Weaver Read Online Free PDF Page B

time ago. Look, is there anybody you’ll need to call? We don’t have a private phone, and the public lines are blocked - well, you know that - but if you want to make a call I’ll take you to the police station. You have a husband - Gary’s father?’
    ‘I’m afraid we’re divorced, George. But, yes, I’ll need to speak to him at some point. Depending on - you know.’
    ‘We’ll sort you out, don’t you worry.’
    ‘You’re being very kind.’

III
    At the hospital entrance ambulances pulled up and drove off, and there was a steady stream of stretcher parties. Nurses fussed around, and a doctor seemed to be on hand to greet every arrival. Green Army blankets were spread over the stretchers. The staff looked strained, the doctors’ white coats ominously stained with old blood.
    At a desk inside the entrance an ATS volunteer, a woman of about sixty with a helmet of steel-grey hair, was doing her best to block the way to all non-essential visitors. But George the copper, big and bluff and authoritative, easily talked his way past her. Further in they found an information desk manned by a Wren, who was able to give them the number of the ward they needed. The hospital was busy, and there were soldiers everywhere, in grimy uniforms and bandages. But even so there were a lot of staff and arm-banded volunteers standing around, looking fretful, with nothing to do.
    There was a dreadful smell, a heavy iron stink. George saw Mary react, and he touched her arm, and Hilda’s. ‘That’s dried blood. I remember it from the last lot, the first war. The men are turning up here with old wounds, days old some of them. You never forget the smell. But you just have to put it aside and get on with things. All right?’
    They both nodded, and went on. To Mary, knowing that Gary was close, somewhere in this crowded, busy building, these last moments, this walk down the corridors with their shining floors, seemed endless, as if time was stretching.
    At last they came to Ward Twenty-Three. There were two rows of beds before a big sash window that had been flung open to allow in the light and air of a garden. The beds were all full of broken-looking bodies, lying still. Mary couldn’t bear to look at their faces. She marched forward, looking at the names on the medical notes fixed to the iron bed frames.
    And here was his name, WOOLER, GARY P., with his British army serial number. He lay on his back covered by a thick white blanket, his eyes closed. A skinny young man with thick black hair and wearing a white coat sat on a hard upright chair beside the bed, eyeing them.
    Gary looked asleep. His face was clean, though Mary could see some bruising, but his blond hair, scattered over the pillow, was matted and filthy. A drip stand stood beside him; a clear tube snaked into a vein in his arm, the needle covered by a bit of bandage. Mary was hugely relieved that at first glance he looked whole: two arms, two legs, no hideous medical apparatus strapped to his body.
    But Hilda was crying, with great silent heaving sobs. Mary felt her own tears come, and she buried her face in the girl’s neck, smelling the starch of her uniform.
    When they broke, Mary turned to the young man on the chair. She whispered, ‘Nurse? When will he wake up? Can we speak to him?’

    He stood. ‘Well, I’m not a nurse. Just a volunteer.’ He grinned, and showed her an armband with a red cross. ‘My name’s Benjamin Kamen.’
    Both Hilda and George stiffened at hearing his accent. ‘You sound German,’ Hilda said, wondering.
    ‘I’m Austrian,’ said Kamen. ‘An Austrian Jew, in fact. I came to Britain to fight. They wouldn’t let me join up. Flat feet! So I’m doing this instead.’
    ‘And why are you here?’ George asked, still sounding suspicious.
    ‘Because I’ve got this accent,’ Kamen said simply. ‘Makes the English uncomfortable. So I try to help out with the international brigades. Half of them don’t recognise my accent, or if they do