason to kill a man and as it happens, no German ever did me or mine any harm."
"While the English did?"
"Yes," confirms Branson, his gaze turning steely. "Besides all the atrocities which the British are committing in my country every day, a British soldier murdered my cousin – shot him dead, just like that, when he was just passing down the street. His family found him in a pile of bodies in a yard. When he was asked why he did it, he said that Ian was probably a rebel. Is it any wonder than I have no love lost for people like him?"
"No," answers Matthew thoughtfully. "I do understand your point. Does it mean you hate me though? I am wearing the same uniform as the man who killed your cousin."
"So am I, now," Branson smiles wryly.
"Well, you didn't volunteer for it though. I did," points out Matthew.
"You didn't volunteer to go to Ireland. You volunteered to defend your country and your principles. I may disagree with you about how just this war is, but I can respect that you wanted to do a right thing."
Matthew sighs.
"We may not disagree so much as you would think, not anymore," he says bitterly.
xxx
She hates it. She hates every minute of it. She hates the mud, the stench, the noise, the everpresent terror. She hates the horrors she sees every day and revisits in nightmares practically every night. She wonders if the dreams ever stop or if she is to be haunted like that forever.
But every day she gets up, puts her uniform on and gets on with the tasks on hand. She made the decision to come here so there is no use in complaining – she just has to deal with the consequences. She sees the war as completely senseless, but she perceives true usefulness and purpose in her own part in it. If powers to be decided to send countless masses to be killed and maimed she can do her part to save those she is able to. They could frankly use more resources for saving lives – more ambulances, more drivers, more hospitals, more doctors, nurses and medications – but for the very first time in her life she feels useful, even if ultimately just a very small cog in the total machinery of war.
xxx
They come to the resting camp completely exhausted, just to hear more bad news.
"The bloody Boche gassed the town yesterday."
Matthew freezes, his veins icy with terror. Mary!
"Was it bad?" he asks, dreading the answer.
"Quite," Sergeant Stevens shrugs, "most of hospital staff and soldiers stationed there had gas masks, but there were civilian casualties."
Matthew desperately tries to calm himself. Mary has a gas mask in her ambulance; she must have been fine, Sybil too. He still resolves to check on them both as soon as he is free. And maybe scrapes off some of the mud, he thinks ruefully looking himself over.
It takes him several hours to wrap up everything, make sure his men are settled and know their orders and make himself more or less presentable enough to venture into town. To his pleasant surprise he manages to borrow a motorcycle which at least made for a fast journey to Mary's house.
When he approaches the door, Sybil is just leaving and her face lights up at the sight of him.
"Matthew! Thank God you're here!" she exclaims. He looks at her in surprise; she is always happy to see him and confirm that he survived yet another stint at the front, but she never has greeted him with such enthusiasm and relief.
She answers his questioning gaze before he can form the words.
"Mary got a bad dose of gas yesterday night," she says urgently and his heart nearly stops again. "I was at the hospital and saw her after she brought other affected people there and she was fine. But you know what a dirty business gas is; in many cases people are alright for 12 to 24 hours and then go down like logs."
Matthew nods, only too familiar with the phenomenon. He urges Sybil to hurry up and tell him how bad Mary really is; he cannot stand further suspense.
"She woke me up at 5 am, because she couldn't breathe except like scared rabbit," whispers Sybil, closing her eyes against the fear of that moment. "I went down to get her a drink and found her awfully faint on my return. It's been going on at intervals all day, so I sent her to bed in the afternoon and she has been there ever since. She seems much better now and I have to go for my shift at the hospital, but I am so relieved to see you here. You will stay with her, Matthew, until I return, won't you? She is better, but I am so uneasy leaving her alone like this!"
"Of course I will," promises Matthew. There is no force on Earth which would drag him from Mary's side in the circumstances. He thanks God that it is beginning of his unit rest week and he won't be needed on base until morning.
Sybil hugs him gratefully and runs towards the hospital, being nearly late from her reluctance to leave Mary alone. Matthew climbs the creaking stairs hastily and in a moment is knocking on Mary's door.
"Mary, it's Matthew. May I come in?" he asks anxiously, uncomfortable with the notion that he is proposing something absolutely outrageous. But Sybil has sent him up, surely he is justified in coming to her bedroom to look after her? There is nobody else to do it.
He hears a raspy voice allowing him entry and in a flash he finds himself by Mary's side.
However he imagined being in her bedroom (and he did imagine it) it was not like that.
First of all, the bedroom is as spartan as the rest of the house. The wallpaper is peeling, the floorboards scratched and bare. There is barely any furniture besides a metal hospital bed, a scuffed chest of drawers with washbasin and crooked mirror on it, a table and a rickety chair by the window and a travelling trunk. Mary is propped up in bed on the pillows, thankfully dressed in a grey day dress and a shawl, her hair in a loose braid. She looks awfully pale and her breath is slightly wheezing, which does nothing for his alarm.
She looks at him with resignation.
"Sybil sent you up, didn't she?"
"She is worried about you," says Matthew, sitting on the chair by her bed and taking her hand in his. "How do you feel?"
"I've been better," says Mary dryly and coughs harshly. She raises her free hand to calm him down seeing his undoubtedly anxious expression at that performance. "Just give me some more water."
He immediately gets up and fetches her a glass from the table. She drinks gratefully and settles back against the pillows.
"I'm alright, truly. I had it bad for a while, it was a beastly feeling – I couldn't get a proper breath – but I am better now. Sybil had one of the doctors check me out and he said there shouldn't be any permanent damage, so you can stop looking at me so mournfully."
"How did you get it so bad? Didn't you have a gas mask?"
Mary looks down, clearly annoyed with herself.
"No," she admits shamefully. "It was in the car and it happened to be in the other garage down in the town."
Matthew squeezes her hand, trying to keep his temper in check. He doesn't want to yell at her when she is so weak, but he is furious with her for endangering herself so stupidly.
"Mary!" he can't help chiding her, but she interrupts him.
"I know, I know, it won't happen again," she sighs. "The Germans suddenly started launching gas at us about four am. The wind wasn't very good for them, so the gas came diagonally back from the lines and got pretty bad here. Branson smelled it and woke us all up which was most intelligent of him; we all got up and threw on a few garments. My ambulance was in the garage, as I told you, but we had Branson's and the lorry here however and Branson started that and he went with the ambulance down to the lines. The gas was very bad here by then, so I evacuated Winkie and Phryne and the girl next door up to the hospital, where Sybil was safe on shift, thank God. There I borrowed some gas masks and a spare driver as I was feeling rather faint and thought it was best to have two drivers in the car. I left the girls in the hospital and tore back. By this time I was quite sure the Huns had overrun the sector as I couldn't imagine our having it so bad and the lines being still tenable. As a matter of fact, the waves were very local and came in gusts. For instance, the main part of town got nothing. It just travelled down in long columns. I rushed up to the barracks and was awfully relieved to find them all ok. They had very good masks and the main gas column had passed to the right of them and on our way."
Mary stops for a moment, lost in the awful memory of that mad rush to the barracks. She knew Matthew's unit was supposed to finish their week in the trenches that day and was expected back and she had awful visions of him suffocating or badly burned. It was ironic really that it turned out she was so affected by it while he turned out to be safer at the frontlines.
"Then we just worked like navvies all day till dark. Simply never an engine stopped all day and we were all pretty beat at the end of it. I felt quite alright after the first hour, just rather cut. It didn't work on me till 24 hours after when I woke up at dawn and found I nearly couldn't breathe. I'm afraid I quite scared Sybil. Phryne is affected quite differently. It made her cough non stop since it happened, but we got word she is getting better. Branson didn't fell it after the moment and all the others are ok. So we would be if we had been able to get at our masks. You're lucky you missed it all though."
Matthew stares at her during her long tale, filled with awe for that amazing woman. She survived the gas attack, in the middle of the night, without her gas mask, and yet her first action was to help people, putting herself in more danger, until the danger passed and she collapsed. She really is a storm braver.
"You deserve a medal," he says quietly, but then adds in a lighter tone to break the solemn mood. "As well as proper scolding for leaving your mask in the car when it was sent to the garage."
Mary scowls at him.
"I told you I won't do it again. And as for the medal, I was just doing my duty."
"You went well beyond duty," he answers fervently. "You would have been completely justified to stay at the hospital with Phryne and the others. You inhaled that shit too."
He catches himself when he notices her incredulous stare at him and immediately blushes.
"Forgive my language. Bad army habit, I'm afraid."
She laughs and then wheezes a bit.
"Don't apologise, I completely agree. I think I hate gas more than anything else. Those poor, poor devils of men. I can't tell you what's it like to see them all lying about unconscious and in the most awful states. Much worse than wounded by bullets or shrapnel in a way, because there is desperately little you can do for them."
Matthew nods in grim agreement. He has seem the aftermath of gas attacks often enough. Mary seems to realise it too.
"I forgot to whom I am speaking," she says in embarrassment. "Look at me, lecturing you about the dangers the soldiers face."
"You face them just the same," says Matthew, squeezing her hand again. "And it helps to talk about it with people who understand."
Mary looks at him knowingly.
"I know now why you could never speak about it on leave," she says. "I wouldn't have understood it then, not like I do now. The description, even the photos, could never do it justice."
"I am so sorry that you do understand," says Matthew. "I cannot pretend I am not still angry with you for coming here. I never wanted you to understand."
Mary looks away.
"I cannot say I don't often wish I stayed well out of it. But I am glad we can talk about it together."
Their fingers lace together on her coarse blanket.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Mary's description of gas attack on the town is based on a letter written by Lady Dorothie Feilding, daughter of 9th Earl of Denbigh, who volunteered as an ambulance driver in Belgium and became the first woman to receive a Military Medal. She was my first inspiration for Mary's path and experiences in this story. Her letters have been published in a book "Lady Under Fire: The Wartime Letters of Lady Dorothie Feilding MM, 1914-1917".