‘You know what tortures me?’ Barry said brokenly. ‘I keep thinking that if we’d stayed where we were when Pat was first hit, the Germans would have picked us up. They’d have seen to Pat’s leg and chest and he’d be bloody alive by now, even if he was a prisoner.’
Kathy shook her head. ‘He couldn’t stand being locked up,’ she said, and then added, ‘I don’t suppose there was a chance Pat might have made it? I mean, he couldn’t have been in the water and been picked up by a boat somewhere?’
Barry shook his head. ‘Not a chance,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t only tired and starving like the rest of us, but badly wounded too, and very weak. He’d never have survived. They did look; two or three boats diverted and cruised around for a bit when the ship went down. Like I said, it was just dead bodies. I was out of it by then, with my arm near hanging off, and bleeding from my head and guts. I was on the next boat out, not that I knew much about it. Most of the time I was raving. We put in at Dover where they patched me up and sent me here as a non-urgent case. They were run off their feet down there, and you should have seen the poor buggers…’ Barry stopped and wiped at his eyes before saying, ‘Kath, Pat was the greatest mate I ever had, or am likely to have. There’ll never be another like him, but he’s gone and we’ve all got to accept it.’
Kathy wiped her own face with a small handkerchief she drew from her bag, then said, ‘What about Michael and the others?’
‘They were all alive when last I saw them,’ Barry said. ‘That’s all I know. The beaches were chaos, there was no chance of seeing anyone there.’
‘You really must leave now, Mrs O’Malley,’ said Sister Hopkins’ voice at Kathy’s elbow. Neither of them had heard her approach in her soft-soled shoes.
‘Not yet,’ protested Barry.
‘I’m sorry, Mr O’Malley, but your wife has been here some time and she shouldn’t really have got in at all.’
‘When will you come again?’ Barry cried.
‘Maybe tomorrow,’ Kathy said, eyeing the nurse. ‘I’ll not get back to Birmingham today with trains the way they are. I’ll look for somewhere to stay for tonight and, if Sister agrees, come and see you tomorrow before I go back.’
‘It’s most irregular, Mrs O’Malley,’ Sister Hopkins said again.
‘I know, but it will have to last Barry a long time,’ Kathy said.
‘And it will help me get better, Sister, honest,’ Barry put in. ‘Then I’ll be out of your hair altogether.’
Sister Hopkins pursed her lips and said to Kathy as she bent to kiss Barry goodbye, ‘You’ll have to work it out with the times of your trains, but the doctors are usually finished by ten o’clock.’
Just as Kathy was about to answer, the man in the next bed shouted, ‘Good on you, Sister. He’s a bleeding hero, Barry. Got to look after us heroes, they’ll need us all before this lot’s over.’
Kathy glanced at him. She saw there were seven other men besides Barry in the ward, but on her way in she hadn’t noticed any of them. She’d had eyes only for her husband. She saw all the men watching her now with interest. Sister Hopkins glanced sternly at the man who had spoken and said, ‘Really, Mr Stoddard, we look after everyone well here.’
Mr Stoddard looked not a bit abashed and instead winked at Kathy. She found herself smiling back at him. ‘Good-bye,’ she said, and there was a chorus of farewells from the other beds.
She stopped at the door to wave to Barry and the other men and hurried after Sister Hopkins. ‘Is there a café locally?’ Kathy asked the nurse, when they were out of earshot of the ward.
‘I believe you need a place to stay too,’ Sister Hopkins said. ‘I did hear you say that, didn’t I?’
‘Oh, aye, do you know of one?’ Kathy asked eagerly.
‘Mrs O’Malley, the town is heaving with soldiers. I think it would be very difficult to find a place tonight.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘And if you don’t mind me saying so, you look all in.’
‘I am rather tired. It’s the emotion and everything.’
‘I suggest, then, that you come home with me tonight.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t…’
‘You can hardly sleep on a park bench, my dear,’ Sister Hopkins said with a smile, and Kathy realised that behind the frosty exterior was a very kind woman. ‘I’m sure my sofa will be quite comfortable,’ she went on. ‘And though there are many cafés around, the nurse’s canteen is cheaper and I can take you in as a guest. I’m off duty at six, if you could just wait a while.’
‘Oh, aye, oh, thank you,’ Kathy cried.
The nurse went on: ‘There’s a reception area where you could sit. I’ll show you. Oh, and by the way, when we are away from the hospital, my name is Peggy.’
Oh, thought Kathy, how kind people were, and if only she could get over this feeling of sadness at the death of her beloved brother…She’d sort of faced it before she’d left home, but when he was said to be missing she’d felt there was always a chance that he’d be found. Now that chance was gone. She knew she’d never see Pat again, and that hurt. The way Barry had described the hell-hole of Dunkirk, it was amazing that anyone had got out of it alive, but Barry had, and she must latch on to that and hope that with God’s help, Sean, Michael and Con were all safe too.
She was surprised how much better she felt with a meal inside her, and while she ate she found herself telling Sister Hopkins about all her family. ‘They’ll be worried,’ she said. ‘Mammy and Daddy especially, and my little girl Lizzie.’
‘Can you phone?’
Kathy looked at the nurse in amazement. ‘We haven’t a phone,’ she said.
Sister Hopkins realised she’d made an error. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Has anyone else, a shop perhaps?’
‘Pickering’s have, I believe,’ Kathy said.
‘Are they far away?’
‘No, not far, and they’d pass on a message.’
‘Well then, there’s a phone in the hospital,’ Sister Hopkins said. ‘You can tell them you’re safe at least, and will be home tomorrow.’
‘I…I don’t know how to use a phone. I’ve never had to,’ Kathy confessed.
‘That’s all right. I’ll show you,’ said the nurse.
A short time later, Kathy found herself talking to Mrs Pickering, who owned the shop just up from the O’Malleys’. She shouted a bit, unable to believe that sound could travel from one instrument to another so effectively unless she bawled her head off, and though Mrs Pickering might have been rendered deaf in one ear for a time, she reassured Kathy and promised to pass the news on to her parents. Then Kathy went home with Peggy Hopkins and spent a very comfortable night on her sofa.
It was over breakfast that Kathy faced up to the fact that she hadn’t told Barry about the deaths of his brothers. There hadn’t been time the previous day, and anyway she’d hesitated to load him down with more sadness. She hoped he was feeling stronger this morning, for she’d have to talk to him.
When Kathy walked into the ward, the men greeted her as if they’d known her forever. ‘You did them a power of good yesterday, Mrs O’Malley,’ a young nurse told Kathy as she passed. ‘They all spruced themselves up this morning when they heard you were coming back. Some who hadn’t had a shave for a week were asking for razors this morning.’
Kathy laughed and said, ‘If they’d do that for someone my shape, they’d be standing on their heads for some of the young lasses