Silence for the Dead(10)

A pair of masculine feet, clad in worn leather shoes, came into my line of vision. Creeton crouched next to me, his wrists draped over his knees, and looked the two of us over. “Well, well,” he said, his voice pitched low, dangerous, and strangely pleased. “Hello, sister.”

I glared at him and said nothing. This man had put his hand on me. My skin crawled.

He leaned closer until his breath, hot and damp, fanned the wisps of hair behind my ear. “Having a good time, are we, on our first day with the madmen?”

“Be careful,” I said back, just as low. “I bite.”

He recoiled. He must have seen something steely in my eyes, because uncertainty flickered across his face, but he covered it quickly with a leering smile. “Perhaps I’d like that.”

“Where I bite, I promise you wouldn’t.”

Surprise again, but he had no chance to answer before Matron stood over him. “That is quite enough, Mr. Creeton.”

Creeton pushed himself to his feet slowly, obeying with an air of open defiance. He turned and followed the others from the room without another word.

Matron stepped forward and looked down at us. “Mr. Mabry,” she said, disappointment in her voice.

Mabry blinked up at her, his expression impossible to read beyond my hand and the trail of blood.

“Another nosebleed,” said Matron. “I thought we were past this. You haven’t had one in several weeks, and it seemed you had conquered this particular problem. But now I see I was wrong. You realize I’m going to have to report this to the doctors, don’t you?”

“I’m terribly sorry,” said Mabry.

“I realize you may be. But it doesn’t change the fact that I must put this in my report to the doctors. If you had refrained, things would be different.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, his voice fainter this time.

“Nurse Weekes,” she said without acknowledging him further, “please see that he is cleaned and sent to his room for rest. The sight of him will upset the other patients.”

“Yes, Matron.”

“And report to the kitchen in twenty minutes. I presume you know where it is.”

? ? ?

The kitchen was downstairs, a huge, utilitarian room full of ranges and instruments I couldn’t put a name to. A male cook and several kitchen boys were cleaning up after supper with the help of two orderlies, and in one corner a small table had been set with simple bowls and spoons. Matron, Martha, and Boney were all seated at it when I arrived. Nina came behind me; she had helped me clean up Captain Mabry with the aid of Winsoll’s, which had turned out to be a kind of disinfectant. I could still smell it in the back of my nose and behind my eyes. We’d also changed my bloodstained apron.

A kitchen boy put a pot of stew on the table, and at its savory scent my appetite returned. It seemed this was the nurses’ evening meal.

When we had all taken a bowl, Matron spoke. First she bowed her head and recited a prayer; we all bowed our heads in silence. Then she straightened and gave us her eagle stare again.

“Nurse Fellows,” she said. “Please begin.”

Boney lifted her chin, as if reciting in front of the class. “I ordered the linens you requested, Matron, and they should come with the next delivery. I also completed the inventory of the storage room in the west hallway.”

“Very well. I expect a written report on my desk by morning.”

“Yes, Matron.”

The stew was delicious. The shaken, horrified feeling I’d had in the dining room began to recede. This seemed to be a sort of nurses’ meeting. I ate and listened with half an ear, thinking about nosebleeds.

“Nurse Beachcombe?” said Matron.

“Patient Sixteen ate his supper,” said Martha. “Or I think he did, as the orderlies brought down an empty tray. He didn’t want me to stay in the room.”

“And how did he seem?”

I wondered whether that was a blush on Martha’s cheeks, or whether she was just overheated. “He was no worse than usual, Matron. He was sitting on that window seat he likes. He barely spoke to me.”

“But did he appear improved at all? Sociable?”

“No, Matron.”

For a moment Matron looked almost uncertain. “I had so hoped for improvement. Though of course I realize he’s—” She broke off. Martha and Nina exchanged a glance.

I put down my spoon. “He’s what?”

Matron regarded me for a moment. “Patient Sixteen is the least of your worries, Nurse Weekes,” she said. “Carry on, Nurse Beachcombe.”

“Yes, Matron. The coal was low in the fires today, so I spoke to one of the orderlies about it. He said there’s water leaking somewhere in the cellar, and none of them want to go down there to the scuttle, and they’re having to draw straws.”

“What do you mean, they don’t want to go down there?”

“Well.” Martha’s eyes went even wider in her heart-shaped face. “They say the water leaks constantly, they can’t make it stop, and the scuttle is placed far in the back. You have to cross the cellar to get to it. And sometimes, at the back, they hear sounds in the water behind them closer to the stairs, like—like splashing footsteps. And so they won’t go down.”

We all fell silent. Finally Matron spoke. “Are you telling me,” she said, her mannish voice slow with disbelief, “that the orderlies—grown men—are afraid of a few mice in the cellar?”