She watched for my reaction from behind her lenses. I kept my face straight, but I noticed she was right: Not a single man in the room wore a belt or suspenders on his trousers. The trousers seemed to have just a drawstring. String being, perhaps, deemed too difficult for a man to hang himself with.
I cleared my throat, spoke as softly as I could. “How do—how do they shave?”
“Safety razors only. Most of them are used to it from the war. There are one or two complainers, but we’re not to take chances. No matter what a man says to you, there are no exceptions to the rule.”
I nodded, trying not to picture what would make a man want to leave this place so badly that he could not be trusted with a straight razor—trying not to think that the rule must have grown out of experience.
Nurse Fellows—I’d already started thinking of her as Boney—joined us, Martha at her shoulder. “We’re ready,” she said. “The kitchen is loading the food now. Nurse Shouldice, take a tray to Mr. West—his legs are particularly bad today, and he is in bed. Mr. Childress will also need his broth in the infirmary.”
“I’ll do them both,” said Nina. “Mr. Childress usually eats something when I coax him a bit.”
“Very well. Nurse Beachcombe, you’re to take a tray to Patient Sixteen. I haven’t heard from him, but I assume he’ll want something.”
Martha brightened. “Yes, Nurse Fellows.”
“Who is Patient Sixteen?” I asked.
Nina and Martha exchanged a look, but Boney ignored the question. “You’re to supervise the dining room,” she told me. “I’ll help you serve, but then I must see Matron and supervise in the kitchen. They seem in a decent mood tonight. Can you handle it?”
I glanced out at the men sitting at two tables under the extravagant vines plastered into the opulent ceiling. I hoped my bravado was convincing. “Of course.”
“Good. Get moving, or Matron will hear of it. Let’s go.”
The orderlies—four men in white linens, one of whom was massively tall and large—had wheeled carts into the dining room. The tall one unlocked the panel to a dumbwaiter and opened it. With a loud creak of pulleys, a platform containing plates of food appeared, presumably from the kitchen. The orderly emptied the plates onto his cart, shouted “Hup” down the shaft of the dumbwaiter, and the platform lowered again. I watched, mesmerized, as this was repeated many times over. I’d seen dumbwaiters in restaurants, but never in a house before.
Boney turned to me as the other two nurses loaded trays and vanished toward the stairs. “We used to say a prayer at meals, but some of them couldn’t sit still for it and it had a disrupting effect on the others, so we stopped. I’ll pour the water. Each man gets a plate. And set them down gently. For God’s sake, no loud noises. Do you understand?”
“No loud noises?”
She pursed her lips. “They can’t handle it. I’ve yet to work with a nurse who takes the proper care. No bangs, claps, or sounds of that sort—half the men will hit the floor, thinking they’re in a trench. Portis House is supposed to be a restful place of healing, and lack of stressful sound is part of the treatment. Doctors’ orders.”
I glanced into the room again. Half of them will hit the floor. “I understand.”
I picked up plates from one of the carts as she took a large pitcher of water and poured for each man. With three patients—Mr. West of the bad legs, Mr. Childress in the infirmary, and the mysterious Patient Sixteen—out of the room, we had only sixteen men in the dining room, eight to each table. Each plate contained a square of beef, a lump of potatoes, and a spoonful of watery peas. I set down one plate, then another, taking care to set them gently. I had been hungry, even after the bread and cheese, but as I looked at the plates of food, my appetite drained away.
The men ate without complaint. Boney finished with the water and gave me a nod before leaving the room. A hush fell, heavy and pregnant, as soon as she was gone.
“A new nurse,” came one man’s voice. It was impossible to tell which, as no man raised his head.
“A pretty one, too,” said another.
I quietly set down another plate.
“Where’s the freckled one?” This came from a blond man with a short beard who was in my line of sight. “We haven’t seen her in days, and she’s not on night duty, either.”
None of the nurses had freckles; this must have been the last girl, whose boots I was wearing. “Yes, where is she?” said a man with big shoulders and bright red hair who was sitting farther down the line I was serving. The look he gave me was jeering. “Do tell us poor fellows, won’t you, sister?”
“I’m not your sister,” I shot back at him.
To my surprise, he laughed, as did the man next to him, though no one else joined in. I set a plate in front of a tall, gangly man who had spectacles placed atop his large Roman nose. He looked up at me kindly. “I believe Creeton means a nursing sister,” he said, his accent proclaiming Oxford or Cambridge. “A member of your order.”
“Order?” I couldn’t disguise my horror as I stared at him. “You mean like a nun?”
“A nun!” The red-haired man laughed again. “Thank God she ain’t one of those!”
“A nursing order,” said Roman Nose. He lowered his voice confidentially and looked down as he cut into his square of beef. “It is a term, I believe, for a nurse of some seniority.”
I reddened. Ten minutes into my first supper and one of the men was already covering for me. I was usually more adept than this. I’d worked for more than six months at the factory without anyone discovering I wasn’t the school friend of the owner’s daughter; before that, the owner of a perfume shop in Mile End still thought the shopgirl who had worked for him for nearly a year was named Theresa Baker. For God’s sake, get it together or they’ll pitch you out of here. “I’m not a nursing sister,” I said to the room at large, moving down the table. “I’m only a nurse. My name is Nurse Weekes.”
“Jolly good!” came a voice from somewhere behind me. “You’re the prettiest sister we’ve had.”
“I say,” agreed the red-haired man. “You can tuck Captain Mabry there into bed, then, can you? I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”
There was laughter, and from the way Roman Nose reddened, I guessed he was Captain Mabry. I glanced at the door, but there was no sign of Boney or anyone else. Where had the orderlies gone? “I’m not tucking anyone into bed,” I said.
I had reached the last place setting, which happened to be that of Creeton—the big-shouldered redhead. He looked up at me with a wide smile. “Ah, come now, sister. It’s just a bit of fun.” And as I lowered his plate, a big, beefy hand landed on my behind and squeezed me painfully through my skirts.
I jumped. The plate banged on the table, rattling silverware and ringing against the water glass. Silence fell, deafening, the air stretched with expectant strain; then a high-pitched sound came from one of the other men, a keening almost like laughter.
“I’m sorry,” I said, moving away from Creeton and down the table. “I’m sorry. I—”