Charles Todd - A Bitter Truth

“So I heard,” I said. “Nurse Barlow was disappointed that I didn’t walk on water.” I nodded to the nurse who had just completed his bath and waited while she took the used water out to dump. It also gave me an opportunity to come to terms with the change in the man I remembered as tall, vigorous, and healthy.

His face had been pared down to the bone, and his body seemed thinner under the sheet and blanket. A ravaging fever could do that. He was wearing the blue hospital suit the Americans issued to all patients, and it appeared to fit well enough. I thought perhaps his own determination was healing him faster than medical care at this stage.

The Sergeant tried to stand up, and I pushed him back down again. “I shall be sent home in disgrace if you take a turn for the worse on my account,” I told him firmly.

“Yes, well, I’d heal faster if I could move about. Lying here day after day, I can’t regain my strength. I walk when they aren’t looking, and that’s helping. I thought in the beginning they were sending me home-I heard them talking about Boulogne when I was awake enough to understand what was going on. That’s where the ships leave for Down Under. I’m damned if I’ll let them do that. My men need me more than Australia does.”

I thought perhaps that was where his determination sprang from. And I’d seen, more than once, how the resolve to go back into the line had worked miraculous cures.

“Have you been assigned here?” he asked hopefully, changing the subject.

“No, actually I have a brief leave coming to me. I asked to be sent home by way of Rouen because of the child.”

“I didn’t dream it then. Your voice, thanking me.”

“Your list helped enormously, and the house is here, in Rouen. It’s an almost unbelievable stroke of good luck.” I told him how I’d found Sophie and what I’d learned from Sister Marie Joseph. “I intended to speak to the solicitor here in Rouen to learn what was necessary to take her to England, but I ran into her real father-almost literally ran into him. And I had to put it off, for fear he might try to follow me. Besides, Sophie had just broken out with chicken pox, and she shouldn’t have been moved.”

“Do you want me to pose as her real father? If that would help?”

I smiled. “You don’t sound much like a British officer.”

“But I can do just that, my dear,” he retorted in perfect imitation of one.

I should have realized that if he could imitate the bird’s call so well he was a natural mimic.

The nurse returned to retrieve her towels, soaps, shaving gear, and scissors, telling Sergeant Larimore not to tire himself. Turning to me, she said, “A torn lung.”

“A torn lung,” he mimicked as soon as the tent flap fell behind her, then in his normal baritone voice, he added, “As if I didn’t know. The surgery nearly killed me. It was a close-run thing. But I’m mending now. Tell me more about the child. I need something to think about besides the Base Hospital’s bloody routine. Sorry, Sister.”

And so I related the entire story. “My ship leaves at three o’clock this afternoon. I just have time to go back to the house and see how she is.”

“I hope you find her recovering. She’s young for that, isn’t she?”

“Not really. Chicken pox can sweep through an entire family in a matter of days, from the youngest to the eldest. In fact, the earlier you have it, the better. Older children often have more trouble, and scarring can be a problem. Although those scars often fade with the years.”

“If I’m ever allowed to leave this place, I’ll go along to this Rue St. Catherine and see her for myself.”

“You must be very careful,” I warned. “The nuns are not very happy with visitors.”

“I understand that. A great lug of a soldier frightening the little ones won’t do. I won’t go empty-handed. I’ve been collecting what I could. Soap, a little sugar and some coffee.” He smiled. “Will you be coming back through Rouen, then?”

“I hope to. I don’t know.”

“Don’t forget to look me up.” We were interrupted by a thermometer put in his mouth by an older woman with a severe face. When she had gone, he asked me about myself. “My neighbor for the first week was an English Corporal. I must have been calling for you when I was off my head. He told me about your father. They’re rather proud of you, you know-his old regiment. Word got around you were out here.”

I didn’t know, and was rather pleased. And so I told him about growing up in India and other corners of the Empire, and about Somerset and even about Mrs. Hennessey.

He laughed at that. “You’re better than a tonic,” he told me when I’d finished. “Stay in Rouen, and I’ll be back on my feet before the week’s out.”

Smiling, I said, “Nurse Barlow means well. I think you gave her a fright when you went missing.”

“I told her I was on walkabout. It’s what the Aborigines do when they get tired of one place. She thought I’d gone off my head again. I’m used to the spaces of the Out Back. I can’t bear being cooped up here like a fish in a bowl.”

“If you want to rejoin your men, try showing her you’re healing.”

I left a few minutes after that, mindful not to tire him. He took my hand and thanked me for coming.

I turned as I was leaving and asked, “What did you do in civilian life?”

“My father owns a large sheep station. I breed dogs for herding sheep. There’s a large market for them in New Zealand. I never cared for sheep, much to my father’s chagrin.”

I left him then and made my way out of the race course. Outside in the street I found a man willing to drive me to the Rue St. Catherine, and then take me to the port.

No one came to the door of the house where I’d left Sophie. My spirits plummeted at the thought of missing this opportunity to see her. But where were they?

I stepped away from the door to the edge of the street and looked up. The nuns could be in the kitchen-upstairs-somewhere that the sound of the knocker couldn’t reach.

But I could see nothing, no light on this gray, grim afternoon, no small faces at the windows looking down on the street. Nothing.

I was about to turn away when the woman in the neighboring house came out her door with a market basket over her arm. I turned to her and asked in French, “Is anyone at home? Where are the nuns?”

Her accent was very heavy, but I thought she said, “ Elles sont va au cimetière .”

They have gone to the cemetery.

As if she saw my confusion she added, “St. Sever.”

“Who is dead?” I asked. “Un enfant? Une soeur?” A child? A nun?

She shrugged. “I don’t know who is dead.”

“But someone must have stayed behind to watch the children.”

“I do not know,” she repeated, and with a nod, she walked on toward the shops some streets away.

I went back to the door and banged the knocker vigorously, and in the end I was rewarded. The door opened a crack and a middle-aged nun peered through it at me. “We have no one ill at this house,” she said, looking at my uniform. “You must be mistaken in your directions.”

“Please. I have come to see if Sophie is well again. When I saw her last, she had chicken pox and was very feverish.”

“No one visits the children except for the doctor in the next street. We have no need for the care of an English nursing sister.”

“But Sister Marie Joseph allowed me to see her. I am leaving for England today, and I would like very much to know that all was well with Sophie. I-I know her father. The English officer. He would like to be sure, since he sends money, that it is properly used.”

“He has sent no money for a very long time.”