Silence for the Dead

by Simone St. James

  Mabry’s voice grew carefully neutral. “And you wish to get these incident reports out of the briefcase.”

  “Yes, I do.” I looked at his expression and said, “It has nothing to do with me, Captain. My days here are numbered. But I’d rather not be the cause of the other nurses getting dismissed, or the orderlies. Or Matron.”

  He seemed to consider this critically for a moment, frowning behind his spectacles. “The likelihood is, Nurse Weekes, that he’ll find out eventually.”

  “Possibly.”

  “And you still wish to do it.”

  “I have to.”

  As we heard water running in the lav, Mabry leaned closer and whispered in his crisp voice: “If you want a man to drop something, you have to give him something else to grab onto. Bring him by my room.”

  And then he was gone, quick and quiet on his long legs, and Mr. Deighton emerged to continue his tour.

  Perhaps I should have spared him, but when Captain Mabry gave a command in that patrician voice, you followed it. I led Mr. Deighton down the corridor. He looked a little pale. “Are you quite well, sir?”

  “Yes, fine, thank you.”

  “The air in that lavatory can be rather oppressive, or so I’ve heard. And there is sometimes a problem with mold. I can make a note.”

  “There is nothing the matter, Nurse. I appreciate your concern. What is that noise?”

  A great racket was coming from Mabry’s room. I paused, hoping I wasn’t about to heap one catastrophe over another. Then I pressed forward.

  We found Mabry in the act of sliding his bed across the room toward the window, sweat breaking out over his pale forehead. He did not look at us as we approached the door.

  “Mr. Mabry!” I exclaimed in my best outraged voice. “You’re moving your bed again!”

  I turned to Mr. Deighton, who had gone even paler at the sight of one of his mental patients apparently in full mania. “I’m so sorry about this, sir,” I said. “Mr. Mabry sometimes thinks he’s back at the Front, shoring up shell defenses.”

  “We need more sandbags!” Mabry said gamely as he slid the bed.

  “Mr. Mabry!” I snapped. “Stop it right now. You’re supposed to be at exercise. Move that bed back right now or I’ll have to give you another emetic.”

  The captain looked at me and slumped. He really was an admirable actor. “I can’t, Nurse,” he said in a pitiful voice I could never have imagined coming from him. “I used up all my energy pushing it. I can’t put it back.”

  “Well, this is a pretty problem!” Boney herself could not have been more put out. “Now what are we going to do! If that bed isn’t put back in its place, we’ll both be in trouble.” I turned to Mr. Deighton. “You don’t think you could trouble to help him, sir? His fit seems to have passed. I’m quite sure he isn’t dangerous at the moment.”

  Mr. Deighton seemed to have frozen in place. “Beg pardon?”

  “I’m so sorry to trouble you,” I said. “It won’t take a minute. Otherwise I’ll be here coaxing him all day. He goes quiet as a kitten when his fits have passed. You’ll see. Mr. Mabry! Be nice to the kind gentleman, or you’ll get a double dose of castor oil after supper.”

  “Yes, Nurse.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Please, sir?” I looked up at him, all sweet hopefulness and worship.

  He looked down at me, startled, as if he’d just noticed me there. Then he looked about, as if for another candidate. Then his mother’s likely lessons about helping ladies and the less fortunate finally awoke, and he sighed. “Very well.”

  He set down the briefcase and entered the room, poised on the balls of his feet as if hunting a leopard. “Go to the other side,” he nearly shouted, as if madness made the captain hard of hearing, his voice nearly cracking with fear. “Grab the end.”

  They grappled with the thing, and I slid the briefcase neatly out of the doorway with my foot. In the corridor I snapped it open and riffled through it as fast as I could.

  “What are you doing!” Mr. Deighton gasped. “The other way. No, the other way!”

  There were sheaves of papers in there. I nearly despaired until I found a neat envelope, sealed and uncreased, with the date written on the front in Matron’s handwriting. I pulled out the envelope and slid it into the pocket of my apron, next to the handwritten pages from the men.

  After Mr. Deighton had emerged, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief, and we had started off down the corridor with unseemly haste, I turned back to see the captain emerge from his doorway, book in hand. Behind Mr. Deighton’s back, I gave him a salute. He looked surprised. At first I thought he wouldn’t respond; then, as we turned the corner, he raised his hand to his temple and saluted me back, the gesture strangely dignified in his madman’s pajamas.

  • • •

  I didn’t know things had gone wrong, not truly, until it came time for Mr. Deighton to take his leave—given the option, it seemed no one ever stayed the night at Portis House—and Matron didn’t come to help us see him off.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said Boney, contrite. “Matron is feeling unwell and she has gone to lie down for a rest.”

  Nina and I stared at her in open shock. It was unthinkable for Matron to rest—in bed!—during the workday. Mr. Deighton took it in very bad grace, but he clutched his briefcase and left after giving us a sullen lecture about duty and respect to our superiors. He took his secrets with him, and though I was glad to see him go, I wished I’d had a little more time with the contents of that briefcase.

  “You’re not serious,” I said to Boney when Mr. Deighton had gone.

  “You saw her.” Boney shook her head. “She didn’t look well.”

  “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now,” said Nina. “Supper’s to be served in half an hour. We’ll just have to do it all without her.”

  I half expected Matron to reappear during supper or as we cleared the dishes, nagging us about one rule or another, but she didn’t. I pulled Paulus aside the first chance I got. “Matron’s ill,” I said.

  He looked amazed. “I wondered where she had got to.”

  “We’re short-staffed,” I said. “It worries me.”

  It wasn’t just the shortage, of course; it was the fact that it was Matron who was missing. The threat of Matron’s wrath was what kept the men in line during the day-to-day routine. If it got out among the men that she was sick in bed, we might have a discipline problem. I vaguely noticed that the idea didn’t terrify me, as it would have on my first day here; it merely seemed like a problem to be solved.

  Paulus caught my meaning immediately. “I’ve got one of my men out back, taking a look at the generator. It’s been acting up all day. I’ll bring him back into the house and I’ll tell the others to be on their guard.”

  “I think that would be helpful. I hope it’s temporary and she’s well by tomorrow. There can’t be anything worse than Matron getting a serious illness.”

  But I was wrong. As I passed the common room, Captain Mabry’s voice called to me. “Nurse Weekes, I believe Somersham is unwell.”

  Somersham was sitting at the end of one of the sofas, sagging over the arm like an unwatered plant. As I watched, he put a hand up and cradled his forehead. “It’s just a headache,” he said.

  “Nonsense, lad,” Mr. MacInnes chimed in. “You look like death sitting up.”

  Somersham’s skin was gray under the pale stubble on his cheeks. I touched his forehead. He was feverish, but there was no need to panic the men in the room. “Nurse Shouldice,” I said calmly as Nina appeared in the doorway behind me, “I believe Mr. Somersham is not feeling well.”

  She was equally calm. “Isn’t he? Well, let’s go, then. Off to bed.”

  We helped him up the stairs and into bed. He was hot as coals, with alarming red blotches showing high on his cheeks.


  Nina, worried, caught my eye as she pulled the cover over him. “Should we take him to the infirmary, do you think?”

  “No, no,” he protested from the bed between us. “It’s just a headache. Had it since yesterday. It’ll go away.”

  Nina and I looked at each other again. “Martha,” I said. She’d had a headache the previous night before going on night duty, and she’d been in bed all day.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Nina replied. “You go check on her.”

  I hurried up the stairs. The hot sun was setting behind a bank of cloud, the air as thick as cotton wool. The storm was coming. Please, I thought as my feet hit the steps. Please, please, don’t let Martha get sick. But when I reached the nursery, the beds were empty, and she didn’t answer when I called her name.

  She’d gotten almost as far as the bathroom when she collapsed, perhaps in search of a glass of water. She was crumpled on the floor, one arm awkwardly under her head, her cotton nightdress hiked halfway up her thighs. I knelt beside her and pulled the nightdress down. Her legs were thin with sinew, her knees bony.

  When I rolled her over, I saw the same feverish spots on her cheeks. Her eyes were glassy. “Kitty,” she said. “You have to warn Matron.”

  “Ssh,” I said. “Warn her of what?”

  “The men will catch it,” she breathed. “You have to warn Matron. It’s influenza.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Everything happened fast after that. Influenza, it seemed, was a quick disease, its onset unstoppable once started, felling people like ninepins. In twenty-four hours half the patients were down with it, and half the orderlies, too.

  Nina, Boney, and I worked like dogs. We let Archie out of the infirmary and replaced him with three of the first patients, but as more went down we ran out of room and kept the men in their own beds, making rounds and nursing as best we could. I was apprehensive about going into Creeton’s room, where his restraints had just been lifted though he was confined to his room. I shouldn’t have worried. He was unaffected by the flu, but he lay in bed and turned his back to us, unmoving and unspeaking.

  Boney, whom I’d never seen do much actual nursing, was suddenly everywhere: ordering the able-bodied orderlies to haul supplies, herding the patients to bed, carrying trays, filling pitchers of water. How the fever had come here, we had no way of knowing. Portis House was isolated, but we’d had a string of visitors, including Syd and the patients’ families. We also got deliveries of mail and supplies several times per week, and sometimes messages were run over the bridge and into town.

  “Rest and fluids,” Matron dictated from her bed. She was awake for a few brief minutes and we nurses had crowded into her room, hoping for wisdom. Nina fluffed the pillow behind her head. Matron looked different in her nightdress, her glasses gone and her hair askew, but even with her weakened voice she was still unmistakably Matron.

  “They must have rest,” she said. “Beef tea if they will take it. As much water as they will drink. Lemon for vitaminic strength. Keep the healthy men segregated as much as possible. Do not leave the sick to lie on sheets they have sweated through. Open the windows for ventilation, especially at night.”

  “Is that all?” The list seemed alarmingly anemic. “There is nothing else we can do?”

  Matron closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. “Nothing. Make sure you get rest yourselves, and nourishment. You’re no good to them if you come down with it. Alice, you already look exhausted.”

  It took me a confused moment to understand that Alice was Boney, whose first name I’d never known.

  “Nurse Weekes,” Matron commanded hoarsely. “There is a telephone in my office. Have you used such an instrument before?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must communicate with the nearest medical hospital. You must speak to the doctor in charge and tell him we need patients evacuated. You must also communicate with the village and warn them of an outbreak.”

  I had no idea how to do any of this, but I held on to my panic. “Yes, Matron.”

  “Nurse Shouldice.” She turned to Nina. “You are to deal with Paulus. Get an update on the issue with the generator. Make sure the men delivering supplies do not come into the house. The kitchen has permission to reduce meals, as the sick men cannot take solid food, but make sure there is a constant supply of beef tea. Alice, you are to go to bed. You are back on shift to relieve these two for rest in five hours.”

  That finished her; she could not speak further, and she drifted off into sleep. We went our separate ways. Within a few hours I found Mr. MacInnes at the foot of the stairs, sitting on the bottom step doubled over. We’d sent the men out for exercise, but there was no one to supervise them and a few of them had come back in, wandering the halls. I hoped no one had fallen outside or run off over the marshes. I helped MacInnes into bed and tucked him in. That made ten of the patients down.

  “Can I help?”

  I turned and found Jack in the doorway. He hadn’t fallen sick. I was so happy to see him I almost cried.

  “Yes,” I answered him. “Do you know how to use a telephone?”

  • • •

  Exhaustion turned everything to a blur. There were cloths and pitchers of water, my fingers wrinkling as I endlessly mopped brows, throats, arms, and legs. There were journeys down the long, dark corridors of Portis House, the walls shimmering in my exhaustion, the groans so loud in the walls I wondered whether I imagined them. I sat at the small table in the kitchen, trying to choke down a biscuit and a cup of tea, as Nina told me Boney had gone to bed and not got up again. We had another patient to care for.

  At some point I sat in Matron’s empty office, uncomfortable in the chair behind her desk, as Jack sat across from me. He had one leg crossed over the other knee and regarded me steadily as I fumbled with the telephone. Gently he gave me suggestions and we sorted out how to get through to the post office in Bascombe, where I told the postmistress what was happening and asked her to spread the word in the village.

  Then we spent another twenty minutes reaching the hospital at Newcastle on Tyne. The head doctor there didn’t want to talk to me about an influenza outbreak at a madhouse, but I wouldn’t let him stop me. I finally got myself patched through to the head administrator and by then I was so frustrated, so angry, and so very tired that I told him Jack Yates, England’s hero, was here on his deathbed, along with the sons of many other prominent families, and if help was not sent I would post letters detailing why to the relatives of every single one of my patients, including Archie’s father, the newspaper baron. I was told a detachment of ambulances would be sent right away to evacuate us and take in the sick.

  I hung up the telephone and looked across the desk at Jack, who was as healthy as ever. He had a half smile on his face.

  “Well-done,” he said.

  “That does it,” I told him. “If Syd hasn’t told the newspapers, this will seal it for you.”

  He raised a brow. “England’s hero?”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  It took four hours to prepare the patients for evacuation. Any semblance of a routine had vanished now, and the few patients who remained healthy pitched in to work if they were capable. One by one the sick were carried down to the large front hall, using the hospital’s single stretcher. Paulus and Roger, the last two orderlies who weren’t sick, alternated with Jack and Captain Mabry, while other patients helped if they could. Martha was brought down from the nursery, and Matron and Boney were brought up from their rooms. We put the sick on the floor in neat lines, to ease the process of transferring them to ambulances once the vehicles arrived. As the main hall started to look like the aftermath of a bloodless battle, I looked out the window and saw that it had started to rain.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “Will the ambulances be able to cross the bridge?”

  “I think so.” Jack looked out the windo
w over my shoulder. The air was hot and humid, and sweat trickled down his temples from carrying stretchers down the stairs. “It isn’t raining very hard. Still, they must get here soon.” He paused. “Kitty, look.”

  But I had already seen. Through the thin curtain of warm rain, a lone girl on a bicycle was approaching from the road.

  “It’s Maisey,” I said, remembering her promise to bring mail. “She can’t come in here. You carry on. I’ll go talk to her.”

  From one of the supply closets I grabbed a men’s mackintosh, obviously meant for use by the orderlies, and hurried outside. I caught her as the bicycle veered toward the trees at the side of the house, heading for the clearing. I waved my arms and she stopped, uncertain.

  “Maisey!” I cried. “It’s me!”

  “Kitty?”

  “Yes— No, don’t come closer. Maisey, we have influenza here.”

  That made her dismount the bicycle. “I’m coming to help.”

  “No! You’ll be exposed.”

  “Kitty, I’m a nurse! How many patients are down?”

  “Ten, along with Matron, Martha, Boney, and four of the six orderlies.”

  “Oh, my God, Kitty. Has anyone died?”

  “No.” My brain refused to think about it. The last time Matron had woken, she had given us instructions on what to do if there were bodies. “Not yet.”

  “You’re practically alone, Kitty. Let me help.”

  “There’s no need. Ambulances are coming from Newcastle on Tyne, as long as the bridge holds. We’re all to be evacuated in the next hour. You’d be risking yourself for nothing. Do you have an outbreak in Bascombe?”

  “No. Not that I know of.”

  “You’ll bring it back there, then. I warned the postmistress about it, but if the infection gets there on its own, you’ll be needed.”

  She hesitated. Even from where I stood, some ten feet away, I could see that something had changed about her. She wore a slender mackintosh topped with a matching rain hat and stylish rubber boots. She looked like a reasonably well-to-do English girl taking a bicycle ride in a summer drizzle, but her face had lost its careless humor. She looked as if she’d taken a blow that had sucked the happiness from her.