“I think you should let him help.”
I stood and walked the way Jack had taken, peering through the trees. As he approached the house, Paulus Vries appeared, and another orderly, and another; they’d been looking for him, then. They fanned out in a tense semicircle around him. Jack paused, and then he spoke. One of the orderlies answered. Jack spoke again, and one orderly laughed, and then another. The tension vanished and the four of them walked back to the terrace. Just like that.
I’d enlisted him, but it didn’t mean I could control him. Matron couldn’t control him; neither could the doctors. Jack Yates followed only the rules he chose to follow, and only when it suited him.
And now he was working for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Sleeves,” said Matron.
Martha, Nina, Boney, and I stood before her in a line. As one we held out our arms, clothed in the long sleeves we’d fastened on that morning, rows of starchy whiteness hanging parallel in the air.
Matron walked from one end of our short line to the other. Her brow was tensed, her gaze malevolent, a look that meant she was seeking something to criticize. It was another inspection, but this one was not in honor of the doctors.
We’d been hard at work since six that morning—even Nina, who had been given permission to finish night shift at two o’clock and get four hours’ rest. We had scrubbed, polished, straightened, hauled linens, dusted, aired every man’s room and changed his bed linens—all nineteen of them. My legs were shaking with exhaustion, but it didn’t seem quite as bad as when I’d first started. Perhaps I was getting stronger.
“This is an important day,” Matron announced to us, Henry V rallying his battle-worn troops. “This is visitors’ day. The day in which members of the outside world come to the inner confines of Portis House. The day in which we make an impression.”
Behind her, something clanged in the kitchen and someone cursed.
“I cannot express to you,” Matron continued, ignoring the sound, “the importance of our conduct today. There will be no breaks. No socializing. Any breach of the rules absolutely will not be tolerated.” I thought perhaps her gimlet gaze rested on me as she said this. “Sloppiness is inexcusable. Rudeness is inexcusable. You will speak to our visitors only when spoken to, and only in polite tones. The patients who do not have visitors may be unhappy and may misbehave. It is your duty to see that any such displays are kept from sight and sound of our visitors. If this is not followed, Mr. Deighton will hear of it. Do I make myself clear?”
We stood silent. I swallowed past a lump in my throat.
“You are experienced nurses,” Matron said. This time she did not look at me. “Be aware. Be vigilant. These men are our patients, but they are also insane. The insane can be crafty and mischievous, especially on days like these. The orderlies are also on extra guard. You know what to look for. Be sure you recognize it.”
“Yes, Matron,” said Boney.
“Very well. This is the list.” Matron took a piece of paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and read to us the list of men who were to have visitors that day. “Mr. Hodgkins. Mr. Derby. Mr. West. Mr. Creeton.” She folded the paper and put it away again.
“Thank goodness it’s Creeton this time,” Martha said to me in a low voice as we walked down the corridor after dismissal. “He’s always the worst to make trouble on visiting days.”
“I don’t quite understand Creeton,” I ventured. Creeton was, without exception, the patient I avoided as much as possible. “He doesn’t seem quite insane to me. Just angry.”
“You haven’t seen how angry he can be,” said Nina. “I heard that at the casualty clearing station they had him in, he shot at one of the doctors with a gun he stole from the Germans.”
“He what?”
“He missed,” Martha put in. “But he had a gun he’d taken from a dead soldier, and he shot it sure enough. I heard it from another nurse I know. She said he had a breakdown after his squadron was attacked with liquid fire.”
I’d heard of liquid fire, petrol sprayed through hoses and lit. It didn’t bear thinking about. “And his family hasn’t visited him in all this time?”
Nina shrugged. “Most of the families don’t. They’re too ashamed. Except for Mr. Derby—his fiancée comes every time.”
Derby was the patient who slept on the floor of his room, as if he were in a trench. If he had a fiancée, she was in for a bit of a surprise on their wedding night. “I hope they have a competent laundress,” I said, and I half meant it, but Martha stifled a giggle, and even Nina looked away quickly, as if to hide a smile.
Breakfast had finished, and the men waited in the common room. The French doors had been thrown open and a warm breeze came in, wafting on kind rays of sunshine and making the air fragrant. “The motorcars are coming,” Martha whispered to me, and she and Nina went to the great entry hall at the front of the house to greet the visitors as I stood duty over the men.
“We should be allowed suits,” Creeton complained loudly from his place on one of the sofas. He seemed to be speaking to no one, or to the room at large. “A suit for just one damned day. I have to see my own father while I’m wearing pajamas.”
He was keyed up, his face tight, and the other men didn’t look much better. I was in charge of a powder keg, and I looked for the familiar form of Paulus, leaning on the wall outside the door in his usual position. He gave me a nod.
A hand touched my arm, and I looked down to see Tom Hodgkins looking up at me from his place in a chair. “Is someone coming today?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I said. His name had been on the list. “Your family.”
Confusion crossed his face, and then his expression resolved itself. “I’d like to see my mum,” he said. “I think I’ve been away.”
I had no idea whether his mother was coming, so I simply said, “Perhaps you will.” This pleased him, and I looked around again. There was one face I did not see.
“Good morning,” said a voice behind me.
I turned my shoulders just enough to glimpse Jack standing a few feet away, holding a five-week-old newspaper as if it utterly engrossed him. He leaned one shoulder against the wall, hooked one foot behind the other, and did not look at me.
“Good morning,” I whispered back, and turned away.
“Creeton had a nightmare last night,” he said.
I glanced at Creeton again. He was staring tensely at nothing, waiting to pick a fight. He had thick hands with blond hairs on the backs, with thick fingers that could curl into beefy fists. I realized he reminded me of my father. Elementary, perhaps, and rather pedestrian, but there it was; you don’t normally see these things until they are right in front of you. I was glad I had Jack standing vigilant behind my shoulder, and I recalled he’d managed to position himself there the night before as well, as the men sat in the common room after supper. It must be intentional. He was either guarding me or watching me.
“Is it always like this?” I asked him. “Visiting day?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, “but I know it’s complicated. You want to see your family more than anything. It’s the thought of it that keeps you going day to day. You’d go to hell for it. But you don’t want your family to see you like this.”