A Question of Honor: A Bess Crawford Mystery

by Charles Todd

  Melinda is well and sends her love. She hopes you’ll come for a visit the next time you pass through Dover.

  I read the letter again. Discovering the truth about Lieutenant Wade was like watching a flag in the wind, twisting and turning on its ropes. When I had heard the Subedar’s dying words, I was convinced that the Lieutenant was guilty as charged, that his flight had all but proclaimed it. And I wanted to see him taken into custody and tried, to remove the stain on my father’s reputation and that of his regiment.

  Now I wasn’t sure of anything except that my father had done his duty at the time, regardless of the whispers outside the regiment. That I had never doubted.

  But there was nothing I could do at present. And so I worked with Dr. Cunningham and I kept my thoughts to myself.

  We sent sixteen men back to the influenza hospital, and two died en route. It was Teddy who brought me that news. “Nothing we could do,” he added. “Nothing.”

  I could hear the distress in his voice. “People are dropping dead on the streets in England,” I reminded him. “Unable to reach home or even hospital.”

  “It’s like a visitation of the plague. Wasn’t it the Black Death that killed over a quarter of the population of Europe in the Dark Ages? We haven’t come very far, have we? We still can’t save lives.”

  And he was gone, this time carrying wounded to the Base Hospital in Rouen.

  Dr. Cunningham said very late one evening, “I’m heartily sick of death.” Stalking off, he disappeared into the night. An hour later, when I went to look for him because one of the men just brought in was bleeding internally, I found him sitting with his back against a blasted, blackened tree. I could smell the whiskey before I reached him.

  He looked up, and all I could see were the whites of his eyes as he gazed up at me.

  “I’ve had enough,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I replied, “but you must come. There’s a machine-gun case, with internal bleeding.”

  “See to it.”

  “I can’t. I’ve tried.” When he didn’t move, I added, “He’s going to die.”

  “He’ll die with or without me.”

  “You can’t be sure of that until you’ve examined him.”

  “I really bloody don’t care.”

  “He does.” It was all I could think of to say.

  After a moment he got to his feet. “I’ll remind you of that when you break, Sister. Or do you care enough to break?”

  He walked on, and when I reached the patient, he was already there, seemingly as sober as I was. I wondered then if this was a single instance or if he had problems with drinking and was accustomed to hiding it.

  New men were moving into position in the trenches toward dawn. I could hear the shuffle of their feet and the occasional jingle of rifles against buttons or kit as they went. I thought about them, silent because they knew what was coming and could do nothing to change their fate. Many of them I was sure must be praying or remembering those back in England who were waiting for them.

  Captain Bingham, as I learned later, was in command of those on rotation. He came striding toward us with a pair of stretchers in his wake. The stretcher bearers stopped just outside our perimeter, and he came in alone.

  I hadn’t seen him since we’d parted at the hospital. He nodded as he walked past where I was standing with Sister MacLeod and hailed Dr. Cunningham.

  “I’ve two men with me who are coming down with this influenza. You must have ambulances coming in this morning.”

  “They’re on their way. Or at least they’re supposed to be.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  Sister Ramsey brought him a cup of tea and then took more to the weary stretcher bearers squatting beside their charges. It wasn’t twenty minutes later that I heard the hum of motors and looked up to see three ambulances coming toward us.

  I said to Captain Bingham, “Take the lead ambulance for your men. There’s enough room. We’ll load the wounded in the others.”

  Going ahead to meet the first ambulance, I saw that Teddy was driving. I waved and leaned in the passenger window. “We’ve got two influenza patients,” I said. “They’re coming just now. If you’ll take them in?”

  He was looking beyond me and saw the Captain speaking to the stretcher bearers. Teddy was suddenly galvanized. “Sister—are those the ones?”

  “Yes, Captain Bingham is just bringing them now.”

  “For God’s sake, Sister, don’t put them in my ambulance. I beg of you.”

  “But you’ve carried them before—” I began, mystified by his reaction.

  “It’s not the influenza. It’s the Captain. Bingham. We have—there’s a history between us. I don’t want to see him.”

  I looked toward the Captain. He was twenty yards away now.

  “Teddy—”

  He was hunched over the wheel, his face turned away from me—and from the approaching officer.

  “All right, I’ll have Frank take them in.” I hurried forward, calling to Captain Bingham. “There’s been a change in plans, Captain. We’ll use the last ambulance instead.”

  “Why not this one?” he demanded, frowning.

  “Frank has more experience with influenza cases,” I said, and without waiting for an answer I started toward the last ambulance in line. When the patients were on board and Frank was turning back the way he’d come, Captain Bingham thanked me curtly and set off with his stretcher bearers to catch the rest of his men up.

  I watched him go and then went back to where Teddy was sitting. He looked ill, I realized, as he said, “Thank you, Sister.”

  “Is there something wrong? Anything I can do?”

  “No. Just let it go.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sister.”

  “Never mind,” I told him and went to the rear of the ambulance, opening the doors for the first of the wounded to be carried aboard. One of them was the internal bleeding case, and while he was pale and very weak, he was still alive.

  As soon as the doors closed, Teddy was off, not waiting for the next ambulance to follow.

  Dr. Cunningham saw Teddy’s hasty retreat. “Was that the CO driving?” he asked.

  “Yes. Teddy. He’s not feeling very well himself.”

  “Well, I hope he doesn’t pass the influenza on to those men,” the doctor said, and turned back to his work.

  It was after midnight when the storm blew up. It had been hot all afternoon and the sun set in a hazy sky half hidden as it went down in a bank of clouds.

  We had had a surprisingly quiet evening. Dr. Cunningham went to bed around ten thirty, and at eleven, listening to the first distant rumbles of thunder, I left Sister MacLeod and Sister Ramsey in charge and went to my own quarters, aching with fatigue.

  When the storm struck, it was accompanied by high winds and pelting rain that hit the ground like stones. It woke me up. I hadn’t undressed, and throwing a coat over my shoulders, I hurried to be sure Sister MacLeod and Sister Ramsey were coping. There were only three patients, and all was well. On my way back to my bed, I heard muffled cries coming from Dr. Cunningham’s quarters. With the thunder nearly overhead, my first thought was that he’d taken ill and was calling for help.

  After a moment’s hesitation as the rain soaked my cap and the shoulders of my coat, I went in to see what was wrong. He was thrashing about on his cot, and as I flicked on my torch, I realized that he was asleep and dreaming. The smell of whiskey was strong. He must have drunk himself to sleep, I thought as he cried out again, this time almost as if he were in pain. And then rearing up in bed, he shouted, “Don’t leave me!”

  I thought at first he was speaking to me. But his eyes, wide and wild, were unseeing, lost in whatever nightmare he was reliving.

  The storm was overhead now, the thunder so close on the heels of the lightning flash that they seemed to be simu
ltaneous. Dr. Cunningham screamed, and when I touched his shoulder to wake him up, he clutched at me as if I were a lifeline.

  I shook him then, trying to bring him out of his drunken sleep, and almost as if he had never been dreaming at all, he said with perfect clarity, “What the hell are you doing?”

  I broke free. “You were having a bad dream. I heard you screaming and came to see what was wrong.”

  In the light from my torch he peered toward the main tent. “Where are the others?”

  “With the wounded. They’re all right. The storm has been very bad.”

  “Then get out of here before they see you. And mind your own business in future.” He lay back down on his cot, turning his back to me. His next words were almost lost in a crash of thunder. “And turn off that bloody torch.”

  I flicked it off and left. Back in my own quarters, I shook out my wet coat and hung it up on a hook. Drying my hair on a towel, I tried to remember what Dr. Cunningham had screamed, the only coherent word he’d uttered until he woke up.

  It was Mother. Like a child who had been frightened of storms and called out for comfort.

  I wondered what was tormenting him, why he drank more than he should. It hadn’t affected his judgment, at least not so far. But a time would come when he made a wrong choice or failed to make the right one—sometimes two different things—because he was impaired.

  I wasn’t going to be there to find out. He must have asked for my transfer, for two days later I was on my way back to a rear hospital where the wounded were being treated until they were stabilized and could be sent on to England.

  I hadn’t worked with this Matron before. She was a fair-haired woman, trim and competent. She welcomed me the next morning after my arrival and asked if I’d settled in.

  I told her I had.

  “Good. I’ve assigned you to the surgical cases, given your experience. Dr. Cunningham wrote on your chart that you were capable of making decisions on your own and experienced enough to know what to do in emergencies.”

  I was surprised that Dr. Cunningham had given me such a glowing report. Not under the circumstances. But it occurred to me then that he’d wanted to be rid of me quickly because of what I’d witnessed.

  “He’s very kind” was all I could say in response.

  My duties were familiar, and I was quickly at home here. When I was not occupied with the surgical patients I sometimes helped feed men who couldn’t help themselves, those blinded by gas or shrapnel, amputees, and those with broken arms or damaged hands. That’s how I came to meet Patient 3308.

  “No one knows who he is,” Sister Joyner explained. “He was emaciated, bleeding from several wounds, and unconscious when they brought him in. We’re not even certain he’s one of ours. He was wearing a German officer’s uniform. He just lies there, he doesn’t speak or try to help himself—exhaustion, Matron says. But he must eat.”

  He was swathed in bandages, over his head and covering one eye, wrapped around his chin where there was a neck wound, one arm in a sling and one leg in a cast.

  I sat by his side and coaxed him into swallowing the sustaining broth we gave to men too ill to eat ordinary food. I’d put pillows behind his head and raised him enough that he wouldn’t choke. He opened his mouth more by rote than by design, and swallowed painfully when he felt the gruel on his tongue.

  It took half an hour to finish the cup, and I was on duty elsewhere by that time. I wiped his lips and said bracingly, “Count each cup as a step forward and you’ll soon be fit again.”

  But I didn’t think he understood what I was saying.

  I was busy for the next two days, but returned to Patient 3308 when I was free. He accepted the broth as he had before, by rote, almost as if his brain was not aware of what he was doing, his body simply following commands.

  Later I asked Matron if there was a head wound.

  “There was, rather deep. He was probably concussed. Which must have made matters worse. Whatever he’s been through nearly killed him, and it will be a while before he’s truly sensible as opposed to being conscious. There’s an officer missing in the Wilts. His name is James. Captain Stephen James. We believe it might be him—that he was caught behind enemy lines. Some three weeks ago. It would explain the exhaustion and the emaciation.”

  “Poor man,” I said.

  “Yes, there’s a chance he will never fully recover. The mind can endure only so much before it withdraws completely.”

  I began reading to him when I had a moment. There were books in a tiny library that had begun quite by accident, someone leaving a book and someone else taking it but replacing it with another title. There were the poems of O. A. Manning on the shelf, several novels by Dickens, and a history of Rome, as well as Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone.

  I chose that as less depressing than Dickens and more interesting than Rome’s rise and tried to read at least half a chapter every evening.

  I think Patient 3308 was soon responding to the steady tone of my voice if not to the words. It occurred to me that Matron was wrong, that he wasn’t English. But it didn’t matter. He was quieter, the fingers of his one good hand no longer restless on the coverlet. I couldn’t imagine how much pain he was in, but Matron had been worried that sedatives might be too much for his body.

  Dr. Cunningham came back with one of the ambulances, to have a cut in his forehead stitched. I wondered if he’d fallen while drunk, but Matron told me later that one of the head wound patients had lashed out, catching the doctor as he was bending over to suture the cut.

  “He’s a good doctor,” Matron said, standing beside me as I watched him leave. “We could do with more like him. He asked how you were faring, and I told him you were working out very well indeed. Kind of him to remember.”

  I thought it was more likely he was making certain I hadn’t told what I knew.

  I also saw Teddy again, but he refused to discuss Captain Bingham. Had Teddy been one of the children at The Willows? I was reluctant to come right out and ask. He had said that he and the Captain had had “a history.” And that could be the connection. It would be easy to jump to the wrong conclusions. Many people had no patience with conscientious objectors, although they did serve, only in other ways than the actual fighting. Some drove ambulances, many were orderlies, others worked in factories for the war effort.

  I didn’t press, and I could see the relief on Teddy’s face when I smiled and changed the subject.

  I wished for my turn to take a short leave. There was the little girl still to be interviewed, but it might be difficult to reach her if her husband was an equerry. My mother wrote again and this time gave me news of Hazel.

  I was at a tea to raise money for the care of the wounded, and who should come in but one of the young Princes. His equerry was with him, and they stayed the obligatory fifteen minutes, while he made a short speech asking the people to give generously in gratitude for all the wounded who had given so much on behalf of King and Country. It was very affecting, and people responded as he would have hoped. I had an opportunity to observe Lady Campbell’s husband. Haughty is the word that best describes him. Much more so than the Prince, who was very approachable. You’d have thought they had reversed roles.

  There was a bit of gossip about Sir Henry. One of my friends told me he had been a Guards officer and had served in France before being wounded. He was in uniform, and I noticed that his right hand was still rather stiff.

  At any rate, it was a lovely tea, and I’m glad I went. I had hoped Sir Henry’s wife would come as well. I’d have liked to see her. I understand there’s another charity event in honor of Princess Mary, and she could appear then. We’ll see.

  I had to smile. My mother was nothing if not inventive. And it was very likely that she’d attend the next charity event as well.

  There were two spinal wounds, and we spent hours in surgery with them. I
missed my usual hour of reading with Patient 3308, but the Sister in charge of the ward told me later that he was taking his gruel regularly and she thought he was slowly getting stronger.

  “When I was changing his sheets, I saw the book by his bed. Is that yours?”

  “It’s from the little library. I thought it might help him escape from the memories that are too much for him. At least for a little while.”

  “A very good idea. I’ll ask one of the other Sisters to take over when you aren’t available.”

  But two days later Sister Bennett came to me and said ruefully, “Our blind Captain can distinguish between your voice and someone else’s. Sister Higgins told me that when she began to read, the patient used his good hand and tried to force the book closed. Either you’ve made a conquest or 3308 doesn’t care for Sister Higgins’s Northumberland accent.”

  I laughed. “If he’s German, he probably can’t understand a word she says.”

  Sister Bennett nodded. “It’s true. It took me a while to follow her myself. All right, we’ll let The Moonstone wait for you.”

  I went back that evening, and when I picked up the book and began to read, I could have sworn that the patient sighed with relief.

  If he could notice something as subtle as the difference in voices, it was a very good sign. But when I asked Sister Bennett how his wounds were healing, she told me they were taking their time. “That cut over his eye was infected when he was found. The clavicle is not healing the way we would like. There will be a knot where the bones had begun to rejoin crookedly on their own. The leg is making better progress. I’d like to see him up and walking next week. With a cane, if he can’t manage crutches.”

  I said as much to the patient before I picked up the book the next evening.

  “Sister Bennett would like to see you try to walk soon. With support, of course. The fear is, lying here so long you’re likely to contract pneumonia.”