And now he had left her: because he couldn’t stand it any longer. He knew she would be all right now. There was a core of steel in Elizabeth MacMillan.
He suspected he had started falling in love with her the very first time he had met her - that soaking wet night in Buchanan Street. She’d been all shining hair and passion.
But he had seen how shy she was, suspecting there was something more to it than mere reserve. He’d been willing to wait. And while he’d been standing back, behaving like a bloody gentleman as usual, Mario had got there before him.
It made no difference to him that she had allowed Mario to make love to her. He shifted uncomfortably on the cushioned seat. Who was he trying to kid? Certainly not himself. When he had found out about that he had been overwhelmed by his feelings. A tidal wave of pure sexual jealousy, he supposed, which had left him empty and despairing.
It hadn’t stopped him loving her. He wished it had been him, that was all. How many times had he sat next to her in the cinema, hoping her hand would accidentally brush against his? Hoping her hand would deliberately brush against his...
How often had he longed to slip his arm around her shoulders, put his fingers under her chin and lift her face towards him for a kiss?
‘You all right, old man?’
‘What?’
‘You groaned,’ said the naval officer. ‘Thought you were in pain or something.’
‘N-no,’ stuttered Adam. ‘I’m fine.’
I must have invented some new meaning of fine, he thought bitterly. And yes, he was in pain, but not the sort he could cure with his own medical skills.
She didn’t love him, of course. Oh, she liked him as a friend, an amiable twit, someone who made her laugh. That was all. It was Mario she loved. Even in his misery, Adam found something to admire in that. Her constancy to her lost lover shone like a diamond.
He stared out of the window and saw nothing of the countryside flashing by. All he could see was her lovely face, smiling as she wished him farewell, sending him off to war with a cheerful word and the offer of a kiss.
He nearly groaned again. What sort of an idiot was he anyway? She had made the offer and he had turned her down.
As the train picked up speed after Motherwell, all he could think of was that squandered opportunity. She might have put her arms around him. He could have felt her body against his, experienced the softness of her breasts against his chest—
He pulled himself up. What was the use?
He had held her in his arms, of course, when she had been distressed and in need of comfort. She had permitted him to do that. But it was Mario she loved. Not him. It would never be him.
Forty
‘I’m not nursing a German.’
Liz hadn’t raised her voice. She’d said the words perfectly calmly. Judging by the determined set of her mouth, however, she meant business. Unfortunately, so did Sister MacLean.
‘I’m not asking you to nurse a German, MacMillan.’
Her accent had become more lilting. That was a well-known danger signal. It made no difference to Liz.
She waved an unsteady hand in the general direction of the bed further down the ward where the young German sailor lay. It had shaken her badly to find him there when she’d come on duty tonight. He’d been picked up in the sea after his vessel had been torpedoed by a British ship.
‘He was out there trying to kill our boys.’
‘Our boys were out there trying to kill him,’ came the implacable answer. ‘That’s war. On this occasion they killed a lot of his comrades. Sometimes it’s the other way round. A stupid way of sorting things out if you ask me,’ Sister said briskly, ‘but that’s the male of the species for you. What I meant is, I’m not asking you to nurse a German. I’m asking you to nurse a patient.’
Stung, Liz met the older woman’s eyes.
‘The man in that bed is our patient, as much as anyone else in here. If Adolf Hitler were admitted to this ward, I’d expect you to nurse him too. With medical competence and human compassion. Do I make myself understood?’
The night was crawling past. Liz took a walk round the ward. She hadn’t quite perfected the silent glide of the most experienced staff nurses and sisters, but she was getting better at it. All of the patients were sleeping soundly, including the German. She walked back to her table.
Her books were lying open on it. Night duty was a good opportunity to catch up on some studying. Half an hour later she realized she’d been staring at the same page for a full ten minutes without taking in one word of it.
Night nurse’s hysteria. That was what one of the old hands had told her it was called. When your thoughts went rattling off in a hundred different directions. To Mario, naturally. Italy had surrendered in June, had now joined the Allies. Surely that meant he would be released? But it was September now and she’d heard nothing. There had been no more messages.
She’d had the occasional cheerful, if brief, missive from Adam, but they’d dried up completely over the past few months. The last one had arrived the morning after they’d had the thrilling announcement that D-Day had come at last. Which meant that young Dr Buchanan was probably on the continent - patching up the other chaps, as he’d put it. In the danger zone.
One of those who had died in the battle to free Europe was Eric Mitchell. Liz found that out by accident when Miss Gilchrist turned up in Accident and Emergency one night, having twisted her ankle during the blackout. She greeted Liz like a long-lost daughter, all but falling on her neck. Liz treated her with professional courtesy.
According to Lucy Gilchrist, Eric Mitchell had died a hero. Somehow Liz doubted that, but she was sorry for his wife and child.
The Allies were making progress - Paris had been liberated the week before - but they were meeting fierce resistance from the Germans every step of the way. Getting to Berlin wasn’t exactly going to be a stroll through the countryside. Liz worried a lot about Adam. If only he would write!
And then there was her father. Her grandfather had challenged her to apply her knowledge of psychology to the problem.
‘Some men hit the bottle when the going gets rough. Your father didnae, but he got all closed in on himself, tried to shut the rest of us out. Particularly after wee Georgie died and when he was laid off from the
Queen Mary
. That sort of thing hits a man hard, you know.’
‘And he took it out on his family?’ Liz asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
‘His family was the one area of his life that he could control. Or thought he could. Until you rebelled.’
It did make some sort of sense. Liz could see already that Hope - like her mother a born diplomat - wasn’t going to have the same problems she’d had growing up in her father’s household.
Understanding that she herself had been a constant challenge to her father was one thing. Forgiving him for how he’d dealt with that was a different matter.
Liz’s head snapped up at the faint moan coming from one of the beds. She made the patient comfortable, soothed him back to sleep, then returned to her textbook, closing it in quiet exasperation ten minutes later. She couldn’t seem to concentrate tonight.
For some reason it was Marie Gallagher who was filling her thoughts now. Clear as day in her mind’s eye, Liz could visualize the cramped flat in the Holy City before the parachute bomb had devastated it.
She could see its neatness and cleanliness, Helen’s pots of flowers, the holy pictures on the walls. Her brain focused in on the one she herself had always loved so much, Christ knocking at a door, His face full of understanding, His eyes full of compassion for all the world.
She remembered how Helen’s mother had noticed her studying it. ‘The door to our hearts,’ Marie had said. ‘All we have to do is let Him in.’
Liz glanced at her watch. An hour and a half to go till her break.
‘
Schwester
?’
The sibilant whisper was startlingly loud in the night-time silence of the ward. She knew exactly which bed it had come from: the one occupied by the German sailor. She walked swiftly but quietly up the ward, careful not to rouse any of the other patients. They’d be woken soon enough, poor souls.
As she reached the foot of his bed, he said the word again, more quietly now that he could see her. He didn’t seem to want to waken the other patients either.
‘
Schwester?
’
Could it mean sister? That was what it sounded like. Had he perhaps been dreaming of his own sister back in Germany and woken up confused, still half-asleep? She supposed Germans did have sisters.
She had a sudden brainwave. Perhaps
Schwester
was the German word for sister in the nursing sense. Well, she thought wryly, at least someone here knows my true worth, even if it is only a filthy Hun.
He didn’t look much like a filthy Hun, lying back quietly on a white pillow, gazing up at her in mute appeal. He looked like a boy. Some mother’s son. Some sister’s brother. His eyes were very blue. Like Helen’s.
He indicated the jug of water which stood on his locker. Both of his hands were heavily bandaged.
‘Water? You want a drink of water?’
‘
Ja
,’ he managed. ‘
Wasser
.’ He tried to say it in English. ‘Votter.’
She poured out a glass, and since there was no way he could hold it himself, she put an arm round his shoulders, lifted him up and helped him drink. As she lowered his head carefully back on to the pillow, she could see that the effort of sitting up had been considerable.
‘
Danke, Schwester. Danke schön.
’
He was thanking her. That much she could understand. And he was trying to smile.
‘Can I do something else for you?’
She wasn’t sure if he understood her or not, but he said something which sounded like
photograph
. He kept repeating the word and pointing towards the top of the ward. Of course. His personal possessions, such as they were, must be in the locked cupboard up there where such things were kept.
She told him in sign language what she intended to do and was back in five minutes with what looked like a home-made waterproofed wallet. His eyes lit up when he saw it and he indicated that Liz should open it. The photo inside, only slightly spotted by sea water, was of a young woman holding a baby.
‘Your wife and child?’
He wasn’t sure about that, so she rephrased it, pointing to the photograph and then at him. ‘Your wife and baby?’
He nodded. Liz pretended not to notice the wetness in his eyes. She found a spare chunky glass tumbler inside his locker and propped the photo up against it, securing it with a New Testament laid on its side, pushing the locker so that it was inches from his head.
‘Then you can look at them while you fall asleep again,’ she said softly. She was sure he hadn’t understood any of that, but she could see that he appreciated what she had done.
‘Thank you,’ he said, although it came out like
zank you
. Liz laid a cool hand on his brow. He shut his eyes, like an obedient child who’d been told to go to sleep.
‘Nae bother,’she said.
‘
Nae bozzer,
’ he repeated, opening his eyes briefly again and looking up at her.
Liz smiled.
Handing over to the day shift, Liz briefed Naomi Richardson, now a staff nurse, on the condition of the various patients. She told her about the German sailor and the events of the night.
‘Cordelia speaks German. I’ll ask her to pop in sometime this morning to talk to him. In fact, I’ll go and see if I can catch her now, before she goes on duty.’