Free Nightingale by Fiona McIntosh Page A

began.
    â€˜I heard.’ Rosie smiled with intrigue. ‘You’ll have to tell me more later. Drink it, Claire,’ she urged. ‘Promise to look me up when the war’s over,’ she threw at Jamie before turning to leave.
    â€˜Thanks, Rosie,’ Claire called, but as soon as her friend was halfway down the corridor, she pushed it at Jamie. ‘Here, you drink it.’ She watched him stare at it like she was holding out a tray of gold rather than a chipped enamel mug of muddy tea. ‘I can make another one,’ she insisted.
    He took it, swallowed greedily and her heart broke a fraction more for him and all the parched men out there.
    â€˜It’s got sugar,’ he murmured with disbelief.
    She wanted to ruffle his hair at his simple, boyish pleasure. Claire moistened a rag and began wiping away the mud on Jamie’s oval face and watched as a golden-tanned complexion began to appear, with stubble that seemed neither dark nor blond around a right-angled jaw that led her to a neat chin; it hinted at a dimple, which had likely been more pronounced in childhood. She cleaned his cheeks and found a pair of intriguing creases running the length of each and she imagined how they deepened when he smiled. Claire continued, moving to the nose that was arrow-straight before she wiped away the grime from the two tiny furrows between his dark eyebrows. She worked on, cleaning away the dirt as best she could, following his hairline, which had grown over with flops of soft brown hair the colour of roasted chestnuts. And those eyes that watched her so intently were the same shade as the sweet nut’s leaves. It prompted thoughts of the copse at the end of her English garden.
    â€˜I love English woodland,’ she remarked, realising she had been holding her breath. He smiled to reveal even white teeth that emerged beneath widely defined lips. ‘There, now I know who I’m talking to.’
    â€˜English woodland?’
    She shrugged. ‘Childhood memories. I spent my early years in Berkshire.’
    â€˜What happened next? I mean, after Berkshire?’
    â€˜My mother died young, then my father soldiered in Africa so I was sent to Sydney to stay with friends but only for just over a year. Dad joined me, met someone and we lived in Tasmania when they married.’ Her expression clouded. ‘I travelled back to England, turned eighteen on the ship, did my nurse’s training, worked for a couple of years, ran away to war.’ It sounded so dry and clinical.
    â€˜Didn’t get on with the new wife?’ Trooper Wren cut across.
    She raised an eyebrow at his intuition. ‘I was not mature enough, I suppose, to accept that my father could love anyone else but me. However, in my defence, she was equally one-eyed and I was clearly an encumbrance in her life. It was easier all round once he passed away.’ She returned to brighter thoughts. ‘Yes, your colouring reminds me of the woodland we used to enjoy wonderful picnics in when I was a child.’
    â€˜I’m glad. You sound like you were happy then.’ He sipped from his mug. ‘Almost as happy as I feel now, taking afternoon tea with you.’
    Claire laughed. ‘Let’s have a look at this wound. I told you it’s going to need sutures. But it’s also going to hurt while I clean it out.’
    He shrugged. ‘Anything for Farina’s First XI.’
    â€˜Farina?’
    â€˜South Australia’s far mid-north. Grazing country. Have you heard of the Flinders Ranges?’
    â€˜Of course. Never seen them, though.’
    â€˜I’d like to show you one day.’ He sighed at her surprised smile. ‘In summer purple hills stretch over endlessly dry, copper-coloured earth, or golden plains of wheat so bright it hurts your eyes. But when the rains come, the world turns green overnight and wildflowers shoot up at the first drench and paint the landscape with lilac and yellow,