The Soldier's Return

by Rose Meddon

  ‘I feel it.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘I did ask that you be transferred to the RFC in Bryanston Square,’ Naomi made a point of saying to her brother, her tone still heavy with her disappointment.

  ‘I know. There was a big fuss,’ Ned replied.

  ‘There was? Why?’

  As best he could, given that the lower half of his body was being held rigid by the contraption of metal rods, Ned appeared to shrug his shoulders. ‘Can’t say for certain. Something to do with Cousin Elizabeth setting cats among pigeons, I think. How’s Father?’

  ‘What? Oh, much the same. Working too hard again.’

  ‘And Mamma?’

  ‘Waiting for me to report back on your condition—’

  ‘Please don’t let her come and visit, Min.’

  ‘I’m not sure I will be able to stop her—’

  ‘Please, Min,’ Ned urged. ‘I don’t need the fuss with Sister Morgan. You know how Mamma can be – she would come in, criticise everything, rub everyone up the wrong way—’

  While Ned and Naomi continued to discuss the wisdom of allowing Pamela Russell to visit – or not – Kate glanced about. Although not in the attic as such, the ceiling was, nevertheless, unusually low, and sloped down at an angle towards the top of the windows – of which there were only two in the entire room, neither of them having seen a chamois leather and bucket of water for several years. They did have curtains drawn back to either side but, being of mean and flimsy cloth, as well as too short by several inches, they struck her as entirely unsuited to the job for which they were intended. Slowly, she took in the rest of the room. On the wall that accommodated the four beds – each separated from the next by a small nightstand – the covering of paint might once have been white but was now what any honest person could only describe as grey. The linoleum on the floor was grey too, with a high shine, but so ancient and brittle that in places it had cracked, creating long fissures. By the door stood a desk, at first glance too bulky to have passed through the frame, let alone been manhandled up that narrow staircase – although, clearly, at some stage it must have been. Behind it, her papers illuminated in a pool of light from a desk lamp, Sister Morgan sat writing, her expression set with the same displeasure it had borne when she had opened the door to them.

  ‘Well, I make you no promises,’ she heard Naomi say; before going on to ask, ‘What about the food here? How is that?’

  ‘Desperately bad. Either boiled to oblivion or else mashed to a pulp. I can’t seem to make anyone understand that though I might lack the use of my legs, I still have my teeth and they chew just fine.’

  ‘Mount Eden was better?’

  ‘Infinitely. Back there, those chaps not on morphine could have a glass of wine.’

  To Kate, Naomi appeared to wring her hands. ‘Oh dear. Was I wrong to have you brought here? Only, now I’ve seen what it’s like, I’m beginning to wish I had left you in Dover – and I daresay you feel the same. Though of course, when I arranged it, I thought you were coming to the RFC.’

  With that, Ned reached to take one of Naomi’s hands. ‘You weren’t to know, Min. At least this way I’m closer to all of you.’

  ‘And what about the doctors? What do they say?’

  ‘Haven’t seen one yet.’

  ‘What? But you’ve been here—’

  ‘The doc in Dover said he thought I would be in traction for another month at least. He said only then will we know how I stand. Or how I don’t! Ha!’

  Despite giggling, and receiving an appreciative wink from him in return, Kate noticed that where Naomi was concerned, Ned’s attempt at humour went unnoticed. ‘How was your journey?’ she decided to ask him.

  ‘Long,’ he said flatly. ‘And dreadfully uncomfortable. Wouldn’t want to do it again, even dosed up with morphine and drowsy as hell.’

  ‘No,’ Naomi observed. ‘Well, the good thing is that you won’t have to.’

  ‘Thank Elizabeth for me, won’t you?’

  ‘I shall thank her when she gets you into the RFC,’ Naomi replied tartly. ‘And you have my word that I shan’t rest until she does.’

  ‘Seriously, Min,’ he said, wriggling his shoulders as though trying to get comfortable. ‘It’s fine. Whether I’m stuck in a bed here, or across the road, it doesn’t make much difference to me. Although, I suppose the food might be better.’

  At the far end of the room, Sister Morgan scraped back her chair. ‘Time to leave, ladies. Visiting hours are over for today.’

  Suddenly, Naomi grinned. ‘Across the road the nurses are prettier.’

  ‘Well, that’s done it,’ Ned whispered back and then pursed his lips into an identical grin. ‘Get onto Elizabeth forthwith! I demand to be moved!’

  Getting to her feet, Kate smiled. At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humour. And thank goodness for that because, from what she had seen today, it would appear that he was going to need every ounce of it.

  Travelling home afterwards, she glanced at Naomi. Since leaving the hospital, her manner had been one of preoccupation. It was understandable, of course: the conditions in which they had left Ned were hardly ideal. But at least he was back in London. At least he was back in England. If reports in the newspapers were to be believed, very few enlisted soldiers with injuries enjoyed such a luxury.

  At that moment, and without saying anything to her first, Naomi spoke to the cab driver and asked him to take them to the post office.

  ‘I’m going to telephone Cousin Elizabeth,’ she said once they had arrived and she was alighting onto the pavement. ‘You may prefer to wait here. I shan’t be long.’

  Sitting alone in the cab, Kate could only imagine that Naomi’s plan was to plead with her cousin to get Ned moved. Her expression, when she returned less than five minutes later, suggested she’d had no joy.

  ‘Did you get through to her?’ she was forced to enquire when Naomi seemed in no hurry to speak.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cousin Elizabeth. Did you manage to speak to her?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. I did. Although I have to say, she was not overly helpful.’

  ‘Oh?’ From what she’d heard of this Elizabeth, it was unlike her not to be obliging. The picture painted of her by both Naomi and Ned – and even by Aunt Diana – was that of a purposeful and determined woman with a knack for making things happen. With Naomi unusually tight-lipped, though, all she could do was wait and see whether she would elaborate.

  ‘She was sympathetic enough,’ Naomi eventually continued. ‘About Ned’s plight in that awful place. But when I asked how long it would be before she could find him somewhere more suitable, she became quite sharp with me. She said that she couldn’t just conjure a bed from nowhere. Supposedly, with all of the main hospitals full to bursting, and with Ned being in traction, we were fortunate she was able to find a bed at all.’

  ‘Goodness.’

  ‘She did promise to keep an ear to the ground for any change to the situation, but also cautioned against getting our hopes up.’ With that, Naomi turned to look directly at her. ‘But I have to hope, Kate. I have to. I can’t bear to think of Ned being in that miserable little room for a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.’

  Although able to understand Naomi’s distress, she could also appreciate Cousin Elizabeth’s point: no one could produce a bed from thin air. Perhaps, when Ned no longer needed to be in traction, it might become easier to accommodate him elsewhere. In the meantime, surely the good thing was that they didn’t have to journey down and back to Dover just to see him – something they had only been able to manage twice after that first time. And anyway, perhaps, when they went to see him tomorrow, things there wouldn’t seem quite so bad. Perhaps some of their disappointment stemmed from the shock of seeing the place for the first time, and to comparing it with the lavish new building around the corner. Had they not seen that, would the ward in Manston Street still have seemed so grim? Perhaps not quite so much, no – not that she would ever p
ersuade Naomi to see it that way.

  Returning to visit Ned again the following day, though, Kate realized that she had been wrong: the ward was no better and the experience no less depressing. The smell of food being cooked still lingered in the stairwell, Sister Morgan was still unnecessarily sharp with them, and the room still felt utterly gloomy – despite the fact that outside, the rest of London was enjoying a bright spring afternoon. No, Naomi was right, she thought as she studied afresh the dreariness of it all. Surely, any man injured in the service of his country deserved better than this? Confined to his narrow little bed by the traction device Ned might be stoic, but that didn’t make such conditions acceptable. And, the more she thought about it, the more she could feel her jaw tensing with frustration. There had to be something they could do to make things better for him – but what?

  Listening to Naomi relaying to Ned the bones of her conversation with Cousin Elizabeth the previous afternoon, she looked along the short row of beds. The only other patient who was awake was the young man in the bed closest to the door. Aware that Sister had chosen that moment to look across at her, but determining not to lose her nerve, she got up and walked towards him. When he looked up at her, she gestured to the empty chair at his bedside. ‘Would it be all right if I sat and talked to you for a moment?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ came the reply as the young patient manoeuvred himself more upright against the head of his bed.

  Belatedly hoping that she hadn’t raised his hopes in some way, she lowered herself onto the small wooden chair and placed her handbag on her lap.

  ‘We’re visiting Lieutenant Russell,’ she said, realizing too late how that was glaringly obvious. With a glance to Sister, whose head was now bent back over her work, she tried to smother a laugh. ‘What I mean is, he’s our brother. I’m Kate and that –’ she went on, turning to gesture back along the room, ‘is Naomi.’

  ‘Dickie Jupp,’ the young patient replied. ‘I didn’t have you two down as sisters.’

  Feeling her cheeks colouring, she bowed her head. Better to change the subject than become mired in explanations. To that end, she asked, ‘Do your family live in town?’

  Dickie Jupp shook his head. ‘No, worst luck. They’re down in Sussex. We keep hoping a bed will become available down there for me – you know, nearer home.’

  ‘Yes, I understand. Ned was in Dover. Having him here is…’ She hesitated. She had been going to say better but that wasn’t strictly true. ‘…more convenient.’

  ‘I should think so.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ she asked. From the little she could see of him, he appeared uninjured. He certainly didn’t look old enough to be a pilot. But then he didn’t really look old enough to be fighting a war in any shape or form. His messy dark hair and smattering of freckles gave him the look of someone about to leave school.

  ‘I’m – I was – Air Mechanic 1st Class, and part of a crew testing newly-delivered aircraft arriving into Farnborough – you know, before they are handed over to go into service. A couple of weeks back, the prop on one of them didn’t do quite what I was expecting. Infernal thing caught my sleeve and next thing I know, my hand was gone.’ While she was still struggling to comprehend what he had just said, from beneath the bedspread he withdrew his other arm, the sleeve of his striped pyjama jacket cut off above the elbow, the remains of his forearm heavily bandaged. There could be no mistaking that he no longer had a hand at the end of it. Forcing herself not to turn away, she tried to swallow down a gulp for air. ‘Fortunately, on that particular day there was a doc on site carrying out medicals, otherwise I wouldn’t be here at all – you know, too much blood lost. Instead, here I am, alive to tell the tale, albeit without my right hand. Won’t be back on the test crew, that’s for sure. Rotten shame, that. I enjoyed it immensely.’

  Still reeling with the shock of what had happened to him, and awed by the calm way in which he could speak of it, she felt lost to know how to respond. In coming across and sitting down, she’d been intending merely to draw him into conversation about conditions on the ward. But how could she do that now? What an unimaginable thing to happen to someone so young. Unlike Luke or Ned, he hadn’t even been anywhere near the firing line and yet, in that split of a second, his life had been changed for ever.

  ‘Are your family able to visit you?’ she asked, hoping that he saw something of them at least.

  ‘They come up on the train once a week.’

  She contained a little sigh of relief. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘They’re hoping that in due course, I can get into one of the convalescent homes down on the south coast. Then, once I’m well, we’re all hoping I can get into some sort of rehabilitation.’

  She glanced across to Sister Morgan at the desk. ‘How long have you been in here?’ she asked, careful to keep her voice low.

  ‘To be honest,’ he said, also making a quick check towards Sister Morgan, ‘I’ve somewhat lost track. Started off in a surgical ward across the street, but they said I couldn’t remain there because I was taking up a bed needed for an officer. But about three weeks, I suppose.’

  She lowered her voice further. ‘And what’s it like in here?’

  ‘The truth?’

  She nodded. ‘Please, do be honest with me. Our brother was supposed to be going in to the RFC on Bryanston Square but it’s full up.’

  ‘I suppose it could be worse. It is reasonably peaceful.’ With his voice so quiet, she was forced to lean closer. ‘Sister Morgan,’ he mouthed and nodded towards her, ‘is by far the starchiest. None of the other nurses are nearly so sour. Unfortunately, she’s the one who always seems to get the daytime shifts.’

  Just their luck, she thought. ‘Ned said the food isn’t very good.’

  He shook his head. ‘It isn’t. By the time it gets all the way up here, it’s stone cold. My mother brought me a cake she’d made but, once she’d left, Sister Morgan wouldn’t let me have it – took it away. Said it was unhygienic to have food sitting about on the ward.’

  She glanced again towards the desk. Unhygienic indeed! The dust on the skirting was far more unhygienic than a few slices of any homemade cake could ever be. What a mean and heartless woman!

  ‘And what about the doctor? What is he like?’

  Dickie Jupp shrugged. ‘Haven’t seen one since they moved me over here.’

  ‘What? Not even once?’

  Slowly, he shook his head. ‘Sister Morgan said he’s an important surgeon needed in theatre to do operations and can’t be spared to come up here to see someone who’s already been taken care of. She also said that anyway, all they can do for me now is change the dressings and keep a watch for infection.’

  And then what, Kate wondered? What if they found an infection? What would they do then – watch some more? She looked along to where Naomi was sitting alongside Ned’s bed. Unusually for her, she was slumped rather pathetically, and Ned appeared to be looking beyond her towards the far wall. Neither of them seemed to be speaking.

  ‘Well, thank you for being direct with me,’ she said, starting to get to her feet. ‘But I had better go and say goodbye to Ned. Our time must almost be up.’

  ‘Nice to talk to you,’ the young man replied, sliding lower under the covers.

  By way of return, she smiled, arriving back beside Naomi just as Sister Morgan got to her feet.

  ‘Visiting time is over.’

  Already getting up, Naomi bent to kiss Ned’s cheek. ‘I’ll be back again tomorrow.’

  Looking between them, Ned nodded. ‘Thanks, Min. Thanks Kate.’

  She smiled back at him. ‘Yes, see you tomorrow.’

  Nodding to Dickie Jupp on the way past, Kate followed Naomi out onto the landing and reached to close the door behind them.

  ‘I can’t bear leaving him there like that,’ Naomi whispered, her irritation plain from the lines on her forehead. ‘Do you know, he still hasn’t seen a doctor. Can you believe that?’

  ‘Neither has the young ma
n I was talking to – and he’s been here a couple of weeks.’

  Beside her, Naomi stiffened in astonishment. ‘A couple of weeks?’

  ‘Shh!’ she cautioned.

  ‘Why is he in here?’

  Clutching the handrail, Kate started down the steep staircase. ‘He lost a hand while doing something to an aeroplane.’

  ‘He lost a hand and he hasn’t seen a doctor for a couple of weeks?’

  Turning back over her shoulder, she shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Right, then I’m going to see someone about this. Such conditions are simply not acceptable – not for Ned nor for that other young man.’

  Continuing on down the stairs, Kate wondered what Naomi had in mind to do. The last thing they needed was for her to upset someone in authority and make matters worse for Ned. Or for Dickie Jupp and the others.

  Waiting until they were out on the street and beyond being heard, she reached for Naomi’s arm; she had to prevent her from marching back around the corner and doing something she might come to regret.

  ‘Naomi, please,’ she said carefully. ‘I beg you, don’t go doing anything in haste. Why don’t we just stop for a minute and—’

  Coming to a halt, Naomi swung back to face her. ‘Stop for a minute and what?’

  ‘Stop and think,’ she ventured rather more uncertainly. ‘Only, going at this like a bull at a gate and demanding things of people in a place like this, well, might it not make matters worse? Matters for Ned, I mean.’

  Having been about to respond, Naomi instead pursed her lips. She did at least appear to be considering the point.

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘Might it not be better,’ she continued equally carefully, ‘to go home for now, work out what it is you’re most unhappy about and then… oh, I don’t know… I’ve not the least idea how these places work, but, maybe, make an appointment to talk to the doctor and… and find out what he’s minded to do next for Ned.’

  ‘Hm.’

  Glancing quickly back to the main street, Kate determined to continue. ‘I mean to say, if you could get the hospital to change one thing, what would it be? The ward he’s on? The food they serve him? Only I doubt you’ll bring about a change to either of those things. Nor to that sister watching over him, either. But there might be something else that—’