He pulled up across from the dingy facade of St. Elias Hospital, a hulking building of stone and brick. A century of London’s coal fires had turned its facade a mix of dismal gray or a brooding black. Add now the smoke of the fires that burned from the air raids and you had another layer of filth.
An elderly matron at the ornate front desk directed Cole to ward 18 on the second floor. You must take the stairs at the end of the hall, she insisted. The lifts seldom work, so you must take the stairs at the end of the hall. Okay, Cole assured her, I’ll take the stairs. He found Dickie Moore stretched out in his bed, his left leg in a cast, suspended on some sort of elaborate contraption attached to the framework of his bed. There were seven other beds in the ward — six were occupied.
“Anything to get out of work,” Cole said.
“Why, if it isn’t my Yankee friend,” Dickie said cheerfully.
“Don’t you ‘friend’ me,” Cole said. “I’m up to my eyeballs in work and Uncle Harry won’t give me any help.”
“It wasn’t my fault the filthy Hun broke my leg,” Dickie said innocently.
“Why weren’t you in a bomb shelter?”
“I was entertaining a young lady.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“Cole,” Dickie said, glancing about, “I was actively entertaining her, if you catch my meaning.”
“Gentlemen?”
Cole turned around to see a nurse enter the ward. Her light brown hair was tucked carefully under her nurse’s cap and her eyes were a very pale green, almost clear, Cole thought.
“Rebecca, dear,” Dickie said. “Here is my good friend, Jordan Cole. Jordan, here is the most charming sister of mercy that I have ever had the pleasure to meet.”
Cole watched as Rebecca smiled broadly. “How do you do…” She quickly studied his uniform. “Oh dear. Now that’s one that I haven’t seen.”
“Lieutenant, J.G.,” Cole said. “United States Naval Reserve.” He held out his hand and she took it, her touch light, and her fingers slender and graceful.
“J. G.?”
“Junior Grade,” Cole said. “That means that they don’t quite trust me with anything important.”
“That hardly seems right,” she said with a smile.
“Maybe, but there’s three ways of doing things. The right way, the wrong way, and the navy way.”
“I’m Rebecca Blair,” she said. She nodded at Dickie. “The sublieutenant’s keeper.”
“Oh, I say, Rebecca. Be kind to me today.”
“I am kind to you every day,” she said in a soft voice. There was a breathless quality to her voice, making her words sound quaint and charming. Cole found himself wanting her to say more. “I shall return after they have taken you downstairs for X-rays. Nurse Noonan informs me that you are healing nicely.”
Dickie made a face at Cole as Rebecca moved to another bed. “Noonan. Lovely mustache. Size of an elephant. An angry one. I think she fancies me. Cole? Are you listening?”
Cole turned back to Dickie. “What?”
“Yes, Rebecca is sweet, dear boy, and rather a looker. I could listen to her talk for hours, but she has a husband and those usually mean trouble. Some place in North Africa, I’m told.”
“She’s very pretty,” Cole said, watching Rebecca gently brush the hair of a sleeping patient off his forehead. He watched her speak to another man and when he was reluctant to speak back, she pulled a chair up next to his bed and began to talk to him. Cole could almost feel her compassion and then he thought of Ruth’s comment: You have no empathy. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.
“She’s beautiful,” Dickie said. “And she is a very charming creature. You mustn’t make her one of your conquests, Jordan.”
“Okay.”
“No. I insist, old boy.”
Cole turned to Dickie. “Have I ever lied to you, Dickie?”
“Oh, that’s a very stupid question. Of course you have. And I’ve lied to you.”
Two orderlies and a large, round nurse that Cole took to be the infamous Noonan appeared to take Dickie off to X-ray.
“Wait for me, will you, Jordan? It gets terribly lonely here.”
“Sure. How long?”
Dickie looked at Noonan for an answer.
Noonan nailed Cole with a defiant glare. “Well, it won’t be five minutes, I can tell you that. We don’t run St. Elias just to make you sailor boys happy. Forty-five minutes and not a second less, and if we’re stacked up like we were yesterday, it’ll take as long as it takes.”
Dickie rolled his eyes and said, “There’s a lovely little square just to the rear of the hospital. Go and have a quiet smoke and then come and see me.” Dickie quickly cupped his hand and brought it to his mouth several times, flashing a ridiculous grin.
Cole smiled and nodded. He left the hospital and found a small store run by an ancient man that sold spirits. He bought an overpriced bottle of gin that the storekeeper grudgingly slipped into a paper bag, after examining his ration coupon. “Most don’t have need of a bag. They just slip it under their arm and go about their business,” he said, fixing Cole with a cold eye.
Cole found the square that Dickie mentioned, a carefully tended patch of grass and shrubs around a ring of wrought-iron benches, and sat down, glancing at his watch. At least a half hour to kill before Dickie was safely returned to his room. He was just lighting a cigarette when he saw her enter the square. “Rebecca?” he called out. “Mrs. Blair?”
She stopped, puzzled. Then she realized who had called to her and walked toward him.
“Lieutenant Cole, is it?” There was that voice again.
“Yes,” Cole said, standing as she approached. “Dickie’s friend. Are you playing hooky?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sorry,” Cole said. “It’s an American expression. When you skip school. Please, join me.”
“Oh,” she said, smiling. “I see. No, I’m not playing hooky, but I should like to very much. I’ve worked my first eight and I have an entire thirty minutes before I start my second.”
“Sixteen hours?” Cole whistled.
“Don’t tell me that you’ve never worked those sorts of hours.”
“Yeah,” Cole said, “I have but—”
“You think it’s different somehow because I’m a woman?” she said without malice. “Is that it?”
“How do I get out of this?” Cole said playfully.
“Raise your right hand,” Rebecca said. She waited until Cole did and then she said, “I faithfully promise never to underrate women as a class and any woman that I meet, so help me God. Say it.”
“I faithfully promise,” Cole returned with a smile. “Coming from you, that doesn’t seem like such a difficult promise to uphold.”
Rebecca’s cheeks tinged red with embarrassment. She fumbled for a cigarette.
“You really care about those guys in there,” he said, trying to ease the awkwardness that he had created. “It’s not just a job with you.”
“Sometimes I wish that it were,” she said, taking a light from Cole. “Before the war it could be rough at times, but this…” She stopped and shook her head.
Cole knew immediately that she was overwhelmed. He saw her immersed in a world of death and suffering, and then he thought how trite the two words sounded, linked to describe the horror that she must see every day.