The Girl from Simon's Bay

by Barbara Mutch

  ‘Fire!’ shouted the rating from the guardhouse below the hospital.

  I dashed to the rear door of the ward. Above the aerial ropeway, beyond the path where David and I had walked, a wisp of smoke was spiralling above a clump of trees. No flames yet, just an ominous, drifting streak. Then, as I watched, there was an explosion. Flames burst through the leafy canopy like myriad orange umbrellas unfurling against the white-hot sky.

  ‘Call the fire brigade!’ yelled a porter, abandoning his trolley and running to alert the office. ‘Fire!’

  There were buckets with sand along the back wall, but they were for small-scale accidents. I licked my finger and held it up. Not much, but definitely downhill. Forgetting my training that nurses never ran, I raced back inside and almost collided with Matron.

  ‘It’ll head this way, Matron,’ I said urgently, ‘the wind’s in this direction.’

  She looked at me, and I realised she probably didn’t know about African fire. Its speed. Its hunger. The way it ran before the wind.

  ‘The walking patients, Matron?’

  ‘Good thinking, Sister. The brigade are on their way but we shouldn’t wait. Assemble everyone out front. As a precaution.’

  I moved from bed to bed. Thank God for peace. If this had happened during the war we’d have had a full ward, mostly too injured to walk.

  ‘Able Seaman, can you get up and move onto the verandah? Petty Officer, let me help you. We need to get you all outside.’

  The approaching bell of a fire engine cut through the heavy air. But there was another sound, too, not the hum of Christmas beetles or the moan of the southeaster, but a slowly building crackle. I began to smell smoke.

  ‘Nurse?’ I caught up with one of our juniors. ‘Get the medicine trolley. Roll it outside. Then check the other wards and take theirs out as well. Quickly, but don’t run.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ Her eyes were round with fright.

  More fire engines clanged. Shouts came from outside. As I helped patients onto the verandah, I saw firemen racing up the path with coiled hoses to plunge into our reservoir where the baboons liked to splash. Sirens sounded from the dockyard. The navy were mobilising.

  ‘Sister?’ Seaman Irvin croaked. He was immobile after an operation the day before. ‘Don’t leave me.’

  ‘Of course not!’ I laughed. ‘I’m going to give you a ride outside.’ I began to wheel his bed gently towards the door. Sweat trickled down my neck. The smoke was making me feel ill. ‘There’ll be a little bump as we go over the step.’

  The sick-berth attendants were already shepherding patients down towards Cornwall Road. One of them took over Seaman Irvin. ‘Find a shady spot,’ I muttered. ‘Make sure someone is with him.’

  The sky took on a sludgy shade of brown. Our aromatic fynbos fizzed and popped like firecrackers celebrating the end of the war. The back of my uniform clung to me.

  The operating theatre—

  I rushed inside. Smoke was seeping beneath the door that faced the mountain. The surgeon commander was already there, piling instruments into boxes.

  ‘Take some dressings, swabs,’ he tossed a canvas bag at me. ‘Then get out, Sister.’

  ‘Don’t stay too long, sir!’ I heaved the bag over my shoulder.

  ‘Sister!’ Matron called. Her hair had escaped from its starched cap. ‘After you’re done, inspect the upper wards. Make sure everyone is out. Check the linen rooms, the sluices. Sister Chisholm will do the lower wards.’

  ‘Yes, Matron.’

  Above the fynbos, clumps of pines succumbed quickly, their branches tumbling into the scrub. Lone gum trees tried to resist, standing tall and proud until their sap ignited, sending flames racing up their trunks, showering the undergrowth with glowing ash – and spreading the fire further.

  I dumped my surgical bag with an orderly and ran back inside. Skewed beds were cluttering the aisles, their bedclothes thrust aside or onto the floor in the haste to evacuate. The flammable linen would need only a single spark to ignite the entire place. Smoke eddied and attacked my throat and I began to cough. I raced through the first ward – empty – then the next, and the next, stopping out of habit to turn off a sluice tap that had been left dripping. All clear. The hiss of the burning fynbos was close, now. Thank God, the last linen room! My eyes were streaming and I was heaving for breath. White towels sat on their designated shelves in neatly stacked piles. I grabbed some, and several rolls of dressings, and dashed outside.

  ‘All clear, Matron!’ I rasped, finding her supervising the last of the ambulant patients.

  ‘Good work, Sister. Now get into clearer air,’ she looked at me with concern. I bent over and tried to steady my breathing. More sirens. Frenzied shouting from the firefighters.

  The dressings.

  I pulled open a pack, tore off strips and began to distribute them.

  ‘Tie around your mouth and nose! Breathe normally!’

  An explosion ripped through a tree close to the upper wards I’d just checked. A nurse screamed. ‘Steady,’ came Matron’s voice as she herded patients downhill. ‘No need to rush.’

  ‘God Almighty,’ breathed the surgeon commander, seeking me out amongst the crowd shuffling past the guardhouse. ‘We’ve had it.’

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Piet was out in the boat with Abie. The navy contract was still in force – all those troops returning from the Far East fancied fish on their way home – but rumour had it the powers-that-be would cancel at the end of the year. Not surprising. The number of troopships was reducing every month. Piet and Abie had, of course, already deliberately reduced their catches to give the impression of a shortage. After all, they were paid the same however much or little they caught, so there was no sense in flooding a smaller market and then being laid off because the navy was awash with too much fish and too few soldiers and sailors to eat it.

  He could always steer the excess towards his private clients, but Piet had the feeling he should be cautious. With the war winding down, people had time on their hands. The new quartermaster who’d arrived recently might get a little bored and start to examine his paperwork more carefully. Maybe even take a trip to the station to watch the goods being put on the train.

  Pity, thought Piet. He’d bagged a tidy packet while keeping one step ahead of the snotty lieutenant who’d accused him of robbery. Piet was all in favour of a chase, just as long as he ended up the victor.

  He and Abie were just about to lay their nets when the first orange glimmer appeared on the Simonsberg above Louise’s hospital. He still felt bad, but at least she hadn’t lost her job so no damage done other than to Lou’s heart. He’d heard that the Dorsetshire officer survived, but there’d been no sign of him around Simon’s Town so he must have scuttled off home. It really didn’t matter any more. Lou must make her own bed. She’d pushed Piet out, and now she was left high and dry while he, Piet, had other irons in the fire. The laundress from the hospital was coming along nicely, she wasn’t Louise but she’d be good enough. He wasn’t in the mood to be fussy at this stage.

  The glimmer grew, and burst into life.

  ‘Let’s go!’ shouted Piet. ‘To hell with the fish. Row, Abie, row!’

  They leant on their oars. A threat to one part of the mountain threatened the whole of it, especially where the houses were cramped like at Seaforth. Or Ricketts Terrace. He hoped to God his father or Den had spotted the smoke and were collecting buckets of water to throw on the roof. If you didn’t damp the roof, the place could go up before you’d even got out of your chair.

  By the time they beached the boat, stowed the nets and ran up Cable Hill, three fire engines and scores of firemen and volunteer beaters were already fighting the flames. A navy commander was in charge, directing operations, supervising the newly arrived volunteers, keeping away onlookers.

  ‘Cover your mouths and noses! Keep to your line! Look out for your neighbour!’

  Piet stared up at the peak as he joined the latest beating party.

/>   Abie tossed him a rough-cut branch of green foliage.

  Crucially, no streamers of cloud to show a rising wind.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  We had no time to watch the progress of the fire because the nurses’ home on Cornwall Road had to be turned into an emergency hospital. We put serious cases in the common room, while the shady garden became a refuge for those less injured who coughed through their makeshift face masks and asked for water as they peered up at the flames.

  ‘There’s no need for alarm, Seaman Irvin. The firefighters will bring it under control.’

  ‘But the buildings, ma’am? What if they burn down? Where will we go?’

  ‘We’ll worry about that later,’ I said briskly. ‘Now, let’s look at that dressing.’

  We imposed a routine. Medicines were dispensed via an informal ward round. The surgeon commander monitored those patients most affected by the choking smoke and moved them to naval houses further down the mountain. Matron organised soup from the dockyard canteen for those on liquid diets, and sandwiches from the Officers’ Club for the rest.

  It wasn’t just our patients who needed help.

  Firefighters began to stumble down the mountain, dizzy from smoke inhalation, cut and burnt by the smouldering fynbos. There was no time for sympathy. We patched them up and sent them back out.

  The night nurses arrived early and were put to work.

  Ash drifted on the air and settled in my hair, on my uniform.

  Sunset painted the sky with an ugly patina of ochre.

  ‘Sister Ahrendts!’ Matron waved me over. Her eyes were bloodshot. I suppose mine were, too. Unusually, she caught my arm. ‘Sister, go and check on your family. I know you live along the mountain. Please go,’ she nodded and gave me a little push, ‘that’s an order. You’ve been here long enough.’

  I nodded and rushed out of the garden and wondered whether to risk the lower path across the mountain. It would be faster than going down to St George’s Street and then up Alfred Lane. As I strode, the heat and crackle of the fire faded behind me. The path was clear, although lone rabbits and whole families of field mice were using it with me to flee the flames, scuttling past me with no fear. The baboons had presumably headed over the peak. Apart from the receding fire, there was no sound. No sugarbirds on the proteas, no seagulls soaring on the wind.

  I looked back. The brown smoke was spreading into a mantle over the surrounding mountains. A wavering line of flame edged closer to the upper wards. A quarter-moon loomed opaquely.

  ‘Ma! Pa!’ I shouted as I came round the corner of the Terrace. Mr Phillips and Mr Gamiel and the older children were filling buckets of water and sloshing them onto the roofs.

  ‘Your ma and pa have gone to help at the church, making sandwiches for the firemen!’ Mrs Hewson bellowed from her front step. ‘You’re filthy, child, what have you been doing?’

  I looked down at my uniform in surprise. My skirt was stained, my shoes crusted in dirt. I wiped my face, and my hand came away black with grime and sweat. I’d quickly wash and change into a fresh uniform, run down to check on Ma and Pa, and then back to the hospital.

  A letter was waiting on my pillow.

  It would only take a moment to read, but I forced myself to wash my face and change my clothes first. I could hear his voice in my ear, soon I’d touch the words he’d written and imagine, for a brief moment, his lips on mine. Then I could go back to my patients.

  I sat on the bed and reached out a hand to touch the spiral curves of the Pink Lady seashell. Soon …

  I ripped open his letter.

  Beloved Louise,

  This is a letter that I never wanted to write, and never wanted you to read. But I have to write it, and you, my darling, must read it.

  I have now been at home for three weeks. My daughter, Ella, is a healthy and beautiful baby. Elizabeth and I have spoken at length about the way forward. She has laid down a condition for our divorce. She will agree only if I give up my right to see Ella or play any part in her upbringing. She insists I surrender Ella to her entirely. This means, my darling, that I have to choose between my daughter and you.

  At first, I thought I’d be able to agree to her demand – marrying you is the deepest desire of my heart. I’ve also been given the chance of a position at the Admiralty, which would allow us to be together and build a life in London. Ella could have joined us there from time to time.

  I’ve asked Elizabeth to reconsider but she is adamant. I’ve offered her a generous settlement and the right to remain at Corbey with Ella for as long as she wishes and with no responsibility for the estate unless she chooses it. She has refused. My solicitor says I have no legal recourse, given the circumstances.

  Elizabeth is exerting a cruel revenge.

  I love Ella, who’s an innocent victim of this terrible bargaining. I hold her in my arms and she already knows who I am, and falls asleep on my shoulder. I realise I have a responsibility to her to be an active father, not a ghost. I also realise that no child should be left solely in the care of someone who can impose such a brutal ultimatum.

  This means that we can never marry – I am weeping as I write these words, as you can probably see.

  Please don’t wait for me any longer, my beautiful, glorious Louise. I cannot come back for you. Forgive me for allowing us to believe that I could, and that we could be together. Forgive me for betraying our love.

  I will leave the navy and return to Corbey for good. Elizabeth and I will live under the same roof but apart. There will be no more children.

  Forgive me, my darling. I will love you for ever.

  David

  I crushed the single sheet of paper with its smudged words and thrust it into my pocket.

  I don’t remember leaving the cottage.

  I only remember the steepness of the slope behind the Terrace and my feet slipping on the dry earth, and the smoke irritating my nose – and the need to climb upwards, ever upwards. After a while, I came to a flat plateau of grass, and lay on my back in my nurse’s uniform and looked up. To my left, in the direction of the hospital, the stars were obscured. But directly above, they blazed down on me with such intensity that I thought I’d be able to reach up my hand and brush them one way and then the other. Like jewelled curtains.

  Or the tears that David and I would shed for each other.

  Perhaps, finally, this was God’s punishment. Perhaps my failure to release David to his daughter had been the last straw, the tipping point of lies, concealment and illicit love. But why did He wait until I got so close to my future that I could almost smell the foreign grass, see the ripples on the Thames, feel David’s hair beneath my fingers … and then wrench it away? Punishment should be immediate, not deferred.

  If I wanted to, I could impose the punishment on myself. I could keep climbing until there was no more mountain above me and I could slip off the edge into the sea and let myself sink down, find the etched seabed beneath my fingers, and drift on the tide until I fell asleep.

  There was a shudder.

  The ground shifted beneath me. Stones rattled past.

  Yet above, the Southern Cross hung steady, like an anchor on its side. Orion’s belt curved among the sea of stars, an infant wave breaking at Seaforth beach. David would see the same stars, but arranged upside down. He might show his daughter—

  I hauled my gaze down to earth and saw flickering tongues of orange, and heard distant shouts. Maybe I wouldn’t need to go further up the mountain, or find a cliff with the sea lapping at its foot and the rocks rising like eggs out of the water. Maybe if I lay here and held on to the stars until they disappeared—

  ‘Louise!’

  It was my mind playing tricks. Nobody knew I was here. Ma and Pa thought I was at work. Mrs Hewson thought I’d gone to see Ma and Pa. It was the slippery earth teasing me.

  ‘Lou!’

  A familiar face loomed over me.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’

  I stared at him, the
wild hair, the familiar black eyes. ‘I’m waiting to die,’ I said to Piet.

  ‘Why?’ he demanded, gathering me in his arms. ‘Why do you want to die?’

  ‘He’s gone, I’ve lost him.’

  Piet said nothing. But his arms were comforting. I used to love David’s arms around me, the way he was gentle but also strong, the way his fingers could convey so much with just a touch of skin on skin. The way his lips curved, even the line of his scar.

  ‘The fire’s under control,’ he pointed up to where the orange flickers were subsiding. ‘But there’s been a landslide. Come, Lou, we must go back. Check on your folks.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back.’

  He stared at me, his eyes running over my face, my body. He looked different. Older. There came a rumbling from higher up the mountain. Piet leapt to his feet and dragged me up with him.

  ‘Hold on to me!’

  It was harder heading downhill because the gravel kept slipping beneath my feet. Piet clamped me to his side and we edged down. I could hear shouts on the left but my eyes were too blurred from the smoke and tears to make out the cause.

  ‘When the trees burn, the soil slips,’ Piet muttered, ‘nothing to hold it back.’

  The face of the moon was brightening.

  ‘Wait!’ I stared at the dockyard, trying to make out the ships. Durban, Achilles, Dorsetshire, Cumberland.

  ‘We can’t stop,’ Piet urged, pulling me forward.

  A crowd was gathering around the Gamiel place at the end of the Terrace.

  ‘I must help!’ I cried, pulling away from Piet.

  ‘No, Lou! Come inside. Trust me.’

  Trust Piet?

  I let him lead me inside. He took me to the kitchen sink where he rinsed out a cloth and began to wipe my face and my hands and arms. Then he took me to my bedroom and sat me on the bed.