Free Lauren's Dilemma by Margaret Tanner

fondest regards.
    As you will probably have read in the papers
back home, casualties have been high, and life is rather grim. All our supplies
have to be brought in by ship and then organized and
distributed under fire, and the wounded go out the same way.
    The noise is unbearable sometimes, but on the 24th May, an Armistice was called for about nine hours
to bury the dead, and the silence somehow seemed worse. I sometimes feel this
place is the end of the world. Its rocky cliffs are almost unscaleable in some
places, and one would really have to be a mountain goat to live here
comfortably.
    A rather marvelous thing happened the other
day. I was walking along the beach after having a swim in the Aegean,
and I stopped to have a smoke, when who should I run
into but one of the chaps I went to school with. Haven't seen him in years. He is an Army doctor, so we had quite a long chat and
reminisced about the old days. It is almost uncanny the way one runs into
people here.
    I heard of a case the other day where a man lay
wounded on the beach, and he turned his head to find his brother lying right
next to him.
    I hope you are keeping well. Yes, it is a good
thing to be involved in the war effort. The parcels you ladies send are much appreciated. I will close now.
    With best wishes,
    Blair Sinclair
    How cruel
to think that even now he lay wounded in an army hospital, fighting for his
life, while Helen flitted around Sydney
like an exotic butterfly. If Helen walked through the door at this very moment,
Laurie would be hard pressed not to physically attack her.
    Why she
felt so enraged about her cousin’s desertion of Blair remained a mystery. It’s
because I like him. He was a decent man who didn’t deserve to be treated in
such a callous fashion.
     

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
    Chapter Five

 
    Nine months
had passed since Danny’s death. The pain of losing him still festered like an
open wound that would not heal.
    One
evening, Laurie arrived home tired and dispirited from spending a whole day
with a young woman who had received word her husband had been killed in action.
She stayed with the widow, helping bathe, feed and generally mind the two small
children while the distraught woman packed a case so they could go and stay
with relatives. She drove the family to the train, which would take them on to
Wangaratta where they would be cared for until their future was decided.
    “Laurie,
I've got a letter from the army.” Her father met her at the door of the shop.
Could it be about Danny? She grasped it eagerly, rushing inside to read its
contents by lamplight.
    The letter
came from a chaplain attached to the Military
Convalescent Hospital
in Melbourne.
It was dated 4th February 1916.
    Dear Miss Cunningham,
    I am writing to you regarding Captain Blair
Sinclair, who came to us here after being invalided to
Australia from a military
hospital in Egypt.
Your letters were found in his personal effects, and I
thought you might care to visit him, as he appears to have no family.
    The Captain has quite a serious leg wound,
which is slowly healing. Unfortunately he is suffering
from shell shock, also, and seems very confused, and parts of his memory are
blank. The doctors feel this is only a temporary state. I know you are a brave
young woman, reading between the lines I feel this, and I am afraid you will
need all your strength, as tragically he has also been
blinded .
    Blinded? Oh, Blair, how awful! Tears welled in her eyes, but she kept on reading.
    The doctors can find no real damage to the eyes
themselves, although there is shrapnel embedded in his forehead.
    Would you be able to come down to see him, Miss
Cunningham? I think he needs you very badly. A visit from one such as you would
do him no end of good.
    I am yours sincerely,
    John McNaughton. Chaplain
    Poor Blair! She felt ill. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and there was nothing she could
do to stop them. What did Danny once say? “I would rather be killed than come
back