Scarlet’s hand flew to her mouth, stifling a shocked laugh. She wasn’t used to women cursing, and the fact that such a pretty girl had spoken like a man made it even funnier. Her mother would have been horrified. Strangely, Scarlet found that thought comforting, how her mother would have reacted, or maybe it was just a nice kind of distraction from her darker musings. Ellie immediately reminded Scarlet of her family’s servants. Back at home she’d spent plenty of time with them without her mother knowing, especially those in the kitchen.
‘Where are you from?’ Scarlet asked, folding her hands in her lap. Ellie had an accent, but Scarlet couldn’t place it; it was a mixture that was hard to decipher. They looked the same to any onlookers, she suspected, both in their smart grey uniforms and capes, with their Red Cross armbands, even though prior to the war she doubted she’d have ever crossed paths with Ellie. Hers had been a life of parties and picnics, young women being prepared to meet their future husbands. But even in their very short acquaintance, Ellie seemed so much more real than many of the friends Scarlet had met in that world. Scarlet suspected that she was poor, but her smile was huge and genuine, not dainty and controlled.
‘Can’t you tell?’ Ellie said with a laugh. ‘I’m from Ireland, but we’ve been here almost five years so I guess it’s become a little muddled. My father fell in love with an Irish lass when he was working over there, but we moved home for him to take over his family’s farm. My mother’s never forgiven him for making her move.’
‘Will she forgive you for leaving home and doing this?’ Scarlet asked, her voice low, thinking of her own family. She understood why they didn’t want her to go, that they imagined a society life for her that consisted of little other than pretty dresses, marriage and children. But she couldn’t just sit at home praying for a miracle when there was so much more she could do to help.
‘Why would you say that? Isn’t your mother happy that you’re helping our lads when they need us? I sent my letter away requesting to join just as quick as I could.’
Scarlet sighed. ‘Has your mother told you she wants you to help the lads?’ she asked, repeating Ellie’s words, and suddenly aware of her clipped English accent.
Ellie frowned. ‘Of course.’
‘Mine isn’t happy,’ Scarlet confessed. ‘She didn’t speak to me for two days when I told her what I was doing. She didn’t mind me training to be a nurse, but when I said I wanted to help, to go anywhere the army might need me, she was so angry I thought she was going to explode!’
Ellie frowned. ‘We have three boys away at war. Some nights I lie shivering, thinking about them, wondering how bad it is. But I still want to help. I volunteered before I was enlisted into any other work.’
Scarlet felt tears well in her eyes. ‘Me too. I can’t . . .’ She sucked back a big breath and looked up when Ellie’s hand slipped into hers. ‘My mother said we’ve lost enough men to this war without losing our women, too. She told me that it’s not a woman’s place.’ Her mother had actually said that it certainly wasn’t the place of a woman like her, but she wasn’t about to tell Ellie that. They all had to do their bit, no matter where they were from.
‘We’ll be fine. I promise, we’ll be just fine,’ Ellie said.
Scarlet didn’t know what to say, how to explain the heaviness inside of her, the pain of not knowing where Thomas was. But she was lucky, wasn’t she? Her sister was safe at home; she had no brothers away fighting like Ellie did. Everyone had lost someone to this war, or more than one someone, and she needed to keep telling herself that. Even if she didn’t find Thomas, she was helping. She just had to keep believing that he was alive, that she would miraculously find him or someone who knew where he was.
‘So tell me, what was your training like?’ Scarlet asked, wanting to change the subject.
‘Me?’ Ellie laughed and the sound was contagious. ‘You really want to know?’
‘What’s so funny?’ Scarlet asked, grinning back.
‘I’m supposed to be delivering babies, not stitching up soldiers’ legs!’ Ellie said, shaking her head. ‘My ma’s a midwife and I’ve followed her around and seen babies born all my life, so the last thing I expected was to be nursing men.’
Scarlet felt her eyebrows raise up. ‘And you were all right seeing that, when you were a girl? That must have been terrifying.’
‘No different than a cow having a calf, and we saw plenty of that on the farms back home. Only difference is that a woman makes a whole lot more noise!’
Scarlet laughed again. Thank goodness for meeting Ellie. ‘You’re so funny.’
‘Me? Because I’m not afraid to tell the truth?’
‘Yes, I think that’s exactly why.’
Ellie was nice; she might be bold with her words and stories, but she was kind and charming, too. Scarlet could tell that right away. She was different from her friends at home, and in a refreshing kind of way. Scarlet adored her friends, even if they had all raised their eyebrows at her choice to nurse, each and every one of them, but Ellie was a breath of fresh air and it felt nice to be sitting with her and talking, sharing. Scarlet had grown up in a beautiful house with servants to assist them, but she’d been sheltered from so much. Maybe that was why she’d spent so much time with the servants, why she was so curious about the rest of the world.
‘So how bad do you think it’s going to be wherever we’re going? As bad as they say?’
Ellie grimaced. ‘Worse, I reckon.’
They were both silent for a long minute, sitting side by side, staring ahead. The station was starting to fill up again, the noise level rising once more.
‘I feel like this should be an amazing adventure, but . . .’
‘It’s terrifying,’ Ellie finished for her. ‘It’s absolutely bloody terrifying, and I don’t know what to think. But we just put our heads down and get on with it. You and me, we’ll be fine if we stick together. We need to do our bit and make it home in one piece for our ma’s.’
Scarlet reached for Ellie’s hand this time. It was nice to know that someone else was as scared as she was.
‘So do you have a man off fighting?’ Ellie asked, wriggling closer so they were shoulder to shoulder on the narrow bench. The proximity reminded Scarlet of her sister, who was volunteering close to home so she didn’t have to move away, and it was nice to have the warmth of Ellie against her. She sighed, holding Thomas’s memory within her, trying not to worry about how long she’d gone without hearing from him. Everyone around her lost hope too soon after the letters stopped, or at least that’s what she thought. She would never give up, not until the very end.
‘I have Thomas,’ Scarlet shared in a quiet voice. ‘He’s my’ – she gulped – ‘fiancé.’
‘Ah,’ Ellie murmured. ‘And is your Thomas away fighting?’
Scarlet nodded. ‘Yes. Only I haven’t heard from him in a while and I have this mad idea that I might be able to find him if I’m closer to where our boys are.’
Ellie squeezed her hand. ‘Doesn’t sound mad to me.’
‘Truly?’ Scarlet asked, a wave of emotion running through her. She hoped Ellie wasn’t just saying that to be nice.
‘Truly,’ Ellie repeated. ‘There could be a hundred reasons why you haven’t heard from him. And who says you can’t find him while we’re nursing? It sounds like a perfectly good plan to me.’