Carry On

by Celia Lake

  He had not been inclined to tell her, either. Some patients, especially when they had been in hospital a while, wanted to talk to anyone who would listen. Major Gospatrick, instead, had thus far been near silent. Not quite sullen, that had a different feel to it, but there was a wall of reserve, as if the prospect of getting to know her was just too much effort for him to take. She had been honestly surprised when he asked her about the meeting.

  She heard the bells begin to chime on the top of the Temple bell tower. It was indeed the pattern for the half hour, and she hurried inside the ward, turning down the hall to her patient’s room. She would have to do this the hard way, by observation and perhaps an occasional well-timed question.

  As she came up to the door, it opened, and the second orderly on the ward, came out, with a bob of his head. “Nurse.” The other one, Harry, heard this, and opened the door a little wider. “That is Walter, nurse. And it’s Ed and Arnold, on the night shift. Major Gospatrick has had his bath and a shave, all ready for the afternoon. We bring supper around at six.” For her to supervise before she left at half-seven, then.

  She nodded. “Thank you. Appreciated. Do let me know if there’s anything I can do to be a help?”

  He looked her up and down, then shrugged wordlessly, and turned away to his next set of duties. She slipped into the room, closing the door behind her, and took in her patient. He was on his back in bed again, slightly propped up, staring at the ceiling. It was a particularly boring ceiling, even by hospital standards, there was not even much in the way of a pattern.

  She considered very cautiously, “Major, would you - would you like something to look at? On the ceiling?” She’d done it for the children in the Temple of Youth, with some sort of image, constellations, sometimes she’d gotten someone to do an illusion charm with characters from their favourite story.

  Major Gospatrick lifted his head, gave her the sort of quelling look that made her take a full step back. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. She swallowed, then turned away, to check over the various items on the back table, the sort of check one did automatically and that could fill as much time as was needed.

  “You may continue reading.”

  His voice sounded a little raw, and Elen was completely unable to get a sense of the emotion in it. She took a breath, then turned to look at him. His expression was entirely neutral, she couldn’t read that either. Instead, she nodded. “Of course. What is the last thing you remember?”

  Major Gospatrick coughed. “They were in the city, the bazaar, talking about hiring a boat to go downriver.”

  He’d dozed through a chapter then. Not one of her favourite bits of this book, but she’d have to read it again. Nothing much happened, and it rather bogged down in descriptions of the river boat and the bargaining. However, she had been asked to do far worse things in the course of her work.

  “Let me get a glass of water. May I pour one for you?”

  There was a hesitation. “I have not been permitted my own.”

  Of course Sister Almeda hadn’t said anything about that. Sister Almeda hadn’t said anything about much, really. “May I ask why?”

  “They get broken.” He didn’t explain, and she wasn’t sure how to ask.

  “I’m a fine hand with a dustpan. Or I could get you a metal one?”

  He tilted his chin to peer at her, down his nose, entirely dubious. “Water, please, thank you.” The mixture of the expression and his automatic, instinctive gesture at manners infuriated her all of a sudden and she wanted to stomp away. But that wasn’t the done thing. People who needed care got like this. People like him, even more so. He’d been an active man, with power and influence and control, and he certainly had far less of all three now.

  It was why she’d preferred working with younger people. Oh, a boy of ten could be presumptuous and demanding, but that was far easier to manage than a man, particularly a man like this, fallen from whatever position he once held. She had no desire to insult her current patient, it would make everything harder.

  Instead, she just poured a glass for him. “I’ll bring along something metal tomorrow. Here.” She waited for him to get a decent grip, took her own glass with her, and set it down within easy reach. Then she flicked through the book, back a chapter, and began reading again.

  They got through three and a half chapters, with occasional points where he asked her to read a section again, or stop. He didn’t explain himself, of course, but she went along with it. At six, precisely, his meal was delivered. Elen arranged the bed table again, and accepted her own plate. Apparently she was to eat with him, or at least at the same time, which meant no choice in her food.

  It wasn’t bad, mind. The evening brought her a simple curry, nothing fancy, but with a little bit of a bite to it, and a cooling yoghurt to smooth things out. And the portion was reasonable. She’d have to make sure to have a solid breakfast, though, as she had this morning.

  When the meal was cleared, she coughed. “Sir, may I ask your preferred routine for the evening?” She was trying to cover for the fact she’d been given the barest schedule, and she had no idea about medications or potions or anything else.

  He sounded almost bored. “At seven, they’ll bring my potion. Twenty minutes later, I won’t know or care what you do until the next morning.” Something strong, then. Notably strong. She wondered why, but she couldn’t ask. It would immediately reveal her ignorance.

  “Of course. Well, let’s see if we can finish this chapter, then, and pick up with the next in the morning.”

  Chapter 6

  Tuesday, April 6th, at the Temple of Healing

  Roland hated these days. Bath in the morning as soon as breakfast was cleared, but everything still felt sodden and slow. Then he had to sit stock still so he could be shaved and his hair combed until his scalp hurt.

  Putting on his uniform felt like insult added to injury. Everything fit wrong, now. The collar choked him, the jacket pinned his arms down, the weight of the fabric exhausted him. He’d worn his uniform with pride, before, and now it felt more like chains and shame.

  Then he had to deal with the combined indignity of being bundled into a chair. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t walk on his own, though that was bad enough, but also the discomfort of going from indoors to sunlight, and back indoors. It left his head pounding, and of course there was nothing to be done about it and saying anything would make everything subtly worse. It wasn’t far to the meeting room, at least, but it was more time outside than he’d had since the last time he’d been dragged out to one of these meetings.

  Nurse Morris at least did not flit around fussing. He was, frankly, a bit startled she was still here, but she turned up every morning on time. She read to him, and knitted or rolled bandages when he dozed. She saw to each of his potions and needs with meticulous care, including making sure he always had a glass of water handy. He didn’t always trust himself to hold it safely, but that was a different problem.

  He still had no real sense of her, however. She didn’t talk about herself or what else she’d done. Roland still had no more idea why she’d been sent home from the front than he had the first time Harry had talked about her.

  He had no idea if she hated reading the adventure stories. When one of the helpful women had come round with a cart with reading material, he’d picked what felt safe. Unrevealing. A few times, Nurse Morris made a comment that suggested she’d read them before, about a future scene, so perhaps like him, she actually sort of enjoyed them. Or perhaps she’d just read them to other patients, long before him.

  Now, she trotted along slightly behind them, carrying her ever-present satchel. And, in this case, the canes he needed to walk the short distance from where they parked his chair to where he was put on display.

  It made him feel like a circus elephant, or a monkey in a zoo, as if he were entirely a show, not to be consulted, just performing on demand. He wasn’t sure what good it did, since most of the time he wasn’t even talki
ng to people who might enlist, but instead the people who might talk to the people who might enlist.

  This time was no different. He was wheeled into a side room, just a door or two down the hall from one of the bigger lecture rooms that were sometimes used for healer demonstrations and classes. “His canes, Nurse Morris?”

  She promptly handed over the canes, and then came to steady the chair while Harry helped him up. It was worse than usual today, he could feel it. Not just sodden, but downright limp, neither ankle wanted to flex much, and his knees felt like they’d give out any minute. “I’ll need a chair.” He hated admitting it, but it would be worse if he fell down. For him, but also for Harry and Nurse Morris, he suspected.

  “The basket chair?” He heard her voice behind him, and didn’t risk turning around.

  Harry tsked. “No, miss. He has to walk in, or they’ll - well. I’ll go see there’s a chair ready, sir. You sit for a minute.”

  Roland let himself drop back into the chair. It creaked alarmingly, the woven basketwork was not nearly as sturdy as it should be. He finally permitted himself to glance over his shoulder. Nurse Morris looked like she wanted to say several things, and was restraining herself. Curious. Had they not told her about his dog and pony show? He suspected not. They probably imagined she wouldn’t last more than one or two, too, so it hardly mattered.

  It was only a minute before Harry came back. “Right big crowd there. Let me help you up, sir. Got the chair for you, and Nurse, one for you at the side, so you can be handy just in case. Also, looks proper, having a nurse there.”

  Roland caught her nod out of the corner of his eye, before all his attention had to go to the supposedly simple process of standing up and not falling down. He leaned on the canes heavily, and he could feel the sharp ache in his wrists start up almost immediately. Then, step by awkward step, he made his way out through the door that Nurse Morris held, with Harry right beside him in case he toppled.

  It was one of the bigger lecture halls, enough to seat a hundred, at least. He’d never been able to decide which was easier. In small groups, they asked far more probing questions, as if the intimacy made them friends. It didn’t, of course. In the larger hall, the questions were more distant, more general.

  But there were more people, and the weight of their attention ground him down far more quickly. It was worse when they were mostly Army, the people who knew him, knew his father. Sometimes, knew his mother; he had long since stopped being surprised at who his mother had come into contact with in the course of her work. He could manage better when it was a faceless horde.

  This hall had a low stage, and they had come in through the stage door, so at least he didn’t have to manage stairs. There was a single chair in splendid isolation at the front. He didn’t go to it yet, instead propping himself against the wall at the side of the hall. Nurse Morris glanced at him, then he could see a moment of decision. Before he could stop her, she had stepped out on the stage, picking up a small table that had been set out of the way as she did so. “You should have some water.”

  Roland could feel his eyes widen, and he willed himself not to react further. He permitted himself the nod of an officer, telling someone to do something she was going to do anyway, but that was a decent idea. She put the table on the far side, next to the chair, then bustled off, out of the hall through the stage door. A minute later, she came back with with a solid drinking glass, two thirds full of water.

  Just having it there felt like a gift, even if he wouldn’t dare touch it in front of all these people. And by now, there were quite a few of them, the rumbling of a hundred people or so talking quietly, catching up. It was these moments that made him feel most alone. They all were chatting away, easy with each other, and he was beginning to forget what that felt like entirely.

  He heard the tower bells, and someone came out of the crowd as they settled down, the seats squeaking. His introduction, then. This time it was a brigadier, by the insignia, but not one he knew. The man was in his fifties, the kind of portly middle age that suggested he got plenty of rich food and almost no exercise, and had not been near the front himself. There was the predictable speech about brave men, and the service of the nation, and how to encourage more people to go fight.

  He knew his cue, and he made his way out along the stage, awkwardly, leaning on both canes. The brigadier had the grace to step aside and give him space, not all of them managed that, but Roland thought he looked a little annoyed at how long the process took. There was a final nod as Roland sat, ungracefully, and then he was alone on the stage.

  Now, all he could do was throw himself into the challenge of talking to a horde of nameless people, mostly men, who were looking at him with that mix of pity and fear. He could almost smell it on them, the fear, at least. He couldn’t let them realise how badly this war had broken him. What little use he had now was people like these coming to hear him, see him. No one listened to him at any other time, he wasn’t good for anything else.

  So instead, he gathered himself up, and made himself shine. All the wit and the charm and the way he remembered being, in the past before the mist and pain and loss. “So sorry not to be standing here before you all, but I’m still recovering, you see, and I’m not supposed to overdo it. The nurses - isn’t she lovely, there? - they do excellent work, now, but it’s not nice to worry them so. But here I am, to tell you a bit of why I volunteered, what made me want to serve King and Council.”

  That had a story, a patter, that he’d worked out through grinding repetition. It was a thing to think about when he was flat on his bed with nothing to look at, those times when every hour felt like a week. There was the story about how he decided to join up, a conversation in a pub with three of his yearmates. How he’d been brought up to service and courage, a family that had served in the army, in the navy, over the generations. Doing the right thing, for the right reason, how he’d been sorry to miss out on the Boer War, the stories his older cousins had told.

  Now, of course, he was sure they’d been lying through their teeth. He’d heard a few things from older men he’d served with, about how brutal the fighting had been there, or in the Sudan, or half a dozen other places. They all told lies, and here he was keeping to that loathsome and obligatory tradition.

  He pressed on, into the stories about his training, about learning proper form, the marching that he’d not needed since he’d been sent overseas. Running, yes. Ducking, certainly. But if they had put a tenth the time into how to dig efficiently as they had into parade manoeuvres and cavalry charges, it would have gone much better. Or for that matter, shooting, though he’d been a good shot from a boy. Country living did that for you.

  Roland moved onto the next set piece, about having charge of men, having to decide who got which task. This was always tricky, because of course, as soon as he thought of people, he thought of specific people, too many of them ghosts now. That wouldn’t do, he couldn’t permit that. Instead, he talked about being part of something larger than himself, understanding that each of them played a part.

  The bitterness was for later, all the poison deep inside him that had bubbled over when he realised the officers sending him off to fight were sacrificing his men for no good reason. Doing the same thing, over and over again, with horrific results.

  He didn’t talk about what he’d seen at Mons. He’d heard the stories, in the first hospital he’d been taken to. A few times, from his men. Ghostly images. Some had called them angels, some the ghosts of the bowmen of Agincourt, come to defend their fellow countrymen. All he knew is that he was alive and broken, and too many were dead, all to hold off the Germans for a mere two days. Heroic, successful, a miracle, that’s what they said, and none of it was right.

  Whatever salvation that might have been, there had been none at Ypres, in the long slog of a battle, on and off for weeks, with the cavalry shifting and harrying. He’d lost two good horses before the enchantments snared him and brought him down too. The horses had been lucky, he
thought.

  Somehow, he managed to get through the final stages, about what he hoped these distinguished folks would take away. He commended the treatment he’d gotten along the way, entirely aware that there were a row of healers in the back, their red robes and badges of rank marking them out. He wondered if Healer Cole were among them, and then how he’d know if he were. What would it mean, anyway, if the man came to this dog and pony show, but couldn’t be bothered to consult with his patient directly.

  This lot, mercifully, did not have many questions, and the ones they had were the predictable ones. Comments on his bravery, praise for his eloquence, questions about if he would speak to newly enlisted men and inspire them. He knew he’d say yes, in the end, but deferred with the expected phrases. “As I am available, of course. My Healers arrange all that sort of thing, sir.”

  Finally, after what felt like a full day march, the room finally began to empty. He could not force himself to stand, nor even to pay attention to what was going on around him. When he heard the voice beside him, he startled, almost lashing out before he somehow managed to stop himself.

  “Harry’s gone to get your chair, since they’re all gone. Just a minute, Major.”

  Chapter 7

  Roland’s room, later that evening

  Elen glanced up from the letter she’d just finished to peer at the clock on the bedside table. They had gotten Major Gospatrick back, after that awful presentation, and he’d dropped into bed like a rock. He was running a slight fever, she thought, from where she’d checked his pulse earlier, but for the moment she was waiting and seeing. If he woke, she could ask what he’d find soothing.

  She’d drawn the blinds, and had been sitting all afternoon and into the evening, with just the bedside lamp. She hadn’t wanted to leave him. There was no reason she couldn’t stay, she had said, and she could see to a late supper and his evening potion when he woke up. Harry had looked pleased, somehow, saying how it’d make things easier for the night staff.