Almost as if in response to what I’d just been thinking, he turned his head away and stared out the open door. “I’m useless. To the Army. To you. To myself. It’s appalling to think of my men dying in France while I’m forced to pace the floor here in an effort to strengthen a leg that might as well have been amputated for all the good it is to me.”
I read something in his face that I hadn’t seen before. Despair. And that worried me.
“Useless?” I said sternly, in my best imitation of Matron’s brisk tone. “That’s self-pity, Captain, and I’ll not have it. Buck up, young man, and fight for what you want. If it’s so important to you.”
In spite of his depressed spirits, he couldn’t help but smile.
I smiled in return and added in my own voice, “I expect I simply wanted your company again.”
After a moment, he shook his head, not in refusal this time but in surrender. “Yes, of course I’ll go with you. Do you have another wonder to show me?”
With that he walked away, limping more lightly on his cane than he himself could see. With a pang, I recognized that he would have his wish and return to France in a matter of weeks. If he didn’t give in to his despair before then and do something rash.
I waited until late in the evening, when I’d finished my duties, and then went to sit with Simon for a little. He was sleeping, his breathing quiet, his skin cool, without fever.
It was impossible to think of Simon Brandon being sent behind enemy lines, knowing that if he were severely wounded, he would be killed by his own men. It took incredible courage. Still, he had a strong sense of duty, as did my father. But even my father had been angry at the waste his death would have been.
I just didn’t know whether the spy behind the lines or one of the Morton family was the person behind my own brushes with death. But if it was the spy, then his thoroughness in eliminating anyone who could identify him was his very survival.
And what would Simon Brandon say if he learned that I’d already encountered the very spy he himself had been sent behind the German lines to uncover?
I said nothing to Simon about the death of Nurse Saunders. I just watched his slow improvement and encouraged him to rest as much as he could. And since he’d spoken to my father, his mind seemed to be at peace, as if duty done, he could now think about his need to recover.
When Thursday arrived, Dr. Gaines remembered that he’d agreed to let me take his motorcar for the day. I hadn’t said anything more to Captain Barclay, but after breakfast he reported to the doctor and was sent to join me as I came down the stairs to the foyer of the house.
It was a fine day, and we drove through the countryside of Somerset and into the Marches of Wales, the border country that had known its own struggles in the past but today was peaceful. Rolling hills and pastures, villages tucked in their lees, narrow streams and the occasional stand of trees marked the landscape. We stopped briefly to eat the picnic that the kitchen had provided, and I was reminded, painfully, of the picnic Simon had arranged as a backdrop for his encouraging me to stay in Britain and not return to France. I couldn’t help but wonder what would have changed if I’d taken his advice and never gone back to the battlefields.
I must have sighed, for Captain Barclay, finishing his sandwich, looked across at me and asked, “There’s more on your mind than a simple outing in pretty countryside.”
And so I told him about the Morton family. He’d known some of the story, but not about Hugh or about the other brothers who had fought for King and Country.
“You feel the father will tell you where his son is?”
“I don’t know whether he will or not. But you can judge, can’t you, how people mourn? Perhaps the way he says the name. Or the way he looks when he speaks of Will and his relationship with Hugh. Whatever that was. Good or not.”
“What possible excuse can you find for prying into a family’s losses?”
“Actually, there’s a little more to it than that.” And so I told him also about Sabrina and the life she was living now in Fowey. “She told me Will Morton’s family had asked her to come to them. Perhaps she should. But there’s no way of knowing, is there, until I’ve seen them for myself.”
“You can’t make other people’s decisions for them.”
“Of course I can’t. I won’t. Still, if the family really cares about Will’s son, perhaps they should go to Fowey themselves, rather than simply write a letter.” I shook my head. “Look, if Hugh isn’t a murderer, all well and good. If he is, I’m certainly not going to ask a young widow to go and stay with his family.”
The Captain smiled grimly. “All right. God knows, if it’s Hugh Morton we’ve been dodging all along, I’d just as soon know of it. I owe him for what he did to you and to me.”
We repacked the remnants of the picnic and drove on to the small village of Helwynn, where I’d been told the Mortons lived.
It was picturesque in its own way, running up from a small stream to the crest of a hill, a smattering of houses and shops, a stone chapel with a short steeple, and several outlying farms that lay like patchwork across the stream.
We stopped the motorcar in front of a small baker’s shop, and I went inside to begin my inquiries. The woman behind the counter stared at me in my uniform, and then her face seemed to freeze.
“Can I help you, then, Sister?” she asked, her voice that of Wales, as well as her dark hair and eyes, her fine skin, and her straight back.
“Hello,” I said with a warm smile. “I was traveling through and I remembered a family that I’d known who lived here. The Mortons. Are they still here?”
“Those that’re left,” she said. “Seven sons Ross sent to war. It hasn’t been easy for him.”
“No, I expect not. It’s Will I knew. Well, his wife. He was the actor, wasn’t he?”
“He was.”
“Could you tell me how to find his father? Ross Morton?”
“He lives on the farm you can see across the little stone bridge. Nobody to work it for him now. Most of the fields fallow or given to cattle. There’s still money in milk and butter.”
From the look of her wares, I found it easy to believe that.
We were all obligated to give to the war effort in some fashion. But sometimes in the smallest villages, the food they could produce barely sufficed to feed the people living there. Although it was sometimes hard to convince the men who procured hides for shoes and meat for rations, and other goods for the Army. They had quotas, and the needs of people compared to the needs of the Army were often unimportant.
I thanked her, bought two small buns for our tea, the Captain’s and mine, and left the shop.
Several small boys had clustered around the motorcar, leaning in to look at it, asking questions about how it ran and where it had come from. The Captain, with that easy American way of his, was letting them persuade him to lift the bonnet and show them the motor when I came out the shop door.
The boys stood back to stare at me, and I said, “Go on, open the bonnet.”
Captain Barclay got out to do just that, but when they saw his limp, their questions were about the war and his wound, the motorcar forgotten.
“My Da had his head blown off,” one told the Captain ghoulishly. “They couldn’t find it, however hard they searched. So he’s buried without it.”
“A pity,” the Captain answered. “All right, off with you. See you mind your mothers. They have enough to worry about without your adding to it.”
They nodded, but I doubted they’d remember the lesson half an hour on.
I saw the small school as we went back down the hill to search for the stone bridge. It was scarcely wide enough to pass over, but we managed, and the Captain whistled. “Oh, well done,” he said, turning to me after making certain the wings were still part of the motorcar.
A sign on the far side of the bridge read in faded green letters, PEACE AND PLENTY FARM.
We came shortly into the muddy farmyard where half a dozen black-and-white milk cows with bursting udders had come in on their own, ready for the afternoon milking. They turned to stare at us with their large brown eyes, and then their attention was caught by the man who had just stepped out of the barn.
“Lost, are you?” he asked, wiping his hands on a bunch of straw.
I gave our names, then said, “I was hoping to find Ross Morton. Is this his farm?”
He was still, like the woman in the shop, wondering if I brought bad news with me.
I said quickly, “I’m a friend of Sabrina Morton’s. Your daughter-in-law. I thought perhaps I should stop, for her
