Up, Back, and Away Page 4

  “Well, why should that keep him out of her library?” said Miles feeling a little offended on Professor Davies’ behalf.

  “No reason at all, of course. But back in those days, before the war, people weren’t so democratic as we are today. Here in England, I am afraid, Miles, it has always been regarded as, shall we say, unseemly, for people to try to move out of the social strata into which they were deposited at birth. Wicked nonsense, of course, but bred in the bone of the national character I’m afraid.

  “In any case, after the war, Lady Fisher was – how to put it? Rather distracted. Both her own sons had been killed of course, and then there was that Catholic business with her daughter. Lady Fisher and her brother went to New York for a long recuperative stay. It seemed to help her immensely but it was during that interval that Morgan disappeared. I know she was hurt that he left without so much as a word for her.”

  “Well then, bright boy that he was, he hadn’t learned his manners, had he?” Jack said.

  “Don’t mind Jack. I expect he’s a bit jealous of any young fellow who has enjoyed Lady Fisher’s special regard. And he’s right, really, it wasn’t cricket for Morgan to vanish without letting her know something about his plans. He might have at least written to her once he got to where he was going. But I will make allowances for him. The young seldom have any feeling for the hearts of their elders, and he had lost his father in the war. Then within a year or two of that, his mother was stricken with cancer and her care fell largely to him. One could hardly blame him for wanting to go and not to look back.”

  All this interesting conversation had apparently distracted the Doctor from the stitching task at hand.

  “How do you know so much about Morgan if you never met him?” Miles asked, glad for a few more moments delay.

  “Ahhh, interesting about that, you see, I knew his father, just encountered him really, once in the war, in France. It’s a strange story, uncanny really. Now, Miles, hold still, there’s a good fellow.” The Doctor adjusted the shiny disc on his headband and leaned in close to Miles’ face. Miles saw that another scar ran from his jaw line and disappeared under his stiff white collar. The Doctor smelled reassuringly like soap.

  “This will pinch a bit.”

  Why did medical people always talk of needles as “pinching a bit”?

  “Best, I think, if you close your eyes.”

  “I’ll be OK,” Miles said weakly, not believing it but still trying to keep up a brave front.

  “Jack, I’ve no nurse today. Wash your hands, very thoroughly, and if our friend starts to bleed again give him just a gentle little pat with this gauze, I need to keep the tension on the thread.”

  “Oh. Doctor Slade. I should say,” Miles sat up on his elbows. “I don’t know if I have enough money to pay you.”

  “Oh never mind about that. Just a nasty cut, and you might be concussed, but we’ll deal with that once we get you stitched up. You can pay me with news of Morgan Davies. I’ve had a bit of guilty conscience about him. Now lie back.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can,” said Miles, bracing himself. “But I’d like to know what you can tell me about him. He hardly talks about when he was a boy.”

  “Don’t squeeze your eyes shut so, Miles. You don’t want me to sew a wrinkle into your brow, do you?”

  “I don’t think I can keep from squeezing them shut.”

  “Hmm. We may need to give you a bit of something.”

  The Doctor went to a cabinet and pulled out something that looked a little like a small kitchen strainer. He put a layer of gauze over it and then placed it over Mile’s mouth and nose. He dripped something that smelled like paint thinner onto the gauze.

  “Just breath in. I’ll give you a little local anesthetic too, once this ether takes hold.” Miles quickly felt very drowsy. The Doctor asked how he was doing and Miles managed a thumbs up.

  “All right. It might be better for me to do the talking while we get on with this anyway. The Doctor then emptied a needle of something into Miles’ forehead. Miles felt the pain fade and then vanish. The hard, narrow examination table became as comfortable as a cloud.

  “I’ll tell you how I met Taffy Davies, and about the promise that I made to him during the war,” the Doctor began.

  7. Dr. Slade’s War Story

  “I was a medic and Taffy was a sergeant in my Company. He was mortally wounded at the Somme, as I have good cause to know because I am the one who found him one night, bleeding in the muck.”

  “’Taffy’ is a funny name,” Miles noted dreamily from beneath his mask.

  “His family was Welsh and Welshmen in England are often called ‘Taffy,’” the Doctor explained. “It comes from the Welsh for ‘David,’ which is pronounced ‘Dafydd’. Or perhaps ‘Dafydd’ was his Christian name. He didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”

  The Doctor at last commenced stitching. Miles felt not a twinge.

  “I suppose you boys know that in those early days of the war lots of regiments were made up of men from the same localities – the ‘pals brigades,’ they called them.”

  “Everybody knows that,” said Jack derisively. “It were bad for Tipton since so many local men got sent to fight in the Somme battle. That’s where my own dad got killed.”

  “Yes, and it was at the Somme that I met Taffy, just around this time of year in 1916. We were just outside a French town called Petit Bois, which at that moment was the central precinct of Hell on earth. One of the jobs for us medics was to go out at night to look for wounded in No Man’s Land. Do you know anything about the war, Miles? It’s hard for me to remember that someone your age might think of it as ancient history.”

  “I know a little,” Miles had seen something on the History Channel not long ago about World War One. At the moment, all he could recall were silent films of uniformed men struggling through mud with big guns and horses.

  “Well, No Man’s Land was the area between the German Line and the British Line. Taffy Davies was in a group that had been sent forward to do a bit of reconnoitering on the night in question. There was some shelling and the squad didn’t come back when expected, so a few stretcher-bearers and I were sent out after them. We didn’t dare shine any lights, of course. These expeditions were always an exercise in crawling and groping through the dark and the dirt.

  “That night was very dark indeed, but there was a moment when the clouds parted and the moon shone down. I caught a glimpse of motion and I scuttled toward it like a crab. I came upon Taffy’s leg – well, what remained of it anyway. Taffy was nearby, as you might expect. At first I thought he was dead. His right leg below the knee had almost been completely severed, but I got my head to his chest and heard he was still breathing. Not only that, but when he felt me there, he spoke!

  “Now that may not seem so extraordinary to you boys, but I can tell you I was simply astonished. I had been six months in the army by then and I knew a mortal wound when I saw one. The ground around us was more blood than dirt.”

  Miles felt a gentle tug as the Doctor stitched the loose flap of skin back onto his forehead. It bothered him no more than a tug on his shirtsleeve would have.

  “Taffy’s voice was weak,” Dr. Slade continued. “But he spoke clearly. ‘Here you are then’ he said. I’ll never forget it. Of course I reassured him he would be all right and signaled the stretcher-bearers, though I felt sure he would be dead before we could get him back to the dressing station. I thought I must ask him if he wanted the priest. We had a marvelous one out that night. ‘No, I’m not a Catholic,’ he said. “But thanks for asking. I know I’m done for anyway, young fella, and if I hadn’t known it, your looks would have told me.’

  “I was amazed that he could make a joke, if that’s what you might call it. His observation also made me realize that my bedside manner must need work if I was coming at patients with a look of horror on my face. I resolved right then to be more mindful of my facial expressions. Then he said, ‘It’s all right. While we’re all going
to die sometime, none of us is going to die tonight.’

  “He said it with such assurance – it reassured me, though I knew he was in no place to guarantee safety to anyone. I assumed he was in shock and had no real idea of what he was saying. We got him onto the stretcher and started back for our line. We’d only gone a couple of yards when a flare went up and bullets started flying. I swear, boys, one went by my head that missed me by no more than a coat of varnish. ‘Never fear, lads,’ Taffy yelled. ‘I’m to go to the hospital in Rouen tomorrow. We’ll get back right enough tonight.’

  “We did make it, and not a scratch on anyone but Taffy, of course. The doctor at the field hospital took one look at his leg and within ten minutes finished the amputation. Through all of it, even through the operation, Taffy had something clutched in his hand. We tried to get it from him but he held it fast and said he wouldn’t let it go ‘til he got to Rouen and got his letters written.’

  “Men rave sometimes in such situations and it was hardly worth arguing over. No one expected him to live out the hour, much less the night. When it was all over, the doctor said I could go back to my billet and get some sleep, but I thought I would sit by Taffy.

  “I must have dozed off because sometime just before dawn, he gave me a nudge and said I ought to get to my cot ‘for a bit o’ shut eye.’ I asked how he was feeling and he said he was all right. He was white as a sheet but perfectly alert. He was still clutching whatever it was in his hand. I asked him about it, and he said he begged my pardon but he wasn’t at liberty to discuss it.

  “We talked for the next hour, in whispers for the sake of the other men. I made him some tea and he drank it. He told me he had been head gardener at Quarter Sessions for years before the war and I told him I was from Westfield. We had a regular natter about people at home like a pair of friends in a pub. After a bit, we realized we had seen each other out cycling. He told me how he loved his cycle above all things, excepting his wife and son of course, and that he rode it nearly every Sunday all around the country hereabouts. I had the sense all the while that I was talking to a man who shouldn’t be there. When he faded for a moment I did a little examination. He was cold as a fish. I turned over his eyelid and it was as white as a bit of linen. When he came round again, I told him I was simply astounded at his powers of recuperation.

  “He got very serious then and said he knew he hadn’t long to live, but that he would hang on long enough to write to his wife and son. He knew this because he’d had what he called ‘a visitation’ while he was lying under the blasted tree where I had found him. He said he wasn’t a religious man, and he wasn’t sure just who or what this Lady was that had come to see him, but she looked like a Gypsy in a long dark dress and a red kerchief over her black hair. She had come to him under the tree with a drink of water. She told him not to be afraid, then she had told him he would be found and brought back to the field hospital, and from there he would go to Rouen. Then she had given him instructions about the letters to his wife and son and something to send the boy. This Lady had assured him that this gift to his son, that is Morgan, would ensure the boy’s future; that he would be well. I assumed this item was the thing he was clutching to himself, but of course I didn’t press him.

  “Taffy said he was telling me this because this visitation, or whatever it was, had left him relieved of all anxiety and also eased the pain of his wound, which he felt only as a dull throb. His concern, you see, had not been for his own death, which was a certainty in any case, now or later. His real worry had been for his wife and his son, and he knew his wife’s worries were never for herself but for their boy. If she knew, as he now knew, that Morgan would be all right, she could be easy in her mind for the rest of her natural life.

  “He drifted off then and so did I. When I woke, I found the ambulance men had taken him away.

  “I had said during our talk, and meant of course, that I would look in on his family when the war was over. But I was wounded myself just nine days before Armistice and when I had finally recuperated, I was greatly pressed to resume my medical training in London. By the time I got back to Westfield, Maryanne Davies had been dead for months and Morgan hadn’t been seen since the day of her funeral.”

  “When did Taffy actually pass, then?” asked Jack.

  “Funny thing about that.” All through this tale, the Doctor had steadily been stitching away on Miles’ forehead as relaxed and easy as if he had been replacing a lost button. He paused now and looked up at the blowing curtain. “While I was in hospital, one of the nursing sisters heard I was from near Tipton and mentioned that she’d had an odd experience with another Tipton man at the hospital in Rouen. Of course, it was Davies.

  “I told her my part of the story and she told me what had happened next. Davies had amazed the doctors in Rouen as thoroughly as he had those at the field hospital. They had tried to give him a transfusion at once. Probably you boys didn’t know that we had just then established the very first blood depot. Some American doctors had figured out how to add sodium citrate as an anticoagulant and how to keep the blood cool so it could be used when wanted. Special interest of mine is blood banking.

  “Anyway, poor Taffy had no patience for a transfusion nor for any other treatments. He said he knew he would be dead soon, and didn’t mind going so long as he could get a couple of letters written first. By then, he could barely lift the pen, but had insisted on writing by himself despite Nurse Manners’ offer to take his dictation. Somehow he managed this. Really, in the condition he must have been in, that’s something of a miracle in itself. When he was done, he asked her to address the envelopes and to bring him a little box, ‘suitable for a parcel the size of an egg.’ That bit had stuck with her.

  “She found the box and brought it to him. He said he was very sorry but he had been told that he was not to divulge the contents of the parcel to anyone but his wife, so would she please look away while he packed it. When he was done he asked her wrap it up and mail it. She said he died almost as soon as he handed the box over to her. He hadn’t been in hospital more than a few hours.

  “We both felt that it was all very queer and tragic as he seemed a fine fellow. We wondered what this secret message and mysterious parcel could have been. But the war was full of men who were addled, muddled, and broken. We agreed it was likely some kind of delusion. He had lost buckets of blood and must have been in shock the whole time. Of course, it was a mercy that he had been able to write his letters and die in a clean hospital bed. Still, there was something otherworldly about the whole episode, even in the coincidence that brought me in touch with Nurse Manners. She quite agreed.

  “When I at last got back to Westfield and heard that Maryanne was dead and Morgan gone, my first thought was of those letters and that package. I hope to God they got them…”

  Oh they got them, Miles thought dreamily. He had read the very letter written by Taffy Davies on his deathbed to his beloved son. He had read it just three days ago, at a kitchen table in Austin, Texas, in another time and in a different world. And the gift contained in that package, a funny little stone with white lines running through it, was sitting in a quiet lump in the haversack not ten feet from where the Doctor now stood with his needle. Miles felt almost tempted to tell, but even the marvelously relaxing painkillers couldn’t loosen his tongue. “Don’t say anything,” Miles thought.

  And then he drifted off to sleep on his billowy cloud of anesthesia.

  8. A Toehold In History

  When he awoke Miles found himself still on the table in Dr. Slade’s office but he felt very much as though his cloud had crash-landed. He saw from the angle of the sun that it must be late afternoon or early evening, some hours after his arrival at the Doctor’s office. He also felt sick. Dr. Slade, who was sitting at a chair beside him, reading a thick book, hopped up instantly with a kidney-shaped bowl into which Miles unceremoniously retched.

  “That nausea might be the anesthetic, or it might be owing to your head injury,” Dr. Sl
ade said in a tone that betrayed some worry. “We’ll need to keep an eye on you for at least the next few days.”

  Miles groaned. Jack was nowhere in sight. He was truly on his own now. All that had happened came back to him in a flood and before he could stop himself, he started crying. The motion of crying made his head hurt mightily, which made him cry harder. “What am I going to do?”

  Doctor Slade laid his scarred right hand gently on Miles’ heaving shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll be all right. Jack and Molly have only gone off to arrange your lodging. Really, you should count yourself lucky. I don’t think hospitalization is necessary, but you will need a bit of nursing and someone to keep an eye on you. Mrs. Peppermore and Susannah are just the thing.”

  “But I don’t know them – and they don’t know me.” Miles had never in his life been forced to rely on the kindness of absolute strangers. Something about it was humiliating. He was struck with the horrible realization that he was a homeless person. Miles McTavish, only son of Chuck McTavish, private banker, and Clare Sobel McTavish, first executive vice president at InterTel, reduced to a beggar. All his worldly goods consisted of a broken bicycle, a small bundle of now mostly dirty and bloody clothes, and twelve pounds cash money – which might not be worth the paper it was printed on. His sense of misery deepened and he shook with sobs.

  “Well, they know you’re a friend in need,” Doctor Slade continued in the voice one uses with a broken-hearted child. “You won’t be the first person the Peppermores have helped. And, as you said, you’ve nowhere else to go at the moment so why not just accept what Providence has seen fit to supply? With a little time to mend you’ll be good as new and fit to go to Sessions to ask for that job we talked about.”