Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008
Michelle
by Marilyn Todd
Marilyn Todd writes mysteries set in various historical periods; one of them, a short story entitled “Distilling the Truth,” set in 1950s France (and published in EQMM), was recently selected for the Best British Mysteries 2006. Ms. Todd has also been dazzling readers with her new series set in Ancient Greece. A first novel-length entry in that series, Blind Eye, is just out from Severn House.
What struck Wilfie was the silence. That incredible, beautiful, absolute silence, and, as he lay on his back, his face and torso swaddled beneath a stiff cocoon of bandages with his left foot up in traction, he wallowed in its splendour. This was the first time in weeks — months — when he could hear nothing but the sound of his own blood pounding through his temples. Could actually listen to his own voice for once, humming in his ears.
Mademoiselle from Armentiéres, parlez-vous—
He was out of tune (as usual), but who cared? There was only him to criticize.
— inky, pinky, parlez-vous.
What did that mean, he wondered? That inky pinky stuff? Maybe if he’d been in France for more than a few months he’d understand, but right now Wilfie was happy to overlook the harness that bound him flat and bask in the luxury of painkillers and silence.
Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile—
Who wouldn’t smile, he thought. Ever since Lord Kitchener’s finger pointed at him from that poster, telling Wilfie “Your country needs YOU!” his eardrums had been bombarded with the din from the barrack room, the clack of rifle practice, the clatter of the trains that carried him to war. And then, if it wasn’t the blast of the artillery or the pounding of the grenades, it was screaming, groaning, sobbing, praying, or else it was the rain. The endless bloody freezing rain that turned the fields of Flanders into mud. Rancid, slippery, endless, dripping off the barbed wire, dripping off his nose. Night or day, the racket never stopped. The bark of orders. The whistle of gas canisters fizzing through the air. The whinnies of a thousand terrified horses...
It’s a long way to Tipperary—
But now. Now Wilfie could enjoy the quietude, safe in the knowledge that he wasn’t being shot at. Wasn’t having to walk upright through a hail of bullets, stumbling over twitching bodies, slipping on someone’s guts and trying not to cry. Here he could relax. Lie still. Drink in every silent second—
“Wilfie?”
Jerked from his indulgence, Wilfie tried to place the voice.
“Wilfie Baines, by God, it is you inside that white marshmallow!”
“Ron?”
Nah. Ron had had a leg blown off when the ammunitions store went up, and that must have been — ooh, a month ago at least. That’s right, he remembered now. That was a name from the past, he had thought, hearing how they’d carted him off to some posh joint that had been turned into a field hospital. Some chateau well clear of the front, where the seriously injured could be cared for, until they were fit enough to be sent back home to Engl... Shit.
“Now, you behave yourself, Ron Tyler,” a female voice castigated, except there was no malice in her Irish lilt. To Wilfie’s ears, it sounded more like laughter. “Anything you need, you ring the bell this time, you understand?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“And don’t you patronise me, either. I won’t have you careering round these corridors by yourself. You’re dangerous on wheels.”
“No, Sister.”
“Oh, you!” With a good-humoured tut, her stout nursing shoes clacked off. “And mind you don’t tire my patient, either,” she called out. “The boy needs rest!”
“I’m blind, aren’t I?” Wilfie said.
Ron cleared his throat. “Your face is burned up pretty bad and the blast from the explosion knocked you back so hard you broke your leg and fractured a few ribs, but otherwise it’s not too serious.”
“No?” Trust Ron to play it down. “Then what am I doing here?”
“You’re alive, Wilf. That has to count for something.”
Did it? Did it really? Suddenly, silence was no longer Wilfie’s friend.
“Here, on your medical chart I see it reads Corporal Baines,” Ron said. “Well done, mate!”
Wilfie grunted. He was burned, blind, might never walk again, and then only with a limp, so what the hell did making corporal matter? Especially since Ron had made lieutenant, and you didn’t make that simply from being the last man in your unit left alive.
“How come they haven’t shipped you home?” he asked.
“Ach, you know how it is.” Ron clucked his tongue. “They took my left leg off at the knee after the accident, but then gangrene set in, so they’ve taken my right foot away to join it. Still.” He let out a wry chuckle. “Never was much of a dancer, me.”
Not true, Wilfie thought. Ron had always been a smooth mover, the sort who could glide effortlessly across a ballroom. Whereas he was always stepping on some poor girl or other’s toe, making her snap at him and glower. But no girls ever jumped down Ronald Tyler’s throat, Wilfie remembered enviously. Not on the dance floor, not anywhere else.
“It must bother you, though. Not being able to — y’know.”
“Walk? Not really.” Ron’s knuckles cracked. “I mean, obviously I’d rather I had both my legs, who wouldn’t? But war’s war, isn’t it? My lungs haven’t been scoured with mustard gas so bad that I can barely breathe, and I could have lost my hands—”
“No, I meant... attracting women.”
Just look at him. I mean, who’d want to take on a soldier invalided home with a limp, crinkled skin, and who couldn’t bloody see?
“Well, the way I look at it is this.” Ron rolled and lit a cigarette, then pressed it between Wilfie’s lips. “With every bloke under thirty over here in uniform, there’ll be thousands of jobs just begging to be filled back home. Being disabled won’t matter with a desk job, and you know what I’ve been thinking of doing, Wilf? Teaching.”
“You? A teacher?” Wilfie laughed, even though he knew Ron would make a good one. He had the patience, him. When they were kids, kicking a football up and down the same street of terraced houses and climbing trees together on the common, Ron was the one who always took the younger ones aside and showed them how to bake their conkers, roll their marbles, how to learn from their mistakes.
“If not, I’ll try the banks,” Ron was saying, “because either way, the money’s good, they’re respectable positions, and — well, let’s just say you don’t need to worry about me not being able to find myself a wife and raising a batch of screaming nippers.”
No, he wouldn’t, Wilfie thought. But he was thinking of his own chances.
“Lieutenant Tyler, I swear by Almighty God you’ll be the death of me!” The cigarette was whisked out of Wilfie’s mouth by a hand that smelled of disinfectant. “If Dr. Mallory finds you two have been smoking in the rooms, he’ll have my guts for garters, so he will!”
“Sorry, Sister.”
“Aye, you sound it, too,” she laughed, and although she was plumping Wilfie’s pillows, he knew it was Ron those Irish eyes were smiling at. “You said you were wanting to cheer the patient up, Ron Tyler, not set fire to his bed, now away with you and let the poor boy sleep.”