Home for Christmas (24 page)

Eric noticed the look in the old man’s eyes and knew he was not content with how things now were.

‘How long have you been here, Quartermaster?’

‘Thirty years plus ten – the ten were with the master when we were both serving in the army. I was his batman.’

‘And how much longer here?’

Bending slightly from the waist, Quartermaster looked down at his polished shoes before raising his eyes.

‘I retire shortly. There’s a time for everything, and everything is changing. My day is done. I will go soon.’

‘Let’s hope your day is not entirely over,’ Doctor Miller said thoughtfully. ‘You deserve a peaceful retirement. However, I have to agree with you that things are changing, but then, some things need to change.’

June, 1914

Just before the assassination of the Austrian archduke and his wife on the twenty-eighth of June, Agnes had dared to telephone the hospital to tell Lydia she would be outside waiting for her when she finished her shift.

‘I’ve got splendid news,’ Agnes had said. ‘It concerns my future, my wonderful future.’

That was as far as it got; Agnes refused to tell her what the splendid news was.

‘Not until I come to collect you from the nunnery,’ she declared.

‘It’s not a nunnery, Agnes, it’s …’

‘A hostel for nurses. But they do look a bit like nuns, all starched aprons and stiff bonnets.’ She paused.

Lydia guessed what was coming.

‘Have you heard from Robert?’

‘He wrote saying he’s going to try and get away, but if he can’t then I am to take you and have a rare old time. His words I assure you. He’s been learning how to fly some new aeroplane. All I hope is it stays up in the sky and doesn’t come crashing down.’

‘Lydia, you have no faith in modern inventions. They’re getting safer all the time.’

Lydia said that she was probably right, but the catch in Agnes’s voice was noticeable. She still loved Robert.

It was her weekend off and although she loved being a nurse, the prospect of spending the weekend with Agnes gave wings to Lydia’s feet. Not that it seemed to make the time go any quicker.

Mr Trimble, a local man whose chest rumbled with noxious fluids and whose pasty skin seemed the only thing keeping his bones in place, watched her with amusement.

‘The hands on that clock ain’t going to move any faster no matter how often you look at it or rush around this ward like a blinkin’ greyhound.’

Lydia smoothed and tucked in his bedding. Although she attempted to adopt an innocent expression, she couldn’t help smiling.

‘Now who said I was looking at the clock, Mr Trimble?’

He winked at her, his pale hands fragile as birds’ wings sticking out the sleeves of his pyjamas. His beady eyes stayed fixed on her face.

‘Yer own clock’s looking bright as a button, Nurse. I mean yer face. Off somewhere nice the weekend are you? Deserting old Sam Trimble for a lovesick young man who’s promised you the world?’

‘Of course not. I’m spending the weekend with a friend.’

‘Not a boyfriend? Well bless my soul. Pretty girl like you without a sweetheart. Can’t believe it, but there. If you want a sweetheart, call Sam Trimble. He’ll be your sweetheart any day of the week.’

Lydia laughed – quite the wrong thing to do as it turned out. She felt Sister Bertha’s eyes landing on her from beneath a beetled brow.

At the end of her shift, the German deaconess, a substantial woman of purposeful bearing and iron-grey hair, called for Lydia to come into her office.

‘Close the door.’

Lydia did as ordered. Divided from the ward by a framework of green painted timber filled in with frosted glass panes, the room held a large desk, a filing cabinet and a profusion of potted plants, mostly along the window ledge.

The swivel chair creaked in protest when Sister Bertha’s wide rump landed on its seat.

Lydia stood with her hands folded in front of her, eyes downcast. All the same, it was hard not to smile; Sam Trimble was such a cheeky beggar – but funny – really funny.

Sister Bertha’s square jaw set firmly.

‘I see that you were smiling, Nurse Miller. You were smiling earlier. You were also flitting from bed to bed like a nervous butterfly.’

‘Yes, Sister. Sam … Mr Trimble made me laugh. He’s a bit of a character.’

The solid face in front of her bore no sign of amusement.

‘There is no room for characters in this profession, Nurse Miller. Above all else, it is a nursing sister’s duty to be efficient and professional, not a source of entertainment. Is that clear?’

‘I …’ She thought about saying that her father believed laughter was a good antidote to disease, but perhaps that would seem too superior. One thing she had learned since becoming a nurse was that it was better to fit in with those she worked with. A nurse was a member of a team. It was best if they all regarded each other as equal and worked as one.

‘You were going to say something, Nurse?’

The small, searching eyes that fixed on her face were unsettling.

Lydia cleared her throat. ‘No. Just a tickle in my throat, Sister.’

Sister Bertha lowered her eyes to the manila folder in front of her, opened it, surveyed its contents, and then looked up.

‘You have a wilful nature, Nurse Miller. I am not tolerant of nurses with wilful natures. I wish only for nurses with dutiful natures because I know they will do as I tell them without thinking. I am also of the opinion that you are too familiar with the patients. It is not professional. You should not call a patient by their Christian name.’

‘Yes, Sister, but …’

‘But?’

It was no use. Being professional means putting the patient first. She had to say what was on her mind.

‘My father says that being friendly towards a patient helps put them at their ease and may even contribute to their recovery.’

Sister Bertha had a fleshy face. Two deep grooves ran downwards from the corners of her mouth, moving in line with whatever she was thinking.

‘Your father’s opinion is greatly respected. However, this hospital has been here in the East End of London longer than your father has. In fact, there has been a German hospital here since the last century, catering for the many ex-patriot German speakers living in England. Not that we treat only German speakers. We make no distinction between race, religion or colour. Our duty is to serve.’ She paused, her gaze falling on the open folder.

‘However, I have to admit that your examination marks are admirable. Seeing as you speak fluent German and English, you are likely to prosper and gain swifter promotion here than in an English hospital. However, a little serenity would not come amiss.’

‘No, Sister. I’m sorry, Sister.’

‘No matter.’ Sister Bertha closed the file. ‘We cannot stop patients from upsetting our decorum. And I suppose a little humour when mixed with medicine has to be beneficial.’

Lydia nodded. ‘Yes, Sister.’

Sister Bertha sucked in her lips, her gaze dropping back again to the closed folder. Her fingertips beat a mild tattoo in time with her thoughts.

When she finally looked up, Lydia saw the concern in her eyes.

‘If it does come about, war is a very bad thing, Sister Lydia. Our nurses have the option of going home to Germany. They do not have to, but …’ She sighed deeply, her large breasts thrusting against the full bib of her apron. ‘There is the possibility that we will be driven from the hospital simply for being German.’

‘That would be terrible,’ said Lydia, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘The hospital does such good work.’

Sister Bertha nodded as she leaned back in her chair.

‘It may not be enough, not for those who call themselves patriots.’ She raised her face and looked directly into Lydia’s eyes. ‘Patriotism is never enough. We are here to serve the whole of mankind.’

‘I cannot believe you’ll be treated badly; not nurses or doctors.’

‘You too are a nurse, Lydia. You also have a German father. Will you both be staying in England?’

‘Yes. I think so. I have a fiancé. He’s an aeroplane pilot. We’re going to get married.’

The senior sister looked surprised. ‘He will still marry you? Even though your father is from the country with whom England might go to war?’

‘It hasn’t mattered up until now and my father has lived here for a very long time. Robert knows my father was born in Germany, but it won’t make any difference to him. It made no difference to anyone before this ugly war started. He will still marry me. Yes,’ she said again, nodding as though her firm conviction would melt away if she were to stop. ‘Yes. He will still marry me.’

Old Mr Trimble winked and smiled at her when she came back on to the ward.

‘She didn’t eat you then,’ he said to her.

Lydia tried adopting a coldly professional approach, but it was no good. Mr Trimble might be sick, but he’d clung on to his sense of humour. He made her laugh. She couldn’t help herself.

‘I have to be more professional,’ she whispered to him.

‘You’re a right tonic. That’s professional enough fer me,’ he said, chuckling as she patted his bedding tidy and plumped up his pillows.

Lydia was ready with a witty riposte, but something outside of the window caught her eye. At first, she thought it was a flock of birds flying far off in the distance. Coming round from the side of the bed, she leaned closer to the window. They were a long way off, but she had no doubt that what she thought had been birds were aeroplanes.

Lydia’s hand went to her throat in which a lump had suddenly formed. Were they already on their way to France? Was Robert with them?

‘You all right, Nurse Miller?’

Lydia’s eyes followed the small shrinking dots until they were no more. She tried to work out where they were going. South? East? Yes. East.

‘Nurse Miller? You ain’t gonna faint are you?’

She jerked her head round to face one of her favourite patients.

‘Mr Trimble. I think it’s nearly time for your medicine.’

‘That’s good. I thought it was you might be wanting medicine.’ He bent his head to one side. ‘Something upset you out there, did it?’

Lydia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I saw aeroplanes. My fiancé is a pilot. He might have been piloting one of them.’ She looked down at her hands clasped as though in prayer, something done unconsciously.

The humour that helped Mr Trimble cope with his illness was no longer there. Numerous wrinkles, so deep they seemed gouged into his flesh, drooped and quivered.

‘This war if it comes ain’t gonna be nothing like the Zulu wars, the Boer wars and such like. Nothing like the kind of wars I was ever in.’

He sounded very fearful for a man who had fought many times for his country.

‘It’s all so strange,’ said Lydia. ‘The world is talking about war yet so far nothing has changed. I hope it doesn’t. I hope everything stays the same.’

The look of fear left the wrinkled face. ‘I hope so too, me dear. I hope so too. Get out and about this weekend and enjoy yourself. ’Opefully that young man of yours might not be in that there flying machine.’

‘I’m staying with a friend for the weekend. We’re going down to the country. My fiancé has given us the key to his cottage.’

The cottage was a godsend, left to Robert by his uncle and not far from the airfield. It was a slight hope, but Robert might still be there and Agnes had agreed to go with her.

‘Going on the old chuff chuff?’ he asked her. She knew he meant the train.

‘No. My friend is picking me up in a motor car.’

Mr Trimble’s many wrinkles lifted in unison.

‘My word. Fancy being picked up in a chauffeur-driven car at your age! Very posh I must say.’

‘She won’t be using a chauffeur. She’s driving the motor car herself. She
is
a chauffeur.’

Mr Trimble looked even more amazed before he brought his grizzled eyelid down in a wicked wink. ‘Better not tell Sister Bertha. She’ll be shocked out of her stockings, that she will!’

The vision of Sister Bertha looking shocked out of her stockings stayed with Lydia when she was in her room washing and gathering up her things into a tapestry-weave bag.

Mr Trimble always said the right words to make her smile. So did Agnes for that matter, with her outspokenness and her ability to shock people.

She was just finishing her packing when a message came to say she had a visitor.

‘A gentleman,’ said the auxiliary nurse who had brought the message. ‘He’s waiting for you in the library. Sister Bertha said that as he looks to be an officer and a gentleman she will not insist on you being chaperoned.’

The young nurse blushed. Lydia’s eyes sparkled. It had to be Robert.

She closed her eyes. She hadn’t consciously prayed for a miracle, yet it seemed she had one; Robert was here!

The packing left for later, she hurried off to the library, impatient to feel Robert’s arms around her and to tell him that she’d give everything up for him. They would marry as soon as possible.

Before he’s no longer here. Though pray God he will be.

As it was mid afternoon, the library was not much used, nurses preferring to study in there early in the morning before they began their shifts, or late evenings after they’d finished. Today it was empty except for one stalwart figure wearing the uniform of the King’s Hussars. Captain Sylvester Travis Dartmouth.

Lydia’s high excitement crumbled. ‘I was expecting Robert.’

Sylvester turned away from studying the spines of a fine set of medical books.

‘He gave his note to a subaltern to deliver. I took it from him. Pulled rank. Thought we should keep all this in the family. Anyway, my dear, how lovely to see you.’

He kissed her cheek in greeting. His lips were cold and his breath smelled as though he’d just eaten Dover sole with lots of lemon.

‘What’s happened?’

‘I’ve already more or less told you. Robert is detained.’ His fingers attempted to grasp hers as he handed her a note. Lydia snatched her hand away, along with the precious message.

She read it swiftly, loving to see his words at the same time as feeling immense disappointment.