Carry On

by Celia Lake

  "There was - I didn't mean to eavesdrop, Sister, they were near where I was sitting by the outside shrine." Elen hated to admit it, but Sister Pomona smiled at her.

  "Anyone talking outside should know there might be someone at the shrines." That was true, but people got angry about that sort of thing. "Go on."

  Elen took a breath. "One of them was talking about inconsistencies in the records. That more than one person wasn't turning things in properly. Healer Cole among them."

  "Ah, that's a useful line. The administrative folk aren't nurses, but they spot entirely different sorts of issues. Did you hear a name, by chance?"

  "Only the first. Berth and..." Elen frowned, calling it back to memory. "Clarice. Berth was Welsh, her accent was like where I'm from, the mines, South Wales. I got the impression they worked in the same tasks, but not perhaps always together?"

  "That should give me plenty to be getting on with. Now..." Sister Pomona seemed about to say more, when there was a knock on her door.

  Three minutes later, Elen found herself cheerfully bundled out the door with a small canister of tea, half a tin of shortbread, and a promise to be in touch. She turned to go back to Roland's room, feeling entirely turned about.

  Chapter 21

  Friday, April 23rd, Roland’s room and the garden shrine

  Roland had been in no state to discuss anything after his visit to the healing baths. For one thing, he wasn't sure he remembered what had happened when he was alone in the dark. It certainly didn't fit tidily into sentences with nouns and verbs and adjectives. He just knew that it felt good. Right. Possible. Even hopeful.

  He had kept turning 'hopeful' around in his head once he was settled back in his chair, tucked in, his hair dried with a charm. No one asked him if he’d seen anything, or felt anything. They just trusted, with a kind of trust he envied, that it had done what was needed. He might have managed something more, but Harry was already waiting with Elen when they brought him out. He certainly couldn’t talk about it with both of them at once. Whatever this was, it felt fragile, like questions would shatter it.

  He'd hoped for a chance to talk privately with Elen, but the rest of the afternoon and early evening were taking up with the usual quotidian needs. Harry was in and out with his supper, with his potion. Elen didn't ask him about the bath, instead settling down to read to him.

  His dreams that night had been different. Sometimes, now, he dreamed of the War. Of the noises of the Front, particularly, the cracks of shots, the shouts and screams, the sounds of the mud. This time, he dreamed of noises, but they were utterly different. The night held hoofbeats in some meadow, a horse at full gallop. It was the sound of the sea beating on the shore, and a hint of baying hounds.

  Roland had thought at first they were hunting him, they had that note to them that he knew, with certainty, was a pack who'd found their quarry and were running it to ground. A moment later, he realised they weren't hunting him. It was more like he was a part of the hunt, carried along, part of a community again.

  He woke, on the edge of tears, from that sense of being included in something that mattered. The idea that he could be, that he was not so badly broken as to lose that forever, consumed him.

  Fortunately, he had woken early, before Elen appeared, before Harry showed up with his breakfast. By the time anyone opened his door, he'd pulled himself together, and was sitting reading. Once again, he didn't have a chance to talk to Elen. She was called away for part of the morning. That afternoon, she had her own time in the baths, and wasn't back with him until nearly supper time. He wondered, looking at her, if her experience had been anything like his, what her dreams might be like, but he'd have to put that aside for another day.

  The next morning had apparently been chaos. Elen had been called away to help with something again, and Harry had been in and out with various bits of laundry and someone came in to wash the windows and mop the floors. It was hardly restful. Elen came back just in time to help with his lunch. As she was about to help him into his chair for the afternoon trip to the garden, there was a knock on the door.

  "Pardon, Major. There's a Captain Deschamps, called to see you." Harry ducked his head. This was new, though Roland should have expected it, really. He'd thought Cadwell was at least somewhat likely to follow through.

  Roland glanced up at Elen, and she considered. "Outside, do you think? Or would you rather in here?" Outside had more privacy, but greater complication. That won out, however, even if it would be awkward.

  "Outside." Roland swallowed. "I - thank you. Harry, if you'd tell Captain Deschamps we'll be outside in a few minutes. Elen, I suppose I should manage a shirt and trousers, at least." That took longer than he liked, but inside of ten minutes, she was wheeling his chair out the door to the ward, and nodding to Cadwell.

  "Just along here, Captain, there's a nice spot outside." Elen's voice was brisk and much more distant now. Roland wondered for a moment if he'd hurt her feelings, but she knew Cadwell had offered his help. When she had him settled in the usual shrine area, she stood. "I should let you talk. I'll be back in an hour, Major, to check on things." Before Roland could say anything further, she'd nodded briskly, and made her way off.

  Cadwell perched on the edge of the bench. "Sir." A nod to Roland's rank. Then his face cracked into a smile. "Pardon, I didn't realise it would be quite such a production."

  "Nurse Morris has very strong opinions about the power of being outside, and she's not wrong." He settled back. "I can see people coming close, from here. What brings you, then, Cadwell?"

  "Several things." The use of his first name had relaxed the younger man, making it clear they were going at this as peers, not a superior officer issuing a command. "I'm assigned to London, starting next week, and overseas a fortnight or so after that. So I'm afraid what I've found is what I'm likely to find."

  "The Front?" Roland was immediately worried about the implications.

  "No, headquarters, in France. Some assignments in the field, but mostly analysis. I want to do my part, but - my brother."

  Roland considered how to say what he wanted to say. "There's no sense wasting your life. No sense wasting anyone's life. Use your brains, see how many others you can save, that's an honourable fight. And a needed one."

  Cadwell exhaled, and murmured. "Appreciated." Roland felt a rush of pride, all of a sudden, like he'd not felt in months. That he'd done something worth doing. Perhaps the bath had unlocked a door in him, made it possible to improve things for someone else. He'd thought he'd never feel like that again, that it would be endless days of not achieving much at all. But he could hear it in Cadwell's voice, that the man had needed someone to tell him it was all right not to charge heedless into the guns.

  "So, what did you find out, then?" Roland kept his voice even. He'd always been good at this bit, steadying junior officers, encouraging them to share what they'd seen.

  "There's a half dozen or so cases like yours, though none so prominent. Captains, one other Major, of good families, with money, who aren't recovering as they should be, whatever that means to healers. You're the only one they're bringing out for presentations, though. The others aren't so well-spoken. Or even speaking much at all. Not very responsive."

  Roland frowned. If they were on something like his evening dose all the time, he could well believe none of them wanted to do anything. Above and beyond whatever injuries they had themselves. "Do you have names?"

  Cadwell nodded. "Safe to give you a list?" Ah, he was a clever man.

  Roland frowned. "I don't suppose you have a book on you, you can leave here? I'd say write it into the margins, there. They don't - they have not been as diligent in searching my things as to suggest they'd find that."

  "You feel that, then, that you're something of a captive in the Tower of London, as it were? Treated well, but - limited." Cadwell's voice was cautious now.

  "I do, rather. It is rather a bother, not knowing who is doing what. I'm quite sure of Nurse Morris's good will
, if you need to get something to me, but anything else..." Roland let his voice trail off.

  "How about this. When we're done here, I'll go off to the bookshop, find a couple of books you might enjoy, and write the names starting on - hmm. Page 52 of the oldest of the books." Cadwell waved a hand. "I can come back and leave them with the orderly. I'll tuck the names into the gutter, so someone thumbing through shouldn't spot them."

  "Suitably random." Roland approved. Especially not knowing what books might be handy and unlikely to draw attention in Roland's room. "Ta. That's more than we knew so far. I don't suppose you found out anything about why they keep trotting me out?"

  "Nothing more than you knew already. You are articulate, you know how to give the right show about things." Cadwell hesitated. "I've heard several people comment that you are your father's son. And your mother's."

  Roland stiffened. "Ah." He couldn't quite hide his reaction, and he saw Cadwell take that information in. A man with that sort of knack for espionage wouldn’t miss something like that twitch, unfortunately, and cursing him mentally seemed entirely unfair after he had been so usefully clever with the books.

  "I saw your father briefly, when they called me in for assignment. I might do so again. Probably will, from what they said. Do you - may I pass on a message for you?" There was a brief moment, and Roland could see Cadwell doing the maths, that if people were keeping Roland isolated here, that his father, his parents, might play into that somehow.

  Roland shrugged slightly. Anything he said would be wrong, entirely too revealing, or both. And while Cadwell might well be a suitable ally, he didn't know the man well enough to take a risk. "My father knows where I am and how to reach me."

  Cadwell looked at him for a long moment, then nodded, changing the subject promptly. "Is there anything I can pick up for you besides the books? Newspaper? Do they permit you a paper?"

  "No. Rather infantilising, honestly, though Nurse Morris passes along the essential news."

  "Do you get to talk to other patients much?" Cadwell glanced around, taking in the larger gardens. There were two settled in the shade, perhaps fifty feet away, playing some sort of game. Chess, probably. There were a few other small groupings, but most were individuals with their uniformed nurses or orderlies.

  "No. They've kept me quite separate. I gather the others on my ward are rather seriously injured, and there's nothing like a day room." Roland shrugged minutely. "One further mystery of the place."

  "I admit I'm not clear on how the Temple - or any other hospital - is supposed to work. And there must be concerns about infection, or staffing, or people interfering with other people's treatments. But still even soldiers mingle from time to time."

  Roland was about to say something again, when a nurse came by, inquiring whether Roland was all right, where was the nurse responsible for him, and he had to spend a good five minutes reassuring her that he was quite capable of sitting in a chair outside with Cadwell. By the time that was done, a nurse and her patient had parked themselves on the nearest benches, and by mutual agreement he and Cadwell turned to inane conversation about school, people they knew in common, and the current bohort tournament rankings.

  Chapter 22

  Elsewhere, that afternoon

  Elen wasn’t quite sure how she had gotten herself into this. She didn’t know what had come over her, certainly. But once Roland had suggested she get a look at his files, she hadn’t been able to let go of the idea. It seemed entirely mad, but even the time in the baths had not washed it away, had perhaps even lodged it more intractably in her mind.

  Now he was off with Captain Deschamps. Certainly, it was good someone had called to see him. No one expected Elen to be anywhere in particular. And, best of all, this was the afternoon Sister Almeda had a longer meeting for senior staff. A good forty-five minutes, if all went well. Almost certainly half an hour.

  She stuck her hand a little more in the pocket of her apron. There was her notebook. She’d have to trust on her personal shorthand to obscure it enough. But more importantly, there were the set of narrow lockpicks tucked into the small leather sewing kit she kept on her at all times.

  She hadn’t used the skills in years, not more than once or twice. But every so often, at about the point she’d considered packing the lockpicks away, she’d need to unlock a wardrobe door or a trunk when the key wasn’t handy. Once, at the Temple of Youth, when a small boy had locked himself in a closet. She could only hope that she remembered enough and enough of the charms that helped, or there would be no chance of getting at Roland’s files.

  Elen lurked at the end of the hallway for several minutes, waiting for Sister Almeda to leave for the meeting. Finally there was the sweep of skirts, the scolding “Nurse Williams, what do you think you’re doing there, tidy this up immediately. Spic and span is a nurse’s work.”

  Elen disagreed. Tidiness helped with their work, of course, knowing where things were, being able to lay hands on them in an emergency. And cleanliness avoided infection, and that mattered a lot. But tidiness was a means to the end, not the goal in and of itself. That, however, was for another time.

  Two minutes later, the hallway was clear, as the nurses still on the hall disappeared into the lounge for a tea break. She sympathised, having Nurse Almeda right on top of them must be horribly difficult.

  That left her to make her way down to the office doorway, getting the lockpicks into her hand, then beginning to work on the lock. As she’d hoped, it was not actually a difficult lock, though it needed one of the charms to ease it. She murmured the words under her breath, remembering how Uncle Dewi had explained it was like oil in the lock, helping the pins move freely.

  The lock clicked under her fingers, and she eased the door open. It didn’t make a sound, and Elen was grateful for a moment that Sister Almeda liked sneaking up on the nurses on her ward, and kept the door well oiled. Once inside, she closed it again, silently, and then looked around. There was a door in one wall, ajar enough for her to see that was a private lavatory. No use as a place to hide or escape through, then, not if Sister Almeda came back. Only short curtains, a few bare inches longer than the window sill.

  The room was not large, either. The desk took up most of the space, a large wooden monstrosity that was far more for show than use. There were tidily arranged supplies on the top, an inkwell and dip pen, as well as pencils. A row of file cabinets stood along the back, and Elen went there immediately.

  These were locked, and she suspected the locks were rather more particular. A number of people had some reason to enter the office itself, to leave a file or pick something up. There were certain medications and potions that had to be logged, those were in the cabinet by the door that most people would assume was a wardrobe. So the door itself would have to yield to a variety of keys, but the files, those would be more private.

  The cabinets were labelled, in a way, but not with anything Elen found immediately sensible, like the alphabet. Instead, each had a symbol on them, something that would make sense to Sister Almeda, surely, Then she peered more closely, and frowned. Some of them were planetary symbols. She knew the one for the sun, there was Venus, there was Mars. There were others, too, that she suspected came from alchemical sources or something of the kind.

  Perhaps that meant that the files were sorted by the cause of the illness, rather than by patient name. It was a ridiculous system, not least because it required knowing about the cause before you could file someone. For anyone else needing the file to know enough about the case, you’d need to look in the right place.

  Elen wondered how someone would keep track of it. At the Temple of Youth, active files were kept alphabetically, and archived files by the date of arrival, with a ledger and a series of cards, ordered by last name. She couldn’t see anything like a card system, but a ledger seemed plausible. She looked around, frowning at the desk.

  Whatever index there was, it would need to be easy to get to, because you’d be consulting it all the time. Sh
e pulled a silk handkerchief out of her other apron pocket, and wrapped it around her fingers, to avoid leaving any smudges or marks that could be traced back to her. No sense being foolhardy.

  The top drawer, at the right of the desk, was quite wide. When she opened it, there was a good size book of deep brown leather, worn darker on the corners where fingers must touch it frequently. She tugged another handkerchief, her regular cotton one, out of her skirt pocket, and used them to put the ledger on the desk, then thumbed through the front quickly.

  That was promising. The first pages were a series of lists and columns that stretched across the facing page. There were spaces for the patient’s name, where they were from, a symbol for where the file was located, the date of admission and discharge. Death, in some cases. Too many, she thought, glancing at the lists. They were in order by date of admission, and there was a brief diagnosis for many of the patients, though not all.

  She thought hard, about when Roland must have been admitted. She carefully turned the pages to find the entries for last November, and then reading forward, until she found his name in a neat enough hand. Reading across the line, she copied the information down. There was a file identification number that must match up with records somewhere else, when he was admitted, and then the diagnosis line. Magicis per contumeliam.

  Her Latin normally only extended to plant names and healing treatments, but she thought that was probably not terribly informative, even if she knew what contumeliam meant. Something by magic.

  It did however give the symbol for where his file was. It was filed in the Mars cabinet, which she might have guessed. Since there was no further number, she could only assume it was alphabetical in there. She glanced at the watch pinned to her apron. Eight minutes gone. She didn’t have long left. She carefully put the ledger back in the drawer, then turned to the cabinets.