A Casualty of War: A Bess Crawford Mystery (Bess Crawford Mysteries)

by Charles Todd

  Simon hadn’t interrupted. He’d heard me out before saying, “I’ll do what I can. You know I will. If this man is so important to you. You asked me about this James Travis before. I sent a message.”

  “I never got it,” I told him. “Sadly.”

  “Not surprising, as fast as events were moving out there.”

  “How would you feel, if you were shut away in a clinic and no one believed you? It would be a nightmare,” I continued.

  “The man the Captain has accused of shooting him is dead. The Army wouldn’t make a mistake like that, Bess. If Lieutenant Travis was missing or a prisoner, it would have been reported.”

  I shook my head. “He’s dead. Matron assured me of that. It still doesn’t mean that the Captain was wrong. After all, it was a brief encounter in the heat of battle. He only said the man reminded him of his great-uncle. It was I who unwittingly gave him a name. And that’s caused no end of trouble.”

  “It isn’t your fault, Bess.”

  “Isn’t it? If he’d told everyone it was a stranger whose name he didn’t know, he might have been believed. But he felt so strongly that it had to be Lieutenant Travis. When it was established that James Travis was dead, had been for almost a year, no one would listen to him any longer. That’s what worried me. Of course, there might have been more to the wound than Dr. Weatherby and I realized. I accept that. But it might also be some sort of terrible misunderstanding.” I was weary, more weary than I’d realized. This was beginning to seem like an insurmountable task I’d set myself, especially here in the darkest hours of the night, when spirits were at their lowest anyway. I wished I’d had the courage to admit defeat too.

  I leaned my head back against the seat. “Shall I wake up Mrs. Hennessey, or will you? She thinks you saved her life. She might be happier finding you at the door.” I didn’t think I could move or get out of the motorcar.

  “She’ll be delighted to see you, Bess. As I was.”

  I took a deep breath of the cold night air, trying to rouse myself. “Will you help me, Simon? With Mother as well. I want her to understand, and not be disappointed.”

  He reached out and took my hand. He was a warm presence in the seat beside mine, his face hidden in shadow.

  “Don’t worry about it tonight. Don’t tell her tonight. In the morning, it will seem much easier to deal with.”

  He was right.

  And in the end it was Simon who went to knock at the door, and I climbed out of the motorcar in time to hear Mrs. Hennessey’s cry of delight.

  In her nightdress and robe, her hair down her back, and slippers on her feet, she ran out into the cold wind to meet me, her arms opened wide. Ignoring the fact that Simon, grinning, was standing there watching us.

  And then I was being whisked into her sitting room, plied with tea, and told that it would only take her a moment to put fresh sheets on my bed. “Because they’ve been on there for several months now, and you must have new ones. And I’ll make up Diana’s bed for your mother. You just sit there by the fire and warm yourself, and I’ll see to everything.”

  I was already drifting off to sleep as she closed the door. I realized that in the rush of her welcome, Simon hadn’t told me when he would be back tomorrow morning—this morning, actually—as he wished us a good night.

  I don’t remember my mother arriving. And I never slept between those fresh sheets.

  Someone—Mrs. Hennessey?—had put a pillow beneath my head and a warmed quilt over me, and I slept where I was, deeply and peacefully in Mrs. Hennessey’s sitting room chair.

  I woke the next morning to the sound of voices in another room.

  I lay there, listening.

  My mother’s voice, and Mrs. Hennessey’s. The deeper tones of my father’s. But try as I would, I couldn’t hear Simon’s.

  I had learned to live with the cold there in northern France. The winds that swept in from the sea, damp with rain, or the winds that seemed to blow straight from the Russian steppes, laden with ice, were just another hardship to be borne in silence. Here I was warm, the chair in which I had slept was soft and comfortable, a footstool drawn up to it, and the quilt over me smelled of lavender, not mildew or horses.

  The only problem was the fact that I’d slept in my uniform.

  The door to the dining room opened, and my mother’s face peered through the crack.

  When she saw that I was awake, she called to my father, and without waiting for him, she hurried across the room. I rose to meet her, and she flung her arms around me in undisguised happiness. Then my father was there, kissing me on the cheek and taking my hand in his. Mrs. Hennessey stood just behind them, beaming. I learned later that I was the first of her young ladies, as she called us, to return to London after the Armistice.

  My parents had stood by me when I asked to join the Queen Alexandra’s, encouraged me through my very difficult training, and offered me a haven when I came home on leave, never saying a word about their worry or their fears. I was their only daughter—their only child—and yet they had let me do what I felt I had to do.

  It had changed my life in ways that I hadn’t even begun to contemplate, but I knew what I owed them and why they were greeting me with such affection.

  Afterward, in my crushed apron and muddy hems, I joined them at the breakfast table and listened to all their news.

  Since last my mother had written to me, we’d lost more friends and members of my father’s old regiment, men I knew all too well, but there had been happier events too. The village greengrocer’s daughter had married her sweetheart, who had been invalided out of the Army last year after he lost a kidney to a sniper’s bullet. There had been a huge wedding, all the village had been invited, and everyone had brought something for the bridal feast that followed. And Mrs. Dunning’s cat had had kittens, three black and two gray—much to Mrs. Dunning’s surprise, because for three years she had thought Biddle was a tom. The postmistress’s twins were now learning to play the piano. They had had their first recital and performed brilliantly, according to everyone who had attended. I remembered that in one of her letters my mother had mentioned that a mysterious benefactor had found a piano for the girls. I had had a very strong suspicion that I knew that benefactor very well.

  And then my mother glanced at the watch pinned to her jumper and said, “Look at the time! We should be starting out for Somerset if we’re to be there for dinner.”

  “Mother—if you wouldn’t mind—there’s something I must do before going to Somerset. A patient—”

  She looked at me for a moment, and then rose to the occasion like the Colonel’s lady that she was. “Of course, darling. I understand.”

  I regarded her suspiciously. Had Simon already told them what I’d planned to do?

  And then I realized that my mother probably did understand, far better than I’d expected, that her daughter wouldn’t be coming back just yet. I could have hugged her for that, because her disappointment must have run deep. At least they knew I was safe, that no one would be shooting at me or shelling me, or taking me prisoner as the Front shifted back and forth between armies. She could wait a little longer to have me home again.

  My father, on the other hand, frowned and said, “But I thought—” and broke off suddenly as my mother’s foot must have found his under the table. He looked at her with raised eyebrows, then regrouped his forces and instead carried on. “But I’d thought you might wish to collect your motorcar and bring it down to London.”

  “I’m hoping Simon can help me find the information I’m looking for. There’s a patient that I’m concerned about. I want to know where he was sent when the convoy brought him home from France.”

  “I’ll help in any way I can,” my father told me.

  I smiled. “I’ll save the big guns for reinforcements.”

  “Good.”

  We spent another hour just enjoying each other’s company, and then the Colonel Sahib had to report to the War Office and my mother said briskly, “And I mus
t be home before it’s too late, or Iris will send out the cavalry.”

  We said our good-byes, and I was just seeing them out the door when Simon arrived. He greeted my father, and then turned to my mother with his usual deference. When I was a romantic girl of ten, I’d thought he must be in love with her, despite the difference in their ages, but as I grew older, I realized that there must have been a debt between them that he could never repay, and he would have done anything she asked of him without question. I asked my mother about that once, but she had only smiled and said, “You’ve been reading too many novels, Bess.” And I had been wise enough to let the matter drop.

  But my suspicions had been reinforced by our cousin Melinda Crawford some years later—unwittingly—when she was talking to my mother about India.

  “I don’t think Simon will ever go back,” Melinda had said.

  And my mother had agreed, replying sadly, “It would be too painful.”

  After that I hadn’t probed further. Whatever it was in Simon’s past that he didn’t want to revisit was his affair and not mine. But I had often wondered if it had had anything to do with his joining the army so young. He’d sworn he was eighteen, and because he was tall and broad-shouldered for his age, no one had questioned it.

  We saw them off, my father to HQ and my mother to Somerset.

  Simon, watching them go, said, “It must have been a disappointment that you weren’t going home.”

  “I think they understood.”

  “I’ve found out a little about this Captain Travis.” We moved back into the shelter of Mrs. Hennessey’s doorway, out of a sharp wind that chilled my hands and feet. “He’s in Wiltshire. Not far from Salisbury. There’s a clinic for head wounds.”

  “He’s still there?” My spirits plunged. “I’d hoped that someone had come to his senses and moved the Captain. Do you think I’d be allowed to see him?”

  After all, I wasn’t related to him.

  “Change your uniform, put on your best Matron air, and we’ll see.”

  I left him sitting in Mrs. Hennessey’s parlor and climbed the stairs to the flat I shared with my fellow nurses.

  It was chilly, but oh so familiar, and I stood with my back to the doorway, thinking about Diana and Mary and Lady Elspeth. I had already decided that I would keep the flat, although I hadn’t said anything to Mrs. Hennessey. I wondered if they would as well. Diana was engaged and soon to be married, if she had anything to say about it, and she might well give up her room. Mary might stay. Lady Elspeth’s home was in Scotland, and she might wish to keep a flat here, even one so cramped as ours.

  And then I discovered that someone—Mrs. Hennessey or possibly my mother—had unpacked for me, and a fresh uniform was hanging from the hook on the door to my room.

  I changed quickly, put up my hair with extra care, and looked at myself in the mirror. I could still see the shadows of tiredness around my eyes, and I was thinner, the uniform feeling a little loose, but that would change for the better with time. Catching up my coat, my gloves, and a scarf, I hurried downstairs.

  Mrs. Hennessey was plying Simon with cakes from the bakery just around the corner and tea and her own views about the end of the war. He extricated himself with courtesy and followed me out to his motorcar.

  “She likes you,” I said. “It’s a compliment. You should be honored.”

  He grinned. “The fact is, I like her as well.” He closed my door and went to turn the crank. And then we were heading out of London toward Wiltshire.

  It was later than I’d hoped. We stopped briefly for tea at an inn along the road and then moved on.

  It was well after dark when we reached our destination, a village only three miles from Salisbury. There was an inn and Simon bespoke rooms for us.

  Over a late dinner I was more than a little anxious about what I’d find in the morning. Simon, aware of it, said, “Bess. There’s nothing you can do tonight. Let it rest.”

  I smiled, pushing my plate aside. “I feel guilty, that’s all. And the doctors aren’t always right.”

  After a brief silence, he said quietly, “Sadly, sometimes they are. Don’t expect too much tomorrow. Don’t set your expectations too high.”

  “I think that’s just the problem. Nothing has gone right for Captain Travis since he was shot that first time. Very likely that hasn’t changed. And I’m afraid that there’s very little I can do about it.”

  He nodded. “I understand.”

  And I thought he did.

  It rained in the night, with a touch of early December sleet in it, but the next morning was clear and bright.

  The clinic was like so many I’d served in. A large house with many rooms commandeered for use by the Army for the care of wounded men. Many such clinics specialized. Broken bones, amputees, gas cases, burns, and so on. This one dealt with head wounds and other neurological issues.

  When we turned through the gates and started up the drive there was a slight rise, and when the trees opened out onto gardens and fountains, I caught my breath at the beauty of the house before me.

  Gray Cotswold stone faced in white; a long portico with white columns and wide steps leading up to a dark gray door. It was splendidly done, and I understood the name I’d seen on the gates: high clouds.

  Simon, staring at it too, said simply, “Good God.”

  Someone had maintained the fountains and the gardens, and the paint around the door was bright and clean.

  And then I saw the men being wheeled or walked through the gardens, some of them shuffling and others with heads down, their view of their surroundings narrowed to the path beneath their feet. On a bench to one side sat two men, an orderly and a patient. The patient was listless, shoulders slumped, hands dangling over his knees.

  Simon pulled the motorcar to one side and we went up to the door. There was a knocker in brass, but I could see that it wasn’t necessary: the door was ajar.

  As I stepped inside, the beauty continued. The entrance hall was almost two stories high, and there was a huge chandelier like a shower of glass above our heads. The flooring was black and white tiles, in a checkerboard pattern, and the walls were white with shallow niches where tall French vases added splashes of blue and gold. The handsome staircase rose before us, wide and imposing.

  And there the beauty ended. Roughly painted partitions closed off the passages on either side of the stairs, and there was a pine table with a matching chair to one side of the door.

  From above us up the stairs I could hear someone screaming. Not a frightened scream, but one that went on and on for a time, and then abruptly stopped.

  A Sister came out of a room just across from the staircase. She was carrying a tray covered with a cloth. Seeing us, she came forward.

  “I’m so sorry, Matron is with a patient at the moment. If you’d care to wait?”

  She pointed to chairs along the far wall, chairs that looked as if they belonged in a dining room. “She’ll be with you shortly.”

  We thanked her, and she went on about her duties.

  As we waited, I could hear someone sobbing. I tried not to take any notice, but after a few minutes Simon got up to pace.

  Finally Matron came down the stairs, a deep frown on her face. Then she saw us, and offered a smile of greeting.

  I thought she must be in her late forties. Tall, slender, and fair with a kind face that showed signs of tiredness.

  “I’m so sorry. The orderly who usually keeps the door has taken a chill, and we are rather shorthanded at the moment. Do you have a loved one here?”

  “A friend. Captain Alan Travis. His family lives in Barbados, and they’ve asked me to let them know how he is.”

  “Yes, I’ve written to them, to inform them he’s in our care. I don’t know that he should have visitors at the moment.” She opened the door to a room that had been partitioned into several smaller ones, leading us into the nearest and shutting the door. Above my head I could see part of an ornate plaster ceiling, and there was lovely
parquetry on the floor.

  After offering us seats and asking our names, she said, “I wouldn’t speak of this ordinarily, but you’re a nursing Sister, and I think it’s only right that you should know. Captain Travis tried to take his own life two days ago, and we’ve kept him sedated for a time. Even a friend, seeing him in this state, could be detrimental. He would not wish for anyone to know what he’s suffered.”

  Shocked, I made an effort to keep my wits about me. “All the more reason, I should think, for me to be allowed to see him.” I could see a refusal forming on her lips, and I added hastily, “I happened to be the Sister who treated him when he was brought in with the head wound in question. My evaluation might be of use in judging how to proceed in future.”

  Matron was clearly surprised by my request, but she gave it fair consideration.

  “He came to us after being treated in France for the wound in his back. It was slow to heal, and the attending doctor was worried about sepsis. And so by the time we had him, he was in a weakened state and very depressed. He told us over and over again that he was not ill, that he had been unfairly diagnosed. But we have a report that claims he saw a dead man shoot him, and that he was anxious to go and find this man, to stop him from killing again.”

  It was true—and yet a twisted truth.

  I said, choosing my words carefully, “I saw the initial head wound, and while the skull had been creased, the brain wasn’t exposed. It wasn’t damaged.”

  “Physically, no, that may be quite true. But psychologically he’s been confused and belligerent. We’ve had no choice but to restrain him at times.”

  I cast a despairing glance at Simon, who said then, “Sister Crawford had met Captain Travis before he was wounded. She can speak to his mental state then and now.”

  She sat there, observing us for a moment. And then she sighed. “I’m responsible for these men in my care, Sister. And it’s at my door if one of them is made worse by unwise contact with those whose respect he cares about.” She turned to me. “I must ask: Is there any emotional tie between you and Captain Travis?”