The Foreshadowing by Marcus Sedgwick Read Free Book Online

the inside. The other nurses see the war differently, they see the soldiers differently.
    “What brave men!” they’ll say.
    “Poor things.”
    “We’ll soon get them right, then they can go and sort them out!”
    The Germans, they mean.
    And they crow about our brave men. It’s not that I don’t think they’re brave, it’s simply that when I look at a broken body, all I feel is sadness. Not pride, or pity, or horror, or hatred. To me those are false feelings, emotions that we put on top of our sadness, because of the war, because of our country or because we don’t want to feel afraid.
    I just wish it didn’t have to be like this.

78

    As I went to bed last night I saw the Greek Myths Miss Garrett loaned me. I’ve barely picked it up since then; I’ve been too tired in the evening to think about reading.
    Maybe there’s another reason too.
    At first I read the stories greedily each night. They’re so full of wonderful characters; heroes and heroines. Such awful things happen to them, it’s easy to sympathize. I wondered who I would be, if I was in the myths. And after a few nights I found my answer.
    I read a few lines, just a very few lines, about a young girl from Troy called Cassandra. A prophetess who sees the future, and whom no one believes.
    Suddenly I found I didn’t want to read anymore, not these stories of people killing and loving and dying. There’s too much of that going on as it is. I don’t want these stories now, even though they were comforting before.

    Thomas wrote to me today, which was wonderful.
    I put his letter in my pocket because I knew it would irritate Father if I read it at the breakfast table.
    “Are you going to be at the hospital this afternoon?” Father said to me. “I would like you to have tea with me. Four o’clock?”
    “Yes,” I said, surprised.
    So after I got back from Miss Garrett’s I changed into my uniform and made my way up to the hospital.
    I could tell Sister Maddox was not happy when I said I was to meet my father as soon as I reported for duty, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. He’s the doctor, after all, and she’s a sister. That’s how things work.
    When we got to Father’s office on the second floor, he wasn’t there.
    “Well, I suppose you’d better wait,” she said. “Since you’re his daughter I’m sure that will be fine.”
    I looked around. I wondered why I had never visited him here before, but then, there’s a lot I don’t know about my father. He doesn’t talk much about his work at home.
    I soon got bored with waiting, and went over to the window with its view across town and down to the sea. It was as if I could feel something tugging at me again. From France, across the waves. It was stronger this time, and I was scared. I didn’t want Father to see me like this.
    I sat down at his desk and flicked through the papers on his desk, then realized what I was doing and stopped.
    There was a book lying facedown on his desk. The Duality of the Mind by Arthur Wigan. It looked very old. It was next to a sheaf of papers, the top one of which was much more recent, dated 1908, and called “Memory of the Present and False Recognition,” by someone called Bergson. I had a struggle to understand what the title meant, but it took my mind away from the window.
    “Alexandra.”
    Father was at the door.
    I jumped up.
    “I’m sorry I’m late. Sometimes it’s hard to leave.”
    He seemed distracted, but came and sat in the chair I had vacated.
    “I’ve sent for some tea. . . .”
    “Were you doing rounds?” I asked.
    “No,” he said. “I don’t do that kind of work here. I see . . . special cases.”
    I nodded, and smiled, trying to show I knew what he meant.
    He didn’t elaborate.
    “Where’s that confounded woman?” he said, looking out through the door. There was no sign of the tea.
    “What exactly do you do here?” I asked. He must have seen me looking at the papers on his desk.
    “I’m doing