‘Any news from Charton?’ Rose enquired.
‘No, not really.’ Michael shrugged. ‘Alex Denham married his – whatever she is, and he’s gone back to France.’
Rose felt her heart begin to thump. ‘I heard she was going to have a child,’ she murmured casually, as the soup slid down her throat like slime.
‘Yes, I believe that’s right.’ Michael’s eyes were on her, and she couldn’t look away. ‘Denham got himself blown up,’ he added, carelessly.
‘What?’ Rose gave up all pretence of eating. ‘When was this?’
‘Oh, months ago, long before he married whatsername.’ Michael pushed his empty bowl aside. ‘What’s the matter, Rose? You’ve gone quite red.’
‘It’s very hot in here.’ But she had to know. ‘What happened to him? I mean–’
‘He was in a cellar or something when the Germans bombed it and the walls caved in. Some fellows from the Norfolks dug him out. A few of his chaps were killed outright and most of them had injuries, but I believe our friend escaped intact.’
Michael’s gaze roamed over Rose’s face. ‘Well – more or less intact. He had bad concussion, but he’s still got his arms and legs and – things. He came home for a bit of leave and made an honest woman of his trollop, so now he’s a married man.’
Rose’s heart was hammering. She knew her face was scarlet. She tried to think of something innocent and conversational, some remark about the awful weather, but she couldn’t find anything to say.
‘They’re talking of turning Charton Minster into a convalescent home for officers,’ said Michael, suddenly. ‘If you’re still keen to do your bit, perhaps you could work there.’
Rose looked at him and saw it was a plot. But before she could say no, she meant to stay in London, the door of the restaurant opened and a gust of air blew in.
‘Well, I don’t believe it! ’Ello, Rose!’ Phoebe Gower was looking like a fashion plate. She wore a light wool dress and matching fur-trimmed coat in a flattering shade of silver grey, which suited her and took the strident brassiness out of her dyed hair, most of which was hidden by a velvet hat today.
Sauntering behind her was a sallow but good-looking man. In his middle thirties, he wore a cashmere coat draped round his shoulders and a smart, dark suit.
As he snapped his fingers and the head waiter scurried over, Phoebe smirked at Michael. ‘Well, you’re a deep one, Rose,’ she grinned. ‘I never knew you ’ad a feller, ’specially an ’andsome one like this! You goin’ to introduce us, then?’
Chapter Five
‘What was her name again?’ asked Michael, as he and Rose walked up the steps towards St Benedict’s.
‘Phoebe Gower,’ said Rose.
‘Phoebe, the chaste goddess of the moon. I doubt if it’s appropriate.’ Michael grinned sarcastically and shook his golden head. ‘How did you meet somebody like that?’
‘She’s the sister of a nurse who works with me.’
‘She was with a desperate-looking chap.’
‘Yes, he did seem rather rough.’ Rose hadn’t liked the look of Phoebe’s friend. Dark-haired, saturnine and heavily built, he had merely nodded when Phoebe introduced him as Mr Daniel Hanson, and proudly announced he was in property.
He had let Phoebe flirt and chatter for a minute or so, and brag about her spot at the Haggerston Palace Music Hall, then he’d stalked over to a private booth, and she had scuttled hastily after him.
‘So you’re not coming back to Dorset?’ Michael asked, as they stood on the top step.
‘No, I’m staying here.’ Rose looked up at him beseechingly. ‘Please, Michael, try to understand. You’ll be going away.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘So you’ll have your chance to see the world.’
‘Rose, I’ll be going to fight! It won’t exactly be a holiday. I’ll probably be wounded. I might even be killed.’
‘I know.’ Rose hung her head. ‘But I’m not going back to Dorset, to be buried alive.’
‘I see,’ said Michael. He looked Rose up and down. She could see him taking in her scuffed and battered boots, cheap cotton uniform and the cloak she’d bought from Staff Nurse Pearson second hand. ‘What are you doing for money?’
‘I’m managing,’ she said. ‘I have most of my meals in the hospital canteen. My lodgings are quite cheap. I have some savings.’
‘I don’t know what’s come over you. Everyone in Dorset thinks you’re mad, and I’m beginning to agree with them.’ Michael took out his watch and frowned at it. ‘I have to go and see my tailor now.’
‘I must get back to work. But, Michael?’
‘Yes?’
‘Please don’t think I meant to hurt you. I–’
‘I’m late already,’ Michael interrupted. ‘Goodbye, Rose.’
Rose watched as Michael strode off briskly down the busy London street. The city was full of men in uniform, and soon he was just another smudge of khaki, lost among the crowds.
As she walked through the lobby, she was mulling over what he’d said. He’d told her Lady Courtenay looked as if she’d suddenly aged ten years. Rose’s father never mentioned her, or not in public anyway.
But still she couldn’t regret what she had done.
She wondered about Michael. If he still wanted her to marry him, and if she did become his wife, how was she going to live with him, go to bed with him and have his children, when she didn’t love him and hardly even liked him any more?
‘I must be very wicked,’ she told herself, as she went up the stairs to Stafford Ward. ‘I have no conscience, I don’t care whom I hurt. If my parents cut me off without a penny, it will serve me right.’
She walked in through the double doors and down the ward towards the sister’s office.
‘Excuse me, Sister Courtenay?’ Corporal Anderson was grinning. ‘What did I do, to make you run away from me like that?’
‘You didn’t do anything, as well you know.’ Rose smiled back at him. ‘Somebody came in to see me, and–’
‘Yeah, so we heard,’ said Private Floyd. ‘Some young feller, wasn’t it?’
‘Some ’andsome captain, I’ll be bound,’ said Private Coleman. ‘Look, lads – Sister Courtenay’s blushing!’
‘You mustn’t call me sister,’ Rose said sternly. ‘I’m a volunteer, so you should address me as Miss Courtenay.’
‘I’m a sick man, Sister.’ Private Coleman shook his head. ‘You can’t expect me to remember guff like that.’
‘Good afternoon, Miss Courtenay.’ Maria came up and handed Rose a tray. ‘I hope you had a pleasant outing? Sergeant Curtis, Private Floyd and Lance Corporal Townsend need their tubes and dressings changed, so if you wouldn’t mind?’
‘I’m glad it’s you, Miss Courtenay,’ Sergeant Curtis murmured, as Rose drew the curtains round his bed. ‘You’ve got the gentlest hands of all the nurses on this ward.’
Rose blushed again, but this time with pride.
Alex’s leave came to an end and he rejoined his company in France. The third battalion was in trenches near Arras, and his new platoon was in the actual front line, but the men who’d occupied these trenches last had made them almost cosy. The pumps worked properly, so when it rained the water didn’t lie in muddy puddles, soaking everything.
The officers had a dugout roofed with corrugated iron and furnished with a table and some armchairs stolen from a nearby farmhouse that was now a ruin. There were crates of whisky, a new paraffin stove and piles of blankets, as well as several recent Punches, Tatlers, and other magazines.
‘A little home from home,’ observed the captain who showed Alex round. ‘When it’s quiet we all cram in, then get a decent fug up. You wouldn’t know there was a blasted war going on outside.’
‘It’s all very snug, sir.’ Alex put his pack down on a bunk. ‘They told me back at base we’d only be here for another couple of weeks. Do you know where we’ll be going next?’
‘We hope there isn’t going to be a next!’ Captain Ford looked grim.
‘I don’t know what they’re saying back home in Blighty, but the fellows here can’t believe the Brass is going to let us sit and look at Jerry all the flipping winter. They promised we’d be home in time for Christmas, after all.’
Alex merely shrugged.
‘Come and have a dekko at the saps,’ the captain added, pointing to the entrance of a tunnel snaking under no-man’s-land. ‘We’ve packed them all with high explosive, so the Jerries opposite are going to get a nasty shock tonight. I understand you’ve done a course in mining?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Then you could get in there and make sure everything’s been set up as it ought to be. The last time we did this, we lost five men, and Colonel Parker wasn’t pleased. So when you’ve had a gander, come and tell me what you think.’
Although his fellow officers were hoping to be home in time for Christmas, Alex didn’t care where he went next, to England or Siam. He was relieved to get away from Chloe, who hadn’t proved to be a blessing.
After their furtive hole and corner wedding in a register office, at which the guests had been a solemn Henry Denham and an embarrassed Mrs Jarman, the newly-married pair had gone to spend a couple of days in Dorset.
Chloe had waddled round Henry’s cold, dark and dilapidated house complaining that it wasn’t what she’d expected. The whole place smelled of mice, she grumbled, and there were rotten floorboards everywhere. The banisters were broken, and if she didn’t watch it she would take a tumble down the stairs and break her flipping neck.
When it was time for Alex to go back, Chloe announced she couldn’t stand the quiet of the country any more, and was going to stay with her Aunt Emily in Wolverhampton. ‘So I must have some money,’ she said sharply. ‘Forty pounds at least.’
Alex gave her fifty.
Chloe put the money in her purse. ‘It’s not at all like I’d imagined,’ she added, sniffing miserably.
‘What’s not as you’d imagined?’
‘I’d have thought a gentleman like you would have a grand, imposing house, not a horrible, draughty barn like this. I thought there would be silver plate and lovely velvet curtains and servants everywhere.’
‘You must have read too many novels. Most of the country houses hereabouts are just like this one.’
‘But I don’t want to live in an enormous, crumbling ruin!’ Chloe sat on a dusty chair and wept. ‘I want to live in a town, where there are shops and parks and buses! I want to wear nice clothes from Gamages. I want to have my friends and neighbours round for supper and a little sing-song now and then. I want a garden with herbaceous borders and a chicken coop, so we can have fresh eggs. I want a little house that’s all my own!’
Alex crawled out of the sap, lit a cigarette and told himself that Chloe was very young. She would adapt to living in rural Dorset, and it would all work out. But even if it didn’t, at least her child would be legitimate, and that was worth a lot.
He could still remember those first months at boarding school. Michael and he had gone down on the train, and Michael had promised faithfully he wouldn’t tell a soul. But the strain of secrecy had proved too much for him.
A few weeks into term, they’d had a scrap about some blackbird’s eggs. Contrary to decent sporting practice, Michael destroyed the nest and pinched the lot. Alex had given Michael a black eye, and Michael had called Alex a stupid, pox-faced bastard.
‘Language, Easton,’ warned a junior master, who’d happened to be passing and had broken up the fight. ‘If Dr Preston heard you calling other fellows bastards, he would have you flogged all round the cloister.’
‘But Denham is a bastard, sir,’ Michael had protested, ‘and his stinking mother is a whore.’
‘Any comment, Denham?’ The master had looked quizzically at Alex. ‘If that’s malicious slander, you can black his other eye. I’ll hold him down for you.’
Alex had just stared at Mr Lewis in helpless misery.
One hour later, Michael’s version of the story was all round the school. For the next three years – until he grew big and strong enough to beat up his tormentors – Alex was addressed as bastard with impunity. It was common knowledge that his mother was a harlot, who was anyone’s for half a crown.
Alex threw his cigarette away. The saps were amateurish, but the explosive was packed in properly, the fuses looked all right, so they were as ready as they’d ever be.
He went to look for Captain Ford, who wasn’t in the dugout. So he set off down the trench, stepping over men snatching a nap, and stores and boxes of equipment.
‘Good morning, sir,’ exclaimed a spruce young corporal, who was carrying a sack that wriggled. ‘Rabbits, sir,’ he grinned. ‘A mother and her babies. My old man was a poacher down in Charmouth and I used to be a butcher’s boy. It’s rabbit stew tonight.’
‘Well done, corporal.’ Alex shuddered. ‘Do you know where I’ll find Captain Ford?’
‘He’s in Park Lane, sir. It’s the new communication trench.’ The corporal stroked his squirming sack. ‘If you’re going up there, sir, I’d keep your head well down. The Jerries are sending over all the heavy stuff today and they’ve got good marksmen. An officer who came out here from Blighty just a week ago got his brains blown out by a sniper only yesterday.’
Alex didn’t care if there were half a dozen snipers, if all their sights were trained on him. He’d done his duty by Chloe, who would soon forget him. The child would probably be Henry’s heir, and Chloe would get a pension from the army, so she’d be a fairly merry widow. She could have her little house in some dull, sprawling suburb – herbaceous borders, chicken coop and all.
He set off down Park Lane, hands in his pockets, whistling tunelessly.
‘They’re opening another ward for soldiers,’ said Maria, as she and Rose made beds one gloomy morning in the middle of December. ‘This one will be for amputees and other serious cases, like head injuries.’
‘I’ll be staying on Stafford, I suppose?’
‘On the contrary.’ Maria looked at Rose. ‘I’ve asked to go on the new ward. I hope you’ll come with me. We’ve four more volunteers starting Monday, and Stafford would be an ideal ward for them. You could handle much more challenging stuff.’
‘But I’m not a proper nurse,’ frowned Rose.
‘You have a nurse’s instincts. You’ve learned more these past few weeks than some people learn in four whole years of formal training. You get on with the other staff. The men adore you. Rose, you are a nurse.’
Rose went pink with pleasure.
The new ward was made ready and took its first twelve patients. ‘Two gas gangrene cases, seven snipers’ bullets in the head, and three blokes got too close to grenades,’ intoned the RAMC orderly who’d come in with the men. ‘Look out for that fellow with the ginger hair – he should be in a bin, if you ask me.’
Rose tried to look calm and confident, but she was horrified. On Stafford Ward, the men had all been wounded, but theirs had been straightforward injuries – broken legs and bullet wounds and gashes caused by shrapnel. They had been in hospitals in France before they’d come to England, and by the time they reached St Benedict’s they were getting better.
But these twelve new patients had come straight from the front line. The three who had had amputations still had field dressings on their other injuries. The ones whose heads were bandaged still wore bloodstained uniforms. They all looked tired to death.
The red-haired man had wild, dark eyes, and as Rose went up to him he let out such an eldritch shriek of horror that she backed away.
‘Shut it, Kingsley.’ One of the men who’d had a sniper’s bullet in his head scowled at the red-haired man, whose right arm was missing and whose khaki jacket was dark with blood. ‘Be careful, Sister – he’s a violent bugger.’
Maria and another staff nurse came to Rose’s aid. ‘Come along, Private Kingsley,’ soothed Maria. ‘Let’s get you cleaned up and into bed. Dr Lane will be here in a minute. He’ll give you something to
help calm you down.’
The nurses cut off dirty uniforms, washed the men and got them into bed. Rose smoothed the blankets and smiled at a man whose left arm was a stump, and whose remaining hand had lost three fingers to a grenade.
‘Thank you, Sister.’ The wounded soldier – a middle-aged reservist, Rose supposed, called up and sent to France when it all started – glanced up at her and sighed. ‘You look like you ought to be at school. If you don’t mind my asking, just how old are you?’
‘I’m eight – twenty-four,’ lied Rose, and blushed.
‘Eighteen, eh?’ The soldier shook his head. ‘So you’re just a kid, but at least you had the sense to be a girl. There’s boys of your age dying over there.’
‘I know,’ said Rose. ‘But you’re out of it now.’
‘Yeah, I’m out of it.’ The wounded soldier closed his eyes. ‘I used to be a carpenter, you know. I made chests and cabinets and boxes, lovely things they were, inlaid with mother of pearl and ivory. But I won’t be doin’ that no more. Last week, I saw this lad just turned nineteen get blown to bits. I wish it had been me.’
‘It’s horrible!’ cried Rose, as she and Maria snatched a coffee break later that day. ‘Men are being mutilated, driven mad–’
‘I know.’ Maria stirred her coffee, round and round and round. ‘Rose, if you can’t deal with it, you only have to say.’
‘I can deal with it!’ Rose glared at Maria. ‘I can look at mangled limbs and bullet holes with all the flesh and muscle hanging out, I can deal with horrible, great wounds! But what about the men? What are they doing out there? Just sitting in their wretched trenches like a row of targets, waiting to be shot at, bombed or blown to smithereens?’
‘You’ve heard what the men have been saying down on Stafford Ward,’ Maria said gently. ‘You know what must be happening over there.’
‘But I didn’t really think about it. I didn’t understand how awful it must be until today.’ Rose could not drink her coffee. ‘It’s wicked,’ she continued. ‘It’s evil and it’s cruel. It’s not a war, it’s just a pointless slaughter.’
‘You sound like a pacifist.’
The Silver Locket (Choc Lit) Page 6