Green for Danger, page 15
Once, when Cockrill was driving along the Heronsford Road in his car, an incendiary had hit the roof and gone right through to the back seat and set the whole concern on fire; he would dearly have liked to tell about it and about the time he had driven slap into a crater that hadn’t been there half an hour before—how if he’d been only twenty minutes earlier, if he hadn’t called in at the Black Dog in Pigeonsford village and had a glass of beer with the landlord, if he hadn’t stopped to offer a lift to three Auxiliary Territorial Service girls, and gone a few miles out of his way to take them to their station, he might easily have been killed.… But William, having got his own bomb-story off his chest, had returned to Higgins. “I can’t think who on earth could have wanted to bump the old boy off; I mean, he was an awfully good fellow, really, one of the best, never did any harm to anyone; you can’t go through the raids working for a man, and not know what he’s really like.” His own part in going through the raids, humbly working ‘for’ William Higgins, postman, did not appear to impress him as anything particularly praiseworthy.
Cockie started a small conflagration at the wispy end of a new cigarette. “Do you know any of the other people concerned in this case?”
William drew deeply on his own cigarette, and replied that he knew Esther Sanson; she—well, actually she worked in this ward. “And I know little Linley; she was on night-duty here, before she got her head put in the gas-oven; and I’ve seen Eden in the ward, looking at his cases, and Barnes, of course; and Major Moon looked at my leg this morning, as the surgeon who originally did it is away on leave. He seems a nice old boy. My father used to know him on various committees and things, and Dr. Barnes too—this chap’s father.”
“Do you know Miss Woods?”
“No. She told Esther—she said she was coming to see me one day and make my acquaintance, but she hasn’t turned up. I used to play with some children of that name when I was so-high; I wonder if she’ll remember me?”
“I doubt it,” said Cockie dryly. As William looked surprised, he added rather quickly: “Tell me about little Miss Linley; you saw a good deal of her, that night you were brought in, I suppose?”
“Yes, she was marvellous to me,” said William, at once. “I must have been a frightful nuisance having to be rigged up with this thing in the middle of the night, but she went about it quite calmly and coolly as if she had nothing else to do all night, and of course she was frantically busy really, poor kid. Even Higgins had to admit that she was wonderful, though he didn’t have much use for her, having seen her necking with her boy-friends earlier in the evening, in the bunk next door; but he had a terrible night, poor old boy, in a lot of pain, and not able to get any sleep, and he said that she was terribly good to him; she never left the ward for a moment, and he didn’t know how she kept it up, a fragile looking little thing like her. She’s a funny girl, though; I heard her talking to old Moon, night before last, in the bunk; he was telling her about his child being knocked down and killed by a man on a bicycle; and all she could think of by way of sympathy was to ask him politely what colour the bicycle had been! Esther says it’s because she’s really shy under all that poise; and rather inarticulate and that she would like to be friendly and sympathetic, but she can’t.”
Cockrill would never have thought Frederica devoid of self-possession. “She seems rather—hard,” he suggested. “Is she a good nurse?”
“Oh, the perfect article,” said William immediately. “She talks to you as though you were a naughty and rather mutton-headed little boy, and quite convinces you that your leg doesn’t hurt at all, really, and that, if you only knew it, you have a passionate desire to eat your nice ground-rice pudding. She hasn’t got any use for weakness or self-pity, but when things are bad … gosh! she’s too sweet. The chaps simply love her. Of course she talks as though it were all a perfect bore, and she simply didn’t know what she was doing here anyway! but that’s just because she doesn’t like slop. I must say, I like Frederica. I think she’s grand.”
A man groaned horribly in a bed half-way up the ward. Cockie shuddered, reaching under his chair for his hat. “Poor devil—what’s wrong with him?”
“He gets attacks of pain,” said William cheerfully, with the strange, protective indifference that grows up round the hospital patient, against the sufferings of others. “You get used to it. I used to groan a bit myself, and nobody shed tears over me. It’s awful at night, though; we had two emergency operations yesterday, and the poor devils kept us awake till morning; however, we’ve got the day to sleep in if we want to. It’s extraordinary how you get acclimatised.”
A case was brought back from the theatre, having crossed with the gentleman who had just gone up. Cockie blenched slightly as a sickly wave of anæsthetic wafted itself to his nostrils. The head lolled, scarlet faced, on the rubber sheet, mouth open, eyes closed. In a cocoon of blankets, the limp figure was lifted on to the bed and there left to its own resources, a kidney shaped bowl placed handily at one side. The stretcher was just being wheeled off when one of the green-robed figures suddenly jerked itself away and advancing in a dreadful eddy of ether, cried lustily: “Hallo, Inspector! What ever are you a-doing-of here?”
“Oh, hallo, Miss Woods,” said Cockie, faintly.
“Keep an eye on him, will you?” said Woods to William, nodding casually in the direction of the prostrate victim in the opposite bed. “If he tries to sit up or anything, yell to him to lie down, and pipe up for the nurse.” She ran after the departing trolley, crying gaily: “Oi! Wait for me!”
Cockrill was much relieved to find that the patient was not to be left entirely to the limited ministrations of William, for Chalk—or was it Cheese?—emerged from the bunk and stood over him for a few minutes, flexing an apparently boneless arm, before tucking it away under the blankets, and arranging a couple of fresh hot-water bottles in the bed. He sat silent for a moment, staring down into the crown of his hat, trying to formulate a question to put to William; for he was made very anxious by something the boy had said—or not said; and, finally, looked up suddenly with the query on his lips. But it was never made or answered; for William was sitting erect against his pillows with his hand to his mouth, staring into space, and muttering feverishly: “Oh, my God! Where on earth have I heard that voice?”
CHAPTER VIII
1
Gervase Eden sat on the great wicker laundry basket in the lobby of the operating theatre, and waited for Major Moon. “Where is the silly old beezer? He said he’d be here at seven.…” The swing doors had been hooked back, and through the doorway he kept an eye on the main entrance across the hall.
Woods came out of the theatre and locked the door behind her. She pretended not to notice Gervase, sitting in the half-light smoking his cigarette. The act was over. Freddi was, for some reason, refusing to have anything more to do with him; she had seen nobody since her escape from the gas, but Barnes; and Barney had come back, radiant, from their first interview, and confided to Woody that Frederica had, all on her own initiative, suggested that they should get married very soon. There was no longer any need for Gervase to be distracted; she could lapse back into her former indifference and never bother to speak to him again.… But out of the corner of her eye she saw the turn of his head, the line of his thin, angular body, the movement of his nervous fingers as he fumbled his cigarette; and when he said, “Hallo, Woody!” her heart leapt and she said softly: “Hallo, don Juan!” and went over to him.
“Oh, heavens!” thought Eden, appalled by a note in her voice that he had heard in the suddenly exultant voices of too many women. “Oh, gosh! Don’t let her start!” He informed her as roughly as he could that she had a dirty mark on her face.
Woody went rather pink. “Oh, Gervase, have I?” She rubbed at it with her handkerchief, standing rather uncertainly before him.
“Yes, you have,” he said. “And it looks awful.” But it looked very sweet, really, and a little bit pathetic, and he drew her to him and took the handkerchief out of her hand and wiped the mark gently away. “Now you look a clean girl,” he said; and he gave her a little shake and added, quite involuntarily: “Oh, Woody—I do like you!”
Woody’s heart melted within her. “Do you, Gervase?”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “You’re so.…” He broke off and improved the shining hour by improvising: “You’re such a good friend, Woody. You don’t get sentimental and silly and take things too seriously; you can have a little petting party in the evening and just be ordinary again, next day. And if a man kisses you, you don’t go off the handle and run around screaming that you’ve been robbed of something above rubies.”
“It would be a bit comic if I did,” said Woods dryly; “at this stage of my career.”
“And above all, you don’t let your emotions get tangled up with just having fun,” said Gervase, earnestly, in his gratitude persuading himself that this was really so.
“No, darling,” said Woody, and she bent forward and kissed him lightly, so that he should not see the tears in her eyes.
Major Moon appeared at a trot, advancing towards them across the circular hall. “Sorry I’m late; hasn’t Esther turned up yet?”
“Here she is now,” said Eden, as Esther came in at the main door, pulling off her little round outdoor cap.
She came and joined them. “Did you call me?”
“Yes, child, come here. We wanted to catch you before you went on night duty,” said Moon, taking her hand and tucking it warmly into his own. He looked at her with troubled blue eyes. “We have a little bit of news for you that you’re not going to like very much … no, Woody, you stay, my dear, we’re glad to have you.… Now, this isn’t serious, Esther, and you mustn’t upset yourself; but Eden and I have been talking over your young man’s fracture, and we don’t quite like the way it’s going. We think we ought to have him along to the theatre and open up his leg.”
She stared at him, horrified. “Oh Major Moon—no!”
“I’m afraid we must, Esther,” said Eden definitely. “There’s nothing to worry about, ducky. We think there’s a bit of pus there, that’s all, and it would be better to take out the stitches and drain the wound.”
“Do you mean he’s getting an infection?”
“Just a spot, Esther, it so often happens; but we can clear it up all right.”
Cockrill passed through the hall still bent upon his ceaseless investigations. He saw Woods among the little group, and, recollecting William’s half-recognition of her voice, decided to enter into conversation, in the vague hope of surprising something out of her. In the dim light he did not notice the distress upon Esther’s face until it was too late to draw back; Major Moon passed it off with a casual explanation: “She’s a little bit upset; we’re going to do a small job on her beloved and she doesn’t like it; she’ll be all right in a minute.…”
“It’s very silly of me,” said Esther, gulping back her tears.
“It’s nothing at all to worry about, darling,” insisted Woody. “I’ve seen thousands of them done in the theatre—well, at least four or five—and it’s quite a small operation, isn’t it, Major Moon?”
“It’s not the danger; it’s just that I—I can’t bear to think of him being ill or in pain.…”
“He’ll be much more comfortable after this, Esther,” promised Gervase.
Cockrill had been putting two and two together. “Is it young Will Ferguson that you’re talking about? I was down there seeing him this afternoon.…”
“Miss Sanson’s engaged to him,” explained Eden.
Cockrill turned round upon her. “Are you indeed, Esther? I congratulate you; I’ve known him since he was a boy—he’s a very charming fellow.”
“He’s a darling, Esther,” agreed Woods enthusiastically.
She looked up in surprise. “Have you been to see him at last, Woody?”
“Yes, I introduced myself this evening, after operating had finished in the theatre; he’s sweet, darling. He told me he’d been having a chat with you, Inspector.”
“I was asking him about Higgins,” said Cockrill, who did not think that this was the time to ask Woods if William had remembered where he had heard her voice.
“He didn’t know Higgins,” said Esther. “He was brought in after him.”
“Yes, but only because he took longer to get himself dug out. He used to work for Higgins—they’d been through all the blitzes together, and they were sitting talking about the old days, when the bomb hit them.”
“Listening to the German radio,” said Cockrill.
“Yes, he was telling me about that,” said Woody, rather breathlessly. “It was extraordinary how—how the wireless went on and on talking when everything else all round them had been shattered. I mean, a bit off to have to lie pinned down by debris, heroically waiting to be rescued, while Lord Haw-Haw tells you how effete you are!”
“Was it Lord Haw-Haw?” said Cockrill.
“Well, so William says,” replied Woody indifferently.
“Those fellows ought to be hamstrung!” exploded Major Moon. “Of all the filthy treachery, I think that is the worst. A good honest spy is a brave man; he’s working for his country in the enemy’s country, and if his methods aren’t very charming, well it doesn’t make him any the less a hero, from his own point of view; but to stand safely in Germany and pour out abuse of your own country … disgusting! Filthy! I only hope that at the end of the war we really deal with them as they deserve.”
“I feel sorry for their relatives and friends,” said Eden mildly, “having to sit here and listen to them telling their German lies!”
“Their relations and friends are probably just as bad as they are,” said Major Moon roughly. His kind blue eyes had gone stupid with the natural, unthinking welling-up of his disgust and contempt.
“Not necessarily,” said Cockie thoughtfully; “but I dare say a good many people in this country would agree with you.” There is nothing like just indignation for fostering unreasoning hate.
Woods looked at her. “Esther, isn’t it time you went on duty, my pet?”
“I suppose it is,” said Esther, who had been standing by, taking no part in the conversation. “I’d better go. I—I don’t know how I’m going to face William!” She stood for a moment with her head bent, her hands pressed against her forehead.
“We’ve explained everything to him, my dear,” said Major Moon. “He’s not worrying a bit; it’s only a little thing, nothing to be anxious about.”
“Higgins’s operation was nothing to be anxious about,” said Esther suddenly, dropping her hands and staring at them, white faced, with burning eyes. “But he died. Higgins died!”
“But my dear child …!”
“I’m afraid,” cried Esther. “I’m terrified! Supposing William were to die too?”
“Oh, nonsense, Esther darling,” said Woods. “Why should William die? Who on earth would want to kill him?”
“Who would have wanted to kill Higgins?” said Esther.
“Perhaps you would like to get someone else to do the operation, Esther?” suggested Major Moon gently. “Perkins did him originally, of course, but he’s on seven days’ leave. We could fix up for Jones to do it, or Colonel Greenaway would if you like.”
“No, no, Major Moon, of course you must operate; of course you must! Gervase, you’ll be assisting him, won’t you?”
“I was supposed to be,” said Eden.
“Yes, do; do assist. You must. Please don’t think … it’s awful of me even to seem to suggest that I don’t trust you to do the very best for William. I know you will; of course I do. Do forgive me, everybody; it’s only that … I’m sort of upset.… If anything should happen to him …” She left them abruptly and ran off to her ward.
“Poor child; she’s so very much in love,” said Major Moon, looking after her.
“Is the operation really nothing serious?” asked Cockrill, deeply interested.
“Not serious at all; it would be if it were left, of course. He’s developing osteomyelitis, and we must drain the wound, that’s all.”
“Osteo-what?” said Cockrill crossly; he hated to be ignorant of what other people clearly understood.
“Osteomyelitis—infection of the bone, Inspector. We take out the stitches and pack the wound open so that the pus can’t collect; and cover the whole thing with plaster of Paris, instead of having him strung up to an extension.”
