It was perhaps as many as five minutes before the yammering stopped, before she could unglue her hands from their flattened stance against the door.

The insides of her thighs felt sticky, and for a horrid humiliating moment she thought she must have wet herself, then realized it was only sweat and the aftermath of Michael.

Michael, oh, Michael! She beat one fist against the door in a sudden frenzy of rage, of despair. God damn Luce to eternal hell for doing this! Oh, why hadn’t those drunken fools in there kept better custody of him? Did she have to do everything herself? Luce, you bastard, you’ve won after all! You utter, foul, insane, maggoty bastard, to have carried your notions of revenge so far…

Oh, Michael! There were tears on her face, tears of a terrible grief at a snatched imperfect brutally brief joy, with all the dear bright morning in ruins at her feet, drowned in blood. Oh, Michael! My Michael… It wasn’t fair. They hadn’t even talked yet. They hadn’t begun to get together the unravelled knots of what had been their previous relationship, hadn’t had the time to knit them into a common thread. And, straightening, moving away from the door, she knew then, knew irrevocably, that there could be no hope of happiness for her and Michael. No relationship of any kind. Luce had won after all.

The walk across the compound she did like a robot, moving quickly and jerkily and mechanically, heading at first she knew not where, then heading in the only possible direction. Remembering the feel of tears on her face, she lifted one hand to wipe her eyelids with its palm, tinkered with the set of her veil, smoothed down her brows. There. There, Sister Langtry, Sister Langtry, you’re in charge of this mess, it’s your damned duty! Duty, remember duty. Not only your duty to yourself, but to your patients. There are five of them who have to be protected at any cost from the consequences of Luce Daggett.

2

Colonel Chinstrap was sitting out on his little private verandah attached to his little private hut, stirring his tea reflectively and not thinking anything very much at all. It was that sort of a day, somehow. A nothing very much at all sort of day. After a night with Sister Heather Connolly it usually was, but last night had been hard in a different way; they had spent most of it talking about the coming disintegration of Base Fifteen and the possibility of continuing their affair when they returned to civilian life.

As it was his habit to over-stir his tea, he was still turning his spoon over and over in his cup when Sister Langtry, looking neat and precise as a pin, marched around the corner of his hut and stood on the grass below him, looking up.

‘Sir, I have a suicide!’ she announced loudly.

He half leaped off his chair, subsided onto it again, then slowly managed to lay the spoon down in the saucer and find his feet. He tottered across to the flimsy balustrade and leaned on it gingerly, looking down at her.

‘Suicide? But this is dreadful! Dreadful!’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said woodenly.

‘Who?’

‘Sergeant Daggett, sir. In the bathhouse. Very messy. Cut himself to ribbons with his razor.’

‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear!’ he said feebly.

‘Do you want to have a look for yourself first, sir, or do you want me to go straight for the MPs?’ she asked, dragging him inexorably on to decisions he felt he didn’t have the energy to make.

He mopped his face with his handkerchief, the color so died out of his skin that the grog blossoms on his nose stood out in blue and crimson glory. His hand twitched, a betrayal; he thrust it defensively into his pocket and turned away from her toward the interior of his hut.

‘I suppose I had better have a look for myself first,’ he said, and raised his voice peevishly. ‘My hat, where the devil is my damned hat?’

They looked quite normal as they moved together across the compound, but Sister Langtry set the pace and it kept the colonel puffing.

‘Any… idea… why… Sister?’ he panted, slowing down experimentally, but discovering that she continued to forge ahead without any sort of regard for his wind.

‘Yes, sir, I do know why. I caught Sergeant Daggett last night in the bathhouse attempting to molest Sergeant Wilson. I imagine that at some time during the night Sergeant Daggett was seized by some sort of fit of guilt or remorse, and decided to end his life where the attack had occurred, in the bathhouse. There’s a definite sexual motif—his genitals have been slashed about rather badly.’

How could she speak so effortlessly when she was walking so damned quickly? ‘God spare me days, Sister, will you bloody slow down?’ he shouted. Then what she had said about genitals penetrated, and the dismay crept over him as lankly as a jellyfish. ‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear!’

The colonel took but one brief look inside the bathhouse, which Sister Langtry had unlocked for him with rock-firm hands. He dodged out again barely hanging onto his gorge, but also determined that he was not going to lose it in front of this woman above all people in the world. After a period of deep breathing which he disguised by strutting about with his hands behind his back, looking as important and thoughtful as his gorge would let him, he harumphed and stopped in front of Sister Langtry, who had waited patiently, and now eyed him with faint derision. Damn the woman!

‘Does anyone know about this?’ he asked, bringing out his handkerchief and mopping his face, which was gradually returning to its normal high color.

‘The suicide, I don’t think so,’ she said, voice coolly considering. ‘Unfortunately the attempt to molest Sergeant Wilson was witnessed by Captain Parkinson and Sergeant Maynard as well as by me personally, sir.’

He clicked his tongue. ‘Most regrettable! At what time did the attempt to molest Sergeant Wilson occur?’

‘Approximately half-past one in the morning, sir.’

He stared at her in mingled suspicion and exasperation. ‘What on earth were you all doing buzzing round the bathhouse at that hour? And how did you permit any of this to happen, Sister? Why didn’t you put an orderly in the ward overnight, if not a relief nurse?’

She stared back expressionlessly. ‘If you’re referring to the attack on Sergeant Wilson, sir, I had no basis to suppose Sergeant Daggett’s intentions lay in that direction. If you’re referring to the suicide, I had absolutely no indication that such were Sergeant Daggett’s intentions regarding himself.’

‘Then you have no doubt that it’s suicide, Sister?’

‘None at all. The razor was in his own hand when the injuries were inflicted. Didn’t you see that for yourself? Holding a Bengal to cut down deeply instead of to scrape the surface of the skin is the same hold reinforced by strength.’

He resented the inference that his gorge had not permitted his staying long enough to inspect the corpse as thoroughly as apparently she had done, so he switched tactics. ‘I repeat, why did you not have someone stand guard in the ward during the night, Sister? And why did you not report Sergeant Daggett’s attack on Sergeant Wilson to me immediately?’

Her eyes opened guilelessly wide. ‘Sir! At two in the morning? I really didn’t think you’d thank me for rousing you at such an hour for something which was not a true medical emergency. We broke it up before Sergeant Wilson sustained any physical harm, and when I left Sergeant Daggett he was in full possession of his wits and his self-control. Captain Parkinson and Sergeant Maynard agreed to keep an eye on Sergeant Daggett during the night, but provided Sergeant Wilson was removed from the ward, I did not see any necessity to restrain Sergeant Daggett forcibly, nor to have him placed under arrest and taken into custody, nor to start yelling for staff assistance. In fact, sir,’ she concluded calmly, ‘I was hoping not to have to draw your attention to the incident at all. I felt that after talking to Sergeant Daggett and to Sergeant Wilson when both of them had recovered somewhat, everything might be resolved without an official fuss. At the time I left the ward I was optimistic such would prove to be the case.’