The Walnut Tree

by Charles Todd

  “What are you doing back in France?” I demanded. “It’s too soon.”

  “I heal quickly. Besides, my men needed me. I couldn’t linger in England being cossetted while they were fighting and dying out here.”

  “Hardly cossetted,” I replied.

  I’d heard that same sentiment from dozens of officers, and I understood how Rory felt. But he wasn’t just any officer, he was my cousin, and I couldn’t imagine losing him to the Germans.

  “You’re experienced enough. You should be a staff officer now,” I added, in a teasing tone.

  He shook his head. “That’s worse. No, I want to be where the fighting is.”

  With a sigh, I nodded. “That doesn’t make it any easier for your family.”

  “Probably not,” he said with that sheepish grin I remembered from our childhood. “I’ve news of Bruce. That’s why I came. He’s home. I don’t think he’ll see much more fighting. And he’ll walk with a limp for the rest of his life.”

  The relief was overwhelming. While I loved all of my cousins almost like brothers, Bruce had always been my favorite. He reminded me so much of my father, in appearance and in small ways that were, after my father was killed, painful reminders. And yet even as my heart ached, watching him, I knew that I would always love Bruce for that familiar memory he could so easily evoke.

  “I came here not only to tell you about Bruce, but to give you something. It seems that when Bruce was captured, he was taken with another contingent of British officers to a temporary camp where they were processed. It was there that he managed to escape. But before that, a convoy of French prisoners was brought in, and he discovered that one of them was Madeleine Villard’s brother. Alain Montigny. Montigny gave him a message for you, in the event British prisoners were allowed to send and receive mail. He brought it home, and I’ve brought it to you.” He considered me. “Bruce also said that Montigny told him that as soon as the war was over, he intended to speak to our father. Is there something between you, Elspeth?”

  “A promise,” I said. “He shouldn’t have spoken, but he was leaving the next morning to join his regiment. He asked if I would give him permission to speak to Cousin Kenneth. I did.”

  “Yes, that’s understandable. I’d have done much the same myself, in his shoes. But he’d been badly wounded, Elspeth. Whether he survived the move into Germany, I don’t know.”

  “Madeleine told me he’d done something very brave.”

  “He had, and the Germans gave him no quarter as a result. A good man, my dear. I hope he comes home to you.”

  Rory put a scrap of paper into my hand, then said, “Stay safe, Elspeth. Bruce asked me to tell you that you’re as mad as your father, but he loves you anyway.”

  I laughed, my fingers closing over the folded paper. “Go with God, Rory. I don’t want to see you on our operating table. One wound is enough for glory.”

  He smiled, kissed me, and was gone, his tall figure striding toward the ambulance that had brought him this far. I waited until he was out of sight, then went to my quarters to read the letter from Alain.

  My darling girl, I have no right to call you that, but in these straits, you will forgive me for thinking of you as my own. I have heard that Madeleine was safely delivered of a son, and that is good news. Your cousin will see that this reaches you somehow, to tell you that I am alive, have been wounded but not severely, thank God, and that my spirits lift with happiness whenever I think of you. If I come out of this whole, I shall look forward to making you my wife. Until then, my fondest love. Yours, Alain.

  I felt hot tears fill my eyes, and with a twist of my heart that was part love, part guilt, I remembered our last night together in Paris. Alain entertained no doubts about that promise to me, and fool that I was, I could not say the same.

  Why had I ever gone north on the Calais-to-Ypres road? Why had I not stayed in my hotel as I was told and waited until someone had come to arrange my crossing?

  My stubborn headstrong nature. A belief that what I wanted to do was what I should do. Just like my father. And look what had become of him. Look at what I had promised Alain. How could I have felt anything for Peter Gilchrist if I were already heart and soul Alain’s?

  The ring hanging on its slender gold chain at my throat seemed to burn against my skin, a token not of love but of betrayal.

  Did I love Alain? If I did, how could I be falling in love with Peter Gilchrist?

  And what was I to do, with Alain a prisoner and wounded?

  The next senior officer I saw, I asked if it was possible to get letters through to prisoners in German hands.

  He could tell me how it was done with British prisoners. “Although I can guarantee nothing, you understand. It’s not a perfect system.”

  But he had no idea how the French went about it.

  Chapter Seven

  As the fighting surged back and forth, and the warm autumn turned wet and colder, we worked long hours, nurses, orderlies, and doctors, to keep up with the constant flow of wounded.

  One afternoon when there was a long line of stretchers waiting for treatment, I recognized one of the bearers. It was the piper I’d seen when I treated the foster brother.

  He inclined his head, and I paused in my duties to speak to him.

  “Did your laird’s foster brother survive? There’s been no word since he was taken away in the ambulance.”

  “Aye, Sister, he did. We’re verra’ grateful.”

  “I’m glad for his sake.” I started to move on, when the piper stopped me.

  “Ye have the Gaelic, Sister.”

  “I was brought up in the Highlands,” I said, smiling.

  “I would like to know your name.”

  “Douglas. Sister Douglas.”

  “A bonnie name for a bonnie lass,” he said, with no intention of flirting. It was an acknowledgment of a common past.

  I walked on. There were hundreds of Scots soldiers in France, wearing not their own tartans but that of their regiments. It was impossible to tell a Chisholm from a MacLeod or a MacGregor from a Campbell. For many of them it was a way out of poverty, and fighting was a tradition down the centuries. I’d grown up with tales of battles and feuds. Stirring tales, some of them, tales of treachery and vengeance many of them. The Borders had seen a no less bloody history, sometimes fighting the English, sometimes fighting each other.

  My father had had his own piper, one of the finest in Scotland. He’d played “Flowers of the Forest” for my father’s funeral, and piped him to his grave. I could still remember MacLachlan’s tall, straight figure walking ahead of me, the pipes over his shoulder, his stride that of a soldier, and the music seeming to swirl over and around me, offering the only comfort I’d felt since the news had been brought to me. And that night, beneath my windows, the piper had played again, this time for me. For the last time.

  The Earl is dead. Long live the Earl.

  The next morning, Rob MacLachlan became my staid cousin Kenneth’s piper, but he had had no heart for that. I never again heard him play as he had for my father. Indeed, six months later he was dead, and while the doctor reported it was age, I knew better. He had not wanted to live on without my father.

  I sighed as I turned to my next patient. It was clear that this war was not ending anytime soon. It was devolving into the dreaded stalemate that sent wave after wave of brave men charging across No Man’s Land, and bringing wave after wave of wounded and dying back to us.

  I’d had no news of Rory since we’d spoken, and no news at all of Captain Gilchrist. I could have asked any of the Scots that passed through my hands if they knew of him, but I had resolved not to press the issue. The more time and distance between us, the better for my peace of mind. And very likely for his as well, I thought bleakly. Perhaps—perhaps he would forget me, given time.

  I was asked to accompany another convoy of woun
ded to England, and once again I tried to persuade the doctor in charge to let me stay where I was. And once more I was told I needed to be relieved.

  “You’re tired, Sister Douglas. I see it in your face, the circles under your eyes.”

  But that wasn’t because of my duties, I wanted to tell him—and couldn’t. It was worry about something else, and that would never do. The Service was quite firm about divided loyalties.

  I said, “You need to rest more than I do.”

  Dr. Tennant grinned. “I know. But who will step into my shoes?”

  “Who will step into mine?” I retorted before I could stop myself.

  “There’s that,” he agreed. “But Sister Blake is a fine nurse, and we’ll manage, I’m sure. Now go and pack your kit. The ambulances will be coming forward in another hour.”

  And so it was that I found myself once more on my way to England.

  Sister Blake put a slip of paper into my hand as I was leaving. “It was my mother’s home in Sussex,” she said. “If you don’t have time to go to Scotland or Cornwall, this is a lovely place to spend a few days. You won’t regret it.”

  “I shouldn’t like to intrude on your family—a stranger,” I responded, but she shook her head.

  “No one has lived there for the past three years. Not, in fact, since my mother’s death. It’s a happy cottage, and I wouldn’t mind knowing that it’s being lived in again. Mrs. Wright, just across the road, will see to your comfort. Give her my love, if you go down.”

  I thanked her, shoved the slip into my pocket, and got into the last ambulance.

  “Bring me a walnut,” she called as we pulled out. “From the tree in the front garden.” And I waved to her.

  Shelling commenced again shortly after we set out, and I could picture the long lines of wounded coming in to the aid station this day. Shrapnel made such ghastly wounds, slicing into flesh and bone. There was no protection.

  And then I had no time to think of anything else but the men in the back of my ambulance.

  A wound reopened, and we had to stop while I bandaged it again. Another soldier, a sergeant, already in the throes of delirium from a high fever, thrashed and tossed, shouting incoherent orders to the men he’d left behind. I gave him a sedative and stayed with him until it took effect, swaying with the rough motion of the ambulance and holding on to one of the metal struts. I was glad to clamber again into the passenger seat when next we stopped to add another three cases to our own.

  We rolled into Calais in the dead of night and were directed straight to the ship waiting to take wounded on board. We off-loaded our stretcher cases, including two that had died en route in spite of all that we could do, and I went to find the English officer in charge to have my papers stamped.

  That dealt with, I hurried back to the ship, an orderly with me, and we found seven men in furious argument at the foot of the gangway.

  There was a stretcher on the ground, a man in a torn, bloody uniform lying on it, his chest heavily bandaged. I marched up to the group and said, “What’s the problem?”

  “He’s not on the list,” one of the port sergeants informed me. “He was brought in by another convoy, and he’s too ill to make the transit. Now the local hospital insists that he be taken to England if he’s to have any chance at all. But no papers came with him. Or if they did, this lot”—he pointed to the stretcher bearers—“haven’t got them.”

  I turned to the men who had brought the stretcher to the ship, and at once I recognized the piper.

  “What’s the trouble here?” I asked him in Gaelic.

  “He willna’ let the laird go aboard. And if he doesna’, the laird could die.”

  For the first time I looked down at the pain-ridden face, thin and heavily bearded, long dark lashes sweeping cheeks flushed with fever.

  It was Peter Gilchrist.

  It took me all of several seconds to school my expression. The last thing I must do, I told myself, is to appear to have a personal interest in this man’s welfare. But I couldn’t stop my fingers from touching his cheek.

  “What nonsense,” I said, straightening up to confront the harbor authorities. “This man should go aboard. That’s a dangerous fever and must be treated quickly. He can’t wait for the next ship. I take full responsibility for this decision.” I turned to the piper and his companions. “Return to your company. I’ll keep him safe.”

  The piper stood his ground. “I willna’ leave him.”

  The Army did not recognize clan loyalties. The piper could be court-martialed for desertion. I said in Gaelic, “You must return to your company. Please, I will see to him. If you go with us, the Army will shoot you.”

  I could see that he was about to argue the matter.

  “Tell me how to reach you. I will send word.”

  I handed him paper and a pencil, and he wrote down his regiment and company, his address in France. Reluctantly he passed it to me. I put it in my pocket with the paper that Sister Blake had given me, then said to the port officer, “These men will see him aboard and then leave. Or do you have stretcher bearers?”

  “We don’t,” he said shortly, preparing to object. “This is highly irregular, Sister.”

  “Take it up with Lord Hamilton, if you doubt me. He will tell you that you have made the right decision. This man is his cousin, and if he dies, Lord Hamilton will be very displeased.”

  I hadn’t used that tone of voice in many weeks. It was Lady Elspeth’s voice, and it brooked no argument. What’s more, the sergeant knew who Lord Hamilton was.

  After the briefest hesitation, he ordered the stretcher taken aboard, and the gangway was raised on the heels of the departing Scots.

  We were at sea ten minutes later. I hastily put both the piper’s direction and that of the Sussex cottage that Sister Blake had given me into my letter box and began my rounds. There was much to do and little time in which to do it, as the crossing didn’t take very long.

  I saw to my patients from the aid station, then made my report to Matron, who was in charge of the convoy crossing.

  And finally I had a few minutes to look in on Peter Gilchrist. He had been taken to the ward for the severely injured, and the Sister in charge said, as I came to stand by his cot, “I have no paperwork for him.”

  “He was a last-minute addition, owing to his fever and an infected wound.”

  “Well, he most certainly has those.” She smiled as she turned to me. “A very attractive man, isn’t he? We’ll do our best to see that he survives.”

  In the end, I helped her cut away the bandage over Peter Gilchrist’s chest.

  The wound was not shrapnel, thank God, but he had been shot through the upper chest, possibly clipping a lung, for his breathing was uneven. And there was probably some damage to the ribs or the shoulder. We had no X-ray machine to see for ourselves. The main problem was the fever, indicative of infection, and we cleaned the wound again, put septic powder on it, and then wrapped it in fresh bandages.

  “I’ll give him something to bring down the fever. Can you lend a hand in this ward, Sister Douglas? There are more criticals than usual, and the Sister assigned to me was still in surgery at the hospital in Calais when we sailed.”

  After making certain I could be spared from looking after my own patients, I stayed, helping in any way I could. Keeping an eye on Peter Gilchrist was not difficult. After all he was amongst those in my care, and as I made my rounds, I could stop and observe him, just as I did everyone else.

  I hadn’t realized how shaken I was by finding him in such straits. I was too good a nurse not to know that he could very likely—would more than likely—die from the infection raging through his body. Trying to imagine a world without Peter was beyond me, and I could only pray that I was there beside him if the unthinkable happened.

  “Are you all right?” Sister Taylor asked me, casting a stern l
ook in my direction after I’d dropped the tin of septic powder a second time.

  “The sea. Perhaps I’m not the sailor I thought I was,” I answered, and she nodded.

  “It took me several crossings to get used to the Channel,” she said sympathetically. “It is surprisingly rough today. But keep your mind on your patients and your stomach will stay down.”

  Several of them were seasick, agony for wounded men, and I held foreheads, brought cool cloths, and offered what comfort I could. There were orderlies to help, but even they were feeling the wild yawing and dipping of the ship. Carrying buckets of vomit up to the decks made their duties even worse.

  Sister Taylor came up behind me as I stood watching Peter breathe. Was it a little more ragged than it had been? Please God, let me be wrong, I prayed.

  She said, her voice kind, “You’re worried about him, aren’t you? Not just the infection. Do you know”—she glanced at his tag—“Captain Gilchrist?”

  “I do know him. He lives not far from where I grew up in Scotland. He’s a friend of one of my cousin’s.”

  “How sad. That fever’s not breaking. You should prepare yourself.”

  She hadn’t meant to be pessimistic, she was only assessing his condition as a trained nursing Sister would. But her words were like knives in my heart.

  We were five miles out of Dover when Peter opened his eyes for the first time.

  I was there as his sight cleared. He recognized me, saying with a frown, “Elspeth? What are you doing here? There’s heavy fighting, you must get out.”

  The confusion of delirium.

  I said, “We’re on a hospital ship. We’ll be in Dover very soon. You’ve been wounded, Peter. Are you in pain? Thirsty?”

  But he couldn’t quite comprehend what I was saying. Taking my right hand in his left, he said, “My dear girl,” and then his eyes closed again.

  When we landed in Dover there was so much bustle off-loading the wounded that I lost track of Peter. There was my own contingent of wounded to account for and sort by condition as well as three cases that one of the doctors coming on board had questions about. By the time I’d settled them on the train, Peter had been moved.