Between Heartbeats

1916 – France Polly Nothing in my training, nor the numerous lectures I endured prior to leaving England prepared me for the horror that is trench warfare. Assigned to a Field Ambulance ¾ a sneeze away from the front line ¾ the atrocities I witnessed were confronting, harrowing, and a constant challenge to my faith in humanity, yet the experience proved to be endlessly rewarding. Not content with nursing, the principle reason I volunteered was to drive ambulances. My colleagues, preferring the relative safety of the wards, thought me addled, but I was not to be thwarted, despite the dangers. Saving lives outweighed the fear of being blown up or shot. The last thing I expected to find in the midst of flying shrapnel was love. Thad Two long years with no end in sight; the oft repeated, 'we'll be home by Christmas' ¾ a long-forgotten dream, supplanted by the ceaseless thunder of artillery, acres of mud, collapsing trenches, and the all-pervading stench of death. A nightmare tempered when the driver of the ambulance dispatched to collect Fred, after his brush with a sniper, turned out to be Polly Armstrong, friend of Fred's wife, Maisie. The initial shock of recognition morphs into something else; something both tantalising and terrifying. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would quash such frivolous nonsense; we were in the middle of a battle zone. Clearly, common sense had abandoned me. Against the odds, in the chaos and confusion of war, romance blossoms but tomorrow is not guaranteed. In that split second between heartbeats, their happily ever after could be snatched away.