The Nurse's War

‘And you’re going to help him?’ Her friend had the ghost of a smile on her lips.

‘Exactly. It’s stupid. There’s no way I can. I’ve no money and I know nobody who could get the papers he needs.’

Connie was thoughtful. ‘But if you could get those papers, it would mean you’d lose him from your life once and for all. I know you think you’ve put the whole Indian thing behind you, Daisy, but it’s clear that you haven’t. Until tonight I didn’t know how awful it had been for you, though I knew something pretty bad had happened. You never talk about the past. Whenever I’ve touched on India or your husband, you’ve brushed it off as though your time there wasn’t worth mentioning. It’s obvious, though, that it still looms large.’

It did and she couldn’t deny it. The frightening months she’d spent in Jasirapur when she’d suffered one so-called accident after another, only to discover that it was her husband behind them. And then to find that her dear friend, Anish, was the ultimate puppet master. The grief at losing him; the guilt at not grieving for Gerald. It had all been too much and she had shut her mind fast. The past could be locked up in a box and the key thrown away. That’s how she’d thought about her time in India. That’s why she’d been unable to be anything but a poor friend to Grayson. He was too involved in the whole business; he was a constant reminder of what she had to forget.

‘What about Grayson Harte?’ her companion asked out of the blue. It was almost as though Connie had read her mind. ‘Isn’t he in the Secret Intelligence Service? Surely he could manufacture false papers. That’s what they do, isn’t it?’

‘No.’ Her response was unequivocal.

‘What do you mean “no”—I think it’s a brilliant idea.’

‘I don’t see Grayson any more. You know that.’

‘But you could. You know where he works. What’s to stop you visiting him?’

‘So I just turn up at his Baker Street office and say, Sorry, Grayson, that I wasn’t able to return your feelings. But actually you can do me a favour. Gerald didn’t die after all, can you believe that? He’s back in England and living in London. He’s a deserter, of course, and I need your help to get him out of the country.’

‘Okay, I understand. I know it won’t be easy.’

‘Not easy! It’s impossible. And I refuse even to think about it.’ She uncurled herself from the lumpy chair and walked to the door, unable to stifle the first of many yawns. ‘I’m so tired, Connie, I don’t think I can even find my way to bed.’

‘You will,’ her friend promised, ‘and you’ll sleep. And tomorrow you could feel quite differently.’

But she didn’t feel differently; when back in London the next evening she walked quietly through the darkened streets. This time she was careful to leave the hospital with other nurses who had come off duty at the same time. After the encounter with Gerald, she was taking no chances, but the only footsteps she heard were those of her companions and they reached Charterhouse Square without incident. At the huge oak door, she waited patiently while the girl in the lead fished around in her bag for a key. Tonight the darkness seemed more impenetrable than ever, not even a glimpse of moon or stars. Several seconds of fumbling produced the key and Daisy mounted the steps behind her companions. As she turned to walk through the door, she glimpsed a shadow pass between the square’s trees. Or so she thought. She couldn’t be entirely sure, but her eyes had slowly grown accustomed to the intense gloom and what she’d seen was definitely a form that was blacker than the rest. And it was a form that was moving. Could it be the figure of a man and that figure, Gerald? She’d had no time to send the note he’d insisted on, so had he come to check on her, to harangue her on where her duty lay? It was more than likely.

She walked into the tiled entrance hall and stood still, aware of her pulse having gone into overdrive. She was becoming stupidly panicked and she must stop herself from seeing things that were probably not there. Given the heightened state in which she’d been living these last two days, it was unsurprising her mind was all over the place. It wasn’t fear of bombing raids that disturbed her—that was a fear everyone shared. It wasn’t even the unremitting labour. There were nurses who worked harder. It was alarm at finding her husband alive, and not just alive, but close by and demanding her aid.

She passed the staff pigeonholes with hardly a glance. There were never letters for her. Tonight, though, something white glared balefully from the scratched wooden box. An envelope addressed to her. She recognised the writing straight away. So it had been Gerald lurking in the trees, watching for her, waiting to accost her. But why hadn’t he done so? Instead, he’d pushed the missive through the letter box and someone had picked it up and put it in her pigeonhole. She took the envelope and held it up to the dim light which dangled from the ceiling. Now that she looked closely, she saw the letter had not been hand delivered at all but had come through the mail. It was postmarked ten a.m. It had come in the morning post and been waiting for her all day. So the shadow she’d seen … it couldn’t have been Gerald. But if it wasn’t, who was it?

Her heart again began to beat far too rapidly, sounding heavy in her ears. She tried to calm herself by visualising what she’d seen. It must have been imagination. But the more she thought of it, the more certain she became that there had been a figure there. It wasn’t just panic talking. She recalled the blurred image and fixed her mind doggedly on it. It reminded her of another shadow she’d glimpsed recently, one that had passed like a ripple through those self-same trees the night before last, when Gerald had stopped her on the front steps. Had someone been watching them then? Was someone watching her now? Or was that someone looking for Gerald, looking perhaps to find and hand over a deserter? She shook her head. It was better to think it merely the wind in the trees.

Gerald’s note was brief and to the point. She hadn’t named a meeting place, he accused, so he would: HydePark, the eastern edge of the Serpentine. Tomorrow at two o’clock. Didn’t he realise that she was a working woman, a nurse who had barely a day to herself every month? She felt exasperation riding tandem with misgiving. Meeting him was the last thing she wanted, but she would have to go or she’d have him knocking on the door. Whether or not she could take her free time would depend on what was happening on the ward. She would have to petition Sister Elton first thing in the morning and hope for permission. She calculated that she could just about make it to the park and be back on the ward within two hours, which was the most she could count on. But what she was to say to Gerald, she had no idea.

She still had no idea the following afternoon when she walked into Hyde Park. Speakers’ Corner was unusually crowded for a weekday, despite the lack of any orator and soapbox. A rare burst of spring sunshine must have tempted the mill of people. Daisy wound her way through the crowd as quickly as she could, negotiating a host of children and their nannies and a small group of women on their lunch break, enjoying a cigarette. The military post on her left was quiet and soldiers stood chatting to members of the Home Guard. A heavy anti-aircraft battery had been set up nearby along with a number of rocket projectors. She’d been told they fired six foot shells packed with metal debris—broken bike chains, old razor blades—just about anything that could be loosed skywards and disrupt the flight of bombers swooping up river from the docks to the West End.

Today, though, there was so little activity you could almost forget the guns’ incongruous presence in this beautiful, green space. The false sense of tranquillity was increased by dozens of barrage balloons which floated serenely five thousand feet above her head. They were supposed to force enemy aircraft to a height where aiming their bombs would be difficult, but the ‘blimps’, as they’d been nicknamed, had so far proved ineffective. Their silvery presence, though, added a dreamlike quality to the scene.

She reached the path leading to the Serpentine and felt inside her cape for the watch pinned to her bib. She wasn’t at all sure that she would make Gerald’s deadline, though so far luck had favoured her. She hadn’t had to ask for time off. Sister Elton had noticed how pale her nurse was looking and insisted, during the rushed morning tea break, that Daisy take several hours away from the ward once lunch had been served and the medicine trolley had done its rounds. Then, as she’d left the hospital, one of the few doctors who ran a car had offered her a lift as far as Oxford Street. Connie was on a short break, too, and off to sit in the cathedral gardens at St Paul’s. She saw Daisy getting into the car and pulled her mouth down as if to say, I told you so. It was her friend’s running joke that Dr Lawson had a particular fondness for Daisy.

If he had, she certainly wasn’t going to play on it. Work filled her entire life and that was fine. She was simply grateful for the lift. Even so, she was having to walk fast, winding her way on and off the path and around the trenches that had changed the face of all the London parks. By the time she reached the lake, she was breathless. Once more she flicked her watch face upwards. A minute to two. She’d made it, but not before Gerald. He was marching up and down beside the still water, his shoulders hunched and a frown darkening his face.

‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ was his greeting. ‘You didn’t contact me—you said you would.’

‘I couldn’t.’ She forced herself to remain calm despite his blustering. ‘I’ve been out of London for several days and it was last night before I collected your note.’

‘Now you are here, we shouldn’t waste time.’

She was taken aback by his abrasiveness, but why should she be? It was something she had grown used to in the few months they’d spent together. Now, though, she wasn’t the same girl who had travelled to India to marry him, a naïve innocent who’d foolishly believed herself loved. Her emotions had been put through fire, and she’d emerged with a new, tempered edge. If they were going to talk, she wanted some answers.

‘Shall we sit down?’

She gestured to one of the deckchairs lined up around the lake. In the first few months of the war, the chairs had been whisked from sight, but popular protest had succeeded in getting them reinstated. He didn’t immediately sit, but instead scanned the park for some minutes, turning his head in a complete circle. Then, seemingly reassured, he slumped heavily into the nearest seat and swivelled to face her.

‘Well? What’s the plan?’

‘I have some questions.’

He screwed up his face in an expression of deep frustration. ‘While you’re asking questions, I’m falling into ever greater danger. You don’t seem to appreciate that.’

‘If I’m to help, I need to know what’s happened since the last time I saw you.’

That was mendacious. No matter how much he told her, she was unlikely to be able to help. But she deserved to know how this ghost husband had come back to her from the dead, and she was willing to wait while he found the words. He was staring straight ahead, his face fixed and giving no sign that he was willing to talk. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a small boy arrive on the other side of the lake. He was cradling a boat in his arms and bouncing excitedly up and down beside his mother. He was about to sail a new toy, she thought, and that was a big event in this time of austerity.

‘I’ve already told you all you need to know,’ Gerald said at last, his tone grudging. ‘I was saved from drowning, broke an arm and a few ribs, was patched up by a local wise woman and sent on my way.’

‘And the villagers never asked where you’d come from?’

‘I made up a story.’ Of course, he would have. ‘I said I was a businessman—said my name was Jack Minns and I was trading in rapeseed. There’s plenty of that around Jasirapur and they didn’t question my account.’

She considered how credible that might sound. Gerald had not been in uniform, she remembered. He would not have had any form of identity on him. His story would be the only one in town.

‘But how did they think you’d ended up in the river?’

‘That was easy to explain. The celebrations got a bit boisterous. They always do, don’t they? And somehow I tripped and fell, and my friends weren’t able to reach me because the river was flowing too fiercely.’

‘Then surely they would have sent to Jasirapur for someone to come and collect you.’

He shook his head. She noticed a crafty smile playing around his lips. ‘I told them the friends I’d been with were also traders and by now they would have moved on, travelling north-westwards. That was the direction I intended going, towards the Persian border. I told them that once I was on my feet again, I’d start out and join them. And I did. Not join them, of course, because they didn’t exist, but I travelled north-west to the border.’

‘Without money?’

‘There are ways. The villagers sent me off with a few rupees and India is full of temples.’

‘You begged your way to the border!’

‘More or less.’

‘And after that, when you got to Persia?’

‘I scrounged whatever I could, then when I reached Turkey, took whatever job I could get. Anything that would feed me. Once I had sufficient money, I travelled on to the next place. It was bloody awful, I can tell you. The things I had to do … but once I reached France, life improved. I travelled up the country as far as Rouen and got taken on as a waiter in a local bistro. The tips were good and I actually enjoyed the life—not waiting, of course. Being at everyone’s beck and call didn’t suit me at all. But the idea of running a restaurant, that really appealed and still does. When I get to the States, that’s what I’ll do. It’s America I want to go to.’

She had been listening to him in disbelief. How much credence should she give to this account of his travels? Could she really imagine the arrogant young cavalry officer she’d known begging at temples, or scavenging food bins or waiting on tables? Or was that as much a fantasy as his plan to open a restaurant in America without money and without papers?

She said none of this. Instead, she asked, ‘If you liked the life in France so much, why didn’t you stay?’

‘Ever heard of Hitler? That’s why, Daisy. The Jerries were about to invade and it wasn’t safe. I’d picked up a bit of French here and there, but any German soldier with the slightest ear would know I was English. If they found me, I’d have been interned immediately. I reckoned I might as well languish in prison here as there.’