‘You really shouldn’t be out of bed so soon,’ she said as she examined his dressing. ‘I’m sure this must hurt.’
He winced as she moved his shoulder. ‘I just can’t lie there doing nothing. Anyway, it’ll get better just as quickly here as in the ward won’t it?’
‘I suppose so. But you’d better get back before the doctor comes around later or I’ll get into trouble. We have to take special care of you. Everybody’s talking about you, you know.’
William was aware of the attention he was attracting. People had been coming up to him in the ward all morning, and though he knew they meant well he didn’t want to talk to anybody. It was why he had come to the dayroom.
‘Is there anything I can get for you?’ the nurse asked.
‘No, I don’t think so. Unless you’ve got a cigarette?’
She took a packet from her pocket. ‘You can keep them if you like. I’ve got some more anyway.’
‘Thanks,’ he said gratefully. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’
‘It’s Margaret.’
‘Are you Canadian?’
‘Yes. I’m from Ontario. My parents are from Scotland originally. I’ve never been there myself, but I’d like to go when the war is over. Have you been there?’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
The nurse told him about the town where her mother was born. It was on the west coast somewhere, little more than a village by the sound of it. He half listened to her, imagining mountains and lochs.
‘Well, I ought to be getting on,’ she said. ‘I expect I’ll see you later. Just try not to move your arm at all.’
He thanked her, and when she had gone he gazed out of the window. In the garden two patients wearing khaki coats over their pyjamas were sitting on a bench in watery sunshine. They were smoking, neither of them talking.
William took a cigarette from the packet the nurse had given him. He tried to strike a match, but it was difficult to manage with his arm bandaged up and he dropped the entire box, scattering matches all over the floor. He looked at them helplessly and suddenly was engulfed by a rush of frustrated rage.
‘Shit!’
The other patients looked at him curiously. He hurled the cigarette packet angrily at the window, and when it fell harmlessly to the floor he looked around for something more substantial. He wanted to smash the glass into a million fragments, but there was nothing close enough to reach. Then all at once, the anger that had consumed him so suddenly, drained away and he slumped in his seat.
The chess players resumed their game, while the reader picked up his book and turned a page before his attention wandered again and he gazed off into space.
William heard the nurse come back into the room, her heels clacking on the floor. Without saying anything she crouched at his side and began picking up the matches he’d spilled. He supposed she’d seen enough not to be unduly worried by something like this. He thought of Helene sitting still and cold in her seat. He’d wanted to ask about her when he woke up, but for some reason he couldn’t. Perhaps he didn’t want to believe she was dead. He thought that was it. He recalled the coldness of her skin when he touched her. With her eyes closed she had almost appeared to be sleeping.
‘There was a woman with me when I crashed,’ he said at last. ‘Do you think you could find out what happened to her?’
The nurse didn’t reply. He realised she wasn’t actually the Canadian nurse. It was odd the way she kept her face turned away from him. She seemed familiar though he couldn’t put his finger on why. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked.
‘Yes…. I’m afraid the woman you asked about was dead when you were found.’
Her voice prompted a jolt of recognition. She turned towards him and he saw it was Elizabeth. He was dumbfounded. He felt as if he were in some kind of surreal dream. For several moments neither of them spoke, and then she passed his cigarettes and lit a match for him. He knew he ought to say something, but he felt incapable of speaking.
‘I’m sorry, William… Did you know her well?’
He found his voice. ‘Yes. She helped me after I crashed. She saved my life. Do you know where they will have taken her?’
‘I’m not certain. There’s a cemetery near here where she might have been buried. I’ll find out for you.’
‘Thank you.’ He should have been there, he thought. He realised that her grave would be unnamed, just a cross among rows of others. Nobody knew who she was. He looked away, back out towards the garden. He wanted to ask Elizabeth how she came to be there. He wanted to ask a hundred questions, but none of them would form into words.
‘I shouldn’t have come like this,’ Elizabeth said in response to his silence.
She thought it was his reaction to her, he realised. A rebuke. Fractured images flew into his mind and fled. A dance somewhere, years ago now. The two of them walking outside in the summer air. In the hay-barn where they lay together, her eyes closed, naked, arms around him, whispered endearments.
He didn’t hear her get up, and when he turned to look she had reached the door. He found his voice again. ‘Would you tell somebody her name. It was Helene. Helene Lisle.’
At least her grave would be marked. He remembered that she had family in Rouen. At least when the war was over they would be able to find her.
‘Yes, alright,’ Elizabeth said.
‘Thank you.’
He heard her open the door, and then her heels as she went along the corridor.
*****
He felt tired later and went back to the ward to sleep. When he woke he walked the corridors of the hospital looking for Elizabeth. He found her working in another ward, and for a few minutes he watched her, unobserved. She looked tired and thinner than he remembered, but he supposed the same could be said of him. Nevertheless she often smiled as she tended the men in her care and stopped to speak to them. He slipped away before she saw him, disturbed by the things he felt for her.
When he saw her again it was late. She had gone outside at the end of her shift and was smoking a cigarette in the garden. When he opened the door she looked to see who it was.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’ William asked.
‘No. Of course not.’
She helped him light a cigarette and they stood in uneasy silence. ‘How long have you been here?’ he asked in the end. Like strangers he thought, passing the time.
‘About nine months now.’
‘I was posted nearby before I was shot down,’ he said. ‘Strange to think that you would have been here then.’
‘Yes. I suppose it is.’
Occasionally he’d daydreamed, or perhaps fantasised was a better term, that one day they would meet again. He’d always thought it would be in England. Somehow or other he would have made a success of himself by then and he would see her with Christopher across a crowded room. Perhaps a restaurant. Their eyes would meet and she would react. A small shock of recognition. Then she would turn to Christopher and say something and he would look across the room. He never knew what happened after that.
He realised belatedly that she had said something to him. ‘I’m sorry, what did you say just then?’
‘I asked how your shoulder is feeling?’
His hand went to it automatically. ‘Oh. It’s alright. A bit sore. I was lucky apparently.’ He saw another silence stretching ahead of them.
‘William,’ she said, sounding abruptly resolute. Like somebody taking a breath before leaping into the unknown. ‘I want to say I’m sorry for what happened…’ Elizabeth hesitated, groping for words or else simply uncertain of how he would react. And then having already begun, she appeared to cast her doubts aside and spoke in a rush.
‘I know you must have hated me and I don’t blame you. I don’t know how to explain it, and I don’t why you should forgive me, but I want you to know I regret it. I was stupid and selfish.’
She paused, looking at him with a sort of beseeching expression. Almost pleading. It made him realise tha
t she had thought about this for a long time. Perhaps even rehearsed it. He was taken aback that she wanted his forgiveness and that it appeared to mean so much to her, but he was uncertain exactly what she was apologising for.
‘I convinced myself that it was all for the best,’ she went on. ‘I told myself it would be better for Sophie if Christopher left, but I wasn’t thinking of her really, I was thinking of myself. I couldn’t admit it though.’
He understood that she had lived with the belief that Sophie’s death was her fault. ‘You couldn’t have known what Sophie would do,’ he said.
‘Perhaps not, but that doesn’t absolve me. We came back, you know, as soon as your telegram arrived to tell us about Sophie. We caught the next train, but by then you’d already left.’
‘There was no reason for me to stay,’ he said.
‘Of course, the fire,’ she said, though that wasn’t really what he meant. ‘I’m so sorry, William.’
‘It’s alright.’
‘No it isn’t. I wish it had all been different. I wish Sophie was alive, and I wish I’d had the courage and decency to talk to you and at least try to explain things that day. But I was a coward and I’ve always regretted it. I suppose we all do foolish, hurtful things in our lives. The important thing is to recognise them and learn from them. Don’t you think? Perhaps then, if we can, we can make amends.’
‘Yes, I think you’re right,’ he said and her relief was visible.
‘You can’t imagine how it feels to finally say this… I’ve wanted to for so long…’
Her sorrow was genuine, William thought. All this time he had tried not to think about her, but deep down he had wondered how she had felt when she and Christopher received his telegram. He was glad that she was affected by what happened. She hadn’t forgotten it all, or worse, dismissed it as if it had been a thing of no consequence, which is what he’d imagined during the moments when he thought the worst of her.
Only then did he realise that he had imagined this scene, perhaps in his sleep. It always ended with Elizabeth confessing that she loved him, after all. He smiled wryly to himself at the vanity of such foolish dreams.
‘It’s alright,’ he said. ‘It’s alright.’
*****
The following morning Elizabeth came to see him in the dayroom, and this time it was easier between them.
‘They’re saying you’re bound to get the MC,’ she said.
‘Who are ‘they’?’
‘People. Everybody. Haven’t you heard anything?’
‘Actually, I’m seeing somebody later on today. From HQ,’ William said. ‘I think his name is Jarvis.’
‘You must be pleased.’
William thought of Helene and wondered what he should be pleased about. People came up to him wanting to shake his hand. They said it was wonderful that he’d stolen one of the Hun’s planes from under their very noses like that. He wanted to tell them that if it wasn’t for Helene he would never have survived.
‘Can I ask you something?’ he asked, changing the subject.
‘Of course.’
‘I was wondering about Christopher. How he is?’
She was glad that he’d asked, he saw. He supposed she didn’t know how he felt after all this time. It was as if she let out a breath that she’d been holding in.
‘He’s fine. He’s a pilot too. In fact he was wounded. He’s here.’
‘Here?’ William looked around, his heart racing, surprise and other darker emotions leaping, half expecting to see Christopher standing at a doorway.
‘In Amiens,’ she said quickly. ‘He was discharged from hospital. He’ll be leaving again in a few days, actually. He’s been posted to a new squadron. We’re engaged to be married.’
She had blurted it out in a rush and William wondered why she seemed so anxious. Her news surprised him, but only because he’d assumed they would already be married.
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you.’
He took out a cigarette and offered her one.
‘I can’t, I’m on duty.’ She struck a match for him. ‘He’d like to see you before he leaves. If you want to.’
He thought about it for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said truthfully. ‘I’d like that.’
*****
That afternoon, Margaret, the Canadian nurse, came to tell William that Major Jarvis had arrived to see him. She showed him to an office used by one of the doctors. He knocked and went inside.
‘Ah, Captain Reynolds, I presume? Jarvis. Pleased to meet you. Do sit down. Do you smoke?’
‘Thank you, sir. But actually it’s Lieutenant Reynolds.’
‘Not any more it isn’t. Hasn’t anybody told you? You’ve been promoted, old man.’
‘No, I wasn’t aware of it.’
‘Well, never mind.’ Jarvis made a casual gesture and lit their cigarettes. ‘I don’t suppose the good doctor will mind us fogging up his office. I’m only borrowing it, you see.’
The room was cramped. Files and papers clogged every surface, overflowing from the battered wooden desk onto the floor. A number of leather bound medical texts occupied a shelf, though one had been removed and was lying open on top of some papers. Jarvis peered curiously at an illustration of a pair of human lungs.
‘Remarkable,’ he observed. ‘I understand that the war has advanced medical knowledge considerably, you know. I suppose it just goes to prove that there’s a positive side to any situation.’
Jarvis smiled. His lips were thin and unusually pink, his eyes a pale watery blue. William could think of no response to his remark, though he thought of the young infantry lieutenant occupying the bed next to his own. Would he be consoled by the knowledge that, while the loss of half his innards might be distressing for him, it would nevertheless yield interesting information for medical science?
‘Speaking of medical matters,’ Jarvis continued. ‘How’s that shoulder feeling? I understand you’re recovering very well.’
‘Apparently I was lucky,’ William said, his mildly ironic tone going undetected.
‘Jolly good. Better than being six feet under, I expect. You’re something of a Lazarus.’
‘Sir?’
Jarvis peered at him. ‘Hasn’t anybody told you that either? You’re supposed to be dead, Reynolds. There was a bit of a mix-up. Actually, I don’t suppose you know any of this, do you? The thing is that when you were originally shot down, the rest of your patrol bought it too. There were no survivors. Except the chap who was flying the other Nieuport. What was his name?’
‘Wright.’
‘Yes, that’s the fellow. Anyway, he came down on our side of the lines, but his plane was hit by an enemy shell. There was no way to tell which of you he was. He was badly burned, you see.’
Looking back, the last William remembered of Wright was his plane trailing smoke. ‘You said he survived, sir?’
‘Yes. But not for long I’m afraid. He died after a few days, but the official records show that he was you. It seems somebody made a bit of a cock-up. Somewhere nearby, Reynolds, there’s a grave with your name on it. Which is why I’m here. Partly anyway.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure that I follow your meaning.’
Jarvis leaned back, smoke wreathed about his head. ‘It’s quite simple. We have to decide what to do with you.’ He surveyed the mass of papers in front of him then began clearing a space, stacking everything to one side. When he was satisfied, he opened a plain folder and produced a pen and a bottle of ink.
‘You’ve pulled off something of a coup, Reynolds. Not only have you managed to return from the dead, which by itself might have made an interesting side story for the press, but you’ve done it in rather a spectacular fashion. It’s never happened before, you know. One of our own swiping a bloody plane from right under the Hun’s noses. I expect they must be hopping mad about it. It’s a shame you didn’t get an Albatross of course. I suppose there weren’t any?’
‘The Albatross is a single-seate
r, sir.’
‘What? Oh, yes, quite. The woman who was with you. I’ll get to that in a moment. First things first, though.’ He took the top off his pen and poised it over a blank sheet of paper. ‘Now, I’d like you to tell me everything that happened to you from the moment you crashed. Try not to miss anything out.’
As William talked, Jarvis made notes. Occasionally he would ask William to clarify something, or to wait while he caught up. He was interested to hear about the execution William had witnessed in the square at Cambrai.
‘A man and a woman, you say?’
‘Yes. Helene told me they were accused of being spies.’
‘Helene? I take it she was the young woman who escaped with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you meet her?’
He described what had happened in the square. How she had pretended to be his wife scolding a lazy husband. He found he could recall every detail. The feel of his hand gripping the revolver in his pocket, the questioning look of the young German soldier before Helene suddenly appeared, and then his own surprise at finding himself berated by this angry, nagging woman with blazing eyes. He saw her as clearly as if she were standing before him at that moment, and then he thought of her again the last time he’d seen her when her head had rested against the side of the cockpit, her skin pale and cold to his touch. The words caught in his throat. Jarvis looked up.
‘What happened after that?’
‘She took me to the farm where she lived.’ He went on to explain how Helene had hidden him in the barn.
‘Her parents weren’t aware of your presence?’
‘They were her husband’s parents.’
‘Ah, yes. He was killed, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t she tell them about you?’
‘Because she wasn’t sure how they would react.’
‘You mean she thought they might report you to the Germans?’
‘She didn’t know what they would do.’
‘She didn’t trust them?’
‘It was just the kind of people they were. They were old. Helene didn’t actually get on with them very well.’
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