‘You were away with the fairies, Nurse!’ Corporal Bennett joked feebly.

‘She had no business to be,’ Nurse Hanley snapped. ‘Her attention should be on what she is doing.’

‘Oh, I dunno.’ The soldier winked at Anna. ‘I don’t blame you for being miles away. I would be too, if I could.’

Anna looked at the raw stump of his shoulder and felt a pang of guilt. ‘Nurse Hanley is right,’ she said. ‘I could have hurt you, and I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t suppose you could do worse than those bloody Huns, Nurse. Pardon my French!’

Anna quickly set about dressing the corporal’s wound. All the time she was aware of Staff Nurse Hanley’s severe gaze on her, making her fumble nervously.

You’re a qualified nurse, just the same as she is, Anna reminded herself. But ten years her senior as she was, Veronica Hanley still treated her like a probationer.

‘Duffield! What do you think you’re doing?’

Sister’s voice rang down the ward. Nurse Hanley rolled her eyes heavenwards.

‘Not again!’ she murmured.

Corporal Bennett grinned. ‘What’s she done this time?’

Anna risked a glance down the ward at her friend and fellow nurse Grace Duffield. She stood by the door to the linen store, her hands clasped in front of her, being told off by the ward sister. Even with her head hanging, Grace’s lanky frame still towered over the much shorter and rounder outline of Miss Sutton.

‘That girl is a menace,’ Veronica Hanley muttered.

‘Don’t be so hard on her. She’s got a heart of gold,’ Corporal Bennett said.

Anna shot him a quick, grateful look. She’d wanted to say the same thing, but she knew better than to answer Nurse Hanley back.

‘It takes more than a good heart to make a good nurse,’ Hanley snapped.

What would you know about that? Anna thought. So far as she could tell, Nurse Hanley barely had a heart at all.

Anna looked back over her shoulder at Grace, lolloping away towards the sluice, her head still down. Poor girl, she couldn’t help being so clumsy. They had trained together and Anna knew it was a constant struggle for her friend, keeping those long, angular limbs of hers in check.

Anna finished dressing Corporal Bennett’s shoulder, and stepped back.

‘There, all done. Now, can I get you anything else?’

She saw the cheeky glint in the young man’s eye and knew what was coming next.

‘A kiss would be nice.’ Corporal Bennett puckered his lips.

Once upon a time she might have blushed and fled. But after three years on the wards, Anna was quite used to the men’s sense of humour.

She straightened his bedclothes. ‘Now, Corporal,’ she said primly. ‘You know very well I’m spoken for.’

‘You can’t blame a fellow for trying, can you?’ Corporal Bennett turned to Nurse Hanley. ‘How about you, Nurse? Or are you spoken for, too?’

‘Certainly not!’ Nurse Hanley retorted, turning crimson. She turned on her heel and walked away, pushing the trolley before her like a chariot.