‘I have to,’ said Michael, not pleading, not looking at Matt or Nugget or Benedict, though both Matt and Nugget had tensed warily.

‘You can’t say one thing to her, Mike. Not one thing! You can’t without all our consents, and we don’t give them.’

‘I can tell her, and I will tell her. What does it matter now? If she knows, it can’t change anything; we’ve all decided what to do in that situation.’ He reached out to put his hand on Benedict’s shoulder, as if the rocking irritated him, and Benedict stopped rocking immediately. ‘I’ve taken the biggest share because I’m the only one who can, and because it was more my fault than anyone else’s. But I’m not willing to suffer in silence! I’m just not that much of a hero. Yes, I know I’m not the only sufferer. But I am going to tell her.’

‘You can’t tell her,’ said Neil, voice steely. ‘If you do, so help me I’ll kill you. It’s too dangerous.’

Michael didn’t mock, as Luce might have done, but the set of his face was unafraid. ‘There’d be no point in killing me, Neil, and you know it. There’s been enough killing.’

Sister Langtry’s soft step sounded; the group froze. When she walked out onto the verandah she stood taking stock of them, a little puzzled, wondering just what she had interrupted. If someone had got ahead of her with the news about Base Fifteen, why should that provoke a quarrel? But they knew about Base Fifteen, and they had been quarreling.

‘That footstep!’ said Matt suddenly, breaking the silence. ‘That wonderful footstep! It’s the only woman’s step I know. When I had eyes I didn’t listen. If my wife were to walk in now, I wouldn’t be able to pick up the sound of her.’

‘No, mine is not the only woman’s step you know. There’s one other,’ said Sister Langtry, walking over to Matt and standing behind him, her hands on his shoulders.

He closed the eyes that couldn’t see and leaned back a little against her, not enough to offend her.

‘You hear Matron’s step at least once a week,’ said Sister Langtry.

‘Oh, her!’ he exclaimed, smiling. ‘But Matron clomps like a GOPWO, Sis. There’s no woman’s sound to her feet.’

‘A GOPWO?’ she asked, stumped.

‘A Grossly Over-Promoted Warrant Officer,’ he said.

She burst out laughing, gripping his shoulders hard, laughing at some joke that was entirely her own, and laughing with real, happy abandon. ‘Oh, Matt, that’s a truer description than you’ll ever know!’ she said when she could. ‘Wait until I tell Sally Dawkin that one! She’ll love you forever.’

‘Sis! Sis! Isn’t it good news, eh?’ called Nugget from his bed, Best & Taylor forgotten. ‘I’m going home, I’m going to see my mum soon!’

‘It certainly is good news, Nugget.’

Neil remained standing with his back turned. Sister Langtry leaned over to study the drawing of Matt’s hands, then she straightened and released Matt’s shoulders, moving slightly away. And managed then finally to look at Michael, whose hand still rested on Benedict’s shoulder, a parody of her own touching of Matt. Their eyes met, both armored against pain, both stern with some purpose; met like the eyes of strangers, politely, without personal interest.

She swung away and went back inside.

Neil appeared not long afterward, shutting the office door behind him with an air that said he wished he had a Do Not Disturb sign to hang outside it. When he saw her face, eyes swollen down to the cheekbones, he studied it grimly.

‘You’ve been crying.’

‘Like a waterfall,’ she admitted readily. ‘I made an utter fool of myself right in the middle of the sisters’ sitting room, as a matter of fact, and not while I had the place to myself, either. I had quite an audience. A delayed reaction, I suppose. The young sister from Woop-Woop—you know, the bank manager’s daughter—came in at the wrong moment and accused me of victimizing Luce. That annoyed my friend Sister Dawkin from D ward, they began to squabble, and suddenly there I was, in floods of tears. Ridiculous, isn’t it?’

‘That’s what really happened?’

‘Now could I make up a story like that?’ She sounded more like her old self, placid and calm.

‘Do you feel better for it?’ he asked, offering her one of his cigarettes.

She smiled slightly. ‘Deep down, yes. On the surface, quite the opposite. I feel ghastly. Like something the cat dragged in. My mainspring’s all unwound.’

‘That’s a very mixed metaphor,’ he said gently.

She considered it. ‘I’d say it all depended what the cat dragged in, wouldn’t you? Perhaps it was a mechanical mouse. I feel mechanical.’

He sighed. ‘Oh, Sis! Have it your own way, then. I’ll leave the subject—and you—severely alone.’

‘Thank you, I’d appreciate that,’ she said.

‘And in a week it comes to an end,’ he said conversationally.

‘Yes. I suspected they’d try to have us all out before the monsoons really begin.’

‘Going home to Australia—I mean when you’re discharged?’

‘Yes.’

‘To do what, may I ask?’

Even with the swollen relic of tears on her face, she looked very remote. ‘I’m going to nurse at Callan Park. Since you’re from Melbourne, you may not know that Callan Park is a big mental hospital in Sydney.’

He was shocked, then saw that she really meant it. ‘God, what a waste!’

‘Not at all,’ she said crisply. ‘It’s useful and necessary work. I badly need to continue doing something useful and necessary. I’m lucky, you see. My family has sufficient means to ensure that when I’m old and unable to work, I won’t be on the breadline. So I can please myself what I do with my life.’ Her congested eyelids lifted, the cool eyes looked him over. ‘But you? What are going to do, Neil?’

That was that, then. Exit Neil Parkinson. Her voice, her look, her manner all said that he would not be welcomed into her life after war.

‘Oh, I’ll be off to Melbourne,’ he said easily. ‘What I would really like to do is return to the Greek Peloponnese—I have a cottage near Pylos. But my parents, particularly my father, aren’t getting any younger—nor am I getting younger, for that matter. So I fancy it will be Melbourne rather than Greece for me. Besides, Greece would have meant painting, and I’m only a competent painter, nothing more. That used to hurt, oddly enough. But it doesn’t now. It seems a minor consideration. I’ve learned so much during the last six years, and ward X has rounded off my education beautifully. I’ve got my priorities right these days, and I know now that I can be an active help to the old man—to my father. If I’m to follow in his steps, I’d better start finding out how the family businesses are run.’

‘You’ll be busy.’

‘Yes, I will.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Will you excuse me? If we’re really moving out of here soon I have a great deal of packing to do.’

She watched the door shut behind him, and sighed. If Michael had done nothing else for her, he had at least shown her that there was a vast difference between affection and love. She was fond of Neil, but she certainly didn’t love him. Steady, reliable, upright, courteous, well-bred Neil, willing to yield up everything he was to her. A very good marriage prospect. Handsome, too. Stuffed with all the social graces. To prefer Michael to him was not sensible. But what she prized in Michael was his self-containment, that air which said no one could ever turn him from his elected path. An enigma he might be, but not knowing him had not prevented her loving him. She loved his strength. She didn’t love Neil’s willingness to subjugate his own wishes before hers.

Odd that Neil should seem so much better in himself these days, though he must know she had decided there was no future in a relationship with him after the war. And it was a relief to find him not upset by that decision, not sounding as if he felt rejected. The knowledge that she was hurting him had been there ever since the incident in the dayroom, but so much else had happened she hadn’t thought very much about how Neil must be feeling. Now was about the time her guilt would have turned in on itself to plague her, and it seemed not necessary after all. His fondness for her showed again today, but there was no sign of bitterness, of hurt. And that was such a relief! To have given expression to her grief at last, and now to find Neil was whole in spite of her conduct; today was the first good day in weeks.