Silence for the Dead(48)

I was too shocked to think. The pain was tremendous. “Archie,” I tried to say, but the word would not leave my throat.

He squeezed harder, pulled me toward him. “You coward,” he said to me.

I tried to shake my head, but could only gasp.

“You are a coward,” he said again, his stutter gone, his voice deep and eerie. Wherever Archie had gone, it was far away from the man who was gripping my throat now. I began to struggle, my fingernails biting into the backs of his hands.

Spots danced in front of my eyes, but two incredibly strong hands, their backs lined with black tufts of hair, wrenched Archie’s grip from me. Roger pressed Archie’s arms down into the mattress and twisted to look back at me, where I had staggered away from the bed.

“Get the needles,” he said. “Now.”

I wasted only a few seconds standing there, gasping for air, my hands on my neck, watching the small, wiry Roger pin down his patient. Archie was larger, longer limbed, and possessed of inhuman emotion that gave him strength; yet Roger bent over him and held, his forearms shaking, his face grim with deadly seriousness. It was only that Archie was weakened and underweight that kept him down, and still he thrashed and screamed, the nightmare still on him. I turned and ran from the room.

I thought the locked drawer wouldn’t open; I nearly dropped the keys in my haste. Only when I pulled one of the hypodermics from its slot and felt its unfamiliar weight in my hand did I remember that I had never given an injection before. I fumbled with the needle, with the vial of liquid, and ran back to Archie’s bedside.

Archie had stopped screaming, but he still struggled under Roger’s grip. Sweat beaded on his reddened face and he stared at Roger with deadly hate. I approached the bed, readying the needle as I’d seen in Practical Nursing, trying to grip it properly between the fingers and the pad of the thumb. I jerked up the sleeve of Archie’s pajama top, revealing his upper arm.

“Go ahead,” Roger grunted at me. “Quickly.”

I pressed the needle against Archie’s skin. I swallowed. My throat was as raw as sandpaper, pain blooming at the base of my jaw and at the back of my neck. I pictured the book again, the ink diagrams, the words that ran through my head.

Quickly.

Somersham’s vomiting. It had nothing to do with the drugs. Part of his particular neurasthenia.

Quickly.

Captain Mabry’s humiliation, Dr. Thornton’s eloquent little lesson. These men are not your friends.

Nurse Ravell, so frightened she’d run in the night. This had happened to her, too.

Quickly.

“For God’s sake!” Roger nearly shouted. “I can’t hold him.”

I jabbed the needle under Archie’s skin and pushed the plunger home.

It was messy; Archie gave a yelp of pain. I wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t expert enough. In a matter of seconds, it made no difference. His body collapsed on itself, a dead weight. Roger let him go and stood, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“Bloody hell,” he said. He looked at me. “You all right?”

I nodded. I was kneeling on the floor next to the bed, the emptied needle in my hand. I slumped down, my bottom landing hard on the backs of my calves, my arms dropping to my sides. I couldn’t speak. I watched Archie’s body on the bed, his head tilting senselessly to one side, his face slack.

“I’d strap him in,” Roger went on, “but he won’t need it now. One of those doses and they sleep like babies. We won’t hear another peep from him tonight.” He looked at me again. “You’ll want some aspirin, then. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes,” I rasped. I owed my life to this petty, bitter little man.

“A bit of a shake-up, I suppose, but you’ll get over it.”

“Yes.”

He seemed to want to talk, now that the danger was past, or perhaps he was waiting for a rush of gratitude. “He’s always been quiet, that one, until recently. I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but it’s getting worse. Nearly did for that nurse last time, though I wasn’t on duty at the time. He was on grave duty, you know.”

I looked up. “What?”

“Grave duty. On the front line. Had to pick pieces of men out of the mud, try and match them up, identify them for burial. I heard they left him on it for four weeks before he cracked completely. They’ll never get him well, this one. Not after that.”

I stared at him, my brain turning over slowly, unable to take in anything so horrible. Roger looked at my expression and shrugged.

“All right,” I said. “You may go now. Thank you.”

But he was suspicious. “There’ll be an incident report, you know. I’ll make certain of it.”

“I’m sure you will.”

When he finally left, I closed my eyes, my head spinning. I listened to the slow rasp of Archie’s breathing.

I wasn’t mad, not the way these men were. I hadn’t been to war. I didn’t have their memories, their terrible experiences, their close knowledge of death, their fears.

But after today, perhaps, I thought I was beginning to see what they saw in their nightmares.





CHAPTER NINETEEN


Three days after the incident with my father in the bed, I’d ducked into a coffeehouse in London. It was cold and damp out, and my usual routine was to stand in a crowded coffeehouse, pretending to look over the menu on the wall until it was almost my turn to order; then I’d turn suddenly, as if I’d forgotten something, and leave. It was a good way to warm one’s feet and hands if one was in the middle of a long walk home.