The Nurse's War. Merryn Allingham

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СКАЧАТЬ case it’s keeping out of prison. He wants to leave England and travel to a neutral country where he’ll be safe.’

      ‘And you’re going to help him?’ Her friend had the ghost of a smile on her lips.

      ‘Exactly. It’s stupid. There’s no way I can. I’ve no money and I know nobody who could get the papers he needs.’

      Connie was thoughtful. ‘But if you could get those papers, it would mean you’d lose him from your life once and for all. I know you think you’ve put the whole Indian thing behind you, Daisy, but it’s clear that you haven’t. Until tonight I didn’t know how awful it had been for you, though I knew something pretty bad had happened. You never talk about the past. Whenever I’ve touched on India or your husband, you’ve brushed it off as though your time there wasn’t worth mentioning. It’s obvious, though, that it still looms large.’

      It did and she couldn’t deny it. The frightening months she’d spent in Jasirapur when she’d suffered one so-called accident after another, only to discover that it was her husband behind them. And then to find that her dear friend, Anish, was the ultimate puppet master. The grief at losing him; the guilt at not grieving for Gerald. It had all been too much and she had shut her mind fast. The past could be locked up in a box and the key thrown away. That’s how she’d thought about her time in India. That’s why she’d been unable to be anything but a poor friend to Grayson. He was too involved in the whole business; he was a constant reminder of what she had to forget.

      ‘What about Grayson Harte?’ her companion asked out of the blue. It was almost as though Connie had read her mind. ‘Isn’t he in the Secret Intelligence Service? Surely he could manufacture false papers. That’s what they do, isn’t it?’

      ‘No.’ Her response was unequivocal.

      ‘What do you mean “no”—I think it’s a brilliant idea.’

      ‘I don’t see Grayson any more. You know that.’

      ‘But you could. You know where he works. What’s to stop you visiting him?’

      ‘So I just turn up at his Baker Street office and say, Sorry, Grayson, that I wasn’t able to return your feelings. But actually you can do me a favour. Gerald didn’t die after all, can you believe that? He’s back in England and living in London. He’s a deserter, of course, and I need your help to get him out of the country.’

      ‘Okay, I understand. I know it won’t be easy.’

      ‘Not easy! It’s impossible. And I refuse even to think about it.’ She uncurled herself from the lumpy chair and walked to the door, unable to stifle the first of many yawns. ‘I’m so tired, Connie, I don’t think I can even find my way to bed.’

      ‘You will,’ her friend promised, ‘and you’ll sleep. And tomorrow you could feel quite differently.’

      But she didn’t feel differently; when back in London the next evening she walked quietly through the darkened streets. This time she was careful to leave the hospital with other nurses who had come off duty at the same time. After the encounter with Gerald, she was taking no chances, but the only footsteps she heard were those of her companions and they reached Charterhouse Square without incident. At the huge oak door, she waited patiently while the girl in the lead fished around in her bag for a key. Tonight the darkness seemed more impenetrable than ever, not even a glimpse of moon or stars. Several seconds of fumbling produced the key and Daisy mounted the steps behind her companions. As she turned to walk through the door, she glimpsed a shadow pass between the square’s trees. Or so she thought. She couldn’t be entirely sure, but her eyes had slowly grown accustomed to the intense gloom and what she’d seen was definitely a form that was blacker than the rest. And it was a form that was moving. Could it be the figure of a man and that figure, Gerald? She’d had no time to send the note he’d insisted on, so had he come to check on her, to harangue her on where her duty lay? It was more than likely.

      She walked into the tiled entrance hall and stood still, aware of her pulse having gone into overdrive. She was becoming stupidly panicked and she must stop herself from seeing things that were probably not there. Given the heightened state in which she’d been living these last two days, it was unsurprising her mind was all over the place. It wasn’t fear of bombing raids that disturbed her—that was a fear everyone shared. It wasn’t even the unremitting labour. There were nurses who worked harder. It was alarm at finding her husband alive, and not just alive, but close by and demanding her aid.

      She passed the staff pigeonholes with hardly a glance. There were never letters for her. Tonight, though, something white glared balefully from the scratched wooden box. An envelope addressed to her. She recognised the writing straight away. So it had been Gerald lurking in the trees, watching for her, waiting to accost her. But why hadn’t he done so? Instead, he’d pushed the missive through the letter box and someone had picked it up and put it in her pigeonhole. She took the envelope and held it up to the dim light which dangled from the ceiling. Now that she looked closely, she saw the letter had not been hand delivered at all but had come through the mail. It was postmarked ten a.m. It had come in the morning post and been waiting for her all day. So the shadow she’d seen … it couldn’t have been Gerald. But if it wasn’t, who was it?

      Her heart again began to beat far too rapidly, sounding heavy in her ears. She tried to calm herself by visualising what she’d seen. It must have been imagination. But the more she thought of it, the more certain she became that there had been a figure there. It wasn’t just panic talking. She recalled the blurred image and fixed her mind doggedly on it. It reminded her of another shadow she’d glimpsed recently, one that had passed like a ripple through those self-same trees the night before last, when Gerald had stopped her on the front steps. Had someone been watching them then? Was someone watching her now? Or was that someone looking for Gerald, looking perhaps to find and hand over a deserter? She shook her head. It was better to think it merely the wind in the trees.

      Gerald’s note was brief and to the point. She hadn’t named a meeting place, he accused, so he would: Hyde Park, the eastern edge of the Serpentine. Tomorrow at two o’clock. Didn’t he realise that she was a working woman, a nurse who had barely a day to herself every month? She felt exasperation riding tandem with misgiving. Meeting him was the last thing she wanted, but she would have to go or she’d have him knocking on the door. Whether or not she could take her free time would depend on what was happening on the ward. She would have to petition Sister Elton first thing in the morning and hope for permission. She calculated that she could just about make it to the park and be back on the ward within two hours, which was the most she could count on. But what she was to say to Gerald, she had no idea.

      She still had no idea the following afternoon when she walked into Hyde Park. Speakers’ Corner was unusually crowded for a weekday, despite the lack of any orator and soapbox. A rare burst of spring sunshine must have tempted the mill of people. Daisy wound her way through the crowd as quickly as she could, negotiating a host of children and their nannies and a small group of women on their lunch break, enjoying a cigarette. The military post on her left was quiet and soldiers stood chatting to members of the Home Guard. A heavy anti-aircraft battery had been set up nearby along with a number of rocket projectors. She’d been told they fired six foot shells packed with metal debris—broken bike chains, old razor blades—just about anything that could be loosed skywards and disrupt the flight of bombers swooping up river from the docks to the West End.

      Today, though, there was so little activity you could almost forget the guns’ incongruous presence in this beautiful, green space. The false sense of tranquillity was increased by dozens of barrage balloons which floated serenely five thousand feet above her head. They were supposed to force enemy aircraft to a height where aiming their bombs СКАЧАТЬ