by Emma Fraser
The bustling atmosphere did nothing to shake the darkness that had descended on her. She wished she was working. Then there would be no time to think, no time to worry about whether she would ever see her brother again, whether Maximilian still thought of her – or if he was even still alive.
As for Simon, how perverse life was. That her brother’s best friend, who clearly loved him more than a friend should, was the brother of the man who had attacked her.
She paused as a motor ambulance turned in front of her. Wasn’t the rue François where the Hôtel Claridge was? If so, that was where the Women’s Hospital Corps – a unit also staffed wholly by women – was setting up a hospital.
After a moment’s hesitation, she decided to go and see for herself. It was possible she would know one of the doctors there, and it would be interesting to find out how they were coping. When she saw two ambulances and men in civilian clothes taking stretchers into a building, she knew she had found the right place.
As she drew closer, a man appeared outside the front door and pulled a silver case from his jacket. He propped a leg against the wall, tapped a cigarette on his hand and bent his head to light it.
There was something disturbingly familiar about the curly dark hair. When he lifted his head to blow smoke into the freezing air, she knew she hadn’t been mistaken. It was Archie. Here? In Paris?
Her heart lurched. She wasn’t ready to see him – at the very least she needed a few moments to collect herself – but before she could move his gaze fastened on her.
‘Isabel?’ His wide mouth stretched in a smile. ‘Isabel MacKenzie?’ He threw his half-smoked cigarette on the ground and strode towards her. ‘So it is you! I thought for a moment that I was dreaming.’
He was different in a way she couldn’t put her finger on. Perhaps it was the stubble that darkened his cheeks or the lines on his face that hadn’t been there before, but he seemed older than his years. He was broader too, his body more muscular than she remembered, and the leather jacket with the red-on-white insignia of the Red Cross seemed almost too tight for his shoulders.
He was looking at her as if he still couldn’t believe it was her. ‘You’ve cut your hair,’ he said finally. ‘It suits you.’
Despite her agitation, his words made her smile. After all this time, that was the best he could do. ‘Thank you. I find it easier to manage when I’m working.’
‘Working?’
‘I’m Dr MacKenzie now.’ She couldn’t keep the pride from her voice.
‘Dr MacKenzie, eh?’ He raised an eyebrow and studied her with those intense, blue eyes. ‘I knew you’d do it. You were always determined to get what you wanted.’
She flushed as the memory of the last time they’d met spooled before her mind’s eye, like a reel of a moving picture. Their kiss, the argument – then, sickeningly, the incident with Charles.
‘But, Archie, what are you doing here?’
He frowned as if her words hadn’t been what he’d expected – or hoped for.
‘I mean…’ she tried to compose herself, ‘…in Paris! Of all places!’
‘I’m a driver for the American Hospital in Neuilly. We’ve been transferring patients from our hospital to here. What about you?’
They were talking as if they were strangers.
‘I came to meet my brother, Andrew. He’s with the Royal Flying Corps. I had lunch with him yesterday. I hoped to spend today with him, too, but he was called back to his squadron.’
God – Simon! Did Archie know he was here? Did he even know that the Glendales and the police were looking for him?
‘You came to Paris to see your brother?’ Archie asked, looking puzzled.
‘I’m on my way to Serbia. I’m to join a field hospital there.’ A thought struck her. Did Jessie know her brother was here? She’d be thrilled to find him again. ‘Archie, I saw Jessie recently in Edinburgh. She’s here in France too.’
‘You saw Jessie?’ Archie’s face lit up. ‘She’s in France? Is she well?’
Isabel laughed. ‘One question at a time. She’s a nurse. She’s working with the Scottish Women’s Hospital, too, in a unit about twenty miles north from here.’
‘So she became a nurse, after all! Good for her – look, let’s find somewhere to sit. I’d suggest a café but I’m on duty.’ When she hesitated, he added, ‘Please? I want to know about Jessie. I want to know everything.’
Isabel followed him into a high-ceilinged marble hall brightly lit by crystal chandeliers. She stepped aside to allow two stretcher-bearers carrying a wounded soldier to pass. Despite the heavy bandages on both of his arms the injured man was smoking a cigarette and grinned cheekily at Isabel, calling something in French that she didn’t catch but that made the men carrying him laugh. As Archie led her to a couple of ornately carved chairs out of the way of the scurrying nurses, she thought frantically about what she would say to him.
‘How did you come to be working with an American unit?’ she asked, when they were seated.
‘I was in Paris on business when war was declared. I’m American now, so when I heard they had set up a unit in Neuilly and were looking for ambulance drivers, I volunteered. But never mind all that just now. Tell me about Jessie.’
‘You haven’t heard from her?’
He closed his eyes briefly. ‘Not for years.’
Isabel bit her lip. ‘She’s not had it easy, Archie. She married and had a little boy – Seamus – but he died. And that’s not all. Her husband was one of the first to join up. He’s missing in action, presumed dead. I am so sorry to have to tell you this.’
He smacked a fist into his hand making her jump. ‘A Thighearna! I should have been there to look out for her!’
Isabel stretched out a hand towards him, her fingers not quite reaching his. ‘Why did you leave? Did it have anything to do with Charles Maxwell?’
She held her breath as he studied her with guarded eyes. ‘Why do you ask me that?’
‘Because I heard that the police wanted to question you. He disappeared and his father thinks you had something to do with it.’ When he stayed silent she continued. ‘That day, the day we parted, did you see him?’ If he denied it, she would know she couldn’t trust anything he said.
‘I did. He saw us kissing. He said … Never mind what he said. I pulled him from his horse and punched him.’ So it had been Archie who had given Charles the bruise. ‘The man was a coward. He wouldn’t fight with me so I let him go.’
Her breath came out as a long sigh. So Archie had fought with Charles, but she believed him when he said he’d let him go. However, his explanation didn’t altogether make sense. Why would Archie leave just because someone had seen him fight with Charles?
‘You could have told the truth. You were only defending yourself.’
He laughed harshly. ‘Justice in your world is not the same as it is in mine. The word of a crofter doesn’t mean much against the word of an earl’s son. If Lord Maxwell had told the policemen I’d hit him, they would have arrested me and I wasn’t about to let that happen.’ He shrugged. ‘I always wanted to go to America. I just went a little sooner than I’d planned.’
She studied him intently. She had the feeling he was keeping something back. ‘Is that truly the only reason you went? Did you know that Charles hasn’t been seen since that day?’
‘No.’
‘They think … they think he must be dead and that you had something to do with it.’
His eyes never wavered from hers. ‘What do you think?’
Should she tell him about Charles’s attack? Every fibre of her being rebelled against it, but she’d sworn to get to the truth.
‘The day we met…’ her face burned as she thought of their parting, ‘…after I left you, Charles, he…’ She swallowed. ‘It was horrible.’
‘Go on,’ Archie prompted.
‘He followed me. He tried to…’
Archie reached for her hands and she welcomed the warmth of his fingers. ‘Did he hu
rt you?’
‘I managed to get away from him before he could. I think he meant to…’ She hurried on before she lost her courage. ‘It was as well he was drunk – otherwise…’ She pulled her hands from Archie’s grasp and twisted her fingers together to stop them trembling. ‘I didn’t know he went missing that day until years later, and that was when I discovered they were looking for you … and that you had left Skye. Then I met Jessie. She asked me if I’d seen you fighting with Charles.’ She sucked in a steadying breath. ‘I thought about it later. When I saw Charles he had been fighting, that much was clear, so then I wondered…’ Archie’s eyes hadn’t left her face. She swallowed and she forced herself to continue, ‘…if you’d seen him attack me and if…’ She tailed off.
‘What did you wonder?’ His voice was soft but there was a thread of steel in his tone. Then she saw realisation dawn in his blue eyes. ‘You think I might have killed him?’ He laughed harshly. ‘My God, Isabel. You of all people…’
She could tell by the incredulity in his face that he was telling the truth and felt lighter than she had for months. Whatever had happened to Charles, Archie had had nothing to do with it and therefore neither had she. Now she was with Archie again, her fears that he’d harmed Charles because of her seemed absurd and she was mortified.
‘Of course not,’ she lied. ‘He was drunk. He was probably thrown from his horse. Perhaps he fell into the sea. Maybe he ran away. Perhaps he was ashamed – or frightened I would tell someone.’
‘In one respect you’re right,’ Archie said. ‘If I had come across him when he had his hands on you, I probably would have killed him. Men like him don’t deserve to live.’
Nevertheless, the police and the earl were still looking for Archie. He wouldn’t find them so easy to convince. ‘But don’t you care that, if they find you, they’ll question you?’
‘They won’t find me.’ He reached across and touched her hand. ‘Forget about his lordship, Isabel. Leave the past where it belongs. Isn’t there more to worry about now, with this damned war?’
He was right. It was time to put the past behind her.
‘Now I’ve answered your questions, I want to know more about Jessie.’
Isabel was instantly ashamed. She’d been so obsessed with her need to know about Charles that she hadn’t stopped to think about Archie’s need to hear about his sister.
At that moment, an older man came strolling towards them. He tipped his hat to Isabel. ‘Excuse me, ma’am.’ His voice sounded strange, as if each syllable was being drawn out. ‘Scotty, you’re needed to go up the line.’
Reluctantly Archie got to his feet. ‘I have to go. Can we meet tomorrow? There’s so much I want to ask you.’
Isabel shook her head. ‘My train leaves at six this evening.’
‘Dammit.’ He hesitated. ‘Why don’t you come with me now? You can help with the wounded I bring back. God knows they could do with someone to look after them. And you can tell me about Jessie on the way.’
What he was suggesting was crazy. She had no experience of dealing with casualties. She didn’t have her medical bag. Her heart banged against her ribs. But to treat wounded men was why she’d come and Archie deserved to hear everything she knew about Jessie.
He leaned his head to the side and grinned. ‘Unless you’re frightened?’
Immediately she was transported back to the day on Skye when she’d first met him and he’d dared her to follow him over the cliff. The same heady excitement surged through her and she smiled back. ‘What are we waiting for?’
As they bumped their way up the road the explosions grew closer and Archie turned to her. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t get too near the fighting, only as far as the casualty clearing station. But stay close to me.’
To her surprise, she felt calm and ready for anything.
Archie had to pull over every now and then to let a convoy of vehicles with red crosses emblazoned on the side stream past.
‘We pick up the stretchers they have for us. I can take four. Most will have temporary dressings – some will have had emergency operations. My job is to get them to the American Hospital as quickly as possible.’ He had to raise his voice to be heard above the noise of cannon. ‘That’s our side fighting back.’
It was hard to believe that Paris was only a short distance away.
‘What happened to Jessie’s baby?’ Archie asked.
‘Diphtheria.’
‘Poor lass. If I get time off I’m going to see her.’
‘She’d like that.’
Archie was concentrating on steering the ungainly vehicle over the icy road. Isabel studied him. In the years since she’d seen him, he’d changed. He’d always been self-assured but now there was an ease about him that hadn’t been there before.
‘Tell me about America,’ she said.
‘It’s a great country. A man can make of himself what he will. I started with nothing, but now I own land and am planning to grow grapes.’ She heard the pride in his voice. ‘That’s what I was enquiring about in Paris. But when the war broke out I knew nothing was more important. I’ve a good partner. He’ll keep things ticking over until I get back.’
Isabel grabbed the edge of her seat as they hit a pothole and the lorry bounced.
Archie slid a look at her. ‘And you, Isabel? Are you glad to be a doctor?’
‘You knew I could never do anything else.’
‘So you kept insisting,’ he said drily.
A short while later they came to a field dotted with canvas tents. Men, with armbands bearing a red cross, scurried around carrying stretchers, laying them on the ground, then hurrying away. A doctor, identifiable by the white coat he wore over his officer’s uniform, bent to examine each patient and would either call someone over to take the casualty inside or make a note on a piece of cardboard before tying it to the injured soldier’s lapel. Occasionally he would look at a man and shake his head. Then someone would lift the body from the stretcher and add it to a row of sheet-covered corpses.
Archie yanked on the handbrake and leaped out. ‘Wait in the back, Isabel. I’ll fetch whoever they have for me. Try to keep them alive until we get them to hospital.’
He ran to a canvas tent and spoke to a doctor. Isabel’s heart was thumping so hard she felt nauseous. She told herself that the adrenalin flowing through her veins would sharpen her senses. Haemorrhages. That was what she would be dealing with. As Archie had said, the casualty clearing stations patched the men up as best they could for transfer to hospital. She would have to keep an eye on the wounds. Watch for sudden bleeding. Apply pressure if needed.
Already her first patient, a lad of no more than eighteen with a bandaged right thigh, was being loaded into the back. Isabel felt his pulse. It was a bit quick but otherwise steady. The dressing was still almost white, so the bleeding was under control for now.
The next injured man had a bandage covering the whole of his face apart from a small gap around his nose and mouth to let him breathe. More bandages shrouded his torso and upper arms. He was badly burned and, her heart sinking, Isabel knew his chances were almost non-existent. She bent over him. ‘I’m a doctor,’ she said. ‘Hold on until we get you to hospital. You’ll be fine then.’ She repeated her words in French. She had no idea whether he could hear her, but if Andrew was badly wounded, she’d want someone to offer him reassurance – even an empty promise.
The third casualty made her stomach clench. His right leg was missing below the knee. The stump had been bandaged but bright red blood had soaked through and his pulse was rapid and weak. He needed a solution of saline, even though it was unlikely to make much difference.
Her last patient climbed into the back of the truck unaided. He smiled tiredly through his mud-spattered face. ‘Are you the nurse?’ he asked in French. Isabel didn’t bother to correct him. As he was relatively uninjured she needed his help.
‘Can you watch this soldier here for me?’ she replied, also in French, pointing to the soldier
with the thigh wound. ‘If blood starts soaking his bandage, let me know.’
Archie came around to the back. ‘Are you going to be all right?’
‘I’ll be fine. Just get us to the hospital as fast as you can. Try not to bounce too much.’
Archie closed the tailgate, and a few moments later the lorry lurched away.
On the way back, Isabel kept a close eye on her patients, although in the rear of the lorry, with no equipment to speak of, there was little she could do. The boy with the burns moaned softly and she whispered words of encouragement.
Finally, the nightmare journey was over and hands were reaching out to unload the casualties.
A soldier lifted Isabel down and she hurried along beside the stretcher of the boy with the missing leg.
As they got to the theatre, she was stopped by a male orderly. ‘I’m sorry, Miss, but you can’t go in there.’
‘She’s a doctor,’ Archie protested.
The man raised his eyebrows. ‘No women, sir, except our nurses.’
Isabel suppressed a scream of frustration. She wanted to see her patient through his treatment, but as the stretcher was wheeled away and the doors closed behind him, she knew arguing would only waste precious time in getting the boy to the operating table.
She was about to turn away when a young surgeon in a white gown and hat opened the door. ‘You may watch if you wish, Doctor,’ he said. ‘Just keep out of the way.’
Inside, Isabel took a gown from the outstretched hands of an American Red Cross nurse and slipped it on.
‘My sister’s a doctor,’ the surgeon said. ‘She’d kill me if I tried to keep you out.’
Another nurse was hanging a bottle on a stand next to the patient. It looked like blood.
‘You’re giving him blood?’ Isabel asked, surprised. As far as she knew, early attempts to replace lost blood with some from a donor had almost invariably ended in death when the donor’s blood had coagulated in the patient’s veins, causing a large clot or thrombosis.