Brought back to the room, he looked about himself and took in the peeling paint at the window, a bucket catching heavy drips of rain. He knew the New Zealanders were finding it hard, sending off so many healthy young men to fight had a real effect on the home front. Early in his tenure he’d innocently remarked on the distance from the theatre of war and Matron’s response had been swift.
‘We’ve all we need here in New Zealand to look after ourselves and we’re grateful for it, but we’re feeling the pinch as our lads go off and we send the best of us away. We felt it in the first war too. There’s only so long anyone can give and give before they break.’
Dr Hughes understood that an entire generation of men missing after the first war, the loss of strong young men now, had taken its toll on the nation’s spirit as well as its economy. He’d had money worries of his own and understood how debilitating it could be to scrimp and save. His family were very ordinary and his whole way through medical school he had been on scholarships and bursaries. Even so, his money worries were as nothing to the nightmares he now dealt with on a regular basis. He’d taken on the night shift in order to try to avoid the dreams, but they felt even more brutal when they arrived in the light of day and the one person he had confided in had been most frightened of his fears. When Luke tried to explain to Sarah why he was afraid to sleep, fearful of what might come, he saw worry and perhaps even shock in her eyes as he talked of the walking wounded in his dreams, mumbled in garbled language about his fear. The words she eventually spoke were intended to be comforting and she had tried to understand, but he was sure he had said too much. He was worried that she now thought him a coward and, in response, he had closed himself off from her. Luke knew she must be confused and upset by the way he had been avoiding her. Sarah was a lovely girl and she deserved someone better than him, he would have to tell her that. He groaned inwardly, he knew only too well that some lives could seem hopeful on the outside and yet inside it was all turmoil and upset. Take young Sydney Brown for example. All of twenty-one, about to inherit his grandfather’s farm, lock, stock and barrel, and seemingly no happier about it than had the entire estate gone to a stranger.
‘Thing is, I don’t flamin’ well want to be a farmer, that’s the cow of it,’ Sydney had said, whispering across the old man when Luke came in to check on Mr Brown, ‘I want to be an engineer, I want to make things happen. I never wanted the farm at all. I can’t stand being stuck out here in the sticks. I’ll sell it quick as I can and be off.’
Luke’s reveries on the uncertainties of fate were cut off by the welcome arrival of Will Kelly, the night porter. Kelly was famed at the Bridge Hotel for his ability to drink gallons of lemonade shandy, his drink of choice, with no obvious effect, yet a single tot of whiskey, rum, or brandy—Kelly wasn’t a fussy man—would have him drunk as a lord and twice as foolish in no time at all.
‘Ah, it’s himself, is it? The young doctor, and good evening to you too.’
Kelly clattered into the private room and halted his forward trajectory by the noisy but effective method of clanging his ancient trolley into the hospital bed. He set to work right away, rolling the covers back from old Mr Brown and readying his trolley and body bag to house the deceased.
As he worked he sang quietly, ‘Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made—’
Kelly broke off to look at Luke’s aghast face, ‘Don’t you worry at all. Not your fault, this old fellow. Time’s the culprit here, nothing you could’ve done to save this one, don’t go blaming yourself.’
‘I know that, of course I know it was his time. It was his grandson, he wanted to see Sydney,’ the doctor protested. ‘We all thought he was holding on for the young man.’
‘Well, that’s the way with the dying, hang on when you expect them to go, pop their clogs when they’re meant to hang on. Never can tell. Tricky ones, the dying are. The lad was lucky to be here when he went, more often than not the family hang around for hours or days, waiting for the final words, the last breath, then the minute they nip out for a cup of tea, there you go, he shuffles off his mortal coil. I reckon they prefer to be alone when they go. He was a lucky young fellow all right. Come on then, old boy, let’s be having you,’ Kelly said as he manhandled the corpse into the body bag.
Luke frowned and took a few steps backwards, eager to get away from the sight of Kelly rolling the corpse into the canvas bag.
‘I have to go, there are forms, Matron has the papers ready and I need to sign them.’
‘Death and taxes, always the way. You hurry along to the office, they’ll have the paperwork ready and want it signing, always want a name to a death, that they do and yours is as good as any other once you’ve your fancy letters after it.’
With that Will Kelly finally finished struggling with old Mr Brown, fastened the bag, rolled the bagged body onto the trolley and pushed off and out of the room. Luke heard him as he headed along the yard towards the morgue, hidden away at the far end of the row of wards, singing through the rain.
‘Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change, Into something rich and strange.’
Luke had to admit that Kelly had a fine baritone, and an apposite choice in his Shakespeare. He turned out the overhead light as he left the room, remarking how especially empty it felt with the dead man removed, as if death really did have a presence of its own. The doctor took a deep breath and forced himself to pay attention to where he was. He was no longer in a field hospital, he was no longer surrounded by heat and dirt and flies. He was here, at Mount Seager and as the ghastly images receded from his mind, he looked across to the Transport Office. The dimmed light was on. Very well. He would sign the paperwork for old Mr Brown and then he would go to Sarah and speak to her. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and walked across the yard.
Mr Glossop, uncomfortable on his cot in the anteroom, finally decided he’d had enough. He should have been at home by now in his cosy little cottage, drumming rain outside, his apple trees and the big walnut getting a welcome soaking, a fine night’s sleep ahead knowing his work was done and done well. Not tonight. There was something not right, he was sure. It wasn’t just the rain, nor was it the heat, heavy despite the sheets of water dropping from above. He needed to be sure the money was secure and he’d move this darn cot down to sleep alongside the safe if he had to. No one would say Jonty Glossop was not a conscientious man. He’d just missed the last war, too young by a year, and while he was not officially too old this time round, they’d sent him home when he offered to take up his papers and serve, told him he needed to get into shape, get fit. The nerve of it, in his prime and told he wasn’t forces material. It rankled even now, but he wasn’t one to bear a grudge, not Jonty. He found a valuable job, stuck with it, and proved he could do it well, even with all the trouble from the van, the fuss every week to get the rounds done on time, always some hold-up at one of the destinations, you’d think they didn’t want paying, some of them. Well, he’d make sure they got paid tomorrow and catch his death of cold for his pains no doubt.
Mr Glossop’s shirt was badly stained with sweat when he finally managed to get the cumbersome cot down to a manoeuvrable size. He made a half-hearted attempt to at least wipe off his face before he left the anteroom, she might be a stickler for propriety, but Matron was surely a lovely woman. She had a few years on him, but he liked that in a woman, always had, none of these flighty