Silence for the Dead by Simone St. James Page B

Thornton said at last. “Mrs. Hilder, you are pleased with their performance?”
    I glanced warily at Matron, but she wasn’t looking at me. She had never spoken to me about the incident with Jack Yates, and I was waiting for discipline to fall like a guillotine.
    â€œYes, Doctor,” said Matron.
    â€œJolly good.” He turned to her. “Dr. Oliver and I would like to try something different today. We normally luncheon privately with you, but today we’d like to join the rest of the nurses.”
    From the corner of my eye I saw Boney jerk with surprise.
    â€œOf course, Doctor,” said Matron. “Let us set the table for extra places and we’ll be ready.”
    â€œThank you.”
    We nurses were so run off our feet we almost never took luncheon; we merely grabbed a few bites of food between tasks. But this day we had to set the kitchen table with two extra plates.
    â€œWe’re here really as observers,” said Dr. Thornton as he pulled up his chair. “A suggestion of Mr. Deighton’s. You mustn’t pay us any mind.”
    â€œWe’re happy to have you, if I may say so, Doctor,” said Boney with shining eyes.
    â€œThank you, Nurse.”
    We sat, awkwardly rubbing elbows, and served our meal. I tried to take Dr. Thornton’s measure, as I always took the measure of men who had the authority to sack me. A tyrant, a bully, a lecher? Did a doctor of minds, instead of bodies, have some kind of all-knowing ability to read thoughts? Perhaps he did, in order to heal patients. All I could see was that he was younger than our oldest patient, Mr. MacInnes—who had been an orderly in a casualty clearing station and had come home from Vimy with shell shock—and that he ate ravenously.
    I slowly came out of my woolgathering to discover that they were discussing Patient Sixteen. Dr. Thornton was frowning.
    â€œI don’t like this,” he said. “Can he not be dissuaded?”
    â€œI don’t believe so, Doctor,” Matron replied. “I spoke to him this morning, and he was quite insistent that he wanted to join this afternoon’s sessions.”
    â€œBut he’s never done so before.” Dr. Oliver was amazed. “He’s always seen us privately. Why join the group sessions? Why now?”
    â€œI can’t say,” said Matron. “He told me only he thought he was ready.”
    â€œI don’t like this,” Dr. Thornton said again. “It will disrupt the other patients. And he’ll be seen by orderlies and other staff without clearance. This is expressly against Mr. Deighton’s orders. The situation with Patient Sixteen is supposed to be contained.”
    He glared at Matron as he said this, as if this were her doing. I glanced at the other nurses. They were sitting silently, as if taking in a tennis match. Nina, of course, was eating her lunch.
    â€œThat isn’t all, I’m afraid,” Matron said. “He’s also asking permission to exercise out of doors.”
    â€œWith the others?” Dr. Thornton was horrified.
    â€œNo,” Matron replied. “He says he would like to go running alone at dawn every day. He says he’s beginning to feel the lack of activity in his room. He says he thinks the exercise may be beneficial to him.”
    What are you playing at, Jack Yates?
It was the first thought through my mind, and immediately I silenced it. Perhaps the request was a sincere one. Why did I doubt it?
    Dr. Thornton’s eyes narrowed. “Patients taking excursions alone is expressly discouraged by Mr. Deighton.”
    â€œHe should be refused,” Dr. Oliver agreed. “On both requests.”
    â€œI don’t believe he means to be disruptive,” Matron said. “His isolation, up until now, has been a voluntary one.”
    Dr. Oliver nodded. “That’s true. But if his changing his mind is going to disrupt the others, I wonder if enforced