Oriental Hotel (20 page)

‘Don't we all,' Frank Walker said dryly. ‘All right; you can sit with him. I shall be sending in a trained assistant from time to time to do the necessary medical checks, but if he recovers consciousness it would be comforting to see someone he knows – particularly a woman. My men are all good nurses, but they lack that essential something a male patient looks for! And they're not as pretty, either!' he added as an afterthought.

‘Can I go in now?'

‘Yes. Gown up and get yourself a mask. You'll find him in the end Recovery Room.'

Though she had been unable to erase from her mind the image of John Grimly when he had been brought in, seeing him now she was struck afresh with the sense of shock.

If he had been drained of colour before, now he was totally ashen, his face greyish above the white theatre gown, his slick black hair hidden beneath a white cap.

She entered the Recovery Room quietly – as if to make a sound might disturb him from his sleep – and took the chair beside his bed that had been vacated by an orderly. Then she sat watching him and waiting for the first small sign of returning consciousness. In itself, she supposed, it would mean nothing if the internal injuries were as serious as Frank Walker had said. But it seemed, all the same, a step away from death towards living.

He looked so young lying there – too young to be at war and much too young to be dying.

Looking at his still, white face she saw him as he had been – rosy, enthusiastic, a young man almost born out of his time. He should have been a crusader, she thought, recalling the joking suggestion made by one of his brother officers on their first night out from Suez.

But that was just the tragedy of him now. If he died it would be a total waste, because he would die without ever firing a shot or seeing any active service.

There was a sick irony about it, which oddly did not surprise her. It was so like John Grimly to have been so keen to help – and then to have ended up complicating matters by swelling the numbers of those wounded himself.

At regular intervals Carter came in to check on the patient's pulse and blood pressure. ‘He'll come round soon now if he's going to come round at all,' he said on one occasion, but to Elise the young man looked as deeply unconscious as ever, and it was still a shock to her when he began to stir, his face and body moving in sudden sharp spasms like a sleeper in a nightmare.

At the first signs she got up in a hurry to call Carter, but he was assisting with an emergency – one of the survivors had gone into sudden shock – and told her shortly that he would be in as soon as he had a moment and not before.

Angry at the sharpness of his tongue and feeling pretty foolish for bothering him, she went back into the cubicle. But as the next spasm came she leaned forward, watching it flicker over Grimly's smooth face, taking the soft, smooth hand in hers and leaning close to try to catch the first incoherent words.

‘Nuisance … me … leave … leave it …!'

His body twisted and writhed and she eased him back, pulling the sheet straight around him.

‘It's all right, John. Just lie still. Very still.'

Muttering a little, he drifted off, but it was not long before he was stirring again, whimpering and writhing; as the anaesthetic wore off, there were periods of two or three minutes at a time when he seemed quite lucid and almost normal.

Except for his obvious distress, that is. He was in pain, Elise knew, and she thought that if Carter did not return soon she would have to go and look for him and risk the sharpness of his tongue. But it was not only the physical discomfort that was disturbing John Grimly.

‘What use am I? What bloody use am I?' The words were stringing together now to make sense.

‘Don't be so silly! You were doing your best to help. It wasn't your fault the rope gave.' She tucked his hand beneath the sheet but his fingers gripped at hers with a desperate urgency which reminded her sickeningly of her mother when she lay dying.

‘It had to be me, didn't it?' He was answering and not answering, clear and lucid yet seemingly lost in some trance world of his own. ‘What have they done to me? Do you know?'

‘They've operated – the doctor will explain when he comes.'

But he was not listening. ‘Why does it always have to be me? Bloody useless, making a fool of myself …'

‘You're not to say that, do you hear me? It's not true. You're a really good soldier. Now I shall fetch the doctor …' She tried to extricate her fingers, but he held them fast.

‘No – don't go! Don't leave me!'

‘But, John …'

The blue eyes, dilated and muddy, looked directly up into hers. ‘Stay! I'm so glad it's you!'

There was a hard lump in her throat and tears ached in her eyes.

‘John – I'll fetch someone and then I'll be back …'

But he had drifted back to drugged sleep as suddenly and completely as he had lifted from it, still holding her hand in his.

Undecided, she sat beside the bed. Intuition was telling her to fetch Carter or Frank Walker, but with John Grimly apparently sleeping peacefully once more there seemed to be no excuse for bothering them. Weary as she was, sitting here somehow eased her sense of guilt over the way she had spoken to him that night on deck – and she felt that she might be helping him by being here. He had pursued her and here she was; perhaps in his muzzy state it would seem to him that at least he was not a complete failure.

A gurgling sound, loud in the silent room, returned Elise to full awareness. Her eyes snapped round to see Grimly arching wildly beneath the sheets. His head was thrown back, eyes wide open, and a startled expression had con-toned his face to complete blankness.

She was on her feet in one movement, leaning across him.

‘John …'

But his eyes were glazed and unseeing.

She levered herself away from the bed, almost tripping in her haste, and tore open the Recovery Room door. There was no one to be seen and the main ward was in soft half-light. Distraught as she was, she controlled the urge to call out for Surgeon Lt. Walker, Carter, or for anyone who would know what to do.

Down the dim ward she half ran; at the end a solid figure materialised, blocking her path and catching at her arm.

‘All right – all right! Where's the fire?'

‘Captain Grimly's worse. Can you come?'

‘How bad is he?'

‘Very bad, I think he's dying!'

The man's reaction was so immediate that Elise wondered afterwards if he had been detailed to keep a close eye on John Grimly.

‘I'll go to him. You get the doctor – he's having a breather in his office.'

The Surgeon Lt. had undone his collar and was leaning forward in his chair gently massaging the back of his neck when Elise burst in on him. He swore softly, but his reaction was as immediate as the Ward Master's had been. Pushing his feet into his shoes and fastening his collar as he went, he strode down the ward towards the Recovery Room.

The harsh gasping sound came out to reach them, but although Elise felt her pulse quicken with dread her feet moved the faster to keep up with Frank Walker.

In the Recovery Room the Ward Master bent over John Grimly, his bulk obscuring the young soldier from Elise's view. She hung back in the doorway, not wanting to hamper the expertise of the professionals by getting in the way, yet anxious to be on hand to do anything she could to help.

John Grimly was dying. Without any medical knowledge herself, she knew it. He was dying and there was nothing she could do but stand by helplessly and watch it happen. She closed the door, inching in along the wall until she could see without hindering as the Surgeon Lt. and the Ward Master worked on their patient. But she knew as she watched that it was useless and when at last the unearthly falsetto groaning weakened and ceased and the two men straightened up, her own breath came out in a long shuddering sigh.

Dead. All that youth and vigour and eagerness. All those hopes and fears, all that patriotism and suppressed anxiety. He would never again irritate anyone with his wearisome fervour; never again click his heels to her or anyone else in salute; never greet her with his perfunctory

‘Ma'am!' He would never apologise or weep for his own inadequacies.

The tears were thick in her throat and she ached with them. She pushed herself away from the wall and crossed to the bed, looking down at him. In death his face was as young and defenceless as it had been while he was unconscious. All agony and suffering had gone; the only expression on the smooth waxy face was one of faint surprise. She leaned over, touching the ridiculous white theatre cap.

‘Can I …?'

The Surgeon Lt. straightened, looking at her. His tiredness had returned with a rush. For all his cynicism he did not like losing a patient, especially one as young as Captain Grimly. There would be letters to write now, for he always took it upon himself to write personally to the next-of-kin of any man who died in his hospital or on his operating table; and for this one, more than some, he felt totally responsible.

‘Please?' There was an intensity in her face that mirrored his own deepest feelings. The waste – the sickening waste of it! And the indignity …

‘Yes.'

He nodded abruptly, then turned away so that he did not see her remove the cap and smooth the black hair down into the neatly upswept quiff John Grimly had been so proud of. It had been a long and tiring day. This patient no longer needed his attentions, but there were others who did.

For a moment Elise stood looking down at the young Captain. Briefly it seemed to her that her feelings had all been frozen; she was amazed at her own lack of emotion. Then slowly she became aware of the knot in her throat, choking and bubbling, as if her body was behaving independently of that cool, detached core.

She straightened. ‘Is it all right if l go now?'

‘Yes. Carry on. You've had a long day.'

So out of the Recovery Room and down the sleeping ward, with only soft snores and snuffles and an occasional cough to disturb the quiet. Never had it seemed so long. She walked with her eyes fixed on the soft light over the Ward Master's desk at the end, pulling herself forwards as if on a lifeline. An orderly emerged from the galley; he stood aside for her and she shook her head, making for the door that led out of the hospital.

Through it and into the uncontaminated air on the other side. A few steps along the companion way and the knot of tears began to dislodge and fragment. Her feet faltered, she closed her eyes against the prickling deluge behind her lids and pressed her hands against her mouth in an effort to stifle the sobs.

It was useless, for they came anyway, shaking her weary, unresistant body. Her feet stopped altogether, unable to continue as her knees buckled in a contortion of grief. The companion way was deserted; thankfully she leaned against the wall, letting the tears come.

Oh God, why? The words, loud within her, came in time with the sobs, but she did not even know that her lips were repeating them aloud.

‘Elise?'

On board the
Stranraer
no one but John Grimly had called her that. To everyone else she was Mrs Sanderson. A hand touched her shoulder and she raised her head to see the tall figure of Gerald Brittain. What on earth was he doing here?

‘I'm all right,' she said defensively.

‘You don't look all right tome.' The hand on her shoulder turned her gently. ‘ Have you been down here all day?'

‘Yes.'

‘It's too much. Come on, I think you should go back to your cabin now. I'll take you.'

‘I'm all right!' she tried to say it again, but this time her lips refused to obey her. Instead the sobs were there once more, gasping tearing sobs that refused to be denied. She crumpled, turning her head into the wall.

‘Elise …'

‘He's dead.' Her voice was harsh, breathy and disjointed. ‘ They did what they could and I stayed with him. But now he's dead.'

His arm was around her heaving shoulders, but she scarcely noticed it.

‘Who? Who's dead?'

‘John Grimly.'

There was a tiny pause when something seemed to hang unsaid.

‘Oh. I'm very sorry.'

She wept for a few moments, then sobbed. ‘It's so unfair! How can one believe in a God who allows things like this to happen?'

‘You thought a lot of him?'

‘No – no – it's just that … I wasn't very nice to him and now he's dead. I told him after the operation that when he came round he would make a really good soldier. But I don't think he even heard me; he was too far gone. Oh God, it's so horrible. And all he wanted was to make his father proud of him …'

The arm around her shoulders eased her away from the wall so that instead she lay against him. With the other arm he supported her gently.

‘Come on. You need a drink!'

‘No, I don't! I don't want a drink. I want …'

‘Don't argue.' He supported her along the companion way and she clung to him, knees as weak as if she was drunk already. ‘My cabin's just here.'

He pushed open a door and took her inside. As the light hit her she covered her face with her hands. He led her to his bunk, lowering her and easing himself free, and she responded like a puppet to his instructions.

Her eyes were still awash with tears, but she saw him cross to the small, pegged-down cabinet, take out a bottle and pout something into a glass. He brought it back, pushing it into her hands; the brandy fumes rose, evoking nausea again.

‘I don't drink brandy.'

‘You're drinking it now.'

He guided the glass to her lips and obediently she sipped. The golden liquid glowed on her tongue and ran in a fiery river down her throat, spreading warmth wherever it touched. Even her stomach glowed, but it did not revolt her. She took another sip and then another.

‘Good girl! That's better now, isn't it?'