The Quid Pro Quo

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Walter Kennett had first seen Sylvia Marks the day Christopher died. Chris was brought into Royaumont with several men who’d all been caught in a blast that had hit their command post. Walter had hardly recognised him under all the mud and he’d barely been conscious anyway. Just enough to say “Walt? Is that you?” in a haze as Walter began stripping him and washing as much of the stinking mud off as he could before the doctors came round to examine the new intake. They only got the worst cases here now…had done for a while, since the brass had worked out that the lady doctors had a better surgical survival rate.

Walter was one of the handful of male nurses on site, seconded from the Royal Army Medical Corps at the beginning when they needed extra nursing hands. Once they’d got the hospital up and running, he’d been given a choice whether to stay or not. He’d liked the way the ladies worked, so he’d said yes, he would.

It was a miracle he was here to see Christopher, though. Given all the thousands and thousands of soldiers on the lines, that his friend should be brought here, to Walter’s hospital, and that Walter himself should be the one to triage him, was astounding.

“Yes, it’s me, Chris,” he said, quietly, to Christopher’s now unresponsive form. He wasn’t too badly off under his tunic and shirt; the mud must have come from the blast. Walter pushed the blanket aside and went to unbutton his trousers; and that’s when he realised that most of the left leg and the right below the knee were gone.

Shitfire.

Someone had made two rough tourniquets, which was why he was still alive, but there was blood everywhere under the blanket and it needed immediate attention.

“I need a doctor!” he shouted. “I need a doctor over here right now!”

And that was when Dr Marks appeared. She was tall for a woman, thin and tired and she had wire-framed spectacles balanced on her nose.

“What is it, orderly?” she said. Her apron was already smudged with blood and mud as she bent over the stretcher, but her hands were clean and her voice was steady.

“His legs,” Walter said. “His legs are gone.”

He drew the blanket back again and she took in the situation with a glance and a grim moue of her mouth.

“One for immediate surgery!” she called over her shoulder. “Is room three free now?”

“Yes, Dr Marks!” one of the sisters called back.

That was how Walter found out her name.

Chris stirred a bit at that point and opened his eyes again. “Walt?” he said. “Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me.” Walter took his hand. “It’s me, love.”

The endearment slipped out before he could stop it and Marks looked up at him sharply and then continued with whatever she was doing with Chris’ trousers.

“You’re in the hospital now, the lady doctors are going to sort you out fine,” Walter said. “Just lie back and relax.”

Chris winced as Dr Marks began to gently ease the material away from the stumps of his legs. “I need a bowl of water please, orderly,” she said to Walter quietly. “Then come back and keep him quiet for me, please.” Her voice was kind. “We’ll need to get him knocked out and into surgery immediately.”

Walter nodded. He could do that. “I’ll be back momentarily,” he said, letting go of Chris’ hand with a squeeze. Chris didn’t reply, he was out of it again.

Then it was a tumble of chloroform and getting him cleaned up enough to go onto the operating table. There were more men to deal with and Walt didn’t see him again until Dr Marks came and found him a few hours later as the immediate rush began to ease off. He knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth. He’d seen that kindly, tired expression on too many faces to think otherwise.

“He’s gone west, hasn’t he?” he said, without any sort of greeting.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I did everything I could. He’d lost too much blood. We even tried a transfusion on the operating table, but it didn’t work.”

They were outside the canteen. Walter had been having a quiet smoke before going back to the ward—he’d got some cigs from who-remembered-where and was working his way through them before he went back to his pipe. Dr Marks had taken off her apron, but her dress was spotted with blood…Chris’ blood, he thought…and there was a smudge of it on her cheek. Her hair was coming down out of its roll. She gestured to the packet of fags in his top pocket and he offered her one. She took it and the matches and lit it expertly, not waiting for him to offer.

“Jesus Christ, that’s good,” she said, inhaling deeply. “I’m so sorry, Orderly…?” She waited for his name.

“Kennett,” he supplied. “Walter Kennett.”

“I’m so sorry, Orderly Kennett.”

“Thank you for coming to tell me,” he said. She hadn’t had to. It was a kindness.

“I asked them to take him to the mortuary,” she said. “Would you like to sit with him for a while?”

She didn’t ask how they were friends, or anything. She was a sharp woman. He looked up at her, steadily, through the pain in his chest. He had to blink furiously to stop his eyes filling up.

“I have half an hour before I have to go back on shift,” he said.

“Come on, then,” she said, grinding her cigarette butt out under her heel. “Let me take you.”

She organised it all, sending the pair of VADs washing the bodies out for a break and putting a chair next to the table Chris was laid out on.

“I’ll be outside the door, keeping cave,” she said. “Take your time, Kennett. I’ve got half an hour before I need to go back, too.”

* * * *

He’d had a bit of a fondness for her after that. Walter readily admitted that he liked the girls as well as the boys, to himself if to no-one else. He was wired all wrong on all sorts of levels.

They’d spent a lot of time together, sneaking smokes outside the kitchen after particularly horrendous waves of casualties, or sharing a cup of tea inside the canteen sometimes when they were off shift. She didn’t much seem to care for either the army or the hospital hierarchy and although he was more subject to it than she was, being further down the pecking order than the heady heights of surgeon, he valued the careful friendship.

As he got to know her better, he realised she had a close friendship with one of the ambulance drivers, Miss Masters. Her face would light up when the other woman came in, however tired she was. It was clearly a mutual feeling. Miss Masters was a lovely woman too. They were both somewhere in their thirties, although Miss Masters was a bit older than Dr Marks, he thought.

For a while after he lost Christopher, he just went through the motions. It wasn’t as if they’d been able to see each other much since Walt had been posted out of the medical unit to Royaumont. If he didn’t think about it too hard, he could pretend Chris was just up the line and Walt was waiting for a letter to come in the post suggesting they meet for an afternoon when he came back down. Walt drifted from one task to another, routine saving him from falling apart completely and then occasionally he’d be hit with the sense-memory of sitting there in the mortuary, holding Chris’ cold hand in the cool room with its antiseptic smell, and he’d be utterly floored.

He sought Dr Marks out then. The first time, she’d looked at him sharply and gone and fetched him a cup of tea and a biscuit. They hadn’t spoken of it. She just seemed to know.

Of course when Miss Masters went west like that…so unkind of the fates, not giving Dr Marks a body to say goodbye to…Walt tried to return the compassion. He wasn’t very good at it. He’d made a point of not being close to people since he’d left home and joined up when he was eighteen. He was out of practice. He got to know that pinched look on her face though, when something reminded her—there was another girl in the driving team who had a huge goatskin coat like Miss Masters had done, that did it sometimes—and he’d pat her arm in passing if no-one could see. She’d smile at him gratefully and he’d smile back and that was that.

It helped to know that someone knew.

He supposed it was inevitable that his feelings would morph into a tendresse—he was working on his French—given the situation. Obviously he never said anything. Firstly she was a doctor and he was an army nurse. Secondly she came from money and he…very much didn’t. Thirdly…what had he got to offer her? She didn’t like men, as far as he could see.

So he kept all that to himself and concentrated on building a friendship. You could never have too many of those.

He was grateful for it in September of 1918 when he came down with the flu. They’d been hearing about it spreading through the lines, but so far they’d mostly managed to avoid it at the hospital. He didn’t get it too badly compared to some, but he needed a few days in bed and Dr Marks took it upon herself to keep an eye on him.

“You’re going to need to let me listen to your chest, Walt,” she said, sitting on the side of his bed in the small dormitory he shared with the handful of other men in the mostly-female hospital. They were on their own—the other three had had a very mild dose and were back on their feet.

“I’m fine, Dr Marks,” he grumbled at her, panic fluttering behind his breastbone. “Let me alone and I’ll be fine in a day or two.”

“I’m sure you will be, but I’m still going to listen to your chest.”

He glared at her. She just raised her eyebrows and waited.

“Lock the door then,” he said, finally.

She looked at him with her head tilted to one side…like a particularly insightful heron, wearing spectacles, he thought, with a hysterical internal laugh…and did as he bid.

She helped him sit up, snagging Porter’s pillows from the next-door bed to shove behind him.

He unbuttoned his blue and white striped pyjamas carefully, hands shaking.

The bindings had slipped a bit during the night and he hadn’t felt up to replacing them. It was easier to cough if they were looser, too.

She looked at his hands where they worked on the buttons, ready with her stethoscope. She saw the bindings and glanced up at his face. That kind, steady gaze he’d first become accustomed to and then rather fallen for was completely bland.

“Dr Marks…” he said. His throat was dry. “You’re going to need to help me get them off.”

She nodded. “Lean forward a bit then.”

He did as she bid.

Her hands were gentle and steady as she unwrapped them. He was assailed by a coughing fit in the middle of the process and she waited him out patiently, handing him the glass of water from the bedside chest of drawers once he’d finished.

She took her stethoscope and put the business end on his chest, moving it around to listen to the sides as well as the front. She didn’t even blink.

“Lean forward for me,” she said again after a moment. She repeated the procedure on his back.

“You’ve got a bit of a rattle on one side, but it’s near the top and I think it’ll clear if you can keep coughing,” she said. “I can have another listen in a day or two if you don’t start to feel better. You’ve had it quite badly, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “I’ve felt better, I have to admit.” He paused. “Dr Marks,” he said, finally, hands fisted in the bindings on his lap. “Dr Marks, I…”

“Let me help you with those, shall I?” she said, gesturing at them. She was matter-of-fact and careful, wrapping them round from the top downward as he preferred. “I’ve not done them too tight,” she said, fastening them at the bottom. You should try and keep them a bit looser than usual, Walt, so you can cough more easily. It’ll be better in the long run if you can clear it quickly.”

He nodded, blinking back the easy tears of illness. “Yes, yes, I will.” He had another bout of coughing. “Dr Marks. Thank you.”

“Orderly Kennett,” she said, formally. “You are most welcome.” She patted his hand and stood up. “Rest,” she said. “I’ll pop my head in when I come off shift to check on you, but sleep is the best medicine, quite frankly.”

He nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

She nodded in that abrupt way she had and exited without further words. He lay back against Porter’s pillow and breathed gently, fighting tears, feeling the bindings pressing against his chest as it expanded with every in-breath. One or two tears escaped and trickled down his face and he wiped them away impatiently.

After a while the desire to cry faded and he dozed.