The Lost Soldier (25 page)

“I have told Padre Robert that you will be coming, so he will have someone meet you at the gate at half past three. You will take up your duties again in ward one in the morning.” Thus she was dismissed.

Tom stood beside the grave as it was filled in, the damp earth falling dully in heavy clods on the wood of the coffin. The pall bearers returned to the camp, and Padre Kingston said he would be in the chapel if they wanted to speak to him before going back to the hospital.

“Don’t be too long in making your farewells, Carter,” he said seriously. “Being out in this damp weather will not do you any good, aren’t I right, Miss Day?”

Molly agreed that he was, and the parson smiled at them before striding off to deal with the next demand upon his time.

“I’ve been moved to a different ward,” Tom said to Molly as soon as they were alone. “Somewhere inside the main building.”

“I know,” Molly said. “Reverend Mother told me. It’s so’s I don’t nurse you any more.” She smiled up at him bleakly. “She saw us in her garden this morning and thinks I have become involved with my patient.”

Tom reached for her hand, encased in woollen gloves against the cold November air, his eyes seeking her face. “And have you?”

“Well,” Molly looked away across the rows of wooden crosses as she replied, “we are, were, both friends of Harry’s.”

“But that’s not what she meant, is it?”

“It was the reason I gave her for being there alone with you in the garden.”

“I’d like us to be friends, just for ourselves,” Tom said awkwardly. “You know, not just because of Harry.” His eyes searched her face and this time she did not look away. He went on, “I’ve never met a girl like you, Molly. You’re gentle… understanding,” he considered the next word, and added, “caring.”

“All nurses are caring,” Molly said almost defensively.

“But not like you.”

“Tom, I’m not allowed to see you; not allowed to come and visit you in the restoration ward,” Molly told him flatly. “If I do Reverend Mother says she will send me home.”

“Then you mustn’t come,” Tom responded promptly. “Molly, don’t worry about me, I’ll be going back to the lines soon. No point in upsetting things. It don’t matter if we can’t be real friends.”

Silence slipped between them as they stood in the chill of the late afternoon.

“We can meet over here,” Molly said abruptly. “We can meet when you are in the convalescent camp, because I can come over to the chapel for services. I’m allowed to do that. Once I’m through the gate in the wall, they’ll just think I’m at the service.”

“They’ll soon work that one out,” Tom said ruefully. “They’re going to be watching you. It ain’t worth it.”

A cold spatter of rain blew into their faces and together they turned back towards the convent. As they reached the wall, Molly said, “The padre has an evening service on Sunday. Ask if you can go. Several do from restoration.”

Molly sat through the meal that evening in the refectory, listening to the reading. She had been surprised to discover recently that as the words flowed over her she understood the gist of what she was hearing, but this evening she gave no thought to anything but the events of the day. She was glad there was no talking at meals, she wanted peace to consider the effect of what had happened. Immediately after the meal, she went up to their room. Sarah found her there half an hour later when she came up from chapel. She sat down on the edge of her bed and said, “I hear poor Harry Cook died today. Poor Molly, I’m so sorry.”

Molly who was also stretched out on her bed answered quietly. “Yes, this morning. They buried him this afternoon.”

“Of course you went.”

“Yes, Sister Eloise sent me off at lunch time and told me not to come back until tomorrow morning.”

“Lucky you,” Sarah said enviously. “I wish Sister Bernadette would give me extra time off.”

“It was for my cousin’s funeral,” Molly said flatly.

Sarah was immediately contrite. “Oh Molly, I’m sorry. Of course it was. I don’t know what I’m saying. It must have been dreadful for you. You’ve known Harry all your life.”

“He taught me to swim,” Molly said, and she sounded so sad Sarah wasn’t sure what to say next, so she fell back on to what was now becoming her thought much of the time.

“I’ll pray for his soul.”

“Better to pray for those he’s left behind,” Molly replied. “His ma and dad and the rest of his family, all those who’ll miss him. Tom Carter.”

“Tom Carter?”

“His mate that brought him in. He was at the funeral too.” Her voice changed and she spoke with sudden energy. “Do you know they’ve moved Tom Carter out of ward one and up to restoration?”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Sarah sounded surprised.

“The reason they’ve done it isn’t because he’s ready to go there, he’s not. Dr Gergaud hasn’t signed him off. No, the reason is because he and I were becoming friends, having Harry in common, like, and I was ‘becoming involved’ with a patient. ‘Raising his expectations!’ that’s what Reverend Mother said.” Molly was bitter. “We shared our grief for a moment, that’s all.”

Sarah thought back to her run in with Sister Bernadette over her kissing Private Macdonald on the cheek. “It is one of their main worries with us I suppose,” she said judiciously. “It’s different for the nuns, they’re protected by their cloth. I mean none of the men could even consider one of them might be ‘emotionally involved’ with him.” She gave a little laugh. “It would be very difficult to kiss anyone wearing one of their flyaway hats.”

This comment succeeded in drawing an unwilling laugh from Molly, and Sarah quickly changed the subject.

“I had a letter from Freddie this morning,” she said. “Guess what? He’s going on some course near here and is coming to see me. Only for an afternoon, but that’s something, isn’t it? I haven’t told Sister Bernadette yet, or asked Mother if he may come, but she’s sure to let him, isn’t she? I mean he’s not a gentleman caller, is he? He’s my brother. And Aunt Anne will want to see him too.”

“Of course they’ll let him come.” Molly never referred to Reverend Mother as ‘Mother’ unless she absolutely had to. The idea of calling anyone other than Mam “Mother” seemed strange, especially if the person concerned were a nun. “Of course they’ll let him come, they can make that day your free afternoon.”

“You’re right,” agreed Sarah happily. “I’ll go and see Mother tomorrow. It’ll be wonderful to see him, I haven’t seen him for months.”

They got into bed. Sarah, physically exhausted from her day and happy with thoughts of Freddie’s visit, fell instantly into a dreamless sleep, but Molly, emotionally exhausted from hers, lay in the darkness and thought about Tom, reliving their time in the garden and the cold dank cemetery until at last she too, drifted off into an uneasy sleep from which she was to awake unrefreshed and strangely disconsolate.

Sunday 13th November

I went to church in the camp this evening and when I got to the gate Tom was waiting for me. I couldn’t resist a glance behind me in case someone from the convent was watching. Sister M-P always seems to be around and sometimes I think she’s spying on me. Perhaps Reverend Mother has told her to watch me. I don’t know, anyway she wasn’t there to see me go or to see who met me. Anyhow, I’d got permission from Sister Eloise to go. She thinks I’m next best thing to a heathen, so she’s quite keen for me to attend service at the camp, even if it is a Protestant one. I like working for Sister Eloise. She stands no nonsense, but she’s kind and generous in her outlook, and though she is often brisk with us she never is with the patients and always has them at heart. She’s taught me a lot even though my French is still so bad.

Tom and I walked to the tent Mr Kingston has turned into his church. It is lovely inside, with a little altar draped in a white cloth and candles in brass sticks. I think they are his own and they go with him wherever he goes. He isn’t always at the camp, he told me he sometimes goes up to the front and has even held services in a dugout. We all sit on benches and chairs he has taken from all over the camp.

After the service very few leave, we all sit around and talk. Tom and I sit together. There is so much to know about him. He hasn’t had an easy life, brought up in an orphanage. He tells me about life in London, and I tell him about Charlton Ambrose. He’s heard a bit about it from Harry, of course. I haven’t told him about Dad, don’t suppose I ever will, except he’s so easy to talk to. Sometimes it feels like I’ve known him all my life. So, maybe, one day.

I don’t think Mr Kingston has talked to Reverend Mother, or I am sure I’d be sent straight back to the camp after the service. It is wonderful to be outside the convent for a few hours each week, especially as Sarah and I haven’t been to the village for some time. There are days when the walls seem to close around me, hemming me in. Now I have Sundays to look forward to.

On Sunday evening Molly walked through the gate towards the convalescent camp. It was already an accepted thing that she should go to the evening service there whenever her duties permitted it, and unless there was a panic on, Sister Eloise made no problem in giving her the time.

Tom was waiting for her the other side of the convent wall, and together they walked through the camp to the tent Robert Kingston had converted into his church. At first they walked in silence, an unaccustomed awkwardness between them. Both knew that something between them had changed after the moment in the garden and their exchange in the cold air of the cemetery, but neither could put into words exactly what.

Their friendship, one brought about through the chance of war, had grown with their mutual concern for Harry. It might have developed quite differently or not at all, Molly had thought as she lay in bed, her mind whirling in the darkness, if Reverend Mother hadn’t issued her prohibition. She might never have thought of Tom Carter as anything more than an injured young man who needed a little comfort after the death of his friend, but because the nun had forbidden them to meet, Molly had come to realise how much she wanted the friendship to grow, to develop… into what? Tom was shy. He would never have suggested that they defy Reverend Mother. It was not up to her, Molly knew, to take the initiative, but she was glad she had when she suggested they meet at church. After all, she told herself, it is the way we’d be allowed to meet at home.

As she came through the gate and Tom had turned and seen her, his face had broken into his rare and vivid smile, lighting his dark eyes, their usual weariness dropping away and Molly found herself matching his smile with one of her own. They greeted each other but did not touch. There was no shaking hands or taking of arms, their smiles were enough, and they turned and walked side by side to the church.

“How’s your arm?” Molly said at last to break the silence. “You look better, more colour in your face.”

“Much better, thank you, Nurse,” Tom replied with a grin, and the ice was broken.

So it began. Each Sunday they met at the gate and strolled over to the church, and after the service when, encouraged by the padre, several of the men stayed to chat, Tom and Molly stayed as well, sitting together, talking. Robert Kingston watched their friendship growing but made no comment. Life for young men such as Tom was likely to be short, and the padre thought that there was no harm in the young couple getting to know each other, chaperoned as they were by himself and a group of others. It was all perfectly proper. If he had known of Reverend Mother’s feelings on the subject he might have thought otherwise, but he did not.

When later they returned to the convent, they walked together as far as the gate in the wall, and then Molly went through and straight up to her room, Tom waiting a few moments before following her and going up to the restoration ward; both were uncomfortable with this small deceit, but neither wanted to draw attention to the their meeting at church.

Molly found herself living for Sunday evenings. She worked long, hard hours in the ward, her experience and competence growing daily, but she found that Tom was in the back of her mind all the time, and often slipped to the forefront if she were working on a routine job that did not require her full attention. She stored up small incidents, little things that might make him laugh, like Sister Marie-Paul seeing a mouse, leaping onto a chair and dropping the bed pan she was carrying, and the time when a bird flew in through the door and the nuns chased it flapping round the ward, to raucous encouragement from the men. Molly loved to hear him laugh, to see the worried look drop from his face as she told him these things in their precious time together on a Sunday evening, and the knowledge that he was thinking of her too, warmed her as she dealt with the chilly bleakness of suppurating wounds, amputations and death.

At the end of each day she went, exhausted upstairs, but before she fell into her bed, she sat down with her journal and recorded both her thoughts and the happenings of the day. Their tiny room with its stone walls was always cold, but Molly would take the blanket off the bed and drape it round her shoulders as she wrote. Even if she made only a one-sentence entry, she tried to write something every day, but more often than not she wrote several pages before she went to bed. It was a form of release to pour out her heart in her diary, for though she could talk to Sarah about their nursing cares, she could not mention Tom. For a start, Sarah would not approve of their meetings on a Sunday in direct defiance of Reverend Mother—Sarah greatly revered Reverend Mother—but apart from that, Molly’s awakening feelings were too private, too precious to share with anyone else.

Sarah always came up later than Molly, as she never went to bed these days without a visit to the chapel first.

“How can you pray for half an hour?” Molly asked one evening when she came to their room even later than usual.

Sarah considered her question seriously. “It’s not prayer, exactly,” she said, “I do pray, of course, but mostly I just sit there and think over the events of the day and try to come to terms with some of the things that have happened. It’s very peaceful in there, and when I come out I feel that I’ve handed my problems over to God and He knows what to do about them.”