Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Peeling back a dressing on her patient, Ginger paused, blinking rapidly as she tried to focus.
This was mindless work. Peel the dressing, clean the wound, redress.
Over and over, day in, and day out. But the mundaneness gave her too much time to think.
And she was more unnerved than ever since she’d returned to the hospital from her family’s home the previous night.
For what seemed like the hundredth time, she wondered what Sir Reginald Wingate could want with her.
The sharp sting of antiseptic burned her nostrils as she poured it onto a fresh cloth strip.
She couldn’t ignore the voice in her head.
Be alert. Noah had told her not to ignore her instincts.
She’d learned the hard way that her “feelings” about people could often be more accurate than she gave herself credit for.
She’d loathed Stephen for years before he’d shown his true nature.
No one else had agreed with her assessment of him, save for Noah.
If only she could send a message to Noah.
Speak to him when she felt worried. But her promise to Lord Helton didn’t expire until the war’s end.
Lord Helton had offered his protection for her family, but only if she stayed away from Noah.
That wasn’t something she took lightly. Stephen was still out there.
Her father’s role and position had accustomed her to a certain sense of security and connection, something that no longer existed here in Egypt without Lord Helton’s help.
She tied off another strip of cloth. The patient beside her coughed. Elsewhere in the room, the sounds of murmurs, groans, and bed frames creaking echoed through the high ceilings. Her good friend Beatrice had once said she could set a clock to the rhythm of the noise in a hospital ward.
As she finished her dressing, the young private she’d been working on stirred. “Hello, Sister,” he said, blinking bleary eyes.
“Good morning.” She leaned down to inspect the wound. “How’s your leg feeling this morning?”
“Much better now that you’re tending to me.” He grinned. “Let’s say we leave this place and go and get married.”
She laughed as she collected her supplies. “Tempting as it may be, I wouldn’t be able to keep working here if I did. No married women in the Queen Alexandra’s. That wouldn’t be fair to all the other soldiers, would it?”
He grimaced. “To hell with fair. Fair went out the window when this war started.”
Well, that had gone sour. It took little to remind the war-weary wounded of their troubles.
The soft tinkling of a bell broke into her thoughts.
Tea time. Miss Fitzgibbon insisted on such things.
Ginger sighed and finished with her patient.
As she made her way toward the tea cart in the ’corner of the room, she caught sight of a fresh crop of wounded men being brought in by orderlies.
She wiped her hands on her starched apron and stopped where Sister Helen Wagner stood watching, teacup in hand.
“Poor lad,” Sister Wagner said, shaking her head at one man, whose stump of a leg was bandaged above the knee. The orderlies lifted him from the stretcher and moved him to the bed.
“Any idea what happened to him?” Ginger asked. A Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse handed her a teacup, and Ginger accepted it with a tight-lipped smile.
“Railcar accident. He was going between two cars when they bumped together. Leg got caught between them and sliced it clear off.”
Ginger gasped. The Australian from the train? The chance that he’d ended up in the same hospital as her seemed so remote. He wouldn’t be here too long. Most likely they’d brought him to rest for a few days before voyaging back to Australia, his service ended. “That’s awful.”
Sister Wagner sighed. “He’s got a rough road ahead. There won’t be any pension waiting for him at home. The army only awards pensions to soldiers whose wound came from the enemy.”
How horrible—and unfair.
“Matron.” Ginger directed her comment to Miss Fitzgibbon as the matron came over for tea. She nodded toward the ’other side of the room. “I’d like to cut my break short if you wouldn’t mind and start with those new patients right away.”
Miss Fitzgibbon frowned at her. Normally the volunteer nurses did the initial work of receiving the patients.
They gave the tasks of cutting off bloodstained pajamas and washing the patients to less experienced nurses, whose skills weren’t as expansive as Ginger’s.
If it came to it, she’d explain to the matron her previous contact with the Australian soldier.
But given the lieutenant’s warning of consequences, Ginger wanted to avoid talking about that ordeal, if possible.
At last, the older woman’s expression softened. “Very well.”
One minor victory. Ginger ignored the curious stares of the other nurses and set to work. Going to the bed of the Australian, she introduced herself and lifted his sick card.
“Private Emerson?” She scanned the card. Will he remember me?
“That’s right.” His gaze didn’t meet hers. He continued to stare across the room, toward the enormous windows on one side. A lock of red hair—a similar shade to her own—hung down across his forehead.
“And how are you today?” Ginger pulled the sheet back from the stump of his leg and worked on his dressings.
“How do you think?”
She tensed. Some men licked their wounds and kept going. Far more, especially the most injured, behaved like this. The officers encouraged the nurses to help keep the men’s spirits up. But how could they laugh and joke around those who lost everything and knew it?
“Christmas is around the corner.” She forced the words out. Situations like this reinforced her preference for assisting in surgery. She disliked the sound of her own voice when she attempted to be cheery amid sorrow. It all felt hollow.
Private Emerson laid his hand on hers. “Please.” His bloodshot eyes closed. “No pretense.”
“Would you prefer I not speak?”
“Unless you know any verse. Something to distract me.”
“I have some poetry in my room.” She didn’t, but she could get a book from the local bookstore.
“Bonzer.” He settled back on his pillow, eyes still closed.
She changed his dressings in silence. She wished she could think of more to say to him. He’d barely looked at her. “Where in Australia are you from?” she asked at last.
“Adelaide.” He didn’t open his eyes. “And I can bet you haven’t heard of it.”
“No, I haven’t.” She waited a beat before going on cautiously. “I’ve worked with many Australian nurses. I’m surprised they didn’t put you with them here.” With the overflow from the battle, though, the English nurses had been treating whatever wounded came to them.
He didn’t reply, but his Adam’s apple rose and fell. He didn’t want to talk. She wouldn’t attempt it again. For now.
When she stood to leave, his eyes drifted to the window once more. He didn’t seem to remember her at all.
“Would you like to see if I can get you closer to the window?” She didn’t know why she was trying so hard with him. But his plea on the train haunted her. “Save my leg.”
She couldn’t have. Amputation had been the only option. But now he faced being discarded from service without a pension for his sacrifice. He’d made the mistake of injuring himself in their eyes.
Private Emerson blinked at her. “Can you?”
“I can try.” She turned to go.
“Wait.”
She turned back to him. He peered at her, searching her face. A flicker of familiarity glowed in his eyes and then went out. “Never mind. I thought I recognized you.”
Should I tell him?
She couldn’t.
Shaken, she approached an orderly. “Can you help me move a bed?”
He looked as though she’d sprouted a horn. “Move a bed?”
“Yes, that’s right.” She didn’t want to make any of the other wounded men move. Squeezing another bed into the row by the window seemed the best solution.
“To where?” the orderly asked.
“Over by the window. I want to fit another bed into that row. And then I’ll need some help to move the patient.”
The orderly scratched his head. “I don’t think I can do that.”
She didn’t have time to argue with him. She tilted her head. “I wasn’t really asking.”
His mouth opened, his face reddening. He shut his mouth once more and nodded.
“Good.” She smiled congenially. Pulling rank wouldn’t earn her any favors, but she didn’t care about that right now. Too many other worrisome thoughts troubled her. “Now, if you please.”
As she went back to work, she passed Private Emerson once more. He didn’t smile or thank her.
No pretense. She mused on the concept as she moved from soldier to soldier. So much of her life was filled with pretense. The request, while simple, refreshed her. The only person in her life she didn’t have to pretend around was Noah. And she never saw him.
Their time together had been so brief. So passionate.
She barely knew him. Their likes and dislikes, family history, and interests had seemed so unimportant when they’d been together.
Their love affair had surprised them both.
And there were times over the summer when she’d wondered if she hadn’t just magnified the entire experience in her mind.
Her father and Henry had tried to convince her that Noah wasn’t the type to take a serious interest in a woman. That he’d been using her. Sometimes their words rang through her nightmares, reminding her of the risk she’d taken.
“There you are.” Miss Fitzgibbon seemed to materialize beside her. “You have a guest waiting to speak to you in my office. A Mr. Peter Osborne, from the Foreign Office.”
Ginger lifted her chin sharply. Mr. Osborne is already here? She’d been so busy, she’d barely noticed the passage of time. Pressure built at the base of her neck.
She removed her apron, then draped it over one arm as she followed Miss Fitzgibbon to her office. As they drew closer, Ginger tried to relax her shoulders. This conversation could go wrong in several different ways.