Merryn Allingham - The Nurse's War

In fact every night had been a night for ghosts, from the moment Gerald had risen from the dead to stand at her shoulder. Since then she had seen unreal figures aplenty, imagined eyes watching from every corner. She knew it was a nonsense, but it didn’t prevent her glancing over her shoulder as she turned the key in the lock. Nothing. You see, she told herself, there’s nothing and, if you’re not careful, you’ll send yourself mad. In India, Gerald had tried to persuade her that her mind was losing its grip. All those accidents that somehow had a perfectly logical explanation but only seemed to happen to her, each one more serious than the one before, each one a threat to her body as well as her sanity. Now he was playing with her mind again and she must not let him. Tomorrow, she would go to Baker Street and, if she had to, walk through the door of the SOE headquarters and ask to speak to Grayson Harte. For good or for ill, it would be over—or so she hoped.

It had to rain, of course. The fine weather of the last week broke with a vengeance and Daisy was left struggling to raise a battered umbrella as she turned out of the underground station. She had dressed as well as she could for the occasion in a woollen dress of olive green. It was the only dress she possessed that wasn’t darned or mended in some way. Over it she wore her nurse’s cape. It was forbidden to wear uniform off duty, but in the absence of a winter coat, she had little option but to break the rules. The rain was hammering down and she peered anxiously at her shoes, heeled and soled so many times that they were now perilously thin. They were bound to leak, she thought, and refused to imagine what she would look like by the time she made it to Grayson’s office. And once this pair was completely ruined, there would be no more fancy footwear. Since the start of the New Year, there had been shortages in just about everything. Food especially. Sometimes the nurses had gone hungry and several of them had complained, Lydia at the forefront, at the unfairness that gave labourers a larger food allowance. But Lydia had always been a troublemaker, and, for the most part, people had shrugged and got on with it. But clothing was rationed now and their wardrobes were looking more tattered by the day. Shoes, in particular, were expensive and scarce, and Connie had even taken to mending hers with Elastoplast.

Splinters of water bounced off the pavement and soaked Daisy’s feet and ankles. The wind had risen and the umbrella was beginning to look more dangerous than useful, but she battled on doggedly, taking what shelter it offered and counting down the street numbers. She had managed to keep her mind from dwelling on the meeting ahead but now she could ignore it no longer. She stopped, facing the glass doors of number sixty-four, and looked up at its façade. White slabs of stone rose towards the sky, a thrusting contrast to the red brick of Mr Baker’s first residential street. There was nothing to suggest the nature of the business conducted within its walls and ordinarily she would have passed the building without a second glance. But Grayson had mentioned all those months ago that the SIS had split into different sections and from now on he’d be working with the Special Operations Executive. They’d recently moved to a new headquarters—he’d be one of the Baker Street Irregulars , he’d said cheerfully. He had seemed to relish the thought of working with them, though she had only the haziest idea of what that might entail. It was sure to involve India since his experience there would be invaluable.

Fighting against an ever-rising wind, she yanked down the umbrella, and made a decision. There was no sign of Grayson and the storm had already taken its toll, her legs splashed with dirt and her face plastered in a frenzy of wet curls. She pushed through the revolving doors and into the dazzle of black and white tiles, outpolished by gleaming mahogany doors, which stood to attention on either side of the ground floor corridor. On her left, a stone staircase wound its way upwards. Overhead, she could hear the sound of feet, tapping up and down its steps, five or six storeys high, she estimated. Facing the stairs was a lift, its concertina door open, and inside its braided guardian perched on a stool. A reception desk barred her from going any further and a severe-looking young woman, her hair scrunched back into a stubby knot, looked up from the file she was reading and arched her brows in enquiry.

‘Can I help you?’

The woman’s voice was as scrunched as her hair and Daisy struggled to find her tongue.

‘I would like to see Grayson Harte, if it’s possible.’ She tried not to sound hesitant.

‘Yes?’ The eyebrows seemed to suggest that this was a privilege granted to only a few.

‘I wonder, is he in?’

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, but—’

‘You must have an appointment. I’m afraid you can’t see him without one, Miss … You do realise this is a government building.’

‘Yes, I do. But Mr Harte … It’s important I see him.’

‘I’m sure it is.’ The woman smiled pityingly at her. ‘Just make an appointment. I can give you his secretary’s number if you wish.’

‘I don’t have the time for that.’ Daisy decided she didn’t like the woman, decided she would be happy to lie to her. ‘If he’s in, I need to see him now. It’s urgent. A matter of national importance, you see.’

The woman’s face changed, her expression chilled by Daisy’s announcement. ‘I’ll see if he’s available.’

She turned her back and muttered something into the telephone. There was a pause of several minutes at the other end of the line as though someone had gone away to check. What if they were checking up on her? she thought. She’d just told a very big lie and, in the current situation, they might not take kindly to such talk. What would Grayson think when he saw her standing there instead of the matter of national importance? Her stomach tensed. She couldn’t do it. She had to do it. The woman replaced the receiver with a clang but said nothing further. Instead, she returned to her papers as though her unwelcome visitor had ceased to exist. Daisy caught the ring of shoes on the stone stairs. The footsteps were some way off, but coming nearer. They must belong to Grayson. He was walking towards her at this very moment. No, she couldn’t do it after all. She snatched up the dripping umbrella and plunged through the revolving door and out on to the rain-soaked street.

Her heart was jumping, but at least she was out of the building. She’d escaped. Soon she could lose herself among the crowds. She’d given no name; she was anonymous and untraceable. But she had gone barely three yards along the road when the sirens began their interminable wailing. High above she heard the roar of Spitfires as they began their chase of enemy planes. Today the Luftwaffe had not waited for night to fall and, when she looked back, a shroud of grey was already rising into the sky from the east of the city. An ambulance tore along Baker Street, its bell ringing furiously, closely followed by several fire engines. Black coils of stinking smoke chased through the sky and billowed overhead, while fragments of what seemed to be charred paper showered groundwards. Her ears were zinging from the noise of blasts coming ever closer. She looked up and saw in the distance English planes darting from side to side in the sky, like little silver fish in a great, grey pond. And, amid the mayhem, a German fleet of bombers flying in majestic order, laying waste to the city below them.

The underground station had to be the nearest shelter. It was considered bad form to run, but she walked very quickly towards it. The authorities had been reluctant to allow stations to be used, but the public had taken the matter into its own hands and they were now London’s largest air raid shelters, with miles of platforms and tunnels put to use. People felt safer under the ground, though in reality that wasn’t always so. Marble Arch had suffered a direct hit earlier this year and at the Bank, the bomb had fallen right into the station and carried with it tarmac from the road, burning dreadfully hundreds of people. There was risk everywhere.