Silence for the Dead(87)

“What is it?”

“The incident reports Matron gave Mr. Deighton.”

Jack took it, his gaze searching my face. “I see. Are you going to tell me where you got them?”

“Later.” I hadn’t thought I could rest, but I found myself fading. “It will make a good story for the journey to Newcastle on Tyne.”

“Don’t you want to read it?”

“I thought I did,” I replied, “but now I don’t think so. Perhaps you could read it for me.”

“All right,” he said. “Just rest.”

“Jack,” I said, the question seeming urgent in my tired mind, “which dream was yours? I read them all twice and I can’t tell.”

His hand rested lightly on top of the blanket he’d pulled over me. “I’d rather you didn’t know,” he said after a moment. “We’re all dreaming the same thing—I see that now. It doesn’t matter which one is mine.”

I wanted to argue, but I was asleep before I could try.

I awoke a few hours later as Nina shook me. It was full dark now, and I could hear rain pounding on the windows. The patients on the floor next to me were quiet.

I rolled over. “What time is it?” I asked her.

“Nearly one o’clock,” she replied.

“One o’clock!” I gaped at her. The ambulances were over four hours late. “Have the ambulances arrived?”

“Just now,” said Nina. “But there’s a problem.”

I threw off my blanket and stood, straightening my wrinkled skirts. I’d slept fully dressed, including apron, stockings, and shoes. My hair was still wrapped in its braids. It wasn’t the best way to sleep, but I’d slept rough before. I followed Nina quietly toward the front door, stepping over the sleeping bodies of the patients.

Paraffin lamps had been brought in to light the hall. The flickering light created an eerie effect: Rows of bodies lined the floor, as still as corpses, while the rain fell relentlessly outside. I could see the men’s faces as they slept feverishly, their flushed cheeks and sunken eyes, and I recognized every one of them. Martha, Matron, and Boney had been placed side by side. They all seemed to be sleeping, and Martha tossed uneasily.

We stepped through the front doorway to find Jack Yates standing on the portico, sheltered from the rain by its colonnade. Captain Mabry stood next to him, and they were talking to two men in mackintoshes and watch caps. Four covered ambulances idled on the circular drive, and two other drivers stood in the rain and waited, smoking cigarettes.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Jack turned to me. “There are four ambulances,” he replied, “and each can only take four patients. They can only take sixteen.”

I turned to the drivers. “We’ve seventeen sick here,” I said.

“Twenty-one,” Jack corrected me. “Four more fell ill while you were sleeping.”

I was appalled. “Are you saying that fourteen of the patients here are now sick?”

“And four orderlies,” he said, “and three nurses.”

“We can’t take them all,” said one of the drivers. “We’ve no room.”

“You could put more patients in each ambulance,” Jack protested. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“I can’t do it. Each ambulance only takes four. Otherwise it’s overcrowding.”

Jack shook his head. “I saw worse than that at the Front.”

“So did I,” said Captain Mabry.

“It can’t be done,” said the second driver. “We can’t overcrowd ambulances like that. It’s against regulations. We’d be sacked.”

“What about the rest of the sick?” I asked.

The second driver turned to me. “We’ll send back a second detachment, but it won’t be until after the rain has stopped and the bridge is passable. As it is, we had a devil of a time getting here, and we have to move now, or we won’t get out of here at all.”

“These patients could be dead by then.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Jack said. “Are you going to leave these people to die?”

The ambulance driver turned to him with a look of frightened disgust on his face that I was starting to recognize. The sight of a shirt and trousers with PORTIS HOUSE HOSPITAL stenciled on them seemed to bring it out in everyone. “I know one thing,” the man said. “I know I’m not taking orders from a bloody—”

“Stop it,” I cut in. “In the absence of Matron, Nurse Shouldice and I are in charge.” I glanced at Nina, who was dead on her feet; I wasn’t even certain she was listening. “If we don’t move soon, the bridge will be impassable. Start loading as many patients as you can. Make sure you take the three nurses—they’re just under the windows, over there. Nurse Shouldice will accompany you to help with their care. I’ll stay here with the remainder.”

He nodded at me and motioned to the other two men, who threw down their smokes and came out of the rain. Soon there were stretchers passing quietly out, some of the feverish patients moaning or crying. I found myself looking at every face, etching it into memory in case I never saw it again. I tried very hard not to care.