She was questioning every one of them about a certain Captain Charlie Summers, though they were sorry to see the disappointment on her face when they sadly shook their heads since they would have liked nothing better than to help her. ‘The 19th Battalion, the King’s Liverpool Regiment,’ she repeated time and time again. ‘I cannot find out where he last fought but someone must have served with him and can tell me where that was. In March, it would be. Perhaps Neuve Chapelle or Ypres in early April?’ She walked along beside the wounded men on stretchers, looking from one agony-filled face to another, even holding a hand that reached out to her, for though she worked eighteen out of every twenty-four hours and wore the unflattering hat and long shapeless coat of an ambulance driver she was very pretty and her compassionate smile made them smile through their pain. Alice Summers had been given her first half-day’s leave since she had been sent to the tented hospital in April and it was now September.
