Jacqueline Winspear - Maisie Dobbs

Maisie took another deep breath, which, when exhaled, turned to steamy fog in front of her face. She cast the blanket aside and nimbly ran over to the water pitcher and bowl that stood on top of a wooden chest.

"And the sitting in the morning--it's what helps to keep me from freezing solid all day, Iris. It clears my head. You should try it!"

"Hmmmph!"

Iris turned over in bed and tried to ignore her cold feet.

Maisie poked her finger into the water pitcher. She cracked the thin layer of ice as if tentatively testing a piecrust, then gripped the handle of the pitcher with both hands and poured freezing cold water into the bowl. Reaching over to the side of the chest, Maisie unhooked a flannel cloth, which she steeped in the water. After wringing it out, Maisie unbuttoned the front of her nightgown and washed first her face, then under her arms and up to her neck. Oh, what she would give for a bath! To sit in a deep bathtub filled with piping hot water and soap bubbles coming up to her ears.

Again she plunged the cloth into the cold water, squeezed the excess water back into the bowl, and this time lifted her nightgown and washed between her legs and down to her knees. A nice hot bath. For hours. She wouldn't come out for hours. She'd keep twiddling that hot tap with her big toe, and she wouldn't come out until every last molecule of mud, blood, sweat, and tears had been washed away.

Taking down her still-damp dress, which had been hanging from a wire she and Iris had rigged up inside the tent, Maisie checked every seam and in the hem for lice. It was the morning drill: Check for lice everywhere, and when you've finished checking, check some more, because lice are crafty little beggars. She dressed quickly, finally slipping a white armband with a red cross just above the elbow of her right sleeve, and taking out a fresh apron and attaching a silver watch pin to the left side of the bib. Along with the black leather document case, which now held her writing paper and letters received, the nurse's watch was her talisman from home, a gift from Lady Rowan.

Finally Maisie placed a towel on her cot and leaned over it to brush her hair, looking carefully for lice falling out. She and Iris checked each other's hair every night or, if they were on duty at night, whenever they were both in the tent and awake at the same time. But Maisie always checked again in the morning, brushing her hair over a towel until her head spun. Then she quickly pinned her hair up into a bun, and placed her cap on her head.

"I'm all finished, Iris."

"Right you are, Dobbsie." Iris shivered under her bedclothes."Lord knows what this will be like in the real winter."

"At least we're not up to our waists in mud in the trenches, Iris. Least we're not piling up bodies to make a wall to protect us. Not like the boys."

"You're right there, as always," said Iris as she leaped from bed and began the morning ritual that Maisie had just finished. "Brrrr . . . I 'spect you're going over to see if there's a letter from your young man."

Maisie rolled her eyes. "I've told you, Iris. He's not--"

"Yes, I know, I know. He's not your young man. Well then, go and get your letter from your special friend of a friend then, and leave me to my delousing, if you don't mind!"

The young women laughed, as Maisie pulled back the tent flap, leaving Iris to her morning ablutions. Picking her way across wooden boards covering mud and puddles, Maisie made her way to the cooks' tent to get tea and bread for breakfast.

"There you are, Sister, get this down you." The orderly on duty held out a large enamel mug along with a slice of bread and dripping for Maisie, addressing her as "sister" in the way that soldiers called all nurses, regardless of rank, "sister."

"And a little something else for you, passed on to me this morning." He reached into his pocket and brought out a simple brown envelope that clearly contained a long letter, such was the thickness of the packet. The envelope was crumpled and bore stains of the four sets of dirty hands it had passed through before reaching its destination.

The letters from Simon Lynch to Maisie Dobbs would never travel through the censor's office, passed as they were from orderly to ambulance driver to stretcher bearer to cook. Her letters in return were passed in the same way, from person to person. And each time a letter changed hands, there would be a comment exchanged, a remark about young love, or that it was all very well for him, Captain Romantic over there.

The writers said nothing of love when the first letter, from Simon to Maisie, was sent and received. But in the way that two people who are of one mind on any subject move closer, as if their heads were drawn together by thoughts that ran parallel toward a future destination, so the letters of Simon and Maisie became more frequent, one hardly waiting for the other to reply before setting pen to paper again. Bearing up under exhaustion that weighed on their backs and pushed like a fist between their shoulder blades, Simon and Maisie, each in a tent several miles apart, and each by the strained light of an oil lamp, would write quickly and urgently of days amid the detritus of war. And though both knew that war, and the ever-present breath of despair might have added urgency to their need to be together again, they began unashamedly to declare their feelings in the letters that were passed from hand to hand. Feelings that, with each shared experience and story, grew deeper. Then Simon wrote:

My Dearest Maisie of the Blue Silk Dress,I have been on duty for 30 hours without so much as sitting down for five minutes. Wounded started coming in again at eleven yesterday morning. I have bent over so many bodies, so many wounds that I fear I have lost count. I seem to remember only the eyes, and I remember the eyes because in them I see the same shock, the same disbelief, and the same resignation. Today I saw, in quick succession, a man and his son. They had joined up together, I suspect one or both lying about their age. And they had the same eyes. The very same. Perhaps what I see in each man is that no matter what their age (and by golly, some of them shouldn't be out of school), they seem so very old.I am due for a short leave in three weeks. I will receive orders soon. I plan to go back to Rouen for two days. I remember you said that you would be due for leave soon, too. Would it be too presumptuous for me to ask if we might possibly meet in Rouen? I so long to see you, Maisie, and to be taken from this misery by your wonderful smile and inspiring good sense. Do write to let me know.

Iris had leave at the same time as Maisie, providing Maisie with a female companion. The journey to Rouen seemed long and drawn out, until finally they reached the Hotel St. Georges.

"I swear I cannot wait to get into that bath, Maisie Dobbs."

"Me too, Iris. I wonder if we can get our dresses cleaned. I've another day dress with me that I haven't worn. How about you?"

"Yes, me too. Not supposed to be out of uniform, but for goodness sake, this dress will walk to the laundry if I don't take it."

Maisie and Iris hurried immediately to their assigned room. The ceilings seemed extraordinarily high and there was chipped paint on the walls and doorframe. The room itself was small and simple, containing two single beds and a washstand, but after several months of living with the roof of a leaking tent barely six inches above their heads, they saw only grandeur. Two bathrooms were situated along the red-carpeted corridor, and the ever vigilant Iris immediately checked to see whether either was already occupied.

"One already gone, I'm afraid, and he's singing at the top of his voice."

"Golly, I am just aching for a nice hot bath," said Maisie.

"Tell you what. I'll put on my day dress and see if I can get our laundry done, while you draw a bath. We can top and tail it--check for the dreaded lice at the same time. It'll save waiting. Did you see the officers coming in after us? Bet they'll be bagging the bathrooms a bit sharpish."