Survivor (44 page)

Mariette lay on the trolley looking up at
the ceiling and tried to think of some way to open up a conversation with Morgan as
he wheeled her to the X-ray department. But she knew his silence was the kind that
meant he had no intention of holding a conversation, no matter what she said.

Once they got to the department, where
they had to wait to be called in, he moved away from her trolley. It was then that
she noticed how he hung his head slightly, as if trying to hide his scars, and her
heart went out to him. It was bad for any man to be disfigured, but for someone as
handsome as Morgan had been, it had to be a terrible disaster.

After the X-ray, he wheeled her back to
the ward, once again in silence.

But, as he helped her from the trolley
back into bed, Mariette felt she must say something. ‘I wish you had told me
the truth about your injury and given me the chance to help you get through
it.’

He just looked at her hard for a moment.
‘You would have run away. Or, even worse, pretended you didn’t mind when
actually you couldn’t bear to look at me.’

‘Maybe I would. I admit that, back
then, I wasn’t the most compassionate of people,’ she agreed. ‘But
you weren’t the nicest of men, were you? I was really hurt by the way you
behaved that night in Green Park.’

‘I know, and I was really ashamed
of myself.’

‘A lot of water has gone under the
bridge since then, so that doesn’t matter any more. But considering you said
in a
letter that you cared about me, you
should’ve been honest about your injuries and let me decide what to do. I was
left thinking you’d found someone else.’

He turned away from her. ‘I was
never right for you, Mari, we both knew that. I couldn’t read or write well, I
had nothing to offer you. You needed a man who could take you dancing at the Ritz
and all that. I went out to your uncle’s place before I had to report to the
army training camp. I couldn’t write well enough to express why I’d
behaved so badly that night we went out, but I thought I could explain it to your
face. Yet as soon as I saw how you lived, I knew there was no point in even trying
to make you understand and forgive me. You could never be happy with a ship’s
steward, or an enlisted man. You needed a toff who could keep you in
style.’

Mariette felt chastened. She wanted to
say that he had misjudged her, but she knew he hadn’t. Back then, she really
had been the person he was talking about.

‘Maybe I was that shallow
then,’ she agreed. ‘But the war has knocked that out of me. Uncle Noah,
his wife and daughter died in the bombing of the Café de Paris. We were there to
celebrate my twenty-first. I only survived because I was in the Ladies when the bomb
dropped.’

His eyes softened. ‘I’m
sorry to hear that,’ he said.

‘I’m not asking for
sympathy,’ she said. ‘I just need to explain why I’m not that way
any more. Right after the funeral, Aunt Lisette’s son made me leave their
house. So I went to Whitechapel to stay with a friend – not a good place to see out
the Blitz, but I was happy there. Do you remember telling me I should go to see the
East End?’

Morgan nodded.

‘Then you’ll be glad to know
that I came to understand what you meant. I never did find a man to take me dancing
at the Ritz, and with this knee I
doubt I’ll be dancing anywhere again.’

There was a perceptible change in
Morgan’s body language. His shoulders relaxed and when he turned back towards
her, his expression was one of understanding.

‘I saw on your notes that you had
a bullet in your knee. How did that happen?’

‘It’s a long story, and
I’m not really allowed to tell it,’ she sighed. ‘But if you want
to know about me, as much as I want to know all that’s happened to you, come
and visit me when you aren’t busy. Looks like I’m going to be here for a
while.’

He hesitated.

She felt he wanted to, but he
wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

‘Come on, Morgan!’ she
exclaimed. ‘Nothing bad can happen just talking.’

He smiled then. ‘No, of course it
can’t. Are you likely to have visitors this evening?’

‘No, the only person who knows
I’m here is my landlady. I think she’s coming this afternoon.’

‘Then I’ll pop back when my
shift ends. I must go now, there are people to move around,’ he said as he
began to push the trolley out through the door.

A few minutes later, Staff Nurse Jones
came in to check the dressing on her leg. Mariette had only spoken to this plain,
buxom nurse for a few moments on the previous day, but she’d found her to be
warm and chatty. She seemed a good person to ask about Morgan.

‘I met Morgan Griffiths, the
porter, when he was a steward on the ship on which I came over from New
Zealand,’ she said companionably. ‘He remembered me, but I think he was
embarrassed because of his scar. Can you tell me anything about him?’

‘Only
that he is a kind and dedicated man,’ Nurse Jones said. ‘Officially
he’s a porter, but he’s almost qualified as an SRN too. He knows as much
about nursing as the most senior of us. I can’t count the times he’s
helped us out in an emergency. Some say he should be a doctor, he reads up about
everything.’

Mariette felt a glow at hearing such
praise for him, and delight that he’d learned to read. ‘He used to look
like Errol Flynn,’ she said. ‘He was so handsome, you wouldn’t
believe.’

‘When you spend a little time in
his company, you find yourself thinking he’s still like that,’ the nurse
said, and laughed lightly. ‘He has such a way with people, you just
don’t notice his scar. Of course, it’s a great deal better now than it
was; he’s had a few operations since then. He’s never going to have
film-star looks again, but I think the woman who manages to capture his heart will
be very lucky.’

‘Hasn’t he got anyone
then?’

‘No, the silly man doesn’t
socialize. I think he spends all his spare time with his nose in a book.’

‘I suppose when you’ve been
very handsome, and suddenly you lose those looks, you are likely to want to hide
yourself away,’ Mariette said.

‘Yes, just as you are likely to
cover this leg up,’ the nurse said, looking away from the bullet wound she was
cleaning to the many other scars on Mariette’s leg. ‘Looks like this
isn’t the first time you’ve been in the wars?’

‘I was in a shelter when it got a
direct hit and a beam fell across my legs,’ Mariette said, looking objectively
at her badly scarred legs. She’d grown used to them, and rarely gave them any
thought, but the new livid wound in her knee, surrounded by inflamed skin, made the
old scars look much worse. She had to admit that, along with being very painful, her
leg looked hideous.

‘Poor
you,’ the nurse said.

‘I was the lucky one, I managed to
wriggle out of the rubble. Only two other people were saved. Not being able to wear
shorts, or have bare legs, is a small price to pay for your life.’

‘So how did you get a German
bullet in your knee? Everyone wants to know,’ the nurse asked with a
conspiratorial grin.

‘Running away from a German in
France,’ Mariette grinned back. ‘Well, actually, getting into a rowing
boat to get away.’

‘The Resistance?’ The
nurse’s eyebrows lifted.

‘I’m not allowed to give any
details, sorry,’ Mariette said. ‘So tell me about you? Do you come from
Southampton? How long have you been nursing?’

‘Well, that tells me all I need to
know,’ the nurse laughed. ‘A reluctant heroine!’

Sybil arrived to see Mariette
mid-afternoon carrying a large bouquet of hothouse roses which must have cost her a
fortune. She dropped the flowers on the bed and enveloped Mariette in a tearful
hug.

When she eventually let her go, her eyes
were puffy. ‘I spoke to your mum in New Zealand,’ she said.
‘I’m going to ring them again tonight to tell them how you are. Your mum
sounded as if she wanted to jump on the next boat here, and your dad was standing by
asking questions. Of course, I had nothing much to tell them. Only that you had a
bad knee.’ She paused to look at the cage holding the blankets off
Mariette’s knee. ‘How bad is it?’

Mariette tried to smile. But it was
hard, because her knee was hurting a great deal. ‘I’ve got to have
another operation, it’s pretty badly smashed. Let’s say I won’t
ever win a “Lovely Legs” competition. But I made it out of France with
the kids.’

‘You were rescuing
children?’

Mariette put her hand over her mouth.
‘I wasn’t supposed to say that, so forget it. This secret stuff just
isn’t me, and I’m really glad I’m out of it now. My nerves would
never have coped with another mission.’

‘No one could be happier about
that than me,’ Sybil said. ‘Except, perhaps, your mum. She, of course,
couldn’t understand what you were doing in France, or even why you were doing
anything other than serving drinks in the pub. Edwin is trying to get down to see
you. I had twenty questions from
him on
the telephone, he sounded quite cross really. I said, “You should be very
proud of her,” but all he could say was that you should’ve told him what
you were doing.’

Mariette sighed deeply. ‘He, of
all people, should understand why I couldn’t say anything.’

‘I know, but it must have been a
shock to hear that someone you love, and who you thought was at home, safe and
sound, has been shot in France.’

‘You know, Sybil, I really
don’t think Edwin is for me,’ Mariette admitted wearily. ‘He needs
someone his family will approve of, some quiet, well-behaved young lady who
won’t ever give him a moment’s anxiety.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’
Sybil said. ‘He adores you just the way you are.’

‘He might have done, at first, but
I think that’s worn off, and he’s too much of a gentleman to admit it.
But then, I don’t know that I even want a gentleman like him. I want a man
like my father, strong, noble and capable, who doesn’t give a fig about what
anyone thinks of him.’

‘You’re being a bit mean
about him,’ Sybil reproached her. ‘He’s a fighter pilot, the
bravest of the brave. He’s a gentleman because that’s the way he was
brought up. If you were my daughter, I’d want you to marry him.’

Mariette picked up Sybil’s hand
and squeezed it between both of hers. ‘You are a great stand-in mother,’
she said with affection. ‘But I think my real one would say there has to be
passion to make a marriage work. She also wouldn’t like the fact that his
parents don’t think I’m good enough for him.’

‘You don’t know that,’
Sybil said with some indignation.

‘I do, that’s why he’s
never taken me home. And this little escapade won’t make things any better.
They’ll think I’m wayward, too spirited, a bit dangerous, which,
perhaps, I am. And maybe I need a man who likes that about me.’

Mariette’s
leg was throbbing now, and it was making her feel quite odd. But she didn’t
say anything, just carried on talking to Sybil, moving on after a while to tell her
about meeting Morgan again. She admitted they’d had a torrid romance on the
ship coming over here. As she went on to explain that he’d been badly scarred,
Sybil looked very anxious.

‘It sounds as if you want to start
it all up again with him,’ she said.

‘I don’t know about
that,’ Mariette admitted. ‘I was a silly, empty-headed girl when I met
him, and he was a handsome but uneducated ship’s steward. The war has changed
us both. But there was something about seeing him again, rather like opening a book
again that you hadn’t finished reading, and finding it’s really good. So
maybe!’

‘Oh, Mariette,’ Sybil
scoffed. ‘Life isn’t like that. He’s been a recluse because of his
scar, and he’s probably got a huge chip on his shoulder. And as for you! Well,
you are clutching at straws. As soon as you are well enough to travel, I’m
taking you home to nurse you there. OK, so maybe Edwin isn’t “the
One”, but I can’t believe a man who has been skulking in hospitals for
years, rather than telling you what happened to him, is right for you
either.’

Mariette felt very much worse after
Sybil went home. She was feverish and weepy, but she put it down to her irritation
that Sybil hadn’t agreed with her about Edwin and had poured cold water on to
her meeting up with Morgan again.

She was also hurt that Edwin
hadn’t sent a loving, concerned message via Sybil. She knew that she was being
entirely irrational, given that she’d just been complaining about him. But she
knew he would have expected her to be at his bedside the very next day, if
he’d been shot down.

She also felt cross with the doctor
because he hadn’t come
back to her
to discuss what the X-ray revealed. She had expected her knee to be painful for some
time, but not as bad as it was, and no one had come near her to check if she needed
stronger painkillers.

The smell of the mince and carrots for
tea made her stomach heave, and she didn’t even try it. The orderly who came
to take her plate told her off for not eating her dinner, and Mariette snapped at
her, saying it wasn’t fit for a dog.

Afterwards, she was ashamed. She lay
back on the pillow and cried.

She was still crying when Morgan came
in. ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know really,’
she replied. ‘I just feel miserable, and my knee is really
throbbing.’

He put his hand on her forehead, and she
saw a look of concern on his face. ‘How long have you been hot like
this?’ he asked.

‘A while,’ she said.

‘How long is it since they took
your temperature and checked your blood pressure?’

‘The staff nurse did it when she
changed my dressing this morning,’ she said.

‘Not since?’

She shook her head.

Morgan got up and went out of the room.
He returned a few seconds later with Staff Nurse Jones, who was just about to go off
duty. She took the chart from the foot of Mariette’s bed and pursed her lips
as she looked at Morgan.

‘It seems she was forgotten. We
have been very busy this afternoon, but that is no excuse. But never mind,
I’ll do it now.’

She took Mariette’s pulse, checked
her blood pressure and put the thermometer in her mouth. After checking her
temperature, she looked concerned and
said she was going to call the doctor. She asked Morgan to stay with Mariette.

‘Was my temperature high? And what
does that mean?’ she asked him, once Staff Nurse Jones had left the room.

‘I think it must have been high,
and that could mean you’ve got a little infection. Or you could be coming down
with something. Either way, they’ll soon put you right.’

She wondered if he was holding her hand
because that was what he did with anyone who was ill. Or was it because she was
special? She really didn’t feel well, and it was more than just feeling weepy
because Sybil had been short with her, or the doctor hadn’t come.

‘Were you out in the cold, on the
open sea, for a long time before you were picked up?’ he asked.

‘I think it was only an
hour,’ she said, ‘but it seemed like for ever. The children were very
quiet and brave. I hope they are all somewhere nice now.’

A little voice at the back of her head
reminded her she wasn’t supposed to talk about the rescue. But she felt too
woozy to care, and closed her eyes.

‘I had to kill a German to get
away,’ she heard herself say. Her voice sounded a very long way off. ‘I
cut his throat, and his blood was all over me. But I can’t have done it
properly because he was the one who fired at me, just as I was getting into the
boat.’

She opened her eyes to find Morgan
staring at her. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that,’ she said
wearily.

‘Maybe you needed to,’ he
said, and stroked her forehead soothingly. ‘I won’t be telling anyone
else.’

‘Is it kismet that we met
again?’

He chuckled. ‘I think it must be.
It’s funny that I was so scared of you seeing my face. And yet, now you are
poorly, you’re looking at me just the same way you used to.’

‘I’m seeing the same man,’ she said. ‘But he’s just a
little hazy now. Don’t go away, will you?’

A little while later, a nurse popped
her head round the door to say the doctor was delayed as there was an emergency
elsewhere in the hospital.

Morgan was growing more and more
concerned because, by now, Mariette was barely conscious.

‘I think this is an emergency
too,’ he whispered to the nurse. ‘She’s burning up.’

He had already soaked a cloth in cold
water, wrung it out and put it on her forehead. While he hoped it was just flu, or a
very bad cold coming on – something which could easily be treated – a gut feeling
told him an infection had got into her wound.

He’d seen it happen so often
before, especially when there was a long period of time between the patient being
wounded and arriving in hospital. One minute the patient was cheerful and chatty,
the next running a fever. But, even worse, all too often this led to the infected
limb being amputated.

People often asked Morgan if he would
rather have lost a limb than be burned. He always told them he’d rather have
the burn, as it wasn’t the curse others saw it as.

He had been retreating to Dunkirk with
his regiment when a German plane fired on the truck he was driving, and it burst
into flames. Before he could get out of the truck, the flames had licked up his
face, and the searing pain almost paralysed him. In that moment, he thought he was
going to die.

But another soldier hauled him out of
the truck and smothered his face in a wet cloth. Fortunately, his uniform had
protected his body, and the burns on his hands were only superficial.

He did feel very sorry for himself, at
first. The pain, the shock of being disfigured and the fear that he would be a
kind of outcast for the rest of his
life made him feel like killing himself for a while. But when he was still at the
hospital in Folkestone, he was told he could transfer to the vast Netley Military
Hospital, near Southampton, to be seen by Dr Franz Dudek, a brilliant Polish plastic
surgeon.

Dr Dudek might have improved his
appearance with his patience and skill, but it was Mr Mercer, a surgeon at Netley,
who really turned Morgan’s life around purely by giving him the will to learn
to read and write.

‘You must master it,’ he
said simply. ‘A handsome face may have opened doors for you before the
accident, but a scarred one may slam those doors shut unless you can prove to people
you are smart.’

Mr Mercer asked Mrs Lovage, a former
primary school teacher and the wife of one of his friends, to teach Morgan. He left
the ward three afternoons a week for his lessons with her, in a small office which
was rarely used. Three months later, during which time he had undergone three
separate operations on his face, he could read as well as Mrs Lovage. And
she’d also schooled him in writing letters.

Because Morgan was afraid of having to
leave the hospital, where he felt safe and accepted, he made himself useful on the
wards, portering, feeding patients and cleaning. Sometimes, when he helped bath or
feed soldiers who had lost both legs, been crushed by heavy machinery, or been shot
in the head and suffered severe brain damage, he knew he was lucky it was only his
face.

He was a voluntary worker at Netley for
almost a year, happy to work for bed and board. At night-time he read any book about
nursing that he could get his hands on.

It was Mr Mercer who persuaded him to
take a porter’s post at Southampton Borough Hospital, where he also operated
and could speak up for Morgan. As he pointed out,
Morgan couldn’t hide in a military hospital for
ever, he had to learn to mix with civilians again.

As it turned out, the Borough was a much
happier place for him than Netley. It wasn’t run on military lines, as Netley
had been, and it wasn’t so vast, or impersonal. People did stare at him, and
sometimes he overheard remarks too, but he found that it bothered him less and less
as time went by, and the majority of staff were warm and friendly.

The management made a special case of
him, allowing him to do his nursing training on the job, and giving him time off
from portering to attend lectures. He found that working in a hospital wasn’t
that different from being on a ship – everyone had their jobs, and they all pulled
together. He found lodgings close to the hospital, and he even made some
friends.

In three months’ time, he was due
to take his final nursing exams. He didn’t know if any other hospital would
want a male nurse, so he might have to stay at the Borough, but that was fine by
him, he was happy there.

When he was first injured, he had
thought about Mariette constantly. While he was still in Folkestone he wrote a
letter telling her not to come and visit him, half hoping she would disobey him. He
tortured himself with thoughts of her with another man too. Later, once he’d
been transferred to Netley, he was tempted to write again and beg her to visit him,
if only to prove to himself that he had been right in thinking she’d run a
mile from him.

But gradually she slipped into the place
where he put everything that was ‘before the accident’. He didn’t
want to see anyone from that time, or even think about them, because to do so would
only bring home to him what he’d lost.

Books took the place of women in his
life. They took him to places he’d never been, they taught him things, made
him laugh and comforted him too. He
told himself no woman could do that for him.