The scene in the bathhouse had changed. Luce and Michael were now crouched like wrestlers in a ring, arms half extended, circling each other; but Luce was still laughing.
‘Come on, lover! You know you want it! What’s the matter, afraid? Can’t you take it that big? Oh, come on! It’s no use playing hard to get, I know all about you!’
At first glance Michael’s face looked very still, almost remote, but beneath that burned something vast and awful and terrifying, though Luce seemed not to be affected by it. Michael didn’t speak, didn’t evince a flicker of change as the flow of Luce’s words went on; it was as if he hardly saw the real Luce, so intent was he upon the turmoil within himself.
‘Break it up!’ said Neil sharply.
The scene dissolved immediately. Luce swung round to face the three in the doorway, but for a moment Michael maintained his pose of defensive readiness. Then he collapsed back against the wall, leaning on it and drawing great gasping breaths as if his lungs were bellows. And suddenly he began to shake uncontrollably, his teeth chattering audibly, diaphragm still pumping beneath the skin of his upper abdomen.
Sister Langtry stepped past Luce, and Michael saw her for the first time, his face running sweat, his mouth open on the agony it was to breathe. At first he had to assimilate the simple fact of her presence, after which he looked at her with a passionate appeal that slowly faded into hopelessness; he turned his head away and closed his eyes as if it didn’t matter, sagging but not falling, supported still by the wall behind him, something draining out of him so fast he seemed visibly to shrink. Sister Langtry turned away.
‘We’re none of us in a fit state to make this public tonight,’ she said, addressing Neil.
Then she turned to Luce, her eyes filled with a sick contempt. ‘Sergeant Daggett, I will see you in the morning. Kindly return to the ward immediately and don’t leave it under any circumstances whatsoever.’
Luce appeared triumphant, unrepentant, jubilant; he shrugged, bent to pick up his clothes where he had strewn them just inside the door, opened it and went out, the set of his naked shoulders indicating that he fully intended to make things as difficult as possible in the morning.
‘Captain Parkinson, I am making you responsible for Sergeant Daggett’s good conduct. When I come on duty I expect to see everything shipshape and normal, and heaven help the man who has a hangover. I am very, very angry! You’ve abused every trust I’ve put in you. Sergeant Wilson will not return to X tonight, nor will he return until after I have interviewed Sergeant Daggett. Now do you understand? Are you fit enough to cope?’ This last was said with less stringency, and the look in her eyes had softened.
‘I’m not as drunk as you appear to think I am,’ said Neil, gazing down at her with eyes that seemed nearly as dark as Benedict’s. ‘You’re the boss. Everything shall be exactly as you wish.’
Benedict had neither moved nor spoken since coming into the bathhouse, but as Neil turned stiffly to leave he jumped convulsively, and his eyes flew from their unwinking contemplation of Sister Langtry’s face to Michael, still leaning exhausted against the wall. ‘Is he all right?’ he asked anxiously.
She nodded, managed a small, twisted smile. ‘Don’t worry, Ben, I’ll look after him. Just go back to the ward with Neil and try to get some sleep.’
Alone in the bathhouse with Michael, Sister Langtry looked around for his clothes, but all she could find was a towel; he must have walked across to have his shower already stripped, the towel perhaps wound about his waist. Not allowed in the rules, of course, which stipulated that all personnel abroad at night be covered from neck to feet; still, he had probably never counted on being discovered.
She took the towel from its peg and walked across to him, pausing to turn the shower off.
‘Come on,’ she said, sounding very tired. ‘Put this around you, please.’
He opened his eyes but didn’t look at her, took the towel and wrapped it about himself clumsily, his hands still shaking, then he moved away from the wall as if he doubted whether he could stand up unsupported; but he did.
‘And how much have you had to drink?’ she asked bitterly, grasping him ungently by the arm, urging him to walk.
‘About four tablespoons,’ he said in a stiff, small, weary voice. ‘Where are you taking me?’ And suddenly he shook himself free of her hand as if the peremptory and authoritative quality in it stung his pride.
‘We’re going to my quarters,’ she said curtly. ‘I’ll put you in one of the vacant rooms there until the morning. You can’t go back to the ward unless I call in the MPs, and I don’t want to do that.’
He followed her then without further protest, defeated. What could he possibly say to this woman that could make her refuse to believe the evidence of her own eyes? It must have looked like the dayroom all over again, only so much worse. And he was utterly exhausted, he didn’t have an ounce of reserve strength left after that brief but superhuman struggle with himself. For he had known its outcome the moment Luce appeared; if he swung for it, he was going to have the deep and gloriously satisfying pleasure of killing the stupid, ignorant bastard.
Two things had prevented his leaping for Luce’s throat immediately: the memory of the RSM and of the pain that had followed every day since, of the culminating pain which was ward X and Sister Langtry; and the drawn-out savoring of a moment which was going to be exquisite. So when Luce made his move, Michael hung grimly on and on to his shredding self-control.
Luce looked big and masculine and capable, but Michael knew he didn’t have the hardness, the experience or the lust for killing. And he had always known that behind Luce’s brash confidence, behind the insatiable appetite the man had to torment, there crouched a coward. Luce always thought he could get away with his antics forever, that men took one look at his size, felt his malice and lost their own courage. But Michael knew the moment his bluff was called he would crumble. And as he dropped into an attack position the whole of his future life was there, but it couldn’t make any difference any more. He was going to call Luce’s bluff, but when the big cocky bastard fell apart he was still going to kill him. Kill him just for the sheer pleasure of it.
Twice destroyed. Twice brought to face the knowledge that he was no better than anyone else exposed to killing; that he too could come to throw everything away for the gratification of a lust. It was a lust, he had always known that. There were many things he had learned about himself which he had also learned to live with; but this? Was having this inside him what closed his mouth on love in Sister Langtry’s office? It had welled up, would have spilled out. And then he felt a shadow, something nameless and fearful. This. It had to be this. He had thought of it as his own unworthiness, but now for all time unworthiness had a name.
Thank God she had come! Only how could he ever explain?
7
As they mounted the steps outside her quarters, Sister Langtry realized the other rooms in the block were locked and barred. Not that it meant she was defeated; there were ways of getting into any locked room, and trained nurses who had undergone the convent-like incarceration of a nurses’ home were always experts at getting in and out of supposedly secured premises. But it would take time. So she opened the door to her own room, flicked the light switch and stood back for Michael to enter in front of her.
How odd. Except for Matron on inspection rounds, he was the only person ever to see her private domain, for all the sisters preferred to congregate in the recreation area when they sought social contact; it was such a hike to go to a colleague’s room. In spite of her weariness she looked at the place with new eyes, noting its drab bare impersonal quality. A cell rather than a lived-in space, though it was larger than a cell. It contained a narrow cot similar to the ones in X, a hard chair, a bureau, a screened-off area to hang her clothes, and two shelves nailed to the wall on which resided her books.
