Eleanor Atherton certainly was a change of scene.
“He was alive and improving when I left him. No further bleeding,” he told the chaplain.
“Praise the Lord for that.”
“Do you need help unloading?” Fraser asked, but the chaplain shook his head and pointed to the cup in Fraser’s hand. “Finish that while it’s still warm. There’s just walking wounded this morning, and Private Gibbons and I can manage. There’s no need to stir yourself yet.”
Eleanor shifted, and Strong glanced at her, noticing her for the first time, then looked again.
She wasn’t looking at him. She’d risen to her feet as Private Gibbons led the walking wounded into the waiting room. Her eyes flitted over each man, and Fraser suspected she was assessing their wounds with a professional eye. There was a lad with an eye injury, a man with his arm in a sling, one with a bandaged jaw, another with his hand clasped over one bloody ear. “Bonjour, madame,” the chaplain said.
“This is . . .” Fraser hesitated, unsure of how to introduce her. “This is Miss Atherton, from England. She’s on her way to see a patient at forty-six. Miss Atherton, this is Chaplain Strong.”
The chaplain’s smile barely faltered, though Strong knew the kind of welcome an unexpected female visitor was likely to get at the CCS. “Good morning, Miss Atherton. It’s a pleasure to meet you. And who is the patient you’re visiting?”
“Lieutenant Lord Somerton,” she replied.
The chaplain tilted his head in confusion. “Lieutenant Lord Somerton, you say? At 46/CCS?”
She frowned quickly. “No—it’s Chastaine. Lieutenant Louis Chastaine,” she said. “He uses his family name instead of his title, I understand. It’s only a few months since his older brother died.”
The chaplain’s brows rose with recognition of that name. He flicked a quick glance over her. “Yes, of course—the flier with the broken leg. I’m sorry to hear of his loss—was it in combat?”
“An accident at home.” She didn’t add any details.
“I see,” the chaplain said. “Lieutenant Chastaine is indeed at forty-six. The surgeon who set his leg felt that travel over the rough roads would make the injuries worse and cause complications that could leave him permanently lamed, or worse.” He gave her a kindly smile. “The doctors will explain it all to you, of course, and they can allay your fears and answer any questions better than I, but I can assure you he’s under the best possible care with Colonel Bellford and Captain Blair, both fine surgeons.” He grinned. “Your lieutenant has had quite a number of important visitors, though none so pretty. A French general came and pinned a medal to his pajamas, right there in his bed on the ward, and kissed him on both cheeks. He had a band with him, but Matron Connolly wouldn’t let them inside. They stood outside the tent and played a rather stirring march. Your young man is very humble in the face of all the fuss. I daresay he’ll be glad to see a friendly face. Are you his . . . ?”
Fraser crossed his arms. “She’s a doctor.”
“A doctor?” Reverend Strong’s smile slipped a little, and he regarded her more closely. “Oh. Do you—are you . . .” He paused and shut his eyes for a moment, and Fraser wondered if he was sending up a wee prayer. She’d need it. The chaplain’s eyes opened again. “Is Colonel Bellford expecting you?”
Eleanor reached for her medical bag. Was she ever without it?
“I have a letter here from the Countess of Kirkswell. She’s Louis’s—Lieutenant Chastaine’s—mother. She asked me to escort her son home just as soon as it’s safe for him to travel.” She took a small leather folder out of the bag and extracted a letter, which she held out to the chaplain.
He stepped back from it at once. “Oh, it’s naught to do with me. It’s the colonel who’ll want to see your letter. I’m just—” He slid his eyes to Fraser, looking for help. Fraser simply regarded him. “I’m just the messenger, one might say, or is that you, Sergeant MacLeod?”
“I merely promised her a ride to 46/CCS,” Fraser said.
“Oh,” Reverend Strong said again, and took a deep breath. “Well then. If you’ll wait inside where it’s warm for a few minutes more, I’ll get the sergeant to help us load the supplies after all. Finish your, um, tea, and we’ll come and get you when we’re ready to go.”
Fraser set his own cup down, glad for an excuse not to have to finish it, and followed the chaplain outside.
Outside, Reverend Strong paused and looked up at the bruise-gray sky. “Colonel Bellford is not going to like this,” he murmured, and Fraser wondered if he was addressing the comment to him or to God.
“He’ll hate it,” Fraser agreed.
“He doesn’t like surprises.”
“I ken it,” Fraser said.
“And you know how he feels about female visitors, Sergeant. He barely suffers female nurses. He says a pretty face does more harm than good to the sick and wounded.” He pointed back at the station. “In case you didn’t notice, Sergeant, that young woman is very pretty.”
“I noticed.”
“And she’s a doctor!” He said it as if Eleanor Atherton were the devil incarnate.
Fraser rubbed his mouth to hide a smile. “Aye, she’ll set the cat among the pigeons, but it’s hardly her fault, and I couldn’t very well leave her where she was. How long could it take to pack up a viscount and send him on his way? Perhaps his batman or his valet could help.” He was being sarcastic, and it earned him a sharp look from the chaplain.
“The lieutenant is some weeks away from being ready to travel. He has no servants, and I didn’t even know he had a title. What I do know is that he’s got friends in high places—generals and staff officers come to visit him, or they send him lavish gifts. And he’s a handful. He flirts with the VADs and nurses, and he starts arguments with the other officers on his ward simply because he’s bored and it amuses him to do so. It’s all anyone can do to keep him in bed for his own good. I spent three hours sitting with him yesterday, reading to him, just to keep him still.”
“Then perhaps Miss Atherton is just the distraction he needs.”
The chaplain sighed. “Only the Lord Himself knows what devilment Lieutenant Chastaine will make out of her presence.” He looked skyward again. “Did she have to be a doctor? Colonel Bellford is not only an eminent surgeon, he’s a career army officer, and as such, he’s a stickler for rules, propriety, protocol, and military efficiency.” He leaned closer to Fraser. “I believe he likes the idea of having such an important patient in his charge,” he whispered. “D’you see what this means, Sergeant MacLeod? The colonel will send that poor lass packing the minute she arrives. She’ll be terrified.”
Fraser considered the soldier with the black eye and swiped a hand over his own eye. “It will certainly be interesting to see how she’ll manage.”
“Perhaps we could just . . .” Strong let the rest of the suggestion make itself.
Fraser frowned. “You’re not saying that we should leave her here at the station, are ye? From what I’ve seen, she’s a determined wee lass. I have a feeling she’d walk to forty-six by herself if she had to.”
“I wasn’t suggesting we abandon her, Sergeant!” the chaplain amended quickly. “I simply thought . . . perhaps we could warn her, and perhaps she’d decide on her own to go back . . . Well, I suppose not.” He pressed his palms together and propped them against his nose. “Perhaps it’s not necessary to tell Colonel Bellford she’s a doctor,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “Not a lie, per se, but an omission for caution’s sake—and caution is always the best course.”
Private Gibbons came to stand before them, tugging on his ear, his usual bland, patient smile in place. “Should I begin loading the boxes, Reverend? It’s going to be light soon.”
“Morning, Tom,” Fraser greeted him, and the lad’s grin widened. Gibbons’s father, uncertain of what to do with his simple-minded
but good-hearted son, had put him in the army, hoping he’d learn skills and find a career. Reverend Strong had taken Tom under his wing, and the lad helped where he could at the CCS, doing every job with gentle grace. The fact that he topped six foot in height and was as strong as two men together made him useful indeed.
“Hello, Sergeant. Not morning yet, but almost, though,” Gibbons said, squinting at the sky. There was no sunrise, and the day would unfold in continually lighter shades, from the gray of gunmetal to the depressing beige of dirty fog. Still, it was safer to travel when the half-light made it harder for snipers to see and the artillery had more important targets to focus on.
“My, yes, it is getting late, isn’t it?” the chaplain said, glancing at his watch. “Let’s get to loading these supplies.” He sent Fraser a sideways look. “We’ll have to leave enough space in the back for the sergeant and one other passenger,” he said to Tom Gibbons.
“The lady over there?” Gibbons asked, and Fraser turned to see Eleanor Atherton standing on the platform beside the pile of supplies, her medical bag in her hand, her suitcase at her feet.
“Yes,” the chaplain said, sighing.
“The colonel doesn’t like it when ladies come a-visiting,” Gibbons said.
Strong shot one more pointed look at Fraser. “No, he doesn’t, but it can’t be helped. Come on, Tom, we’d best make haste.”
Fraser and Gibbons carried the boxes to the ambulance and passed them up to the chaplain. “As I recall, the colonel has a way of turning near to purple when someone crosses him,” Fraser said.
Reverend Strong chuckled. “That he does. If he’s merely angry, he yells. If he’s furious, he speaks quite calmly, but it’s that particular shade of purple that gives the depth of his fury away.”
“He’ll be purple when he meets this lass,” Gibbons said.
“I fear he’ll have her in tears.”
“Perhaps, but she seems more than capable of—” Fraser paused. He had no idea what Eleanor Atherton was able to endure. He’d seen her face down unruly soldiers, bad tea, and the sound of the artillery. Still, everyone had a breaking point. “Will ye keep an eye on her while she’s at forty-six, Reverend?”
“Of course,” the chaplain agreed. “If she simply expects courtesy. If she wants coddling and pampering and three-minute eggs served to her with buttered toast points, then she shouldn’t have come here, now, should she? No matter who protects her, she’s going to see and hear things that will shock her. I can’t help but remember one of the chaps on the ward, a lieutenant. Shrapnel had taken half his jaw. His young fiancée came all the way from England to visit him. She started to scream when she saw him. The nurses had to drag her out. She refused to see him again. The poor man found a gun and shot himself the next day. Colonel Bellford sedated the young woman and sent her back to England. Her reaction made other men fear how their own wives and mothers might react to their wounds. Miss Atherton looks—delicate. Is she delicate, do you think?”
“She’s a doctor. There was a hospital train unloading at Calais—gas cases, shrapnel, amputations. There was a lad who couldn’t breathe, a stretcher case. He’d been gassed, wounded everywhere. She tried to help him.”
“Did she?” He heard the surprise in the chaplain’s voice.
“Aye, and she made it this far. Is the flier she’s come to see bad off?”
“Meaning will she scream when she sees him, cause him to shoot himself? No. If a lass swoons at his feet it won’t be because he’s ugly. He’s a lucky man. His plane went down in flames, and he stayed with it until it crashed. His leg is broken, and he has burns on one arm, but the rest of him is sound enough.” He nodded in Eleanor’s direction. “And now I see he’s luckier still.”
A small kernel of jealousy formed in Fraser’s chest, and he rubbed at the spot, frowning.
Gibbons shifted a crate in the back of the ambulance, and Fraser handed up another one.
“You needn’t worry about her, Sergeant. You’ve been chivalrous in escorting her here. I’ll keep an eye on her once you’ve gone back to the front,” the chaplain promised.
“I’m not worried,” Fraser said. Of course he wasn’t. He had duties to attend to, wounded to bring in. They’d take his full attention, and he’d forget all about Eleanor Atherton in a day or two, if not sooner.
He looked at the prim figure on the platform, holding her collar close to her throat against the cold wind, but giving no sign of discomfort aside from that. Somewhere off to the east, beyond the CCS, a shell exploded, and she flinched. He wanted to go to her, reassure her. He felt a surge of irritation. He didn’t have time for this. If he let her get stuck in his head, he’d think of how life was before the war, remember home and manners and dances with pretty lasses. He’d go mad. He’d grown a thick skin over his emotions. Chastaine was lucky, wasn’t he? Fraser was considered lucky, too—he’d survived here for nearly two years when most bearers didn’t live more than a few weeks. He had that in common with her flier—those lads died just as fast as stretcher bearers.
He concentrated on lifting the next box and passing it up to Strong, ignoring the blisters on his hands, the exhaustion he felt. When the next shell hit, nearer and louder, he willed himself not to glance at her.
It was her own fault for coming, and if she saw things that shocked her, got herself in harm’s way, it was naught to do with him. They finished loading, and he crossed to fetch her.
“Is there a problem?” Eleanor asked Fraser. He followed her gaze to Strong’s unhappy face.
“No. It takes a great deal to ruffle the chaplain’s feathers,” he said, picking up her case and striding toward the truck, leaving her to follow him.
“I’m used to ruffled feathers, Sergeant,” she said.
“Aye? Then ye should know that the commandant of 46/CCS dislikes visitors in general, but most of all he hates the distraught wives and mothers and sisters of his patients. He has no time for outbursts of grief, hand-wringing, sobbing, fainting, or sighing. In Colonel Bellford’s opinion, women in a military setting do more harm than good. Coddling and petting a wounded fighting man, treating him like a sick child, only makes him weaker, encourages self-pity and despair. Healing takes longer. And when other men see family visiting the lucky ones, the colonel fears they’ll fall into depression and homesickness. In his opinion, women should be banned, kept in England.”
She sniffed, and he sensed her stiffening with indignation. “But there are female nurses, surely.”
“Aye. He tolerates those because he must. But you’re not a nurse, or even a visiting mother or sister. You’re a doctor, sent to check up on him, to take over one of his patients. He’ll definitely see that as meddling.”
“Oh,” she said. She frowned, but she didn’t look cowed or afraid.
“The colonel has the authority to send ye home,” he reminded her. “You’re not in England now.”
“Theresawaron,” she muttered.
“What?”
“There’s. A. War. On. I’ve heard that so often that I think I’ll embroider it on a sampler when I get home. It appears to mean that rules, manners, and courtesy don’t apply, or that they’ve been suspended for the duration,” she said. “I am here only to assist Louis, to help him get home safely. Surely the colonel wants that as well, not just for Louis but for all the patients in his care.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t a good doctor. He is that, and a fine surgeon,” Fraser said, picking up another box. “He’s just a stern commander. Are ye sure ye want to get on that truck? The train is still here. Ye can still get on board and go back.”
“Thank you for the warning, but I am here now, and I have a job to do,” she said, drawing her chin to a stubborn point.
“Just so ye know I did warn ye,” he said, and led the way toward the ambulance. He didn’t offer his arm or take her elbow. He let her navigate the broken, stony groun
d herself.
When they reached the truck she began to walk toward the front, and he stopped her. “We ride in the back. The chaplain drives, and Gibbons watches the road for him.”
He put his hands around her waist and lifted her up into the back, aware of the slimness of her waist under her bulky clothing, the firm grip of her hand in his, the lithe way she moved. And suddenly it mattered a great deal that she was here, that Bellford would be displeased, that she would see things that would shock her, perhaps find herself in harm’s way. He let her go, frowned, and shook off the maudlin, misplaced emotion. It was her own fault for coming, and naught to do with him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When Fraser had followed the chaplain outside, Eleanor had stayed inside and tried to help with the wounded. They took the bench she’d vacated, and one man was holding his head and rocking, muttering under his breath. He was shaking with fear, or perhaps pain.
“Are you in pain?” she asked him. An orderly stepped in front of her.
“Oy. This isn’t a circus. These lads have been through enough without folk staring at them. You’ll set him off again.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Nervous. That’s the diagnosis,” the corporal muttered. “He needs a long rest somewhere quiet. Doesn’t like anyone looking at him.”
She’d heard her father and Peter talking about nervous cases, also called shell shock or neurasthenia. Some doctors thought those patients were cowards and malingerers. Some sufferers had been shot earlier in the war for dereliction of duty. Other physicians saw it as a mental condition—nervous exhaustion, terror, stress. She looked at the poor soldier again. He put his hands up to his ears and keened.
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