The Desert Nurse by Pamela Hart

Author:Pamela Hart [HART, PAMELA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Published: 2018-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Evelyn. Not Linnet – but not Sr Northey, either. Perhaps she felt she couldn’t sign off as Linnet, even though she’d used the name in the letter itself. Perhaps she felt that signing herself as Linnet promised too much.

A day and a night in Alexandria.

If this letter was posted a week before she left, that meant it was only a week until she arrived!

Excitement churning inside him, he took a cab to the British HQ, who were most likely to know the shipping arrangements and dates for the Karratha.

‘Due sometime this month, probably in eight or nine days,’ the bored clerk told him, once he’d slipped the man a ten shilling note.

‘I’m at the New Zealand hospital,’ he said. ‘Let me know when you know the exact date, and I’ll be even more generous.’

‘Right you are, sir!’ the corporal said, taking down his details. ‘Don’t you worry sir, I’ll let you know!’

Nothing like self-interest to ensure compliance, William thought.

How was he going to survive eight or nine days of this anticipation?

•

Major Bagly was sympathetic to his request for leave, but less so to his unsurety about when.

‘In seven or eight days, for two days?’ he repeated.

‘I’m waiting on a ship arriving, Major,’ he explained. ‘I have to meet it at Alexandria.’

‘A-hah! A lady friend?’ The major twirled his moustaches with heavy innuendo.

‘A friend,’ William said. ‘A colleague.’

‘Ah, well,’ the major shrugged. ‘That is also good, to meet old friends. But I need at least twenty-four hours’ notice, before your leave.’

‘Understood.’ He hoped the corporal clerk would come through for him.

•

A week later, the corporal rang the hospital and left a message for him: Karratha docking Alexandria tomorrow morning. It wasn’t quite twenty-four hours’ notice, but it would have to do. He informed Major Bagly, packed a small case and went to catch the train. On the way, he passed a chemist’s. Should he? He hesitated outside, while a street vendor tried to sell him some beads and a boy offered to shine his shoes. He brushed them off and went in. Better to be prepared.

But the chemist was someone he knew from the hospital, so he ended up coming away with nothing but aspirin. Perhaps he could buy some French letters in Alexandria.

The train was uncomfortably full of uniforms, as a troop was going to the Alexandria port to ship off for France. He couldn’t be bothered working out what their colours meant; sometime in the last year he’d stopped caring about the war and only cared about the wounded. As a boy he’d envied the cadets from the King’s School who practised their drill in the park near his parents’ lending library. He’d so wanted to be like those sturdy, upstanding young men. He suspected most of them were dead now. The King’s Cadet Corps had almost unanimously volunteered early, which meant that they had probably been in the assault on Anzac. He wondered how many of the bodies he had cut into or stitched up had been the

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