Lucilla could barely speak for wonder. A hospital staffed by women? And Clara offered her money to do this? Of course, women doctors might be just as awful as the male variety, but somehow she doubted it. “How many beds?” she asked.
“One hundred to start, perhaps one hundred twenty. We’re hoping to have two hundred eventually. The site is found—it’s to be a casino building, made over. Local workmen are putting in extra wood stoves for heat, and more electrical lines for the surgeries. We’re hoping to send the first staff over within the week. So, will you go? Please say you will.” Clara leaned across the desk and gripped her forearm. “I wish I could go myself. Perhaps later, if there are funds. Such an adventure!”
Adventure always proved to be more tiresome and dirty than one wished, but Lucilla couldn’t bear to stay at home any longer. Now that her studies in Germany had been terminated, she needed a purpose. Once she began to assemble her supplies, a tentative excitement began to wake her early in the mornings and keep her up at night as she paged through her medical books, finding the most useful to bring with her.
Two weeks later, she found herself again in Le Havre, about to board a train, only this time with a trunk for luggage and a group of cheerful nurses and women orderlies for companions. She was tempted only briefly to visit the Rue du Canotage; after all, what would she say? Pascal would not be there. And she couldn’t wander off; they might miss their train, and trains for civilians were currently few and far between. She would be back where she’d been at the beginning, and she intended to go forward, not backward. She was making a life for herself.
The first days were all hard work, such hard work that she fell into her bed each night already nearly asleep from exhaustion. Bedsteads had arrived, mattresses had accidentally gone to Rouen and had to be retrieved by lorry. Twenty roulette wheels had to be carried up to the attics and stacked atop card tables covered in green baize. Tanks of nitrous oxide were procured, but some of the tanks of oxygen needed to mix with it had leaked and arrived empty, and had to be replaced. Only boys and men over fifty years of age were available to work as orderlies, so Lucilla and even some of the doctors pitched in to carry immense piles of bedding and cases of bandages up the casino’s grand staircases and into the wards. The official inspectors arrived, and declared one of the rooms they’d chosen for surgeries to be unacceptable, so another had to be prepared, all its carpeting ripped out and every surface scrubbed and painted.
At last, however, Lucilla gazed around a makeshift ward in satisfaction. The variously colored brocaded coverlets and lap rugs, all donations, made the room look cheerful. She’d successfully directed her cadre of six French volunteers in making the beds and laying out the requisite kit in the lockers beside: pajamas, flannel, towel and soap, and a bag to hold the patient’s uniform once it had been labeled and laundered out in the paved courtyard. She doubted this perfection would last beyond the first influx of wounded, but she let her volunteers enjoy their success while they could, and for a break requested they stock the entertainment cabinet at the far end of the ward. Lucilla set the mademoiselles free to roam the casino’s every room and closet to obtain sufficient decks of cards and cups of dice, secretly gleeful that such a male bastion was now the domain of women.
She looked out the glass doors at a crew of local workers struggling with electrical wiring for the temporary buildings that would house the X-ray department and laboratories. The white-haired man who directed them looked ready to strangle his helpers. Several more aged Frenchmen, aided by a crew of youngsters, were building paths out of boards, so trolleys could be wheeled directly from the hospital. One of those small buildings would be Lucilla’s own kingdom, where she would perform double duty compounding disinfectant and irrigation solutions. The extra work would be worth it for the attendant privacy.
Matron swept through the elaborately carved doorway, studying the watch she wore clipped to her uniform cape. “Daglish, I’m afraid I’ll have to move you over to the east wing. It’s not quite ready, and I’ve heard we might be receiving casualties sooner than we’d expected.”
So it begins, Lucilla thought. “Yes, Matron. Someone will look after the mademoiselles?”
“I’ll send Sister Inkson.”
Most of the rooms designated for the isolation cases were smaller than the grand salons they’d taken over for the general wards. The gorgeous burgundy-and-gold-f locked wallpaper had not survived its first encounter with antisepsis procedures, nor had the beautifully oiled wooden floor, but at least the painted ceilings, rich with flowering vines and imaginatively draped and undraped nymphs, would give the patients something to stare at while lying on their backs. The beds, she noted with approval, had brass head and footboards that would be easy to keep clean, and the furniture, though heavy and antique, was all well stocked with bandages and other materials for dressings.
She found another volunteer and set her to folding back the bedcovers, in preparation for slipping patients in with little fuss. Then she hurried to the large surgical ward, formerly a long room set up for mingling and drinking before the night’s gaming began. Its minimal furnishings had been dragged away, and once the carpets had been removed, they’d set up portable beds the length of the room. She checked that supplies were laid to hand at each bed, then moved into the operating theater itself. Quickly, she counted the trays of sterilized and wrapped scalpels and retracting tools, then the readily accessible disinfectants. Another nurse and Miss Gould examined the supplies of anesthesia and made sure each unit of equipment was operational. Lucilla went on to the pharmacy.
Sister Loudon welcomed her with a brief smile and pointed to a stack of crates. Most of the straw-swaddled bottles had not yet been unloaded. Lucilla set to the task with a will, the clink of bottles bringing sweet memories of her tiny, quiet lab at the Institute. Suddenly, she remembered seeing Pascal for the first time. She’d been washing glass tubing, and had turned at his quiet “Pardon, mademoiselle.” She wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there, waiting for her to be finished with the delicate glassware. She’d quickly given him directions to an office upstairs, Kauz’s office as it happened, then returned to her work, having no idea what was to come. Did all change begin so simply?
She would give anything to talk to him now. She felt the phantom brush of his mustache beside her mouth.
No wounded had arrived by the afternoon, but mail did, a brimming sack hauled between the two strongest ambulance drivers, college girls who looked so much alike in their bobbed hair and squarish faces that Lucilla had at first assumed them sisters. Lucilla had a cheerful letter from Clara, and a small tin of biscuits from her mother, but nothing at all from Crispin. She worried where he was, and what he was doing. Surely he had not gone into action already.
She couldn’t think of him, not when she had work to do. She would be seeing entirely too much in the days to come, and she wouldn’t have the energy to do her work, keep up the spirits of the wounded and keep herself healthy if she worried endlessly over things she could not control. She took copies of the London papers, only two days old, and carried them off to the tea room. And she wondered where Pascal was now.
10
PASCAL HATED BEING INTERRUPTED WHEN HE was thinking, so he ignored the thumping at his door and the polite calls of “Major? Major?” and continued drawing his diagram in strong black lines over the pages of Le Petit Parisien. His adjustments would have implications for the future. He glanced at the list he’d tacked to the wall. The Marne would be a problem in this area, he could see it already. The Meuse would also be a problem, though less immediately. He would need maps to record his ideas, but that could wait, as a crew waited for his figures in the minor matter before him. An adjustment of the gun here would necessitate another adjustment here of another fraction. Perhaps that would help to compensate for the gun’s engineering flaw.
He needed another color of ink. He tunneled among the desk’s litter and emerged with a glass bottle. It held only a dried stain of blue
. He cursed and searched again.
The polite calls had increased in volume. Really, they were quite distracting. Pascal bellowed, “I am busy!” and resumed his search for colored ink. The army had promised to supply him with all he required. Well, he required colored ink. If they wished to have results, they must feed the beast that would provide them. His work would progress much faster with the proper supplies.
He could find no more ink, and in his agitation he’d spilled the open bottle of black. Pascal cursed in English, short and blunt, and shoved the papers onto the floor. He rose, straightened his blue uniform coat and flung open the door.
A scrawny lieutenant fell into the room. Behind him, in the corridor, huddled a tiny woman with huge, rage-filled eyes. She wore widow’s weeds, and a small pin depicting the Belgian flag instead of the more common cameo or crucifix. Pascal raised his brows at her. Her dress was too ragged for her to be an officer’s wife. She was not part of the domestic staff, or she would be wearing an apron. She was not a prostitute; her expression was in no way enticing, and besides, such indiscretions were utterly frowned upon in the Rue Deuxième. She had been brought to his office. She was, therefore, either a scientist or a spy.
Lucilla’s face flashed across his memory, and her scent, and the scar of an acid burn that marred the soft flesh at the base of her left thumb. He carried a letter to her, in his pocket, which he touched ten times a day. He could not mail it, now he was a spy in truth. Who knew what could happen to her if that came to light?
He needed to keep his mind on business. “Out,” he said to the lieutenant, whose expression, he now noted, looked desperate. Apparently, they’d sent the woman to him because no one else could discern what to do with her. It was the story of his life. “Madame?” He waved the widow into his office. “Would you like coffee? A pastry?”
The woman pushed by the exiting lieutenant and placed her back against the wall, near to the open door. When the door began to fall closed, she pushed it open again with her foot, and this time it stayed. Pascal noted she wore no corset, and only sandals below the hem of her dress. Her feet were dirty, with ragged nails; a strange contrast to her dress, which looked to be of fine material. Perhaps she had fallen on hard times, or she disliked shoes, or had received the dress from a previous owner. She did not at all have the air of a rich woman. She had not demanded anything of him, not even a chair. Unless she was the sort who was so abominably rich that eccentricity was allowed.
The woman had not spoken. Her eyes flicked around the room, not meeting his gaze, but repeatedly passing over him as if she waited for him to spring. At last she said, “You are the major of whom they all speak?”
Her French was tinged with Flemish but was pure and liquid and upper-class. Given her appearance, he had expected an accent more crude, more like his own uncouth vowels. He nodded. “I am Fournier.” He was careful not to ask her name. “You have information for me?” he asked, sitting on the very edge of his desk, to avoid the spreading pool of ink.
She glanced at the open door, then the window, its sill cluttered with books and two sleeping calico queens. “We will go outside,” she said, and ducked into the corridor, graceful as one of his cats. Pascal followed.
Outside, soldiers hurried up and down the town’s winding narrow streets, most of them as old or older than Pascal’s father. All the young men had been rushed to the front, and many of the men of middle age, as well. A few boys remained at this headquarters, a few younger officers on detached duty, and Pascal, whose brains were far too valuable to be blown out. Women could be seen on the street, local women carrying baskets and trailed by children. Pascal saw a khaki-clad British officer, as well, climbing into a motor driven by an elderly Frenchman. The officer took off his cap and wiped his forehead. He had red hair, uncommon enough for Pascal to give him a second look. A dusty terrier ran to the officer’s feet and barked imperatively. Pascal had seen the dog hanging about in the street all week, probably abandoned. The officer swung back to the ground, scooped up the animal, inspected it and tucked it beneath one arm before hopping gracefully back into the motor.
The spy stared at the British officer, stiff as a dog who’d spotted ducks, until the motor pulled away. Pascal thought of taking her arm to gain her attention, but decided against it. She might be violent. “Madame?” he said.
She began walking. Pascal, taller by three heads, caught up to her easily and then moderated his stride. “We should appear casual,” he suggested. “How shall I address you?”
“I am Tanneken Claes,” she said. “It is my name and I need no other.”
“Madame Claes,” he said. He rummaged in his uniform tunic. “Cigarette?”
“They are foul,” she said. “The enemy can smell the stale tobacco on your person. You would be wise to abstain.”
Pascal had no intention of getting close enough to the enemy that he could be smelled. Also, he did not particularly care for tobacco, but he’d found it to be a good icebreaker and bribe. He clasped his hands behind his back. “What have you brought me?”
“Numbers,” she said. “I am told you like numbers.”
“They are useful,” he said, a profound understatement.
“I bring, also, measurements. These are not so clear. You will have to interpret them.”
“Measurements of distance? If you will permit me, madame, I can teach you methods to more accurately ascertain such matters as distance while in the field. That is, if you wish to continue to help us.”
“Can you teach these methods to a wolf?” she asked.
Pascal blinked. Perhaps he’d misheard, as he often mused on Kauz and his notebooks at inopportune moments. “Pardon?”
“I am a werewolf,” Madame Claes said, as if she discussed making soup. “I visited beyond the Boche lines in the form of a wolf. It is difficult for me to translate this knowledge into a form that will be useful to you.”
Pascal drew a slow breath. If true, this was the luckiest coincidence of his life, after finding Lucilla, of course. He could think of no reason Madame Claes would have to lie about such a thing. He must first ascertain if she had any useful information at all, then he could question her further on the matter of being a werewolf, and what she might know. A chill raced down his chest and settled in his belly. Had she been the werewolf Kauz held captive? “How did this come about?” he asked.
“I have a hatred of the country that invaded mine, particularly since their uncouth soldiers have encamped all over my estate, so I changed my form and went to spy on them,” she explained patiently.
“No, no, madame. Tell me about being a werewolf.”
“Do you want my information or not? I obtained it the night before last. It is still fresh.”
“I want it,” Pascal said. “I am simply curious.”
“Your interest is prurient,” she said scornfully.
“Indeed not, madame!”
“You all wonder—is she nude when she changes? Is she nude when she changes back? Where is her body hairy? Where—”
“Madame!” Pascal had not in fact been considering those questions, but now the images surged through his mind with the inevitability of the sea. He could not now help himself from looking at her as a woman: the elegance of her mobile, delicate hands; the shape of her bosom beneath her dress; the tendrils of hair curling against her neck, caressing skin that looked smooth as porcelain.
She smiled, slow and feral, then sniffed. “I can smell your desire,” she purred, those patrician vowels suddenly sensual beyond bearing. “And something else, as well.” She lifted a single eyebrow.
Pascal had always been annoyed with people who had mastered that trick. “Do you have information for me or not?” he asked, aware and irked that she had sidestepped his question.
“I suppose you are no worse than any other man,” she said, suddenly dismissive, as if his reaction reduced his consequence. “Very well. Would you like to hear of the artillery batteries first, or the experimental chemicals?”
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br /> “How did you discover the experiments?”
“From the stink,” she said. “My nose was blinded by it. I was forced to retreat.”
“And this was—”
“Near Nimy.”
Pascal nodded. “I would like to hear more of this. But first, if you can tell me the numbers of guns and their sizes as you saw them.”
“You don’t wish to write down my information?”
He snorted. “If you would like every person on the street to see me writing your words, I would be glad to do so. I am not a fool, Madame Claes. I can hold the information in my memory.”
She looked him over, clearly assessing. “You have not asked anything further about the matter of werewolves. You know about us. And I know why.”
Pascal met her gaze. “Give me the artillery information first.”
“Very well,” she said at last, and began to recite what she had seen.
Pascal filed it all away in his memory, even the things that seemed useless or that confused him. One never knew what might make sense later. The chemical odors she spoke of disturbed him profoundly, all the more because he did not know the aim of the research, assuming it had been research and not accidental. Perhaps he could bring her to a laboratory, and ask her to smell various chemicals in the hope of identifying them and their uses. It was a pity Lucilla was not here. She could be useful.
All the while as Madame Claes talked, they continued to stroll down the street, occasionally pretending to look in shop windows. Toward the end of the street, he glanced into a tea shop and found it empty but for the shopgirl. “Would you like tea, Madame Claes?”
If she had not been so much smaller than he, she would have been looking down her nose. “I am not hungry,” she said.
Pascal was. His stomach reminded him he had eaten nothing since his coffee and croissant at dawn. “Then perhaps you will accompany me. You will have to pretend, at least, so we are not conspicuous.”
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