“Yes, that’s a point. Still—”
“Good old Spud,” said Reg with sudden awkward kindness; he had recognized the signs of pain and fatigue around Laurie’s eyes and mouth. “Argue the case for Jack the Ripper, he would.”
“What are you men doing still up?” The Sister, expecting trouble, had scented it from afar. “I know you’ve been helping outside, Odell, and thank you, but get along now. Barker, you’ve been here long enough to know the rule about sitting on beds.”
Laurie’s leg felt worse before it felt better. He lay trying to forget it, thumbing the pages of a dog-eared magazine. The unshaded electric bulbs revealed mercilessly the cement floors, the wooden lockers with their day’s burden of ash, orange peel, paper and foil.
Reg Barker, returning from a trip to the lavatory, jerked the thumb of his good hand at the outer door. “Them sods has moved in.”
“Which?” asked Laurie vaguely. “Oh, yes. Have they?”
“Just been out and seen them come up in a truck and move into the maids’ block. Proper lot of pansies, too.”
“Go on, Reg, it’s been dark for hours, you couldn’t tell if they were Zulus.”
“Wait till tomorrow and you’ll see, then. Same as what they will.”
“You know, Reg, let’s face it, we’re all a bit on edge here. We can do to take things quietly, for our own sakes.”
“Then why do they have to send the muckers here, as if we hadn’t got no feelings?”
“God knows, and some zombie at Whitehall. Still, why make it worse?”
“You know, Spud, it’s right for once what Neames said, you’re too easygoing by half. Why should they get away with it? Sitting safe on their backsides at home and taking our jobs.” A dark flush rose in his forehead. “There’s women that fall for that smarmy sort,” he said, “if they can talk posh.”
“Did you say taking our jobs? They’re welcome to mine in the kitchen. I say, Reg—before you get into bed, would you mind asking Sister if I can have some A.P.C.?”
“Knee playing up?” Reg leaned forward; the shape of his splint made him look as if he were preparing a savage blow. Anxious creases divided his brows.
“Nothing much. You were right, though. I did mess about on it a bit too long.”
“They got no business to have put you on that kitchen fatigue. I said all along.”
“Someone’s got to, with all you lucky people in arm splints.”
“Well,” said Reg with vicious emphasis, “from tomorrow on, those muckers can do it. And like it.”
Laurie looked ingenuously up at him. “So they can. I shan’t be sorry, I must say.”
It was not one of his good nights. He was awake till the Night Sister gave him medinal at two. This sent him soundly off; so that a touch on his shoulder, waking him to light and clatter, filled him with impotent outrage. Dimly aware that the offending hand was not a nurse’s, he burrowed into the pillow and growled, “What the bleeding hell is it?”
“I’m sorry. If I can just take your temperature.”
Sudden recollection jerked Laurie awake. He looked up into a lean, austere face with a short grizzled beard. There was no doubt that the beard had a chin under it.
“Excuse my language,” he said uncomfortably. “I was half asleep.” He suppressed what he had meant to say; tomorrow would do. This was silly, for he might have known Reg would never let it pass.
“He don’t have it taken mornings,” said Reg promptly. “He gets up.”
The man withdrew his thermometer from Laurie’s arm. “Then I’ve waked you for nothing. I’m extremely sorry. I won’t do it again.”
“It’s all right. I never sleep much after the work starts.”
“Go on,” said Reg, more in sorrow than in anger. “Day before yesterday you slept till the breakfast come round, you know that.”
The bearded man as he passed on gave Laurie a slow smile which seemed, oddly, both sophisticated and good. He went on to Charlot, to whom he spoke in fluent idiomatic French. Reg said, in a hoarse whisper, “Here. What’s he doing here? You’re not telling me he’s still military age. Nor anywhere near.”
Laurie looked again. “No, of course. He must be a good fifty. Perhaps it was all a mistake.”
He looked along the ward. Another man, wearing a coarse, gray cotton coat like the first, was pulling out the beds one by one to sweep. No, thought Laurie with sinking spirits, this one wasn’t over age. He was a small man, with a small licked-down mustache, and looked about twenty-six. Eager conscientiousness informed his every movement. Chapel type, Laurie decided; and thinks damn is pretty serious swearing. This really is going to be rather hell.
“Proper little pipsqueak,” hissed Reg.
“Doesn’t look as if he’d pass a medical,” said Laurie hopefully.
“Go on. Course they’re c.o.s. It’s written all over them. Search me what the old boy’s here for, though.”
Laurie glanced after the bearded man, now several beds away. Neames, looking straight ahead, allowed his temperature to be taken as if by an automaton. The next bed was Willis’s.
Willis was a towheaded youth, whom Neames had early christened the Missing Link. He had never seemed to resent this, though he was quarrelsome by nature; Laurie deduced that he didn’t know what it meant. Willis always made him feel uncomfortable. One felt he should have been given a choice at the outset, whether or not to be born. It must have taken generations of conditioning to breed him, in some dockside warren neglected by angels and the borough inspector.
Reg said, “Watch this, this’ll be good.”
“Willis gets up,” said Laurie. “He’s only got to say so. What the hell did they send them here for, this bloody Government’ll lose us the war.”
It was often quite hard to hear what Willis said, even when he was not chewing. It was the prevailing hush which carried his voice along the ward.
“You can take that—thing away, and put it where the—monkey put the—nuts. I don’t want none of you—’s touching me.”
The c.o. replied as if to an expected social commonplace. “I expect not, it’s awkward for both of us. Still, we’ll have to get on with it, I suppose.”
“You—off and get on with it somewhere else. See?”
“This is a lot of silly bull,” said Laurie. He sat up, and reached for his crutch. But the little c.o. had just pulled out his bed from the wall where it was, and he couldn’t reach it.
“I say, Reg.” But Reg had hitched his dressing-gown over his shoulder, and was shuffling down the ward.
“Here,” he said to the c.o. “Didn’t they give you no list of the men that gets up?”
“No,” said the c.o. with a friendly smile. “I ought to have asked for it.”
“You only want it mornings. Evenings they take them all round, barring the chaps out on passes. I reckon that’s soft, not giving you no list. Asking for it, that is. Here. You turn that paper over and I’ll give you one now. Save tempers all round, that will.”
When they had finished he turned around. “And when you done your funny number, Willis,” he said over his shoulder, “you remember there ain’t been no comfort in the ward since the maids went, and if this lot’s transferred there won’t be none again. What you want them to do, go through the whole flipping war without working?”
Just then Laurie’s bed moved. The little c.o., having swept behind it, was putting it back. His face confronted Laurie over the end of it, as he shoved earnestly with all the force of his thin arms. Laurie said encouragingly, “Next time give me that crutch first, then you can have the pram without the baby.”
“Oh, beg pardon. Yes, of course.” With helpless concern and irritation, Laurie saw that he had blushed to the ears. Perhaps he thought his physique was being sneered at. Suddenly Laurie felt that, early as it was, his nervous system had had enough. He would get away for a bit, he thought, before he lost his sense of humor over some trivial annoyance. He was not allowed to dress yet, but with luck the bathroom might be free.