FRONT LINE GIRLS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13235, 10 January 1941, Page 7

FRONT LINE GIRLS

By Quentin Reynolds The ambulance stopped and there was an air-raid warden standing there.

He pointed silently. The two girls hopped down from the ambulance and ran into the air shelter. I followed them.

This had been a tannery once, but it was now an air-raid shelter in London.

We went in, closed the doors, and lit our torches. People came ghostlike out of the shadows and surrounded us.

The two girl ambulance drivers were very business-like. “Where is he?” one of them said.

Two of them led a huge fairhaired man towards us. There was a bandage on his head and one on his wrist.

“He got hit by shrapnel on the head and on his wrist,” someone explained.

We climbed into the ambulance, took the wounded man to hospital, and then drove back to the station.

Routine to Them

This was all routine to these girl ambulance drivers.

They were part of the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service. They were two of the many women who are on duty each night in London. Their station was in a garag'd, •and back of the garage was the dugout, where they stayed between calls. They called it a dug-out, but actually it was an artificial shelter made out of sandbags, thirty feet long and eight feet wide. There was a table, and on it a telephone and an electric stove on which a kettle was boiling. The woman in charge of this station sat behind the table.

«■. Sixteen other woman sat on long benches which ran the length of the dug-out.

The two girls made their report to the woman in charge.

They all wore the blue uniform of the L.A.A.S. Half of these girls were drivers, the other half attendants. When the phone rang it meant that there was trouble. At once the two girls who were up next stood and walked to the table.

Then quietly, casually, they walked out to the garage, climbed into an ambulance and set out through deserted but noisy streets on their errand.

Six nights a week, four weeks a month, these girls do this job. Things were active in the neighbourhood this night. They often are. A slightly-built girl walked in. She took off her blue Service hat and said to the woman in charge: “I’d like to work to-night.” “But Ethel, dear,” the woman said, “this is your night off. Why aren’t you home in bed?” Then she looked at Ethel and stopped. And for some reason everyone stopped, too. “When I got home this morning,” the slim girl said, “I found I didn’t have any home. I want to work tonight. Let me be first, please.” No Questions The woman in charge was very understanding. “Yes, Ethel. You 'and Pringle go out next,” she said. Ethel sat down on the wooden bench. No one asked her any questions.

These girls were soldiers. You don’t ask a soldier questions these days. You just don’t ask people questions. Suddenly the phone rang and everybody was quiet. Ethel and the girl they called Pringle got up. The woman in charge gave crisp directions. They set off. Then it rang again. “Yes, I’ve got it. Yes, avenue. Right away.” She put down the phone. “Harris and Foster are up. Fire on avenue.” They left, and the woman in charge said: “I think I’ll take a car and go along. That’s a residential neighbourhood. May need more than one ambulance. Care to come?” I nodded. It was the kind of moonlit night poets sing about. We cursed. Terrific Din On a night like this the Thames would be a white ribbon of milk pointing towards London. The streets were deserted, of course. The anti-aircraft guns were hurling up their tons of defensive armour and the shells bsoke high against the stars in sharp golden flashes. Bombs were -falling and the combined noise of the guns and the bombs seemed to tear the energy and life from you and make you feel very tired. We sped along, and now,, even above the guns, we heard the shattering of glass. We drove over glass for three blocks. It was a street of small

shops. All had been shattered

Air wardens. Home Guards, the police were all to busy for the moment to start clearing the street of glass.

We crunched over the glass and miraculously didn’t get a puncture. Then, speeding past it, we came to Blank-street.

We turned right and saw the fire. A high wind had come up and the sparks were flying all over the night. The firemen were playing two streams of water on the house. We saw the white ambulance in front of the burning house. It was a nice house.

The bomb had hit it directly and apparently had fallen through the house into the cellar, where it exploded. The firemen concentrated on the bottom of the house. There were perhaps a dozen firemen, four policemen, a couple of air-raid wardens and ourselves there.

The upper two floors were burning fiercely. But the water had nearly killed the fire in the cellar. Two firemen, shielding their faces from the heat, walked into the building. The girls -had the stretchers ready. They handed them through the broken window to the firemen in the cellar. Soon the two firemen came out of the building carrying the stretcher.

They laid it down. There was a doctor there now. The woman didn’t look dead. The doctor began to give her artificial respiration and then stopped.

The firemen came out with another stretcher. The doctor hesitated moment, and the woman in charge of our ambulance group said; “All right, I’ll carry on!” This was a woman, too. She looked about thirty. The doctor gave her an injection. « The firemen brought another stretcher out. This, too, was a woman. She was dead.

I stood up and Avent to the doorway of the house. A fireman came out.

“Didn’t need the stretcher for this one,” he said. He had a child in his arms. She had long golden hair, and, strangely, it hadn’t been touched.

The fireman walked out of the courtyard and laid her on the street. The doctor came hurrying over. The child was about three. “There’s Jerry again,” one of the firemen said.

We knew he’d come again all right. He could see this burning house at 20,000 feet. We heard the uneven hum of his motors, and then the roar of the air barrage keeping him high.

“Why does he bomb here?” I asked one of the policeman. “No targets around here, are there? He pointed down the street. ‘‘See that building?” he said, “That’s what he’s after.”

It was so bright that I could plainly see the huge building. “What is it?” I asked. “It’s a hospital, one of the largest in London,” the policeman said. “He’s been after it for three nights.” Jerry was dropping his bombs, but he was missing us. One of the firemen was working over the child now. The doctor was in the courtyard. “Put these three women into the ambulance,” he said.

One of the girls said: “Shall I take them to the hospital, doctor?” He shook his head. “No,” he said, wearily. There was only the child left. The doctor bent over her again. There wasn’t a burn on her tiny body.

I know this isn’t a pleasant story to read. It isn’t a pleasant one to

write

But this is the war I see. If you want a front seat to the war, come and stand over this three-year-old child with me. Hitler’s Warfare

You want to see what war is really like, don’t you? Take another look at the baby. She still looks as though she were asleep. Yes, this is the war —style 19 40. This is the war that Hitler is waging.

This is no propaganda story; no

atrocity story

This happened four hours ago. I have the names of the four victims in my pocket. Yes, just four hours

ago. Finally the doctor stood up. He shrugged his shoulders. The policeman and the firemen stood there looking grim. Some day there would be a reckoning. One of the policemen picked up the child and placed her in the ambulance. We stood there a moment looking at her still sleeping with that funny little frown on her face.

“Maybe the kid is better off dead,” the policeman said wearily. “Nobody’s better off dead,” I told