Wives of War

by Soraya M. Lane

  ‘Come,’ the nun said, emerging from another room. ‘I’ve drawn you a bath and I have some bread and butter for you.’

  Scarlet was surprised at how good her English was as she followed behind the kindly woman. This woman had kept Thomas alive, nursed him and cared for him, fed him and most likely bathed him. And now she was taking care of her as a mother would a daughter. She tried to find the words to tell her thank you, wanted to say the right thing, searched her mind for the French words she knew that would make sense and not come out of her mouth a jumble. She failed.

  ‘Thank you,’ she mumbled instead, barely more than a whisper.

  The nun turned, took her hand and looked into her eyes. ‘You’re welcome,’ she replied, her words simple, but her gaze full of so much more.

  Scarlet smiled as tears lined her lashes. If only they could stay safely tucked away in the convent for more than one short night.

  The bath had been nothing short of heaven-sent. Scarlet had washed her hair, scrubbed her skin, lain still and let the water wash over her, submerged just deep enough to cover her body. It had been warm, and she’d been so desperate to get in that she’d eaten her bread in the bath instead of beforehand. If she hadn’t been so desperately hungry she’d have waited until afterwards, but she was as famished for food as she was for being clean.

  As she walked down the cold hall, shivering from her wet hair that she’d pinned back up tidily, she focused only on placing one foot in front of the other. Whatever she was about to face, whatever life she now had to walk into, she would keep her chin up. She had a lot to be thankful for, and she wasn’t going to mourn the rest of her days for a man she had briefly fallen in love with, because what had happened with James couldn’t happen again, no matter what love her heart was brimming to full with. She had to be dutiful. It was the only option.

  Scarlet walked through the door at the same time as a plate was hurled from one side of the room to the other. She stopped, frozen mid-step. Spencer was standing in the middle of the room and Thomas was still seated, his arm raised from hurling the plate. She took a breath and forced herself to keep going.

  ‘Goodness, that was a mighty good throw,’ she said, walking straight over to Thomas and smiling down at him. It seemed the other soldier was still asleep, although she was certain the noise would have made him stir. ‘Perhaps I should have made it clear that Doctor Black is a dear friend of mine. He’s married to Ellie, a nurse I’ve worked alongside since London.’

  Thomas stared up at her, his eyes empty, as if a light had gone out with no hope of it being switched back on.

  ‘I want another doctor,’ Thomas said flatly, looking away.

  Scarlet turned her eyes to Spencer, saw nothing but kindness there and knew he must have been the bearer of bad news.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Scarlet continued, wanting to keep talking for something to do, and hopefully to settle Thomas, to make him feel more like himself again, a connection to the past drawing him out of his shell. ‘You were so very lucky to be rescued.’

  ‘I’d be better off dead.’

  Scarlet had heard those words a lot; they’d often echoed through her mind as she sterilised a bone saw in preparation for surgery, knowing she was about to assist in the amputation of a young man’s leg or arm. Maybe two limbs. Then afterwards, once the doctors and the anaesthetist were gone, they were the words that filtered through her again as she cleaned up all the blood – blood that seemed to splatter everywhere, as if to remind her with every speck of what they’d taken from a man.

  She’d talked soldiers through this before, and she was equipped to talk Thomas through it, too.

  ‘If you were dead you wouldn’t be able to marry me,’ Scarlet said softly. ‘I’ve come all this way, believed you were alive for so long, and now you’re telling me that instead of looking forward to a life with me, you’d rather be dead?’

  Thomas didn’t look at her, but she continued anyway.

  ‘Those men buried in the yard didn’t get any choice, Thomas. Those soldiers who died would give anything to get another chance to be with their families, and yet here you are moaning about injuries that won’t stop you from living. They certainly won’t stop me from loving you.’

  He still looked away, his gaze levelled on the fire, the embers still burning. She knew she was playing on his memories of the friends he’d lost, making him feel guilty for wishing for death instead of a life with her, but it was the only way she knew how to get through to him.

  ‘Thomas, I need you to change your attitude. I need you to be strong and look forward to going home. To seeing your family again and celebrating the fact that you made it. That, against all odds, I found you.’ She paused, lowering herself slowly into the seat beside him. ‘I need you to see that for the miracle it is.’

  Thomas finally turned to her, stared at her. ‘Leave me,’ he said coldly.

  Scarlet opened her mouth to speak again, to reassure him. But the deathly stare he gave her made her press her lips together instead.

  ‘Leave me!’ he shouted.

  She glanced at Spencer and then rose, refusing to cry or show any other emotion. His words were cold, cruel even, but he was battling demons that only he could face. If he didn’t want her by his side, then there was nothing she could do about it other than do as he asked. One day she’d be pledging to obey him, so she may as well get some practice in now.

  Spencer ushered her from the room and she held it together as best she could, refusing to give in to the torrent of unhappiness that was surging helpless inside of her.

  ‘Scarlet, he’s struggling, and it’s easier to lash out at you than face what he’s going through,’ he told her. ‘Most of the time the men we operate on – they don’t get time to think about what’s happened to them, haven’t had time to dwell on their situation. We certainly don’t even talk to them half the time about their amputations because we are coping as best we can with patient after patient, making fast decisions to save their lives.’

  She knew that. It was what she’d been living day after day, week after week, month after month. Only she was the one talking to the patients and nursing them, wiping away their tears and mashing their food so they could swallow it. It was the nurses dealing with the soldiers when the doctors were gone, so she did understand what Thomas was going through.

  ‘Have you examined him already?’ she asked, weary as she stood in the cold, arms wrapped around herself.

  ‘The plate-throwing was the aftermath,’ Spencer said, rubbing his head as if it were sore.

  ‘And?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s not good. There’s no gangrene that I can detect, the nuns have been fastidious with their care, but my concern is that he may develop an infection and that his spine has suffered a terrible trauma. Most likely the impact from the crash. He has some movement, but not a lot, and it seems he’s partially sighted in one eye now.’ Spencer’s shoulders rose then fell. ‘Whether he will make a recovery from this and walks again is unknown. His legs haven’t completely wasted away yet, but I will need to do a more thorough examination when we’re at the hospital. The other patient is doing well, and with sufficient rest and medical attention should be able to return to active duty in the near future.’

  Scarlet nodded. It was hard to believe that the other men they’d been with were dead, despite every effort being made to save their lives. It was equally a miracle that Thomas had survived the crash, let alone been taken to safety and then found by her. She’d been right to believe he’d survive.

  She was ready for bed. She wanted to close her eyes, block everything out and think of nothing. But one thought kept circling her mind, one thing that she couldn’t shake no matter how much she tried.

  Thomas would have made it home even without her being here. Eventually. The war would one day be over and he would have been found or taken into town by the nuns. Which meant the outcome would have been the same for her whether she’d personally found him or not. She
would still be engaged to him, she would still be expected to marry him, and she would still be having to forget all about James and every thought and dream she’d had since being with him that maybe, just maybe, they would end up together.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Lucy

  Lucy heard yelling. Something was pulling at her leg, tugging her, trying to move her. She tried to look up, but she couldn’t lift her head. The smell of smoke made her choke as it swirled around her, and as she tried to sit, tried so hard to move, blackness started to engulf her again.

  The children. Where were the children? It was all she could remember; the children she’d been trying to save, the wound in the girl’s side, the supplies she needed. The pain hit her, an intense burning that raged across her skin. Why was her skin on fire? Why was she so hot?

  She could still feel pulling; was someone trying to lift her? Lucy raised her hand, touched something on her neck, something that was making her burn so bad. She touched something gooey, the pain intensifying, like sandpaper over her nerves.

  It was her. Where was her skin? What was that?

  She screamed, the noise rasping her throat.

  The pain swirled, like a knife edge across every inch of her skin. She felt like she was bubbling, boiling from the outside in, and when she opened her mouth again nothing else came out.

  ‘We’re getting you out of here, love.’

  The muffled voice soothed her, reassured her that she wasn’t alone. Until the voice moved her, pulled at her again, and the scream that echoed from deep within her sounded more animal than human.

  Lucy gasped for air, gulping frantically before everything slowly faded to black around her and breathing no longer seemed so important.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Scarlet

  There had been moments at the convent and during their journey to Brussels that Scarlet had felt numb, but it was nothing to the numbness that had coursed through her body, through every vein and every inch of her, since she’d collapsed, puddling like water on the ground, when she’d been told that Lucy was gone.

  She’d missed her by less than a day, and no one seemed to know if she was going to make it. She was being sent home by ambulance train, which by all accounts Thomas would be, too, depending on the outcome of his assessments. Instead of cherishing the fact that she was now working under a real roof, sleeping under a real roof, her heart was breaking open all over again. Lucy and Ellie meant everything to her, and now they were both gone. She needed them, and they needed her, and instead she had nobody. She’d already felt as if her heart had been ripped open, the pain so deep after finding Thomas – this new version of Thomas making it even harder – and she wanted her friends.

  She touched her chest, feeling the tiny crinkle of paper there. It was the only thing that proved Ellie was real, that she hadn’t imagined her. She only hoped that she’d be handing over the letter to her sooner than later, and not passing it to her parents. Scarlet gulped. Or Ellie passing her letter to her parents. But what of Lucy? Why hadn’t they made her write a letter? Why had they seemed to think that because she was so strong and brave and capable, she was somehow not as mortal as they were?

  Scarlet pulled herself together, changing her stance and straightening her shoulders. She had to put all her energy into Thomas. He was here and he was her responsibility, and he was the only person close to her that she had any power to help right now. She needed to be thankful for the small luxuries, the fact she wasn’t starving hungry every moment of the day as she had become so used to. Or the fact that they were in a proper building and weren’t trooping through mud into makeshift toilets, with a smell so foul she’d forever be able to recall it.

  She turned around, and kept her chin up as she crossed the room. They weren’t full of patients yet, and she made herself appreciate the small things in here, too, like the fact that the cold air wasn’t lashing its cool grasp around her ankles as it had done when they were under canvas.

  ‘Thomas,’ she called out affectionately when she neared.

  He gave her a half-smile that she took as a victory. ‘The doctors think that time should heal me,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘I don’t need an . . .’

  She finished his sentence for him, returning his firm grip when he grasped her hand. ‘Amputation,’ she said, voice shaky as she said the word for him. ‘Thank goodness.’

  She wondered if time would truly heal him, but she kept her thoughts to herself. She knew first-hand that doctors liked to keep morale up whenever they could.

  ‘Your eye?’ she asked, looking down at him and remembering how and why she’d fallen for him in the first place. He was handsome, undisputedly so, and even though he’d been cool and unpredictable since they’d been reunited, she knew it was the pain and fear talking. Beneath all that, he was the same man she’d desperately been searching for, the man she’d been so excited about marrying.

  ‘I can still see you out of my good eye just fine,’ he said, sounding more like the old Thomas for the first time, a hint of friendliness there instead of coldness. ‘That will have to do.’

  She stared down at him, feelings she’d long thought abandoned coming back in a rush. Maybe it truly was possible to love two men, even though she’d never have believed it before now. If she kept seeing glimpses of this Thomas, if she could keep drawing on her memories and reminding herself of all the reasons why she’d loved him, why he’d make a good husband . . .

  ‘Scarlet, I’ve asked for an army chaplain to marry us at once,’ Thomas said, coughing as he tried to pull himself more upright. ‘I’m told you never gave up on finding me, and it’s proper that we’re married at once.’

  Scarlet’s heart started to pound. The whooshing of her blood flooded her ears.

  ‘Pardon?’ she asked, voice shaky as she forcibly expelled the word.

  ‘I want us to be married at once,’ he said. ‘This war has taken everything from me already, but it seems the one thing it hasn’t taken is you. And besides, when I left I expected you to stay at home with your family. I don’t want you unmarried around so many men.’

  ‘Would it matter so terribly? Surely after all this time you can trust in me and my decisions.’ They were words that choked in her throat, but hearing him say that had made her blood boil!

  ‘Scarlet, you’re not made for this type of work. I’m surprised to see you here, and that your family allowed it. It would be improper for you to be unmarried and continue being in such close contact with all these soldiers.’

  Unshed tears hugged her lashes as she tried to smile through them, pretending he wasn’t hurting her, that his words made her feel so lowly when all this time she’d felt so empowered, in charge of her own destiny. So he wanted to marry her to make it clear she was his? It might have even seemed romantic to her once, but now it only made her sad. She was so much more than a girl waiting for a man now. She was a nurse, a capable, confident nurse who’d put status aside to work shoulder to shoulder with any nurse or doctor, to tend to any soldier regardless of his injuries.

  ‘We’re . . .’ she stuttered, clearing her throat, pushing her thoughts aside, knowing he’d never understand. ‘We’re to be married immediately?’ She must have heard him wrong. Surely she had heard him wrong. Convincing herself about her fiancé was one thing, but marrying him now? Before they even dealt with his injuries or returned home?

  She didn’t even let herself whisper the words inside her own mind, even though they were fighting to be let free, her thoughts drowning in her head.

  Deep inside, in her heart, she was still torn. It broke her heart to think of James. But Thomas was her fiancé. Thomas was her intended. Which meant, if Thomas had indeed requested the army chaplain already, James would officially become her brother-in-law and nothing more. She’d known the time would come, but Thomas’s words had still managed to hit her hard. Once she went home, who would care about what she’d done here? Her family would expect her to perform her function as a dutif
ul wife. No more, no less. She doubted they’d even believe how capable she’d been.

  ‘Scarlet?’

  She drew her shaking hands together, trying to stop the quiver before it took over her entire body. ‘I’m sorry. It’s all been such a shock, finding you and then hearing of my friend’s terrible injuries and return to England.’ It wasn’t an excuse, her words were true, her explanation entirely accurate. But this man, this man lying on the bed, he seemed more a stranger than her fiancé right now.

  ‘Then a wedding will cheer you up,’ he said bluntly.

  No kind words, no soft touch. The Thomas she remembered would have been more gracious, would have comforted her. Or maybe that was just the Thomas she’d created in her imagination, just like she’d never realised how cold her upbringing had been or how truly wonderful a man could make her feel. They had only spent a handful of days together – hazy, happy days with a smattering of stolen moments between them. In all truth, it was James she knew better, whose actions and emotions she had seen in the most trying of circumstances. He would have comforted her.

  She patted Thomas’s arm before turning to walk away, forcing her movements to be slow even though she wanted so desperately to run.

  She was about to be married. With no family or friends present, just a man whom she’d been so desperate to find and who, right now, felt more of a stranger than half the soldiers whose wounds she’d tended to all these months.

  Scarlet had already talked with her matron, and had had a strong feeling that Thomas would insist on a marriage, but not so soon as this. Now, she would be travelling home by sea with him, accompanying him back to England as his wife. He would never return to the front, which in itself was a godsend, and she’d already set the wheels in motion to transfer him to a London hospital. The news of the shortage of nurses was already making its way to them, and it seemed the country was grateful to have some highly trained nurses from the front return home. But instead of accompanying him in a military convoy to a hospital when they returned, then taking a few days’ leave with her family before being given a new posting, she’d be married. Thomas’s wife. Which meant she had no idea how things might change or what that would mean.