“No, I wanted to send a telegram-”
“Oh, dear, no. Telegrams are such horrid things, always bringing bad news, especially now with the war. You don’t want to frighten the poor person you’re sending it to. A letter’s much better.” She picked up a fountain pen. “I’ll be glad to post it for you.”
“But I need to get word to this person right away-”
“A letter will be nearly as quick as a telegram,” she said, sitting down beside the bed. “Now, to whom is it to be sent?”
“I can write it myself. I just need-”
“Oh, I don’t mind. It’s my way of doing my bit for the war effort. And you mustn’t tire yourself out. You must conserve your strength toward getting well.”
There wasn’t time to argue with her. Fordham might be back any minute. “It’s to Commander Harold,” he said.
She wrote, “Dear Commander Harold,” in a neat, spidery hand.
“I am in the War Emergency Hospital in Orpington,” Mike dictated. “I was brought here from Dover for surgery on my foot.” And now what? He needed to phrase it so it didn’t give away the fact that he’d been feigning his amnesia, or that he was a civilian. If they found that out and moved him to another hospital, it would defeat the whole point of writing.
Mrs. Ives was looking up at him expectantly.
“I’m too tired to write any more right now,” he said, rubbing his hand across his forehead. “Just leave it, and I’ll finish it later.”
“I’ll be glad to come back,” she said, folding the letter and sticking it in her pocket.
No, Fordham would be there then, listening. “Just put, ‘Please write,’” Mike told her. The important thing was to tell the Commander where he was, and hopefully he’d write back and tell him if anyone had been there, looking for him. “And sign it ‘Mike Davis.’”
She wrote that, folded the letter in thirds, put it in an envelope, licked the flap, tore a stamp off a sheet, licked that, and pressed it onto a corner of the envelope. And it was just as well she’d written the letter for him-he’d have had no idea how to get the envelope shut or the stamp on. She wrote Mike’s name and the hospital’s address in the left-hand corner and “Commander Harold” in the center. “What’s the Commander’s address?” she asked.
“I need you to find that out for me. He lives in a village called Saltram-on-Sea. It’s in Kent. Or possibly in Sussex.”
“The postmaster will know,” she said. “Saltram-on-Sea will get it to him.” She wrote “Saltram-on-Sea” and, under it, “England,” and stuck it in her uniform pocket. “I’ll post it when I leave tonight.”
I hope she knows what she’s doing, Mike thought. “How long do you think it will take to get there?”
“Oh, it should arrive with tomorrow’s morning post, though with the war, one never knows. It might not arrive till the afternoon post, but it will definitely be there by tomorrow,” she said, which meant it would get there Wednesday or, since it didn’t have the Commander’s address, possibly Thursday. That meant the retrieval team could be here by Friday. Which meant he’d better work on getting better, and fast, so that when they showed up, they’d be able to get him out of here without having to resort to stealing a stretcher and an ambulance. To that end, he forced himself to eat everything on his tray, and practice sitting up in bed for longer than five minutes at a stretch.
It was harder than he expected. He was still incredibly weak, and even trying to sit on the side of the bed left him drenched in sweat. “There’s still some lung involvement,” the doctor said, listening to his chest. “How’s the memory? Anything returning?”
“Bits and pieces,” Mike said cautiously. Had Mrs. Ives told him about the letter?
Apparently not, because the doctor said, “Don’t try to force it. Take it slowly. And that goes for you trying to get up. I don’t want you having a relapse.”
And when Sister Carmody came to take his temperature, she told him the doctor had scolded her for allowing him to sit up. “He says you’re not to get up till next week.”
By which time I’ll be back in Oxford, he thought, but by Friday, there was still no sign of them and no letter. “It must have been delayed,” Mrs. Ives said. “The war, you know. I’m certain it will come tomorrow,” but it wasn’t in the post Saturday morning, either. Obviously Mrs. Ives had been wrong, and “Saltram-on-Sea, England” hadn’t been enough of an address. He was going to have to send a second letter and make Mrs. Ives find out the county this time, but the first thing she said was, “Perhaps instead of writing you back, he’s planning to come see you on the weekend.”
That possibility hadn’t even occurred to Mike. Oh, God, the thought of the Commander roaring in and announcing to the nurses that he was an American reporter. I have to tell them my memory’s come back, Mike thought.
“When are visiting hours on the weekend, Mrs. Ives?” he asked her.
“From two o’clock to four both today and tomorrow.”
That meant he wouldn’t have time to have his memory come back in pieces. It would have to be all at once. I’ll have to say it was triggered by something, he thought, and, as soon as Mrs. Ives left, started through the Herald, looking for a story he could say had sparked the memory: “Airfield Bombed,” “Londoners Hold Gas Attack Drills,” “Invasion May Be Imminent.” But nothing at all about Dunkirk or Americans. He turned to the inside pages. An ad for John Lewis, funeral notices, wedding announcements: Lord James and Lady Emma Siston-Hughes announce the engagement of their daughter Jane-
Jane. Perfect. He pretended to read for a few minutes, then rang the bell excitedly. “What is it?” Fordham asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve remembered who I am.” Mike rang the bell again.
Sister Carmody came bustling up. “I know who I am,” Mike said, handing her the paper and pointing to the announcement. “I saw the name Jane and it suddenly all came back-how I got to Dunkirk, what I was doing there, how I got injured. I was on the Lady Jane. And I’m not a soldier.”
“Not a soldier?”
“No, I’m a war correspondent. I was in Dun-”
“But if you’re not a soldier, you’re not supposed to-I’ll fetch the doctor.” She hurried off, clutching the Herald.
She returned almost immediately with the doctor in tow. “I understand your memory is beginning to return,” he said.
“Has returned. Just like that.” Mike snapped his fingers, hoping to God memories actually did come back that way. “I was reading the Herald,” he said, taking the paper from Sister Carmody and showing them the announcement, “and as soon as I saw the name Jane I remembered everything. I work for an American paper. The Omaha Observer. I’m their London correspondent. I went over to Dunkirk with Commander Harold on his boat, the Lady Jane, to report on the evacuation.” He glanced ruefully at his foot. “I got more of a story than I bargained for.”
The doctor listened to Mike’s account-bringing the soldiers aboard, the propeller, the Stuka-calmly and impassively. “I told you not to worry,” he said at the end of it. “That your memory would come back.” He turned to Sister Carmody. “Would you tell Matron I need to speak with her, please?”
She shot Mike a stricken look. “Doctor, could I have a moment?” she asked, and they retreated to the center of the ward for another of those whispered conferences. “…it isn’t his fault,” he heard Sister Carmody say, and “… couldn’t it wait till his foot?… pneumonia…”
The doctor sounded just as unhappy: “… nothing I can do… regulations…”
He must have told her again to go get the matron because she crossed her arms belligerently across her chest and shook her veiled head. “… won’t have any part in it… miracle he survived being moved the first time…” and the doctor took off for the double doors with her in pursuit.