by Carla Kelly
“T’ledge, mum. There by the table.”
Laura picked up an earthenware urinal, avoiding everyone’s eyes as much as they were all avoiding hers, and brought it back to the amputee’s bed. Without comment, she lifted the blanket and slid it toward his hand. “Can you manage now?” she asked quietly.
“I’ll try, mum.” He tried, then leaned back in frustration.
“I can help.”
And she did, holding him in there until he finished. “My late husband was ill for three years, so don’t you mind this,” she said, keeping her tone light. “I don’t think any of you gentlemen can surprise me.”
Again there was the murmur of laughter from men too weak or hurt to do more. She removed the urinal and smoothed the blankets around the amputee.
“Well done, Lady T,” Lt. Brittle said. He nodded toward the door. “There’s a sluice hole in the washroom next door. While you’re in there, wash your hands and face.”
He spoke to the amputee in the next bed. “Tommy, what happened?”
The man thought a moment. “I was dozing, sir. I heard Davey start to gargle, like he did that time before. As soon as he started to spout, t’old bitch leaped up like a flea on a hot griddle and did a runner.”
“She better just keep running,” someone else said, the others murmuring their agreement.
Laura let her breath out slowly, and left the room. In the hall, she backed out of the way as two men in uniform ran up the stairs. They stopped in their tracks at the sight of her, so bloody. One of them tried to take her by the arm, but she shook her head.
“There is nothing wrong with me. It’s the patient in B Ward. Lt. Brittle is with him now.”
“Someone yelled ‘Fire,’” he said.
“We were trying to get your attention. Excuse me now.”
She went into the washroom, relieved to be alone for a moment. She found the sluice hole and poured out the urinal’s contents, then poured water into it from the bucket nearby, swished it around and poured that out, too.
She turned to the row of basins and pitchers and rolled up her sleeves. She wouldn’t have noticed the crouching woman, if she hadn’t heard her try to smother a sob sound in her apron. Laura whirled around, her heart in her throat.
It was the woman who had sat at the desk, who stared at her with terrified eyes. Laura balled her slimy hands into fists, wanting to smack her. Instead, she turned back to the washbasin, where she took her time washing her hands and face, trying to decide what to do.
She dried her hands and face. She couldn’t leave the woman there, not after what she had done. At least there was no one in the other room with the strength to tear her apart and Lt. Brittle was too busy. Suddenly, she felt more sympathy than disgust.
“Do you have any children?”
Wary, the woman nodded, tucking herself into a tighter ball.
“Where’s your man?”
“Dead these three months at Basque Roads,” the woman whispered.
“If you lose your job, you will all starve,” Laura said. “Or end up in a workhouse, at the very least. I’m not certain that would be a blessing.”
The woman nodded, tears in her eyes again. She leaned her forehead into her knees and sobbed.
I’m a curious contradiction, Laura thought, as she went to the woman and tugged her to her feet. A few minutes ago I wanted to stuff her head down the sluice hole. Now I don’t. She grasped her by the back of her dress and gave her a shake, then pushed her into the hall and the ward next door, as the woman shrieked and tried to dig her heels into the floor.
Lt. Brittle was on his feet. “Good God, Laura!” he exclaimed, then was silent, disgust on his face, as he saw who it was making the noise. A low sound like a growl from several of the men made Laura’s blood run in chunks, and terrified the woman, who tried to make herself small under Laura’s armpit.
At a nod from the surgeon, one of the orderlies grabbed her. She stood there, head bowed, shoulders slumped, her hair in strings around her face.
“What can you possibly have to say for yourself?” Lt. Brittle asked, after a long silence.
“I was afraid,” she said at last.
“So was this lady,” the surgeon replied, his voice as quiet as hers. “She didn’t run, though. Maude, you’re sacked. Get out of here before the Marines come running and clap you in irons.”
The woman wrenched herself free of the orderly and dropped to her knees. “My children will starve!” she cried.
Laura took a deep breath and stepped deliberately in front of the bedraggled woman. “Don’t sack her.”
“You can’t possibly think she should stay on here,” Lt. Brittle said, looking more puzzled than irritated, which gave Laura the courage to continue.
“I certainly do not. She isn’t fit to watch kittens.” Laura gestured around her. “Does Stonehouse have a laundry? Put her there. Her man is dead at Basque Roads and she has children to feed. I will not have that on my conscience. I think you do not want that, either.”
She had him there, and she knew it, as sure as she knew there was no reason for anyone in B Ward to offer any hope. As she looked the surgeon in the eye, and he returned her gaze just as emphatically, she thought of what Sir David Carew would do, or even what her own father would have done, had he been there to pass judgment on frailty.
He was silent a long time. “I’m inclined to agree with you, Lady Taunton,” he said, then looked at the woman. “Maude, you should be horsewhipped and never employed at this hospital again.”
The woman said nothing, only hung her head lower.
Lt. Brittle turned to Davey Dabney, pale and watchful. “It’s your choice, Davey. No one in this room will fault you if you want her sacked.”
Maude began to cry, lowering herself even closer to the floor as her tears fell on wood slimy with the seaman’s blood. I can’t watch this, Laura thought, even as she stood there, her hands tightly clasped together. This is worse than anything I endured today.
“Send her to the laundry,” Davey said, his voice rough and barely audible above the woman’s sobs. “And my sheets better come back smooth like a baby’s bum or you’ll be out on yours.”
Lt. Brittle smiled. “That’s fair enough.” He took hold of Maude’s arm and hauled her to her feet. “Go home. Think about this and report to the laundry tomorrow at six bells. I’ll clear it for you there. Go on.”
Maude left without a word. Laura looked around the ward. She couldn’t see any anger on any of the faces of people who had a right to be angry. She didn’t think it was resignation, either. Maybe we all learned something, she thought, me as much as anyone. She looked at Lt. Brittle, who seemed to be gazing into that same middle distance as the men in his care, and realized how close to the bone this scene had played out. She turned to the orderlies.
“Would one of you please fetch my valise? It’s in room 12 of the administration building. And you, would you please mop this floor? Lt. Brittle, where might I find fresh linen for Davey?” She looked at her own bloody clothes. “I know I am getting stiff and imagine you are, too, Davey.”
“Aye, miss,” he said. “We look a pair, don’t we?”
It was a cheeky thing to say, something no one of his stamp would, on an ordinary day, ever say to a lady, except this was no ordinary day.
“Aye, we’re a pair,” she agreed. “Lt. Brittle, I will stay here, now that there is no one to watch this crew of miscreants, rascals and layabouts.”
The men laughed, as she had hoped they would. “You’re a game’un,” someone called.
“Mind your manners, lads,” Lt. Brittle said quickly, but there was no sting in his rebuke. “Lady Taunton, that’s too much to ask, but I’ll not deny we need you now.” He touched the strip of adhesive that had been draped around his neck as he ran upstairs, carrying Matthew. “There’s a man one floor down who is probably wondering when I am going to close up his arm. He can wait a moment more. I’ll show you what you need, Lady Taunton. Come along.”
In the hall, he startled her by grasping her shoulder in an enormous hug, and then releasing her almost before she knew what had happened. It heartened her more than anything she could remember.
He opened a door and handed her sheets, towels and a nightshirt. “I’ll hold Davey while you strip the bed and remake it, then we’ll get him into this.” He pulled out an apron. “Put this on first.”
“I’m afraid to touch him, for fear he will bleed again,” she told him, as she tied the apron strings around her twice.
“But you’re not afraid to wash him?”
“I’m not. I did that enough for my husband. I can manage, as long as you wipe around Davey’s neck. That does terrify me.”
“Fair enough.”
She hesitated. He seemed to know what she was thinking; maybe he was thinking it himself.
“You’re wondering how much longer Davey Dabney can live.”
Laura nodded. He leaned against the linen press and kept his voice low.
“I don’t know. I wish I did. I want to try two new things tomorrow.” He ushered her out of the room. “I discovered a long time ago that doing the same thing over and over usually gets the same results.”
While Lt. Brittle held his patient in his arms, Laura changed the sheets. The orderly brought warm water, and began to wash Davey Dabney. When he stopped to help two of the other patients from their beds to the washroom for calls of nature, Laura took his place, sponging off the sailor and listening to the surgeon’s conversation. She wasn’t sure if it was designed to put his patient at ease, or her.
“Davey’s a foretopman,” he said, while she dabbed at the man’s thin legs and wondered how someone so pale could live. “I tried climbing the rigging once, Davey, and never got past the mainsail. Davey?”
Laura stopped drying his leg. “He’s asleep,” she whispered.
“Good.”
Davey woke when she lowered the nightshirt carefully over his head, but closed his eyes again as she angled his arms into the sleeves. Lt. Brittle put him back in his bed, situating the pillows behind his head so he was nearly upright. He stood a moment longer over the patient, staring at his neck wound.
“Galen counseled we should do no harm, and some interpret that to mean do nothing,” he said, more to himself than to her. “I disagree, but I am always left to wonder how much I can do before it turns into harm.” He turned to her. “I’m a churl to ask this, but would you stay here for the rest of the day? It may even be after dark. As useless as Maude was, I’m shorthanded now. I can leave an orderly to work both wards. Am I straining a friendship?”
“I had no other pressing engagements this afternoon,” she assured him.
He left, after telling her precisely what needed to be done until supper at the end of the first dog watch. The orderly made himself busy in the room, tidying up the invalids, helping others to the washroom or with a urinal. When he was busy, she filled in with the same duties, maintaining a detached air to keep from causing any embarrassment.
Supper was simple enough: a thin broth for a few of the more fit patients, Matthew among them, and a pale gruel the orderly called “panada,” which looked like watery milk with lumps of bread floating in it. How can anyone regain any strength eating this? she asked herself, as she spooned the gruel down patients who could not help themselves. My chef at Taunton would be aghast.
After more trips to the washroom, the men began to settle down for the night. She sat beside Matthew, trying to draw him into conversation as the shadows lengthened and Lt. Brittle did not return. She decided Matthew was shy, and why not? With the exception of Nana and Gran, he probably never spoke much to females.
She looked around her. Some of the men slept. She was familiar with that kind of exhaustion because she had seen it often enough on her husband’s face: too tired to do much except doze, and store up enough energy for the next day.
Others were awake, looking as though they wanted to converse with her, but tongue-tied like Matthew, kept silent by their subservience, these men who had so much talent to work a ship, but who might have lived on the moon, for all that she and they shared the same world. She thought of Maude, a woman with no hope ahead of her. She glanced at Davey. She decided she would not feel so sorry for herself.
She didn’t mind sitting in the dark, when the sun finally left the sky. The orderly lit the lamp on the table where Maude used to sit, and put a smaller lamp there, too, like the one Philemon Brittle had used when he checked on Nana Worthy.
“I usually see what I can do on the deck below,” the orderly said. “If you need anything, just go to the stairwell and sing out.”
She didn’t want to just sit there. She went from bed to bed, making sure everyone was covered. Before he left, the orderly had given sleeping draughts to those who were prescribed for it. She sat beside Matthew again, putting her hand against his forehead, which was cool now.
“It hurts, miss, in a strange way,” he whispered. “It’s like I can feel my fingers, and they’re stuck with pins.”
“We’ll have to ask Lt. Brittle about that,” she said.
“Aye, mum.”
She thought he would sleep then. He closed his eyes. She started to release her grip, but he tightened his hand on hers.
“Mum, what am I going to do for the rest of my life?”
I am asking myself that same thing, she thought. She sat there until he slept.
Chapter Six
Laura dozed, exhausted from a day that had begun early in Torquay, and showed no signs of ending. She thought of Taunton, with servants everywhere. There was no one in B Ward except herself and the occasional orderly.
She asked herself how she could possibly help the men lying around her. She sat by Matthew, stupefied with exhaustion, wondering why she had ever told Nana she would check on the little powder monkey.
Someone was crying. She thought it was Davey Dabney at first, and who could blame him, but it was Tommy, the seaman with one leg gone, in the next bed. She extricated herself from Matthew’s slack grasp and went first to the water basin. She squeezed out a cloth, went to his bed and wiped his face.
“There, now. Can you sleep?”
“The pain’s bad, miss.” His voice was tight, that of a proud man trying not to cry.
“I haven’t authority to give you anything, but I’ll tell Lt. Brittle when he returns.”
He seemed to understand. She wiped his face again, then held his hand, because there was nothing else she could do. She thought she should close the window, now that the sun was gone, but the sounds outside gave her comfort. Below in the quadrangle, she heard men walking, and farther away, laughter.
“Would you like to be at sea?” she asked, then kicked herself because his sea days were probably over, and she was only reminding him.
He didn’t take it that way, to her relief. “Aye, mum. Much rather. I never feel comfortable-like on land.”
His voice was drowsy now, without the tension, and all she had done was wipe his face and hold his hand. When he slept finally, she felt the tiniest spark of satisfaction. She did not release his hand. Whether he knew it or not, and how could he, he was giving her comfort, too.
She was nearly asleep herself when she felt a hand on her shoulder. When she started, the pressure increased and kept her silent because she knew who it was. Lt. Brittle bent down to whisper in her ear.
“I’m sorry I am so late. Ward Block Three is also my bailiwick, and there are burn cases from an explosion.” He squatted by her stool. “The night orderly is coming now. Let me take your valise and walk you to my house.”
“Oh, but…”
“The Mulberry’s too far, and are you as tired as I am? I’ve sent word for my housekeeper to prepare a bath for you, and dinner’s probably ready.”
“I’m sorry to put you to trouble,” she whispered.
“I rather think you were the one put to trouble today.”
Standing by the door, she watched him as he went to ever
y bed, looking, touching, covering, and in one case, kneeling in conversation that ended in low laughter. She remembered the amputee, who slept now, and told him about the man’s pain. Lt. Brittle nodded and wrote a note for the orderly, prescribing laudanum, should the man wake before morning.
He carried her valise down the stairs and she followed, still stiff from sitting. On the colonnade, he offered her his arm and she took it. As she walked at his side, she found herself appreciating his height, which made their strides equal. With every step she took, she felt more tired than before. Even then, she knew she could not accept his offer.
“I should find a hotel,” she said, as they came to another building in the quadrangle.
“No need. I occupy the end of this building. I have a dragon for a housekeeper and cook. As soon as I leave you here, I’m going back to Block Three. I’ll be back in an hour to eat—I know it’s late, but that’s my life—and then it’s back to Three for the night. You won’t be in any way compromised.”
That was blunt enough. Embarrassed, she glanced at him, and found him looking at her with an expression entirely matter-of-fact.
“You must think I am an idiot,” she said. “My concerns are so puny and your responsibilities so huge.”
“I think nothing of the kind,” he said briskly. “Credit Niall McTavish at Edinburgh University, Lady Taunton. I happened to be paying attention when he said…” He paused on the walk, struck a pose, and continued in a Scottish accent that made her smile. “‘Lads, everrryone’s consairns are parrramount and it is evarrr thus.’ I believe him.”
“Verrrra well,” she told him, and he chuckled.
By now he was opening the door to the end apartment. “Here is that dragon I was telling you about,” Lt. Brittle said cheerfully, as a woman just slightly shorter than he was entered the room. “Aunt Walters, this is Lady Taunton, our guest for the night. Aunt Walters is also my father’s older sister, and was never afraid to pound me when I deserved it.” Lt. Brittle set down her valise and left the room.
