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.
I turned back to Jack and Mabry, unable to watch anymore. “You should go with them,” I said. “They’d likely let you ride in the front seats with the drivers. It’s possible you could be of help.”
“And leave you here alone?” Jack looked at Mabry. “What are the odds of our doing that, do you think, Captain?”
“Very long,” Mabry replied coolly. “Very long indeed.”
“I’m not going, either.”
I turned. I’d almost forgotten about Nina, so quiet had she been. “Nina, you should evacuate.”
“Those patients are going to a hospital,” she said. “These ones aren’t. They’ll need nursing.”
“I can take care of it.”
“Kitty.” She glanced at Jack and Mabry, then back at me, resigned. “You’re not a nurse.”
It felt like a slap. In the chaos since I’d found Martha lying on the floor of the corridor over a day earlier, I’d honestly forgotten. “Fluids, beef tea, rest,” I said. “I can do all that.”
“And what if one of them gets an infection?” Nina shot back. “What if one of them gets fluid in his lungs? Or sleepwalks and hurts himself? What if Mr. West has one of his fits, or Mr. Childress? What will you do then?”
I bit my lip. “All right. But you’re half asleep, Nina. It’s your turn to go rest. I insist on it.”
She pushed up her glasses. “You won’t get any argument from me,” she said in her old sullen way, and she stomped away to find a blanket.
Captain Mabry was looking through his spectacles and down his patrician nose at me. “What?” I said to him. “You’ve never seen a girl impersonate a nurse before?”
“It’s a bit of a long story,” Jack offered.
“Intriguing,” said the captain. “It has something to do with that unpleasant chap we ejected the other day, I assume?”
“Something like that,” I replied.
“I see.” He paused. “Your treatment of nosebleeds was very well-done, Nurse Weekes.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry I had to pull rank back there, but he wasn’t going to listen to you, and I had to move things along. Now, we need to get Paulus up-to-date on what’s going on.”
“If we can find him,” Jack said.
“What?”
“I’ve been looking for him for over an hour. Roger’s gone, too.”
Paulus had never warmed to me, but I was unsettled at the thought of doing without his huge bulk. “He can’t have gone far,” I said. “Let’s help get these ambulances off, and let’s keep looking.”
? ? ?
Paulus turned up half an hour later with Roger in tow. The two of them came into the hall as the ambulances pulled away, looking sweaty and a little harried. Paulus had drops of rain spattered over his whites. “Where are they going?” he said. “What’s going on?”
I turned to him, worry making my voice sharp. “Where the hell have you been?”
“I had work to do,” he retorted.
“Well, you have more work to do now. They couldn’t fit us all, so they’ve gone with as many as they can take, and they’re coming back after the rain has stopped and the bridge has cleared.”
“That’s just bloody great.” Paulus flushed. “We’re all right fucked—that’s what we are.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I want a meeting of everyone left who is able-bodied, except for Nurse Shouldice, who must rest. Round up everyone and go to the dining room. Now.”
The meeting was a depressing one. I put a lantern down on one of the long tables and looked around. I was the only nurse; Roger and Paulus were the only orderlies. Jack and Captain Mabry pulled up chairs, and West wheeled in his chair. The disease had passed him over so far.