For King and Country by Annie Wilkinson Read Free Book Online Page A

the books until she could see the bird sitting with eyes wild and beak wide open,
gasping with terror. She felt its bony legs and claws, felt its palpitating fear as she took it quickly and gently in her cupped hands and carried it to the open window, with the thwarted cat
mewing and complaining at her ankles. A pretty, tiny bird, some sort of finch, it flew upwards in its haste to get away and hit the wall opposite, where it clung with wings outstretched, flattened
against the bricks, for a full minute. She marvelled at the way it kept its grip on the brickwork for so long before gliding to the ground and, hoping the poor thing wouldn’t die of its
ordeal, she watched it, sitting motionless on the paving stones. It stirred, and a minute later she saw it soaring skyward.
    She felt very satisfied with herself. That was her good deed for the day, and now her friends were thronging into the room, chattering and laughing and making a beeline for the tea trolley.
    ‘Wilde! What are you doing, woolgathering? Sure, and I thought you’d have poured us a cup of tea!’
    ‘Sorry! Just coming.’
    Curran was already pouring. ‘Will you look at this girl, with a ward full of handsome fellows making eyes at her – she even forgets the tea. It’s turned her head
entirely!’
    Sally laughed at the expression on Curran’s face. She was cheerful company, as were most of the probationers, and Sally was never so happy than when joking and clowning with them. Whatever
disasters might have happened on the wards, once shared they always shrank in size until they could be laughed away. None of the officers had made eyes at her, and the theatre cases had been too
wrapped up in their own concerns to bother making eyes at anybody, but she didn’t mind playing up to Curran.
    ‘It couldn’t make up for the row I got from Sister, though, when Dunkley told her I’d forgotten to clean the sputum mugs. But she didn’t tell me to, so it must have been
her that forgot.’
    ‘That bitch of hell! Sure and could she not have given you a row herself, without running with tales?’ said Curran. Armstrong and the others chorused sympathy, and the conversation
moved on to other topics.
    But Curran’s face remained a mixture of outrage and glee. She was bursting with something, and when Sally got up early to get back to a busy ward, she followed her.
    ‘So now I’ll tell you something about that young madam, that’ll make you laugh,’ she said, as they raced along the corridor. ‘But don’t let on who it was,
because I wasn’t supposed to hear!’ Curran looked swiftly round, and dropped her voice. ‘Nobody’s supposed to know – but she’s been seen coming out of the
doctor’s residence! And
very
late at night! The hypocrite! The shameless young . . .! Now what do you think she’s getting up to, and what might happen if Matron gets to know?
You could have a fine revenge there.’
    Sally’s eyes widened and she let out a long, low whistle. This was a crime of such magnitude it took her breath away. A sacking offence. A never-live-it-down, unforgettable, irredeemable
error that would ruin Dunkley’s career and reputation for ever and ever. She hoped, for Dunkley’s sake, that Matron would never hear of it.

Chapter Three
    N urse Dunkley had just come back from theatre when the summons came. She was wanted in Matron’s office. She left the ward, white but with her
shoulders back and her head up, braced for what was to come. Sally never expected to see her again.
    A couple of hours later Sally helped the porter lift a lieutenant with a belly wound back into bed. They removed the poles from the stretcher and, careful of his wound, Sally gently eased him
onto one side, and then the other, to push and pull the canvass out from under him. ‘All right, Lieutenant? You’re back in the ward, safe and sound,’ she told him. He opened a
groggy, bloodshot eye and lifted his hand to his nose, to finger the Rhyle’s tube. There