The Silver Locket (Choc Lit)

by Margaret James

  As Rose and the other nurses hurried into the ward, an orderly was ticking off some names. As she passed him, she glanced at the list.

  Lieutenant Fraser, KOYLI. Captain Morris, Berks and Bucks. Captain Denham, Second Lieutenant Lawson, Royal Dorsets.

  It was as much as she could do to stand, for suddenly she was trembling and her legs were threatening to give way. What had they done to him, the murderous, filthy Bolsheviks? She grabbed the rail of a bunk, and held it while she swayed and tried to swallow rising bile.

  ‘Miss Courtenay, come along!’ Sister Harrison swept past, carrying swabs and dressings on a tray. ‘You and Sister Marlow can deal with Captain Morris and Lieutenant Fraser, while Miss Devine and I prepare the other two for theatre. What’s the matter, child?’

  ‘N-nothing, Sister Harrison.’ Behind the sister, Rose could see two bodies dressed in filthy, bloodstained khaki. Both lay motionless and silent. So were they unconscious, were they dead?

  She forced herself to look away. She and the other nurse began to cut the tattered uniforms off the other soldiers, bracing themselves for horrors they might see.

  ‘I saw the name!’ Rose cried an hour later, as Elsie tried to reassure her, to suggest it might be someone else. But, failing that, to convince Rose it would be all right.

  ‘Very well, he’s wounded.’ Elsie put her arm round Rose’s shoulders. ‘But they got him out of it, he’s in theatre now, and Dr Miller is a brilliant surgeon. If anyone can do it, he’ll pull Captain Denham through.’

  ‘But will he have a life worth living?’ Rose glared at Elsie savagely. ‘You’ve seen what they do, those filthy butchers!’

  ‘Rose, don’t let yourself get carried away. Let’s wait and see, all right?’

  Alex knew he had been blinded. The darkness was so dense, so black, it couldn’t be just night, not even this enshrouding Arctic night.

  They were unwrapping him, as if he were a parcel. He lay there and let them, didn’t murmur, didn’t cry out when they hurt him, for what would be the point? If he’d lost his sight it didn’t matter, nothing mattered any more.

  It was a strange existence, being a soldier. One minute, you were out there on the battlefield, armed and powerful, killing people – or doing your best not to be killed. The next, you were lying on your back while people poked and prodded you, and you couldn’t do anything to stop them.

  They unwrapped the dressings round his head. A male voice was murmuring something, but he couldn’t catch what he was saying, there was a roaring in his ears. Now he could see whiteness, brightness, and what he thought must be the sun, or an electric light.

  ‘Call me if you need me, Nurse,’ the male voice said crisply. ‘Captain Denham, can you hear me? Your chaps got you out of it, you’re going to be all right. You’ve got a head wound and concussion. Your vision will be blurred for several days, but in a week or so you should see normally again. The bullet wound in your leg looks rather nasty, but will heal.’

  Then he was aware that someone in a nurse’s uniform was leaning over him. Someone who smelled of soap and Lysol, but whose human, personal scent he knew. He thought he must be dreaming. He stared and tried to focus, but in vain.

  ‘Alex, can you speak?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Yes, I can speak.’ He would have given anything in the world to see her face, but it was still a blank, white shape. ‘Rose, this is a vile country, full of vile people!’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry about it now. Just go to sleep.’

  ‘I can’t sleep!’ He thought he’d never sleep again. ‘That poor sod they caught, they crucified. We found him hanging from a tree.’

  Then he felt a needle stab his arm, and everything dissolved into a mist.

  Rose wasn’t usually on Walton Ward, but four days after Alex had come in, she got herself transferred.

  ‘You’re looking better now,’ she told him, as she changed the dressing on his leg one dull, grey morning. ‘How’s your vision these days?’

  ‘It’s almost back to normal, except that I see two of everything.’

  ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

  ‘God, I don’t know.’ He frowned, then grinned. ‘But there are two of you. Two Roses, twins – now there’s a ghastly thought.’

  ‘I see they’re giving you too much morphine.’ Rose put the used dressing in the bucket. ‘Captain Miller says you’re very lucky. They didn’t crack your skull, and the bullet in your leg just missed the bone. I was afraid of gangrene, but although your calf is quite a mess, the wound looks pink and healthy.’

  ‘So I won’t lose my leg?’

  ‘Of course you won’t.’ Rose reached for a bottle. ‘Now, Captain Denham,’ she said softly, as she swabbed the wound with Lysol, ‘tell me you’re sorry I came.’

  ‘I wish you were anywhere but here in stinking Russia. What’s that stuff you’re putting on my leg? Jesus Christ, it stings!’

  ‘Captain Denham, please don’t use offensive language in the hearing of the nursing staff.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Sister.’ She felt him watching her as she bound up the wound, and it was like being bathed in sunshine. ‘You will come back and see me?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She walked off down the ward, her heart as light as gossamer. Alex might be sick, but he was safe.

  Three weeks later, he was almost better. He could see properly again, and get about on crutches. Weak and obviously in pain, he still needed morphine. But he didn’t have the greenish pallor he’d had when first brought in, bleeding from a head wound and shot through the leg, when he and his company had been ambushed by Reds.

  There was hardly any contact with the outside world. Letters from England came infrequently, brought by the Royal Navy ice-breakers that patrolled the frozen Barents Sea.

  ‘They’ve still got that awful influenza back at home.’ Rose was helping Alex dress, and noticing how thin he was, how wasted. It would, she thought with satisfaction, be several months before he was passed fit, and by then they all might be in England once again. ‘Celia’s been quite ill, apparently.’

  ‘So has Chloe,’ said Alex.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Henry wrote to me before we left.’

  ‘I hope she’ll be all right.’ Rose met Alex’s gaze. ‘I don’t want to hear of anybody sick or dying. There’s already been too much of that.’

  Alex shrugged and fumbled with his buttons. ‘But some people seem to have charmed lives. Celia’s bloody brother’s still unscathed.’

  ‘Yes, he’s become quite famous.’ Rose helped Alex step into his shoes. ‘I was on a men’s ward yesterday, and they were discussing Mr Easton, how he’s come through the war without a scratch, and now it seems the Bolsheviks can’t touch him.’

  As Alex gained more strength, he started fretting and talking about going out again.

  Convalescing men were sent to walk around the decks, and get some gentle exercise, but Alex paced the decks all day. One afternoon Rose found him sitting muffled in a coat, watching the sky. ‘I’m going to ask to be discharged tomorrow,’ he began.

  ‘But Captain Miller says it will be weeks before you’re fit again.’

  ‘I want to get the buggers who crucified poor Arrowsmith.’

  ‘You think you could find them?’

  ‘They’re holed up in a village near the river.’ Alex’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘I know exactly where it is, and I’d only need a dozen men, a few grenades.’

  The following day he was more restless still. ‘It’s so stuffy in this place,’ he grumbled. ‘The air’s like cotton wadding. I can hardly breathe. Why can’t we have the portholes open?’

  ‘It’s freezing hard out there, and if we let the cold air in, the radiators burst. Why don’t you go on deck and walk around?’

  ‘I’m sick of traipsing round the deck.’

  ‘I’ll be off shift in twenty minutes.’ Rose glanced through a porthole. ‘It’s almost dark, but it’s not snowing. If you wear
your boots and hat and greatcoat, I’ll take you for a stroll around the camp. You’re right, it’s very stuffy in the wards. I could do with some fresh air myself.’

  Half an hour later, Rose and Alex left the ship to take their walk around the army camp.

  There was nobody about, for all the men on duty were in the forests on patrol. The others were no doubt staying in their huts, playing cards and drinking potent local vodka, stoking the enormous cast-iron stoves with wood bought from the peasants, and getting up a comfortable fug.

  Although it was mid-afternoon, the Arctic night had chased away the feeble Arctic day, and the purple sky was full of stars. Lights from the ship cast eerie shadows on the crisp white snow, so it was bright enough to see.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Alex, staring up into twinkling sky, then gazing at the forest. ‘The world without the human race. What a delightful prospect that would be.’

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ said Rose.

  ‘All right, the world without the human race except for you and me.’

  They were both well wrapped up against the cold, in fur-lined boots and greatcoats, sheepskin gloves and fur-lined Russian hats with flaps and peaks.

  After they’d been walking for five minutes, Alex took Rose’s arm, and leaned against her for support. He was still quite weak, she thought. They shouldn’t stay out long.

  They passed one of the pitches where the troops played hockey on the ice, but nobody was playing there today. Perhaps, thought Rose, they were afraid some Bolsheviks would come out of the forest, and take them away.

  Only the previous week the Reds had captured seven British soldiers, hung them up from birches and tortured them to death, then left the bodies where they would be found.

  ‘How far do you want to walk?’ she asked.

  ‘Just a little way, towards that clump of silver birches.’ Alex let her go. ‘I can stand up by myself,’ he added. ‘You go and run around a bit, get your circulation going, eh?’

  ‘You won’t collapse or anything?’

  ‘Of course not, I’ll be fine.’

  So Rose went on ahead of him. Soon she was several hundred yards away. Although it was so cold, the air was fresh and clear and crisp.

  Delighted to be getting exercise, and feeling almost too warm in her sheepskin coat and boots, she ran on through the freshly-fallen snow, scooping it up and throwing snowballs at the naked birches, almost forgetting she was in an alien, hostile land, and enjoying being a child again.

  ‘Rose, come back!’ Alex’s voice cut sharply through the air.

  She saw the shadows first, and thought they might be wolves or bears – or Bolsheviks. She didn’t stop to check, but started sprinting back to Alex, afraid not for herself, but absolutely terrified for him.

  Then, another English voice, this one with a familiar rural burr, rang out into the night. ‘It’s all right, Sister! We’re a platoon of Dorsets – not a bunch of murdering Reds!’

  Michael Easton and a dozen men, all muffled up in coats and boots and carrying heavy packs, came out of the shadows of the forest. Rose stopped and gasped in sheer relief.

  She saw that Michael Easton’s eyes were cold, and sharp as knives of ice. She wondered what he and his men had seen while they’d been in the forest – and what they might have done.

  Michael stopped within a yard of Rose. ‘March the men back to the huts,’ he muttered to his sergeant. ‘I need to have a word with Sister Courtenay here.’

  ‘I’m going back to the ship,’ said Rose.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere just yet.’

  Michael’s men trudged off into the darkness. ‘So, Rose,’ he whispered, and his vodka-tainted breath was sour on her face, ‘I think we have something to discuss. When you ran away from me that day we met in Rouen, it wasn’t very ladylike behaviour. I feel you should apologise.’

  Rose stared up at him. She assumed he hadn’t noticed Alex, or maybe he had chosen to ignore him, which was probably just as well. She didn’t want Michael starting anything.

  ‘Go back to your hut,’ she said. ‘We haven’t anything to say to one another, least of all out here.’

  ‘I want to know why you won’t marry me.’

  ‘Mike, I just – I don’t–’

  ‘You want me to beat it out of you?’ hissed Michael.

  ‘All right then, you’re a liar and a coward!’ Rose glared back at him. ‘You seduced poor Phoebe, you deny the child is yours, but anyone only has to look at her to see your face! You might be a soldier, but you’re only half a man!’

  ‘You bitch,’ said Michael, softly. ‘You’re not content to spread malicious rumours all round Dorset. You’ve even turned my family against me with your lies and gossip. Celia is besotted with that brat. She wants to have it living at our house. But I’m not having that, especially as I reckon it must be yours and Denham’s.’

  He grabbed her arm and held it, and suddenly she felt the touch of metal, hard against her face. The revolver steady in his hand, he held the muzzle to her head.

  ‘You needn’t think I ever wanted you,’ he muttered, coldly.

  ‘Let me go!’ Rose kicked him hard, scraped her heel down his shin and hacked against his leg, but he was too muffled up to feel the impact.

  ‘I don’t let any woman make a fool of me,’ Michael went on, bitterly. ‘If I can’t have you, no one can.’

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, Easton?’ At the sound of Alex’s voice piercing the frozen darkness, Michael jumped and Rose groaned inwardly. Why hadn’t Alex gone back to the ship? He was unarmed, unfit – he couldn’t tackle Michael, who would trample him into the snow.

  ‘Ah, the bastard.’ Michael grinned. ‘I wondered why your harlot was wandering around outside, but now of course it’s obvious. You’ve been playing games out in the snow, and you’ve just played your last.’ Still holding on to Rose, Michael took careful aim at Alex’s chest.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Someone has to come, thought Rose, despairing. This camp must hold at least a thousand men. There must be working parties somewhere out there in the darkness. There are dozens of sentries in the forest, stamping up and down the tracks and looking out for Reds.

  She could scream for help. But if she screamed, would anybody hear her in this waste of ice and snow, where every sound was muffled, and even the crack of gunfire sounded like a gentle tap on wood?

  She shook her head. This must be a nightmare, she decided. I shall wake up soon. But if I am awake, it can’t be Alex Michael wants to kill. Mike wants to pay me back for hurting him, and Alex is in the way.

  She twisted round to look at him, to talk to him, to reason with him if she could, but at that very moment Michael fired. The shot went wide, startling some ravens lurking in the winter trees.

  She heard Michael swear.

  Alex was about ten yards away. ‘All right, Easton,’ he calmly, holding out one hand. ‘You’ve had your bit of fun. Let go of Rose and throw the gun to me.’

  ‘Go and fuck yourself,’ spat Michael, giving Rose’s arm a vicious twist. ‘God, if you only knew I how much I hate you! All my life you’ve been there. Getting in my way, and poaching after everything that’s mine!’

  ‘Mike, I don’t want anything of yours. I never did.’

  ‘Don’t come any closer!’ Michael’s grip had tightened. Rose could hear the panic in his voice, and now she was afraid – for him, for Alex, for herself. She knew most soldiers could be casually cruel, and frightened men did awful, dreadful things.

  She’d heard them talking on the wards, about the times when fear had made them kill their wounded prisoners, or shoot down enemies who’d surrendered in cold blood. She could actually smell the fear on Michael, damp and rank as a dog fox.

  The fear also gave him strength, for suddenly he jerked her arm so viciously she felt something crack. ‘If you come any nearer, I’ll kill you then I’ll kill your whore!’ he cried. ‘I mean it, Denham! Don’t play games with me!’
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br />   Rose knew her arm was broken, probably at the point where she had broken it before. Now, flames of pain seared past her shoulder blades, then licked across her collar bone. She couldn’t flex her fingers or articulate her hand. She hoped she wouldn’t faint.

  She didn’t know what to do. If she tried to hook her leg round Michael’s, would he fall? Or would he fire again at Alex, and at such close range how could he miss? If she made one more effort to escape and somehow managed to get away, what could she do then?

  Alex didn’t know he was in danger, that was plain. He’d had a shot of morphine an hour or two ago. As well as dulling pain, morphine made men over-confident, and made them think they could do anything.

  ‘Michael, let me go,’ she whispered softly.

  ‘Shut up, bitch.’ Michael aimed his Webley. ‘Come one step closer, Denham, and you’re dead.’

  But Alex took that step and, as he did so, Michael fired.

  Alex fell, and Rose began to scream. She jerked away from Michael, finally breaking free, then rounding on him with a violent fury that evidently astonished him, for he stood stock still and let her kick him.

  Trying to grab the gun, she hacked at him and fought him, cursing because her right arm wouldn’t work and she was clumsy with her left.

  He soon recovered from his surprise. He caught Rose round the waist and held her tight, her face pressed to his chest.

  Rose wriggled free and screamed again with all her might, squirming and trying to claw at Michael’s face. A second shot rang out, and Rose screamed louder and more desperately.

  Then there was a third shot. Michael’s gun flew from his hand. A spray of blood curved like a scarlet rainbow and fell pattering on the snow.

  Yelping, Michael spun away from Rose. Then he sagged and crumpled, like a broken marionette.

  The sound of gunfire and Rose’s anguished screams finally brought men running from the huts.