She lifted the sheet, and I could see how swollen and inflamed Simon’s shoulder and arm were. “We’ve kept the wound clean, we’ve fed him to keep up his strength, but it’s a matter of time. I’ve grown rather fond of him, and I would hate to see him back in surgery. But I’m afraid…” She let her voice dwindle, as if not wishing to speak the words. “Such a strong, handsome man. A pity, isn’t it? War and all this pain and suffering.”
“Yes.”
I brought a chair over and sat down. Simon was restless, and he still spoke in staccato sentences. I listened for a while, accustoming my ears to the sound of his voice and words I hadn’t spoken except to my family for some years. But it came back to me surprisingly quickly.
Simon was on patrol. That much I gathered from the names he mentioned. They had been ambushed in the hills above the Khyber Pass, and he was trying to keep his men alive until a rescue column arrived. He’d sent a heliograph message to a watcher some distance away on the Indian side of the border and it was a matter of time before help got to them.
I heard Simon say, “Keep your head down, man!” And then he swore. “They’ve got a sniper up there somewhere. I saw the muzzle flash. He’s damned good with that rifle. It must be British, not native, to be that accurate.” And then someone must have said something to him, for he replied, “I told the Colonel Sahib that I suspected one of those damned traveling musicians might be a spy, but we couldn’t prove it.”
The switch to English was so unexpected that at first I couldn’t follow it.
And then he was incoherent once more, encouraging his men, keeping them alive, and finally going out himself to hunt down the unknown rifleman. I remembered that engagement, long past, but when my father and a detachment of lancers went in search of the men who were pinned down, my mother had sat on the veranda all evening, waiting for news.
She had said nothing when the bloody remnants of the column came back, but I heard my father issue the order for the man who played the tambourine to be found and brought to him. I was never told what had happened to the spy. It had been regimental business only, and not for my ears or even my mother’s.
Glancing at my watch after sitting beside Simon for several minutes, I saw that I had to report for duty, and I slipped away, brushing his face with my fingertips as I did, feeling the dry heat of high fever on his skin.
I told Sister Randolph as I left that the patient was reliving old engagements, a result of his fever, I thought, and nothing that would hamper his recovery. She smiled and thanked me again.
“It’s such a relief to hear that. Perhaps since you understand what he’s saying, you could visit him from time to time, in case anything changes.”
I promised I would, grateful to her for giving me a reason to sit with him.
For the next two days I spent as much time with Simon as I could, but there seemed to be no change in his condition, and I found myself waking up in the night with a start, thinking that he had died. But he hadn’t, he held on, as he so often did against impossible odds.
And on the third morning, when I hurriedly downed my breakfast and ran up the back steps to spend a moment with him, I found him awake.
Dark eyes under dark brows stared back at me, but I didn’t think he knew me because he hadn’t fully returned to awareness. I reached down and touch his face again. This time the skin was oily with the sweat of breaking fever, but cool. Blessedly cool. I was on the point of going to find Sister Randolph and asking her to bathe him-in fact, I had turned away to do just that-when his hand locked on my wrist and spun me around.
“Bess?” His voice was hoarse from fever and the constant barrage of words that had come bubbling up from the depths of illness. “Is that you, Bess?”
I looked down. He was staring at me, frowning, as if he couldn’t quite believe the evidence of his eyes. Then he blinked and said, “Am I still in France?”
“No-I mean, it’s been a while. You’ve been very ill. Your shoulder-you nearly lost your arm.”
Frowning, he said, “Did I tell-did anyone tell the Colonel what happened there in France?”
“That you were wounded?” I sat on the edge of his cot. “Yes, of course. You even left the hospital, but then the fever overtook you and the Colonel Sahib brought you here.”
“Dear God-”
He released my wrist and wiped a hand across his eyes. “Bess. Get word to your father. I’ve got to see him.”
“Simon, it can wait.”
His mouth was tight as he said, “Don’t argue.” His eyes closed and he grimaced. “Do it.”
I’d been trained all my life to respond to that tone of voice. One obeyed instantly, doing as one was told, without question. In India, safe as we’d believed we were, danger was everywhere, and the memory of the bloody 1857 Mutiny, when the Indian Army turned on its English officers and their families, and massacred all they could lay hands on-soldiers, women, children-was always present. Hesitation or delay could mean the difference between living and dying.
Only this time I was ordered to reach my father at once-and only then could I see to it that Dr. Gaines was alerted about the change in his patient’s condition.
I did as I was told, urgently begging use of the clinic’s telephone, putting through a call to my mother and seeing to it that word was passed to my father. Then I went in search of the doctor. I found him watching Captain Barclay walk up and down the passage.
Captain Barclay smiled as he made his turn at the end of the passage and started back toward us.
“Look for yourselves. That knee is as good as ever it was.” He saw me and his smile broadened. “Sister Crawford? What do you think?”
But Dr. Gaines was still watching the way he moved. “You’ve most certainly improved,” he began.
“Then send me back to France. For God’s sake, I’m needed there.”
It was a familiar cry. But Dr. Gaines paid no heed. He was still staring at the knee. Aware of my presence, he said, “Sister?”
“The patient in the surgical ward is awake, sir. Brandon.”
“Ah, yes. Tell Sister Randolph I’ll be right there. All right, Captain, I’d like you to take the butcher’s paper out from around that limb and then walk up and down again.”
I turned away, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Captain Barclay’s fair skin flame with embarrassment. It was an old trick, the butcher’s stiff paper giving a little stability to a weak knee for a short distance. Only, if you listened closely, you could hear the layers rustle.
I went back to the library, where Sister Randolph was bathing Simon’s face and making him more comfortable before an orderly arrived to shave him again.
“I’ve spoken to my mother,” I said quickly in Hindi, and he nodded. I hurried back to my own duties.
I didn’t know where my father was or how soon he could be reached. I had done as I was asked, and a little later I saw Dr. Gaines coming from the library ward, his face thoughtful.
As it happened my father arrived much sooner than he could possibly have in answer to my summons. I thought perhaps Dr. Gaines had sent for him as well. There were no doubt standing orders in regard to the patient Brandon that I knew nothing about.
It was not an hour before the evening meal when the Colonel Sahib came striding into the clinic, tall, handsome, that air of command swirling in his wake.
I saw orderlies salute him and nurses smile at him. I was at the top of the stairs and heard him ask for Matron.
Five minutes later I was summoned to her office.
To my surprise, she wasn’t there, but I thought perhaps my father was trying to downplay any military reason for his presence in a clinic. I said, “You’ve come to see Simon. I’ll take you to him. He’s been impossible to deal with, waiting for you to come.”
His eyebrows rose. “Simon? I’ve been very worried about him. The reports from Dr. Gaines have not been good. Is he awake? I’ll speak to him shortly. The fact is, I’ve come to see you.”
That surprised me even more. “Indeed?”
“That nurse at the Base Hospital in Rouen. The one we were to distract with words of praise for doing her duty, after she’d given you so much trouble.”
“Nurse Bailey? Was she difficult to appease?” My heart sank as I had visions of having to explain France to my superiors in the nursing service.
