‘There are more things in heaven and earth—’ Alleyn muttered under his breath, the end of the line cut off by a tremendous clap of thunder and simultaneous flash of lightning, illuminating the length of the yard beyond the front window and then the rain took on an even more driving tone. By now, the racket of the downpour was almost farcical, Alleyn decided he was incapable of rational thought and took to his bed. If he must play the invalid, he might as well act the part. There would be no sleep with this noise, but at least he might lay down and read. Twenty minutes later Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard was happily roaming the blasted heath with King Lear, the wind, rain and thunder outside providing admirable support.
In the private room of Civilian 3 another tragedy was finally played out. Young Sydney Brown had pulled himself together enough to return to his grandfather’s bedside and the little nurse in the room had sensibly allowed him the privacy that this time required. Forty-five minutes later when Sister Comfort came to check on Sydney she had found him hunched over a pillow, hugging it to his chest as he looked on in horror at the old man, still and already becoming cold in his bed. Now Father O’Sullivan prayed quietly, the nurse awaited Sister Comfort’s orders, Sydney tried not to show his revulsion at sitting alongside a dead body for the first time in his life, and failed miserably.
Dr Hughes knew enough about nurses and their understanding of patient protocols to take his cue from Sister Comfort, so he waited in silence for the older woman to speak. After an appropriate time of silence had elapsed, the exact number of minutes being something Sister Comfort had judged to perfection after all these years, she spoke up and, with no effort to lower her voice or soften her usual strident tone, gave her orders.
‘Dr Hughes, wait here, I’ll fetch the relevant paperwork and be with you in a moment. I shall pop in to Matron when I go to the Records Office and let her know.’
Dr Hughes offered to fetch the paperwork himself, but he was over-ruled as Father O’Sullivan sprang up from his hard wooden chair at the head of the bed, ‘No need for either of you to divert yourselves, I’ll alert Matron. You’ve plenty to do. I’ll go to her straight away.’
He was gone from the small room before Sister Comfort could protest that it was more usual for her to pass on this kind of news and for the vicar to stay with the bereaved.
Her next words to Sydney were sharper to match her frown, ‘Mr Brown, if you’d like to go along with the nurse, she’ll find somewhere for you to rest for the night.’
‘What? Rest? Nah, no thanks, Sister, but I can’t be—’ he shook his head, ‘I mean, I’ve got to go, things to do.’
Sydney Brown sounded as if he might make a run for it at any moment and Sister Comfort immediately squashed him.
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Brown. The next transport is not due to leave until six o’clock in the morning and even then it will depend on the state of the roads. Frankly, I’d be very surprised if anyone leaves Mount Seager tomorrow morning. A storm like this has a bad habit of bringing down a flash flood and making the bridge too dangerous to cross. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve been cut off by the river and I doubt it’ll be the last. Nurse, if you will?’
The shocked Sydney Brown stumbled to his feet, fidgeting with his collar and cuffs as if he might square up for an argument and then, seeing the determination in Sister Comfort’s eyes, he followed the nurse, his feet scuffing at the polished floor, his arms still wrapped around the pillow he held as a comforter.
Sister Comfort looked after them frowning, ‘Foolish lad, doesn’t know when he’s well off.’
Dr Hughes was no longer surprised by Sister Comfort’s brusque manner. Whatever the situation, whether he would have spoken carefully or forcefully himself, Sister Comfort could be relied upon to crash into any scenario with neither care nor finesse. He noticed now, as he had several times before, that her manner was actually remarkably useful. The little nurse, who appeared as inexperienced with death as Sydney Brown, had assumed the mantle of her office and was now the epitome of efficiency, as Sister Comfort had no doubt intended, while Father O’Sullivan had left with his unusually prayerful demeanour quite put away. In fact, he had looked much more like his regular self, a figure Rosamund Farquharson once mischievously but accurately described as looking ‘like a bank clerk who somehow found himself in a priest’s cassock and forced to deliver a sermon’.
Sister Comfort turned to Dr Hughes when the others were gone, ‘I shall send Will Kelly to deal with the body and get it down to the morgue. We’ll have to be fast, he’ll not keep in this heat.’
She turned on a silent heel and was gone.
Left alone with the corpse, Dr Hughes shuddered and turned his back on the dead man. He had seen far too much of death in the past two years and even an old man dying of natural causes disturbed him. He tried to calm his breathing, clenched his fists to still his shaking hands, but it was no good, the sight of the dead man took him back to the heat of battle, the stench of war, the bloody and broken young men calling for his help. These were the cries that infested his dreams, interspersed with the awful silence of death, the silence that now woke him whenever he tried to sleep. Dr Hughes became almost faint, quite dizzy and turning into the room, he grasped the foot-rails of the bed to steady himself. He forced himself to open his eyes. Here he was, in the old man’s room. There was the corpse. Yes, the man was dead, but he was old, nothing dreadful had happened to him, his was not a life cut off in its prime.
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