A Nightingale in Winter

by Margaret K Johnson

  There was a frown on Dirk’s face, and Eleanor couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Had she said too much?

  “Are you saying you think I might be able to change those guys?” he asked her, and she thought about it.

  “Not having met them, I really don’t know if you can or not. But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

  He sighed heavily, then smiled at her. “I knew you would be the right person to speak to about it all,” he said.

  He gave her hand a little pat, and Eleanor felt the same glow within her that she’d experienced earlier that day, when Doctor Rochelle had indicated with a gesture that he was grateful to her for doing a good job.

  “After all,” Dirk continued, “you did save my life. You’re not about to give up on me after that, are you?”

  They exchanged smiles, but before Eleanor could think of a reply, she heard the distinct sound of a twig snapping somewhere nearby and tensed, listening.

  “I think someone’s coming,” she said, and Dirk let go of her hand.

  “Shall I vanish temporarily?”

  She nodded. “Yes, you’d better.”

  “Okay.” Dirk got to his feet and slipped into the trees with hardly a rustle to betray him.

  Whoever was approaching through the trees clearly felt no such need for caution. Twigs snapped like sparks as he or she approached, and when a throat was cleared noisily, Eleanor knew immediately who the interloper was. Edwards.

  “Miss Martin!” The priest sounded more than surprised to see her, stopping in his tracks to stare down at her.

  Eleanor got to her feet and surveyed him silently.

  “I didn’t expect to find anyone else out here,” he said. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes,” she said coolly, “quite all right, thank you.”

  “Should you be out here, Miss Martin?” he asked after a pause. “It’s very dark, and there’s rather a chill in the air.”

  Right on cue, Eleanor shivered, though more with the effect of the priest’s proximity than with the cold.

  “Thank you, but I’m perfectly all right,” she told him again. “I like the evening air. I find it refreshing.”

  “Right,” he said. “Good.” He rocked on his heels, showing no inclination to move on. “I hear you’ve been assisting in the operating theater today?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “It must have been rather grueling for you. I know when I was called upon to help out with the anesthetics, I was quite exhausted by the responsibility of it.”

  “I enjoyed it, actually,” she said.

  “Really?” he replied. “I should have thought…”

  But she didn’t wish to know what the man thought, and suddenly she could bear no more. If Dirk hadn’t been hiding in the trees somewhere nearby, she would have made her excuses and left. As it was, she would just have to get rid of the priest. “Please, Father,” she interrupted him. “I mean no disrespect, but it has, as you pointed out, been a very long day, and I actually came out here to be alone. I’m quite tired.”

  Edwards’ smile lacked warmth. “Indeed, we are all tired, Miss Martin, I believe. British, French, and Germans alike. War has a way of sapping our resources.” He paused, but instead of bidding her good night, he drew closer, instantly making her want to recoil.

  “As I believe I told you once before, Miss Martin, I’m here should anything be troubling you.”

  It was all Eleanor could do to stop herself from reaching out to shove him away. “That’s very kind of you, thank you. But right now, I should just like to be left in peace for a while,” she whispered, and her voice trembled slightly. “That is all.”

  Edwards looked at her for a moment, his glance sweeping over her face. “Ah, peace,” he said at last. “Yes, we all of us crave that, Miss Martin. Good evening to you.”

  And finally he went.

  For a moment, Eleanor was left alone in the chill rustle of the darkness, but then Dirk emerged from his hiding place to stand before her. She knew from his expression he’d heard every word of her conversation with Edwards—and was slightly puzzled by it.

  “Are you okay?” he asked her softly, and she nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  He paused, looking at her, and his eyes were so searching, she looked down to avoid them. “You didn’t sound as if you like that guy too much.”

  “Not much, no,” she agreed.

  “Is it him, or just his breed in general?” he asked. When she hesitated, he went on. “Sorry, you asked him to leave you in peace, and here I am questioning you like a reporter.”

  She looked at him, silently, and saw that he was smiling.

  “Well, guilty as charged.” His eyes twinkled. “I am a reporter, and reporters don’t generally know how to leave people in peace. Perhaps they have something in common with the clergy in that way. But the man was right about one thing. You are cold; you’re shivering. Let’s get you inside. I’ve kept you out here for quite long enough.”

  They walked side-by-side toward the abbey and stood in the shadows to say goodbye to each other.

  “Thank you for listening, Eleanor,” he said softly. “And for your advice.”

  “It was nothing,” she told him.

  “No,” he replied. “It really helped. And it was really good to see you.”

  The darkness helped her to meet his eyes. “It was really good to see you too.”

  A sniper’s bullet could come at any minute. Leo could feel their eyes on him in the darkness. Fancied even that he could detect the twitch of chilled Hun fingers on triggers. The taste of danger was intoxicating, the clamor of his senses not even dulled when Montague vomited down his back. If anything, this added to Leo’s pleasure. The stench was a part of the ugliness, and ugliness was the supreme ruler here, conjured up initially by Man, but now possessing a life of its own. It had become an uncontrollable beast, its purpose to inspire its subjects to commit increasingly vile and inhuman acts against each other.

  And Leo’s mission was to record this palpable evil. He’d been selected for this very purpose. For this reason, he knew he wouldn’t be killed. The injury to his head had been designed as an experience to add a legitimate intensity to his work, and as such he welcomed it. But he wouldn’t be killed, because he hadn’t yet had the chance to complete his mission. The drawings he’d made in the shell hole had been a start, but they’d merely whetted his appetite. He needed to do more drawing. Most of all, however, he needed to paint. Not that either activity would be easily achieved in a hospital. But he would find a way. He had to.

  Chapter Fourteen

  DESPITE THE PLEASANT HALF HOUR she had spent in Dirk’s company, the nightmare came again, almost as soon as Eleanor had gone to sleep. It was always the same. She was squeezed into a space that was too small for her. There was blood on her blouse, and she knew someone was watching her, someone who meant her harm. When she woke with a start, sweating, her conversation with Dirk seemed unreal, almost as if it had never taken place, and she had lain sleepless in the dark, unwilling to go back to sleep.

  Next morning, she was tired, and her heart sank when Kit bounded into the room after coming off night duty, asking immediately, “Did you see Dirk last night?”

  “Yes,” Eleanor answered briefly, but of course, Kit wasn’t to be so easily fobbed off.

  “Well?” Kit said, sitting down on Eleanor’s bed. “Tell me what he had to say. Don’t go clamming up on me again.”

  So, Eleanor found herself telling her friend a little about Dirk’s difficulties with his work, keeping away from anything the two of them had said that was in the least bit personal. Kit seemed satisfied by the little Eleanor had told her, if a little envious.

  “You lucky, lucky thing, being off duty like that when he came,” she said. “And not getting discovered by Sister Palmer in the bargain! I should have been discovered, as surely as a cat chases a mouse. Still, I did have the compensation of being on duty when th
e most attractive man was brought in.”

  Eleanor smiled, grateful that the topic seemed to have moved on from Dirk.

  “He’s British, too,” Kit said. “And he has the most amazing blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Apparently, he was terribly brave and risked his life to save his officer; he’s here too by the way. Terribly injured though; it’s very sad. But I tell you, you won’t be able to miss our hero. A real looker, he is. Actually, come to think of it, he reminds me a little of Dirk’s poor friend Jimmy.”

  It wasn’t the first time Kit had waxed lyrical about one of the new arrivals, and Eleanor gave it no further thought as she went on duty.

  Security had been stepped up significantly since Lazare’s suicide. Medicines had always been kept locked away, but previously the key to the store had been kept by someone on duty on the ward. Now the key was kept in Sister Palmer’s office, and whenever medicine trolleys needed to be restocked, the key had to be collected, signed for, and then returned and signed in immediately when the trolleys were ready.

  Eleanor’s first job of that morning was to go to fetch the key, and she did so, unlocking the door to the medicine store and going inside. The store was adjacent to the ward and was fairly roomy, with a glass panel set into the door so that it was possible to see into it from outside. It was kept scrupulously neat and tidy in order to find things quickly.

  As Eleanor counted out dressings and supplies, her thoughts turned to VAD Brown, the girl who’d been held responsible for leaving the store unlocked when Lazare had committed suicide. She’d been sent back to England in disgrace; Eleanor had seen her leave in tears. The whole incident had been a great tragedy, and Eleanor sincerely hoped the poor girl had been able to recover. She had certainly been careless, but from what Eleanor had heard, the incident had taken place at the end of a particularly busy shift when the staff had been almost dead on their feet.

  Her thoughts were interrupted as someone knocked on the door to the store. Assuming it would be another member of staff, Eleanor turned and drew in a jagged breath. There was a man staring at her through the glass panel. “Come on, Eleanor,” a voice said in her head. “You know it’s what you want.”

  The knocking sound came again, and Eleanor blinked, dragging herself back to the present. It was one of the patients knocking on the door. There was nothing to be afraid of, just as there had been no need to almost suffer a heart attack the previous evening when Dirk had called out to her.

  “Yes?” she said, pulling herself together with difficulty. “Can I help you?”

  The man moved into the entrance, and just for a moment, Eleanor thought she caught a cruel twist to his mouth, an icy perception in his blue eyes. But then he smiled, and the illusion went away.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “For a minute there, you looked as if you’d seen a ghost.”

  A ghost. Yes, that was what it was, a specter that haunted her nightmares. It had no place here in the light of day as she went about the business of the ward.

  “I was counting my dressings out,” she told him. “You startled me.”

  “My apologies once again.”

  Instinctively, Eleanor knew the soldier was Kit’s “looker.” Although a bandage swathed his head and there were scratches on his face, even from a few yards away she could see that those eyes of his were a deep blue, fringed by soot-black lashes.

  “I shall be doing my rounds in the ward just as soon as I’ve loaded my trolley up. Is it anything that can wait until then?” she asked him.

  He smiled. “I’m not sure you’ll have what I need on your trolley. I’m after some paper.”

  “Paper?” she repeated, frowning at him. “Do you mean a newspaper?”

  The smile distorted slightly. “Oh, no, nurse,” he said. “I’ve been living the news just lately, I have no need to read about it too. No, I’m an artist. I want to do some drawings to pass the time, that’s all. It’s deathly dull in here.”

  “Oh,” Eleanor said, surprised. “Well, I’m sure I’ll be able to find something. Leave it with me; I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you.” The man gave her a final smile and began to withdraw. Then he came back again. “I’m in the furthest bed on the ward. Cartwright’s the name. Private Leo Cartwright.”

  “Very well, Private Cartwright. I’ll be with you shortly.”

  Eleanor stood looking after him for a moment, glad to be alone again. Her heart was still beating quickly from the initial fright of seeing him. She couldn’t bear the thought that her nightmares were spilling into her waking hours, influencing her behavior and her reactions. That was no good at all. How would she function if things went on like that? She had to try to put a stop to it, and perhaps she could start with Private Cartwright. Kit had said he’d saved his commanding officer’s life, so there was absolutely no reason for her instincts to be warning her about him. He was a hero, and she would treat him like one, starting with finding him something to draw on.

  The only paper Eleanor could immediately find was some packaging the latest supply of bandages had been wrapped in.

  “This is the best I could do for now, I’m afraid,” she told Leo Cartwright when she took it to him. “I’m sorry it’s brown. I’ll have another look later on, see if I can find something more suitable for you.”

  But Leo all but snatched it out of her hand in his eagerness to have it, saying only, “Thank you, nurse. I’m forever in your debt.” He then produced a pencil from somewhere and began drawing then and there, his bandaged head bent over the paper.

  “Please don’t forget you have a head injury,” Eleanor told him. “You mustn’t overdo it.”

  He didn’t look up. “I won’t, nurse. Don’t you worry.”

  Eleanor felt reluctant to leave. It was pleasing to see Leo Cartwright’s quick confident pencil strokes on the paper. “I’ll leave your dressing change until the end, but should Sister Palmer come on duty, you might want to conceal your drawing from her. I’m not altogether sure she would approve of you drawing in bed. She’s a stickler for clean sheets.”

  He did look up then, albeit briefly. “Oh? And how will I know who she is?”

  “Believe me,” Eleanor said grimly, beginning to wheel the dressing trolley away. “You’ll know.”

  As she went, Eleanor felt pleased with herself for the way she had managed to speak with Private Cartwright. He was just a man, like all the other men here, after all, and perhaps if she continued to make an effort to defy her instincts, then the nightmares would cease to have such a hold on her. Perhaps they would even cease altogether.

  There were a lot of difficult dressings to be done, so Eleanor didn’t have the chance to look back in Leo Cartwright’s direction again until Sister Palmer swept onto the ward with the doctor at nine thirty. When Eleanor did look over, it was to see Leo sitting up in bed with not a drawing or a pencil in view, and she smiled to herself. He had listened to her warning.

  When it was finally time for her to change his dressing, Leo gave Eleanor a wink when she went over to his bed. “My thanks for the warning, nurse. Sister Palmer looks like a real battle-ax.”

  “She’s very good at her job,” Eleanor said, refusing to give way to a smile, busying herself with pouring some clean water into a bowl instead, ready to wash Leo’s wound. The bandage on his head was caked with dried blood, and although the wound didn’t appear to be life-threatening, it had bled freely. There would be no way now to remove the bandage without causing him considerable pain.

  “I’m afraid this may hurt a good deal,” she warned, taking hold of the bandage and wondering what his reaction to the pain would be. Some men were silently stoic; others screamed or passed out.

  “Are you ready?” She paused, waiting for his consent, her hands on the bandage, and he gave a brief nod.

  “Ready.”

  Eleanor began to tug at the bandage, easing it from the wound as gently as she could, squeezing drops of water onto it from a sponge when it was stuck fast, before trying
once again. Leo Cartwright kept his eyes closed the whole time, the long shuddering spasms of his body the only sign of his agony.

  “There,” she said. “All finished. I am sorry about that. You were very brave.” After disposing of the soiled dressing on the bottom of the trolley, Eleanor straightened to glance at him and gave a little gasp of surprise. For, just as in the dispensary, Leo was looking right at her, his expression icy cold. Then, just as quickly, he smiled, and the cold expression vanished, causing Eleanor to blink and to doubt whether it had been present at all.

  “I…I’ll just clean the wound now,” she said. “Then we can get a nice fresh bandage on you…”

  Her hands were shaking as she plunged a piece of gauze into the water, ready to wash the wound. All the time she worked, she could feel Leo Cartwright silently watching her movements. It was a relief when he finally spoke.

  “Tell me, are you interested in art, nurse?”

  “Yes,” she said, squeezing the excess water out of the gauze and proceeding to gently dab at his wound. “That is, I don’t know very much about it. But I’ve often enjoyed making some watercolors. Just school girl paintings, you know, landscapes and such…” She could hear herself babbling, and bit her lip to stop herself.

  “I should like to see them,” Leo said. His voice sounded very normal so she forced herself to look at him. Sure enough, he was smiling at her. Had she imagined that cold, piercing look before?

  The wound was clean now, and Eleanor began to apply the dressing, her body necessarily close to Leo’s face as she wound the bandage around his head.

  “I don’t have any of my paintings here,” she said. “They’re all back home in England.”

  She used a pair of scissors to cut the end of the bandage in two in order to tie it in place. “And I’m sure my immature daubs wouldn’t impress a proper artist like yourself. There, you’re all done.” She stepped back from him to replace the scissors and took hold of the trolley handles, preparing to leave his bedside.