73
It wasn’t hard to find Evans, even though the one place he never seems to be is in his bed. I’m glad of that in a way, because the ward for patients like him is not a pleasant place. It’s on the top floor of the hospital, and even on the floor below you can hear the cries and shouts of the men.
You can dress a wound, put iodine on it, give morphia for the pain, amputate a gangrenous limb. But what can you do for the mind, when it is damaged? I don’t quite know what Father is doing with his colleagues, but I admire them for even trying to help. I wouldn’t know where to begin.
But I did know where I would find Evans. He has the run of the hospital, it seems. He’s less trouble than many of the patients on his ward—some are violent and noisy, or need their sheets changed often, or need hand-feeding. Evans is docile, so they don’t always bother trying to find him. He comes back when the ward is dark anyway.
I didn’t know which linen room he’d be in, but it wasn’t the one he’d been in before. I took the chance when everything was quiet to hunt through the other wards. If anyone stopped me, I would just say I was fetching more blankets.
As soon as I put my head round the door of the fourth storeroom, I knew he was there. I went inside and closed the door.
“I won’t turn the light on,” I said.
“Who is it?” came his voice.
“Alexandra, we spoke the other day. Do you remember?”
There was no reply.
“Yes,” he said, eventually, his voice dull.
“There’s nothing to be—”
“What happened to him?” he asked, interrupting me. “Did he die?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to sound as calm as possible. “A wound they didn’t know about. Ruptured his lungs.”
We were silent for a while. I wondered how long I could be away without being missed.
“May I come closer?” I asked.
I was apprehensive. I was scared, and not because I was afraid of him. He wouldn’t harm me, I knew that. No, I was afraid of myself, of what I might feel about him, for I feel sorry for Evans, I want him to be all right.
I moved close to him in the dark, feeling my way around the room.
“May I ask you something?” I said. I felt my knee touch him, and drew back. “It’s about what you told me, about when they put electricity into you.”
“Oh,” he said, in a voice of such unhappiness that I wanted to cry.
“What does it do to you? Would you tell me again?”
There was silence.
“No,” he said.
Then the door opened, and the light came on.
Evans tried to scramble away, knocking over a pile of blankets as he did so.
“Who’s there?”
A nurse stepped into view and jumped when she saw us.
“What on earth—”
It was the girl who’d shown me around on my first day.
“I was just looking for Evans . . . ,” I said. “I was trying—”
“I don’t want to know what you were doing in here. With him,” she said. Evans tried to make for the door, but she stood in his way. He stopped and waited, squinting against the light.
“No,” I said, “I was just trying to find him.”
The nurse put her head on one side.
“Is that what you call it? Well, you’ve found him now. For heaven’s sake.”
She turned to Evans.
“You go back to your ward and stay there for once.”
Without a word, he slunk out the door.
“And you . . . ,” she said, turning back to me. “If Sister found you in here with a man, you’d be out of here and never let back. What were you thinking of?”
“Please,” I said. “Please believe me. I wanted to talk to him, that’s all. About what they’re doing to him.”
She sighed.
“Any other girl in this hospital I might not believe. But you. I don’t think you even know why what you’ve done is so wrong.”
“I only want to know what they’re doing to him. He says it hurts.”
She looked surprised now.
“He doesn’t say anything that isn’t nonsense.”
“He makes sense to me,” I said. “He says when they put the wires to his head, he sees things as if they’ve already happened.”
“He says what?”
Her voice had softened.
“Yes,” I said, encouraged. “Why do you think that is? What are they trying to do?”
“They’re trying to make him better,” she said.
“But it hurts him. Why are they doing it?”
“He’s your father, why don’t you ask him?”
“Please,” I said. “You don’t understand. I need to know. Things have been happening to me that I . . .”
“What things?”
I hesitated, but couldn’t help myself.
“I see things,” I said. “I see things before they happen.”
She took a step backward, and flicked off the light.
“I think you’d better get back to work,” she said, her voice sharp and thin. “Don’t you?”
72
When I got home there was pandemonium in the house. I could hear Mother in the kitchen, almost wailing at Father.
They stopped talking the moment I came in.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Mother hurried past me, her hand to her mouth.
I saw a letter on the table.
“What is it?”
Father put up his hand.
“Edgar’s been wounded. Don’t worry,” he added. “He’s fine.”
“Father?”
“Yes, he’s fine. He couldn’t write that if he wasn’t, could he?”
“What happened?”
“Not sure,” he said, shaking his head. “But it’s just a scratch. He spent a few days in hospital in Boulogne, in the middle of November. He’s back with his battalion now. Fighting fit!”
“But what happened?”
“That’s enough, Alexandra! Do you not realize you upset your mother with all your questions?”
That seemed unfair. Mother was already upset before I got home, and had already left the room. But I knew not to say anything more while Father was in that kind of mood.
I looked at the letter. Edgar’s letter from France, lying on the kitchen table. I wanted to read it, but Father picked it up and left the room.
I followed him, and as he went into his study I made my way upstairs, pausing just long enough to see him put the letter in the drawer of his writing desk. Then I found Molly and asked her to bring me something to eat in my room. I went up to bed.
71
Molly brought me soup and some bread. I ate it slowly, thoughtfully, thinking things through.
My eyes fell on Miss Garrett’s book. I hadn’t looked at it for ages. I picked it up and flicked through it. Cassandra. Her name leapt out at me from page after page. Daughter of King Priam of Troy. She was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but because she refused to sleep with him in return, he cursed her gift, making sure that no one would ever believe her. She ended her life telling of the doom of Troy, but still no one believed her. It didn’t matter in the end, because everything she saw happened anyway, including her own death. Taken captive by Agamemnon, spirited away from Troy to Argos, she was slain by Agamemnon’s jealous wife.
Perhaps she went crazy waiting for someone to believe her at last, to take notice of her, to let her help.
And did she gaze out on a view of the sea like I do? Maybe she did, dreading the conflict that was to come across the water. Did she feel alone, as I do? Maybe she looked at her reflection, trying to see what was different about her, trying to understand her gift.
A gift, or a curse? I knew which I thought it was. The book trembled in my hand. I shut it before my tears ruined something which I’d promised to take good care of.
After Mother and Father had gone to bed I went back down to the study. On Father
’s desk is a green-shaded reading lamp. I put the lamp on and began to open the small drawers in the back of the desk.
Edgar’s letter was easy to find. I could smell it almost before I saw it. It smelled of cold air, of damp, of earth, of smoke. It was only a few weeks old and yet looked as though it had seen more history than most of us will see in our whole lives.
I have the letter in front of me now.
At the top, in Edgar’s handwriting, it says: No. 14 Stationary Hospital, Boulogne. 13th November.
It’s taken over three weeks for the letter to get here. It’s very short. He must have been exhausted while he was in hospital, and unable to write much.
Dear Family,
I am well, but I must tell you I have received a small injury which has put me in hospital. Don’t worry, though, it is nothing serious. A shell exploded near our dugout, and I took a small piece in my chest. I will be back in action soon.
I send you my best wishes,
Your Edgar
I thought I might feel something from the letter, that I might see something while holding it, but nothing happened. And I had had no inkling of Edgar’s injury, though it happened weeks ago. I had not suspected a thing. So this curse I have cannot even be relied upon to be consistent. To actually be of some use.
But I wonder why the letter smells of the battlefield, when it was written from hospital. Maybe I can sense something of Edgar from it, after all.
70
It is Monday evening.
The weekend was a miserable affair. Mother was quiet almost all of the time, worrying about Edgar, and the one time she did speak it was of him.
“I wonder where Edgar will be for Christmas,” she said.
Not such a bad thing to say, but Father raised his voice, and told her to stop fretting about Edgar all the time. Then he went out.
That was Saturday morning, and as soon as he had gone, I took the chance to replace Edgar’s letter in Father’s desk before it was missed. That would only cause more trouble.
I tried to comfort Mother not by talking but by doing. I took her out shopping, but she stared at things in a listless way, and would barely speak to the shop assistants.
In Needham’s, Mother stopped by the glove counter.
Hoping to catch her interest, I asked her if she wanted new gloves for the winter.
She stared at the counter.
“Mother? Did you want something?”
Still she gazed down, saying nothing. I could see an assistant dithering, wondering whether to come over or not.
“Mother?”
“I wonder if Edgar’s hands are warm.”
I looked at the assistant and smiled, but shook my head to keep her away.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I said.
“But it must be cold, and wet.”
“I’m sure the army kits them out well. Remember how smart he looked in his uniform? He’ll have everything he needs.”
“Do you think so, Sasha?”
Now at least she stopped looking at the gloves and looked at me, but the weight of the pain in her eyes was enough to break my heart.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I’m sure of it. Come away now. Let’s go to Hannington’s, see if they have your material.”
I nearly had to pull her out of the shop, but at last we were outside. It was raining by then, and we gave up. To be honest, I was relieved to go home.
I got changed to go to the hospital for a late-afternoon shift.
It was bitter, inhospitable weather as I made my way up to Seven Dials. The rain began to lash down as the hospital came in sight, so I ran for the entrance.
As I passed through the doors I felt better immediately. Better, almost happier in a way, despite everything that has happened here. I was glad of the warmth, and of the noise and the brightness. For a second I stopped and marveled at the commotion, people coming and going, nurses and orderlies at work, and I realized that I had come to like the place.
“Fox,” said one of the nurses as she passed, and smiled and nodded to me.
I smiled back and got to work.
It was a quiet shift, but there were two pieces of interesting news.
I could tell something was different on the ward as soon as I arrived.
“Have you heard?” one nurse said to me. “About Sister Maddox?”
“She’s gone!”
“She’s gone to France.”
“I know,” someone said. “We were as surprised as you are! Apparently she felt she wasn’t doing enough here. She got herself sent to France, to a hospital in Rouen.”
Maddox had seemed such a hard, uncaring woman. Maybe that’s not such an uncommon thing in the medical profession, but perhaps we were wrong about her. She didn’t tell anyone she was going, and left without a word to any of her staff. More and more nurses are making their way out to France to the big hospitals, in Paris, in Rouen, where Maddox has gone, or Boulogne, where Edgar was when he was injured. They have to volunteer, and then wait to be called up. I know Father’s responsible for passing the applications of nurses from our hospital.
I’ve overheard him talk about things in France. Yes. He’d say, “Always watching, always prying.” But that’s how I learn.
The existing French hospitals were soon overwhelmed at the start of the war, and many other buildings, like hotels and warehouses, have been put to use as makeshift hospitals. And all these hospitals need nurses, especially ones as experienced as Sister Maddox.
The other thing that I learned was even more of a shock.
On my way home, I saw a nurse I knew walking the same way as me on the other side of the road. We must have the same shift patterns, because I keep bumping into her. It was the nurse who had found me in the linen room with Evans.
I ducked my head and tried to pretend I hadn’t seen her. I tried to hurry, but she skipped across the road to walk beside me.
“Wait!” she said. “I want to tell you something. It’s about your friend. Evans. The Welshman?”
“Leave me alone.” I kept on walking.
“No,” she said. “No . . . listen. I thought you might like to know. He’s making sense again. I mean, he’s getting better.”
I slowed down, and looked sideways at her, to see if she was teasing.
“Whatever it was you did, it worked. All the nurses are talking about it, about how you made him better.”
I stopped.
“How do they know?” I asked. “Who told them?”
The girl blushed.
“Don’t worry,” she said, hurriedly, “It’s just nurses’ gossip. Your father . . . I mean, the doctors won’t take any notice of that, they’ll think it was what they did to him that worked.”
“Maybe it was,” I said.
She shrugged.
“Anyway,” she said, “I just thought you’d like to know.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.
69
Last night I dreamt about the raven again.
It was a vivid dream, so lifelike that when I woke in the middle of the night, my heart racing, it seemed real.
I was flying. Flying high above a darkening landscape, and without any reason I knew I was above the plains outside the city of Troy. Was I seeing what Cassandra had seen?
The sun was setting. In truth, I knew that for the people on the ground far below me the sun had already set, but looking down from on high, I could still see the last cusp of the red sun slipping beneath the far horizon. It flickered once more like the embers of coal in a fire, then went out. Night came and wrapped the earth in its dusky wings. Darkness flooded across the landscape from the west, but somehow I could see clearly.
I whirled and soared like a bird of prey, and some distance away I could see the walls of the great city, the top of which bristled with feather-laden spear tips. But my attention was drawn to the fields beneath me, from where I felt a terrible pull of death, as if the departing souls of the slaughtered men were trying to take me with them.
I resisted.
I resisted and tried to pull up into the sky and soar again, but I could not. I began to plummet toward the earth as I realized it was impossible that I should be flying anyway.
The ground hurtled toward me, but somehow with infinite slowness, so that I had time to gaze at the horrors that unfolded there. All around was carnage, and bloodied bodies. Broken chariots and splintered shields were strewn across the plains as if cast there by a god’s hand. Here and there a few men still wearily tried to put an end to each other, but this was a battle that was already dead itself.
I landed, and in mild surprise saw that I had survived the fall, and landed on my feet, my legs merely jarred from the impact.
It was then that I saw the raven. It was a huge bird, and at first I could only marvel at its beauty. The blackness of its feathers was perfect; a glistening, oily blackness set off by the charcoal gray of its beak. It fixed an eye on me and put its head on one side, and only then did I see what it was standing on, what it had been feeding on.
I thought I was going to be sick, but I couldn’t look away. And then the bird spoke to me.
It spoke with the voice of the dead upon which it was feeding.
“You!” it said. “You alone saw the horror of war, and wept when we did not believe you.”
I woke.
68
Thomas has come home.
It’s so wonderful that when he walked through the front door I threw my arms around him to hide the tears in my eyes.
He laughed, and pushed me away.
“Sasha!” he cried, and everyone laughed, even Father, though there was nothing really to laugh at.
“You’ve grown,” Mother declared.
Tom sighed.
“Don’t be silly,” Father said. “He hasn’t grown. You shrank him in your memory.”
I think Father might be right about that, but Mother was right too. There was something different about Tom. He wasn’t any taller, but he was older. He had aged by more than the few months he’d been away.