My Sweet Valentine by Annie Groves

be the one who was complaining volubly that he hadn’t, but privately she wished every bit as strongly as Dulcie that the opposite was the case, Sally reflected grimly. She must have been crazy to have actually felt slightly sorry for Dulcie because Wilder had let her down. George had certainly thought so when she had told him during yesterday’s telephone call that she was bringing Dulcie with her.
    ‘I can’t see her doing much to cheer up our chaps,’ George had protested.
    ‘She can be fun, and she is very pretty,’ Sally had defended her decision and her fellow lodger, but in her heart she knew that George was probably right, especially if Dulcie continued in the mood she was in right now.
    They were sharing their carriage with a pale, thin young woman with an anxious expression, who wasdressed in what were obviously good quality although rather dull-looking clothes and who was sitting primly in her seat with a shopping basket on her knee covered with a white cloth that now had several smoke smuts on it from the open window. The window had been opened by a young boy travelling with his mother, who was having to give more attention to her baby than her infant son. An older respectable-looking couple, occupying the remaining seats, exchanged speaking looks at the little boy’s boisterous behaviour.
    ‘Oh, you’re going to East Grinstead as well, are you?’ the young mother asked, looking relieved. ‘Going to the hospital, are you?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Only this is my first time. My Lance got took there after his plane was shot down. Got burned, he did, according to what I’ve been told, but they say that he’s going to be all right. First time I’ve been able to visit him, this is, what with the kiddies.’
    Sally’s sympathy was immediately aroused. Having seen the patients at the hospital, she knew the terrible injuries most of them had suffered. At the hospital they received the very best, not just of medical care but, thanks to Mr Archibald MacIndoe’s innovative method of treating his patients, of emotional and psychological care as well. For the families at home, though, there was very little support, and even her one brief visit had been enough to show Sally how badly affected many of the relatives were by the injuries suffered by their loved ones.
    ‘This is your first visit to your husband then?’ she double-checked.
    ‘Yes. Yes. Brought the kiddies with me ’cos I ain’t gotno one to keep an eye on them. Besides, Lance hasn’t even seen the baby yet.’
    Dulcie gave Sally a cross look. Why she was getting involved with this badly dressed woman with her runny-nosed children Dulcie did not know. She stuck her own nose up in the air to signal that she wasn’t going to follow suit. And as for that dim-looking girl seated opposite her, with her basket on her knee, she smelled of mothballs and looked like she was wearing something more suited to her grandmother, Dulcie thought unkindly.
    ‘We’re going to the hospital as well,’ the man joined the conversation.
    ‘Our son’s a patient there,’ added his wife. Her hand trembled as it rested on his arm, Sally saw.
    ‘Mr MacIndoe is very pleased with his progress so far. He’s having skin grafts. It’s a long process and Bryan gets impatient.’
    ‘That’s a good sign that he must be starting to heal,’ Sally offered gently, before explaining, ‘I’m a nurse. My … my boyfriend is a doctor at the hospital.’
    She didn’t normally disclose that kind of information – the minute you said you were in the medical profession people always wanted to discuss symptoms and operations with you – but on this occasion she knew that she would feel uncomfortable listening to harrowing tales of awful injuries from people who might assume that she was ‘one of them’ when she wasn’t.
    ‘Yes. We’re going down there to a dance,’ Dulcie chipped in, suddenly realising that she was being excluded from the conversation. Dulcie did not