After the War Is Over: A Novel

by Jennifer Robson

  “There’s a long, long—”

  “What on earth is that dreadful racket?”

  Of all the times for Major Pitt-Venables to embark on his fortnightly tour of the hospital. She’d heard one of the patients refer to the officer as Major Piss-and-Vinegar, and secretly she thought the name suited him perfectly. Before the war he’d been some species of physician in Brighton, but by some miracle of military efficiency had since been raised to a position that far exceeded his talents, if not his ambition. He was attached to the Queen Alexandra Hospital at Millbank, a larger facility some miles away, and undertook his inspections with the help of a junior officer.

  Charlotte stood, straightening her apron, and stepped away from Lieutenant Stephens.

  “I beg your pardon, sir. I was singing to one of the officers.”

  “Whatever for? He’s not an infant. Surely you have better things to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She waited until old Piss-and-Vinegar was well out of earshot before crouching next to Lieutenant Stephens and whispering in his ear. “Don’t you mind the major. I’m happy to sing with you anytime.”

  Just then, in the distance, a mechanical trill sounded. It was the bell at the back door, and was only ever rung when new patients had arrived. Patting the lieutenant’s arm in farewell, she set off down the rear stairs and waited for Sister Barrett and the orderlies to arrive.

  The ambulances, made distinctive by their plain gray exteriors, had already parked. Both she and Sister breathed a sigh of relief when only four patients emerged, three from one ambulance and one from the other. The lone passenger in the second ambulance was very poorly indeed: his skin was ashen, he was perspiring profusely, and his limbs were shaking so much he had difficulty standing without assistance.

  A wheelchair was brought out for the man, and the orderlies, small men who regularly astonished Charlotte with their feats of strength, nimbly carried it and its trembling passenger upstairs to J Ward. Sister Barrett, having consulted with Matron, ordered that he be bathed, changed into pajamas, fed some lunch, and put to bed for a nap.

  All this Charlotte accomplished more or less on her own, and even managed to glance through the man’s chart. He was Captain Soames, an infantry officer with the Welsh Guards, and had most recently been in command of a company at Cambrai. He was twenty-three years old.

  There was no explanation of his condition, beyond the maddeningly cryptic NYDN designation: “not yet diagnosed; nervous.” And she knew better than to ask him directly.

  He ate his lunch without protest, his trembling having abated almost entirely, and when he murmured that he was done Charlotte tucked him back into bed and left him to his nap.

  Sister Barrett was at her desk, likely busy with the paperwork the new patients had generated. “How is Captain Soames?”

  “He’s sleeping now. Was perfectly cooperative.”

  “Very good. Rounds are in half an hour, but you should still have time to give Major Stafford his sponge bath. Mind you don’t get his sutures wet.”

  “Yes, Sister. I’ll—”

  “Nurse Brown, what is Captain Soames doing out of bed?”

  Charlotte whirled around to see the captain stagger down the corridor. He had been so placid, earlier. He had even smiled at her when she had arranged the pillow beneath his head.

  She and Sister Barrett rushed into the corridor and along to the sitting room at its far end. Captain Soames stood in the center of the room, swaying on his feet, and he held something in his right hand. A knife.

  “Oh, God. It’s the knife from his luncheon tray. I didn’t . . . he must have taken it.”

  “It isn’t sharp enough to do much damage, but we need to get it from him all the same.”

  Sister took a step toward the captain, then another, but before she could say anything he lunged at her, the knife a metallic blur.

  Charlotte rushed forward and held out her hands in supplication. “I won’t hurt you,” she said. “I promise. But I need for—”

  “What the devil is going on here? Why does that man have a knife?”

  Major Pitt-Venables certainly had an impeccable sense of timing. Charlotte half turned to him, frantically shaking her head, but he blundered forward without even acknowledging her presence.

  “Put that weapon down at once. Do you hear me?”

  “Oh, I hear you all right. Major. Have you been to war?”

  “Of course I have. We’re all at war, you fool.”

  Captain Soames narrowed his eyes and extended his arm until the knife was pointed straight at the senior officer’s heart.

  “I’m no fool, and you know it. What I want to know is this: Have you sent men to their death? No? Of course you haven’t. I have, though. I wish I could remember all their names. So many names. I tried at first . . .”

  Charlotte took a tiny step forward. “Please put the knife down. You’re frightening the other men. You’ve a perfect right to be upset, but it’s not fair to let it affect the others.”

  “I told Colonel Watson that I needed a rest. Only a week or two behind the lines to clear my head. Do know you what he said? He said I’d let myself fall into a funk. That I lacked grit.”

  “No one here is suggesting anything of the—”

  “He hadn’t seen what I’ve seen. He hadn’t done what I had to do. What does a man like that know of grit? Or a man like you, for that matter?”

  The knife was perilously close to the major’s chest. To his credit, the medical officer stood his ground, though a fine sheen of sweat had broken out on his upper lip and brow.

  “He didn’t know what happens when you bayonet a man, but I do. Oh, God, I do. It goes in so easily, like a hot knife through butter, but it doesn’t want to come out. So you have to wrench it out, but the man you’re killing, he’s still alive. His hands are covered with blood, for he’s grasping at the blade in his guts, and he won’t let go, so you have to kick at him and scream at him . . .”

  Captain Soames dropped to his knees and hugged the knife close to his chest. “I could smell his breath, his sweat, smell where he’d pissed himself . . . you’ve no idea. None of you have any idea.”

  Still keeping her distance, Charlotte knelt on the floor. “May I ask your Christian name, Captain Soames?”

  “It’s Patrick.”

  “Patrick, if you will put down the knife, I will listen to you. I’ll sit with you and listen until you decide you have nothing more to say. But you must put down the knife.”

  “Do you promise?” he said, as weary as an old man at the end of his life, and Charlotte nodded eagerly.

  He let the knife fall from his grasp. She opened her mouth to thank him, but before she could speak the orderlies were upon him, dragging him away, his screams echoing down the corridor.

  “You promised!” he cried. “You said you would listen!”

  Charlotte stood up and dusted off her skirts. Matron might allow her to speak with the captain later, and she might be able to regain his trust. But first she would have to help calm the others, some of whom were visibly unnerved by the scene they had witnessed. Lieutenant Stephens was already humming “I Don’t Want to Join the Army” again.

  “Nurse Brown? Are you all right?” Matron had emerged from her office; she would help calm the men. She always knew how to restore order.

  “I—I think so.”

  Matron gave her a handkerchief. “Perhaps you might wish to wipe your face,” she suggested kindly, and when Charlotte raised a hand to her cheek she realized that tears were streaming from her eyes.

  “I beg your pardon, Matron.”

  “Not at all. It was a very distressing incident, and you handled it ably.”

  “I’m afraid it was all my fault. I was the one who left the knife within his reach.”

  “That is unfortunate, but it was a dinner knife, not a scalpel. And you ought never to have been left alone with a man whose thoughts were so disordered. So it is I who ought to apologize. Would you like
a few minutes, just to gather your thoughts?”

  “Only if it won’t—”

  “We shall be quite all right. Take half an hour for yourself before reporting back to Sister Barrett. I shall speak to her about the knife.”

  “Yes, Matron. Thank you.”

  The nurses’ cloakroom was on the top floor of the hospital at the very end of a corridor, and though spacious enough, it was sparsely furnished and nearly always freezing cold. Charlotte brought up a discarded copy of The Times from the day before, together with a cup of tea from the kitchen, and curled up in one of the two easy chairs that some kind soul had donated.

  She paged through the newspaper, her mind on her promise to Captain Soames, as well as the very real possibility that one or more of the other patients would have a setback in his treatment as a result.

  She skimmed past the classified advertisements, law reports, announcements of military medals—an entire page of names, so many her eyes watered just looking at it—and several pages of unremarkable news. The Roll of Honor, blessedly short for a change; she would look at it later and see if she recognized any names.

  She was about to turn the page, but some nameless impulse stopped her hand. The list was a short one; it would take her no time to read. Killed, died of wounds, wounded—she scanned the names; all strangers. And then, at the end, a single name under the banner of MISSING, FEARED KILLED:

  NEVILLE-ASHFORD, Maj. E.A.G., Border Rt.

  She blinked, then looked again. His name. There, in The Times, in the Roll of Honor. It was his name she saw; there was no doubting it.

  Charlotte ran to the sink in the corner and was noisily, violently sick. She sank to the floor, on her knees for the second time that day, quite sure that she’d never be able to get up.

  If there’d been any uncertainty as to his fate, he’d have been listed as “missing.” She would never see him again, never, and no amount of wishing or praying, or bargains made with the Almighty, would ever erase Edward’s name from that page.

  “GOOD EVENING, MY dear. Did you have a nice day?”

  “No, Mrs. Collins. It was . . . it was a hard day.”

  The afternoon had passed in a blur. Jean, one of the other nurse probationers, had found Charlotte in the cloakroom when she didn’t return after the promised half hour, and rather than listen to Charlotte and wait while she washed her face and brushed her hair, the woman had gone running to Sister Barrett, who in turn had fetched Matron.

  They had both been concerned, assuming that Charlotte was still upset about the incident with Captain Soames, and it was an age before she was able to escape their well-meaning clutches and return to the numbing oblivion of work. By some mercy the men were in good spirits, Matron having once again worked her brand of magic, so Charlotte had an uneventful afternoon of sponge baths and washing up and fetching of countless cups of tea.

  And now she was home, standing in the front hall of Mrs. Collins’s boardinghouse, though she had no memory at all of the journey from the hospital. It had been raining, too, for her coat was spotted and her face was wet. Had it really been raining?

  “I’m not feeling very well,” she told the landlady. “I think I’ll just go up to bed, if you don’t mind.”

  “You poor dear. You do look done in. Oh—I almost forgot. There’s a letter for you.”

  Charlotte didn’t look at it, didn’t so much as examine the envelope for clues, until she was alone in her room and sitting in her chair before the ashes of last night’s fire.

  The letter was from Lilly.

  51st C.C.S.

  France

  11 March 1918

  My dearest Charlotte,

  Yesterday I received a letter from home (from Mr. Maxwell, not my parents) with the terrible news that Edward has gone missing. He was able to provide me with few details, apart from the information that he was last seen on March 3rd whilst conducting a raid in no-man’s-land. I know nothing else but I thought I must let you know as quickly as possible. If and when I learn more I shall certainly write to you immediately.

  I must go—I am very sorry to tell you so bluntly—I miss you terribly and think of you often.

  With love from

  Your devoted friend

  Lilly

  Charlotte folded the letter back into its envelope and set it on the table. It was true. His name in The Times and Lilly’s letter, together, made it a certainty.

  He was gone forever, his body lost in the wasteland, alone and cold, never to be warm again, never to see the sun again. The last time she had seen him, more than a year ago, he had promised that her name would be on his lips when he died. Yet she had pushed him away.

  Why hadn’t she embraced him? Why hadn’t she told him the truth?

  A scream rose in her throat, impossible to muffle with her hand, or even her handkerchief, so she ran to her bed and pressed her pillow to her face. She cried and raged until her eyes were dry and the pillow was sodden, and then she simply lay on the bed and let the shock and pain overtake her.

  Hours later, when the street outside was quiet and still, and the room so cold her teeth were chattering, Charlotte sat up again. She changed into her nightgown and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. She lighted her spirit kettle and made a mug of Bovril. She drank it, somehow, though her stomach roiled in protest, and then she returned to bed.

  She would never see his face again. She would never hear his voice again. He was gone.

  What had she been doing on the third of March? She sifted through her memories but couldn’t recall anything of significance. It had been an ordinary day at work. A solitary day at home. Had she spared a single thought for him as he lay dying? She had not.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered, and though she had long ago ceased to believe in any sort of hereafter, she held her breath and waited for his answer.

  None came. She was alone, as she had always been, as she would always be. Alone, as Edward had been at the end, when he had taken his last breath and whispered her name and had bid her adieu forever.

  Chapter 28

  Somerset, England

  Christmas, 1919

  All aboard for Wells. Next station, Wells. All aboard!”

  Seeing no latecomers, the station guard waved his arm, and with a screech of its running gear and an enveloping burst of steam from its chimney, the locomotive rumbled forth into the night.

  Charlotte was almost home. Her journey had begun before dawn, when she’d caught the train from Liverpool to Birmingham, then down to Bristol and, after one final change of trains, the branch line to Wells. It had taken her nearly eleven hours, but soon she would be home.

  She hadn’t spent Christmas with her parents since before the war, and though Lilly and Robbie had been keen for her to stay with them, she had known there was only one place she belonged this Yuletide. It wouldn’t be a long stay, for she had missed far too much work over the preceding months, but she would be with them for a few hours of Christmas Eve, and then all of Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

  It had been strange to know she wouldn’t see Lilly this Christmas, but London was far out of her way. Nor would she see Edward, of course. Lilly had asked if she might stay with them on her journey home, for the twenty-seventh was a Saturday. But Charlotte had told her friend, not altogether untruthfully, that she was terribly behind in her work and badly needed to catch up. It was true, after a fashion, though it wasn’t the reason she was keeping her distance.

  She couldn’t risk seeing him. If she were to stay with Lilly, Edward would surely come by, wish her a happy Christmas, and ask her how she was. There was no way around it—Lilly would tell him and he would come. She knew he would, and she knew just as well that she could not bear it. Not yet, at any rate.

  So she had done the right thing and gone straight home to her parents. She would leave her worries behind and let Mother and Father take care of her for a few days. They would be happy, and she would be . . . well, almost happy.

  Feeling rathe
r irritated with herself—when had fussing and worrying about something ever made it better?—Charlotte dragged her case from the overhead rack and made her way to the end of the carriage. She was almost home.

  When the train finally rolled to a halt and she stepped onto the platform, she couldn’t see a thing, for the locomotive had exhaled a dragon’s worth of steam across the platform. At length she spied an elderly couple several yards away, but though their backs were turned Charlotte was sure they couldn’t be her parents.

  Then they turned, and they were her parents. It had been scarcely more than a year since she’d seen them last, but in the interim they had suddenly become old. Father was only seventy-two, and Mother only sixty-five. How could they possibly be old?

  “Mother! Father!” she cried out, and rushed forward to embrace them. “It is so good to see you.”

  “You look so well,” her mother said. “Doesn’t she look well, Laurence?”

  “She does indeed,” her father agreed. “Have you only the one case?”

  “Yes, Father. Only the one.”

  “If only you were staying longer . . .”

  “I know, Mother, and I am sorry. I thought I might pop down for another visit in the spring. Perhaps at Whitsun? What do you think?”

  At this, her mother’s expression brightened considerably. “Oh, that would be lovely.”

  “We’d best get along to the car,” her father urged.

  “Car? Don’t tell me you’ve learned to drive, Father.”

  “Goodness, no. The car and its driver belong with the dean. He was kind enough to offer.”

  “But we always walk from the station.”

  “Yes, but it’s a cold night and your mother’s knees are bothering her. Come, now. In you both get.”

  How could Mother’s knees be hurting her? Her mother, who regularly walked two or three miles each afternoon? Why hadn’t she said anything in her letters?

  Charlotte was still fretting over the state of her mother’s knees when the car pulled up at the northern entrance to Vicars’ Close. Their house was at the very end, attached on one side to the chapel, and was rather larger than its fellows on the street. All dated to the fourteenth century and had, by some miracle, survived the centuries more or less in their original state, with only minor alterations made for modern convenience.