‘Can you walk to the hospital in the camp?’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to. I want to stay here.’
‘You can’t. You need medicine and warmth and –’
‘I have medicine. That prisoner, Cesare, he –’
‘There’s not enough.’ I take her hand. ‘The hospital will have more.’
‘But . . . he said he would bring more.’
‘He did –’
‘Well, then, I’m not going. I’m not, Dot. Cesare will bring more, and –’
I press my fingers over my eyes. ‘He didn’t bring it. Cesare didn’t bring it.’
‘What?’
‘Angus brought it.’
‘Angus?’ She freezes, as if he’s with her in the room, as if he’s spoken her name, as if he’s reached out to touch her.
I squeeze her hand again, to bring her back to me. ‘He’s coming again later. He says he’s going to mend the roof.’
The colour drains from her cheeks and the breath wheezes out of her. When I put my arms around her, her whole body is rigid.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper into her hair. ‘But if we go to the camp, other people will be there – all the time. He can’t hurt you in the infirmary. There will be soldiers and nurses –’
‘I can’t go there. You can’t leave me there.’
‘Hush, I won’t leave you. I’ve thought about it – I can be there, as a nurse too.’
‘Will they let you?’
‘I think so,’ I say. I hope so.
‘But Angus –’
‘I won’t let him anywhere near you.’
She shudders, then nods. ‘You won’t leave me?’
I kiss her hot cheek. ‘I promise. I won’t leave you.’
We wait until the whistle sounds in the camp, watching the troops of men marching down towards the quarry. They move like shadows through the mist, over the hill and out of sight. At this distance, it is impossible to tell one man from another: any of those grey spectres could be Angus, with the baton and gun tucked into his belt. And any of them could be Cesare. They all look insubstantial in the morning gloom – like the rumours of ghosts that have always haunted these islands, like the tales of the curses, brought to life.
As soon as they are over the breast of the hill, we begin walking down to the camp, my arm across Con’s shoulders, supporting her as we move, holding her close, feeling the wrench of her coughing echoing through her body and into mine.
When we pass through the gates of the camp, the guard takes one look at us and stands aside. I suppose, emerging from the mist, we must have spooked him. Or perhaps he’s heard stories from the islanders.
I knock lightly on the door of Major Bates’s hut, then knock again, the wood bruising my knuckles. When the door doesn’t budge, I kick it open, bundling Con inside.
Major Bates looks up sharply from his desk. ‘What the devil –?’
‘She’s ill,’ I say.
‘Well, why are you bringing her to me? Take her to the hospital in Kirkwall, for Heaven’s sake.’
‘I can’t. We . . . She’s too weak for the boat journey,’ I say, and the lie sounds convincing. ‘So I thought she could stay in the hospital here.’
‘With the men? Are you mad? This is a prisoner-of-war camp, not a public infirmary.’
‘Oh, but . . .’ How can I convince this man? His face is closed. He has already dismissed us, is desperate to return to the papers piled up on his desk.
‘Please,’ I say. ‘I can stay with her –’
‘Two of you staying in the camp now? Did you not hear what I said? No, it’s Kirkwall for you.’ He picks up his pen, frowns, looks down at the scribbled figures in front of him.
‘I’m a nurse,’ I say. ‘At least I was, for a time, in Kirkwall. And I can help here. I know you’ve a need of nurses.’
‘We have a girl who comes across from Kirkwall –’
‘Bess Croy. I’ve seen her. That is, I’ve noticed her walking to the camp. But she can’t work here all the time, and you’ll not be able to get many other young women from Kirkwall to come to this island. And it’s a large camp – if the men grow ill. I could . . .’ He is scowling, but I carry on: ‘I could stay in the camp, as a nurse, until Con recovers and then I . . . or we could both help in the infirmary.’
He puts down his pen. ‘You’re both nurses?’
I nod. It isn’t true, but Con is a fast learner. All I need is for her to stay quiet now, not to contradict me. I squeeze her hand, hard, until she nods. Her cheeks burn; her eyes are bright with fever.
‘She’ll have to be kept curtained off from the men while she’s ill. We don’t want an outbreak and . . . well, for modesty’s sake. And you’ll have to work hard. We’ve a fair number of injuries from the quarry.’
I nod. ‘Thank you.’
He’s already looking back at his papers. ‘Go on with you, then. Nurse Croy will set you up.’
Bess Croy’s eyes widen at the sight of us, and although she sets up a bed behind a curtain for Con, and fetches the sulfa tablets, her movements are skittish, as though she expects one of us to lash out. When we are changing the sheets, her hand accidentally brushes against mine; she recoils.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she gasps, rubbing her skin, as if I’ve burned her.
After Con is asleep, I help Bess to empty the prisoners’ bedpans, fetch them glasses of water, rebandage a sprained wrist and change a dressing on a crushed foot. Gradually, she grows less jumpy, and at lunchtime, she fetches two bowls of soup from the mess hut and wordlessly passes me one. She eats quickly, watching me, like a nervous bird.
‘Thank you,’ I say, after I’ve soaked up the last drops of soup with the bread. Then I continue rolling bandages. It is satisfying to start with a snarled mess of fabric and finish with neat white rolls.
‘It’s nice to have company,’ she says, although she still looks wary and skittish. She picks up
