Convoy Read Free Page A

physiotherapists, and six beautiful young ladies to powder your bottoms and make sure you don’t get bedsores.’
    The paymaster was quick; he seemed to guess Yorke’s anxiety and from the next bed said: ‘Don’t say we’re losing Nurse Exton, Sister?’
    ‘Yes – no, rather, because you are coming to Willesborough, too, so Nurse Exton can continue to record your chronic constipation. We’ll fit you out with a wooden leg and you’ll soon be cadging free pints at the local pub. Anyway, Mr Yorke will need someone to fit his cufflinks and studs and you’ll need someone to prop you up for a bit. Jack Sprat and his wife; I can see the pair of you escorting Nurse Exton to the Willesborough church fete. They’ll put you in charge of the lucky dip,’ she said to Yorke, ‘you only need one hand to dip into a bran tub.’
    ‘When do we go?’ Yorke asked. ‘We might miss the three-legged race.’
    ‘The staff and the first batch of patients go tomorrow. By bus. One of your nice Navy buses, painted grey and with all the seat springs broken. It’ll be like a Sunday school outing, won’t it, Nurse?’
     
    The bus juddered its way up the long hill and the movement made Yorke wince while the paymaster, lying in a nest of pillows across the back seat, swore quietly and monotonously, trying to steady the stump of his leg. Sister Scotland, sitting in the front offside seat, suddenly stood up, rapped on the window behind the driver and, having attracted his attention, shouted in a piercing voice: ‘Change down, you bloody fool!’
    The driver obediently dropped into a lower gear, the juddering stopped, and Sister Scotland sat down to a round of applause, which she acknowledged with an airy wave of her hand.
    It seemed odd to Yorke to be back in uniform again. The hospital authorities thought they would all wear hospital blue for the journey and found they had seven almost mutinous and certainly truculent naval officers who were in any case not mobile enough to pack their own uniforms and had no intention of admitting that any nurse could, and intended using the whole episode as a reason for not going down to Willesborough in flimsy hospital wear, even though assured the bus had good heating and they would have blankets.
    So Yorke sat alone in uniform trousers and half-length mess boots, a white rollneck woollen jersey, his left arm in a sling, and his uniform coat and cap on the seat beside him. He saw Clare and another nurse get up in response to instructions from Sister Scotland and walk slowly back along the bus, talking with each patient. The other nurse sat beside one man, then walked forward again and spoke to the sister before resuming her walk.
    Yorke put his jacket across his knees, leaving the other seat empty, and in a few moments Clare sat down, the paymaster at the back telling her cheerfully, ‘Leave me to your mate; I’ve no complaints and I don’t want a bottle.’
    Clare took his jacket and put it across her knees and, turning back one of the sleeves, ran a finger along the gold stripes. ‘You’re regular Navy, then. I thought you were Wavy.’
    Her eye caught a flash of colour and she turned the coat and pointed to a single medal ribbon, red with blue edges, on the left breast.
    ‘I didn’t know you had a DSO.’
    ‘I haven’t yet; only the ribbon. Have to collect it one day.’
    ‘Why didn’t you say?’
    ‘It’s like virginity, one doesn’t go on about having it.’
    ‘I would,’ she said impulsively and blushed as he looked round at her. ‘That medal, I mean.’
    She looked down and pointed at his bandaged hand, and murmured: ‘Was it anything to do with that?’
    Yorke laughed. ‘The chicken or the egg! I’m not sure why they gave me the gong; the hand was a piece of something from an explosion.’
    ‘A torpedo?’
    ‘Bombs. Now tell me why a lovely girl like you isn’t married. Or engaged.’
    ‘I was married. I’m a widow now.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’ He had been clumsy but there