Free The Eyes of the Dead by G.R. Yeates Page A

It’s my fault, Mad.”
    “Don’t be silly, how?”
    “You know how some of the boys believe I have the Blighty Touch?”
    Madeleine nodded.
    She knew Kitty put in a few kind words for the poorliest patients, in the hope they would be sent home. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. The patients didn’t take much notice of the latter cases though. As far as they were concerned, Kitty had the Blighty Touch. She could get them sent home. That was that.
    Kitty went on, “Wilf believed it. I was giving him his supper last night and he reached out. He touched my cloak and smiled up at me. He said, “I’m going home now, aren’t I, Sister?” He thought just touching me would do the trick. When they gave him the news today, that he was being sent back to the Front, he couldn’t believe it. He started shouting and swearing and then he attacked Trevor,” she gestured at the orderly who was busy righting the trolley. “He hates me, Mad. He thinks that I told them to send him back,” her voice broke as she finished speaking.
    Mad looked over at the youth. His eyes were accusing. He’d pinned all his hopes on Kitty putting in a word for him. He’d been let down. Mad was sure he’d been let down many times before. It showed in the way anger was carving his face into a hard, unforgiving scowl.
    “What do you think will happen to him, Mad?”
    “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be fine, Kitty.”
    Mad hated the aftertaste the lie left in her mouth. She couldn’t tell Kitty the truth. Wilf would go back to the Front and he would die. To be invalided back from the Front once was lucky. To be invalided back twice would take nothing short of a miracle.
    Madeleine slipped a comforting arm around her sister’s shoulders and walked her away. Kitty still had such a hard time absorbing the brutal realities of war. She remembered the first time Kitty had seen a serious injury.
    They were both helping Sister Fearing clean up one of the new arrivals. The flesh of his backside had been shredded by barbed wire on the first day of the Big Push at the Somme. Sister Fearing peeled back the last of his uniform. They saw the wound where his buttocks should have been. A suppurating mash of flesh, faeces and pus-flecked gore. Kitty fled from the sight. Madeleine found her on her knees, being sick behind the hut. Her face colourless. Her body trembling.
    She was trembling again now, as Madeleine led her away.
    ******
    The carriage of the train was packed. Everyone and everything was crammed in, all too close together. Every inch of space, not occupied by a wounded man, was piled up with comforts and medical stores. Boxes rattled and chinked. Crates shunted this way and that. Sisters swayed their way along the hot airless carriages.
    Wilson was awoken by the rocking motion of the train. He blinked dumbly in the faint amber light cast by the hurricane lamps. His wounds were stiff and sore under their dressings. He moaned. The fuzz of sleep drifting away from his memory. He remembered being somewhere. Wet ground, cold, and grey skies. The cries of black birds, scraps of dirty cloth, their dead, dark eyes. The taste of water and blood in his mouth.
    He didn’t know how he had ended up on this train.
    He had to find out.
    A nurse was tottering her way along the carriage. He thrust out an arm to bar her way. She recoiled at his sudden movement, “Please, Sister. Do you know who dropped me off at the station?”
    She looked at him. Her eyes were pitted burrows of sleeplessness. “I’m sure it was some of your pals who brought you along, making sure you got out of that hellhole safe and sound.”
    She patted him on the arm, smiling a tired smile.
    Wilson chewed his lip, “So, you don’t know?”
    “I’m sorry, no. We picked up a lot of men at the last stop. Most of you were laid out, ready to go, on the platform. There was no-one waiting with you.”
    “Thank you, Sister.”
    She went on her way.
    Wilson slumped back onto his bunk. The wood felt