For King and Country (15 page)

He eased himself up a little, and took the tiny medicine glass from her.

‘Sip it slowly, or you’ll be sick.’

He nodded, and sipped.

‘They’re transferring me to the children’s ward after I get my day off,’ she told him, wondering whether he’d have the wit to realize it was all because of his
following her into the treatment room.

A cloud seemed to darken that hazel eye, and his lips turned down a fraction. At least he had the grace to look sorry. He took another sip, and then signalled towards the locker, where his
blasted notebook and pencil lay. She handed them to him, suppressing a sigh.

‘I’ll miss you, Sally,’ he wrote.

Sally? She gave him a quizzical look, and demanded, ‘Who told you my name?’ She’d never been called ‘Sally’ on the ward, and she’d never given her Christian
name to any of the patients; it was strictly forbidden. All the nursing staff were called Nurse or Sister by everybody, from the consultant to the ward maids and orderlies. There were nurses whose
Christian names she didn’t know herself, Sister’s and Dunkley’s and that theatre nurse’s, to name only three.

He shrugged, seeming not to understand the question, and scribbled, ‘When will you see Mrs Hibbs?’

‘It’s not Hibbs; it’s Burdett,’ she corrected him.

‘He’s unhinged, Sister,’ she said; it sounded so much more polite than just plain barmy. ‘He wants me to take a letter to a woman in our village
who’s lost all her sons in the war, somebody he’s never even laid eyes on, because he reckons she needs a son, and he needs a mother! Why, how can I do that, Sister? Mrs Burdett wants
her own lads, not a stray Australian who’s half out of his mind.’

‘I’ve never seen any signs of madness in him – other than that peculiar attachment to you,’ Sister said, with a rare laugh. ‘And when you think about it, the idea
doesn’t lack logic. Tell him to post his letter, if you don’t want to take it.’

Logic! As if logic had anything to do with a woman who was half demented with grief after losing all her four sons. Sister Davies had no children of her own, and she obviously hadn’t much
imagination, either. ‘I haven’t given him her address,’ Sally said, ‘and I won’t. She’s no more likely to want to take him on than a ewe would want a lamb that
wasn’t her own.’

‘And what do the shepherds do? Wrap the orphan lamb in the skin of the mother’s dead one.’ But the smile was gone when Sister Davies’ leaned back in her chair to look
Sally in the face. ‘I suppose you’re right, Nurse. Well, avoid him as far as you can; leave the other nurses to attend to him. One more day on duty, and then you take your day off.
After that, you’ll go onto your next ward and this will all die a natural death.’

Sally remembered Maxfield’s distraught face when she refused to take his letter, and the way he’d pressed it on her, time and again. She steeled herself to breach the bounds of
etiquette and contradict. ‘I don’t think it will, Sister. I think there’s something badly wrong with him. He’s shell-shocked, or something.’

Sister frowned disapproval. ‘That’s not something for a qualified nurse to say, much less a probationer. Diagnosis is outside our province. Still, I’ll ask Dr Campbell to see
him, if you’re so concerned.’

‘What some people will do to get a man!’ Armstrong exclaimed, peering at them over her newspaper as they sat together in the probationers’ sitting room.

‘What? Who?’ Curran demanded, craning her neck to see the paper. Sally, sinking into the deep feather cushions of the armchair opposite with her shoes off and her legs tucked under
her, was half asleep and not much interested. Her mind was still on Maxfield and his letter.

‘Here’s an advert in the paper, from a woman whose fiancé’s been killed. She’s offering herself as a nursemaid to any officer
however badly wounded
who’ll marry her. Honestly, what some people will do to be Mrs somebody or other.’

‘Sure, the poor woman. She’s lost her man, and she’s probably half out of her mind with the shock of it. And why shouldn’t she take a wounded soldier on?’

Sally woke up and leaned forward. ‘Let me have a look.’

Armstrong tossed the paper across to her. ‘What happens when she gets over the shock of losing her fiancé and wants to live again, that’s what I’d want to know, if I
were in the wounded officer’s shoes. Will she have any use for him then?’

But Sally was deep in the letter. Here was a tragic woman advertising for a soldier to care for, and on Ward 7a was Maxfield, who seemed to be offering himself for adoption. They were made for
each other.

Dr Campbell was just leaving the ward as she returned from tea. ‘You’re better at diagnosing tetanus than war neurosis, Nurse Wilde,’ he told her, after
they’d almost collided in the corridor. ‘There’s nothing of that sort wrong with him at all.’

‘Apart from the fact he won’t speak.’

‘
Can’t
speak. That may be a result of the head injury, and for the moment it’s of very little consequence. His wounds are likely to keep him here for a few months at
least, so he’s got ample time to get over his mutism. His only other sickness seems to be his unrequited passion for you.’

Sally gave a little snort of derision.

‘Too cruel,’ he grinned. ‘Poor fellow.’

‘Well nurses are forbidden to fraternize with the soldier patients, aren’t they, Dr Campbell?’ she muttered. Raising her eyebrows for a fraction of a second she walked past
him, giving another gentle snort at the thought that that nurses were forbidden to fraternize with doctors as well. And why would she want to? Neither were worth ending up on the carpet in
Matron’s office for, she thought, as she pushed the kitchen door open.

Ah, there was the paper she’d left on one of the shelves that morning. Sister would be letting her go to catch her train in an hour or so, and she’d give it to Maxfield just before
she left the ward for good.

She’d avoided him all day and now, looking pleased at her approach, he took the paper from her and read the headline, ‘Allied Forces Capture the Hindenberg
Line,’ and then turned his face up to hers and smiled, reaching for his notebook.

‘The tide has turned, at last!’ he wrote.

‘They’ll be bellocking for mercy, afore long!’ she said, remembering Mr Hibbs’ words, and Maxfield’s Staffordshire connections.

He looked at her in pure astonishment. She gave a satisfied smile, and taking his pencil from him ringed the advertisement she wanted him to read. He studied it with close attention, and then
tossed the paper away with such a look of disgust as she’d never seen on any man’s face in her life before. She’d acted for the best and now, with his one-eyed glare, he was
really letting her know she’d put her foot in it.

‘Well, why not?’ she demanded. ‘She
wants
somebody to look after, and I don’t think Mrs Burdett will. So what’s the difference?’

He picked up his letter to Mrs Burdett and thrust it into her hand.

A halo of mist surrounded the moon, and there was a nip of frost in the air. Sally pulled her coat around her, drew in her breath with a shiver and hurried along, the metal
tips on her boot heels tip-tapping rapidly along the cobbled back alley until she lifted the catch on the garden gate. A cheerful, if small, fire welcomed her when she opened the back door, and a
delicious aroma pervaded the kitchen.

‘Thank the Lord for that,’ she said, closing the door behind her. ‘What’s in the oven? I’m starving.’

‘A hare our Ginny gave me. It should be all right. I’ve had it hanging a week, and it’s been in a low oven all day. Hang your things up, and come and sit down.’

Sally flung coat, scarf and hat onto the peg on the back door, then holding her icy knuckles briefly against her mother’s warm cheek she gave an appreciative sniff ‘Smells out of
this world!’

Her mother really had pulled out all the stops. The table was covered with a lace-edged white cloth and set for two. A few chrysanthemums sat in a squat blue vase in the middle, with a dish of
redcurrant jelly beside it. Watching her lift the old brown stewpot out of the oven, Sally felt a flood of affection for her mother. The pot was soon on the table, followed by a jug of rich brown
gravy, forcemeat balls, mashed potato and mashed turnips.

‘Ohhh,’ she said, busily filling her plate, ‘This is my idea of a homecoming. We get enough to eat in the hospital, but they can’t touch your cooking, Mam.’

‘There’s a blackberry and apple pie to finish,’ her mother said.

‘Hot winter food. I love it.’

‘We’ve a lot to be thankful for,’ said her mother.

It was hard to believe a month had passed since her last day at home, but summer’s fields of golden corn were now wastelands of burned and blackened stubble, and autumn
rushed to meet her as she set out for Annsdale Colliery. It was a jewel of a day, cold and brilliant, the trees full of leaves of russet and gold. High in the sky she spotted the flap, flap, flap,
gl-i-i-de of a sparrow-hawk on the lookout for prey, and a few minutes later a flock of fieldfares with one or two redwings among them flew across her sight. She walked on, listening to the leaves
rustling underfoot, drinking in the beauty of the natural world, and hugging that book of poetry lent to her so long ago by Will Burdett.

‘You’re on your own, again,’ Sally said, looking round the still, silent cottage that had once been so full of life. The ashes were cold in the grate, all
trace of the old fellow and his belongings were gone, and Mrs Burdett was sitting in the armchair staring at a pile of photographs.

‘Aye, I’m on my own again. He didn’t want to leave me, but he had to go in the end, to see to his own place. Poor old Dad. But he’ll be all right, my sisters will look
after him.’

‘What about you?’

‘It hardly matters now, does it?’ she said, her eyes on the photographs, all of her boys. ‘My brother was a keen photographer, you know, spent every penny he earned on it. He
finished up going to work for a newspaper, and after that he got his own little business. He took no end of photos of the boys when we went to visit; developed them all himself. I’m glad. I
wouldn’t have had all these otherwise. Everybody I loved is gone, and these are all I’ve got left. It’s a good job I never realized that when they were being taken. My happy days
are gone, lass, all in the past. I live in the past.’

‘Oh, Mrs Burdett! Don’t you love your dad, and your brothers and sisters?’

‘You’re young, you can’t understand. It’s not like the boys you’ve given birth to, the ones you’ve lived for.’

‘Mrs Burdett, it’s freezing. Have you no coal?’

‘Aye, I’ve enough coal.’

‘Anything to eat?’

‘I can’t be bothered with it. No appetite. It’s weary work, this living just for the sake of being alive.’

Sally opened the pantry door. There was nothing inside but an old shopping bag, a pansion and a few empty stone jars. She picked up the bag. ‘How long is it since your father
went?’

‘A week. Two weeks. About that.’

‘You’ll have to eat. Have you got any money? I’ll bring you something back from the Co-op. I’m going for me mam’s messages.’

Mrs Burdett put her photos down with a sigh, and went to the dresser to find her purse, but was distracted by the framed portrait photos of her grown sons in their khaki uniforms. ‘Here,
look at these. These were the last ones they had taken, before they went to join the bloody army. He was the last one to die, Will, my youngest.’ She turned to Sally with a fearful jealousy
in her eyes. ‘He was a bit sweet on you, did you know that? You might have got a bonny lad for your husband, if he’d lived. My brother used to say: “He looks just as handsome from
any angle, Bessie. He ought to be in the films. You couldn’t take a bad photo of Will if you tried.”’

Her knees turned to water, and how she got out of that house Sally never knew. How she stood at the counter in the Co-op and kept the tremor out of her voice, and then went
back to Mrs Burdett’s and talked to her as if there was nothing amiss was beyond her. And all with Sister Davies’ ridiculous words ringing in her ears – the idea doesn’t
lack logic. The idea doesn’t lack logic! No, no more it did, once you realized. She had a hollow feeling in her stomach, and a tightness in her chest as she directed her steps towards home,
and she thought: what’s the matter with me?

Fright. That was it. Fear. Enough to make your hair stand on end. Who would ever believe she’d nursed him, bed bathed him, stood by him while he was unconscious, and failed to recognize
Will Burdett, when she’d known him all her life? How could she explain it? And why hadn’t she? But who expects to see a dead man from her own village in a stranger from another
continent, to see a coal hewer transformed into an officer, years and years older than the lad she knew? Transformed into a wreck of a man, stinking of sepsis, with an ugly, mutilated face, who
she’d avoided looking at as much as she could? Perhaps if she’d heard his voice she’d have known, but he’d never spoken . . .

Well, now she knew why. He’d deserted, he must have. Why else would he be writing letters to his mother, while still pretending to be an Australian? What did they do to people who
knowingly sheltered deserters, she wondered? Was it the same as treason? She ought to go and turn him in. What would the police do if they found out she’d been sheltering him? They’d
never believe she hadn’t known who he was, a lad from her own village. She shivered. She wouldn’t think about it. This was her day off, and she wouldn’t get another one for a
month, and why should she let him ruin it? She was going to a new ward, and she’d probably never see him again – and what was he going to do, poor lad? She wished she’d brought
that letter to Mrs Burdett now, instead of leaving it in the nurses’ home.

No! Good job she hadn’t. If he’d been honest, he’d have asked her, straight – ‘Take this letter to my mother.’ He’d deserted and carrying messages, now
that
would
implicate her, up to her neck. There’d be no denying that. She would not think about it. It was a brilliant, cold day, speeding into autumn, the time of year she loved
best, with the trees full of russet, and red and gold, and the rustle of fallen leaves underfoot, and listen! Listen to the cry of the geese, those brave winter visitors, how many miles must they
have flown, all the way from the Arctic? She looked up to watch them, flying arrow-like, and at any other time the sight and sound of them would have delighted her. And look, over there on that
bank, there was a jay’s feather, striped blue and black, and beautiful, and the bird would be hiding its acorns now . . . But however many times she dragged her thoughts away, tried to
distract herself with the wonder of nature and the day and fix her mind on cheerful things, it returned the next instant to
him.
Lieutenant Maxfield. Will Burdett. Oh, my good Lord,
what’s going to happen to me, she wondered, – and her heart nearly stopped at the thought – if I don’t turn him in, I might end up in gaol, be given years of penal
servitude, and then I’ll have lost my good name and my livelihood. What will my mother do then? It’ll kill her. I’ll have to do it. I’ll have to turn him in.’