Was he really to be told who he could or couldn’t befriend? But Forrester was worn out, and in no mood to pick an argument. “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said. Then, more coolly than he’d intended, “Will that be all, sir?”
“Oh dear.” Forbes frowned. “Are we back to formalities? I’m sorry, I’ve evidently driven you too hard. I have so many men to see, and there are so few hours in the day, it’s a struggle not to try and push through everything at once.”
“I understand,” Forrester said.
“Then that’s sporting of you. You must go and rest. I’ll have Nurse Rao bring you something for the pain. Good day, Forrester.”
Forrester endeavoured to appear grateful. “Good day, doctor.”
Outside in the corridor, Sergeant Campion was standing stiffly beside the far wall, not much bothering to disguise his boredom. “To your room, is it, sir?” he asked, with what seemed to Forrester an ironic note of servility.
Forrester, entangled in his own thoughts, murmured a confirmation and trudged after Campion on his crutches. He was caught by the desire to make sense of the last few minutes, yet his mind was awhirl. He could barely phrase questions, let alone approach an answer. The truth was that he didn’t know what to think. He had taken to Forbes when first they’d met, but now he felt as if he’d gone five rounds in a boxing ring; it had been one challenge, one demand after another. For a man who claimed to be on his side, Forbes was being exceedingly rough.
Perhaps it was true that the big push had not come off as the brass hats had hoped and they were looking for anyone to pin a share of the blame on. But would one small night raid and the second lieutenant who’d led it be worthy of their attentions? Still, assume for the moment that all Forbes had told him was absolute fact: that someone was determined he be tried over the deaths of his men, that treatment at Sherston was the only defence between him and them. Forrester could accept all of that with a modicum of effort—and even then, there were holes in the story he was unable to fill.
One aspect that particularly puzzled him was how Forbes could be convinced of his diagnosis on such minimal evidence. Could Forrester be so obviously symptomatic and yet so unaware? But there were other pieces that refused to fit tidily. And Forrester could raise no doubts, Campion had seen to that. The politest of enquiries would be interpreted as more troublemaking. Nor could he compare notes with his fellow patients. Together, Campion and Forbes had done a comprehensive job of cutting him off from anyone who might offer answers. It was quite a labyrinth, and he saw no way out.
Then Forrester screamed.
The pain in his head had come from nowhere. He’d never known agony on such a scale. It was as if a spike of iron had fallen from the roof of the world and pulverised his brain. Yet here he was, alive, the anguish already abating. He had even, somehow, remained standing.
And as Forrester thought that, Sergeant Campion slid to his knees. His torso lolled against the wall. His head tilted, found purchase. One hand rolled into his lap.
Forrester stared, aghast. Had the sergeant suffered a heart attack? A seizure? His own pain was gone now, the very memory of it fading. He balanced one crutch against a table set into an alcove and leaned over, as best he could. He touched two fingers to Campion’s neck, searching for a pulse. Yes, there it was, sluggish but regular. And when Forrester moved his hand to Campion’s lips, he felt the gentle push of breath.
The man was alive and, so far as Forrester could ascertain, was healthy. Only, he was sound asleep.
Chapter Eight
F orrester considered trying to wake Campion and decided against it. If he had endured some kind of attack—could epilepsy do this?—then he might be better sleeping it off. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t do to leave him lying unconscious in a corridor. Forrester cursed beneath his breath. He was on crutches and already bone-tired, why must this responsibility fall to him?
He resolved to retrace his steps to Forbes’s office. He had no desire to speak to Forbes again, but the alternatives were to hunt for the common room, which he wasn’t at all certain he could find, or to search around aimlessly. Even knowing where he was going, however, he made slow progress. He sensed that his leg was healing, though the discomfort had only abated a fraction, but the limb was no more capable of taking his weight, and any carelessness with the crutches was punished acutely.
When he came at last to Forbes’s door, he knocked with the foot of one crutch. There was no response. He tried once more, a couple of sharp knocks. Still nothing. Probably Forbes had retired for the day. Propping one crutch, Forrester tested the handle. The door was unlocked. He pushed it open, reclaimed his crutch, and hobbled inside.
He saw Forbes immediately. The major was slumped across his desk, with one arm cast over its polished surface, the fingers splayed. From the far end of the room, Forrester could hear that he was snoring.
Forrester leaned on the doorframe. His own breath was coming in sharp tugs. There was the discomforting impression of being caught in a bad dream, but he knew he wasn’t dreaming. At least, he thought, not in any usual sense. Was it feasible that he was hallucinating, that he’d succumbed to a mental collapse? Here as in No Man’s Land, had his mind betrayed him?
He stood, supported by the frame, waiting for his breathing to steady, and waiting too, though without much optimism, for reality to resume its customary pattern. How did these things work? If only there was some other clue that his perception was at fault. He studied his own hand, the polished floorboards, the paintings on the wall, for anything wrong or out of place. Everything appeared normal, entirely normal, except that Campion was asleep and so was Forbes.
Soon he grew calmer. In fact, maybe he should have been more agitated than he was. Despite the strangeness and the possibility that he was undergoing some sort of breakdown, Forrester didn’t feel he was unduly alarmed. The one problem that seriously concerned him was his perceptual dilemma: if everyone he encountered was sleeping, how was he to judge whether what he was experiencing was real? The circumstance seemed a perfect contradiction.
At any rate, there remained explanations that did not involve a failure of his mental health. He remembered the theories he’d concocted in France, that the mass unconsciousness there had been the symptom of a new gas or some other experimental weapon. Perhaps—and this disturbed him—that threat had been developed not by Germany but by the Allies, and their own trial had backfired, just like the gas at Loos. In that case, was it conceivable that they’d brought a quantity here to experiment on?
Whatever the case, the next step was surely to see if anyone was awake elsewhere in the house. He thought about checking on Forbes before he left. However, he could hear the major snoring, and he looked comfortable enough with his face nuzzling his desk. Instead, Forrester returned to the corridor and set off in the opposite direction to that from which he’d come.
This time, he went more steadily. There seemed no point in exhausting himself. He headed for the common room, since that was the only place he knew. Though finding it took him a good while and a couple of wrong turns, he encountered no one on the way. The double doors stood partly open, and he intuited from the utter silence what he should expect inside.
He peered in anyway. The scene that met him was like something from a fairy story. Everywhere men lolled in chairs, or lay with heads upon folded arms. He recognised Major Morgan in one corner, leaning as far back as his seat would allow, his head drooping and his arms slack. A couple of nurses were slouched against the walls, and an orderly was nestled near the windows. The sight should have alarmed him. Yet everybody looked so thoroughly at peace. This wasn’t just sleep but untroubled, pacific sleep, and that was difficult to be horrified by.
Forrester took a chair and pondered what his next move ought to be. His leg was almost intolerably painful. If not for the prospect of climbing stairs, he might have been tempted to return to his room. But wasn’t he being irresponsible? If this was the same phenomenon as in France—if there was a pheno
menon outside of his imagination, as for the moment he must suppose there was—then it was possible everyone he’d come across was doomed to die. Hadn’t Forbes claimed that Forrester’s men had perished after he’d left them? Perhaps that had only been another stage of what had befallen them, a side-effect or, if this really was a weapon, its ultimate purpose. Despite what his instincts assured him, he had to assume that Forbes, Campion, the nurses and their patients, all were in mortal danger.
Obviously then, his obligation was to summon assistance. Forbes had mentioned a telephone, but Forrester had no way to locate it. Likely there would be a town or village nearby, but he had no hope of reaching anywhere on foot. There might be a motorcar here, or the lorry he hazily remembered arriving in, but he was in no condition to drive.
Could there be help closer to hand? The occurrence in No Man’s Land had been localised; the officer who’d found him hadn’t been affected, nor had the stretcher bearers. Perchance there was a porter’s lodge or a gardener’s cottage in the grounds. It might even be that the effect was restricted to the house, or just a portion. Forrester attempted to calculate how much of the place he’d traversed on his way down from Forbes’s office, but without knowledge of the building’s proportions, the exercise was futile. Regardless, both avenues of thought led to the same conclusion: he was better off outside than inside.
He’d have liked to have rested longer, though. The pain had retreated, but not far. He tried to recall the cast of mind he had acquired in France, where subordinating his wellbeing to the needs of his men had been so easy. Here was a crisis potentially as grave as any he’d faced over there. Had he been made selfish by so small a wound?
Forrester levered himself to his feet. Again, he scanned the recumbent forms of his fellow patients, seeking a sign that they might be drawing close either to wakefulness or decline. Finding neither, he went back out into the passage, passed the hall where they’d lunched earlier, ignored too the stairs that led up toward his room, and chose instead the flight down to the lower level.
As he’d anticipated, that brought him out in the region of the service areas. There, to his chagrin, the corridors were a warren. Forrester wandered aimlessly: at one point he came across a pantry, largely empty, and soon after, he passed what he took to be a laundry. He was growing despondent by the time he discovered the kitchens, and what must be the servant’s dining room. In the latter, a couple of nurses were asleep, one in a chair, the second curled cosily on the flagstones. Neither of them was Nurse Rao.
Evidently the kitchen had been in recent use, but oddly, there was no sign of any servants. Forrester had read in the newspapers of wealthy houses taking in recuperating officers; apparently it was becoming quite the thing to do. But those officers did not simply supplant the house’s residents. So why was there no indication that the place was functioning in anything other than a military capacity, no trace of a routine, civilian existence?
He made a quick check of the seated nurse, whom he identified as the woman who’d mustered them for lunch earlier. Her breathing was slow and unwavering, and again Forrester decided it was best not to try and wake her. A short stairway led up from one corner of the kitchen. When he investigated, he saw that the steps concluded in a small door, with daylight visible through a fanlight above. Struggling up the steep stairs, he found that it was unlocked.
The door brought him out in a walled garden, its stonework ancient and crumbling. There were patches for herbs and salad vegetables, and trellises against one wall upon which climbing fruits clung, interspersed with sweet peas and an out-of-control rose bush with delicate crimson blooms. He carried on to a gate set in the far-right corner, following a paved pathway that meandered amid the beds.
Beyond the gate were the grounds proper. Now that he saw the exterior of the house, Forrester perceived that it was built on the level summit of a hill, with the land about angling downwards toward a wall that the decline rendered invisible except for its very summit. All told, the site was distinctly desolate. There was a stand of trees here and a cluster of statuary there, but their function seemed more to highlight the emptiness than to challenge it. He could just make out the rise of an arch halfway along the wall, indicating a back way out. However, there was no path down, only occasional steps to traverse a particularly steep portion.
All the same, he determined to head for it. He was close to exhausted, the effort of hoisting the crutches increasing with each step. Perhaps there would be a gatehouse or the gates would afford a perspective of some other nearby habitation. Anyhow, he had no better plan.
He was descending the first stairs, taking care upon the lichen-begrimed stone, when he glanced up to see that somebody was approaching from behind a copse of trees. He recognised a nurse’s uniform, and, as she turned his way an instant later, that he was looking at Nurse Rao. Then it dawned on him that here was someone else awake and apparently undisturbed by whatever had occurred inside.
Forrester hurried toward her, as well as he could. “Hello?” he tried.
She stared back, visibly startled. Was she never to say anything?
You’re awake , he wanted to point out, but he’d sound like a lunatic if he did. No doubt she’d been made familiar with his condition; maybe she knew more about it than he did. He remembered how he’d longed for an objective witness to satisfy himself the sleepers weren’t conjured by his imagination, and now that he had one, he was tongue-tied. Finally he asked, “What are you doing out here?”
“I come here to walk, sometimes, when I’m not needed,” she replied, and Forrester strove to hide his surprise, having barely expected an answer. While she had a definite accent, her English was impeccable.
“They tell me you’re Nurse Rao,” he said.
“My name is Abhaya.”
“And I’m Forrester. If we’re to be on first-name terms, then you should call me Raff.”
Abhaya nodded politely and dropped her gaze. He’d predicted that she would query his presence or suggest he return inside, but she’d done neither. On the contrary, he felt she was reluctant to be drawn into a conversation, and his every impulse was to leave her be.
Yet that would be remiss of him, and nor could he concern himself with how she might judge his sanity. “See here,” he said, “something terribly strange has happened. I’m afraid you’ll think I’ve lost my mind for even describing it, but—well, everyone’s asleep. It’s the darnedest affair. I haven’t attempted to wake them, I had the feeling it wouldn’t do any good. I came out hoping to find someone.”
Abhaya didn’t regard him as though he was mad, and Forrester supposed he should be grateful for that. But in truth, he could read nothing in her face, which was hardly better. “I don’t see what I can do,” she said.
“You’re a nurse, aren’t you? Couldn’t you take a look?”
She shook her head, almost warily, as if the question might be a trick. She pointed downhill, toward the gate. “There’s somebody who may be able to help.”
He wanted to argue. Her behaviour seemed cold-hearted; did she not believe him? It occurred to him again that perhaps he was displaying some symptom he was altogether oblivious of. Yet what an impossible situation! If only she’d go inside and look for herself, then at least he would know—but there was no use in trying to persuade her.
Instead, Forrester started downhill. He was near to the gates, severe wrought iron grilles set amid a plain stone arch, when he spotted the person on their far side. As he remarked the military uniform, Forrester’s heart sank. He’d have given anything for a civilian, and for some common sense. Nevertheless, he exclaimed, “Hello there?”
The soldier stepped more clearly into view. He was quite young, younger anyway than Forrester himself. Forrester could make out no insignia or tokens of rank. “Is there a problem, sir?”
“I think the people inside may be sick,” Forrester said. “When I left, a number of them had fallen unconscious.”
“Unconscious?” the soldier repeated, wit
h less alarm than Forrester would have anticipated. He recognised the soldier’s expression, having seen it often enough at the front: here was a man taught to rely on discipline rather than initiative being confronted by a decision his orders failed entirely to cover.
The gate was chained and padlocked, Forrester noted. “Why don’t you come inside,” he said, “and lock up behind yourself? Under the circumstances, you needn’t worry about anyone trying to escape.”
He’d meant that last to be reassuring, but his proposal had only heightened the conflict in the young soldier’s expression, which was drifting toward outright suspicion. What had he been told about the house he was guarding? That it was full of lunatics, of officers who’d caved under the stress?
“Please listen,” Forrester said in desperation, “I really think lives may be in danger. There are people unconscious, do you hear?”
“All right.” The soldier still seemed unsure, though. “Will you back up, sir?” He began to fish in his pockets, presumably for a key .
But just then, they were both interrupted by a raucous cry slightly muted by distance. “Hey there!”
Two figures were rushing down the bank from the house. One was a nurse—not Abhaya—and the other was Sergeant Campion. It was he who’d shouted. He was moving at speed, not delaying for the nurse, who was lagging farther and farther behind. She was the one who’d been curled on the kitchen floor, and aside from their ruffled uniforms and dishevelled hair, neither of them were obviously the worse off for their experience.
The soldier stopped fumbling for his key and watched the pair approach with trepidation. When Campion drew near, it was to the soldier that he spoke, not Forrester. “At ease, Corporal,” he said. “I’ll take this from here.”
The young soldier looked intensely relieved.
Only then did Campion turn to Forrester. “What’s going on?”
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