For King and Country (22 page)

The porter gave Mary a rare smile, and nodded to Sally. ‘Ready?’

Dr Campbell stepped forward to restrain her, and take her end of the chair himself. ‘You intrigue me, Nurse Wilde. There’s something about you I can’t quite put my finger on.
Quite a little enigma, aren’t you?’

‘I don’t like to show my ignorance, but what’s an enigma, when it’s at home?’ Sally asked, casting a last glance round for Maxfield. There he was, standing just
beyond the fire, the unwounded side of his face illuminated in its glow, and except for that horrible moustache looking exactly like the old Will, reminding her just what a ‘looker’ he
once was. A wave of panic swept over her. If she could recognize him, others might too. He should have more sense than to stand about among hordes of people. She stooped to hide her face, and usher
her ambulant charges inside.

Dr Campbell sent the porter on ahead, and returned with Sally for Louise.

‘Thank you, Dr Campbell,’ Sally murmured.

‘
Ҫa ne fait rien
, as the porter would say,’ he said, with a smile at Louise. ‘I’m not such a bad fellow, after all.’

But Sally’s eyes were on Maxfield, who turned his head and waved at her. She surreptitiously waved back before helping Dr Campbell with the chair. ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Louise
piped with something of an edge to her little voice, as they carefully put her inside.

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Sally echoed, taking sole charge of it, and with the other children in train heading back towards the ward.

Halfway along the main corridor, and well out of earshot, Louise said: ‘San fairy Ann to him, an’ all. I don’t like that doctor.’

‘Why, Louise, why ever not?’ Sally asked. ‘He was kind to you.’

‘He’s too nosey. And he was telling you off.’

T
he bonfire was still burning when they went off duty, and as she and Curran passed through the conservatory they saw Armstrong among a group of
others, watching it through the window. Sally threw her cloak over her shoulders and edged between them to the conservatory door.

‘Wilde, you absolutely stink of smoke!’

‘Aye, I know that. And seeing as I already stink, I’m going out again. I can see one or two of the patients I’ve nursed, and I want to know how they’re getting on,’
she said, stepping out into the cold night air.

‘Fraternizing? You’ll get wrong, Wilde!’ one of the girls called, but Sally continued down the steps and onto the field. There was a new moon, and away from the fire, the night
was pitch black. If Will were still there, she might find out whether his mother had managed to contact him.

Curran and Armstrong followed her, both without cloaks. ‘I see they’ve finished burning the poor old Guy,’ Curran said. ‘Holy Mother of God, it’s freezing.
Let’s get to the fire.’

‘There’s something so primitive about gathering round a fire, isn’t there?’ said Armstrong. ‘Something tribal, somehow. We used to have some grand Guy Fawkes nights
at home . . .’

There was no Will to be seen, but several soldier patients were still standing about or sitting in wheelchairs drinking their beer ration and smoking. Sally separated from her friends and went
to exchange a few words with the young revolutionary with the shattered ankle she’d nursed before she went to the officers’ ward.

He hoisted himself up on his crutches at her approach. ‘It was bloody freezing this time last year in the trenches. We couldn’t have a nice warm fire like this,’ he said.
‘Daren’t let a light show.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘They’re about finished now, though.’

‘Who? The Germans?’

‘Aye. It won’t be long now.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I read the papers. Their allies have had it. Turkey’s surrendered. The Austrian army’s destroyed. And their civilians are starving, thanks to the blockade. Vienna’s in a
bad way, and a lot of women and kids who were rioting for food in Essen have been cut down by their own army! Umpteen wounded and some of’em killed, an’ all. We’d be in the same
state, if it hadn’t been for our merchant seamen.’

‘I know,’ said Sally. ‘We’re lucky to have them. We’ve got some brave men in all the services.’

‘Aye. It looks as if we’ll pull through. They’ve stopped going for our shipping with the U-boats now; they wouldn’t have done that if they thought they could win. Scared
of what’s going to happen after the Armistice. There’ll be a price to pay, but I think the Germans blame their Kaiser more than they blame us; they want shot of him altogether, and they
hate Prince Willi even more.’

‘None of you will ever have to go back to France, then.’

‘Not me, anyway, I’ve had it for any more soldiering.’ He jerked his head towards his fellow patients and snorted. ‘Look at us, the 3C classes of the Empire.
There’s some were never fit to go in the first place, and we’re buggered altogether now, the best part of us. Fit for nothing but selling matches and begging on street corners, and I
shouldn’t be surprised if that’s what a lot of us will be doing, before long.’

‘I’ve heard the government’s going to have a Ministry of Health, to start looking after the bairns, make sure all the women can have a midwife, and that. So things will be a
bit better for the young ones coming up.’

‘Aye, they’ll want to start breeding plenty of cannon fodder for the next showdown.’

‘I hope not. How’s your ankle?’

‘All right. I thought they’d end up lopping it off, but it’s healing better than I thought.’

‘And your chest?’

‘Not good. I reckon I’ll have had it if I get this Spanish ’flu. There’s a couple of lads got brought onto our ward, and shifted off straight after when it turned out
they’d got it. We heard one of them’s got septic pneumonia. That’ll be the finish of him, and after coming through everything in France, an’ all. There’s people
dropping like flies. Still, the parsons keep telling us God’s in his Heaven, and all’s right with the world. All I can say to that is He ought to be court-martialled for sleeping on his
watch.’

‘The Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform,’ Sally said. ‘I’ve still got a bit of faith, so I’ll say a prayer for you.’ She spotted Raynor.
‘Oh, there’s somebody else I want to see.’

‘That’ll do us a lot of good,
praying
,’ he called after her. ‘It’s not prayers we want, it’s a bloody revolution.’

Raynor was swaying slightly as she caught up with him. ‘Kiddie-winkies safely tucked up in bed, are they?’ he asked.

‘For the past hour, at least. Have you been at the port again, Lieutenant Raynor?’

‘Port and cigs. It’s the chief’s sovereign cure for tetanus.’

‘I know, but I think you’ve gone overboard a bit tonight, haven’t you?’

‘Aided and abetted by Maxfield, yes. Thank God we’ve got one good arm between us.’

‘So Lieutenant Maxfield’s still looking after you?’

He nodded. ‘Regular nursemaid. He’s a good chap, although I know you don’t think so. He’s about somewhere, which will be your cue to disappear, I suppose.’

‘I suppose. Goodbyeee,’ she said, matching her actions to his words. She’d gone no more than a dozen steps when she felt a hand on her arm. Dr Campbell again.

‘I say, those poor little things on children’s medical, they make you feel humble, don’t they?’

She moved out of reach. ‘Yes, Doctor, they do.’

‘They do, indeed,’ he repeated, leaning back the better to look at her. ‘Do you know what I realized, after you took that poor little thing back to the ward?’

‘No, Doctor.’

‘I realized you hadn’t told me a bally thing about what really happened in Darlington.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes, I did.’ He moved towards her and the hand was back on her arm.

She cast a last glance round the field. There were one or two black silhouettes in the shadows, but nobody she could distinguish as Maxfield, and in any case she saw no prospect of shaking Dr
Campbell off as long as she stayed outside. Better give it up as a bad job. ‘Nothing happened,’ she murmured, and caught sight of Armstrong just going up the conservatory steps.
‘Excuse me, Dr Campbell. It’s getting on for bedtime, and my friends have gone in. Home Sister will be out looking for us before long.’

‘Shame. I should have liked a nice long conversation with you,’ he said, giving her arm a squeeze. ‘Get to know you better. A little enigma, our Nurse Wilde, a riddle I have to
work out. An en-ig-ma.’

‘Good night, Dr Campbell.’ She smiled and before she broke loose from him it was on the tip of her tongue to ask if the chief had prescribed him a ration of port as well. He’d
certainly had a glass or two of something.

‘My word, you seem very friendly with Dr Campbell,’ said Armstrong, when they were back in the kitchen of the nurses’ home, standing over the kettle to make
sure they had first claim on the boiling water.

Sally spooned cocoa into three beakers and added a drop of milk to each, then handed one of them to Armstrong. ‘Not really. I once worked for some relations of his as a housemaid, and I
left,’ she said. ‘That was just before I started nursing. I don’t know what they’ve told him about it, but not enough to satisfy him. He wants to know the far
end.’

Armstrong began stirring the cocoa to a paste. ‘What’s there to know?’ she asked.

A group of fellow probationers stuck their noses in the door, and conversation ceased. ‘Put the kettle on again, when you’ve finished, will you?’ they asked, and
disappeared.

‘Go on, then,’ Armstrong prompted.

‘Go on what?’

‘With your tale.’

Her spoon scraping vigorously round the beaker, Sally said: ‘There was a bit of trouble, that’s all.’

‘What about?’

She paused in her stirring. ‘Why, them two and me, I suppose. I hadn’t been there much longer than a month when he – he was a doctor, an’ all, I think I told you that
– he asks me to go into his evening surgery and help him with a feller who’d had one too many, and then fallen and nearly bitten his tongue off. You know, hold the man’s head
still and get him to keep his mouth open while he put the stitches in.’

‘Couldn’t she have done it?’

‘His wife? She wouldn’t. She couldn’t stand the sight of blood, but I was quite happy to be doing something a bit different. Anyway, it got to be a regular thing, and then she
starts to think I’m not getting enough of the housework done, and I’m in the middle of it all, trying to please them both. I couldn’t please either, at the finish. He comes and
asks me to help, and I’m looking at her, and she’s looking at me, and I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I’m thinking: “Why, I cannot help it, can I?
I’m just the skivvy; I have to do what I’m told.”’

‘Oh, my word. So what happened in the end?’

‘In the end, I finished up working for him and then working twice as long again for her, making sure she got her pound of flesh, so I was on my feet all the hours God sent. The bairn
sometimes had nightmares an’ all, but she never got up with him; that was always me. In the end, I was just about on my knees, pulled all ways between the lot of them. So I decided I liked
his sort of work a lot better than hers, and I applied for nurse training, and I think I would rather starve now, than take another job in service. And that’s all there is to that.’

‘Is it?’ Armstrong put her beaker down, and began to stir the mixture in Curran’s. ‘Maybe Dr Campbell’s getting bored with Dunkley. Fancies a change, and his
relations are just an excuse to get you into conversation,’ she said.

‘I hope not,’ said Sally. ‘I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of Dunkley, either.’

‘No,’ said Armstrong, thoughtfully. ‘But he’s the one to watch, really.’

The kettle shrieked, and Sally lifted it off the gas, to top the beakers up with scalding water.

‘Anything a bit – you know,’ Armstrong continued, ‘about a girl, and he can sense it a mile off. You’ll have heard about that young probationer he got into
trouble?’

‘Why, who hasn’t?’ Sally refilled the kettle, and set it on the gas ring again.

Armstrong spooned sugar into the cups. ‘Anna Sugden,’ she said. ‘She started at the same time as me, and we got on pretty well. Poor little thing, I knew she had a passion for
him, most of us had, but she had it bad. It stuck out like a sore thumb. She used to sneak into the doctors’ quarters as well; Dunkley wasn’t the first at that game, and she won’t
be the last. And he’s not the only doctor to smuggle a girl in, either. Sugden said the housemen keep a book of all the nurses they get up there. Needless to say, my name isn’t in it.
Don’t mind me saying this, Wilde, but I hope yours won’t be, either, because he wouldn’t cop the worst of it – you would.’

Sally grinned. ‘I don’t mind you saying it. But I’m not as green as you seem to think. I couldn’t be, not with a brother like our Arthur!’

Armstrong picked up two of the beakers. ‘Brothers have their uses, at times.’

Sally lifted the other one. ‘Away then. Curran must be out of the bath by now, and we’ll get ten minutes before lights out. That’s another reason I’d never entertain
service again – having a laugh with the rest of the lasses. It might be like a nunnery here, but we’re good company for one another. It’s a sight better than spending hours on
your own scrubbing and rubbing for somebody like Mrs Lowery.’

After lights out she closed her eyes, and was transported back to the tiny room where she used to stand among shelves of gleaming amber jars of medicines and pills, and lotions
and potions, each with its enchanting label in Gothic lettering bordered in gold. She’d never minded being on her own in there, at the back of the surgery, counting out pills and putting them
in tiny bottles, making out labels and gluing them on. What pride she’d taken in scooping lanolin or zinc and castor oil cream out of a massive jar with a palette knife and squashing it down
into a little pot, and then levelling the top and screwing on the lid, with the happy thought that it would soon cure little Johnny’s nappy rash. How carefully she’d poured the gentian
violet through that tiny, chipped enamel funnel, knowing what a hideous stain it would make if it got spilled on the teak counter. Instead, her steady hand would guide it safely into an even tinier
bottle, to be taken home and painted onto the inside of a baby’s mouth to cure its thrush, or onto a patient’s skin to get rid of ringworm. She’d loved being the doctor’s
little helper and was never happier than in that tiny dispensary. Yes, happy hours they’d been, when she would jump to attention as soon as the doctor called her, to help with fractures or
stitches or some such thing, and then listen entranced as he explained what was wrong, and what had to be done. And all the time she’d been learning, learning, learning, and hero-worshiping
the man who treated her, a lowly little miner’s daughter, as though she had some intelligence, as though she had a brain.