Free The Silver Locket by Margaret James Page A

looked at Rose. ‘I’ve asked to go on the new ward. I hope you’ll come with me. We’ve four more volunteers starting Monday, and Stafford would be an ideal ward for them. You could handle much more challenging stuff.’
    ‘But I’m not a proper nurse,’ frowned Rose.
    ‘You have a nurse’s instincts. You’ve learned more these past few weeks than some people learn in four whole years of formal training. You get on with the other staff. The men adore you. Rose, you are a nurse.’
    Rose went pink with pleasure.
    The new ward was made ready and took its first twelve patients. ‘Two gas gangrene cases, seven snipers’ bullets in the head, and three blokes got too close to grenades,’ intoned the RAMC orderly who’d come in with the men. ‘Look out for that fellow with the ginger hair – he should be in a bin, if you ask me.’
    Rose tried to look calm and confident, but she was horrified. On Stafford Ward, the men had all been wounded, but theirs had been straightforward injuries – broken legs and bullet wounds and gashes caused by shrapnel. They had been in hospitals in France before they’d come to England, and by the time they reached St Benedict’s they were getting better.
    But these twelve new patients had come straight from the front line. The three who had had amputations still had field dressings on their other injuries. The ones whose heads were bandaged still wore bloodstained uniforms. They all looked tired to death.
    The red-haired man had wild, dark eyes, and as Rose went up to him he let out such an eldritch shriek of horror that she backed away.
    ‘Shut it, Kingsley.’ One of the men who’d had a sniper’s bullet in his head scowled at the red-haired man, whose right arm was missing and whose khaki jacket was dark with blood. ‘Be careful, Sister – he’s a violent bugger.’
    Maria and another staff nurse came to Rose’s aid. ‘Come along, Private Kingsley,’ soothed Maria. ‘Let’s get you cleaned up and into bed. Dr Lane will be here in a minute. He’ll give you something to help calm you down.’
    The nurses cut off dirty uniforms, washed the men and got them into bed. Rose smoothed the blankets and smiled at a man whose left arm was a stump, and whose remaining hand had lost three fingers to a grenade.
    ‘Thank you, Sister.’ The wounded soldier – a middle-aged reservist, Rose supposed, called up and sent to France when it all started – glanced up at her and sighed. ‘You look like you ought to be at school. If you don’t mind my asking, just how old are you?’
    ‘I’m eight – twenty-four,’ lied Rose, and blushed.
    ‘Eighteen, eh?’ The soldier shook his head. ‘So you’re just a kid, but at least you had the sense to be a girl. There’s boys of your age dying over there.’
    ‘I know,’ said Rose. ‘But you’re out of it now.’
    ‘Yeah, I’m out of it.’ The wounded soldier closed his eyes. ‘I used to be a carpenter, you know. I made chests and cabinets and boxes, lovely things they were, inlaid with mother of pearl and ivory. But I won’t be doin’ that no more. Last week, I saw this lad just turned nineteen get blown to bits. I wish it had been me.’
    ‘It’s horrible!’ cried Rose, as she and Maria snatched a coffee break later that day. ‘Men are being mutilated, driven mad–’
    ‘I know.’ Maria stirred her coffee, round and round and round. ‘Rose, if you can’t deal with it, you only have to say.’
    ‘ I can deal with it!’ Rose glared at Maria. ‘ I can look at mangled limbs and bullet holes with all the flesh and muscle hanging out, I can deal with horrible, great wounds! But what about the men? What are they doing out there? Just sitting in their wretched trenches like a row of targets, waiting to be shot at, bombed or blown to smithereens?’
    ‘You’ve heard what the men have been saying down on Stafford Ward,’ Maria said gently. ‘You know what must be happening over there.’
    ‘But I didn’t really think