They had already dealt with most of the injured from the field hospitals, although a few still found their way to them, but suddenly they were nowhere near as busy as they had been and there were even empty beds dotted here and there. As soon as Matron had gone Holly and a Red Cross nurse began to prepare the rooms and the beds for the next patients and by early afternoon everything was ready for them.

They arrived at teatime and Holly was waiting in the entrance foyer to meet them and tick their names off her list.

They were stretchered in one at a time by the ambulance men and as they gave her the patient’s name Holly wrote it down and directed the nurses to which beds they were to have. She would then go and make a report sheet that would hang on the end of each bed for the doctor to look at when he did his round each morning.

The first stretcher appeared.

‘Lawson, nurse.’

Holly nodded and swiftly wrote the name down and then the other stretchers began to appear in a line.

Lee, Billingham, Eliot, Lewis, Millward, Parkin …

Holly gulped as she felt the colour drain from her face. Parkin! But no, it couldn’t be … She quickly crossed to the men holding the man called Parkin’s stretcher and stared down at him. At first she wasn’t at all sure. This poor, wasted human being looked nothing like the handsome doctor she remembered but then just for a second his eyes fluttered open and the clipboard she was holding clattered to the floor. It was him! It was Richard!

‘Nurse Farthing … are you all right?’ Matron had just come from her office and hurried over to her, stooping to retrieve the clipboard.

‘I … I’m sorry, Matron. It’s just that … I know this man!’

‘I suggest you get yourself off to the staff room and get a nice hot cup of sweet tea,’ Matron ordered. It wasn’t at all like Nurse Farthing to behave so unprofessionally. ‘I can finish up here and direct them to the right rooms.’

‘Th-thank you, Matron.’ Holly’s voice was no more than a squeak as she wheeled about and made her unsteady way to the nurses’ room. Thankfully it was empty, and Holly poured herself a cup of tea, but her hand was shaking so badly that she sloshed some over the pristine white tablecloth which would no doubt get her in trouble with the housekeeper. She forgot all about it then as she dropped onto a chair and tried to get her thoughts into some sort of order. Richard was here – he was alive! She had believed him dead for so long that it was hard to take in. But then hard common sense kicked in. What difference could it make to her? They could never be more than friends knowing what she knew so in a way he was still as dead to her as he had been before.