“Thought you would, Seen one or two of your sort already this war. Not many – there are very few like you, Commander.”
“What is the chance of an artificial foot, sir?”
“A prosthesis? We shall supply one. It will take a shoe and seem normal under a pair of trousers. You will not walk freely on it – no ankle! Regrettably, you will walk less easily for the rest of your life. Resign yourself to sitting whenever possible. Watch your food. It will be easy to grow fat.”
“So it will. If you don’t mind, doctor, I might appreciate that morphine just now.”
“Good idea. Back to sleep. You will feel lousy when you wake up in the morning. It will get better.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Vice Admiral Molyneux, commanding Plymouth.”
Peter looked up at the large braided and ribboned figure stood beside his bed at the head of a train of flunkeys.
“Sorry, sir, I can’t sit up straight yet.”
He was laid back in a nest of pillows, a cage over his missing foot to protect it from the weight of blankets.
“Don’t be a bloody fool, boy! Of course you can’t! Ridiculous to expect you to. Even an admiral wouldn’t demand that!”
There was a subdued titter from his staff.
Peter noted that the admiral was a humourist who must be allowed his little jokes.
“Wanted to get a look at you before they cart you off out of my domain. You did damned well, you know. My three destroyers finished your submarine – it couldn’t get away, leaving a trail of oil wherever it twisted and turned. They bombed it until it had to come to the surface; finished it off with the guns then. As far as we are concerned, the glory for the kill is yours. If you had not remained on site, despite your foot being blown off, they might never have found the oil – it was only a trickle. You are finished for the Navy now, more’s the pity. You could have picked your own command after this, you know. The newspapers are having fits about it, naturally. I believe you are to be promoted post captain before they give you the old heave-ho. Retirement to the Sick and Hurt, they used to call it. Main thing is, it will give you a far better pension, which is always a thought. What else they will do is not up to me to say.” He gave a theatrical look over his shoulder, to more titters. “I’m off, because if I am not much mistaken that is your good mother, who looks like you, and a young lady who don’t look like your sister. No need for me hanging around the place. My congratulations, boy!”
The admiral thrust out a hand to shake and then came to the salute before turning away bowing and smiling to the pair of ladies and the nurses accompanying them. His mother responded graciously, evidently regarding bumptious admirals as not quite the thing.
“The doctor says you can be transported to the hospital in Ewell, Peter. He wants you to stay in for another week, just in case. It is possible, it seems, that there might be a splinter of bone or some foreign material in the leg just above the amputation point. Not very likely, but if there is it must be removed as soon as it shows, so they want you in and having the dressings changed twice a day for the week.”
“As well to be there as anywhere else, Mama. It seems I have nothing else to do at the moment.”
She ignored his depressed tone – no doubt it was a mere, temporary aberration.
“Nothing at all for these few days. Your father will wish to discuss possibilities with you as soon as you are ambulant. You will be on crutches for some considerable time, it seems, which will be an irritation to you. You might need a walking stick for the rest of your life – a minor inconvenience.”
His mother was deliberately casual, all understated, her emotions buried under her training. She made it clear that she did not expect drama from her son – he must accept the minor vicissitudes of life.
“Geoffrey is deeply upset that he cannot possibly find the time to come down here. Eight hours by train from London, a day spent here, another night of travelling to get back. He knows he must not leave his office for so long and yet is torn between two duties. He ordered me to send his best wishes. I have not bothered so far. You know your brother and need no words second hand from me.”
Peter managed a smile.
“None at all, Mama. I have the greatest affection for him, and know he has the same for me, even though neither of us has ever understood the other. He is the best of brothers.”
She showed pleased, always worried that her two boys, so unalike, might fall out.
“We must travel this afternoon, Peter. Josephine and I are to take the night sleeper to Paddington Station. We must both return home. You are to go by motor ambulance, I believe – the sort of thing that your sister is driving, which I still do not approve of! You may be in Ewell before me as I must accompany Josephine to Shoreham, having promised her grandmother that I should not have her travel about the country alone. With your approval, we may discuss matters while I am there.”
Peter wondered exactly what those matters might be, knew better than to ask or conceivably raise an objection. If his mother had wished to explain, she would have done so. His ‘approval’ was no more than a courtesy form on her part. He assumed she would be setting a date for the wedding, having decided that Josephine would do for her son. He agreed with her assessment – coming close to death had served to clarify his mind on a number of issues, the most pressing being that he definitely had fallen in love with Josephine. It was, perhaps, a good thing that he was to leave the Navy – sailors were officially expected to love the sea and that alone.
The journey by motor ambulance was tedious, long and boring, a nurse accompanying him who had no conversation and was an indefatigable knitter. He remained comfortable, sleeping most of the way, albeit somewhat embarrassed by the use of a bottle when he woke up uncomfortable.
The hospital at Ewell was an old manor house, donated by its owner and rapidly crumbling under the onslaught of the military; ancient brickwork had little to say to army boots. Peter had a single downstairs room, apparently because he was to stand on crutches and walk a little before he might leave.
“Well, Peter? You at least will survive this bloody war!”
“Hello, Jennifer. Are you to be my nurse?”
“No, not right that I should look after a brother. Susan has responsibility for you.” She nodded to an older nurse who had come in with her. “How is the pain?”
“Bearable. It is far less than it was last week. It is an ache now, not a burning, stabbing anguish as it was for the day after they stopped the morphine injections. I was close to begging them for an injection. I am glad I did not.”
“Dangerous stuff, morphine. I am glad you had little of it. We know so little of the drug and many doctors are inclined to dispense it almost carelessly, their concern only that it ends pain. When I qualify, I might hope to take part in research upon opioids and all of their ramifications.”
“You will definitely study medicine after the war?”
“I have started already. There is a course available for educated nurses who wish to enter into medicine. Part time, but if the war lasts another three years, I shall have completed my first two years of study, may enter a medical school in the third year.”
“I must wish you joy of your endeavours, Jennifer. You know what you are to do with your life.”
“While you do not now. I do not doubt that father will assist. I must say I do not see you as a banker. The name on your door says Captain Peter Naseby. An achievement at age twenty-five, possibly currently unmatched, I am told. I do not doubt you can do as well in another field. Indeed”, she smiled suddenly, “I understand from Mama you are to marry soon, so you must find a profitable occupation.”