The Foreshadowing by Marcus Sedgwick Read Free Book Online Page A

tests,” he said. “I’m involved with a group of doctors here. A lot of men are getting hurt in this war, badly hurt. But some of them aren’t hurt in their bodies at all. Do you see?”
    “I think so. Is that what they call shell-shock?”
    “Shell-shock. Shell-shock,” he said, spitting the words out. “Yes, that’s what people call it. The group I work with here, we’re doing tests to find out more about it. My colleagues are of the opinion that these men are as badly wounded as the fellows in the ward you work in.”
    “But you don’t agree?” I asked.
    “No, I do not.”
    He paused.
    “I have no doubt that there are some cases who have severe mental illness, but the vast majority do not. Those who are ill were probably prone to it before they went to war. And the country needs every fit man to do his duty. To fight. We cannot bear the weight of malingerers.
    “Where’s that tea?” he said again, then turned to me. “Well, look at you. My daughter is a nurse!”
    I smiled.
    “How is it? Are you sure it’s what you want to do?”
    “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure. But I had better be going. Sister Maddox . . .”
    He laughed, but without amusement.
    “Yes, I see. Off you go, then. I’m sorry about the tea, but if Maddox gives you one word of trouble you let me know.”
    “Yes, Father,” I said, and went back down to the wards.

77

    I’ve been working. I’ve been happy. It was almost as if I’d dreamt about what the future held, rather than it having happened. And the memory of a nightmare is much less frightening than the nightmare itself.
    Then, yesterday, the nightmare came back.
    I was on the ward, making a bed. Without warning, everything seemed unreal. I felt detached, like that time in Miss Garrett’s lesson. My body felt like an empty shell.
    Slowly, I turned my head, straightening up as I did so. It seemed to take forever to make that simple movement.
    I realized that I had deliberately turned to look at a patient on the other side of the ward. He was talking to a nurse. I knew him. Shrapnel in the back of his head and shoulders.
    “You’ll be out of here soon,” the nurse was saying. “You can get back to your friends.”
    “Couldn’t you keep me here a little longer?” he said, joking with her. “The food’s so nice and the nurses so pretty!”
    She smiled.
    “Couldn’t do it if I wanted to!” she said. “Need your bed for someone else, won’t we?”
    Then everything slowed right down. He was speaking at a normal speed, but to me his words came out of his mouth so very, very slowly.
    “Fair enough,” he said. “I’ll be a good boy. Let you have the bed back!”
    I heard those words, but I heard others, too.
    Somehow I heard him say unspoken words.
    “And I’ll be dead in the morning anyway.”
    They came to me clearly, from across the ward. The nurse kept on teasing him, he joked back, and everything else was perfectly ordinary.
    I panicked.
    “I’ll be dead in the morning anyway.”
    I ran from the ward.
    I don’t think anyone saw me go, but as I got to the doors, I saw Sister turning into the corridor, coming my way.
    Without thinking, I ducked into the nearest door. Shutting it behind me, I found myself in the darkness of a linen room. There was one at the end of each ward, full of clean sheets and other bedding.
    I crouched in the darkness, wondering if Maddox had seen me, but though footsteps passed outside, the door did not open.
    My head was spinning. The feeling of detachment had gone, I was back in my body. I knew that from the way my heart was pounding inside my chest. For a long time, I leaned against a stack of blankets and shivered, trying to blot out the words the man hadn’t spoken.
    It was no good. They ran round and round in my mind, though l boxed my ears with my fists and shook my head from side to side.
    Then I thought I heard something.
    Something in the linen room with me.
    I stood up, and, fumbling for the light switch, turned on the