And then he was gone, tramping off in the darkness to where he could watch for the burial detail, as promised.
I hastily swallowed a cup of tea, then went back into the ward, stumbling on the threshold.
Just then one of the other nursing sisters called to me, asking me to help her change the bedding of a patient whose fever had broken in a cold sweat.
Glancing at my watch, I went down the ward to where Sister Marshall was waiting. It was only a little more than forty minutes before the hour was up. Not long at all now before I could wake Matron. I blinked my eyes as the face of the watch seemed to swim in front of them. Shaking off my fatigue, I smiled at Sister Marshall’s patient. “This is a good sign. You’ll feel like drinking a little broth later. To begin healing.” I made a mental note to bring the Lieutenant a cup as soon as he was settled again.
My head was pounding as I bent over the bed to tuck in the sheets and my shoulders were beginning to ache. I ignored the pain, moving on to the next bed to hold a patient upright as he went into a paroxysm of coughing, hardly able to draw the next breath. Thirty minutes now until I could wake Matron.
When the time came, I didn’t wake up Matron after all, nor tell her about the extra body in the shed.
Instead I was being carried to an empty cot on a stretcher, and I was soon fighting for my life.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS MY turn to be nursed, and I remember very little about it. Feverish and choking on the fluids that threatened to overwhelm my struggling lungs, I was ill for days, slipping in and out of consciousness.
Once it seemed I heard Matron saying, “She’s strong, I thought she’d be all right.”
I tried to rouse myself to tell her about Private Wilson and the body in the shed, but I couldn’t put the words together and must have made no sense.
Another time I heard Dr. Wright speaking. I opened my eyes and saw his thin, haggard face as he bent over me to listen to my lungs. “Her father is Colonel Richard Crawford. He’ll want to know.”
Know what? That I was dying? But I couldn’t let them down by dying! I couldn’t imagine my mother’s face when word came. A telegram? A letter? I couldn’t hold the thought long enough to decide.
Later still, it was Simon Brandon’s voice that reached me in the dim recesses of illness and pain, urging me to drink a little broth to keep my strength up. But Simon was in England, and I was in France. Confused, I let myself drift once more, wanting to cry with the agony in my chest that was threatening to kill me.
He was there again, bathing my face and hands as the fever peaked, and finally as I lay so weak that opening my eyes seemed to be too great an effort even to contemplate, his voice said bracingly, “It was a close-run thing, Bess, but you’re going to live. I’m taking you to England tomorrow. Hang on a little longer, and you’ll be home.”
A while later, it was an Australian voice that spoke to me, and I felt my hands gripped tightly. But I couldn’t respond.
I was told afterward that I’d slept most of the journey back to England. Because of that, and the fact that in Somerset it had been raining for a week or more, it was decided that the longer journey home would be too much for me. Instead as soon as we landed in Dover, I was settled into a motorcar amongst a mountain of pillows and carried by easy stages to Eastbourne, on the southern coast of Sussex. There my father had taken rooms at the Grand Hotel.
I was aware in Dover-only just-of my mother’s hands touching my face and her voice saying, “My darling!” and then my father telling her, “Don’t cry, my love, she’s safe now.”
And Simon’s voice said, “She was exhausted to begin with, even before she was taken ill. It will be some time before she’s herself again.”
I hoped I wasn’t dreaming in delirium, that they really were there.
I awoke one morning in a lovely room filled with sunshine, the sound of the sea rolling across the shingle strand a soothing backdrop to living in the present once more. As I opened my eyes, I found it difficult to imagine where I was. Not at home. Nor in London or France. Not even in the cramped little stateroom on a crossing. Around me now were the elegant furnishings and high ceilings of a first-class hotel. Or was it an hotel?
India? The Maharani’s palace? But I was lying in a bed, not on silver-shot silk cushions.
Just then my gaze found my mother’s face. Surprised, I said, “Hullo.” My voice sounded rusty from disuse. All the same, I could almost watch the strain fade as she smiled at me.
“My darling girl,” she exclaimed, and her fingers reached out to brush a strand of hair from my forehead. “Could you drink a little more broth, do you think?”
And for once I drained the cup before I lay back against the pillows, too weak to do more than watch the shadows of sunlight on water that danced across the ceiling above my head. The sea air was heavenly, the sun bright, no guns thundering in the distance too close for comfort. I took a deep breath and smiled.
As she took the cup away, my mother must have said something to my father, because he came in almost at once, taking up my hands as they lay on the coverlet and kissing them gently. “Welcome home,” he said, his voice husky.
Much later I understood how hard it had been for him, this illness of mine. For once in his life, he had faced an enemy a regiment with all its might couldn’t defeat.
He sat for a time by my bed, watching me as I drifted quietly into sleep again, and when I woke, it was Simon sitting there in his place.
“The Colonel is resting. Your mother as well,” he told me softly. “I don’t think they’ve closed their eyes for days.”
I was sure he hadn’t either, for the lines of worry in his face told their own tale.
Smiling, he fed me more broth, and held my hand as my father had done while I slipped in and out of a healing sleep.
They took it by turns, the three of them, staying constantly by my side, plumping pillows, feeding me until I could manage a spoon for myself, and talking of things that had nothing to do with war or sickness. Gradually I understood where I was and was even carried to the window to lie there for a while and watch the sea below.
When I was stronger I was allowed to sit on the sunny balcony, swathed in blankets and shawls. My father read to me sometimes, and Simon sat by me in companionable silence. My mother tried not to treat me like her small daughter recovering from measles, and that was a measure of how frightened she had been for me.
I on the other hand was unspeakably grateful that the three people dearest to me in the world had not been struck down by this merciless killer. I learned too that Mrs. Hennessey, who let the flat where I stayed in London on my leaves, had also come through unscathed. Mary, one of my flatmates, had been ill, but it was a milder case, and she had survived. Diana had been just as lucky. There was no accounting for the way the disease had chosen its victims.
One evening we were sitting together, Simon and I, watching the moon rise over the water and enjoying the milder weather. Earlier, the band had been playing in the open-air stand close by the strand, and the music had drifted up to us along with the soft whispers of the waves rolling in. There had been old favorites as well as martial tunes, and I had hummed along with some of the selections. Then, reluctantly breaking the mood, I said, “Simon. I had the most vivid dream while I was ill. It had to do with Major Carson. Do you remember him?”
“In fact I saw him in France not three months ago,” he said. “What brought him to mind?”
“I’m not quite sure.” Hesitatingly, I added, “He was dead, his body hidden amongst the influenza victims. I think-it appeared that his neck had been broken.”
In the pale light of the moon I saw his gaze turn toward me. After a moment he said, “Fever does odd things with the mind. And you were very ill.”
“Yes, I know. Still, I dreamed I needed to tell Matron about finding him, but she was sleeping, and I couldn’t remember where. And I could hear the burial detail coming for him, and I had to stop it. But I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak. As if I were paralyzed or strapped down to my cot. It was all rather frightening.”
“I shouldn’t worry about it, my dear,” he said gently. “The dream will fade as you heal.”
