Chapter 25
I hugged the knowledge that my mystery note writer was Harry to myself all night, alone in the shelter.
I didn’t know where the Golds were. I usually hated being in the shelter on my own and I was still nervous and jumpy when I heard the bombs falling, but for once I didn’t mind.
I liked having my secret to keep me company.
I wrote a reply in the book, telling Harry I knew who he was and – surprised by my boldness – that I was glad it was him.
It was nice, writing things down. I wasn’t sure I’d be as confident face to face.
I’d never been one for flirting and romance, like Nelly was; I was too unsure of myself.
I liked to dance and I liked spending time with men, but I’d never really had a sweetheart.
War had broken out just as I was beginning to spread my wings, and all the men my age went off to fight, and I spent all hours at the hospital anyway. But now, there was Harry.
I thought about his open, boyish face and wrote my reply.
I told him how much I’d appreciated the patients cheering for Billy, and that I understood how his mother felt about his uncle dying in the last war, because of how I’d lost my brother – though I didn’t name Billy of course.
I was still aware that someone might read our messages.
I told him how lost I’d been feeling since Nelly had been injured in a raid.
The words poured out of me like a bottle had been uncorked. I had someone to talk to – at last.
And it seemed the same was true for Harry. Over the next few days, we wrote back and forth every day. Sometimes twice a day. I had an inkling he’d given Frank a nudge and was encouraging him to bring the book backwards and forwards to the hut.
Sometimes Harry would comment on how I looked: “I like how your hair is escaping from your cap today,” he wrote. “It makes me want to reach out and tuck it in. I wish I could touch you.”
I ached to touch him, too. It wasn’t something I’d experienced before. I even dreamt about being in his arms one night and wrote about it the next day.
“I feel the same,” he replied. “I want to go to sleep with you in my arms.”
He called me Angel in the notes, which I rather liked.
It was flattering and exciting and a lovely distraction from the awfulness of everyday life in the hospital and Nelly’s injuries and Jackson, who I’d not seen for a few days but who was always there in the back of my mind because I expected to find him round every corner.
On the fourth day after I’d started writing to Harry, I was back on night shifts.
I’d got to the hospital early so I could visit Nelly.
She seemed to be in a lot of pain so they’d upped her sedation again and her doctors were concerned.
I had written a letter to Nelly’s mother, assuring her I was visiting Nelly every day and that she was able to communicate when she was awake, feeling I was perhaps misleading poor Mrs Malone into thinking Nelly was less injured than she was.
But I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell the truth.
I was desperate to see Harry. I’d not managed to come up with a reason to visit the huts for days, so when I got to my ward, earlier than I thought because Nelly had been asleep, I jumped when Matron asked if I’d take some blankets over.
‘They’re patching up their patients, shoving them out the door and filling the beds again so quickly laundry can’t keep up,’ she explained. ‘This damned blanket shortage isn’t helping anyone, and I can’t find a porter for love nor money, even though Frank told me there’s a new chap.’
I held my arms out so she could pile blankets on top. ‘The new porter?’
‘Apparently, but I’ve not seen him yet. Is that all right? Can you manage all of those?’
I could have managed a hundred blankets because I was so keen to get to the huts. ‘No problem,’ I muttered over the top of the woolly pile.
‘Please be careful on the stairs,’ Matron said. ‘Handover is in half an hour.’
Taking care so I didn’t slip, because I couldn’t really see where I was going, I carried the blankets over to the hut. Judith was there and I was pleased because I liked her.
She took some of the blankets from the top of my teetering pile and handed them to another nurse to put straight on to beds.
‘I’m glad I’ve seen you. I wanted to tell you that my husband got a note from Eric’s wife,’ she said.
‘Really? What did she say?’
‘She said to thank you from the bottom of her heart for passing on Eric’s last letter,’ Judith said. ‘She wanted you to know how important it was, and how much comfort it gave her.’
I put my hand to my chest, not sure what to say.
‘Your book is very special, Elsie,’ Judith carried on. ‘You should be proud of yourself.’
‘Oh stop,’ I said. But I was pleased. ‘Thank you.’
Relieved of the last blanket, I shook my arms out and subtly turned my head to see Harry.
But he wasn’t there.
His bed was empty, neatly made up with crisp sheets and no sign of Harry anywhere else in the ward. My stomach lurched and I tasted bile in my throat. Where was he? Had he … was he …?
Swallowing the bitterness away, I cleared my throat. ‘The lad who was in that bed?’ I said, trying to keep my tone light. ‘Has he gone back to his base?’
Behind my back I crossed my trembling fingers.
Much as I didn’t want Harry to have gone without us even having the chance to properly meet, I was terrified that something awful could have happened.
Patients who looked to be on the mend did sometimes take a turn for the worse. Look what happened to Eric. And Vinny.
‘Nah,’ said Judith. ‘He’s not gone yet, though it won’t be long.’
I stared at her, not properly understanding. Was Harry ill?
‘He’s just off for his daily walk to strengthen his legs with one of the RAF doctors,’ she explained seeing my startled expression. ‘It’s an assessment of sorts, I think. He’s doing so well, I think he’ll be back at his base later this week.’
My knees almost buckled beneath me. ‘I thought he’d died,’ I said. ‘I thought he wasn’t here because he’d died. Like Eric.’
Judith gave me a slightly odd look.
‘No, he’s fine,’ she said carefully.
Recovering my composure slightly, I forced a smile. ‘Wonderful,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘And he’s off back to base soon? That is good news.’
Behind me the door to the hut opened and as though we’d conjured him up like a genie from a lamp, Harry appeared. He looked tired but in good spirits and the way his face lit up when he saw me, made my heart jump.
‘Nurse Watson,’ he said. ‘Have you brought the book back again?’
The book! No, blast, I didn’t have it. In fact, I wasn’t sure where it was.
‘Nurse Watson brought some clean blankets this time,’ Judith said. ‘How was your walk?’
‘Good,’ Harry said. He looked at the tall, rather severe-looking doctor who was with him. ‘Doc said I’m doing better than expected, isn’t that right?’
‘He’s my ideal patient,’ the doctor said with a smile. ‘Does what I tell him to do.’
‘Any news on when you’ll be leaving us?’
Harry looked at Judith when he answered but I knew he was talking to me really. ‘The day after tomorrow,’ he said deliberately. ‘I’ve got one more day here. One last day before I head back to base.’
‘Then you need to make the most of it,’ I said, making my voice sound like I was joking though I really wasn’t. ‘See the sights of the hospital on your walks.’
‘I will indeed,’ Harry said. ‘Though I’ll be alone tomorrow because the doctor is off to assess someone else.’
Was I imagining it or did he put a little emphasis on the word “alone”?
Harry’s gaze met mine and my heart thumped. He was such a nice man, I thought. Kind, and brave, and very handsome. He gave me the tiniest of tiny winks and I thought, cheeky too.
‘So, you’ve got your last day all planned out?’ I said. My voice shook a little bit.
‘I have. It’s important to make the most of every day because life is short. The war has made me realise that. And your book, of course, Nurse Watson.’
‘My book.’
‘Yes,’ Harry said, looking at me like he was trying to pass a message through his widened eyes. ‘Your book.’
‘I don’t know where it is,’ I said, slightly desperately. ‘Do you need it?’
‘I’d like to write a final message, if that’s possible? Could you track it down for me?’
‘I think it’s in the children’s ward,’ Judith said. ‘I heard some of the nurses were helping the kiddies write messages.’
‘I’ll find it.’ I checked the watch pinned to my tunic. I had time before I had to be on my ward for handover. ‘I’ll go right now.’
‘Nice to see you, Nurse,’ Harry said. ‘I do hope I get to say goodbye.’ He looked straight into my eyes. ‘Properly.’
Feeling completely light-headed and giddy, I hurtled down the stairs, over to the main building, and along to the children’s ward.
It was the only part of the hospital that was quiet now, with most of the littl’uns having been evacuated.
But there were a few children in there and I liked the idea of the kids getting their chance to write too.
Panting and sweaty from my 100-yard-dash across the hospital, I pushed open the doors to the ward and told the matron who I was.
‘I need the book,’ I said, trying to control my breathing. ‘One of the airmen is off back to his base and he needs to write a message.’
‘Of course,’ Matron said. ‘It’s here. Some of the children have written the most adorable messages. Have a look.’
She opened the pages, and found some drawings done by her patients.
They absolutely were adorable and on any other day I’d have loved to have read the messages carefully, and admired the wonderful penmanship, and chatted with the children who’d written them.
But not today. Today I wanted to write a note for Harry and make sure he’d get it.
I made some suitably impressed noises, and then gathered the book in my arms. ‘So sorry,’ I said. ‘I really need to go.’
The matron looked slightly taken aback at my lack of enthusiasm for her patients’ talents, but she said goodbye and bustled off down her ward.
I took the book into the corridor and, feeling slightly sneaky, headed for the ladies’ toilet.
Not the staff one, the public one. I didn’t want to bump into any nurses.
I went into a cubicle, sat down on the closed toilet seat, and opened the book to the page where Harry and I had been sharing our notes.
He’d not written anything since I’d last seen it, but that didn’t matter, because I knew what he wanted.
He wanted us to meet. And I wanted it too, more than anything.
Finding a pencil in the pocket of my dress, I tapped it against my lip and thought. “I thought you were dead,” I wrote. “Your bed was empty and I thought you had died, and it was awful. We have to make the most of the time we have together.”
I took a breath. I knew what I was going to suggest was wrong but somehow, it also felt absolutely right.
“I’m on a night shift again tomorrow,” I wrote. “But I can come to the hospital in the afternoon. In the basement, near the operating theatre is the boiler room. Meet me there if you can. I’ll wait from three o’clock.”
It seemed risky, writing the arrangements down so boldly, but Harry was leaving, and the awful truth was that I might never see him again. So what choice did I have?
I wet my hands in the sink, and dampened the edges of the pages so they’d stick together again, then checked my watch.
My shift was starting in a couple of minutes and Matron would have my guts for garters if I missed handover.
I didn’t have time to take it back to the hut and I didn’t want to risk the book going walkabout round the hospital and not making it to Harry in time.
If I could catch Frank, I could give it to him.
His shift would just be starting too, so with any luck he’d be in the little porters’ room.
I headed out into the corridor and along to the room and knocked on the door, nearly crying with relief when Frank opened it, buttoning up his porter’s coat.
‘Hello, Elsie love,’ he said. ‘What can I do you for?’
‘I’m dashing up to my ward now, but I wondered if you can take the book to the huts, please? I’d really appreciate it. One of the airmen is moving on and wants to write a message.’
‘I’ll do that for you,’ said a familiar voice. I froze as Frank opened the door wider, to reveal Jackson inside. He too was wearing a porter’s coat.
‘Jackson?’ My voice was squeaky.
‘Surprise,’ he said.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I work here.’
‘Didn’t you tell her, Tim?’ Frank said. ‘You silly goat. I thought you was good mates? That’s what you said.’
‘I’ve not seen much of Elsie recently,’ Jackson said. He looked straight at me and I felt – ridiculously – that he was accusing me of something. ‘She’s been very busy.’
‘Well, Nelly’s so poorly …’ I began, then trailed off wondering why I felt I had to explain my whereabouts to him.
‘I’ll take the book for you,’ he said, holding out his hands. I did not want to give him the book. I didn’t want his hands on it. I had a horrible feeling if I let him have it, I’d live to regret it. But I knew if I said no, then there was no chance Harry would get my message.
You’re being a fool, Elsie, I told myself sternly. Jackson’s harmless. Give him the book.
‘Are you sure you know where to go?’ I said. ‘Maybe Frank should …’
‘Of course I know. I’ve been working here ages now. It’s nice, being able to look out for you.’
I stared at him. What did he mean “look out for me”?
‘Give the book here,’ Jackson said.
Reluctantly, I held it out and he took it. ‘The huts?’
‘That’s right.’
He tucked the book under his arm, his eyes never leaving mine. Did he look triumphant or was I imagining it?
‘I’ll get right on to it,’ he said.