‘Isn’t it?’ he asked harshly.

‘Stop it!’ she cried, terrified.

‘I should have been there with him, not here with you. I had no right to leave him.’

Appalled, she stared at him as if she hardly knew him, but then somehow she managed to find a small mocking smile from somewhere in her grab bag of emergency expressions, and smeared it across her mouth. ‘My word!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s quite a compliment to me!’

‘Oh, Sis, I didn’t mean it that way!’ he cried wretchedly. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you for the world!’

‘Can’t you remember to call me Honour even now?’

‘I wish I could. It suits you—oh yes, it does suit you. Yet I always think of you as Sis, even now. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, Sis. But if I had stayed where I belonged, this could never have happened. He’d be safe, and I—I’d be free. It is my fault!’

His agony could mean nothing to her, for she didn’t know its source. Who was he? What was he? A nauseated revulsion and huge nameless sorrow welled up from some central part of her, spread insidiously through her from fingertips to wide incredulous eyes. Who was he, that after spending hours making the most passionate and loving of love to her, he could stand now bewailing it, dismissing it in favor of Luce? Horror, grief, pain, she might have dealt with those, but not when he was experiencing all of them for Luce. She had never in her life felt less a woman, less a human being. He had thrown her love right back in her face in favor of Luce Daggett.

‘I see,’ she said tautly. ‘I’ve been terribly mistaken about a lot of things, haven’t I? Oh, how stupid of me!’ The bitter laugh came unbidden, and was so successful he flinched. ‘Hang on for a minute, would you?’ she asked, turning away. ‘I must have a quick wash. Then I’ll take you back to X. Colonel Chinstrap wants to ask you a few questions, and I’d much rather he didn’t find you still here.’

There was a tin dish on a little shelf below the back window, and it contained a small quantity of water. With face averted she hurried to it, the tears pouring down, and made a great show of splashing in the water, then stood with a towel pressed against her eyes and cheeks and nose, willing with will of iron those senseless, shaming tears to stop.

He was what he was; should that therefore automatically mean her love for him was worthless? Should that mean there was nothing in him worth loving, that he could prefer Luce to her? Oh, Michael, Michael! In all her life she had never felt so betrayed, so dishonored, Honour without honor indeed, and yet why should she feel so? He was what he was and it had to be beautiful or she would never have loved him. But the void between reason and her own feminine feelings was unbridgeable. No rival woman could ever have hurt like that. Luce. Weighed and found wanting in favor of Luce.

What an idiot Colonel Chinstrap was, to suspect Michael of killing Luce! A pity he couldn’t have witnessed this little scene. It would have scotched his suspicions on the spot. If any man was ever sorry another man was dead, that man was Sergeant Michael Wilson. He could have done it, she supposed; during the night she had been absent from her room long enough for him to have made the journey, done the deed and returned. But he hadn’t. Nothing would ever convince her he had. Poor Michael. He was probably right. If he had remained in ward X, Luce would not have needed to kill himself. His victory over her would have been complete—no, more complete.

Oh, God, the mess! What a tangle of desires, a confusion of motives. Why had she removed Michael from the ward? At the time it had seemed the right thing to do, the only thing to do. But had she planned all along to seize any opportunity to have Michael to herself? Ward X gave one no chance of that; they were all so jealous of time spent alone with any of them. And men, she supposed, were men. Since she had virtually thrown herself at a Michael suffering some sort of withdrawal from his encounter in the bathhouse, why should she blame him for picking her up and using her?

The tears dried. She put the towel down and walked to the mirror. Good, the tears hadn’t lasted long enough to mar. Her veil was crooked, her duty hat that never, never betrayed her. Love might; duty never did. You knew where you stood with duty—what you gave to it, you got back. She slid open some deep dark drawer in her mind and dropped the love into it, straightening her veil in the mirror above eyes as cool and detached as that sister tutor so many years ago. Not a viable proposition. She turned away from herself.

‘Come on,’ she said kindly. ‘I’ll take you back where you belong now.’

Stumbling occasionally, Michael plodded along beside her, so wrapped in his own misery he scarcely knew she was there. It was not merely beginning again; it had already begun, and it was a life sentence this time, a whole eternity of living. Why did it have to happen to him? What had he ever done? People kept dying. And all because of him, of something in him. A Jonah.

The temptation to lie on her bed, smell her sheets, press his body flat where hers had lain… She was regretting it now, but she hadn’t then. All that love he had never known, and it was there. Like a dream. And it had come at the end of something hideous, was born in his shame at being caught naked and compromised by Luce Daggett. It was born in the destruction of his self-esteem, the total realization that he too hungered to kill.

Visions of Luce danced in his brain, Luce laughing, Luce mocking, Luce staring at him in amazement because he had been willing to clean up the mess Luce had made, Luce in the bathhouse unable to believe his overtures were unwelcome, Luce sublimely unaware that murder hung above him like a sword. You stupid drongo! As Luce had once said it to him, so now he said it to the ghost of Luce. You stupid, stupid drongo! Didn’t you realize how you were asking for it? Didn’t you realize that war blunts a man’s objections to killing, accustoms him to it? Of course you didn’t. You never got closer to war than a base ordnance unit.

There was no future left. No future for him. Perhaps there never had been. Ben would say a man always brought it upon himself. It wasn’t fair. Oh, God, how angry he was! And she, whom he didn’t know, he would never know now. She had looked at him just now as at a murderer. And he was a murderer; he had murdered hope.

4

The moment they arrived in the ward Michael hurried away; the one glance into his face that he permitted her tore afresh at her own ribboned feelings, for the grey eyes had gone beyond tears, so deeply troubled she would have been willing to put herself aside and offer him what comfort she could. But no; he hurried away as if he couldn’t escape from her quickly enough. And yet the moment he saw Benedict sitting disconsolate on the side of his bed he swerved, and sat down.

Sister Langtry could bear it no longer, and turned to go into her office, as much angry now as anguished. Clearly everyone was more important to Michael than she was.

When Neil came in with a cup of tea and a small plate of bread and butter she was tempted to order him out, but something in his face prevented her. Not a vulnerability, exactly, more a simple anxiety to serve and to help that could not thus be so lightly dismissed.

‘Drink and eat,’ he said. ‘You’ll feel better.’

She was very grateful for the tea, but didn’t think she would be able to get any of the bread down; however, once her first cup was succeeded by her second she managed to eat about half of what was on the plate, and did indeed feel better.

Neil sat down in the visitor’s chair and watched her intently, fretting at her grief, frustrated by his own impotence, chafing at the restrictions she had imposed upon his conduct toward her. What she was prepared to do and give for Michael did not apply to himself, and that was galling, for he knew he was the better man. Better for her in every way. He had more than an inkling that Michael knew it too, this morning if not yesterday. But how to convince her? She wouldn’t even want to hear.