With an effort she turned her gaze away from Luce and back to Ben; what she saw in his long dark drawn face caused her to glance casually down at her watch, which she wore pinned to the breast of her uniform. ‘Ben, would you mind seeing what’s become of the kitchen orderly, please?’ she asked. ‘Dinner’s late.’
He got jerkily to his feet, nodded to her solemnly, and stalked inside.
As if the movement had triggered some other train of thought in him, Luce sat up straighter, opened his yellowish eyes fully, and let them drift to Michael. From Michael they wandered to Neil, then back to Sister Langtry, where they rested very thoughtfully, no sexuality in them now.
Sister Langtry cleared her throat. ‘You’re wearing a lot of spaghetti, Michael. When did you join up? In the first batch?’ she asked.
His hair was cut very short and glittered like pale metal; his skull was beautiful, and he had the sort of face which made an onlooker think of bones rather than flesh, yet it didn’t have the death’s-head look of Benedict’s face. There were fine lines in the skin around the eyes, and two deep lines furrowing between cheeks and nose. A man, not a boy, but the lines were premature. Single-minded sort of chap, probably. His eyes were grey, not the changeful camouflaging color of Luce’s eyes, which could turn green or yellow; an ageless and remorseless grey, very still, very self-controlled, very intelligent. Sister Langtry absorbed all that in the fraction of a second it took him to draw breath to reply, unaware that every eye was fixed on her and her interest in the newcomer, even the eyes of blind Matt.
‘Yes, I was in the first batch,’ said Michael.
Nugget completely abandoned the dog-eared nursing dictionary he had been pretending on and off to read, and turned his head sideways to stare fixedly at Michael; Neil’s flexible brows rose.
‘You’ve had a long war,’ said Sister Langtry. ‘Six years of it. How do you feel about it now?’
‘I’ll be glad to get out,’ he said, matter-of-fact.
‘But you were anxious to go in the beginning.’
‘Yes.’
‘When did your feelings about it change?’
He looked at her as if he thought her question incredibly naive, but he answered courteously enough, shrugging. ‘It’s one’s duty, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, duty!’ sneered Neil. ‘That most indecent of all obsessions! Ignorance got us in, and duty kept us in. I would love to see a world that raised its children to believe the first duty is to oneself.’
‘Well, I’m darned if I’d raise my children to believe that!’ said Michael sharply.
‘I’m not preaching hedonism nor advocating the total abandonment of ethics!’ said Neil impatiently. ‘I’d just like to see the establishment of a world less prone to slaughter the flower of its manhood, that’s all.’
‘All right, I’ll grant you that and agree with you,’ said Michael, relaxing. ‘I’m sorry, I misunderstood you.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Luce, who never missed an opportunity to irritate Neil. ‘Words, words, words! Is that how you scored all your kills, Neil, by talking them to death?’
‘What would you know about kills, you sideshow freak? It’s not a duck shoot! They had to drag you into the army squealing like a stuck pig all the way, and then you dug yourself into a nice cushy job well behind the lines, didn’t you? You make me sick!’
‘Not as sick as you make me, you stuck-up bastard,’ snarled Luce. ‘One of these days I’m going to have your balls for breakfast!’
Neil’s mood altered magically; his anger fell away, his eyes began to dance. ‘My dear old chap, it really wouldn’t be worth the effort,’ he drawled. ‘You see, they’re such little ones.’
Nugget sniggered, Matt whooped, Michael laughed aloud, and Sister Langtry dipped her head suddenly downward to look desperately at her lap.
Then, composure recovered, she terminated the exchange. ‘Gentlemen, your language tonight is offensive,’ she said, cool and crisp. ‘Five years in the army may have improved my education, but my feelings are as fine as they ever were. When I am within earshot, you will kindly refrain from bad language.’ She turned to glare fiercely at Michael. ‘That goes for you too, Sergeant.’
Michael looked at her, quite unintimidated. ‘Yes, Sister,’ he said obediently, and grinned.
The grin was so infectiously likeable, so… sane, that she sparkled.
Luce got to his feet in a movement which was both naturally and artificially graceful, slid between Neil and Benedict’s vacant chair, and leaned over to ruffle Michael’s hair impudently. Michael made no attempt to jerk away, nor indeed showed anger, but suddenly there was a quick, guarded watchfulness about him—a hint perhaps that here was someone not to be played with? wondered Sister Langtry, fascinated.
‘Oh, you’ll get on!’ Luce said, and turned to look derisively at Neil. ‘I do believe you’ve got yourself a bit of competition, Captain Oxford University! Good! He’s a late starter, but the winning post’s not in sight yet, is it?’
‘Push off!’ said Neil violently, hands closing into fists. ‘Go on, damn you, push off!’
Luce got himself past Michael and Sister Langtry with a boneless sideways twist and headed for the door, where he collided with Benedict and stepped back with a gasp, as if he had been burned. He recovered quickly, lifting his lip contemptuously, but standing to one side with a bow and a flourish.
‘How does it feel to be a killer of old men and little children, Ben?’ he asked, then disappeared inside.
Benedict stood so starkly alone, so devastated, that for the first time since entering ward X Michael experienced a stirring of deep feeling; the look in those quenched black eyes moved him profoundly. Maybe that’s because this is the first honest emotion I’ve seen, he thought. The poor bastard! He looks the way I feel, as if someone has switched off all the light inside.
As Benedict moved to his chair with a monk-like shuffle, hands folded one on top of the other across his midriff, Michael’s gaze followed, studying the dark face intently. It was so eaten away, so consumed by what went on behind it, so very pitiable. And though they were not alike, Michael found himself suddenly reminded of Colin, and he wanted so badly to help that he willed the withdrawing eyes to look back at him; when they did, he smiled.
‘Don’t let Luce get your goat, Ben,’ said Neil. ‘He’s nothing more than a very lightweight twerp.’
‘He’s evil,’ said Benedict, bringing the word out as if it chewed its way into utterance.
‘So are we all, depending how you look at us,’ said Neil tranquilly.
Sister Langtry got up; Neil was good with Matt and Nugget, but somehow with Ben he never managed to hit the right note. ‘Did you find out what’s happened to dinner, Ben?’ she asked.
For a moment the monk became a boy; Benedict’s eyes warmed and widened as they looked at Sister Langtry with unshadowed affection. ‘It’s coming, Sis, it’s coming!’ he said, and grinned, grateful for the consideration which had prompted her to send him on the errand.
Her eyes on Ben were soft; then she turned away. ‘I’ll help you get your stuff sorted out, Michael,’ she said, stepping inside. However, she wasn’t quite finished with the group on the verandah yet. ‘Gentlemen, since dinner’s late, I think you had better have it inside, shirts on and sleeves rolled down. Otherwise you won’t beat the mossies.’
Though he would rather have remained on the verandah to see what the group was like when she wasn’t present, Michael took her request as an order and followed her into the ward.
His webbing, his pack and his kit bag lay on the bed. Arms folded, standing to watch him. Sister Langtry noticed the methodical ease with which he proceeded to dispose of his possessions; he commenced with the small haversack attached to his webbing and unearthed toothbrush, a grimy but precious morsel of soap, tobacco, shaving tackle, all of which he stowed neatly in the drawer of his locker.
‘Did you have any idea what you were getting into?’ she asked.
‘Well,
I’ve seen plenty of blokes go troppo, but it isn’t the same thing as this. This is a troppo ward?’
‘Yes,’ she said gently.
He undid the roll of his blanket and groundsheet from the top of his pack, then began to remove socks, underwear, a towel, clean shirts, trousers and shorts from the pack’s interior. As he worked he spoke again. ‘Funny, the desert never sent a tenth as many men around the bend as the jungle. Though it stands to reason, I suppose. The desert doesn’t hem you in; it’s a lot easier to live with.’
‘That’s why they call it troppo… tropical… jungle.’ She continued to watch him. ‘Fill your locker with what you’ll need. There’s a cupboard over there the rest can go in. I’ve got the key, so if you need anything, just yell… They’re not as bad as they must seem.’
‘They’re all right.’ A faint smile turned one corner of his nice mouth up. ‘I’ve been in a lot loonier places and predicaments.’
‘Don’t you resent this?’
He straightened, holding his spare pair of boots, and looked directly at her. ‘The war’s over, Sister. I’ll be going home soon anyway, and at this stage I’m so fed up I don’t much care where I wait it out.’ He gazed around the room. ‘It’s better housing than camp by a long shot, and the climate’s better than Borneo. I haven’t slept in a decent bed in ages.’ One hand went up, flicked the folds of mosquito netting. ‘All the comforts of home, and a mum too! No, I don’t resent it.’
The reference to a mum stung; how dared he! Still, time would disabuse him of that impression. She went on probing. ‘Why don’t you resent it? You should, because I’ll swear you’re not troppo!’
He shrugged, turned back to his kit bag, which seemed to contain as many books as items of spare clothing; he was, she had noted, a superb packer. ‘I suppose I’ve been acting under pretty senseless orders for a long time, Sister. Believe me, being sent here isn’t nearly as senseless as some of the orders I’ve had to follow.’
‘Are you declaring yourself insane?’
He laughed soundlessly. ‘No! There’s nothing wrong with my mind.’
She felt flummoxed; for the first time in a long nursing career she really didn’t know what to say next. Then, as he reached into his kit bag again, she found a logical thing to say. ‘Oh, good, you’ve got a decent pair of sandshoes! I can’t abide the sound of boots on this board floor.’ Her hand went out, turned over some of the books lying on the bed. Modern Americans mostly: Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway. ‘No English writers?’ she asked.
‘I can’t get into them,’ he said, and gathered the books together to stack in his locker.
That faint rebuff again; she fought an annoyance she told herself was quite natural. ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘It’s a world I don’t know. Besides, I haven’t met any Poms to trade books with since the Middle East. We’ve got more in common with the Yanks.’
Since her own reading background was thoroughly English and she had never opened a book by a modern American, she let the subject drop, returned to the main theme. ‘You said you were so fed up it didn’t matter where you waited it out. Fed up with what?’
He tied the cords around his kit bag again, and picked up the emptied pack and webbing. ‘The whole thing,’ he said. ‘It’s an indecent life.’
She unfolded her arms. ‘You’re not frightened of going home?’ she asked, leading the way across to the cupboard.
‘Why should I be?’
Unlocking the cupboard, she stood back to allow him to place his clobber inside. ‘One of the things I’ve noticed increasingly over the last few months in most of my men—and in my nursing colleagues too, for that matter—is a fear of going home. As if it’s been so long all sense of familiarity and belonging has been lost,’ she said.
Finished, he straightened and turned to look at her. ‘In here, it probably has. This is a home of sorts, it’s got some permanence to it. Are you frightened of going home too?’
She blinked. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said slowly, and smiled. ‘You’re an awkward beggar, aren’t you?’
His answering smile was generous and bone deep. ‘It has been said of me before,’ he said.
‘Let me know if there’s anything you want. I go off duty in a few minutes, but I’ll be back about seven.’
‘Thanks, Sister, but I’ll be all right.’
Her eyes searched his face; she nodded. ‘Yes, I think you will be all right,’ she said.
2
The orderly had arrived with dinner and was making a racket in the dayroom; instead of going straight to her office. Sister Langtry entered the dayroom, nodding to the orderly.
‘What is it tonight?’ she asked, removing plates from a cupboard.
The orderly sighed. ‘I think it’s supposed to be bubble-and-squeak, Sister.’
‘More squeak than bubble, eh?’
‘More flop than either, I’d say. But the pud’s not bad, sort of dumplings in golden syrup.’
‘Any pud’s better than none, Private. It’s remarkable how much the rations have improved in the last six months.’
‘My word, Sister!’ the orderly agreed fervently.
As she turned toward the Primus stove on which it was her habit to reheat the meal before serving it, a small movement in her office caught Sister Langtry’s eye; she put the plates down and stepped soundlessly across the corridor outside the dayroom.
Luce was standing by her desk, head bent, the unsealed envelope containing Michael’s papers in his hand.
‘Put that down!’
He obeyed quite casually, as if he had simply picked the envelope up in passing; if he had read them, the deed was already done, for she could see that the papers resided safely inside the envelope. But looking at Luce she could not be sure. That was the trouble with Luce: he existed on so many levels he had difficulty himself knowing which end was up; of course, that meant he was always able to assure himself he had done nothing wrong. And to look at, he was the epitome of a man who could have no need to spy or have recourse to underhand dealings. But such was not his history.
‘What do you want in here, Luce?’
‘A late pass,’ he said promptly.
‘Sorry, Sergeant, you’ve had more than your share of late passes this month,’ she said coldly. ‘Did you read those papers?’
‘Sister Langtry! As if I’d do such a thing!’
‘One of these days you’ll slip, and I’ll be there to catch you,’ she said. ‘For the moment you can help me get the dinner on, since you’re down this end of the ward.’
But before she left the office she took Michael’s papers and locked them away in the top drawer, cursing herself for a degree of carelessness she could not remember ever committing before, not in her entire career. She ought to have made sure the papers were under lock and key before taking Michael into the ward. Perhaps he was right; the war had gone on too long, which was why she was starting to make mistakes.
3
‘For the food we are about to receive, may the good Lord make us truly thankful,’ said Benedict into a partial silence, and then lifted his head.
Only Luce had ignored the call to grace, eating all the way through it as if he were deaf.
The others waited until Benedict finished before picking up knives and forks to dissect the dubious messes on their plates, neither embarrassed by Benedict’s prayer nor thrown off balance by Luce’s irreverence. The whole ritual had long lost any novelty it might once have had, Michael concluded, finding his palate titillated by an unfamiliar cook, even if the cooking was army yet. Besides, there were luxuries here. Pudding.
To form conclusions about any new group of men had come to be a routine with him, a part of survival—and a game, too. He would bet himself imaginary sums of money on the correctness of his conclusions, preferring to do this than to acknowledge that for the last six years what he was usually actually betting was his life.
The men of ward X were a rum lot, all right, but no rummer than some other me
n he had known. Just men trying to get on with other men, and succeeding about as well as most. If they were like himself, they were tired past endurance with the war, and with men, men, men.
‘Why on earth are you here in X, Mike?’ asked Benedict suddenly, eyes bright.
Michael laid his spoon down, for he had finished the pudding anyway, and pulled out his tin of tobacco. ‘I nearly killed a bloke,’ he said, working a sheet of rice paper out of its folder. ‘I would have killed him, too, if there hadn’t been enough other blokes around to stop me.’
‘Not one of the enemy, then, I presume?’ asked Neil.
‘No. The RSM in my own company.’
‘And that’s all?’ asked Nugget, making the most peculiar faces as he swallowed a mouthful of food.
Michael looked at him, concerned. ‘Here, are you all right?’
‘It’s just me hiatus hernia,’ said Nugget in a tone of fatal acceptance. ‘Hits me every time I swallow.’
This was announced with great solemnity and the same kind of reverence Benedict had given to his little prayer; Michael noticed that the others, even Luce, simply grinned. They were fond of the little ferret-faced lad, then.
His cigarette rolled and lit, Michael leaned back, his arms behind his head because the bench offered no spinal support, and groped after what sort of men they were. It was very pleasant to be in a strange place, surrounded by strange faces; after six years in the same battalion, you knew from the smell which one of your fellow soldiers had farted.
The blind one was probably well into his thirties, didn’t say much, didn’t demand much. The opposite of Nugget, who was their mascot, he decided. Every company had its good luck talisman; why should ward X be different?