The Moonlight Mistress (12 page)

To top it all off, after forty-eight hours their progress slowed to a hobble when their portion of the battalion caught up to the army of refugees, the former inhabitants of villages and hamlets who’d originally welcomed them as saviors. Now they were less happy. The British, their words and gestures indicated, belonged between them and the advancing Germans. Else what good were they? Daglish tried to explain
strategic retirement
to one vituperative old woman via sign language; Gabriel had to drag him away by the elbow, and then haul him off the road and out of sight when the younger man argued, then briefly wept in exhausted frustration.

Gabriel kept hold of Daglish’s forearm with one hand and fished for his handkerchief with the other. “Here, wipe your face,” he said. “You can’t let the men see you like this.”

“Bloody Goddamn fucking hell,” Daglish said, pressing the linen to his eyes. He blew his nose, leaving a smear of sweaty dust on the cloth, then sucked in a breath and blew it out. “My feet are bleeding.”

Gabriel patted his shoulder, wishing he had someone to pat his, or better still, massage his aching lower back and swollen feet. He took his hand away before manly comfort changed
into something else. “Mine, too. At least we’re not carrying sixty-odd pounds of kit. All right now?”

Daglish looked over his shoulder at a field of turnips, currently being trampled by fleeing refugees and their assorted wagons and prams and dogcarts. “No, but I’ll keep on.” His eyes met Gabriel’s. “Thank you. I mean it.”

“Good man.” Meyer clapped his shoulder, as Ashby would have done. “Let’s catch them up.”

The British Expeditionary Force might have prevented the Germans from invading France, but Gabriel did not consider it a promising beginning to the war.

THE BILLET WASN’T BAD. NOEL, AS THE NEW COMMANDING officer, and Hailey were assigned what had once been the master bedroom of a prosperous banker, with more of the men bedding down in the parlor, study, garage and emptied wine cellar. Hailey set down three small kits atop a polished bureau and began fussing with their contents, his back to Noel. One of the kits had belonged to Captain Wilks.

The bed linens smelt overwhelmingly of cedar, mingling with the rich lemon oil–beeswax odor of furniture polish, incongruously clean and fresh layered upon the thick layers of their own sweat and horse and dust and gunpowder. Noel could also still smell blood, Wilks’s blood, soaked and dried into Hailey’s uniform tunic. He could practically smell the miasmic grief hanging over Hailey’s small form, as well. Left to his own devices, he would have crossed the room and once again taken Hailey into his arms, as if he were a relative.

Such things were frowned upon in His Majesty’s army. Instead, he wandered over to the long window and thrust
aside the heavy drapes, letting the last sunbeams filter into the room. He could at least give Hailey some privacy, usually in short supply. Hailey might appreciate that more than anything else. “Does this place have modern plumbing?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. Do you want a bath, sir?”

Noel gazed out the window, at a rolling green lawn now scored by military boots. His Majesty’s officers did not run outside and roll in the grass, either. “I think you’d better go first. Get that blood off you. Take your time, I won’t be back until you’re done. Requisition some kit out of these wardrobes to wear until your tunic dries.”

“Sir.” The word was choked.

“I’ve got to have the standard chat with the rest of the men downstairs. You can come down when you’re ready.”

“Sir.”

“And leave me some hot water, will you? Go on, now. Leave all that for later. I’ll help you decide what we should keep of Wilks’s things.” Without waiting for an answer, Noel left the room and trotted down the carpeted staircase. Men sprawled everywhere, packs for pillows, several snoring, Lieutenant Smith among them. Seeing him, Sergeant Pittfield scrambled to his feet, but Noel waved him back down. “Just wake them up for me. Gently, now.”

He hadn’t planned on being a captain, or even acting as one, quite so soon. His mother would be impressed. His father would be convinced Noel had moved up through superior innate ability instead of Wilks’s being caught by a bullet.

Pipes groaned and gurgled. Hailey was being sensible. Noel said to the array of filthy, unshaven, exhausted faces, “We’ll have a watch, two and two. The rest of you, sleep. You’ve more than earned it.”

Meyer found him afterward and glanced at the ceiling, their private code for outside. They walked a short distance in silence before he said, “Is Hailey all right?”

“Will be,” Noel said. He considered saying something else about Hailey, then changed his mind. “Anyone else? You?”

“Fine. Daglish had a moment or two. He’s fine now. Smith’s enjoying himself.”

“Vicious little bastard,” Noel said without heat. “A vicar’s son, too.”

“I wanted to say…” Meyer’s pale skin had always flushed easily. “You were right about Jemima.”

Hearing her name here, after all they’d experienced, was surreal. “I shouldn’t have said the things I did.”

Meyer clasped his hands behind his back. “You never said an untrue word about her, not once.”

That was true, but it wasn’t what mattered, not really. What mattered was that he’d been secretly jealous, not of Jemima, but of the children she would eventually give to her husband, and that had led him to be cruel to his closest friend. Noel asked, “Did you love her, Gabriel?”

He didn’t look away when he said, “No.”

It wasn’t fair that Meyer should be so alone. Noel tried not to put himself in Meyer’s place, and failed miserably. “I’m sorry. Truly I am.”

Meyer looked uncomfortable. “Thanks. I—I felt a bit guilty sometimes. Knowing I’d found someone, when it was you who really wanted to marry.”

“You’ll find someone else. Someone who loves you.”
I will find someone. Someone like me, who will stay with me and bear my children.

“Enough, all right?” Meyer cuffed him. Noel feinted in
return, tried to grab his shoulder and failed when Meyer took off running. Noel brought him down in a tackle and they wrestled viciously but companionably, growing ever muddier, until Hailey appeared to summon them inside.

Noel felt much better for the exercise.

THE DAY AFTER CRISPIN LEFT FOR FRANCE, LUCILLA boarded a train for London. Though she and Clara Lockie had once been close, she had not seen her in three years, since before Clara’s employment with the Red Cross. However, the wire she’d sent had been answered with all the gleeful enthusiasm typical of her friend. Remembering the teas they’d shared as undergraduates, she’d packed tins of ginger biscuits and Bovril in the bottom of her carpetbag, along with a couple of the romantic novels Clara had always loved to mock.

She successfully maneuvered the chaos of Victoria Station, though she was shocked to notice how many of the passengers were men in khaki uniforms, or in civilian clothing and carrying military haversacks. It was one thing to know there was a war, and quite another to see the evidence in such a familiar environment. On the streets, she passed a line of men outside a recruitment office, and a small but vigorous demonstration against becoming involved in the affairs of Europe. She caught herself stopping at the end of the block and
glancing back at the extraordinarily handsome man who led the demonstrators; he didn’t wear a hat, and his strong features and leonine gray-streaked hair made him look like a king in a portrait. Though he would likely be horrified to know it. Lucilla looked away, and her gaze collided with a man in a dark City suit, who touched his hat brim and smiled at her with a bit more warmth than she would normally have expected. She pretended she hadn’t seen, and hurried on her way. Where had all these men come from? Or was it that her recent experiences had opened her eyes?

Clara worked in an office building overrun by men in dark suits and bowler hats. Lucilla took the lift up to the appropriate floor and was impressed to find that she had a room to herself, overlooking a street crammed with vendors of flowers and fruit. Clara rose to greet her, enfolding her in an enthusiastic embrace and kissing both her cheeks. “You are a godsend!” she exclaimed. “Have a seat. Would you like some tea? I have fresh in the pot.”

Once her gifts to Clara were laughed over, and Lucilla settled in an old armchair, teacup in hand, she said, “Why am I a godsend? Surely you’re not lacking for volunteers.”

“My dear, it’s not a volunteer that’s wanted here. Tell me, you’re still working with the surgery cases, aren’t you?” She referred to a sheet of notepaper on her battered desk. “You’ve worked with abdominal surgeries?”

“Yes,” Lucilla said. “It pays the best, frankly. Are you saying that this is a paying position?”

Clara beamed. “Yes! You see, there is to be a women’s hospital in France.”

“For women?”

“No, no. Staffed by women. Run by women. Women
doctors! Only, of the ones we have, they haven’t had much experience with the sorts of wounds one encounters in war. Miss Fitzclarence qualified in obstetrics, and Miss Rivers in osteopathic surgery, so that’s a bit better. Miss Gould is to be chief of anesthesiology, and she’s quite experienced. But they’re in want of a surgical nurse, someone experienced who’s willing to work with women and teach them, as well. That’s why your wire made me dance, Lucilla, dance about my tiny room here, and then immediately dash off a reply to you.”

Lucilla could barely speak for wonder. A hospital staffed by women? And Clara offered her money to do this? Of course, women doctors might be just as awful as the male variety, but somehow she doubted it. “How many beds?” she asked.

“One hundred to start, perhaps one hundred twenty. We’re hoping to have two hundred eventually. The site is found—it’s to be a casino building, made over. Local workmen are putting in extra wood stoves for heat, and more electrical lines for the surgeries. We’re hoping to send the first staff over within the week. So, will you go? Please say you will.” Clara leaned across the desk and gripped her forearm. “I wish I could go myself. Perhaps later, if there are funds. Such an adventure!”

Adventure always proved to be more tiresome and dirty than one wished, but Lucilla couldn’t bear to stay at home any longer. Now that her studies in Germany had been terminated, she needed a purpose. Once she began to assemble her supplies, a tentative excitement began to wake her early in the mornings and keep her up at night as she paged through her medical books, finding the most useful to bring with her.

Two weeks later, she found herself again in Le Havre, about to board a train, only this time with a trunk for luggage and a group of cheerful nurses and women orderlies for com
panions. She was tempted only briefly to visit the Rue du Canotage; after all, what would she say? Pascal would not be there. And she couldn’t wander off; they might miss their train, and trains for civilians were currently few and far between. She would be back where she’d been at the beginning, and she intended to go forward, not backward. She was making a life for herself.

The first days were all hard work, such hard work that she fell into her bed each night already nearly asleep from exhaustion. Bedsteads had arrived, mattresses had accidentally gone to Rouen and had to be retrieved by lorry. Twenty roulette wheels had to be carried up to the attics and stacked atop card tables covered in green baize. Tanks of nitrous oxide were procured, but some of the tanks of oxygen needed to mix with it had leaked and arrived empty, and had to be replaced. Only boys and men over fifty years of age were available to work as orderlies, so Lucilla and even some of the doctors pitched in to carry immense piles of bedding and cases of bandages up the casino’s grand staircases and into the wards. The official inspectors arrived, and declared one of the rooms they’d chosen for surgeries to be unacceptable, so another had to be prepared, all its carpeting ripped out and every surface scrubbed and painted.

At last, however, Lucilla gazed around a makeshift ward in satisfaction. The variously colored brocaded coverlets and lap rugs, all donations, made the room look cheerful. She’d successfully directed her cadre of six French volunteers in making the beds and laying out the requisite kit in the lockers beside: pajamas, flannel, towel and soap, and a bag to hold the patient’s uniform once it had been labeled and laundered out in the paved courtyard. She doubted this perfection would last
beyond the first influx of wounded, but she let her volunteers enjoy their success while they could, and for a break requested they stock the entertainment cabinet at the far end of the ward. Lucilla set the
mademoiselles
free to roam the casino’s every room and closet to obtain sufficient decks of cards and cups of dice, secretly gleeful that such a male bastion was now the domain of women.

She looked out the glass doors at a crew of local workers struggling with electrical wiring for the temporary buildings that would house the X-ray department and laboratories. The white-haired man who directed them looked ready to strangle his helpers. Several more aged Frenchmen, aided by a crew of youngsters, were building paths out of boards, so trolleys could be wheeled directly from the hospital. One of those small buildings would be Lucilla’s own kingdom, where she would perform double duty compounding disinfectant and irrigation solutions. The extra work would be worth it for the attendant privacy.

Matron swept through the elaborately carved doorway, studying the watch she wore clipped to her uniform cape. “Daglish, I’m afraid I’ll have to move you over to the east wing. It’s not quite ready, and I’ve heard we might be receiving casualties sooner than we’d expected.”

So it begins
, Lucilla thought. “Yes, Matron. Someone will look after the
mademoiselles?
”

“I’ll send Sister Inkson.”

Most of the rooms designated for the isolation cases were smaller than the grand salons they’d taken over for the general wards. The gorgeous burgundy-and-gold-f locked wallpaper had not survived its first encounter with antisepsis procedures, nor had the beautifully oiled wooden floor, but at least the
painted ceilings, rich with flowering vines and imaginatively draped and undraped nymphs, would give the patients something to stare at while lying on their backs. The beds, she noted with approval, had brass head and footboards that would be easy to keep clean, and the furniture, though heavy and antique, was all well stocked with bandages and other materials for dressings.

She found another volunteer and set her to folding back the bedcovers, in preparation for slipping patients in with little fuss. Then she hurried to the large surgical ward, formerly a long room set up for mingling and drinking before the night’s gaming began. Its minimal furnishings had been dragged away, and once the carpets had been removed, they’d set up portable beds the length of the room. She checked that supplies were laid to hand at each bed, then moved into the operating theater itself. Quickly, she counted the trays of sterilized and wrapped scalpels and retracting tools, then the readily accessible disinfectants. Another nurse and Miss Gould examined the supplies of anesthesia and made sure each unit of equipment was operational. Lucilla went on to the pharmacy.

Sister Loudon welcomed her with a brief smile and pointed to a stack of crates. Most of the straw-swaddled bottles had not yet been unloaded. Lucilla set to the task with a will, the clink of bottles bringing sweet memories of her tiny, quiet lab at the Institute. Suddenly, she remembered seeing Pascal for the first time. She’d been washing glass tubing, and had turned at his quiet
“Pardon, mademoiselle.”
She wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there, waiting for her to be finished with the delicate glassware. She’d quickly given him directions to an office upstairs, Kauz’s office as it happened, then returned to her work, having no idea what was to come. Did all change begin so simply?

She would give anything to talk to him now. She felt the phantom brush of his mustache beside her mouth.

No wounded had arrived by the afternoon, but mail did, a brimming sack hauled between the two strongest ambulance drivers, college girls who looked so much alike in their bobbed hair and squarish faces that Lucilla had at first assumed them sisters. Lucilla had a cheerful letter from Clara, and a small tin of biscuits from her mother, but nothing at all from Crispin. She worried where he was, and what he was doing. Surely he had not gone into action already.

She couldn’t think of him, not when she had work to do. She would be seeing entirely too much in the days to come, and she wouldn’t have the energy to do her work, keep up the spirits of the wounded and keep herself healthy if she worried endlessly over things she could not control. She took copies of the London papers, only two days old, and carried them off to the tea room. And she wondered where Pascal was now.