The Furies (19 page)

He regained consciousness again as he was lowered onto a thin rubber sheet on the floor of a room somewhere. Where had they taken him? What was going to happen? There were black spots before his eyes and as he tried to blink them away he dimly saw two figures in white loom over him. Gloved hands gripped him again, this time pulling the boots from his feet and the clothes from his body; he had neither the energy nor will to resist while they stripped him naked and left him shivering on the floor. He focussed his vision and saw that the figures in white were two male orderlies. But standing to one side was another white-gowned individual; a figure with fair eyelashes and soft green eyes. Then he glimpsed a strand of blonde hair under her white cap and with a jolt realised it was a young woman. Despite his illness, his nakedness shamed him and he clutched his hands in front of his groin and rolled onto his side away from her. One of the orderlies laughed and then spoke in Austrian-accented German.

‘He's shy, this one!'

He pulled Gabriel's hands away from his groin, and then, helped by the second orderly, rolled him onto his back. Then, while one orderly held his head steady, the other cut Gabriel's hair with a pair of scissors. When finished, the first orderly foamed soap onto his head, chest, and groin while the other sharpened a cut-throat razor on a leather strap. Again Gabriel was held as his scalp, face and torso were expertly shaved. As the razor moved nearer his groin, Gabriel made another feeble attempt to cover himself, but the orderly laughed as he easily pulled Gabriel's hands away.

‘Keep still now or we might cut off something important!'

Gabriel's head lolled to one side. Again his eyes met those of the woman who silently observed him. The orderlies rolled him onto his front and soaped him again, and then shaved the hairs from his back and legs. Cold liquid was poured onto his skin – paraffin, from the smell of it – and the orderlies massaged it into his back, legs and arms. Where his skin was raw from the razor the paraffin burned and he winced, but they ignored his discomfort, rolling him onto his back and rubbing more of it into his face, chest and groin. His humiliation almost over, they lifted him onto a stretcher, dressed him in a surgical gown and covered him with a blanket.

The young woman stepped forward. She gazed down at him for a moment and then nodded at the orderlies, apparently satisfied with their handiwork. Then all three left the room. Underneath the blanket Gabriel had stopped shivering and for a few moments the chill sensation in his bones vanished, replaced instead by a heat that steadily rose in his limbs and torso. He began to shiver again; gently at first and then more fiercely as the rigor took hold of him, seizing him, shaking him, making him shudder like a rat in the jaws of a terrier. His body shook so much that he was almost overcome by its violence. Then as quickly as it had started it passed. Temporarily relieved but drained, all he was aware of was the hard floor below his back.

Two more shaven-headed Austrian orderlies appeared, this time dressed in standard-issue army uniforms. They grunted as they lifted the stretcher and carried Gabriel out of the room. Swaying gently on the canvas, Gabriel stared up at the ceiling, the white-washed ceiling joists, cobwebs in the corners. He heard the footsteps of the stretcher-bearers on the stone floor and smelt the familiar odour of hospital disinfectant overlaid with…what? Tobacco? They entered a wide-spaced, high-ceilinged room filled with beds – proper sleeping cots, not straw mattresses or blankets on the floor – and Gabriel was lowered onto an empty bed next to a wall. The stretcher was removed from under him and two white-capped and -gowned female nurses appeared. They smiled at him and tucked him under real sheets and blankets and – wonder of wonders – placed a real pillow beneath his head.

Then one of the women held a tablet in front of his lips. ‘Aspirin,' she said.

He opened his mouth and she placed the tablet on his tongue; then held a mug to his lips. He managed to take a sip of water to wash it down, and then his head was lowered onto the pillow. The other nurse gently wiped Gabriel's face with a flannel, dabbing at the sore areas where the razor had scraped him.

‘It won't sting for long,' she said with a smile. ‘Try and sleep if you can. We'll try you with some soup in a little while.'

He nodded, closed his eyes and sank into an uneasy sleep filled with troubled voices and vivid colours, and haunting images of the pits where the bodies in his camp had been buried.

That same evening Elspeth finally decided to have her hair cut. She did this partly as a gesture of support for Vera and Sylvia, but also because the number of Scottish women affected with typhus had risen. As her clinical role was primarily as a surgeon, it was not intended that Elspeth should look after patients suffering from typhus. However, several of her patients had unexpectedly developed the disease while recovering on the surgical wards, and last week another of the surgical nurses, Sister Minishull, had died from it. So Elspeth sat in her nightgown in their bedroom, and, with Sylvia looking on, Vera cut her hair down to an even inch all over.

After she had finished, Vera brushed a few stray hairs from Elspeth's shoulders and then stepped back to admire her handiwork. Looking at her reflection in a small hand mirror, Elspeth saw an angular, youthful face looking back at her, almost like a pageboy, she thought. Sylvia's face appeared in the glass as she peered over Elspeth's shoulder.

‘Nice work, Vee,' she said with a smirk. ‘All you need do is paint a mascara moustache above her lip and Ellie could get a job as a male impersonator at the London Palladium.'

‘Lord knows what they'd say about us back in London if they could see us now,' Elspeth said, running her fingers over the unfamiliar stubble on her scalp. ‘Probably accuse us of trying to look like men, as well as steal their jobs.'

Vera laughed and walked towards the door. ‘I'll get the broom from the kitchen and sweep up the mess,' she said as she left the room.

As Elspeth continued to study her reflection in the mirror, Sylvia yawned and lay down on her bed, hands clasped behind her head.

‘Busy day?' Elspeth asked.

‘Very.' Sylvia yawned again. ‘We admitted another seventeen patients, which means we've got nearly a hundred and fifty typhus cases. They're doing pretty well mostly, although three more died this afternoon.'

Elspeth turned away from the mirror to look at Sylvia. ‘An Austrian surgeon was transferred to you this afternoon; he wasn't one of the deaths, was he?'

Sylvia frowned. ‘No, I don't think so. The ones that died this afternoon were all Serbian.' Then she suddenly sat up on the bed. ‘Why do you ask?'

‘Oh, nothing important,' Elspeth replied, just as Vera re-entered the room, carrying a brush and pan. ‘It's just that earlier this afternoon a young Austrian surgeon and his orderly arrived from a nearby prison camp that had been badly affected by typhus. The surgeon was asking whether we could spare some aspirin, disinfectant, and so forth. But before he could finish, he collapsed. Turned out he was coming down with typhus himself.'

Sylvia furrowed her brow. ‘We had so many admissions today, Ellie, I'm not sure…'

‘Oh, I remember him,' interrupted Vera. ‘I'd just finished fixing the magneto on the ambulance when I saw him go down like a stack of cards. I drove him up to the typhus hospital. Don't you recall, Sylvie? Huber helped me get him out.'

‘Ah, Huber,' Sylvia said with a mischievous grin. ‘Your faithful devotee, Ellie.'

Elspeth had saved Huber's life by deftly extracting the bullet imbedded near his kidney and draining the surrounding abscess. Due to a mixture of Elspeth's skill and the old soldier's resilience he had survived the operation, only to fall ill with typhus a week later. Amazingly, he had survived this as well – due entirely to the nursing care he had received – and it was obvious that he now worshipped all the women in the hospital, and Elspeth in particular.

Elspeth, ignoring Sylvia's teasing, stayed silent.

‘I think you should marry him,' Sylvia continued. ‘You'd become Mrs Huber, with your husband, Fritz, and five little Huberettes in tow – all dressed in lederhosen. Think of the scandal back in London.'

Elspeth smiled at the image. ‘You seem to be determined to marry me off, Sylvie. Can't you do any better than a gap-toothed sixty-year-old?'

‘If you don't mind, Ellie, Sergeant Huber is not a day over fifty-nine, and although I agree some of his teeth are missing, the rest of them are the most magnificent shade of mahogany.'

‘Yes, very funny.'

‘Anyway, what did your Austrian surgeon look like?' Sylvia – still grinning – continued.

Elspeth shrugged, and then looked across at Vera.

‘About six foot,' said Vera, ‘and slim; straight black hair.'

‘And grey eyes,' added Elspeth. She ran her fingers over her head again, the sensation of short bristles unfamiliar on her fingertips. ‘He spoke quite good English actually.'

A light of recognition appeared in Sylvia's face. ‘I think I know who you mean. In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw him being de-loused at admission. Poor man, I felt quite sorry for him: although he was delirious, he seemed aware enough to know a woman was watching. Anyway, he's on the ward now. Why are you interested in him?'

‘I'm not
interested
in him,' Elspeth said with exasperation. ‘It's just that he had an orderly with him, who seemed most distressed when the surgeon collapsed. Dr Soltau agreed to give the orderly the supplies that the surgeon asked for, and he was escorted back to his camp with them. But the surgeon was unconscious when all this was decided, so I don't think he knows. If he's still alive, you might tell him. I think it would put his mind at rest.' She crossed to her own bed and sat on the edge, plumping her pillow.

Sylvia nodded. ‘Of course, Ellie. I'll keep an eye out,' she paused, ‘for this
special
Austrian of yours.' Elspeth gave her a sharp look, which was ignored. ‘After all,' Sylvia continued, ‘it sounds as if he's younger than Huber
and
has all his own teeth!'

***

At the fever hospital Gabriel fought his battle against the typhus bacillus. His body, weakened by the hardships of the past months, was ill-prepared for such a ruthless enemy and for the first two days he lay in a fever-induced stupor, only awake for short periods of time, during which his muscles ached, his brain throbbed with every heartbeat, and his skin felt as if it were on fire. In the evenings his temperature soared, causing body-wracking rigors that left him exhausted, weakening him still further. He was delirious during these attacks, with a loud buzzing in his ears and his mind filled with images of monstrous creatures, bear-like animals with bloody claws and teeth that tore at his body.

He was nursed by a mix of Austrian prison orderlies – who spoke soothing words of German – and the Scottish women, whose accents he couldn't always understand. Dressed in their white caps and long anti-typhus gowns they looked to him like ghosts, and featured heavily in his dreams as ethereal spirits who drove away the bloody-pawed bears. They were always around him; taking his temperature and pulse, helping him when he needed to pass water, sponging the sweat from his face and body. They also tried to feed him, but initially he could take only water and a little broth. The uniformity of their clothing made it hard to distinguish one from another, but on the morning of the third day he woke feeling that his fever had diminished slightly and able to think clearly for the first time since he had arrived. Two of the ghosts arrived at his bedside to change his bedding. Under the white cap of one of them he saw fair eyelashes and bright green eyes, and suddenly realised that this was the woman who had been watching him when he had first arrived at the hospital. As she skilfully removed the sheet he was lying on, she smiled at him.

‘I can see you're a bit more with us today,' she said, rolling Gabriel towards her while her colleague slipped a clean sheet into the space his body had vacated. ‘Your temperature is down and your pulse is lower.' They rolled him back again, snapped another sheet taut above the bed and lowered it over him. ‘We'll try you with some breakfast in a moment. You need to eat if you're to beat this.'

Gabriel wanted to respond, but he hadn't spoken for so long that his cheeks and tongue felt numb. He tried to speak, but the words came out as an indistinct mumble. The woman cocked her head as she listened to him; then she gave a disappointed frown.

‘I'm sorry…I can't understand what you're saying.' She walked to the end of the bed and lifted the observation chart, looking at the name inscribed across the top. ‘You are the Austrian surgeon, Captain Bayer, aren't you? You do speak English, don't you?'

Gabriel slowly nodded, and then – with an effort – began again, forcing his brain to find the correct words, and commanding his tongue to work correctly.

‘Yes…I…' He stopped to lick his lips once more. ‘I can…speak English.' His throat felt so parched that he thought it might crack. A moment later – as if she knew what he was feeling – she was holding a tin cup in front of him. He lifted his head and drank from it, feeling the cold water soothe his throat. Then she removed the cup and stood by his side, patiently waiting for him to speak again. As he looked up at her, he wondered if she was one of the Scottish women surgeons he remembered the veteran Austrian sergeant telling him about.

‘Thank you, Doctor,' Gabriel said in clear English.

‘Oh, I'm no doctor,' she answered cheerfully. ‘I'm the ward sister. Actually we've only one doctor for more than a hundred and fifty patients here, so you only get to meet her if you're
very
ill.' She gave him an impish smile. ‘So you really don't want to meet her if you can avoid it. In any case, all you need is good nursing to recover from typhus. My name is Sister Calthorpe, by the way.'

He nodded at her and then looked around the ward, taking in his surroundings for the first time since he had arrived. ‘How long have I been here?' he asked.

‘Three days. This is the fever hospital. You were moved up from the surgical hospital when they saw you had typhus.'

Three
days
? Gabriel levered himself up onto his elbows.

‘I must get back to my camp, Sister. My men…they need supplies and—'

She leant forward, placing a gloved hand on his forearm. ‘Don't worry, Captain. I am told your orderly was sent back to the camp with a wagonload of supplies, including food and medicines. Now you must forget about them and focus your energies on fighting this infection.'

Gabriel sank back onto the bed, exhausted but relieved. ‘Thank you.' She curled her fingers around his wrist and he felt her fingertips on his radial pulse. After a moment she removed her hand and placed it on his forehead.

‘Your pulse is down but your temperature is still high.' She leant forward to undo the top button of his gown, pulling one of the collars aside to inspect his neck. ‘And you still have a rash. This is only day three and the fevers are likely to continue.' She re-buttoned his gown and leant back. ‘You'll need every ounce of your strength to see this thing through, so it's important you try and eat something.'

It took him a moment to nod his understanding. In order to survive he would to have to accept this unfamiliar feeling of being dependent on others. But it felt strange to be on the receiving end of medical care: it was normally his job to stand at a patient's bedside and tell them about their illness and how they were going to be treated. Once again she seemed able to read his thoughts.

‘And another thing, Captain Bayer,' she said with a serious look. ‘You doctors make the worst patients because you think you know it all. But I'm going to treat you just like all the other patients here and you will follow my orders like all the rest. Do you understand?'

Gabriel, despite his weakness, smiled. ‘Just like my nurses back in Sarajevo,' he said.

‘Just like good nurses everywhere,' she said sternly, but he saw a glimmer of amusement in her eye as she turned away to help the nurse at the next bed.

***

As she had predicted, his temperature rose again that evening and the delirium returned. Over the next three days the fevers came and went, but at times he was able to eat a little maize bread and soup. The pyrexia was worse at night – the monstrous phantoms still haunted his dreams – but during the day he felt slightly better and even tried to speak to the patients on either side of him. The man in the bed on Gabriel's left was confused and spoke in ramblingly incoherent Serbian. The fellow on Gabriel's right did not appear confused, although he looked very unwell: breathless, bluish lips, a harsh rasping cough. One of the Austrian orderlies looking after the fellow exchanged a few words with him in German and when the same orderly arrived at his bedside, Gabriel asked him who the man was.

‘He's General Appel, the commanding officer of the Austrian
6
^th
Army. He was admitted with typhus a few days before you were.'

Of course, thought Gabriel: General Appel. He had last seen him at the briefing that Field Marshall Potiorek had given just before the war began, back in August. It was hard to believe that the shaven-headed, gasping figure in the next bed was the same man. After the orderly left his bedside Gabriel tried to speak to Appel, but the General's bouts of coughing and breathlessness prevented him from replying. As the evening wore on Appel developed violent, bed-frame rattling rigors and became deliriously confused. Shortly before midnight a woman that Gabriel hadn't seen before was brought to the General's bedside. The nurses addressed her as “Dr Wakefield” and Gabriel watched as she tried to keep him alive: administering injections for the fever and pummelling his chest to get him to cough up the pus and mucus that was blocking his lungs. In spite of these efforts, the General's breathing became more laboured, and Gabriel heard his agonal gasps in the early hours. Ten minutes later two orderlies came and wrapped his body in a sheet and took the linen-shrouded corpse away. Ten minutes after that another man – this time a Serbian officer – was placed in the same bed.

Gabriel's fever fluctuated over the next few days. Sister Calthorpe appeared to take a special interest in him; perhaps, he thought, because he was one of the few Austrians who could speak decent English. She asked him many questions: about the prison camp, his life as a surgeon, where he'd worked before the war. But his replies were listless because he felt so dopey, so discouraged by the fever and aching in his joints that he found it hard to concentrate on conversation for very long. And then on the afternoon of the eight day, his temperature soared once more.