there were no other weeping nurses. It was not an unusual event. There were many deaths when the casualties were coming fresh from the battlefield. Many arrived here before the shock had taken its full effect, and the arduous journey shortened the life of many serious cases. Most of the army nurses were too young for this sort of job, but there was such a shortage of nursing staff that none of them could be assigned to other duties. That was why the army had added civilians like the Hoch, Peggy, and Alice to the hospital staff.
She went downstairs and across the courtyard to see how Alice was getting on in Administration.
‘All right?’
Alice looked up and smiled grimly. ‘Someone brought me tea. I assume that’s a mark of approval.’
‘Very much so,’ said Peggy.
‘And Blanche has been very helpful.’
‘Good,’ said Peggy.
Alice Stanhope did not stop working, but she looked up for a moment to compare Peggy with the AID TO RUSSIA poster that was affixed to the wall behind her. There could be little doubt that someone had selected it and put it there on account of the striking similarity between the Russian nurse depicted in the poster and Peggy West. Peggy shared her high cheekbones and wide mouth with this idealised Slavic beauty. But there was something else too. Peggy West also had the other qualities the artist had depicted: authority, determination and competence, plus compassion and tenderness. All nurses were supposed to have those qualities to some extent – it went with the job – but Peggy had them in abundance.
‘I’ll have tea later,’ said Peggy. ‘I just wanted to see that you were doing all right.’
On her way back to the main building, Peggy met Colonel Hochleitner’s stepdaughter, Blanche, and discovered that Alice’s arrival had not been greeted with unqualified joy on every side. Blanche was disconcerted at being displaced from her role as the hospital’s champion typist. Now she was afraid of losing her position as Hoch’s secretary, and that meant a lot to her. She didn’t complain, of course. Blanche was a thirty-year-old blonde divorcée; she’d learned a lot about the game of life. She smiled and congratulated Peggy on finding such a gem. She made self-deprecatory asides and said how lucky they were to have Alice Stanhope with them. But Peggy knew Blanche too well to take these toothy smiles and schoolgirl tributes at their face value. Blanche would await her opportunity to talk to her stepfather; she knew exactly how to twist the Hoch round her little finger.
Blanche was not the only one with reservations about Alice. A thin red-haired nurse named Jeannie MacGregor – the daughter of a tobacco farmer in Northern Rhodesia – took Peggy West aside to voice her worries about the newcomer.
‘What do we know about her?’ Jeannie MacGregor’s grandfather had lived in a castle, and through him Jeannie claimed to be a direct descendant of Rob Roy, the famous Scots outlaw. Jeannie’s accent and her passion for Sir Walter Scott novels had been acquired during her visits to her grandfather.
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Peggy West.
‘And all her airs and graces, and parking her red sportscar in the front.’
‘That’s only for today,’ said Peggy. Parking cars at the hospital was a never-ending source of arguments. ‘I’ll see she knows.’
Jeannie nodded, acknowledging her little victory. She was a wartime volunteer. By hard work and intelligence she’d become a skilled theatre nurse almost the equal of Peggy West. Having the right instruments ready for the surgeons meant fully understanding the progress of every operation. Perhaps Jeannie should have gone to medical school and become a doctor. In her present job she was becoming an argumentative know-all, upsetting everyone. But good theatre nurses were desperately needed, and Peggy treated Jeannie’s tantrums with delicate care.
‘I saw her at tea break, going through the Hoch’s private files,’ said Jeannie.
‘Yes, she’s trying to get the office in order. It’s a terrible mess. You know Blanche never files anything.’
‘Before coming to us, this Alice woman was working as a clerk in that big military police building, the one opposite the railway station,’ said Jeannie and looked at Peggy, smiling triumphantly. ‘She admitted it.’
‘Yes, she told me. What about it?’
‘Didn’t you read what the newspapers said about police spies watching everywhere. Is she a police spy?’
‘Oh, Jeannie, I’ve not had an easy morning. Surely you don’t believe all that rubbish the papers print?’
Jeannie would not abandon her theory: ‘And Hochleitner is a German name, isn’t it?’ She bit her lip and stared at Peggy.
Peggy West took a deep breath. ‘Jeannie, you’re a senior nurse. Are you seriously suggesting that Alice is some sort of spy sent here to find out if the Hoch is a Nazi?’
‘I know it sounds farfetched,’ admitted Jeannie. The lowered tone of her voice suggested a retreat from her previous position, but she didn’t like the way that Peggy was trying to make her feel foolish. ‘But there are spies everywhere, you know that.’
‘I don’t know anything of the kind,’ said Peggy. ‘All I know is that there are stories of spies everywhere! How I wish everyone would calm down and be more sensible. We’re English, Jeannie; let’s try to keep a sense of proportion.’
‘I’m not English, I’m a Scot,’ said Jeannie sullenly.
Peggy laughed. ‘That’s no excuse,’ she told her.
Only with great difficulty did Jeannie MacGregor keep her temper. Her admonition was soft but bitter. ‘You used to be so sensible about everything.’
‘I didn’t mean to be rude. But you are piling the agony on. Alice is a nice girl … and she’s a good typist. Things are not so good at the front. Any day now we might be fighting Rommel in the suburbs of Cairo, so I suppose the police have to keep an eye on people. Meanwhile we British all have to help each other.’
There was a long silence. Then Jeannie said, ‘I have instincts about people and that girl is trouble. I’m always right about these things, sister. You mark my words.’
So it was one of Jeannie’s ‘instincts’? Oh, my God, thought Peggy. Her instinct was another treasured thing she’d inherited from her grandfather. ‘The Hoch has taken her on,’ said Peggy. ‘Nothing can be done about it now.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said Jeannie spitefully. ‘That girl is a viper; I can see it in her face. I’ll get rid of her. I’ll see her off, if it’s the last thing I do.’
‘Oh, go to hell!’ said Peggy and turned away. Immediately she regretted it. Had she spent five more minutes with her she might have brought her to a more amiable point of view. Jeannie MacGregor had all the tenacity of her race. If she wanted to make things difficult for Alice, or anyone else, she’d find ways of doing it.
‘The dispatch riders are here,’ someone called from the window. ‘That usually means the ambulances are right behind them.’
‘It’s too early,’ said Peggy.
‘I heard there will be two convoys,’ called Jeannie. ‘I’d better get back to my girls and make sure they’re ready.’ She was more positive now she had work to do.
‘Yes,’ said Peggy with a sigh. Perhaps she could get nurse MacGregor an exchange posting to one of the new Advanced Surgical Centres, where emergency operations were done as near the battlefield as possible.
She heard the ambulances arriving. It was starting. ‘Time to earn our pay,’ said Peggy loudly. She always said that when the ambulances arrived.
7
No one claimed to remember when or where or why the little gatherings began, but it had become a custom that, early on Friday evenings, a glass or two of chilled