‘Go ahead.’
‘Stop reading, then.’
‘I can read and listen to you quite well.’
‘Probably you can. But I can’t talk to you while you’re reading. Darling, really you are rude. You might have been married to me for years.’
‘To all intents and purposes I have.’
‘That’s very rude, too. Thank heavens I have Luke to fall back on.’
‘Poor old Luke. You always talk about him as if he were a lie-low.’
‘So he is, and it’s a jolly nice thing to be. The more I see of you, the more I like Luke, as somebody said about dogs. Rudolph now, please don’t let’s quarrel. Put that paper down and talk to me.’
Rudolph did so with bad grace. They were both by now thoroughly out of temper with each other.
‘Well, what is it?’
‘Darling, now listen. You know about me being beautiful?’
‘You’re all right.’
‘No, Rudolph, please say I’m beautiful; it’s part of the thing.’
‘I suppose you’re going to tell me you’re a beautiful female spy?’
‘In a way, I was.’
‘Yes, I’m quite sure you were. And that you have a Chief, but you don’t feel happy about his loyalty, so you’re really working on your own, and the War Office and Scotland Yard haven’t got an inkling of what you’re up to because you’re blazing a lone trail, but soon there will be sensational revelations, and you will be a national heroine. Oh God! women are bores in wars.’ Rudolph returned to his paper.
Sophia left the Ritz in a great temper, and went straight to her Post where she had lunch alone at the canteen. It was much too late now to ring up Fred; he would be with his Blossom; she would have to make investigations on her own after all.
13
Sophia had wondered why the canteen was so empty, and when she got downstairs she found the reason was that the Post was in the throes of a major practice. This event had been canvassed with great excitement for the past few days, and nothing but Sophia’s preoccupation with other matters could have put it out of her mind. As soon as she arrived, she was engulfed in it. Not only did the Southern Control hiss into her ear ‘Practice Red, expect casualties’, not only did casualties covered with ‘wounds’ of the most lugubrious description appear in shoals – these things had often happened before and been regarded as part of everyday work – today was made memorable by the fact that a real (not practice) Admiral was scheduled to escort a real (not practice) Royal Princess round the Post to see it at work.
Sophia immediately saw that if she was ever going to conduct investigations, this would be the time. Heatherley and Winthrop were on continual stretcher duty and would not be able to leave the Treatment Room for a moment, except to carry ‘cases’ upstairs to the Hospital. Only Florence was unemployed; this must be remedied. Sophia went into the Treatment Room in search of Sister Wordsworth. It was a hive of industry; dressings and splints were laid out in quantities, and the instruments were all getting a double dose of sterilization, as though the royal eye were fitted with a microscopic lens which would enable it to note, with disapproval, fast-gathering clouds of streptococci. Sister Wordsworth stood surveying the scene.
Sophia said, ‘Can I speak to you a moment?’ and suggested that if everything was supposed to be in progress exactly as though there had been a real raid, surely Florence ought to be sent a practice pregnancy. Sister Wordsworth saw the force of this argument, and taking hold of the next woman ‘patient’ who appeared, she bundled her into the Labour Ward.
‘Sixty-five if she’s a day,’ she said in a loud cheerful aside. ‘I should think it will be a very difficult delivery. Have the forceps handy, Sister Turnbull, and plenty of hot water.’ Florence looked very peevish indeed, and prepared to do as she was told with a bad grace.
At this moment the real Princess appeared, and jokes were forgotten.
As soon as H.R.H. had seen her office, and gone through into the Treatment Room, Sophia summoned up all her courage and left her chair by the telephone. If it rang while she was gone, Sister Wordsworth would never forgive her; this would have to be risked, among other things. She ran down a back passage to the Hospital Museum. The door was locked but she had Sister Wordsworth’s master-key, with which she opened it. Florence was standing in the Labour Ward, the door of which was at right angles to that of the Museum; she appeared to be leaning over her aged victim, and her back was turned on Sophia who slipped into the Museum carefully, shutting the door behind her. Then, shaking with terror, she switched on her electric torch and crept down the main avenue between the glass cases. She passed the pre-natal Siamese twins, fearful little withered white figures, unnaturally human and with horrible expressions of malignity on their faces. She passed the diseased hearts and decayed livers, and reached the case of brains with tumours on them. Then her heart stood still. On the floor beneath the brains, shining in the light of her torch like a golden wire, was a springy butter-coloured curl which could only have come from one source. The horrified curiosity felt by Robinson Crusoe when he saw the footstep of Man Friday, the ecstasy and joy of Madame Curie when at last she had a piece of radium, were now experienced with other and more complex sensations by Sophia. For a minute or two she almost choked with excitement; then, recovering herself, she followed in the direction in which (so far as a curl can be said to point) it pointed. Under the large intestines another one winked out a welcome, under the ulcerated stomachs was a third. The passage ended with a case of bladders against the
