“Most of the men were sent to a casualty clearing station,” he said. “We were exhausted and starving. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had water. All I wanted was to lie down, but I was separated from the others and put in the back of a truck. We drove into the countryside and a motorcar met us, and I was put in that and driven some more. The shells were lighting up the sky; we could hear them like constant thunder. Finally I was taken to a house. The family was long gone, of course, and it was a headquarters now. They took me into this pretty house in the country as the shelling continued and there sat a group of men around a dining table, loaded with food, a roast of beef and bread and cheese and bottles of wine. They were all decorated. They said their names but I didn’t absorb a thing. I sat down and I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours, and they were lighting candles at their table as if everyone wasn’t dying a few miles away. I sat there, stunned.
“A man with a big, white mustache, the one with the highest rank, began talking to me. He told me he’d heard what I’d done at La Bassée, and that I’d done well. I was going to get a Victoria Cross. I was distracted by the man sitting next to him, who wore a plain coat and a civilian hat. He was the only nonenlisted man in the room, and he was writing in a notebook as the other man talked. I realized the white-mustached man was telling me I was going to be sent home, that the newspapers and newsreels would want to hear about this glorious day, and I was being sent home to tell everyone about it.
“As I said, I hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. Everything felt to me like a crazy dream. He said I was going home, and the first thing out of my mouth was, ‘But, sir, I haven’t had a chance to die yet.’”
The corner of Jack’s mouth turned up. “My words just hung there. The man’s face was like a waxwork. He’d been raising his glass to drink from it and it just stopped in midair. Then he turned to the civilian and said, ‘Don’t write that down.’
“I knew then. The civilian was a reporter. The entire scene—the supper, the candles, all of it—was for his benefit. The touching scene of the weary soldier being told he’s done well and can go home. It was as real as a stage play. Everything wrong with my life started in that moment.”
The last of the sun had gone and Jack was hard to see now, but it didn’t matter. I’d never thought of it before, that he’d lived a life that had been watched, assessed, recorded. I’d never wondered what it would be like to have my own likeness drawn on the front page of the Times. I’d just followed along with everyone else. I, who prided myself on being difficult to fool.
“What really happened, Jack?” I said now. “What is the truth?”
“The truth,” he answered, “is why I wanted to stop thinking. Why I wanted to stop everything.”
The French door opened, and the moment broke. Matron’s voice said, “Nurse Weekes,” her tone like the rap of gunfire. From behind her two voices were rising in argument over the chessboard, and there was still work to be done before curfew. Jack stepped past me, because the patient must always proceed first, followed by the nurse, who must lock the door behind her. He paused in surprise when I grasped his wrist, still in the dark out of sight of Matron, my hand hot on his skin, and pressed Maisey Ravell’s letter into his palm. But he stopped only for a second, then pulled away and walked obediently back toward the light.
I didn’t know why I had done it. It was the wrong thing, the thing that would not help him get any better.
I’ve either started something, I thought, or I’ve finished it. Then I followed him back through the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
That night, I had changed into my nightgown and was sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing my sore feet while Martha brushed out her hair and Nina fastened her stockings for night shift.
“What dress will you wear?” Martha asked Nina. “For the wedding?”
Nina clasped a garter to a stocking and shrugged. “My mother’s, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Well, she’ll have to dig it up, won’t she? It’s in the attic somewhere. The moths may have eaten it to pieces.”
“What color is it?”
“Lavender.”
“Oh, that will look well on you.” I could not imagine lavender looking well on Nina, but I rubbed my feet and said nothing. Martha went on. “What does it look like?”
Nina threw the hems of her skirts down over her substantial legs. “Like a dress, I suppose.”
“Nina, you are the worst! What of the sleeves, the hem? Does it have lace?”
“There’s lace at the throat, I suppose. I’ve only ever seen it in my mother’s photograph, so what do I know about the hem? Who cares about hems, anyway?”
“I do! You know it’s how I live, through picturing your wedding. I don’t think I’ll ever have one of my own. I’ll be at Portis House forever.”
She said this with such infallible good cheer, the same cheer with which she scrubbed bedsteads and mopped tiles, that I couldn’t help but look at her curiously. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Doesn’t what bother me?”
“Being stuck here. So far from home. From anywhere. In this place.”
She had finished brushing her hair, and she set the brush on her nightstand. In the light of the bedside lamp, the marks of tiredness and hard work faded from her face. Her dark blond hair had been carelessly tossed over one shoulder. “It isn’t so bad here,” she said, “especially in summer. This is a good job.”
Don’t you see the ghosts? I wanted to ask. Don’t you hear the nightmares? But Jack had said the nurses and the orderlies never saw or heard things. Only the men, who were mad in the first place. To try to convince these two of what I had seen seemed pointless—an attempt to make them as frightened as I was.
“Besides,” said Martha, “you said yourself that you don’t have a beau.”
“No. I most definitely don’t.”
“Well, some of us are just destined to be lifelong nurses, that’s all. It isn’t easy to be a married nurse, you know.” She lifted her chin. “We’re dedicated to our calling. Like Boney.”
“Or Matron,” Nina said.
“No,” Martha replied. “Matron was married.”
“What?” I shot back up in bed.
Martha’s eyes widened as she saw our expressions. “Boney told me. She really isn’t so bad, you know, if you give her a chance. Anyway, Boney said Matron used to be married, and she even had a son. But he died—Boney wouldn’t say what happened, but I think it was very sad—and her husband either went away or died. I don’t know which.”
We all digested this for a long moment. Matron, mannish Matron, had had a son?
“Well.” Nina’s voice was gruff. “She’s a career nurse now—that’s for certain.”
“Like us,” said Martha.
I sighed and swung my legs up on the bed, lying down. “That’s very flattering, Martha, but I’m sorry to say I’m not going to be a lifelong nurse.” And I was sorry, now that the words came out. It was nice to have at least one person’s good opinion. “I already have incident reports against me, and the chances are Mr. Deighton is going to sack me when he reads them.”