“Do you work at . . .” She paused, uncertain of the correct words. “Are you posted to the Casualty Clearing Station?”
“I’m at the front, where I’m needed,” he said with stiff pride.
“I see.” She was suddenly tired. Perhaps it was the movement of the train, or the stress of the journey. She stifled a yawn.
“Ye can sleep if ye like. Ye should.” He glanced down the train, where the recruits were sleeping or talking or playing cards. “Ye’ll come to no harm. They’re likely all good lads, but it’s probably their first time away from home—” He shrugged. “No excuse, of course, but . . .” He stopped again, and she saw the hollows around his eyes deepen, and his jaw tightened. She realized that Sergeant MacLeod knew what those lads were going into, what would happen to some of them, or all of them. They were just boys, young men. She felt sorrow fill her chest. She drew in a sharp breath, sympathetic now, afraid for them. He straightened as he turned back to her, the shadow gone from his eyes, or at least hidden.
“You’ll learn to take sleep where ye can get it if you’re here for any length of time,” he said. “And there might be a long wait when we get to Arras station before anyone can come for ye if they’re busy at the CCS.”
“Will they come?” she asked.
“Aye. There will be wounded to send on, men being sent back to general hospitals or home to England—and there’s supplies on the train for them. They’ll come to collect those.”
“Wounded?” she asked, her hands tightening in her lap.
“There’s a war on. There’s always wounded,” he said bitterly. “Now if ye don’t mind, I intend to get some sleep while I can. Not to worry—after so long here in France I’m a light enough sleeper that I’ll hear if there’s anything amiss.” He pulled his cap low over his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, and was still.
Eleanor stared at the lower half of his face. He had a strong, stubborn chin, dimpled and glistening with dark stubble. His mouth was firm and kind, the lines around it deep furrows carved by exhaustion and hard work. His nose was large and well shaped, and his cheekbones—
“I canna sleep if you’re staring at me,” he said without opening his eyes, and she felt her breath catch.
“I wasn’t staring!”
He raised his cap and lifted one eyebrow. “Aye, ye were. I don’t mind. But if ye don’t go to sleep yourself, I can’t stare at you.”
The gruff, unexpected flirtation sent warmth cascading through her. She looked away, out the window, unsure how to reply.
He leaned back again, and the train rumbled on. At the end of the carriage the men started singing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” low pitched and slow, a lament instead of a celebration. Perhaps they were afraid after all. She glanced at Sergeant MacLeod again, but his head had lolled sideways and he slept.
She’d never sleep, couldn’t, in such a strange place. She stared out the window instead, at Sergeant Fraser’s reflection and her own, and wondered what time it was. It was somewhere in the middle of the night, with hours to go until dawn. It felt oddly intimate, sitting here with a sleeping stranger, a man who’d rescued her. Perhaps she’d keep watch on him.
But the motion of the train relaxed her, and her eyelids grew heavy, and she gave in and let her eyes drift shut at last.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Fraser stared down at the young woman sitting across from him. She was still fast asleep, snoring lightly, her hat askew, though the train had been in the station for ten minutes. She’d been oblivious to the clatter of the recruits disembarking. A long lock of hair snaked out from under her hat and across her shoulder, as red as the absent sunrise. She had a dash of freckles across her nose, and she looked too young to be a doctor, too soft.
“Miss Atherton. Doctor.” He said it again, but she didn’t move.
She stirred when he touched her shoulder gently, carefully, so he wouldn’t startle her. It was like reaching for a fledgling in a nest, rescuing it after the hunters had taken its mother, tucking it away in his coat for safety. That wee memory of home, that other life he tried so hard not to think about here, made his breath catch, and he pulled his hand back. He’d dreamed of the glen and the hills, the scrubbed sky so vividly blue it almost hurt to look at it. She’d done that—made him see things he’d pushed from his mind, things that were too painful to think of here, and brought only longing and regret. Not this time. He’d rested, and dreamed, and woken . . . happy. At least until he came back to the war, and to duty, death, and danger. But Eleanor Atherton, sweetly fast asleep across from him, made him hopeful, more sure than he had been that good things really did still exist in the world—like pretty lasses and innocence and the smell of heather on the wind.
She opened her eyes and peered up at him, as wide-eyed and innocent as a wee bird, too. For an instant she blinked, no doubt disoriented, wondering where she was. Och, her eyes were the same hazel-green as the hills above Glen Carraig. He’d all but forgotten the pleasure of that sight, but the old reaction to them, joy, excitement, delight, came back to him like a gut punch. Perhaps it was just that it had been months—years—since he’d last seen any woman other than a nursing sister or a VAD. He hadn’t been tempted to stare at any of them the way he was staring at Eleanor Atherton now. Maybe it was the fact that she was a civilian, in civilian clothing. He glanced at her again. No—her dark blue suit was severe and could never be accused of inspiring admiration or lust. The white lace that edged her collar was pretty, though, like froth on the sea, and the slender white column of her neck rose out of it gracefully.
She blushed slightly when she realized where she was, and that was decidedly the prettiest thing he’d seen in a very long while. She was—or so a more sentimental man might say—a delicate English rose, the essence of womanhood, exactly what they were fighting for. He remembered how she’d fought the soldiers who’d threatened her. She’d blackened one man’s eye. Hardly a delicate flower, then—more akin to a Scotswoman, a hardier breed than an English rose, in his opinion. She was also a doctor, which meant she was smart, capable, and strong-minded. He tried to picture her with a scalpel in her hand, bending over a septic belly wound. That would be the true measure of her, he thought—if she could do that and still be capable of blushing, still regard the world with those guileless eyes, then she’d truly be the kind of woman worth fighting this war for.
She went from soft and sleepy to full alert in an instant, her spine straightening, her shoulders unfurling, her eyes wide and clear.
“Sergeant MacLeod,” she said. She remembered his name. The sound of it on her lips was gratifying, another brief moment of pleasure.
She preened, straightening her hat, shoving that loose tendril of hair under the felt brim. She stopped suddenly, her hand in midair, her head tilted, on alert. She flinched and turned to look at him, her eyes wide again. “Good heavens! What’s that noise?”
It took him a moment to understand that she meant the artillery, the vibration in the earth, the hum in the air, the constant thump and boom. He’d been here for nearly two years, and he’d grown used to it. He automatically gauged the location of the guns, the level of fire, and how far away it might be. Rapid fire meant there’d be an advance somewhere along the line. Both sides liked to set up just before dawn and bombard the enemy trenches, softening them up for a raid at first light. There’d be wounded, first from the shelling, then from gas, then from hand-to-hand fighting . . . But this bombardment was half-hearted, slow, which meant that things were almost quiet for the moment—or as quiet as they got in war. The guns Eleanor Atherton heard were somewhere beyond Vimy Ridge, far away. It was safe enough here.
The familiar alertness left him, the instinct to listen for the faint cries of men in pain, for the whistle of incoming bombs and the menacing whiz and thock of bullets, and he relaxed.
“It’s the artillery. There’s naught to fear. It’s miles away,”
he told her.
She looked out the window, scanning the winter landscape, the trees, the ground, the huddled buildings of Arras, all as dull gray-brown as a sparrow’s breast in the dawn light.
“Is it ours or theirs?”
“Both,” he said. “We’re at Arras now, closer to the front lines.”
“Which way is it?”
He raised an eyebrow “To the east.”
She blushed slightly. “Oh. Yes, of course it is. Is Sainte-Croix . . .”
“Southeast toward Bapaume, behind our lines,” he said. For now.
He moved aside to let her rise. Standing, she barely reached his chin. He gestured toward the door and let her precede him. She moved with purposeful strides, clutching her black medical bag like a talisman against harm, her chin high. The confidence was feigned, he thought, noting the tension in her shoulders.
Outside, the recruits were already lined up on the platform, a seasoned sergeant and a tired-looking lieutenant on hand to meet them. The sergeant was bellowing orders—they were going to march to a rest camp, then they’d drill, and later they’d get orders and postings. Fraser scanned their faces. Some looked eager, some worried, and some were flat-faced with fear, trying not to let it show, keeping their eyes forward, but blinking every time the earth shuddered under the force of the distant guns. If they were afraid now, they’d be terrified by what was to come. He didn’t envy them those first bitter days in an icy, stinking, mud-filled trench. For others, the ones with brothers or cousins in the ranks who wrote home, they’d understand at least a little of what to expect, know to keep their chins up and their heads down.
“Stick close to me like you was on your muvver’s leading strings,” the sergeant yelled. “Stay on the track, put your feet where I do. You’re not in England now. Don’t step out of line for anything. For’ad ’arch!” He set off at a brisk pace, and the lads followed, disappearing down the road into the gray mist of dawn.
Behind him, Eleanor Atherton walked across the wooden platform, toward the pile of bags, parcels, and crates being unloaded from the train, her boots a prim staccato compared to the rumble of the soldiers marching away down the road.
Fraser looked for the ambulance from 46/CCS, bringing wounded for evacuation and coming to collect mail and supplies, but the rutted track and sidings were empty. It could be hours before anyone came. He’d walk if he were alone, but there was Eleanor Atherton to consider. And the road was rough, and not safe. If the artillery lads decided to lob a shell or two this way, or there was an offensive, there’d be danger. He’d have a hysterical female on his hands. He had smelling salts in his greatcoat, among the other essentials he carried. He looked over to find her struggling to pull a black suitcase with an umbrella strapped to it out of the jumbled pile.
As if an umbrella would do her any good against the kinds of things that fell from the sky here. A laugh gathered in his chest, a rare feeling. He crossed and picked up the case for her. She turned and looked up at him, and again he felt the shock of those eyes, wide, soft-lashed, and feminine. His hand tightened on the wee handle of her bag.
“Ye can leave it here. It won’t come to any harm. There’s no sign of anyone coming yet, so we may as well go inside where it’s warmer, make ourselves comfortable for the time being. We might have a long wait.” She looked dubiously at the dark station, the windows blackened to hide the light from the enemy. It looked gloomy and deserted.
“What time is it?” she asked.
He looked at the sky. “Near to five o’clock, I think,” he said. He took her arm, guiding her toward the door. He was used to the dark, could spot a twitching hand or a pale face in the pitch-blackness of a shell hole. Bearer teams often went out at night when there were wounded to bring in.
He opened the door of the black-curtained waiting room for her and followed her inside. A sleepy stationmaster regarded them from his ticket booth in the corner, where he huddled in the light of a shuttered lantern. “Bonjour,” he said, barely glancing at Fraser before turning to the woman with him. His eyes roamed over her with interest, and Fraser stepped in front of her.
“Sit down,” Fraser said to her. “Tea pour la dame?” he asked the stationmaster in his terrible Scots-accented French. He dug in his pocket and dropped a few sous on the counter. The Frenchman snatched up the coins and shuffled away to set a battered kettle on top of the wee stove in the back of his cubby. He peered into a pair of chipped cups and wiped them on his sleeve. Fraser hoped the lass wasn’t picky. He glanced back at her.
She was perched on the very edge of the bench, doing her utmost to look brave and unfazed by the grubby little waiting room, but there was a bloodstain under the bench opposite hers, and she was staring at it. No doubt it was left behind by the last consignment of wounded to pass through. She was still flinching every time a distant gun fired, not used to that yet. She looked like she was holding herself together through sheer stubbornness, though she was no doubt tired, hungry, and bewildered.
He set the steaming cups of tea on the bench. “There’ll be a hot meal at the CCS. Until then, we’ll have to make do.” She was pale as milk, and he reached for the flask in his coat. “Here,” he said. She drew off her gloves, took the flask and sipped, then coughed.
“That’s whisky!”
“What else would it be?”
She wiped a drop from her lower lip with her fingertip. “I was expecting water.”
“Are ye teetotal, then?”
She blushed. “No. I mean, I don’t imbibe heavily or often, but I’m not—” She stopped talking. “I like whisky.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I actually prefer it to sherry.”
Either the confession or the drink put a spot of color in her cheeks. “Is that a secret?” he asked.
She studied her hands. They were long and neat fingered, the nails cut short and square. “No, it’s not a secret. It’s—well, I learned to like whisky when I was at school in Scotland. My mother believes women—ladies—should only drink sherry, and then only—” She bit her lip and broke off. “Have you been to Edinburgh?”
“Aye,” he said. “There’s a wee pub near the university. It’s got a lion over the door. Do ye know it?”
She smiled. “Yes, of course—the Glen Lyon.”
“The very one,” he said. “Good place for ale. Brewed with heather.”
She laughed. “Yes, that’s it.” He grinned at her, and her eyes narrowed. “That’s almost word for word what you said to Private McKie!”
Fraser gave her an apologetic grin. “Aye, but there’s a pub like that everywhere.”
She considered that. “True enough,” she said. She picked up her teacup. She wrapped her palms around it and put her face over the steaming liquid.
“I warn ye, the French canna make proper tea,” he said.
“It’s hot at least.” She sipped and made a face, then swallowed with effort.
“Do ye want some whisky in it after all?”
She looked at him primly. “No thank you.”
“Another of your mother’s rules?”
“One of my own. Medicinal purposes only.”
He put the flask away. “You’ll not get whisky here, unless your titled pilot has some—usually it’s officers only. Everyone else makes do with rum rations for medicinal purposes. For fun, there’s only the rotgut wine the French overcharge the enlisted chaps for at the estaminets.”
He took a sip of his own tea. It was thin and pale, the tea leaves limp and flavorless, on their second or possibly third go. She sipped again and grimaced, and he wondered if she’d reconsider his offer of whisky now. She murmured something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “There’s a war on.”
“I prefer coffee myself,” he said. “Though I haven’t had any of that in a very long while,” he admitted.
“Is that what you miss about your home?” she
asked.
He thought of all the faces and places and scents and sounds of home that he missed. He’d shut them from his mind, had stopped thinking about them with longing or loss or anything else. That way lay madness, the desire for what he’d once taken for granted, couldn’t have now, and might never have again. There was a bitterness in his mouth that had nothing to do with the tea. He sipped again, silently damning her for being pretty, for making him remember what it felt like to be a man, charming and handsome around women. Now he was angry, battered, scarred, and hopeless. Her presence reminded him of that, too. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt clean and whole, had slept deeply, or had walked without looking over his shoulder watching for danger and listening for the desperate cries of the wounded.
She was gazing at him with her soft eyes, trusting and clean, pure, waiting for an answer to her question, unaware of the hornet’s nest she’d poked with it. He felt anger flare in his breast, frustration at the madness of all of it, the war, her presence here, even the mallaichte tea.
She didn’t belong here, not for any reason. It would destroy her, too, make it impossible for her to go home again, pick up the threads of an ordinary, once-familiar life. He opened his mouth to tell her so, to insist she go back where she’d come from, but the hinges of the door interrupted with a whining cry.
The Reverend Captain Hanniford Strong, the chaplain assigned to 46/CCS, came in. He was leading a shaking soldier with a bandage over one eye. Fraser rose at once, ready to go out and assist with the stretcher cases, but the chaplain caught sight of him and gave him a cheery smile. The chaplain was always cheery. “Sergeant MacLeod! Nice to see you back. Was your trip successful? Did our patient reach the base hospital safely?”
Fraser had agreed to accompany an amputation case who needed monitoring to the base hospital in Calais, and to fetch the mail and supplies for the CCS, since he was going that way. An orderly or a nurse could have done it, but Fraser had been on the line for thirty-two straight days, and Chaplain Strong had arranged for him to escort the patient for a change of scene and a chance to rest, if only for twenty-four hours.
The Woman at the Front Page 10