Authors: Marcus Sedgwick

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #General

The Foreshadowing (19 page)

BOOK: The Foreshadowing

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I knew immediately that I had to talk to Hoodoo Jack, but two days passed before I got the chance. In that time there has been nothing but work. I am so tired. I looked in a mirror last night and hardly recognized myself. My face is sunken, my eyes are dull, my hair is lank, my skin grimy. My hands are sore from all the washing. Washing men, washing clothes, washing myself.

I saw my first gas cases yesterday. The first since . . . that man . . . in the hospital. Simpson. I tried not to think about him, but it all came back to me. What a different world the Dyke Road hospital seems to me now. Even its makeshift nature was luxury compared with the primitive rooms we work in here. The floors are scrubbed, but they’re still bare. The walls are whitewashed, and we put flowers in jugs, and keep it all as tidy as we can, but there’s no forgetting that the rest station is just four primitive rooms in a French railway station.

There were three gas cases. Two privates and a corporal from a Scottish regiment. Their skin was blistered and burnt by the gas, and one of the privates couldn’t see. None of them could talk, but they didn’t need to.

I saw it all from them.

The dark fumblings in the early dawn.

“Gas!” someone called down the line.

I could see their wretched attempts to pull their gas helmets on, and though they managed it in the end, they were too slow. The gas was borne in on a westerly wind, clinging to the ground, seeping into every crevice, unseen. The corporal got it worst because he stopped to help his two young soldiers.

As he did so, he could hear his sergeant shouting at him.

“Always put your own mask on first. You won’t be able to help anyone if you’re dead!”

He heard his sergeant’s words, though his sergeant had been dead two weeks by then. But he couldn’t help it. He had to help the privates, they reminded him so much of his own boys at home. Thank God, at home.

I didn’t see any more. I couldn’t move. I was useless for five minutes, till Millie hissed at me. I’d never seen her angry before.

Afterward she told me. Sister McAndrew was staring at me from the door. I forced myself back to work. I cut the men’s clothing, and prepared them for departure to No. 13 Stationary.

And they were gone. Another three among the thousands I have seen. But I hope to God that poor corporal sees again.

The others don’t seem to complain, so I dare not. I know I’m not really a nurse, but no one else knows my secret, not even Millie. I’ve always wanted to be a nurse, but I know now I was naïve. I had no idea what it would be like. I can’t do this.

I can’t tell anyone, but I long to. To grab someone and scream at them that I’m not a nurse, that I don’t know what I’m doing, that I’m not strong enough to cope with all the horror around me. That I want to go home.

But I cannot. I think of Tom, and I cannot.

Later on, after the gas cases, I went out with Millie. The canteen was full of noise and people, and though our legs were crying out for us to sit down and rest, we took a mug of tea out onto the platform.

“Let’s walk,” Millie said.

The station is massive, busy and noisy around the center of the platforms and the buildings, so we headed for the far end of the platform. It’s from that direction the trains roll in from the front, and yet, for the time being, everything was quiet.

Something made me think of Edgar. I was angry with him; he’d said I was useless and weak. Then I felt guilty because I remembered that he’s gone.

I thought of Tom. It’s almost overwhelming sometimes, and I don’t know which is harder to cope with. The fact that Edgar’s dead, or that Tom’s still alive, but could be killed any day.

Millie and I had nearly reached the end of the platform. The rails ran off in front of us, away through Boulogne, away into the countryside, through towns and villages, through cuttings and clearings, until somewhere, the track must come to an end maybe just a mile or two behind the front lines. I could smell cordite, though I have never seen a gun fired in my life; I could hear the shouts of battle.

Suddenly I realized Millie was gazing at me.

“How old are you really?” she said.

“I told you.”

She looked at me, dropped her head to one side.

“How old are you?” she said, gently.

“Seventeen.”

“And you’re not a nurse, are you? Not really.”

For a second I tried to act offended, surprised, but there was no point. She knew.

“No,” I said. “Not really.”

“Who are you, Miriam?” she asked, “What are you doing here?”

“My name’s Alexandra,” I said, slowly. “I’ve come—”

“No!” she said, suddenly. “I don’t want to know.”

I must have looked hurt, because she softened then.

“I mean, it’s probably better if I don’t. I can guess anyway. You’ve come here to look for your sweetheart, you want to get married before he . . . before . . . well, something like that.”

“Yes,” I said. “Something like that.”

Neither of us spoke then. A minute passed.

I looked at Millie and smiled.

“How did you know?”

“Just a feeling. You’re too young, though I don’t think anyone’s too worried about that. And your nursing. Have you had any training at all?”

I shook my head. “I was a VAD for a while. I’ve spent some time in hospitals. My father—”

She held up her hand again.

“Don’t tell me,” she said, but she was smiling. “In that case, you’re doing really well, but to a trained eye it’s obvious once you stop to look.”

There was no point denying it, but her words cut me. I thought I’d been doing well, but if it was that obvious I was an impostor, my chance of saving Tom could be snatched away at any time.

“I’ll help you, if I can,” Millie said.

She put her hand on my shoulder, and without thinking I turned into her arms. I cried, quietly. Then I pulled away.

“I’m ruining your uniform,” I said, and we laughed, though it was a short, bitter laugh. Her uniform was already a mess from the day’s work, the gray flannel stained with red blood, bright and fresh.

“Millie,” I said, “you won’t say anything . . . ?”

“No,” she said. “I won’t.
Miriam.
I believe you’re here for a good reason, and anyway, you’re helping the wounded. Don’t be too hard on yourself, you’re doing a good job. But I’ve noticed, and it’s only a matter of time before someone else does. I have to tell you, I think McAndrew’s got her eye on you. Be careful.”

I nodded, and tried to smile, but I couldn’t. I physically couldn’t.

“We’d better get back to work,” she said.

We turned to walk back to the hustle and bustle of the rest station.

A train was rolling in.

Seven ravens fly about my head.

Whirling, whirling, their gun black feathers beat the air, making a drumming in my ears that doesn’t stop, but is transformed into the sound of cannon fire.

Their beating becomes more frantic, until, as I gaze upward, a single black feather falls down to me, spinning like a sycamore seed on its way to earth.

The feather falls straight toward my face, and I try to lift my hand to catch it, but my arms will not move from my sides. The feather strikes me and brushes gently across my eyes.

Everything goes black.

I am sitting down. I can move my hands now and I feel a desk in front of me, like a school desk, but I am drowned in blackness.

From somewhere in the darkness, someone is suddenly shouting at me. It’s hard to recognize the voice because the words are Greek. I think it must be Miss Garrett, but then I realize who it is.

It’s me.

The other me wails the words, as if she is a demon, shrieking each line with barely a breath between.

She screams the last word at me.

The Iliad,
I think. That was from
The Iliad.

“Iliad,”
I say.

Yes, I know that answer. Please don’t ask me another.

But she is shouting and screaming at me again.

“Who wrote it?”

“Homer.”

Don’t ask me another.

“Why is it dark?”

“Because of the war,” I splutter out, hurriedly.