Another coat lay on the bed next to the duffel bag, longer and thicker than the one she wore now. The right forearm also bore a badge with a crossed flags and a star. She had finally been given the insignia of a signaller.

  Jean and Mrs Reynolds had to wait for two trains of wounded before theirs arrived. Ambulances lined up like lions waiting to swallow the ranks of men on stretchers: men with bandaged faces supporting men who limped. Once again Jean felt utter helplessness, and admiration for the women volunteers who calmly smiled no matter how grotesque the injury, day after day, who gave out cocoa, a bully beef sandwich or a cigarette, or simply held a hand for a brief moment of compassion.

  Their own train was filled with French soldiers who made suggestive remarks until Mrs Reynolds told them to behave, in perfect French, and Jean added her agreement.

  After that they were mostly polite, fetching them cocoa at the long stops, so that Jean and Mrs Reynolds didn’t lose their seats to new passengers, and presenting them both with blocks of chocolate. Mrs Reynolds accepted hers with thanks, so Jean did too, slipping the gifts into her pocket.

  Chocolate had already got her through many long double shifts unbroken by meals unless someone thought to bring you bread and jam or a corned-beef sandwich. You never knew when you might need chocolate.

  They left that train four hours later and walked through lamplit darkness to an army base where no one was expecting them, and when the authorities there messaged Rouen they were told that Jean and Mrs Reynolds should be at another base altogether, despite the instructions in Mrs Reynolds’s envelope.

  Mrs Reynolds seemed to think nothing off in this. Beds were found, just like the bed she’d slept in at Rouen, screened off at the end of an office passageway, but with a proper bathroom on the floor below, featuring the vast luxury of hot water the next morning, and a sentry at the door to stop anyone from entering. Jean even washed her hair, plaiting it while still wet.

  Breakfast was brought to them where they had slept — it had obviously been decided it would cause comment for the two females to appear at the mess — cocoa and bread and margarine and jam, and someone had been kind enough to wrap bully beef sandwiches in oilcloth for the journey.

  They walked again, back to the train station, carrying their duffel bags. Another platform, smelling of smoke and old coal and fresh urine, another train, puffing and snorting steam. This time they only travelled a short way, and among civilians. The train stopped for them at a makeshift platform where a junction with the new sixty-centimetre light railway tracks had been added. Men hurriedly unloaded boxes from the two carriages at the far end of the train, then it steamed away on the old line, leaving two women and perhaps one hundred boxes in what had once been a field, but was now churned earth and the black skeletons of trees.

  Jean and Mrs Reynolds sat on a box as the sun beat down on them, feet together, hands in their laps, as primly as if they were at a tea party, and the vast collection of boxes their fellow guests.

  Jean sought something to talk about, but there seemed no safe topic of conversation, except the weather. They sat in silence, waiting.

  The single carriage train that finally arrived an hour later on the new tracks was pulled by mules so tired-looking Jean would have wept for them if she was not so used to people weary to desperation too.

  Jean and Mrs Reynolds seemed to be the only passengers, besides six men who looked Chinese. The men loaded the boxes into one end of the carriage, while Jean and her companion sat in the stuffy shade of the train carriage at the other end, and ate the sandwiches packed for them that morning.

  The train began to move slowly on its makeshift tracks across dirt and then mud. Mrs Reynolds dozed. Jean would have liked more sleep, too, but was too keyed up to shut her eyes.

  Finally they reached what must be a supply depot — an enclosure of barbed wire, surrounding Nissen huts and great piles of shells and machinery Jean did not recognise.

  ‘I leave you here,’ said Mrs Reynolds. ‘The train will take me back as soon as it’s unloaded.’

  ‘But where do I go from here?’ And where am I? Jean thought.

  An engine stuttered over the mud. A motor bicycle came into view, ridden by a man with a sergeant’s despatch rider insignia on his coat. The motorbike had a sidecar that looked like it had been hammered out of a wrecked aircraft.

  The sergeant pulled up at the gates and waved at Jean. ‘Miss McLain? I’m Sergeant Peartree. Hop in.’

  ‘Good luck, Miss McLain,’ said Mrs Reynolds quietly. Then, ‘Take good care of her, Sergeant.’

  ‘Betsy and I will treat her careful as if she were a dozen eggs, ma’am. This is Betsy,’ Sergeant Peartree added, a grin below his helmet, patting the bike. ‘Built her meself, three years ago.’

  Jean thought of Betsy back at the base, organising their Christmas decorations. Would she be back there for Christmas? She doubted it.

  Sergeant Peartree handed Jean a helmet too. ‘Better put this on.’

  Jean hefted her duffel bag and climbed carefully into the sidecar. It was surprisingly roomy, with a box of the inevitable army biscuits at her feet, and two tins of what the label said was melon jam.

  ‘Toodle-pip, ma’am,’ Sergeant Peartree said to Mrs Reynolds with a half salute, half wave. Jean had a feeling he thought a woman administrator was not worth a proper salute, or possibly he simply didn’t know which one was due to her — an ignorance shared by almost the entire army, the generals included. Those worthies had not decided whether the female administrators were officers, non-commissioned officers or ordinary troops. Apparently they were simply to be treated like unicorns: a species you didn’t have to acknowledge might exist.

  ‘Betsy’ accelerated with a roar and a spurt of dust at an exhilarating speed, so fast Jean had to fasten her helmet tight, bouncing up over tracks left by heavy machinery till they almost flew. Jean laughed in sheer delight.

  ‘Enjoying it?’ yelled Sergeant Peartree.

  ‘I love it! I want to learn to drive a motor bicycle.’

  He grinned at her. ‘Well, you ain’t learning on Betsy here. No one rides her but me.’

  Where were they going? Was this the last stage to get to the trenches and the battle zone? Jean knew better than to ask.

  The supply dump was well behind them when the sergeant yelled, ‘Look for a tree.’

  Jean shook herself out of the exhausted trance she’d fallen into. ‘What for?’

  ‘Shade.’

  Curious. She didn’t query him but gazed around the shattered landscape. Trees were in short supply, or rather, there were many ex-trees: cut down for poles or posts, in piles on the ground; trees cut into planks; and the remnants of burned trees like thin black fingers pointing to the sky. Suddenly she called, ‘Over there!’

  ‘By Jove, you’re right. The perfect spot.’ Betsy wheeled at an impossible angle and headed towards it.

  It was an apple tree sheltered by the remnants of a high stone wall. Miraculously the tree still held leaves on its branches, and a few shrivelled apples, once green but now tinged with yellow.

  Jean hauled herself out of the sidecar, trying not to show too much of her legs, then shook a branch vigorously. Half a dozen apples bounced on the ground.

  ‘By Jove, it’s been an age since I’ve had an apple.’ Sergeant Peartree picked one up, bit it, wrinkled his nose slightly. ‘A bit sour,’ he said, then took another bite.

  ‘Sorry it isn’t a pear tree,’ said Jean.

  ‘Ha ha, I don’t think,’ said Sergeant Peartree.

  ‘Why have we stopped here?’

  ‘Can’t go any nearer to the trenches till it’s dark.’

  ‘Why?’

  Sergeant Peartree stared at her. ‘So the Jerries can’t see us to shoot us, of course. The supply dumps are all at least seven miles back from the front lines, out of reach of long-distance shelling, so we’ve been fairly safe till now. Things’ll get a bit hairy from here on in, though.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  He looked startled. ‘They didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No one’s said anything to me much.’

  ‘As soon as it gets dark we’re heading for the rear of the trenches, the part furthest from the enemy, or at least we hope it is. Don’t worry — Betsy’s headlights hardly show at all. I can see like an owl in the dark.’

  It hadn’t occurred to Jean to be worried about being a lighted target in the darkness. She tried to sound unconcerned.

  ‘Do you mostly carry supplies to the trenches?’

  He looked affronted. ‘Me and Betsy? I take despatches between the trenches and headquarters.’ The grin came back. ‘And maybe the sidecar might have a few potatoes in it, or even a bottle of wine. The Frenchies don’t seem to know much about beer. No, the supplies from the depots to the trenches come by shanks’s pony. Carried on foot,’ he added, as he saw she didn’t understand. ‘Used to be our blokes, but now the army’s got hold of fellows from India and China to do the lifting. If they get a move on they can get the supplies to the trenches then race back to their base before it gets light.’

  ‘What if they don’t get back before dawn?’

  ‘They get shot by the Germans. But no one’s shooting at us now. We can have a nice little picnic supper.’ The sergeant wiggled his eyebrows at her.

  For a horrible moment she thought he was flirting. He was really old, too, at least forty, and smelled of mud and sweat, and she was here without a chaperone! There wasn’t even anyone near enough to hear if she screamed.

  But he just grinned again and bent down into the sidecar and pulled out the cans of jam, and then the box of army biscuits. ‘The lads at headquarters told me my “despatch” today was a young lady, so we thought we’d better give you something special.’

  ‘Army biscuits and melon jam?’

  ‘Open the box, young lady.’

  She used her fingers to prise open the biscuit tin lid, then stared. ‘How did you get all this?’

  ‘The potato salad comes from the officers’ mess, courtesy of Lieutenant Jardine. Sergeant Coom ran over the pheasant two days ago, and Private Addison and Private McIlwaine cooked it — I think they might have roasted it on a bayonet. Might be a bit tough — it looked pretty old, probably pre-war. And this!’ Sergeant Peartree held up the bottle of cherry cider triumphantly. ‘This comes courtesy of Captain Hume, from his own private store from home.’

  He pulled two forks from a capacious coat pocket, and then unclasped his pocketknife. ‘Have to slice the pheasant with this, I’m afraid. The cider’s all yours, miss.’

  ‘We share it.’

  ‘You’re on. You drink the first half.’ He winked at her. ‘It’ll taste all the sweeter.’

  But to Jean’s relief that was the only personal remark he made as they forked the potato salad, and chewed the pheasant, which was indeed tough, as any bird who had survived three years of war must be, but still delicious: food that tasted of something other than ham and margarine, rice pudding and bully beef.

  It was the strangest picnic she’d ever had, sung to by the ever-present rumble of guns, sitting by a crumbled wall surveying the skeletons of trees and land that grew outcrops of half-buried barbed wire next to the faint outlines of what had once been a house. Someone had planted this tree, and tended it, and cooked meals in a kitchen nearby.

  She wondered if anyone would ever live here again.

  Slowly the dark gathered around them. Jean nibbled one of the sour apples while Sergeant Peartree loaded the rubbish into the biscuit box and stowed it back in the sidecar. Night hung like a blanket around them, except for flashes of yellow or green towards the horizon. Jean could hear shots and explosion, distinctly now, not the orchestra rumble heard at Rouen.

  ‘Time to go, miss,’ Sergeant Peartree said quietly.

  ‘Sergeant, where are we?’

  He hesitated. ‘Can’t do any harm to tell you now,’ he said. ‘We’re a few miles out from Cambrai.’

  Maps of France had been forbidden in camp, but she knew vaguely where Cambrai was from geography lessons before the war, copying the map of Europe with tracing paper. The position of the town itself was meaningless, of course. She was not bound for a city, but the trenches, and she didn’t know where those were in relation to the city whose name she’d so carefully inked onto her map as a child.

  Sergeant Peartree reached into his coat pocket and handed her a slab of chocolate. ‘This is from me, miss.’

  ‘I can’t take your chocolate!’ And she already had plenty.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, miss. We despatch riders know how to get hold of chocolate when we want it.’ He winked at her. ‘And the odd pheasant, if you get my drift.’

  Something moved in the dimness. A mule or a donkey, Jean thought, from the way it walked, pulling something heavy. Gradually she made out a man walking by its side, and two men behind.

  ‘What are they doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Laying telegraph cable.’

  ‘I thought the trenches would already be linked to headquarters.’ If they weren’t, she wasn’t going to be able to transmit or receive.

  ‘Cable is only laid a foot deep. It’s easily cut if there’s severe shelling. The more cables the better. There’s been lots more laid around here lately.’ She could see the whites of Sergeant Peartree’s eyes as he stared at her in the darkness. ‘I reckon they’re getting ready for a push into the Hindenburg Line, miss. I reckon that might be why you’re here, too.’ His smile was white as well. ‘No need to reply to that, miss.’

  He started the engine. The sidecar vibrated then began to bounce as they set off again, more slowly now, the motor bicycle winding its way through the tiniest possible pool of dimmed headlight, around fallen trees and avoiding shell holes. Jean hoped its noise was camouflaged by the steady mutter and sudden shrieks of small and large gunfire. Sometimes they plunged down into a hole he’d missed, the tyres scrabbling in the dirt to get out again.

  Jean could see how a cable could easily be severed by anything that could create a hole like that. She also wondered how secret the new push into the Hindenburg Line actually was. Surely it needed more than extra cable and a telegraph girl. She’d overheard enough at the Rouen Base to know more of how the army ran its war.

  Many more men must be being moved up here, far more armaments and supplies. Leave had probably been cancelled; hospitals would have been warned of casualties so they’d have the beds prepared. Probably thousands of people suspected all that had something to do with the poorly defended Hindenburg Line. It only needed one of those people to be a spy, or to let it slip to a spy.

  All at once the field to one side exploded into flame. The motor bicycle sped up, not to escape the fire but to hide from its light.

  ‘Duck!’ yelled Sergeant Peartree over the sound of yet another explosion.

  She ducked her head into the sidecar. ‘Is Betsy bulletproof?’ she yelled.

  ‘Not from a direct hit, but she’ll protect you from flying rock or shrapnel.’

  Nothing protects him, she thought. She wondered how long despatch riders lasted.

  It was as if he read her thoughts. ‘Been doing this for three years and nothing worse than a few stitches in my arm. I’ll get you through. The trench we’re headed for is a fair way from the front,’ he added. ‘You’ll have to make your way to your post on foot from there.’

  She nodded, then realised he couldn’t see. She decided not to say anything, nor ask any more questions. He had to not only focus on the treacherous terrain but be ready to duck and weave if they were fired upon again. She wondered how the men on foot were faring, carrying the stores behind them.

  Then all at once he stopped in what looked to be the middle of nowhere. The dim headlights faded to dark. ‘Primrose Path,’ he said quietly to no one.

  A voice in what seemed to be yet another mound of shattered ground below them said, ‘Pass, Primrose Path.’

  ‘This is the end of the penny section,’ said Sergeant Peartree. He gave Jean the semi salute now. ‘Good luck, miss.’

  ‘Good luck to you too, Sergeant.’

  ‘Ah, I lead a charmed life. It’s Betsy. She won’t let anything happen to me.’ The engine muttered again as Jean turned to where the other voice had come from. A hand appeared, a darker patch in the dimness. ‘This way, miss.’

  She stepped cautiously forwards and found herself on an unexpected downwards slope. Six more steps and the ground rose on either side. A light suddenly shone below her: a lantern with the cover lifted up. She saw a man in a trench coat and helmet, though he seemed mostly mud.

  This was not a trench, or not what she’d expected a trench would be: more like a topless rabbit hole, just wide enough to squeeze through. A man would need to come sideways. The man lifted the lantern. She followed the light round one corner, and then another, then suddenly came out on a trench proper, wide enough for two people to pass, reinforced with logs and sandbags, with boards laid on the ground, mud oozing between them, and wire fastened to the boards — she supposed to help stop men sinking in the mud. The ground gurgled underneath her feet as she walked. Liquid mud dripped down the planking walls.

  Another corner. ‘In here, miss,’ said the man of mud, lifting what seemed to be a wall of mud, but which turned out to be a hessian curtain, or a mud and hessian curtain.

  She was in a room: four walls of reinforced mud and one of muddy hessian, and a plank roof dripping muddy water. It held a narrow bed, just like the one back at Rouen but with a rolled-up blanket for a pillow, and two blankets folded at the end. An upturned biscuit box acted as a table for a jug of water.

  Her guide — he seemed about mid-twenties, but she could make out little else under the mud — pointed to two hooks hanging from the plank ceiling. ‘For your duffel bag, miss. Just put this bit of tin over the top, see, like this. There, the rats can’t get into it now.’

  ‘Rats,’ she said. The major had warned her about rats. The thought hadn’t bothered her then. It did now.