“I came up with a trainload of wounded, and my friends invited me out for the evening. Everyone, this is Captain Mark Tremayne, an, um, an acquaintance of mine from Australia.”
“Good evening.” Mark forced himself to greet them civilly when all he really wanted to do was punch them on the nose because they were with Amy and he wasn’t.
“I thought you were still in England,” she said.
“I arrived here last week. I’m having a few days leave before rejoining my unit.”
“Have an enjoyable time.”
“How long are you staying in Paris?” he asked stiltedly.
“Just tonight. Goodbye, Mark,” she whispered in a sad little voice, trying not to cry. Better they had never met again than finish up like this.
“Which hospital are you at?”
“What’s the use?” She hunched her shoulders. “Your, your friend is waiting.”
He nodded to the others and swung away without speaking again. “Mark, chérie.” Halfway across the floor the girl in peacock blue glided up to him, gabbling something else in French. Like a saber thrust, pain pierced Amy’s heart as the woman slipped her arm through his and they walked away.
She tried not to vomit as she forced the food down so the others wouldn’t see her turmoil. What weakness in his make-up made him forget her so easily? Ella’s taunting words on Lemnos came back to haunt her. He had obviously grown tired of her innocence and the celibacy it forced upon him and found a woman who would pleasure him without wanting a permanent commitment. Oh, God, please don’t let it hurt so badly.
“Are you all right?” Kathleen touched her hand, and Amy came back to life again.
“Yes, I seem to have developed a headache.” The excuse sounded pathetic even to her ears.
“When that captain came over, you looked like you’d seen a ghost,” James remarked tactlessly.
“I suppose I did, in a way.”
“Dessert, anyone?” Cliff asked.
Amy could not bring herself to order anything but coffee. As she sipped it, she stared at the now empty table by the wall.
“There’s a rather naughty show we thought you ladies might enjoy,” Cliff told them with a laugh.
“Not the Can-Can dance?” Kathleen rolled her eyes. “You’d be shocked, Amy. You too, Mary.”
“I’ve seen it before. I went with my brother a couple of weeks ago,” Mary confessed with a guilty flush.
“I have to get back to camp, unfortunately,” James said as he stood up. “Nice meeting you, Amy. If I don’t get to see you before you leave, good luck.”
“Thanks, the best of luck to you also. I really enjoyed myself.”
“Until Tremayne turned up. Maybe we could go out again.”
“You never know, James. Strange things happen in wartime.” She forced herself to be civil to this nice young man. It wasn’t his fault she had fallen in love with an unprincipled cad like Mark.
He reached across the table and squeezed her fingers, bid the others farewell, and left.
Amy caught the interested stares from the other patrons as they stood up to leave. Against the colorful silks of the ladies, her nurse’s gray seemed drab.
Out in the street the fresh cool air washed over her, and she realized just how stuffy and smoke-filled the estaminet had been. The number of women openly smoking had shocked her. This is Paris, old girl, and wartime, so anything is permissible.
A tall figure detached itself from the shadows near the outside door. “Amy!”
She jumped with fright. “Mark.” Her heart slammed against her ribcage. “What are you doing here?” She looked around for his companions, wondering what she would do if she saw them. Scratch the woman’s eyes out, for starters.
“I’m alone. We need to talk.”
“Do we?” Her voice sounded so cold she wondered why it didn’t freeze her mouth.
“Yes. I’ll see Sister Smithfield back to the hospital,” he told the others.
“Now look here, sir.” Cliff stepped forward. “We’re responsible for Amy.”
“She’ll be quite safe with me. We go back a long way.”
“Amy wanted to see the Can-Can with us, didn’t you, darlin’?” Kathleen put on an Irish brogue.
“Amy, please,” Mark pleaded.
Hearing the anguish in his voice, seeing the tenseness in his body, she hesitated. Even if she regretted it later, she had to give him a chance to explain himself. She loved him too much to turn aside.
“If you don’t think me rude and ungrateful, I’d like to go with Mark.”
“Take care of our Sister Amy, won’t you?” Kathleen reverted back to her own voice. “Don’t complain about missing out on seeing the Can-Can, because you had your chance.”
Mark did not speak until the others drove away. “How’s my lovely girl been?”
“As if you cared.” She stiffened away from his outstretched hand.
“I cared. I did what was best for you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.” She spat the sentence out. “A curt little note saying you didn’t want to see me again. I wrote several times, but you never replied.”
“I wanted to get out of your life before I ruined it,” he snapped back. “To forget that we ever met.”
“With someone like that French whore you were with tonight?” she accused, her voice rising until it was shrill enough to echo in the darkness.
“Yes, damn it. Women and drink. It didn’t work, though. I kidded myself it did, thought I’d gotten you out of my system. I threw your letters away without answering them and convinced myself it was finished between us.”
“So?”
“When I saw you tonight I knew I’d been living a lie for months. Oh, God, Amy.” He leaned closer to her. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” She should make him suffer a bit, like he had done to her, but somehow she couldn’t, not with the black clouds of war hovering overhead. She slipped her hand into his, and his fingers caressed hers, warm and strong against her skin.
“Have you heard from Guy lately?” he asked, as they strolled along the street.
“Only one letter, but Sophie writes regularly. He’s coping quite well now, but there were difficulties at first. Poor Uncle Frederick died a few weeks after he got home. And Sophie is expecting another baby.”
“I’m sorry about your uncle. I’m glad things are working out well for Sophie and Guy. They deserve it. I received a letter from him just before I left Gallipoli, and he sounded quite cheerful.”
The main streets were crowded with soldiers on leave, mostly in groups of four or five, but a few had women with them.
“Bonsoir, belle mademoiselle.” Jake, with a young girl hanging on his arm, greeted Amy in an atrocious French accent. “Capitaine.” He gave Mark a halfhearted salute. “Enjoying the sights of Paris, Sister?” he asked cheekily, ignoring Mark’s scowl.
“Yes I am, thank you, Jake.”
“Insolent young pup,” Mark snapped, as the young soldier and his companion sashayed down the street.
“He’s all right. It’s quite shocking the way he swears all the time, but he’s gentle with the wounded.”
“Some of those young privates need a lesson in military etiquette. You should see the way the Australian troops behave in London, demanding entry to the best clubs, causing fights wherever they go. There’s a reckless bravado about them. They’ll be annihilated when they’re up against the Kaiser’s crack troops if they don’t change their attitude.”
“Would you prefer us to be subservient all the time?” She threw her head back proudly. “It isn’t in the nature of Australians to let themselves be bullied.”
“What’s the use?” He stopped so suddenly she cannoned into him, and his arms clamped around her waist. “You’re as wild as your countrymen, and there’s only one way I can tame you.”
His mouth swooped to take hers in an explosive kiss that left her trembling. He maneuvered them into t
he shadows. She forgot all about his snub and ignored the fact he was still tied to his dead wife. Her mouth opened eagerly under his onslaught. Smooth as velvet, his tongue explored and probed her mouth. He seared a trail of smoldering kisses along her jawline until his mouth became lost in the soft, warm hollow of her throat.
It came slowly, seeping through the euphoric mist enveloping her. An insidious, cloying perfume clung to the cloth of his uniform jacket. Her blood, only a second ago boiling like a cauldron, froze. Icicles formed around her heart because the presence of Mark’s fancy woman lingered on his jacket.
“What’s wrong, my darling?”
Anger and hurt caused her to lash out at his face, her stinging slap forcing his head back. She heard the sharp, shocked intake of his breath.
He dropped his hands and stepped away. “What’s that in aid of?”
“P…P…Perfume.”
“What!”
“How could you do such a filthy thing to me,” she whispered brokenly. “Kissing me while the smell of some French whore is still on your clothes.”
He didn’t speak, and in the darkness an insurmountable wall built between them. On leaden feet she moved away, the weight of her pain almost doubling her over.
“Wait. I’ll see you back to the hospital,” he said in a flat, toneless voice.
“Don’t bother.” He didn’t even care enough to defend himself. Did he plan to take all she offered before rounding the night off in the French woman’s bed? Bile rose up in her throat, and she swallowed down on its bitterness so it wouldn’t overflow and cascade onto the street.
A fever-hot bolt shot through her body, but it couldn’t warm her icy limbs. You’ve hurt me for the last time. I won’t let you do it again. She wouldn’t be able to survive another act of treachery.
“You’ve always been prepared to think the worst of me,” he accused bitterly.
“And don’t I have the right?” she screamed.
He waved down a motorized taxicab for her, and when she refused his offer to escort her back to the hospital, thrust a handful of money at her. As the taxi drove away, she glanced back to see Mark standing motionless, staring after her.
Chapter 7
July twenty-seventh, 1916. The remnants of the first Australian Division were finally relieved at Pozieres, but not before they had lost over five thousand men.
Amy worked at the Casualty Clearing Station without a break for thirty-six hours. Then, at last, fresh staff arrived, so she was off duty until morning.
Even though she felt weak with exhaustion, sleep would be an impossibility right now. Too much pain and suffering. Too many ghosts peppering her dreams. She shouldn’t worry about Mark, not after the way he had behaved, but she couldn’t get him out of her mind. There had been some terrible battles over the last few days. How long could his luck hold out? For how long could he beat the odds and escape the relentless march of death?
On the main Amiens-Bapaume road, shock drove away her tiredness as she watched the surviving soldiers stumbling along in dazed silence. Their faces looked gray with fatigue, their eyes lifeless.
The town of Pozieres had been reduced to a heap of rubble by the sustained bombardment. The wounded streaming into the hospital told harrowing tales of being buried, dug out, then reburied. They claimed the bombardment was the heaviest Australian troops had ever endured, worse even than Verdun and the first Somme battle. Mangled limbs and gaping wounds were horrific, but this? Tears blurred her vision as she watched the zombie-like columns straggle by.
“Mark!” She picked him out from yards away. As he passed, she saw beneath the dark stubble on his jaw and chin the same awful grayness of the others. He stared straight through her with unseeing eyes. Wrapped around his head was a blood-caked bandage, and he looked so tired and defeated shock momentarily robbed her of words.
“Mark, Mark!” Only when she grabbed his arm and shook it did recognition flare in his eyes.
“Amy?” He blinked several times.
“You’re hurt.” She scrutinized the oozing wound on his forehead
“A mere scratch.” He rubbed a trembling hand across his jaw.
“It should be cleaned and dressed.”
“Your hospital can’t do anything for me,” he said roughly. “No one can heal the wounds we’ve suffered over the last few days. Look at us. Look at us and remember. These men are the living dead, Amy. They’ve all been to hell and back.” He shook her hand off and limped away.
“Let me come with you,” she pleaded, catching up to him.
“No. I’m going to my billet. I’m going to have a bath and a shave, and then I’m going out to get drunk. Blind, stinking, rotten drunk.”
The brutality, the bluntness of his words squeezed the breath from her lungs. Yet shocked as she was, she could not really blame him, not after what he must have been through.
“Do you know Madame Burgoyne’s estaminet?” he asked wearily.
“Um.” She hesitated. “I could find it.”
“I’ll be there around six.”
She touched his arm. “I’m sorry for what I said in Paris.”
“Why? You spoke the truth.”
She stood staring after him as he rejoined his comrades, then slowly walked back to the hospital. I do love you. Sheer foolishness, running the risk of being hurt again. Every instinct for self-preservation warned her not to meet him tonight, but deep down she knew nothing on earth would stop her from going. The tormented bleakness on his face, the shattered hopelessness of him and all the men who passed by—she couldn’t refuse such an unspoken plea.
****
Madame Burgoyne’s catered to officers, and Amy had never been brave enough to venture there before. Millie and Jane were still on duty and wouldn’t finish until midnight. She nibbled her lip anxiously. How could she get into town? Dare she walk half a mile or more on her own in the dark?
“You look worried, Sister Amy.” Ted, the middle-aged orderly who had been with her since they left Australia, stopped his ambulance.
“I’m wondering how to get into town. I promised to meet a friend from Australia.”
“Captain Tremayne?” he queried with a grin. “Heard he’s been recommended for the Victoria Cross.”
“What! Oh, Ted, really? He won the Military Cross at Gallipoli.”
“Some of the wounded can talk of nothing else. Repulsed a German attack almost singlehanded after his platoon got cut off behind the lines. Fritz threw everything at them—there were only a handful of men left alive afterwards. Took them two days to fight their way back. If it hadn’t been for Captain Tremayne, a large section of the line would have been overrun.”
“No wonder he looked so awful. He has a nasty head wound, but he wouldn’t go to the dressing station.”
“Don’t say any more, Sister. I’m off into town for supplies, so jump in.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll have to make your own way back, though.”
“I’ll manage, thanks.” She couldn’t imagine how, but she would get back somehow.
Ella stopped Amy as she climbed into the ambulance. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“She’s coming with me, Sister.” Ted’s voice sounded firm. “We have to pick up some wounded from town.”
Ella raised her eyebrow in disbelief. “Oh?”
“Yes, Dr. Vincent told us to go,” Ted lied. Revving the engine, he drove away, leaving Ella shaking her fist at them. “Can’t stand that bitch of a woman.”
Amy laughed. “If you could have seen your face! You looked quite ferocious.”
“She’s got you in the gun, Sister Amy.”
“I know.”
“Be careful, especially tonight. She’d love to get something on you. She’s coveted Captain Tremayne for months.”
Amy shrugged. Not knowing how, or if, to answer, she deemed it better to remain silent.
Ted dropped her off outside Madame Burgoyne’s. Feeling more than a little conspicuous on her own
, she hesitated in the doorway.
Tables set about at intervals were crowded with officers, while several pretty young waitresses hovered around taking orders. The aroma of food made her realize she hadn’t eaten for hours.
“You did come.” She jumped when Mark spoke at her side.
“I promised, didn’t I?”
With a hand at her elbow, he guided her toward a corner table where cutlery for two had been laid out. A bottle of wine, already half-empty, rested in a cane basket.
Indicating the bottle, he said, “I had a couple of drinks while I waited for you.”
Though freshly shaved and bathed, he still appeared drawn and white, causing the ugly graze to stand out starkly above his left eyebrow.
“You should have that wound dressed.”
“It’s only a scratch.” He gave an indifferent shrug.
“It could become septic.”
“Rubbish.” He pulled out a chair. “Sit down so we can order.”
Once seated and facing each other, she brushed her fingertips across his cheek. “It must have been terrible for you.”
“Yes. Care for a drink?”
“Thank you.”
He poured a small measure of wine into a goblet for her, filled his own glass almost to the brim, and tossed it down his throat in a savage gesture.
She stilled his hand with her own when he went to replenish his glass again. “No more until you’ve eaten.”
“Maybe you’re right. I planned to drink myself senseless, so I could sleep without having nightmares.”
“Oh, Mark.” She gently squeezed his fingers, letting him know she understood his pain.
“I’ve hardly slept in seventy-two hours. I’m tired, but I’m afraid to sleep. My lovely girl,” his voice rasped with emotion, “you’re looking at a man who’s been burned by the fires of hell.”
“I don’t know what to say.” She picked up his hand and brought it to her cheek. “I wish there were some way I could help.”
“You’re here with me. For now, that’s enough.”
A pretty young waitress came over to them. “Je voudrais voir la carte,” he said with a tired smile, and the girl handed over a menu.
They ordered quail in some kind of rich sauce. Although it was delicious, Amy felt a little twinge of guilt for eating such a tiny bird. “It seems almost criminal, eating these poor little things.”
A Rose in No-Man's Land Page 10