The Wickedest Town in the West by Marilyn Todd

Author:Marilyn Todd [Todd, Marilyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Published: 2016-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Michelle

What struck Wilfie was the silence. That incredible, beautiful, absolute silence, and, as he lay on his back, his face and torso swaddled beneath a stiff cocoon of bandages with his left foot up in traction, he wallowed in its splendour. This was the first time in weeks—months—when he could hear nothing but the sound of his own blood pounding through his temples. Could actually listen to his own voice for once, humming in his ears.

‘Mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous—’

He was out of tune (as usual), but who cared? There was only him to criticise.

‘—inky, pinky, parlez-vous. ’

What did that mean, he wondered? That inky pinky stuff? Maybe if he’d been in France for more than a few months he’d understand, but right now Wilfie was happy to overlook the harness that bound him flat and bask in the luxury of painkillers and silence.

‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile—’

Who wouldn’t smile, he thought. Ever since Lord Kitchener’s finger pointed at him from that poster, telling Wilfie “His country needed HIM!” his eardrums had been bombarded with the din from the barrack room, the clack of rifle practice, the clatter of the trains that carried him to war. And then, if it wasn’t the blast of the artillery or the pound of the grenades, it was screaming, groaning, sobbing, praying, or else it was the rain. The endless, bloody, freezing rain that turned the fields of Flanders into mud. Rancid, slippy, endless, dripping off the barbed wire, dripping off his nose. Night or day, the racket never stopped. The bark of orders. The whistle of gas canisters fizzing through the air. The whinnies of a thousand terrified, doomed horses…

‘It’s a long way to Tipperary—’

But now. Now Wilfie could enjoy the quietude, safe in the knowledge that he wasn’t being shot at. Wasn’t having to walk upright through a hail of bullets, stumbling over twitching bodies, slipping on someone’s guts and trying not to cry. Here he could relax. Lie still. Drink in every silent second—

‘Wilfie?’

Jerked from his indulgence, Wilfie tried to place the voice.

‘Wilfie Baines, by God, it is you inside that white marshmallow!’

‘Ron?’

Nah. Ron had had a leg blown off when the ammunitions store went up, and that must have been—ooh, a month ago at least. That’s right, he remembered now. That was a name from the past, he had thought, hearing how they’d carted him off to some posh joint that had been turned into a field hospital. Some chateau well clear of the front, where the seriously injured could be cared for, until they were fit enough to be sent back home to Engl… Shit.

‘Now, you behave yourself, Ron Tyler,’ a female voice castigated, except there was no malice in her Irish lilt. To Wilfie’s ears, it sounded more like laughter. ‘Anything you need, you ring the bell this time, you understand?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘And don’t you patronise me, either. I won’t have you careening round these corridors by yourself. You’re dangerous on wheels.’

‘No, Sister.

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