Free Legion of the Dead by Paul Stewart Page A

changed during the last war, when a new kind of nurse had emerged from the army hospitals of the East. These angels of mercy had reformed the appalling conditions in which wounded soldiers had languished, and brought their new methods of sober cleanliness and meticulous order with them when they returned from the war. Now, St Jude’s was a model hospital, bringing relief and comfort to the city’s sick.
    ‘Busy as ever,’ Will commented, as we approached the forbidding entrance.
    I nodded. The forecourt was teeming, with numerous horse-drawn carriages jostling for position at the foot of the circular entrance steps, and a constant stream of people going in and coming out of the great studded doors. Some were on crutches, some were on stretchers and, as we climbed the steps, I found myself making diagnoses of the people we passed.
    A young child – his face grazed and legs mashed – who was being carried in by his father must have been the victim of a traffic accident. A woman with a gashed arm, the unfortunate target of a rabid dog. While a grey-skinned, sunken-cheeked old man, coughing violently behind a blood-flecked rag as he lay on a wooden stretcher, was clearly consumptive …
    As Will and I entered the great entrance hall, the atmosphere changed. It was light, warm and pungent. The sooty smell of the lamps which were fixed to the walls mixedwith the unmistakable odour of carbolic soap. Nurses in crisp white aprons formed the shuffling patients into orderly lines in the great vaulted hall, and sent them off to various parts of the hospital to have their ailments tended to.
    ‘Broken bones, that way,’ snapped a tall nurse in wire-framed spectacles, eyeing my sling and pointing me down a long corridor to the right.
    ‘It’s all right, sister,’ said Will, stepping in. ‘He’s with me. We’re making a delivery.’
    ‘Oh, afternoon, Will,’ said the nurse with a smile. ‘Didn’t see you there.’ She raised her eyes to the vaulted ceiling. ‘Chaos it is, today. Absolute chaos … No, madam,’ she cried out, darting off in pursuit of a portly individual whose face was covered in a suppurating rash. ‘I’ve already told you, the sulphur baths are that way …’
    We left her to it. Will steered me across the great hall, the floor tiled with pale grey andgreen marble slabs and inlaid with a wonderful mosaic depicting the Rod of Asclepius; a single green snake, its venomous mouth agape, wrapped around its knotted length.
    ‘The morgue’s downstairs,’ he told me as we reached the top of a stairwell on the far side.
    There were classical scenes painted on the walls of the stairwell: fluttering winged babies dangling grapes before the mouths of voluptuous maidens; centaurs and satyrs, and groups of men with long robes and thick beards. One individual stood out. Taller than the rest, he had a quill in one hand and an axe in the other and, from the top of his head, a small flame burned at the centre of his halo. Will nodded towards him as we headed down the stairs.
    ‘St Jude, himself,’ he said.
    As we went down the stairs, the sounds from the entrance hall faded. A couple of nurses in crisp white uniforms clutching glowing lanterns passed us, heading in theopposite direction, followed a little later by a doctor, with what I took to be one of those new-fangled wooden stethoscopes tucked into the brim of his top hat. We continued down into the gloomy depths of the great hospital.
    At the bottom of the stairs, Will pushed open a pair of dark varnished doors and we entered a large vaulted chamber with rows of wooden trestles stretching away into the shadows. High above our heads a simple chandelier comprising four white candles – three of them burning – hung down from a chain in the centre of the vault.
    ‘Can I ’elp you?’ A low cracked voice sounded from behind us.
    Turning, I saw a small stooped individual in a grubby apron and black, greased-down hair leering back at us. Tipping me the wink,