She was silent.
Jones added, “And if it’s discovered we aided him, well, they might hang us too. Or close down Mary’s operation and send her back to England. They’d like to, you know. Replace her with a man.”
“We’ll plead ignorance,” said Laura. “If it comes to that. In the chaos—the fighting. Say we were moving through patients, we were tired, he didn’t speak, we didn’t realize.” She was preparing Winter for surgery as she spoke, cutting away his clothes, swabbing the surgical site.
“You’re taking a risk with all of us,” said Jones.
She was. He didn’t look accusing, but she could see the question in his face:Why, Iven? Tell me why?
The only answer she could think of was one that made her throat close, her hands cramp. One she didn’t want to give. But she owed it to him. She was asking him to go against his own judgment, his own ethics. Asking him to trust her. So she said, in a voice she hardly recognized, counting Winter’s breaths as she spoke: “When the ship exploded in Halifax, I wasn’t at home. I wasn’t in Veith Street, by the docks. I was working. I’d just got a job. Looking after a trio of old ladies. I should still have been at home in bed. My leg hurt, I was limping. I saw the explosion, out of their front window—a flash of light, and a noise, loud enough to crack the glass. It sent me straight to Flanders. I threw myself flat, quiveringlike jelly, and for—I don’t know—a quarter hour—I couldn’tthink.I was back in Brandhoek, with shells incoming. Justuseless,paralyzed. The old ladies helped me. Smelling salts, and a warm blanket.” Her mouth twisted in self-derision. “It was only after that—when I was coming round—that I realized what must have happened at home. We lived by the docks, you see. Me and my parents. I looked out the window. I could see the fires already starting to spread. I got up. And went. I couldn’t run, my leg wasn’t so steady. I walked. All the way there. It was—God, sometimes I go to sleep and find myself still walking. Houses flung to matchsticks, sparks falling, fires everywhere. And the screaming. It was just the time when kids walked to school, you know? Mothers were screaming for them. Sometimes they were buried themselves but still screaming.” She swallowed. “I got home and I saw—well, my mother had been at the window. Watching, you see, the ship on fire in the bay. It was quite a spectacle, and of course my father was out there. Trying to put it out. The explosion—it blew in the window glass.” She paused. “Perhaps there was no way I could have saved her. There was so much glass in her eyes. In her face. She hardly had a face anymore. But I keep thinking I might have. If I’d been quicker. Cleverer. If I hadn’t spent a half hour flopping like a fish. So if there’s a chance to save Freddie, I have to take it. I’ve—Jones, I’ve nothing else.”
She fell silent. Felt the world come back slowly. For a moment she’d gone very far away. It was as though that day in Halifax had carved its own place in her mind, and even a careless word was enough to take her back and hold her there, lost. Winter was ready for surgery on the table, if only Jones would…She met his eyes and held her breath.
“All right,” Jones said. “All right.” He started rolling up his sleeve.
“What are you doing?”
He gave her a testy look. “I’m type O, myself. A lot of the units on our shelves were mine. How do you think I found that someblood always worked and other blood didn’t? Mine always did. Now go and get me some tubing, Iven. He needs blood, and we’ve no more jars left.”
Speechless, Laura went. Within minutes, blood was running into Winter, and a little color was coming back into his face. Laura, watching the patient, whispered, “Thank you. I’m not sure why you are doing this. But thank you.”
Jones’s eyes traced the lines of tubing, considered the color of Winter’s face. Finally he said, “Because you asked me to, Iven.”
She didn’t look at him.No,she wanted to say.No, it’s not real, whatever this is. Good things don’t grow in this rotten earth.
Jones huffed. “I can almost hear you being dramatic and you haven’t said a word.”
· · ·
They got Winter through surgery, and he woke from the ether still alive but only half-conscious. Of course, now there was the question of where to put him. It wasn’t as if the château was empty. It teemed with nurses, orderlies, doctors, patients, the Belgians who came in every day to cook and do laundry.
They considered hiding him. But finally, Laura said, “What guilty fools we should look if he’s found bleeding in the pantry. The main ward in fresh pajamas will do for now. I don’t think anyone’s up for noticing the Archangel Gabriel with his trumpet after all this, let alone yet another wounded man.”
Jones was still unhappy. “Look,” he said to the dazed Winter, “whoever you are, you are not to speak. Be like those men who come through a bad bombardment; don’t say a damned word, just look vacant, all right?”
The blue eyes flickered; impossible to tell whether he’d understood. “I’ll keep an eye on him, Iven,” said Jones.
“I can—”
Jones said drily, “I am well aware you can. I am not sure you ought.”
She was silent, suddenly aware of stabbing pain in her feet and ankles, her calf cramping, the residual ache in her chest.
Jones said, “Go and sleep for an hour. I’ll tell you if he says anything. You won’t do him or your brother or anyone else any good if you relapse.”
She hesitated. Trust—gratitude—what strange things to feel. “All right,” she said.
Their eyes met. “Get along, Iven,” said Jones, and she went.
Pim was in the foyer.
Her skin was damp with sweat, her uniform stained and sticky, curls of her chopped golden hair escaping her veil. Her eyes were glassy as water. She looked as wrecked as Laura felt. “Come with me,” said Laura, taking her arm. “You are having some rum and a chocolate bar and a few hours’ sleep.”
Pim shook her head. “I— No. No, indeed, Laura. I’m all right. They need me.”
“Now, Mrs. Shaw,” said Laura.
She chivvied Pim up the stairs. At the door of their room, Pim broke free and burst out, “Who are you to give me orders? I know you lied, Laura, didn’t you, when you told me what happened, while you were out searching? You said that you knew for sure Freddie was dead. But you—you didn’t look surprised at all to see that man tonight. You didn’t even look surprised when he said ‘Faland,’ did you? You’ve been telling—telling me to stop looking, and all the time you were—”
