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and now and again, even after all those years, struggled to hold back his tears. His descriptions of the carnage had been utterly horrifying. He told how he had watched his best friend die beside him, shot through the head; how he had watched a man die holding his own bowel: how he had nearly died in a prison camp of pneumonia and malnutrition. This was not a battle, he said, this was a new kind of war, a war that lasted for years, that drained the country of its finest young men. Could it really be true that civilized men did this to each other? Could it be true that thousands and thousands had died in agony, had limbs removed without anaesthetic when they ran out of chloroform and morphine, had died of dysentery and pneumonia because therewas no way to treat them? He told of barns discovered, half filled with rotting, stinking amputated limbs, of mass graves, of farms and homesteads devastated, women and children starving. She and her father had been shocked and horrified, but it seemed like fiction then, too far away to be real, too horrible to have happened. Yes, the suffering human body had been exposed to her, but in the best conditions, in an English hospital; not the kind of suffering that was happening now, here, in France. The rumours had been appalling, thousands already dead and injured, shocking injuries, tetanus, gas gangrene, dysentery. She lay awake until sheer exhaustion put her to sleep.
    The next morning they woke early.
    ‘Come on,’ Helen said. ‘Let’s get to the bathrooms first. There’s going to be a rush.’
    They bathed and dressed and put on their uniforms over their bodices and bloomers.
    ‘At least we don’t have to wear corsets.’ Helen said. ‘They’re an invention of the devil anyway.’ She picked up her suffragist’s badge. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll let me wear this,’ she said, ‘but I’ve still got it in my head. I won’t be giving up.’
    ‘After the war,’ Amy said grimly. ‘After the war, perhaps. They wouldn’t be bothered with it now.’
    ‘Breakfast,’ Helen said. ‘And lots of cups of tea.’
    They walked along the silk-lined corridor and down the marble staircase. Matron and Dr Hanfield were standing in the hall.
    ‘In here, girls,’ Matron said. ‘Get your breakfast quickly and get to work. We have to be ready tomorrow.’
    They went into a small room with bare tables and chairs and the comforting smell of bacon.
    ‘The cooks must have got up at the crack of dawn,’ Amy said.
    ‘I don’t know why we brought our own cooks,’ Helen said. ‘I was looking forward to a bit of French cooking.’ She grinned. ‘Though I don’t suppose the Tommies would fancy snails and frogs’ legs.’
    Amy took porridge and a boiled egg. They reminded her achingly of home.
    Matron was waiting for them in the hall. ‘Aprons and long cuffs, girls,’ she said. ‘You can start making the beds as soon as the cleaners have finished the floors.’
    ‘It’s chaos, isn’t it?’ Helen whispered.
    The crates and boxes were open and strewn about. Amy watched the doctors unpacking the surgical instruments, enamel basins and kidney dishes, scalpels, saws, retractors, hypodermic syringes, packs of needles. She found herself gazing at them, almost unable to bear it.
    Dr Hanfield looked up and saw her. ‘It’s Amy, isn’t it? Help me with these, dear. We’re setting up the operating theatre in the ladies powder room. There are sinks and water in there already. M. Le Blanc has worked wonders – he’s found us an operating table and an electrician to put up the light.’
    Amy carried in the bundles of familiar instruments. Sister Cox, the theatre sister, was already sorting them and putting them away in boxes and drawers.
    ‘Where shall I put these retractors?’ Amy said. She knew she had made a mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth.
    Sister gave her an odd look. ‘What do you know about retractors?’ she said.
    ‘Oh – nothing,’ Amy stammered. ‘Dr