The Nurse's War
Authors: Merryn Allingham
MERRYN ALLINGHAM
was born into an army family and spent her childhood on the move. Unsurprisingly, it gave her itchy feet and in her twenties she escaped from an unloved secretarial career to work as cabin crew and see the world. The arrival of marriage, children and cats meant a more settled life in the south of England, where she’s lived ever since. It also gave her the opportunity to go back to ‘school’ and eventually teach at university.
Merryn has always loved books that bring the past to life, so when she began writing herself the novels had to be historical. Writing as Isabelle Goddard, she published six Regency romances. Since then, Merryn has set her books in the early twentieth century, a fascinating era that she loves researching.
Daisy’s War
takes place in India and wartime London during the 1930s and 1940s, and is a trilogy full of intrigue and romance.
Merryn Allingham
To my mother who, with countless other women, fought the war on the Home Front.
‘The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future too.’
—Eugene O’Neill,
Long Day’s Journey into Night
Table of Contents
London, early April 1941
T
he footsteps were growing louder. Or at least more distinct in the darkness. Very gradually the sounds of night had fallen away and she had become conscious of the man’s step. She was in no doubt that it was a man. He had an uneven tread, as though he were limping. No, not limping, she thought, but walking uncertainly, as though he feared to give himself away. She had no idea how long he’d been following her, since it wasn’t until she was passing Middle Street that she’d become aware of him. It had been a long and exhausting day and she was almost asleep on her feet. The night shift had come on duty at six as usual, but the wards were full to capacity and she had volunteered to stay on. It meant returning to the Nurses’ Home alone, through the black pall that nightly covered the city.
At first the blackout had come as a severe shock. In an instant, the familiar had been transformed into the frighteningly unfamiliar. But after a while, like most
people, she’d adapted. Now with only the slightest trace of moon to light her way, she was confident enough to walk almost blind around dim corners and through murky streets. Until, that is, she’d heard the footsteps. They were there still: left, shuffle, right, shuffle. She felt her shoulders grow tight at the sound and scolded herself for her timidity. They were in the middle of a war and she was falling into panic over a man’s footfall. After all he’d made no attempt to overtake her; in all likelihood he was an innocent, lost in a maze of unrecognisable streets and trying only to battle his way home.
For several minutes she was comforted. But then a thought struck, unbidden and unwelcome. For a stranger to lose his way in these streets would be extremely unusual. The only men she ever encountered at this time of night were there for a purpose. Patrolling wardens with their constant refrain of ‘Put out that light,’ members of the Home Guard who would flash her a greeting with their torches when they caught sight of the nurse’s uniform. This man was alone and surely it wasn’t her imagination that he walked stealthily. Whatever his intentions, she doubted they were benign. The blackout had brought its own troubles and not everyone was doing their bit for King and country.
Out of the darkness a freshness filled the evening air, the freshness of new grass. She must be approaching Charterhouse Square and thanked heaven for it. She was nearly home. In her eagerness to reach safety, she
quickened her pace again. The clouds momentarily cleared and through the trees she glimpsed the outline of the Nurses’ Home, its pointed gables floating against the night sky and its large oak door standing sturdily on guard, a portcullis resisting all invaders. She was crossing the square now, fumbling in her bag; she must have her key ready for the minute she reached the door. But the man had increased his pace, too, and she was having almost to run to stay ahead. She fled across the grass, ducking between branches, brushing her way past newly budding leaves. By the time she reached the road on the far side, her heartbeat was drumming in her ears and her breath coming short. She sped across the last few yards of pavement, slowing herself as she reached the iron railings, then quickly up the whitewashed steps, the key clenched in a hand that she couldn’t quite keep steady.
The moon had once more disappeared behind a blanket of cloud and she was forced to feel for the lock.
Let me get it right, let me get it right
, her mind repeated frantically. The key slotted into the lock and she felt the breath escaping from her body in a sigh of relief. Then, without warning, a hand emerged from the blackness and wrestled the key from her hand. It fell uselessly to the ground, but when she opened her mouth to scream for help, another hand clamped itself to her mouth and stifled the cry.
‘Daisy. It’s me.’ The words hissed through the air.
Her attacker had said her name. But how? And whose was the voice?
‘You’re perfectly safe, but you mustn’t scream. If I take my hand away, promise you won’t.’
It could not be. It could not. She was hallucinating. He was dead. She’d seen with her own eyes his fall into the swollen river. He was dead, he was dead.
‘Promise you won’t make a sound,’ the man repeated. ‘Nod your head.’
It had to be his voice or it was that of his ghost. And she didn’t believe in ghosts. Dumbly she gave a nod and the hands released their hold. She stood not daring to move, her limbs immobile but her chest rising and falling in rapid motion. The figure beside her was searching for something. Then the sound of a match being struck and a small, solitary light flared for an instant. It was sufficient. She had not been hallucinating. The face had changed—the skin was weathered, the face bones gaunt, but it was him. It was Gerald. He had not died in that Indian river. For a moment she was overcome with a sudden nausea as the old guilt broke free of its moorings.
Somehow she managed to find her voice, hoarse and hardly recognisable. ‘Is it really you? I don’t understand.’ How ridiculous that sounded. The understatement of all time.
The memory was so vivid that every one of her senses added a layer to the image. She could still hear the shouts of her captors, feel the hot rain soaking her dress, see the raging waters closing on her husband’s head. How then could he be here? At one violent stroke, the past she had
tamed had broken its bonds and was showering her with its fragments. She began to shake uncontrollably and was forced to lean against the massive door for support.
‘It’s me all right.’
‘But how …?’ The question was dredged out of her.
‘I escaped, that’s how. Pure luck.’
‘But how?’
‘My shirt snagged on one of those damned festival floats—would you believe? But it stopped me from going under. I was pulled down the river for miles—you know how fierce the water was. Then the float got pushed into the bank and lodged there.’
‘And you weren’t injured?’
‘A broken arm, that’s all, and it mended pretty quickly. People came from the village to see what had drifted their way and found me instead of the goddess they’d expected. They looked after me until I was fit to leave.’
‘You had an astonishing escape.’ How trite she sounded, but in the face of such extraordinary fortune, what more was there to say? Except there was more. The shock was slowly receding and the questions had begun.
‘But once you were well, once your arm had mended, why didn’t you go back to Jasirapur?’
Why didn’t you face the crime you committed?
her inner voice accused. ‘And the—the incident—happened well over a year ago. Where have you been since then? And how did you find me?’
The moon was still in hiding and she couldn’t see his face but she could imagine the irritated expression it wore.
Her questions had always annoyed him. He left most of them dangling in the air, choosing only to answer the last.
‘I used my head, Daisy, that’s how. I didn’t know if you were in London, but I thought it worth looking for you.’ What he really meant, she thought, was that he hadn’t known whether she was alive or dead, but that was something he wasn’t going to say.
‘If you had returned to London,’ he continued smoothly, ‘it was possible you’d gone back to Bridges to work. So I called at their perfume counter. You weren’t there, but I had another piece of good fortune. One of the girls you used to work with had seen you. Quite recently too. Her sister was a patient in St Bart’s for a while. She’d just had an operation and when this girl visited, she was sure she’d seen you there. She said you were wearing a nurse’s uniform. So I’ve been hanging around the hospital for a few days hoping to catch you. But no sign. I thought my luck must have run out at last. Tonight when I saw you leave, I’d almost given up.’
‘I’m not always at St Bart’s. Sometimes I have to travel to Hill End. It’s in the countryside, near St Albans. Patients are evacuated there as soon as they’re stable enough.’ She felt stupid—why was she bothering to explain? ‘But what girl at Bridges? And where are you living?’
A chilly breeze sprung out of nowhere, snaking around the corners of the square, and whipping up the edges of her cape. Across the grassed space, the leaves rustled angrily. For an instant, she felt a shadow pass across her vision and
blinked in surprise. It made her shiver slightly. She was sure that Gerald had seen it, too, for he shifted uneasily from foot to foot, and his voice when he spoke held the barely contained impatience she had come to know so well.
‘We can’t talk now but I need your help. We must meet—soon—but somewhere else.’ He reached out and gripped her by the arm. It was such a fierce tug that she let out a small cry of pain.
He stepped back and his tone was more conciliatory. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt but I have to see you. Here—’ and he pushed a piece of paper into her hand. ‘Send your message to this address. It’s a corner shop, one of those that sells just about everything. They’ve agreed to hold post for me.’
Even in her confused state, she found herself pondering why he couldn’t simply give her his address. It would be difficult for her to get to the shop as nursing staff were allowed only a short break during their working day. But she was given no chance to refuse.
‘Don’t let me down, Daisy. Remember, you’re still my wife.’
It was almost a threat, at best emotional blackmail, and from a man who had wronged her dreadfully. She should tell him to go away and never return, leave her to whatever peace she’d found. But old loyalties were not so easily subdued.
‘I’m not sure that I can help.’ At the very least, she must dampen his hopes.
‘You’ve got to. I’ve no one else. My parents are dead. The house they were living in is a pile of rubble, like most of the East End.’
Had what happened in India robbed him of his memory? Where was the story he’d been at pains to impress on her, that his parents had died years ago in the Somerset manor house that was their family home? Years ago, not now, not in wartime, and not in a miserable tenement in the poorest part of the city. But she wouldn’t remind him of the lies he’d told. It was too complicated.
‘I don’t know how I can help,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve no money. I’m a nurse in training and my pay is barely sufficient to buy essentials. I live board free, here in the Nurses’ Home.’
But he wasn’t listening. His own tale, his own needs, were too urgent. He grabbed hold of her arm again. ‘I’m a deserter, Daisy, that’s what it’s come down to. Do you understand what that means? I could be picked up at any time and locked up for years. Do you want to see me go to prison? I have to get away—to a neutral country where they can’t touch me. I have to have papers and you’re my only hope. Send me a message tomorrow with a time and meeting place.’