Anything more likely to provoke more trouble from a Fiona drunk or sober Hannah could not imagine. ‘No,’ she said kindly, knowing what it had taken to offer. ‘It’s all right. I’m sure I can manage.’
Fiona’s billet was in a small house beside the village’s main square, which she shared with two other Sisters and a couple of junior nurses, the main Mess being the bigger establishment by the Clearing Station itself. The front door was open, the house still. From somewhere upstairs came the quiet sound of a woman’s voice singing. Hannah made her way quietly up the stairs, stood outside the door she knew to be Fiona’s. From the other side the softly melodious singing continued – a song Hannah recognized; a soldier’s song, filthily obscene, subversive, savagely funny. A song she, like Fiona, had heard more than once from the fevered throat of a dying Tommy, thinking himself back in the trenches with his mates. Fiona sang it, lovingly and softly, as she might a favourite hymn. Hannah tapped on the door. ‘Fiona? Fiona, are you there? It’s me, Hannah.’
The singing stopped abruptly. Faintly, through the door, she heard the chink of glass.
‘Fiona! Come on, now – what are you playing at? You’ve frightened the life out of poor Mercy!’
‘Poor Mercy. Poor, poor Mercy.’ Fiona’s voice, to Hannah’s relief, sounded perfectly steady, its acid edge sharp as ever. There was a moment’s silence. She waited. Then, ‘Well, come in if you’re coming, Sister Patten,’ Fiona said.
Hannah pushed open the door. In the hearth a small fire had been lit against the cold. The room was neat and tidy; bed, chair, table, cupboard, wardrobe. At the table sat Fiona in uniform except for her white cap, which she had tossed upon the bed. In her hand was a glass. On the table before her was a bottle of whisky, half empty. One elbow on the table, she leaned her chin upon her hand and watched Hannah into the room, a small, derisive smile on her face. ‘Mummy’s girl ran to Mummy, then,’ she said, her eyes unfriendly. ‘Surprise, surprise.’
‘Fiona?’
The other girl tilted her head, drained her glass, offered it to Hannah. ‘Have a drink.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘Fiona!’
‘But I insist! A drink—’ With a hand that shook very slightly she poured a large measure of whisky, clinking the bottle against the glass, ‘—a toast—’ She lifted the glass to Hannah, and for the first time Hannah noticed in her face the signs of recent tears. ‘To Derry Angleton. And to his brother Michael. Silly buggers.’
Hannah stood quite still for a moment, watching the other girl. Then she turned and walked to the bed, sat down on it heavily. ‘He’s dead?’
‘Yes. He’s dead.’
‘But – I thought – he was doing well?’
Fiona held the glass up to the light, studied it with bleak eyes. ‘He was. Then he did badly. Rather suddenly.’
The room fell to silence. Fiona sipped her whisky. Hannah watched her helplessly.
The day after Captain Derry Angleton had been admitted she had come into Officers’ attracted by gales of laughter. Fiona had been standing by Derry’s bed, Derry himself had been gasping with laughter, as had in rather more well-mannered and smothered fashion, most of the other, openly eavesdropping, patients. ‘You always were a little devil,’ Derry was saying, ‘but by God that one beat the lot – riding that damned horse straight up the stairs and into the dining room! – The old man’s face! – And how old were you?’
Grinning from ear to ear, Fiona had shrugged. ‘Nine – ten?’
‘And that bloody great hound that followed you everywhere – what was the beast’s name?’
‘Mogul. I was in my barbarian phase. And anyway – it worked, didn’t it? Riding up into the old baronial hall? At least the old fart let me go hunting with the rest of you the next day, which was the object of the exercise – Ah—’ spying Hannah she had turned, reaching a hand, her long, light eyes alive with laughter, ‘Hannah, come and be properly introduced. Sister Patten – Derry Angleton. An old, old friend. I grew up with him and his brother Michael—’ She had turned back to Derry. Stopped almost in mid-sentence at the expression on his face. There had been a moment’s silence. Then, ‘He’s copped it?’ she had asked calmly and quietly.
The young man had nodded. ‘Yes. Six weeks ago. Just down the line from here. Mater was pretty cut up about it. He was always her favourite, as you know, though she’d deny it till death.’
Fiona had nodded, the laughter fled. In the look that passed between them, Hannah thought, the grief was palpable as were the memories; a shared, wild, privileged childhood, a host of easy expectations, a world that had suddenly and inexplicably changed. Then Fiona had grinned, ‘Well – we’d better take special care of you then, hadn’t we?’ She had turned to Hannah, raising a finger like a school teacher. ‘That makes our Derry the sole surviving heir to a name that goes right back to—’ she turned back to the bed, mischief in her eyes, ‘—some sheep thief that came over with the beastly French the only time they actually managed it, wasn’t it?’
‘Sodding war,’ Fiona said now, very quietly, and hummed again the song she had been singing when Hannah had come in.
‘Fiona – I am so very sorry.’
Fiona lifted blind, smiling eyes, still humming. Nodded. The tears slid unnoticed from the corners of her eyes.
‘Should I tell Matron that – that you’ll write—’
‘The break-the-news letter?’ Suddenly brisk, Fiona tossed back the whisky. ‘Oh, yes, I’ll do that.’ She turned the empty glass upside down on the table, pushed it with her finger making patterns. ‘Poor Derry,’ she said, ‘poor Michael.’ She lifted her head. ‘Poor us. Oh, Hannah, what a poisonous, heartless, immoral affair this stinking war is.’
‘Yes.’
‘You sure you won’t have a drink?’
‘Sure. Thank you.’
‘Please yourself.’ Fiona picked up bottle and glass, surveyed them, put them back down again, dropped her forehead to her clenched fists. ‘I think – perhaps – I’d better get some sleep.’
‘Would you like me to—’
‘No.’ The word was brusque. ‘Off you go, old girl. I don’t need my hand held.’ She lifted a tired, tear-stained face, ‘Thanks anyway.’
Hannah stood up, swung her cape about her shoulders, walked to the door.
‘One thing you can do for me.’
Hannah paused, hand on the latch. ‘Of course.’
‘Keep that mealy-mouthed Mercy away from me for a few hours. There’s enough bloody murder going on around here without me adding to it.’
Hannah half-smiled, nodded.
Fiona’s answering smile was faint, but genuine. ‘Oh – and I forgot to ask – how’s the artistic lieutenant? The Redfern boy?’
Hannah hesitated.
‘It’s all right. I’m not that far gone.’ The smile glimmered again, ‘I can take it.’
‘He’ll do. He’ll be off on the next train. Back to Blighty – for a while anyway.’
‘Good. That’s good news. It’s good, isn’t it,’ very precisely Fiona replaced the cap on the bottle, stood up and put it on the mantelpiece, ‘to hear some good news occasionally?’
‘Fiona—’
Fiona turned, shaking her head sharply. ‘No, Hannah. I’m all right. It’s over. Off you go, now,’ she smiled, almost her normal, brilliant, quarrelsome smile. ‘I’m sure somewhere there must be someone who does want you to hold their hand.’
Outside the weather had worsened. Still bitterly cold it had begun to rain again, great driving gusts that beat into her face like driven needles. With the sadness of the loss of Derry Angleton heavy within her she could not rid herself of the thought of the men those few miles to the east, ankle deep, knee deep, sometimes waist deep in mud, sleeping wet, waking wet; English, German, Russian, French – Indian, African, Australian – black, white, young, old; killing in the rain, dying in the rain. What madness. Over the past few days the air had been thick with rumour and snippets of news of a surprise German offensive upo
n the French at Verdun. The casualties on both sides were said to be terrible. It was also strongly rumoured that in order to take the pressure from the French forces some action would have to be taken by the British along the Somme—
She pushed open the door of her room with a sigh of thankfulness, wiping the rain from her drenched face, shaking the wet from her skirts. It took a moment for her to realize that she was not alone. Startled, she caught her breath as a figure stepped into the shadowed room from the window where he had been standing. Then ‘Ralph!’ Her exclamation was half exasperation, half relief. ‘Goodness, you made me jump – What on earth are you—?’ She stopped.
He too was wet, his uniform soaked. He was hatless, his hair plastered to his head. He was pale, thin; haggard. He stood for a moment, unsmiling and silent. Then, ‘I’ve left, Hannah,’ he said. ‘Deserted. And I’m not going back.’
Chapter Fifteen
I
Hannah faced him in disbelief and shock, ‘You don’t mean that. Ralph – you can’t mean it.’
‘I do.’ He turned from her back to the window, his narrow shoulders hunched. ‘I do.’
In the silence the rain blew against the window, a bleak and lonely sound. ‘They’ll shoot you,’ she said.
He said nothing.
A sudden savage stab of fear for him brought a surge of anger that took her across the room in a couple of strides, and with surprising strength she swung him to face her. ‘Ralph! They’ll shoot you! It’s desertion.’
‘I know. But before they shoot me they’ll have to try me, won’t they? And at least I’ll get to have my say.’
‘No! No! You won’t! Oh, Ralph – have you taken leave of your senses? You know how these things are done! No one will listen to you – they’ll brand you a coward and they’ll shoot you! Listen? No one will listen! They can’t afford to listen!’
He stood in stubborn silence.
With an effort she calmed her rising voice. ‘Ralph. Please. You can’t do this. You can’t. If you won’t think of yourself, think of us – of Ben, of Peter, of me, of Pa. Think of your sister. Think of the Bear and the children – it’s all there, Ralph, all waiting for you. It’s what we’re fighting for.’
‘Hannah, you don’t understand—’
‘I understand very well. Believe me, I do. You’ve been under terrible pressure.’ She stepped back from him, shaking her head despairingly, ‘What I don’t understand – what I’ll never understand – is what on earth possessed you to join up in the first place. You didn’t have to – your eyes—’ She gestured helplessly, fell to silence.
He lifted his head, his eyes intent upon her face. ‘You don’t know why I did it?’ He stopped.
Hannah rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, shook her head again. ‘I suppose it doesn’t really matter, does it? The question is what to do now.’
In the silence the door downstairs slammed and hurrying footsteps sounded upon the stairs.
‘How long since you left your unit?’ Hannah asked.
He shrugged. ‘Four – perhaps five hours. I hitched a lift in an ambulance.’
Her practical, nurse’s mind had taken over. ‘Will they have missed you?’
‘Sister Patten!’ A sharp knock on the door came only just before the precipitate entrance of a young nurse, rosy cheeked and dripping wet, ‘Sister Patten, the train’s in.’ The girl stopped in awkward mid-sentence as she caught sight of Ralph. ‘Oh – I’m sorry—’
It took a moment for the significance of the girl’s news to break through Hannah’s preoccupation. ‘The train? The evacuation train?’
‘Yes.’
Hannah stared at her blankly. ‘I’m off duty. Has Matron sent you to—?’
‘No. Oh, no.‘The young nurse, a pretty thing whose hero-worship of Hannah had at times raised caustic comment from Fiona, was plainly discomfited. She glanced at Ralph again, clearly uncertain as to who he might be, clearly afraid of embarrassing Hannah. ‘It’s just – someone – well, that is – someone was asking for you. I think – I think he wanted to say goodbye.’ The last words were mumbled, red-faced.
Giles.
The girl, still standing irresolutely by the door, looked pleadingly at Hannah. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were – busy. Shall I say you couldn’t come?’
Hannah glanced at Ralph’s taut back. ‘Yes – that is no—’ An agony of indecision sounded in her voice. She couldn’t let Giles leave without saying goodbye, she simply could not. The world was too perilous a place in these uncertain days. But – if she left Ralph—
He turned from the window. With what light there was behind him his expression was indecipherable in the shadowed room. ‘Someone – special?’ he asked quietly.
She hesitated, lifted her head in an oddly defiant gesture. ‘Yes.’ She had never overtly admitted so much even to herself before.
‘Then of course you must go. I won’t—’ he hesitated, she saw the glimmer of his bleak smile, ‘I won’t run away. Off you go. I’ll wait.’
‘You’re – you’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
The girl by the door shifted uncomfortably, ‘If that’s all, ma’am?’
Hannah nodded abstractedly. ‘Oh, yes, Nurse Wilson. Thank you. You run along. I’ll be there in a minute.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ The girl threw one curious and vaguely apologetic glance at Ralph and fled.
Hannah turned back to Ralph. ‘You don’t mind? You promise you’ll wait?’
‘Of course.’
She did not notice that he had not answered the first part of her question. She fiddled with her hair, still torn, ‘We weren’t expecting the train until tomorrow, you see.’
‘Go, Hannah. Don’t let him leave without saying goodbye.’ His voice was calm, the tension apparently gone. ‘I’ll stay here and wait for you. It’ll give me a chance to think.’
‘You won’t—?’ Hannah was already reaching for a heavy army greatcoat that hung behind the door.
‘—run away?’ He smiled a little, shook his head. ‘No. I’ll be here.’
He stepped to help her as she struggled into the blanket-like coat that reached almost to her ankles. Aware of the picture she made she smiled a little, ruefully. ‘It’s the only thing that keeps me warm.’ Turning to go, she gripped his hand in hers. ‘Ralph – promise me you won’t do anything silly. It isn’t too late. Promise you’ll wait till I come back and we can talk.’
‘Don’t worry, my dear. Go and say goodbye to your – friend.’ The pause was infinitesimal, Hannah did not notice it. ‘I’ll be here when you get back.’
She watched him for a moment, her eyes fraught with worry. Then she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I won’t let you do it, Ralph. I believe that you knew that when you came here.’ Her voice was quiet, very intense, ‘I simply won’t let you do it. You must have known that. If nothing else – just think about us. Think how we all love you. Think what it would do to us to lose you – and in such a way. Is it worth it? Is anything worth that?’
He stood for a long time watching the closed door after she had gone. He had so nearly told her – so nearly explained what she had never understood; that his only reason for coming to France, for volunteering for duty in a war that he had abominated from the start had been because France was where Hannah Patten was, because he could not bear to stand back and see her serve whilst he did nothing.
He turned and walked back to the window. The shock of the realization that Hannah’s heart was engaged elsewhere – and remembering the look in her eyes he had no doubt that it was – was still with him. With sudden clarity he realized that through all the years of his devotion, hopeless though he had assured himself it was, he had never really in his soul believed that in the end she would not be his. Through all her enthusiasms, her campaigns, he had supported her, and waited. But now – he stared sightlessly into the dreary little cobbled street, slick with rain – now it seemed he had truly lost her. For – if not t
his one, then there would be another. Of course there would. How absurd of him ever to have believed she would in the end turn to him – to the man she so clearly still regarded as a brother – almost as a child. And, as Hannah had unerringly divined, even in this final foolish action, this childish gesture of desertion, he had failed. She was absolutely right, and he supposed he had known it from the start; he was not the man to defy the world and take the consequences knowing that those consequences would be as bad, if not worse, for his loved ones as for himself. He would go back. Probably he had not even been missed.
Sighing he turned, and his eye was caught by a piece of paper, a pencil sketch, that lay upon the chest-of-drawers. He picked it up.
Giles’s picture of Hannah smiled up at him.
He stood looking at it for a long time before the lines blurred. Still holding it, he walked to the table and laid the picture carefully upon it, smoothing the creases gently before sitting down and settling to wait for Hannah’s return.
* * *
The station was bedlam. The walking wounded, bandaged, on crutches, supported by their comrades, shuffled in untidy lines the length of the wet platform, shepherded, organized and occasionally bullied by harassed orderlies. Stretcher cases were loaded like so many carcasses. ‘Mind yer backs, there!’ The train, already packed, was being packed further. Cigarette smoke drifted on the chill, wet air.
She could not find him.
The officers’ bunks were full. Several familiar faces smiled at her and, a little distractedly, she smiled back.
‘Back to Blighty, eh, Sister?’
‘Thanks, Sister – if it hadn’t been for you—’
‘Good luck, Sister. Keep up the good work.’
She picked her way through stretchers packed upon the truck floor like sardines. Pale faces. Bandaged heads. Blinded eyes.
‘Sister Partridge—’ she caught at a nurse’s arm as she passed, ‘Captain Redfern – he’s on the train?’
Tomorrow, Jerusalem Page 40