Jojo Moyes - Ship of Brides

‘I’ve felt better,’ he conceded.

She studied it for several minutes. He realised – with something approaching shame – that he had not flinched when she touched his skin. ‘I think you may have osteomyelitis, an infection that has spread into the bone. This should be drained, and you need penicillin.’

‘Do you have some?’

‘No, but Dr Duxbury should.’

‘I don’t want him involved.’

She expressed no surprise. He wondered if something in all this smacked of madness. He could not rid his mind of her startled expression when she had first seen his leg. And how she had immediately concealed it.

‘You need medical help,’ she said.

‘I don’t want Duxbury told,’ he repeated.

‘Then I’ve given you my professional opinion, Captain, and I respect your right to ignore it.’

She got up and wiped her hands on her trousers. He asked her to wait, then moved past her and opened the door. He summoned the rating from the corridor.

The boy stepped in, his gaze flickering between the captain and the woman before him. ‘Take Mrs Mackenzie here to the dispensary,’ Highfield said. ‘She is to fetch some items.’

She hesitated, apparently waiting for some proviso, some warning. None came.

He held out his hand with the key. When she took it from him, she made sure her fingers did not touch his.

The needle went into his leg, the fine slither of metal sliding mechanically in and out of his flesh as it drew out the foul liquid within. Despite the pain of the procedure, Highfield felt the anxiety that had plagued him start to dissipate.

‘You need another dose of penicillin in about six hours. Then one a day. A double dose to start with to push your system into fighting the infection. And when you get to England you must go straight to your doctor. It’s possible he’ll want you in hospital.’ She returned to the wound. ‘But you’re lucky. I don’t think it’s gangrenous.’

She said this in a quiet, unemotional tone, declining to look at his face for most of it. Finally, she placed the last of the gamgee tissue dressing on his leg, and sat back on her heels so that he could pull down his trouser leg. She wore the same khaki slacks and white shirt that he had seen her in on the day she had accompanied the younger bride to his office.

He sighed with relief at the prospect of a pain-free night. She was gathering together the medical equipment she had brought from the dispensary. ‘You should keep some of this here,’ she said, eyes still on the floor. ‘You’ll need to change that dressing tomorrow.’ She scribbled some instructions on a piece of paper. ‘Keep your leg elevated whenever you’re alone. And try to keep it dry. Especially in the humidity. You can take the painkilling tablets two at a time.’ She put the dressing and tape on his desk, then replaced the lid on his pen.

‘If it starts to worsen you’ll have to see a surgeon. And this time you can’t afford to delay.’

‘I’m going to say there has been a misunderstanding.’ Her head lifted. ‘A case of mistaken identity. If you could spare some time during the rest of the voyage to administer those penicillin injections I would be grateful.’

She stared at him, raised herself to her feet. She looked, perhaps for the first time that day, startled. She swallowed hard. ‘I didn’t do it for that,’ she said. He nodded.

‘I know.’

He stood up, testing his weight gingerly on the injured leg. Then he held out his hand. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘Mrs Mackenzie . . . Sister Mackenzie.’

She stared at it for a minute. Given the astonishing composure she had shown so far, when she took it and looked up, he was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

19

For others the ordeal left ineradicable scars – the excoriating cold, the fear and the proximity of untimely and senseless death mixed with the sheer degradation of life in a small, weather-battered warship – to kindle a lifelong abhorrence of war.

Richard Woodman, Arctic Convoys 1941–45

Thirty-five days (one week to Plymouth)

In the anonymous space at the back of the lecture room, Joe Junior shifted restlessly, perhaps feeling unfairly confined by the limitations of his environment. Margaret, looking down on the dome of her stomach, watching her tattered notebook ride the seismic wave of his movement, like a little craft on water, thought she knew how he felt. For weeks, time on this ship had seemed to stall. She had felt a desperate need to see Joe, and a deepening frustration with the way the days crawled by. Now that they were in European waters, time was speeding past, leaving her in turmoil.

She was grotesque, she thought. Her belly was hugely swollen, the pale skin traversed by purple tributaries. She could squeeze her feet into only a stretched, gritty pair of sandals. Her face, never slender, now peered back at her from the mirror in the communal bathroom as a perfect moon. How could Joe still want me? she asked herself. He married a lithe, active girl who could run as fast as him, who could race him on horseback across the endless green acres of the station. A girl whose firm, taut body, unclothed, had moved him to a point beyond speech.

Now he would find himself tethered to a fat, lumpen, heavy-footed sow, who sat down breathless after the shortest flight of stairs. Whose breasts, pale and veiny, flopped and leaked milk. A sow who disgusted even herself. She was no longer reassured by the easy affection of their conversation a few weeks ago – how could she be? He hadn’t seen her new appearance.

She shifted on the little wooden seat and breathed out a silent ‘oh’ of discomfort. Today’s lecture had been entitled ‘Things Your Men May Have Seen’. Despite the title, it contained only repeated references to ‘unmentionable horrors’, which the speaker had evidently considered too unmentionable to describe. What was important, the welfare officer said, was not to press your husband on what had happened to him. Most men, history had shown, were better off not dwelling on things but simply Getting On With It. They didn’t want some woman haranguing them to tell her everything. What men needed was someone to distract them with gaiety, who could remind them of the joys of what they had been fighting for.

The way this man talked made Margaret feel for the first time that she and Joe were not partners, as she had assumed, but that there was, by dint of her sex and his experiences, a huge abyss between them. Joe had only once hinted at his personal canon of horrors: his friend Adie had been killed in the Pacific while he was standing just feet away from Joe on deck, and she had seen him blink furiously at the fine tide that rose in his eyes. She had not pushed him for details, not because she had felt this was something he should endure in private but because she was Australian. Of good farming stock. And the sight of a man’s eyes filled with tears, even an Irishman’s (and they all knew how emotional they could get), made her feel a little peculiar.

There would be added strains, the welfare officer had said, with them having come from very different continents. There was little doubt that that would be an extra pressure on them, no matter how warm the welcome they received from their British in-laws. He suggested the girls find themselves a friend within the family. Or perhaps exchange addresses with some of their new friends on board so that they had someone to talk to if they were particularly concerned.

But they might find, for a few months, that their husband became a little short-tempered, snappy, at times. ‘Before you censure him, perhaps take a moment to consider that there may be other reasons for his outburst. That he may have remembered something he doesn’t want to burden you with. And perhaps before you loose your tongue in response, you might consider what your husband has done in the service of his country, and of yourselves. We have an expression in England.’ Here the welfare officer paused, and let his gaze span the little room. ‘“Stiff upper lip”. It’s what has kept our Empire strong these last years. I’d advocate that you use it often.’