Iris. Snuggling under her blankets, she looked over at her friend and, in the half sleep of early morning, thought for a moment that it was Enid, but realized that it was the bump of Iris's behind forming a mound in the bed as she, too, curled herself against the early morning chill.
She took a deep breath. The chill air notwithstanding, Maisie suddenly sat up, pulling the blanket around her shoulders as she did so. She must do everything in her power to keep a calm head, to brace herself for the day, and to prepare herself for the elements. Rain had started to fall again. Rain that soaked into the ground to form a stew of mud and filthy water that seeped up into the cloth of her long woolen dress, making it hang heavily against her ankles as she worked again and again to clean and bandage wounds. By the end of each day the mud had worked its way up to her knees, and time and time again she told herself that she was warm, really, that her feet felt dry, really. Then at night, she and Iris would hang up their dresses to allow the moisture to evaporate, and check each other's bodies for the battlefield lice that seemed to know no defeat.
'You first, Maisie,' said Iris, still clutching the bedcovers around her body.
'You just don't want to be the one to crack the ice.'
'What ice?'
'I told you, Iris, there was a layer of ice on the top of that water yesterday.'
'No!'
Iris turned over in her cot to look at Maisie, who sat cross-legged on her bed.
'I don't know how you can sit like that, Dobbs. Now then, are you telling me there was ice on the water? It's not even proper winter yet.'
'Yes. Even though it's not proper winter.'
Maisie took another deep breath, which, when exhaled, turned to steamy fog in front of her face. She cast the blanket aside and nimbly ran over to the water pitcher and bowl that stood on top of a wooden chest.
'And the sitting in the morning--it's what helps to keep me from freezing solid all day, Iris. It clears my head. You should try it!'
'Hmmmph!'
Iris turned over in bed and tried to ignore her cold feet.
Maisie poked her finger into the water pitcher. She cracked the thin layer of ice as if tentatively testing a piecrust, then gripped the handle of the pitcher with both hands and poured freezing cold water into the bowl. Reaching over to the side of the chest, Maisie unhooked a flannel cloth, which she steeped in the water. After wringing it out, Maisie unbuttoned the front of her nightgown and washed first her face, then under her arms and up to her neck. Oh, what she would give for a bath! To sit in a deep bathtub filled with piping hot water and soap bubbles coming up to her ears.
Again she plunged the cloth into the cold water, squeezed the excess water back into the bowl, and this time lifted her nightgown and washed between her legs and down to her knees. A nice hot bath. For hours. She wouldn't come out for hours. She'd keep twiddling that hot tap with her big toe, and she wouldn't come out until every last molecule of mud, blood, sweat, and tears had been washed away.
Taking down her still-damp dress, which had been hanging from a wire she and Iris had rigged up inside the tent, Maisie checked every seam and in the hem for lice. It was the morning drill: Check for lice everywhere, and when you've finished checking, check some more, because lice are crafty little beggars. She dressed quickly, finally slipping a white armband with a red cross just above the elbow of her right sleeve, and taking out a fresh apron and attaching a silver watch pin to the left side of the bib. Along with the black leather document case, which now held her writing paper and letters received, the nurse's watch was her talisman from home, a gift from Lady Rowan.
Finally Maisie placed a towel on her cot and leaned over it to brush her hair, looking carefully for lice falling out. She and Iris checked each other's hair every night or, if they were on duty at night, whenever they were both in the tent and awake at the same time. But Maisie always checked again in the morning, brushing her hair over a towel until her head spun. Then she quickly pinned her hair up into a bun, and placed her cap on her head.
'I'm all finished, Iris.'
'Right you are, Dobbsie.' Iris shivered under her bedclothes.'Lord knows what this will be like in the real winter.'
'At least we're not up to our waists in mud in the trenches, Iris. Least we're not piling up bodies to make a wall to protect us. Not like the boys.'
'You're right there, as always,' said Iris as she leaped from bed and began the morning ritual that Maisie had just finished. 'Brrrr . . . I 'spect you're going over to see if there's a letter from your young man.'
Maisie rolled her eyes. 'I've told you, Iris. He's not--'
'Yes, I know, I know. He's not your young man. Well then, go and get your letter from your special friend of a friend then, and leave me to my delousing, if you don't mind!'
The young women laughed, as Maisie pulled back the tent flap, leaving Iris to her morning ablutions. Picking her way across wooden boards covering mud and puddles, Maisie made her way to the cooks' tent to get tea and bread for breakfast.
'There you are, Sister, get this down you.' The orderly on duty held out a large enamel mug along with a slice of bread and dripping for Maisie, addressing her as 'sister' in the way that soldiers called all nurses, regardless of rank, 'sister.'
'And a little something else for you, passed on to me this morning.' He reached into his pocket and brought out a simple brown envelope that clearly contained a long letter, such was the thickness of the packet. The envelope was crumpled and bore stains of the four sets of dirty hands it had passed through before reaching its destination.
The letters from Simon Lynch to Maisie Dobbs would never travel through the censor's office, passed as they were from orderly to ambulance driver to stretcher bearer to cook. Her letters in return were passed in the same way, from person to person. And each time a letter changed hands, there would be a comment exchanged, a remark about young love, or that it was all very well for him, Captain Romantic over there.
