Isobel opened her eyes, gasped for air, and screamed. She could only see blurred shapes drifting across her field of vision like clouds on a windy winter’s day. The only sounds were high pitched bleeps, and a rumbling, thunder-like, drone. But the distinctive odour of her surroundings was familiar. She closed her eyes and started to cry. The acrid, antiseptic smell of a hospital flooded her senses.
She reached out, grasping for something more tangible, something which might give her a clue to her situation. But Isobel couldn’t control her arms. She felt hands on her body, a sensation of floating, and soft sheets wrapped around her. She closed her eyes tighter to concentrate.
Isobel was familiar with hospitals; she was an ambulance driver, one of the first in London. But she couldn’t remember what had happened to her, what had brought her to a hospital as a patient. Her last memory was of a loud, unfamiliar noise. It had sounded like a plane she once saw on her family’s estate. The huge aircraft had been both exciting and scary.
Her parents reluctantly acquiesced to her decision to volunteer for the Metropolitan Ambulance Service, but she knew her mother would have preferred her to take on a more suitable role to support the war effort. She suggested she join Queen Mary’s Needlework Guild. But Isobel could not see how soldiers dying in better socks or matching uniforms would help their families. Her father had vetoed her joining any of the newly formed active services, even though there was no possibility of her being posted in France. He reminded her that her two brothers were already serving their king and country in active service, that her duty was to support the war effort, not become a distraction, a protest for women’s suffrage.
The ambulance service was a compromise, but Isobel was delighted when she was stationed in the east end of London. Poplar had been merely a name on a map until then. She was billeted at the house of a family whose two children had been evacuated to Wiltshire. The husband was serving in France and Maisy was grateful for the company and the extra income from a lodger.
Life was frugal in their tiny, terraced house, but Maisie’s husband had bought her an upright piano before the war began and, in what little spare time they had, Isobel taught her the basics of hand placement and scales. Maisie worked long hours in a munitions factory and Isobel took every shift she could, so their time together was limited, and progress was slow.
She must have fallen asleep because, when she opened her eyes, it was dark. But not the pitch black that she was accustomed to in the countryside, nor the faint gas glow through a window that was familiar in Poplar. There were lights on somewhere.
Isobel was vaguely aware that she had been fed at some time, there were no hunger pangs from her belly. She assumed she was being fed liquids as she had no recollection of eating a meal. Her vision was still blurred and her hearing limited. She feared a head wound, there was no other explanation. And there was that sound in her memory, the droning of engines coming from somewhere above her.
Memories returned slowly over the next few hours. People had rushed onto the street to see what was causing the sound. She recalled her first sight of the planes, a squadron, silhouetted like dragonflies against a clear sky. She counted fourteen but counted again to make sure of the number. They looked majestic, dreamlike. A policeman was shouting at them to get inside, to take cover.
Her crew had been performing a practice drill, training two new members. Everyone was in a good mood, and they all wanted to see what the planes were and, more importantly, whether they were friend or foe. The policeman shouted repeatedly, but he made no attempt to move the ambulance crew.
“They’re Gothas,” Glen muttered from behind her.
Isobel knew the name, but it didn’t make sense. The Gotha was a German bomber, although she didn’t know any details about them, they were often mentioned in the newspapers. There couldn’t possibly be so many approaching London.
“Twenty. There’s twenty of the blighters. We have to take cover.”
It was Glen again, the leader of their crew. As he spoke, the first of the planes was almost overhead and they could see something dropping through the clear blue sky.
“It’s a bombing raid. Get down.”
Before Isobel drifted into sleep again. She remembered the sound of an explosion, the searing pain from many wounds. The smell of burning flesh.
When she woke it was a new day. There was noise and bustle all around her. Although her vision was no clearer, she could make out some noises, voices, they made no sense, but the sounds relaxed her. Whatever had happened that day was drifting further back in her memory. The important thing now was to survive, to get better, to see her parents and brothers again.
When she was offered sustenance, albeit from a bottle. She drank eagerly. Sleep followed.
Over the next few days and weeks, Isobel focused on what she knew. She was warm, comfortable, and alive. The accident was behind her. Whatever the future held was what she must concentrate on.
The day Isobel woke without greeting the day with a scream, was a turning point. She had all but forgotten about the planes, the noise, the pain. Her sight was clearing, sounds were more distinctive, although she still couldn’t understand what was being said, she couldn’t respond.
Days turned into weeks, and the smell of the hospital had been replaced by one that was warm and homely. For some reason everyone was using her second name, Anna, and her mother’s voice had changed, it was softer than she remembered. Isobel had also loss any sense of the passage of time.
The present slowly replaced the past and Isobel found her voice returning. Simple words, almost childlike. She understood more too. Colour had returned to her vision and shapes were more focussed. She was getting better.
In time, the sound made by the German planes faded in her memory. The present was more important than the past. She needed to learn, to communicate, to gain full control of her arms and legs.
One morning Anna woke, and the past had gone, not entirely, but it was now more like part of another life, a previous existence. She had an older brother; his name was Jonathon. He played with her, as did her mother and father.
As she grew, she forgot everything that had gone before. She was Anna, a cherished child. She had a new life.
By the time she reached her late teens, Anna was studying history at school, researching stories on the internet which related to London and the emerging roles for women in that turbulent time. Anna sensed she had an empathy greater than other students concerning the First World War. The Great War as she thought of it, the war to end all wars. She could imagine the fear, the excitement, the sound of bombs exploding around her. Her hand froze on the computer mouse. She knew who she had been, she knew Isobel’s pain.
Bruce Aiken 