A Nightingale Christmas Promise

by Donna Douglas

  Kate flashed a look at her brother. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither do we, Miss Carlyle,’ Dr Ormerod said gravely.

  ‘But there must be some mistake?’

  ‘Indeed there was.’ Dr Ormerod picked up another sheaf of notes from his desk. ‘We have just received the patient’s post-mortem results. According to the PM, Corporal Rayner suffered heart failure following a large dose of digitalis.’ He looked over his spectacles at her. ‘Twice the recommended dose, I would imagine. Enough to stop a man’s heart.’

  Kate looked at Leo. ‘Why would you give him digitalis when I’d already done it?’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘But it was there, on his notes?’

  Her brother looked up at her, his eyes meeting hers for the first time with a look of sorrow. ‘There were no notes, Kate.’

  ‘Yes, there were. I know there were.’

  ‘Then where are they?’ Her father spoke up, his voice rumbling like thunder.

  ‘More to the point, why was your brother attending to one of my patients, Miss Carlyle?’ Dr Ormerod put in.

  Kate felt the heat rise in her face. ‘I was unwell and Leo offered to finish the round for me.’

  ‘Unwell, you say? In what way?’

  ‘I was tired. I had been up with a patient all night.’ She saw Dr Ormerod’s knowing look. ‘But not so tired I’d make a mistake like this,’ she added quickly.

  ‘Then how do you explain it?’ Dr Ormerod asked.

  ‘I – I can’t.’

  ‘I can,’ her father interrupted her. ‘It’s perfectly clear to me what happened. You were distracted, not in your right mind, and you forgot to fill in this patient’s notes. Then you abandoned the rest of the round to your brother, without even telling him which patients you had seen and which you hadn’t. He then came upon this man, and finding no notes, quite understandably prescribed medication in the belief that he had not been treated. Isn’t that what happened, Leo?’

  He nodded. ‘I suppose it must have been.’

  ‘But I made the notes,’ Kate insisted. ‘I would never have prescribed anything for a patient without writing it up.’

  ‘You said yourself, you were tired and feeling unwell,’ Dr Ormerod pointed out.

  Kate had a sudden mental picture of Charlie Latimer, and of that wretched girl talking to her while she was trying to deal with a patient. Had it been Corporal Rayner? she wondered. If it was, then she could imagine how it might have slipped her mind in all her mental confusion.

  Dr Ormerod was watching her keenly. ‘I can see from your face it is possible?’

  ‘I suppose, but – I don’t know,’ she said.

  Her father banged his fist down on the desk, rattling the inkwell and making them all jump.

  ‘Do you realise what you’ve done, you foolish girl?’ he thundered. ‘Thanks to you, a patient has died. A man who should have expected to lead a full and vigorous life is now lying in the mortuary because of your stupidity!’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘Not only that, you have once again dragged the name of your family through the mud.’ He shook his head. ‘I am ashamed of you, Kate. Truly I am.’

  ‘Yes, well. If we may proceed …?’ Dr Ormerod readjusted his spectacles. When he looked up at Kate she thought she saw a glint of sympathy in his eyes. ‘Under the circumstances, I am afraid I have no choice but to place you before a disciplinary committee. With a recommendation for dismissal.’

  Kate looked at Leo. His eyes were glistening with tears.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he mouthed back at her.

  She took a moment to gather herself, then turned back to face Dr Ormerod. ‘What will happen now?’ she asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Should I report for duty?’

  Sir Philip laughed harshly. ‘Do you really think anyone would want a menace like you on the ward?’

  ‘I think it would be better if you took some time off,’ Dr Ormerod said kindly.

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ She paused. ‘I’m very sorry to have let you down.’

  As Kate rose to go, she heard her father mutter, ‘Sorry, she says! As if that’s any help to that poor man lying in the mortuary.’ He glared at her, his eyes cold. ‘In God’s name, why couldn’t you have kept quiet and stayed at the Hampstead where you belonged?’

  It didn’t take long for word of Kate’s disgrace to spread around the rest of the students. Rufus had stopped in at the SU bar for a swift drink after returning from a weekend visiting his mother, when he heard Evans, Gibson and Wallace discussing it.

  ‘Well, I heard a fellow died in her care,’ Evans was saying.

  ‘No one seems to know what happened exactly. I asked Sister about it but she was rather tight-lipped.’

  ‘All I know is Dr Ormerod’s in a foul mood and no one’s seen her since yesterday morning.’

  ‘I say, you don’t think she’s been sacked, do you?’ Gibson asked, eyes agog behind his thick spectacles.

  ‘We can but hope, old boy!’ Evans chuckled behind his pint glass.

  Wallace nudged him. ‘Her brother’s just walked in. Doesn’t look very happy, does he?’

  ‘I’m not surprised. She’s shamed the family name!’

  Rufus approached Leo as he stood at the bar. Leo sent him a sidelong look then ignored him as he ordered a glass of whisky.

  ‘What’s this I hear about your sister?’ Rufus said.

  ‘What about her?’ Leo downed the drink the barman put before him, then ordered another one.

  ‘Is it true she’s been suspended?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘It’s all round the SU.’

  ‘Bad news travels fast.’ Leo downed his drink with a grimace.

  ‘It is true, then?’

  Leo turned on him. ‘Yes, it’s true. Happy now?’ He slammed his glass down and gestured to the barman to refill it.

  ‘Steady on, old man. You’re drinking like a madman.’

  ‘What business is it of yours if I am?’ Leo stared down at the empty glass he gripped in his hand.

  ‘So what happened?’ Rufus asked him.

  Leo was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘There was a mistake. A man died.’

  ‘Not Kate’s mistake, surely?’

  Leo sent him a sharp look. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Because she’s too good a doctor.’

  ‘Even good doctors make mistakes.’ Leo spoke into his drink. ‘Anyway, I thought you’d be celebrating. You never wanted her here.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it? None of you ever felt she deserved to be here.’ His voice rose angrily. ‘You all made it clear you wanted her gone. Well, now you’ve got your way.’ He raised his glass in mocking salute to the students at the other end of the bar.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Ask him.’ Leo nodded over Rufus’ shoulder. Leo half turned to see Charlie Latimer had just walked in and was greeting a group of housemen who sat by the door.

  ‘Latimer? What’s he got to do with it?’

  Leo looked at him wonderingly. ‘You really don’t know, do you? I thought he’d have run straight to you, bragging about it.’

  Rufus felt an uncomfortable prickling up the back of his neck, as if he already knew what was coming. ‘Bragging about what?’

  ‘Your friend ditched my sister for a little nurse. Broke her bloody heart.’

  ‘How do you know? Did she tell you that?’

  Leo shook his head. ‘Kate never tells anyone anything, that’s her trouble. But a couple of the boys heard them having a big row about it in here.’ He gulped down his drink.

  Rufus glanced over at Latimer. He was laughing, slapping one of the housemen on the back.

  ‘She was utterly besotted with him, poor little fool.’ Leo followed Rufus’ gaze, his face bitter. ‘She must have been in a terrible state about it. No wonder she forgot to write up a patient’s notes …
’

  Rufus whipped his gaze back to Leo. ‘Is that what she did?’ Leo nodded. ‘But that’s not like Kate. Her notes are usually meticulous.’

  ‘Not this time.’

  Rufus paused for a moment, taking it in. ‘But that can’t be right,’ he murmured. ‘I know your sister. She would never be that negligent.’

  ‘I told you, she was broken-hearted.’

  Rufus shook his head. ‘Zeppelins could be dropping bombs on Bethnal Green and Kate Carlyle would still be writing up her notes.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t this time, all right?’ Leo snatched up his glass and downed the contents. ‘So stop going on about it. You’re only making everything worse.’ He jerked his head towards the door. ‘Go and bother your friends and leave me alone, would you?’

  Rufus put down his empty glass and looked across at Latimer, his face grim. ‘Oh, I will,’ he said.

  Charlie Latimer looked up with a grin as he approached.

  ‘Hello, old boy. You’re back, are you?’ he greeted Rufus cheerily. ‘How was sunny Leeds, or whatever God forsaken part of the world it is you come from?’

  Rufus looked down at Latimer’s hand, resting on his shoulder. ‘Never mind me,’ he said. ‘What’s all this I hear about you and Miss Carlyle?’

  Charlie pulled a face of mock regret. ‘Alas, I’m sorry to say, Miss Carlyle and I are no more.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He got caught with his trousers down!’ one of the young men said, and the others sniggered. Rufus looked at them, nudging and jostling each other like schoolboys.

  ‘I was rather caught out, I’m afraid,’ Charlie admitted. ‘I thought it was just nurses who liked to gossip amongst themselves, but it seems even paragons of virtue like Kate Carlyle listen to tittle-tattle.’ He sighed. ‘It’s a damn shame.’

  ‘For her?’

  ‘For me, old boy. I must say, I was having immense fun. But I suppose all good things must come to an—’

  Rufus lashed out, felling him with a single punch before he reached the end of his sentence.

  Charlie Latimer lay sprawled at his feet, nursing his jaw. ‘Good God, what was that for?’

  Rufus looked down at him. ‘That’, he said, ‘was for Kate Carlyle.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  On 7 May the ocean liner Lusitania was returning to Liverpool from a transatlantic voyage when it was torpedoed by a German submarine. The ship went down just off the coast of Ireland, with the loss of over a thousand passengers.

  The tragic news caused shock waves all around the country. Eleanor listened to the men discussing it on the ward as she went about her work that morning.

  ‘Just think, all those poor people dead,’ one of the soldiers was saying to another. ‘Women and children, too. They must have wondered what was happening to them, getting hit like that.’

  ‘Evil German swine,’ his friend joined in. ‘It’s one thing to have a go at us but killing innocent people!’

  ‘There’s already been riots on the streets, according to the newspaper,’ a third man said. ‘They went mad in Liverpool, smashing up German shops.’

  ‘I don’t blame ’em. Wait till this blasted leg of mine’s mended, then I’ll be back, making ’em pay!’

  At last, Eleanor thought. She had been trying to tell people not to trust the Germans, but as time went by they seemed to forget who their real enemies were.

  Well, at least this would remind them. It was just a terrible shame that so many lives had to be lost before they remembered.

  And then she looked through the French windows and saw her brother sitting on the terrace with Anna Beck.

  Eleanor pressed her face to the glass, watching them. They were playing chess, their heads bent together over the board. Harry looked up and grinned at Anna.

  It gave Eleanor a jolt. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her brother smile.

  She pushed open the windows and stepped outside. ‘Oh, hello,’ she feigned surprise. ‘I didn’t see you out here.’

  Anna sent her a wary look. Harry didn’t even glance her way. He kept his eyes fixed on the chess board as if she hadn’t spoken.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m painting Nurse Beck’s portrait, what does it look like?’ he snapped.

  Eleanor looked at Anna, who coloured guiltily. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be cleaning the bathrooms with Trott?’

  ‘She’s busy,’ Harry said.

  ‘She has other work to do.’

  ‘I thought you said I was supposed to be kept occupied?’ He looked up at his sister for the first time, his eyes cold.

  ‘I’ll keep you company.’

  ‘I’d rather spend time with Nurse Beck.’

  Anna stood up, smoothing down her apron. ‘Your sister’s right, Harry. I should get on.’

  She gave Eleanor a quick, embarrassed smile and then left, closing the French window behind her.

  Eleanor turned on her brother. ‘Really, Harry, I wish you’d stop being so childish’ she scolded him.

  ‘I might if you stopped treating me like a child!’

  She flinched. Harry rarely raised his voice, especially not to her.

  She busied herself, arranging the blanket around his shoulders in spite of the warm sun that bathed the terrace.

  ‘You know, you shouldn’t get too friendly with Nurse Beck,’ she said.

  ‘Why not? She’s nice.’

  ‘She’s half-German.’

  ‘And what’s that got to do with anything?’ Harry shrugged off the blanket. ‘Do you think she’s a saboteur, out to poison our cocoa?’

  Eleanor stared at him. ‘You may mock, Harry, but you hear stories—’

  ‘Where? Where do you hear these stories?’ He looked up at her, squinting in the sunlight. ‘I suppose Father told you one of his yarns from the John Bull?’

  The sarcastic edge to his voice rankled with her. ‘I didn’t hear about the Lusitania from Father. Or the John Bull.’

  Harry looked away, scowling, but said nothing.

  ‘Really,’ Eleanor went on, ‘I do wonder at your attitude these days. Especially after what the Germans did to you.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘They could have killed you, you know. If that bullet had been half an inch higher—’

  ‘I said, I don’t want to talk about it!’

  Eleanor looked down at her brother’s angry, set face. Harry always seemed to be irritable these days. Sister said it was because he was ill, but Eleanor refused to believe it. Her brother was not the kind to fall apart, not like those pale, trembling young men who howled in their sleep and cowered under their beds every time Grace Duffield dropped a bedpan.

  He was just bored and restless, she told herself. It was bound to happen. Harry was too bold and outgoing to stay cooped up in a hospital bed for weeks on end. He needed to be taken out of himself.

  She tried again. ‘I didn’t know you played chess?’

  ‘Anna was teaching me.’

  Eleanor winced. So it was Anna now, was it?

  She sat down opposite him. ‘Perhaps I could finish the game with you?’

  He raised listless eyes to meet hers. ‘Do you play?’

  ‘No, but I’m sure you could teach me.’

  ‘I don’t feel like it.’ He leant back in his seat and turned his face up to the sun. Eleanor watched him in frustration.

  ‘Some of the other men are playing whist. Perhaps you’d like to join in?’ she suggested.

  ‘No, thanks, I’d rather be on my own.’

  ‘Come on, Harry. You know you always used to love whist. It might help lift your spirits?’

  ‘Do you know what would really lift my spirits? If you left me alone!’

  Eleanor gave him a brittle smile. ‘You seem to prefer Anna Beck’s company to mine these days.’

  Harry did not reply. The silence lengthened, broken only by the distant sound of men’s laughter coming from the ward. />
  ‘I think I’ll go inside.’

  ‘Let me help you.’ Eleanor made a move towards him but he brushed her off.

  ‘For God’s sake, leave me be! You’re like an annoying fly, always buzzing round me.’

  ‘I’m only trying to help.’

  ‘Well, don’t.’

  She watched him struggle to his feet, leaning on his good arm to lever himself out of his chair.

  ‘I wrote to our parents,’ Eleanor said.

  Harry froze. ‘You did what?’

  ‘They deserve to know,’ she said. ‘They’d already had a letter from the War Office letting them know you’d been injured. All I did was tell them where you were, that I was looking after you …’

  Harry’s face was a rigid mask. ‘I asked you not to,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I know, but they were worried sick, Harry.’ She paused, then said, ‘They want to come and visit you.’

  ‘No!’ His eyes flew to meet hers, full of panic.

  ‘Why not? They only want to see you, make sure you’re all right.’

  ‘I can’t!’ He was suddenly agitated. ‘You’ll have to write to them again, tell them not to come.’

  ‘Why don’t you want to see them?’

  ‘I can’t! I just can’t. I’m not ready.’

  She looked at him, his face drained of colour.

  He wasn’t ready. He had said that to her once before, on the day he was first admitted. She remembered the trembling, frightened young man who had clung to her hand then and made her promise not to tell their parents where he was.

  ‘But you’re so much better than you were,’ she said. ‘Your shoulder’s almost healed, you’ve got your strength back …’

  Harry shook his head. ‘I can’t,’ he said, over and over again. ‘I can’t face them.’

  Eleanor went over to him. ‘Father wants to see you,’ she said. ‘Don’t you understand, Harry? You’re a hero.’

  ‘No!’ He looked up at her, pain flaring in his hazel eyes. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.’ He dropped his gaze, his voice faltering. ‘You don’t know what it was like out there. It made cowards of us all …’

  ‘Not you,’ Eleanor said. ‘You went into no-man’s-land, took a German bullet—’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Ellie!’ he cut her off angrily. ‘You don’t see it, do you?’