The Ship of Brides(15)
Author: Jojo Moyes

Some of the Sikhs had hardly been men: they were light enough to be carried by a single nurse, mute or incoherent. For weeks they had fed them like newborn babies: two-hourly doses of powdered milk, followed by teaspoons of mashed potato, minced rabbit, boiled rice, trying to coax their collapsed digestive systems back into life. They had cradled skeletal heads, mopped spilt food from chapped lips, slowly convinced the men with whispers and smiles that this was not the precursor to some further terrible act of violence. Gradually, their hollow eyes bleak with whatever they had seen, the men had begun to understand where they had come.

The nurses had been so moved by their plight, their wordless gratitude and the fact that many had not heard from home in years that some weeks later they had got one of the interpreters to help them prepare a curried dish for those able to stomach it. Nothing too ambitious, just a little mutton and spices, some Indian flatbread to go with the boiled rice. They had presented it on trays decorated with flowers. It had seemed important to convince the men that there was still a little beauty in the world. But as they entered the ward, and proudly laid out the trays before them, many of the POWs had finally broken down, less able to cope with kindness than with hard words and blows.

‘Share a nip with us, Matron?’

The captain lifted the bottle, an invitation. The record finished and at the far end of the room someone cursed as the next disc slid out of slick hands on to the floor. She eyed him for a moment. He shouldn’t be drinking with the medication he was taking. ‘Don’t mind if I do, Captain Baillie,’ she said. ‘One for the boys who aren’t going home.’

The girls’ faces relaxed. ‘To absent friends,’ they murmured, glasses upheld.

‘Wish the Americans were still here,’ said Staff Nurse Fisher, mopping her brow. ‘I don’t half miss those buckets of crushed ice.’ Only a few British patients now remained.

There was a swell of agreement.

‘I just want to get to sea,’ said Private Lerwick, from the corner. ‘I keep dreaming of the breezes.’

‘Cups of tea without chlorinated water.’

‘Cold English beer.’

‘No such thing, mate.’

Normally heat like this would have left them all listless, the patients dozing on their beds, the nurses moving slowly between them, wiping damp faces with cool cloths, checking for ulcers, infection, dysentery. But the imminent departure of the POWs, the fact that they were mending, that they were here at all, had injected something into the atmosphere. Perhaps it was the sudden realisation that long-standing units, tightly knit groups that had supported each other through the horror of the last years, were about to be disbanded, separated by miles, in some cases continents, and might not meet again.

Audrey Marshall, watching the people before her, felt her throat constrict – a sensation so rare that she was briefly perplexed by it. Suddenly she understood the girls’ need to party, the men’s determination to drink, dance and plough their way with forced merriment through these last hours together. ‘Tell you what,’ she said, gesturing towards the drip in the corner, where one of the physiotherapists was drinking beer from a false limb, ‘make mine a large one.’

The singing started not long afterwards: ‘Shenandoah’. The reedy, drink-lubricated voices drifted through the canvas into the night sky.

It was half-way through the chorus that the girl entered. Audrey didn’t see her at first – the whisky had perhaps dulled the sharp senses that usually ensured she missed nothing. But as she raised her own voice in song, enjoying the sight of the recovering men singing in their beds, the nurses clutching each other, their eyes occasionally welling with sentimental tears, she became aware of a sudden froideur, the sideways glances that told her something had changed.

She was standing in the doorway, her pale, freckled face porcelain still, her thin shoulders erect in her uniform as she took in the scene before her. She was holding a small suitcase and a kitbag. Not much to show for six years in the Australian General Hospital. She stared into the crowded tent as if it had altered her resolve to come in, as if she were about to change her mind. Then she caught Audrey Marshall looking at her, and walked over slowly, staying as close as she could to the side of the tent.

‘Packed already, Sister?’

She hesitated before she spoke. ‘I’ll be boarding the hospital ship tonight, Matron, if it’s all right by you. They could do with a bit of help with the very sick men.’

‘They didn’t ask me,’ said Audrey, trying not to sound aggrieved.

The girl looked at the floor. ‘I – I offered. I hope you don’t mind. I thought I could be of more use . . . that you probably didn’t need me any more.’ With the music it was difficult to hear her.

‘You don’t want to stay and have a last few drinks with us?’ Even as she said it Audrey wasn’t sure why she’d asked. In the four years they had worked together Sister Mackenzie had never been one for parties. Now she probably understood why.

‘You’re very kind, but no, thank you.’ She was already looking at the doorway, as if calculating how soon she could leave.

Audrey was about to press the point, unwilling to let her drift off, to let this be the way her years of service should end. But as she tried to find the right words, she became aware that for the most part the girls had stopped dancing. Several of them stood in huddles, their eyes cold, assessing. ‘I’d like to say—’ she began, but one of the men interrupted.

‘Is that Sister Mackenzie? You hiding her there, Matron? Come on, Sister, you can’t go without saying a proper goodbye.’

Private Lerwick was trying to get out of bed. He had put his feet on the ground and was steadying himself with one hand on the iron bedhead. ‘Don’t you go anywhere, Sister. You made me a promise, remember?’

Audrey caught the knowing smirk between Nurse Fisher and the two girls beside her. She glanced at Sister Mackenzie, and realised that she had seen it too. Sister Mackenzie’s hands had tightened on her two bags. She stiffened, then said quietly, ‘I can’t stay, Private. I’ve got to board the hospital ship.’

‘Ah, will you not take a drink with us, Sister? A last drink?’

‘Sister Mackenzie has work to do, Sergeant O’Brien,’ the matron said firmly.

‘Ah, come on. At least shake my hand.’

The girl took a step forward, then went to shake the hands of those men who proffered them. The music had started up again, deflecting attention from her, but even as she moved, Audrey Marshall noted the narrowed eyes of the other nurses, the deliberate turning away of several men. She walked behind her, making sure she wasn’t kept at each bed for too long.