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    A Forgotten Place: A Bess Crawford Mystery
    A Forgotten Place: A Bess Crawford Mystery
    A Forgotten Place: A Bess Crawford Mystery
    Ebook418 pages6 hours

    A Forgotten Place: A Bess Crawford Mystery

    By Charles Todd

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    Though the Great War has ended, Bess Crawford finds herself caught in deadly circumstances on a remote Welsh headland in this tenth entry from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author.

    The fighting has ended, the Armistice signed, but the war has left wounds that are still agonizingly raw. Battlefield Nurse Bess Crawford has been assigned to a clinic for amputees, and the Welsh patients worry her. She does her best to help them, but it’s clear that they have nothing to go home to, in a valley where only the fit can work in the coal pits. When they are released, she fears that peace will do what war couldn’t—take their lives.

    Their officer, Captain Williams, writes to describe their despair, and his own at trying to save his men. Bess feels compelled to look into their situation, but the Army and the clinic can do nothing. Requesting leave, she quietly travels to Wales, and that bleak coal mining village, but she is too late.

    Captain Williams’ sister tells Bess he has left the valley. Bess is afraid he intends to kill himself. She follows him to an isolated, storm-battered peninsula—a harsh and forgotten place where secrets and death go hand in hand. Deserted by her frightened driver, Bess is stranded among strangers suspicious of outsiders. She quickly discovers these villagers are hiding something, and she’s learned too much to be allowed to leave. What’s more, no one in England knows where she is.

    Why is there no Constable out here? And who is the mysterious Ellen? Captain Williams and his brother’s widow are her only allies, and Bess must take care not to put them at risk as she tries to find answers. But there is a murderer here who is driven to kill again and again. And the next person in his sights is Simon Brandon, searching for Bess and unaware of his danger. . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 18, 2018
    ISBN9780062678850
    Author

    Charles Todd

    Charles Todd is the New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels. A mother-and-son writing team, Caroline passed away in August 2021 and Charles lives in Florida.

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    Reviews for A Forgotten Place

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    • 3/5
      Nurse Bess Crawford is stranded among stranger suspicious of outsiders in rural Wales. Having read many of the Charles Todd "Ian Rutledge" series I looked forward to this other series, but not impressed. The scenery description parts were quite good, but the main character comes across as more of a do-gooder than the medical professional she claims. And the whole plot point of ship wreck has been done too many times to be a surprise. I'll give the series another try, but not a priority.
    • 3/5
      The front cover of this book cites a review as saying "an immensely satisfying series." I would agree with that and more. The Bess Crawford series is outstanding.Alas, every series has a dud. This 10th book in the series isn't quite that but it was a slog to get through and most likely, my least favorite book in the series thus far. Bess Crawford finding herself in a godforsaken part of Wales after World War 1 just left me cold.Hoping for better as the series continues.
    • 4/5
      Bess seeks to check in on a group of Welsh invalid soldiers and gets trapped in a desolate, forbidding and forgotten country village. There are secrets here that some residents would kill to preserve. She slowly and at great risk penetrates the centuries old history and current reticence to resolve the several murders and assaults that have been hidden here. As always in this very good series, it has a WW1 connection.
    • 3/5
      It was 1918, the end of WWI, and fallout from the war continued for returning injured soldiers who could not go home to the life they knew before. Bess Crawford, British nursing sister, tried to encourage and support a group of Welsh coal miners who faced grim prospects knowing that they could not go down into the coal pits to work again. Captain Hugh Williams asked for help with these wounded men, some of whom had already been lost to suicide. When Bess was given a ten day leave from her hospital she first travelled to the Welsh coal mining town where her amputee patients were from then continued on to a remote stormy peninsula in search of Captain Williams. Something strange was going on in this isolated place and Bess was determined to find out what. The authors invoke the sense of something ominous in this area populated with a handful of unfriendly and suspicious people. The plot took a while to get going and almost lost me as a reader. I thought there was a disconnect between the well-researched first portion of the book about returning amputees and the dark mystery of the second half. The last third of the book built up tension well but then the ending seemed hurried. I have enjoyed several books in the Bess Crawford series but did not find this to be one of the better ones.
    • 2/5
      Wales. This was an interesting glimpse into a part of GB rarely seen in literature. It is difficult to understand the type of isolation described in the novel but the authors did a good job of making us feel it. Not sure how Bess would have gotten out of there if it hadn't been for Simon, he's the one who really did the heavy lifting in this one. When are they going to become a couple anyway?
    • 3/5
      This was the first book I have read in the Bess Crawford series – and I was a little disappointed. I have heard how good the series was – but found this book to be rather slow – and redundant. Bess, a nursing sister during WWI, is learning what life is like after the war. She decides to check on some of her former patients – and ends up in the middle of a murder mystery. I did enjoy the story – but I would have liked it if the story had moved at a little faster pace. I have been reading reviews written by other people – and many feel that this is not the best of the series. Having read those reviews – I do think I will give the series another chance – and read the first one before I make a firm decision about my feelings about this series. I was given this book through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program in exchange for a fair review.
    • 4/5
      Sense of place unfolded gradually as suspense built over the unnatural actions of this seafront village in Wales. Bess Crawford's reactions to the suspicions of the small minded villagers is admirable in her unwillingness to sit by whilst injustices and violence are perpetrated. A lot of interesting historic detail of people and place is subtly included, adding to the interest in reading.Well written. Well read. New historical mystery #10 from the mother/son writing team of Charles Todd.
    • 4/5
      WWI is over and Bess is now working with the wounded soldiers needing rehabilitation. Many of them are depressed because they have lost limbs and can no longer do the work they did before the war. She’s given a few days off and decides to check on some of her patients who have been sent home, and this brings her to a very isolated peninsula in Wales where no one is friendly and there is something disturbingly odd going on in this little village. Her driver abandons her and there are no phones, mail or police. There’s only one car and the woman drives off and leaves Bess there. Bess didn’t mention where she was going thinking it would be a short trip, and when she doesn’t return, Simon is called to find her.I almost quit after reading the first few chapters because it was so sad reading about these poor depressed veterans and how difficult it was for them and how the war had brought such hard times to England.
    • 4/5
      The Great War is over, but there are still wounded men who need nurses and Bess Crawford is there to do what she can. This time, however, she gets sidetracked by caring too much for a group of Welshmen who seem overwhelmed by their injuries and the daunting prospect of returning to coal mining country having lost arms and legs and therefore any prospect of making a living. Several of the men commit suicide before leaving the nursing clinic; the remainder are shipped home in a group. Soon after that, she receives a worrisome letter from the leader of the group, and when she is given a short leave, takes it upon herself to travel to Wales in search of the leader and the other men.When she arrives in the hometown, most of the men have died and the leader has disappeared. Bess sets out to track him down, concerned that he too will succumb to suicidal thoughts. The trail leads her into even more desolate country where everyone has a secret and no one wants the truth revealed. Then someone begins viciously attacking men in the village, with each beating resulting in more and more serious injuries until a man is killed. Bess can't leave well enough alone and sticks her nose even further into places it doesn't belong, which results in an attempt on her life too. The culprit is finally brought to justice, but not before another victim's life is claimed. I found this book to be less interesting than the stories when Bess was in France, perhaps because some of the usual characters were missing. Simon is still there, but her parents play only a very peripheral role, and there is no trace of her Australian or American buddies. While this book is a continuation of the series, it could be read alone as there are no story lines which carry over from previous adventures.I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers group in LibraryThing.
    • 4/5
      Atmosphere can make a good murder mystery better. That's why so many memorable mysteries are set in stately country homes and foggy London streets. There's plenty of atmosphere in Charles Todd's new novel, “A Forgotten Place,” and it's one reason this book ranks among the best in the Bess Crawford series. There's so much atmosphere, in fact, that the novel might more accurately be termed a thriller than a mystery.The Great War has recently ended as the story begins, but Bess, a nurse, remains in France caring for those British soldiers still not well enough to be sent home. Of particular concern to her are some Welsh soldiers, mostly coal miners who, as amputees, no longer have jobs waiting for them. For some, suicide looks like their best option.When she's given a few days leave, she decides to track down Captain Williams, one of these soldiers, to determine how he and others in his unit are faring. Not finding him in the mining town where he had lived before the war, she follows him to that "forgotten place," an isolated seacoast village subject to violent storms, both the natural kind and the human kind. She finds the captain living with his brother's widow. She, the widow, seems in love with him, while he still searches for a purpose to his life.Abandoned by the man who takes her to the village, Bess can find no way to leave. What's more, the people of the village seem to not want her to leave. Men, including Captain Williams, are being seriously beaten at night, while Bess observes other men being buried in the darkness, their graves left unmarked. What's going on here, and can Bess discover the answers and still get out of town alive?Todd builds the suspense gradually and, for the most part, believably.
    • 4/5
      Title: A Forgotten Place (A Bess Crawford Mystery #10)Author: Charles ToddPages: 357 (ARC)Year: 2018Publisher: William MorrowMy rating is 4 out of 5 stars.Bess Crawford is still working in service to the Queen’s military forces as a nurse. The war is over, but the wounded still need care. They didn’t just miraculously heal once the war ended. She is tasked with caring for a Welsh unit that all had amputations. Most came from the mines in Wales, and with their injuries were not sure how they were going to support their families. They felt they would have been better off dying in the war and not returning half a man. Bess encourages them as best she can. They are all released together for the return home journey. A couple of months later Bess receives a letter from their commanding officer, himself an amputee, asking for her help. Several of the troop have died from illness, accident or their own hand. Bess has some time off due her, so she heads to Wales. She plans to spend a day or two there and then return to finish out her leave visiting her parents in England.After tracking down Captain Williams, Bess finds herself on a beautiful but desolate space of land at the furthermost region of Wales. There are no telephones, mail service, grocery stores or police force. The small village is not tolerant of strangers. Once Bess is dropped off by her driver, she plans to leave the next day as a storm approaches. However, during the night her driver takes off, leaving her stranded. Bess has no way to contact anyone, and she soon discovers the villagers have a secret they don’t want known. Bess is now constantly watched wherever she goes. A couple of men are beaten badly, but don’t know the culprit’s identity. There are dead men washing ashore and secretly buried. The village’s wealthy widow seems to visit rarely, but when she does her home is slowly being dismantled from the inside. What is going on? Bess has a sense of justice and curiosity that is going to get her in trouble. Will she end up a permanent resident in the churchyard?I enjoy the mysteries of Charles Todd because they are so much more than just a “whodunnit” for me. The deeper thoughts and psychological aspects of the characters are intriguing. How will a certain character act in a certain situation? How will Bess react? I like watching the characters interact and develop along the path of the story, reaching a conclusion with a twist. Each story can stand alone but does progress in time, so it would be best to start with book one of the series. Enjoy this wonderful British mystery series set during WWI and immediately thereafter!
    • 4/5
      #134. [A Forgotten Place], [[Charles Todd]]Bess Crawford is assigned to a hospital in England that treats soldiers who have lost limbs. She is particularly attached to a small group of Welshmen she first encountered in France. She takes leave and follows them to Wales. They were coal miners and know they have no future and a number of them find a way to kill themselves. Following the only officer she finds herself stranded in an isolated coastal village in which some strange events take place - men buried with no notification to the police, attacks on individuals, including Bess, closed-mouth villagers and treasure from a ship sunk 400 years ago. An interesting read but I think Todd should have ended the series when the war ended. This is too much of a stretch and lacks the quality of the earlier titles.Reviewed September 21, 2018⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
    • 4/5
      Despite all the books listed in these writers works, I had never come across any. I am grateful for LibraryThing for sending me a copy of this book since I enjoyed it immensely. While not high literature, it was a compelling read, mostly because of the setting in isolated rural South Wales after the end of the Great War. The descriptions of the wild country made for a rich visual of the images it conjured. I wondered if a team of authors would be evident in a lack of cohesiveness but it never gave this impression. I will be exploring more of their books.
    • 4/5
      The war is over for most people, but for those with serious injuries, the war will never be over. Deemed useless if they are blind, deaf, or missing a limb, the soldiers find that they are no longer wanted for the jobs that they had done before enlisting. For the men of the Welsh regiment and who had worked in the coal mines, they face a bleak future of either being a burden on their family or the country. Many find a way to accidentally kill themselves either before or after going home. Bess Crawford is given two weeks off from her duties at the hospital back in England. A letter from one of the officers disturbs her, and she sets out to find and help him. No longer living with his sister, Captain Williams has moved to an isolated village to help his sister-in-law with the farm she inherited from her parents. He struggles to help her, but it's tough going after losing a leg. Bess is glad to find him, but tells him the other Welsh soldiers have either died from natural causes or killed themselves. He feels it's his duty to help her since her husband, his brother, had been killed in the war.Having arrived very late in the day to this isolated village on the Welsh coast, she spends the night intending to go back to London then on to her parent's house for the remainder of her leave. However, sometime in the night, the cab driver leaves and she is abandoned there with no way to get back to Swansea. There are no police in the town, and the other villagers are extremely icy towards her and Captain Williams which puzzles Bess. As always, the truth is revealed and Bess is allowed to leave. I did like that Bess stayed in one place rather than running around England as she has done in some of the other books. But, I'm not sure I liked the reasoning behind all the secrets. It's very well written and you can almost see the Welsh village from the descriptions.
    • 4/5
      This is the story of injured men, many of them amputees, coming home in despair after WWI as they realize they can no longer work at their former jobs and that society in general has no place for them and even their families often see them as a burden. Added to this background is the story of Bess Crawford intent on finding out the fate of the men she has nursed as she follows them to Wales and eventually to an isolated headland where she finds secrets galore and unexplained behavior among the inhabitants that eventually lead to brutal killings. She wants to investigate but is afraid of causing harm to the people who have taken her in and treated her with kindness. The plot and characters were well done but I found myself getting restless as Bess is rebuffed so many times by the villagers until Simon comes to help her finally solve the mysteries.
    • 4/5
      It's December, 1918. The war has ended. The soldiers who lived through the war are heading home. Many are broken men, having lost limbs to mortars or eyes and lungs to gas. Nurse, Sister Bess Crawford, is concerned for the men of the Welsh unit that had recently left her care. While on leave, she seeks them out only to find that many could not endure their brokenness. She finds amputee, Captain Hugh Williams, recovering on the far remote end of the Gower Peninsula in the care of his brother's wife, Rachel, widowed by war. Bess' Swansea driver, frightened by ghostly legends, abandons Bess in the middle of the night leaving her with no means of transportation back to civilization. She soon discovers that the village's folks are suspicious of outsiders and are tightly guarding their collective secrets. She wants nothing more than to return home but the villagers, in their efforts to guard their own secrets, thwart her efforts. It only gets worse from there.There are several mysteries here which Bess tries to unravel. Captain Williams cautions her to let it go and not look for trouble. That, of course, is not in Bess' make up. She heals the sick and wounded and seeks truth and justice.Charles Todd, a mother/son writing team have delivered yet another exquisitely written story. This one is atmospheric and painterly in its scene setting. The characters are well developed and each is vulnerable in their own way. I am grateful to William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins Publishers and LibraryThing Early Reviewers for having provided a free copy of this book. Their generosity, however, did not influence this review - the words of which are mine alone.Synopsis (from book's back cover):Though the Great War has ended, Bess Crawford finds herself caught in deadly circumstances on a remote Welsh headland in this tenth entry from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author.The fighting has ended, the Armistice signed, but the war has left wounds that are still agonizingly raw. Battlefield Nurse Bess Crawford has been assigned to a clinic for amputees, and the Welsh patients worry her. She does her best to help them, but it’s clear that they have nothing to go home to, in a valley where only the fit can work in the coal pits. When they are released, she fears that peace will do what war couldn’t—take their lives.Their officer, Captain Williams, writes to describe their despair, and his own at trying to save his men. Bess feels compelled to look into their situation, but the Army and the clinic can do nothing. Requesting leave, she quietly travels to Wales, and that bleak coal mining village, but she is too late.Captain Williams’ sister tells Bess he has left the valley. Bess is afraid he intends to kill himself. She follows him to an isolated, storm-battered peninsula—a harsh and forgotten place where secrets and death go hand in hand. Deserted by her frightened driver, Bess is stranded among strangers suspicious of outsiders. She quickly discovers these villagers are hiding something, and she’s learned too much to be allowed to leave. What’s more, no one in England knows where she is.Why is there no Constable out here? And who is the mysterious Ellen? Captain Williams and his brother’s widow are her only allies, and Bess must take care not to put them at risk as she tries to find answers. But there is a murderer here who is driven to kill again and again. And the next person in his sights is Simon Brandon, searching for Bess and unaware of his danger . . .
    • 4/5
      The Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd transports me to wild, vibrant Wales and to a time after WWI when the world attempts to recover from the horrors of war. The Welsh men that have survived the trenches, but have lost a limb, must attempt to return to a job and family. A Forgotten Place depicts the suffering and despair of these returning veterans. The description of the men elicits a grim picture of the war’s aftermath, with most of the men committing suicide rather than becoming a burden for the family. Charles Todd, the mother-son writing team paints a vivid scene of the Welsh community and the harshness of life by the sea, which is intensified by the music and language of the Welsh. The story showed me the frustration and loneliness caused by a war, and that life does not return to normal as soon as the war ends.
    • 3/5
      I've read all of the prior Bess Crawford books and was wondering how they would turn out once the Great War ended. This book answers that question, and deals honestly with problems the returning injured soldiers faced. In today's world where we can communicate almost instantly with a text, it was interesting to see how isolated small towns could be in the early 1900's as Bess is stranded without mail or transportation. I struggled to finish the last book in the series, but thought that Forgotten Place regained the readability of the earlier novels. I received a free copy from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers.
    • 5/5
      Imagine yourself a Nursing Sister in Britain at the end of WWI. The War to End Wars. It didn’t, of course, but there was hope. Also imagine you are working I in convalescent hospital filled with amputees of one sort or another. Most of them are Welsh miners waiting to go home to what? Nothing. They can no longer work in the pits, can’t earn money for their families and so they begin to die. By suicide.Bess Crawford is the nurse whose heart goes out to all the men, but one Welsh group in particular. Their Captain is as despondent as the rest but she somehow rouses him out of self-pity to take charge of his men. When they are finally released her worries go with them because she is sure that, one by one they will fall by the wayside.This book is amazing! The authors have created a story of war with no peace at the end. When Bess goes in search of her Welsh patients, the surroundings, the poverty and the beauty of Wales is brought to the fore.She ends up in a village of mysterious residents, unfriendly, vicious, unyielding. She ends up marooned there when her lorry driver leaves in the middle of the night. The village gets odder the stakes higher and Bess is trying her level best to figures it all out and to get out before something happens to her.An excellent choice of book which will be out in September. There are several other books in the Bess Crawford series and I think you may want to check then out as well.
    • 5/5
      I was delighted to read an advance copy of the latest Bess Crawford mystery, A Forgotten Place. I have loved the entire series, but I found this one the best in the series so far. It was a wonderful surprise to find a book deep in a series so exciting. I couldn't put the book down. The scenario was very suspenseful, and the locale was unique and fascinating. It also brought to life the difficulties of injured soldiers returning to their homes after the war. It could be read as a stand-alone book, although I recommend the entire series. I highly recommend this book and look forward to the next.
    • 4/5
      WWI has ended and Nurse Bess Crawford is back home in England tending to the many wounded vets. Not long after a group of men from a small mining town in Wales are released, she receives a letter from their commanding officer who is from the same town. Captain Williams is worried about them. They were all too injured to return to their former jobs in the mine and they seem to be suffering from severe depression - already some have committed suicide. He asks her to come and check up on them but when Bess requests leave to do so, she is told that there is nothing the army can do. However, a while later, when her supervisor notices she looks tired and recommends she take a few days off to recover, she heads to Wales without telling anyone. When she arrives, she learns she is too late to help the men. She also learns that Captain Williams has left for a village on an isolated peninsula to help his widowed sister-in-law. Worried about his mental state, Bess follows him. When she finds him, he warns her that it is not safe and she should leave immediately. But she is tired and decides to stay the night – she had come by taxi and, reluctantly, the driver decides to also stay although at a neighbour’s. However, the next morning, she discovers that he has left and there is no way to contact him. Nor is there anyone in the village who can or will take her the long distance to the nearest town. Worse, since she hadn’t told anyone where she was headed, no one will know where to look for her.As she reluctantly settles in to wait for any opportunity to leave and despites William’s warnings, she decides to investigate the area. It becomes clear, quickly, that the villagers have a secret, one that they are willing to kill for and, as the body count rises, so does the villagers’ hostility toward her.A Forgotten Place is the tenth installment in the Bess Crawford Mysteries series by the mother/son team that make up author Charles Todd. The pacing here is somewhat slow but what it lacks in action, it makes up for in atmosphere. Ifanything, the slow pacing serves to heighten the suspense and the sense of claustrophobia created by the isolation, the open hostility of the villagers, and the over-arching feel of imminent danger. For anyone who enjoys a well-written and atmospheric historical mystery, this is a definite ‘must read’.Thanks to Edelweiss+ and HarperCollins for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review
    • 3/5
      The first few books of this series were marvelous but they've become formulaic with gaps in logic in the plots.
    • 4/5
      This is a solid historical mystery, the first I've read by Charles Todd who is a mother/son team. They do an excellent job in the setting and details of life for the soldiers and nurses in the UK after WWI. Bess Crawford is a nurse whose main patients have been a group of Welsh amputees. Many of these men returned from war to find their jobs are gone and life as they knew it totally changed. Bess worries so she heads to Wales to check on them. The news is pretty grim. She ends up in a small village on an isolated peninsula where the reclusive and odd inhabitants are hiding secrets.The mystery part starts a bit slow and Bess spends a lot of time walking around or doing household chores. Once the story picks up, it enthralled me. I love mysteries where I don't know who did it until the very end, and this book fills that bill. I'll be reading more books by this author(s).
    • 4/5
      Bess Crawford is a British WWI nurse, and we follow her post war adventures, both personal and professional. She is a satisfying character, and although this is not the best of the series, it continues both her story and the story of post-war Britain for the soldiers and communities as they cope (or not) with the newly constructed world they never wanted. I received this as an Early Reviewer copy through Library Thing.
    • 4/5
      1919. In an effort to help some of her previous patients Sister Bess Crawford heads into Wales, and ends up in Caudle in the Gower Peninsula. Unfortunately trouble surround her, in a village with its secrets and death.
      An enjoyable story but the village does seem to be full of unlikeable characters.
    • 1/5
      This is my last Charles Todd mystery. Although I have loved both series, the overwhelming darkness of this book has been difficult for a sensitive person. Didn’t finish it.
    • 3/5
      A Forgotten Place
      3 Stars

      In the aftermath of the Great War, Bess Crawford is assigned to a clinic for amputees and finds herself concerned for a group of Welsh soldiers struggling with the knowledge that there is no place for them at home. Following their release, Bess receives a letter from their captain, Hugh Williams, and traces him to an isolated village on the Welsh coast. Stranded amongst strangers with dark and dangerous secrets, Bess must use all her wits to find answers before it is too late . . .

      Slow and plodding for much of the narrative as Bess once again wanders around poking her nose into matters that do not concern her.

      The mystery actually has potential with the bodies of strange men washing up in the remote and inhospitable village, but the ultimate explanation is vague and unremarkable.

      Bess and Simon are still pussyfooting around and something needs to happen in their relationship soon or else I will lose all interest. Slow burn is all well and good, but they haven't even collected the firewood yet!

    Book preview

    A Forgotten Place - Charles Todd

    Dedication

    This year we all lost furry friends, once-forgotten kitties who made life joyful for those who took them in and found how much love they had to give.

    CHARLIE turned out to be a girl, but she didn’t mind being Charlie.

    SUZIE, who left no doubt in anyone’s mind that she was a she.

    CU TEE, a tuxedo kitty whose purr could be heard all over the room.

    And then there were those kitties who preferred to be in the wild, but who came to dinner and let you know how grateful they were.

    GROUCHO and ROSIE, who have no known grave, but left paw prints on the heart all the same.

    And there were four little ones who didn’t make it. Two who had names and two who left us before they could be named, but were loved too.

    TINY BASH, Ziggy’s feisty black kitten.

    MING, the sweet little Siamese, who joined her smaller sister all too soon.

    Finally, for VERDI, wherever you may be . . .

    AND for Chelsea Marie: Congratulations on your graduation, and best wishes for a bright, bright future.

    Contents

    Cover

    Title Page

    Dedication

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Chapter 19

    Chapter 20

    Authors’ Note

    P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

    About the Author

    About the Book

    Read On

    Praise

    Also by Charles Todd

    Copyright

    About the Publisher

    Chapter 1

    December 1918

    THE WAR HAD ended, but not the suffering.

    While the war raged, the wounded had been desperate to rejoin their companies, to fight beside men they’d had to leave behind. We’d had to be on guard against the tricks they used to prove they were up to returning to the Front. They were remarkably clever at it. Those who’d been given their Blighty ticket were often too ill to think beyond whether they would live through the night. But I knew from experience that once they began to recover, their thoughts flew back to France, to the fighting, where they felt they ought to be. That need often helped them heal. Now, with peace, there were no comrades to return to.

    For others—like the patients I worked with—their war had finished in quite a different sense.

    I spent December in a base hospital in France, tending to the wounded who hadn’t yet been ticketed for England. Many of them had been brought in during the last ten days of the war. Serious wounds that we now had time to deal with here. Most were amputees, fighting infection as well as the loss of a limb. There were gas cases too, burns, and more than a few damaged faces.

    As Christmas approached, a good many of the patients in the wards had lost even the incentive to recover. Too often they feared being a burden on their families, to be pitied by wives and sweethearts, to be told that the position they’d held before the war, whether as a tenant farmer or a bank manager, had already been taken by someone else. Someone whole. There were no shaving mirrors for those with burns or damaged jaws, but they already knew how terrifyingly hideous they were—they only had to look at the man in the next bed. And the amputees told us over and over again that they would rather be dead than live without a limb.

    No conquering heroes, these men. No victory parades for them. Our patients were the ultimate reality of war. And a suicide watch was maintained twenty-four hours of the day.

    Sadly there were other men just like them in hospitals spread across northern France and in clinics in England.

    Many were still in pain, often requiring more surgery and not fit to travel. I dealt mainly with the amputees, whose stumps ached in the night or who felt a phantom limb—the lost leg or arm or foot, which itched and burned and throbbed. They were often desperate to find relief. The doctors could explain it away as damaged nerves that hadn’t yet realized the limb was gone. These struggled to read signals that no longer existed, remembering what had once been there. For the men experiencing such symptoms, it was bad enough that the limb was lost. The fact that it still tormented them was unbearable.

    This was the detritus that war left behind, those who would have no place in the nation they had fought to protect.

    I did my best to cheer them up, and I held their hands when they wept over letters from home. Well-meant letters, to be sure, but only serving to point up that families were already seeing their loved ones differently. One in particular had begun, We are trying to do something about the stairs so that you can have your old room again, but we don’t quite know where to start. Perhaps you can ask the other men in your ward how their families are coping. And the rector has promised to call often to keep your spirits up.

    I came to know the Welsh patients particularly well, for they had enlisted out of the collieries in the valleys, and they already knew all too well that they couldn’t go down into the pit again, that the heavy work they’d done at the coal face before the war was physically beyond them now. Most of them had only rudimentary education. They’d followed their fathers and brothers into the pit as soon as they could, to bring in more income. Their worried families, asking how they were to live with no prospects of work, lowered the men’s spirits even more. I spent a good many of my hours on duty trying to find a way to cheer them. But after a while even I could see that cheerfulness was beyond men who had lost hope.

    Two of them had been the sole support of their mothers and sisters, after a pit disaster had taken their fathers and brothers. Their pensions wouldn’t go far. Their Army pay, sent home every month, had barely been enough.

    My first night in the ward, we had nearly lost Private Evans, a tall, slim man with dark hair and darker eyes, whose left leg and right arm had become so infected that they had had to be taken off. He’d needed several more surgeries after that, and had of course been given morphine for the pain. Apparently he’d managed somehow to hoard a little, enough to take all at once after the last bed check by the night nurse. He nearly managed to kill himself.

    The patient in the bed next to him, a burly Sergeant from Chester who had lost a foot, noticed something was amiss, and shouted for Sister Grayson. She had come running, discovered what Private Evans had done, and sounded the alarm in time. We gave him an emetic, then pumped his stomach, working over him until nearly four in the morning before Dr. Herbert pronounced him out of the woods. But I saw his eyes as he lay exhausted in his bed, and I knew he would try again. There was a burning determination in their depths.

    He was one of a number of patients who had come in together. They’d fought side by side until the first of November, eleven days before the Armistice, and during one advance, a concealed machine-gun nest set up to protect the German retreat had caught them in the open and taken out two entire companies. Most of the men had been killed outright or had died on the way to the aid station or the base hospital. These men were all that was left. One Captain and eight other ranks.

    Captain Williams was worrying. His leg had been badly lacerated, and when gangrene set in in his foot, Dr. Childress, the surgeon, had had to take the leg to the knee. The Captain had fought all the way to the operating theatre, shouting and demanding that they carry him back to his bed.

    I’ll be damned if the Germans will have my leg as well, he’d exclaimed as he was tied down on the table.

    You’ll die without the surgery. A slow, painful death, the surgeon told him.

    I don’t care. I’ll take my leg to the grave with me.

    I’d witnessed this battle, and I’d helped hold the ether mask over his face.

    He hadn’t forgiven me for that. Nor Dr. Childress. When he’d returned to the ward after spending several days in Recovery, he lay in his bed with his eyes tight shut and refused to eat or speak or let anyone touch the stump.

    It was Matron who told him he was setting a poor example for his men, for they needed him rather badly as they dealt with their own feelings about their lost limbs. He took that to heart, but it did little to change his own attitude toward the staff.

    With Christmas barely two weeks away, the general mood of the hospital was bleak. The wards showed no interest in making decorations for the tree that one of the orderlies had brought in from a nearby wood. It wasn’t the traditional evergreen, just a small bare-limbed tree. Matron ordered it put up in the large room where men could sit during the day and learn how to cope with their injuries. But no one was in a festive mood, and it stood there for three days without any attempt to do anything with it. And so Matron asked the staff to take charge.

    Easier said than done. One of the orderlies made a star for the top, cutting it out of flattened tins from the kitchen dustbin. Another had collected cartridge casings, to help the wards pass the time by making things from them. But there had been little interest in that either, and we used them like candles, with bits of boxes cut out and painted with whitewash to put around the bottoms like a cuff to hide the wire that bound the casings to the branches. By this time, more and more of our ambulatory and wheeled-chair patients found excuses to come to the room to follow our progress, although they made no effort to contribute. One of the ambulance drivers brought us small glass medicine bottles from Rouen, which we tied to the tree. Another brought us paper from Calais, which we fashioned into chains to loop around the branches. And then one of the patients from Scotland, who had lost both legs, used firewood to carve a rough and ready manger scene to put on the sheet we had draped around the base of the tree to simulate snow. An amputee from Cheshire made cards for the staff, which he passed around for patients to sign and hang on the tree. A doctor who had taken leave in Paris brought us chestnuts to string.

    Although it was rather a funny little tree, Matron was quite pleased with our efforts and commended us, but we hadn’t done it for her.

    The chaplain had arranged a special Christmas Eve service, and one of the orderlies volunteered the information that he could play carols on a piano, and one appeared—God knew from where—and was brought in to stand next to the tree. It was sadly out of tune but the orderly did what he could to improve it.

    I went to one of the Welsh patients, Corporal Jones, and asked if he and the others of his company might sing for us during the service. Welsh choirs were famous for the extraordinary way they blended their voices, and I hoped this might make a difference in their spirits if they took part.

    To my disappointment, the suggestion was met with a shake of the head.

    What’s there to sing about? the Corporal asked. Anyway, Evans is our best tenor, and I don’t see anyone persuading him to sing.

    Private Evans had been withdrawn since his attempt at suicide, and kept his face turned to the wall. He wasn’t the only one who had tried to end his suffering. One of the burn cases had stolen a scalpel and cut his wrists.

    Perhaps it’s what he needs most, a chance to think about someone other than himself.

    Oh, yes? And how would you be knowing that?

    I took a deep breath. I felt like shaking the man, because this was our first Christmas after the war, and we couldn’t let it go without marking it somehow. It would be wrong not to try. But I said only, Why don’t you at least speak to the others and see how they feel about it. Surely before the war you sang in Chapel at Christmas services? It might remind them why they fought for King and Country.

    We don’t need reminders, Sister. We live with them every day when we see our missing limbs.

    At least try, won’t you? Look around you at these wards. If you could give these men a little joy, would it be so difficult a thing to do?

    For you I will ask, he said. But I wouldn’t raise my hopes too high if I were you.

    Later that afternoon when I saw him at tea, he told me the answer was still no.

    Refusing to accept defeat, once I’d finished with my other patients, I went to find Captain Williams. He was sitting by a window in the officers’ ward.

    As I came down the aisle, his back was to me, and it wasn’t until I paused by the foot of his bed that he turned slightly, so that I saw his profile. He was an attractive man when he wasn’t scowling, and just now there was a sadness in his expression as he said, I’ve done my exercises, Tomkins.

    It isn’t Tomkins, I said, and he moved in his chair so that he could see me.

    Still.

    Actually, I’ve come to ask if you will help me persuade your men to sing for us on Christmas Eve.

    I had watched him deal with his own men after Matron’s talk with him, at times quietly reasoning with them, and at others barking orders as if on parade. His was still the voice of Authority, and they respected it.

    He wanted no part of singing and said so bluntly.

    I said, Don’t tell me you’re the one Welshman who wasn’t born with a pleasing voice?

    He glared at me. And then he drew a breath and answered.

    What the he— what in God’s name is there to sing about, Sister? Look at your patients. The lot of them have already given everything but their lives for their country. They want only to be left in peace where no one will stare at them, where no one pities them. After all, peace is the meaning of the Season, is it not?

    An educated man, for his speech was very English, but when he was feeling strongly about something, it sometimes slipped into that rhythmic pattern of his birth.

    Is it so wrong to want to bring us all a little comfort? The war is over, yes, but none of us will be spending this Christmas at home. Perhaps you’ve been out of Wales so long that you don’t remember what it felt like to sing?

    He was angry now, and bitter. "I left Wales when they did. To fight for England." He nearly spat the last word, as if he hated England and all she stood for.

    I raised my eyebrows as if in surprise. Well, then, Captain, I expect I shall just have to make other arrangements for the evening.

    Do that, he told me curtly.

    And so I went to speak to Private Williams—no relation to the Captain, just as neither of the men called Jones were connected. This Williams had also been a miner in the valley. I had been told he was a tenor, and I hoped to convince him to sing a solo at the midnight service.

    He didn’t want to sing either. And I told Corporal Jones as much.

    I said, letting my disappointment show, I had thought it might cheer Captain Williams. He’s been having a difficult time of it.

    Has he now? Private Williams asked, actually listening to me.

    We had to clean out another pocket of infection in that leg. It’s getting him down, I think. True enough, but this was something many of the men in this hospital had gone through more than once.

    He was all right this morning.

    Do you think he wants you to see how he feels? He’s still your officer, it’s his duty to care for you all and see to it that your spirits are kept up. How many times has his face been the first you see by your bed as you come out of the ether? How many times has he held your head as you were sick from it? And told you to buck up and face it like a man when you want to pity yourselves? Who is it who does these things for him?

    I don’t think it had occurred to him that Captain Williams was suffering too. He hid it well when his men were around. It’s not my place to tell Captain what to do, he answered me slowly.

    Then don’t. Tell him you all wish to sing, and beg him to join you. I can’t believe he’ll refuse.

    In the end, somehow, we had four tenors, three baritones—including the Captain’s—and two bass voices. Even Private Evans refused to be left behind. And the music—without accompaniment—soared around us, filling the room with its power. From where I sat, I could see the faces of the audience, for a moment transfixed by something outside themselves. I felt like weeping in gratitude.

    We carried the decorated tree to the wards afterward for those too ill to come to the service. The chaplain, Father Johnson, read from Luke and led us in prayer. And Matron surprised the men with a tot of rum in place of the traditional Christmas sherry.

    Not very much like a Christmas any of us remembered from before the war, but it was better than we’d hoped for the spirits in our wards. Better still than a Christmas any of the men had enjoyed in the trenches these last four years.

    After the wards were asleep, the Sisters gathered in Matron’s quarters for a small glass of sherry and her gratitude for all our efforts.

    I thought surely Captain Williams was going to be difficult the next day, especially since I’d more or less tricked him into joining the choir. I encountered him in the passage leading to the dining room.

    A happy Christmas, I said, smiling as I was about to pass him. I hear there is a fine goose for dinner.

    There is, he said, and paused. I’ve been a curmudgeon. I’m sorry.

    Surprised, I replied, It hasn’t been the happiest of times for many of you.

    No. It’s one thing to find courage on the battlefield. We’re brave because we don’t want others to know we’re afraid. But what we fear most is letting the side down. He gestured to his missing leg. This takes a very different kind of courage. I watched the faces of the men listening to us last night. They’ve lost their way. So have I. I was ashamed of what I’d said to you.

    It wasn’t a confession that he found it easy to make. Least of all to me, I thought. But I said only, It was a gift you and your men gave us. We were grateful.

    I’d like to make amends, he answered. I can read to the other patients. Write letters for them. Whatever they need. It will spare you and the other Sisters. I saw something else—how tired you are.

    I wasn’t sure just what had touched him last night or shifted his mood. The music? Whatever it was, I was glad to see it. We had learned, dealing with the wounded, that the state of a man’s mind could make the difference between life and death, often in the face of the doctors giving up hope that they could save him. It was true of amputees too.

    Thank you, Captain. That’s very thoughtful of you.

    When I said something to Matron later, she smiled. I don’t know if it was only the singing. He doesn’t receive any letters, our Captain. But one came in the last post from his sister-in-law. It raised his spirits no end. Apparently he and his brother were close.

    I knew that Matron kept an eye on the letters men received, and sometimes read them first when she had reason to think they would distress men already struggling to address their future.

    He’s never spoken of his family. I didn’t know he had a brother.

    And nor did I. I debated whether to give it to him, but in the end decided I had no right to withhold it. And a very good thing I did. Matron smiled. I must say, the Captain was the most cheerful I’ve ever seen him.

    My parents came to the base hospital for New Year’s. I wasn’t sure just how my father had managed it, but I was so pleased to see them. There was only time for a meal at a small restaurant that my father had found. The food was barely edible, but we didn’t care. It was enough to enjoy each other’s company.

    Afterward, while my mother had tea with Matron, the Colonel Sahib toured the hospital. I watched from a distance. He had a way with men, speaking to each one with a personal warmth that made them sit up a little straighter in their beds and smile. High-ranking officers had visited hospitals often during the war, but since the Armistice, they had come infrequently.

    When he had finished the tour and rejoined my mother in Matron’s tiny sitting room, I came to say good-bye and walk with them to the official motorcar that stood waiting by the door.

    Matron was just behind me as the motorcar drove away. Your parents care deeply for you, Sister. They would never say so, but I have a feeling they would be happy to see you at home again, now the war has ended.

    I’m still needed, Matron.

    Yes. We must not fail these men. And then she turned and went inside.

    I stood there in the cold wind and watched the tiny red rear light disappear in the early dusk of January, feeling a sudden loneliness. But I was on duty at four, and went to relieve Sister Grant in the burn ward.

    I hadn’t told the patients that the Colonel Sahib, as we called him, was my father. It was best if they believed that he had come out of concern for them. Which was true enough.

    Captain Williams was the only man to put two and two together. He said the next day, when I saw him at breakfast, He’s a fine man, your father. I wish there had been more like him at HQ. The war might have been conducted differently. And I see where you get your strength and determination.

    I took it as a compliment, not a reference to my persistence over the Welsh choir.

    Ten days later, many of our patients were sent to England as the Medical Corps found accommodation for them in various clinics around the country. The Welsh patients had somehow arranged to be sent to the same clinic. I was fairly certain that Matron had had a hand in that, because they had not only served together but also been wounded on that same frightful morning. What surprised me was the news that Captain Williams had managed to be sent to the same clinic, although he was an officer and it was for other ranks.

    When I commented on that, he said, surprising me by grinning, I’ve got accustomed to telling that lot what to do and how to behave. Then, the grin fading, he said, They’re worried, Sister. Private Morris has already asked me what he’s to do when they’re released to go home. There’s no work for them in the mines. They don’t have the education I was given, and so they aren’t prepared for any other work. Now that we’re returning to England, it preys on their minds. I’m concerned about them.

    I’ve noticed, I said. Private Jones in particular is not doing well. He had lost both feet, and he’d become increasingly moody. When the other men had been given crutches, he was confined to a wheeled chair. And there’s Private Evans as well. I can’t believe he’s resigned to his lot. I’ve asked the orderlies to watch him on the crossing. It would be all too easy to fall overboard.

    It wasn’t done, discussing one patient with another, but I thought the Captain already knew who was at greatest risk. As he’d learned to manage his crutches, he’d spent a good bit of time in the wards with his men. I knew that was not a sign that he himself was comfortable with the loss of his leg, only an indication of the responsibility he felt for his men.

    Perhaps because he could return to his position in the mine office, he felt he owed it to them to see them through what lay ahead.

    I wanted to be a schoolmaster, he’d said one day as I was changing his bandages. I had a gift for mathematics, and that was why I was sent off to school. It was expected that I’d come back and work in the office. When I asked if I could teach instead, I was told to be grateful for the opportunity I was given.

    That must have been a disappointment.

    It was. I was saving as much of my pay as I could, to go back to school, and then the war came along. I expect this—he pointed to his leg—will put paid to any hope of teaching.

    You never know, I said, encouraging. Stranger things have happened. You won’t be the only schoolmaster on crutches, surely.

    We readied the patients being sent back to England, and in mid-January, we said good-bye to them.

    Captain Williams said, as he was being loaded into the first ambulance, I shall miss your meddling, Sister Crawford.

    I smiled. You’ll find that most Sisters are rather good at getting their own way.

    He nodded. It’s a good thing you weren’t your father’s son instead of his daughter. You’d be running the Army by now. I’d give much to see you in the same room as General Haig.

    It would probably have meant the end of my career as an officer, I retorted, and wished him well before turning to settle the next patient being brought forward.

    We watched them out of sight, my fellow nurses and I, then went back to the wards to prepare for patients being sent to us from a smaller base hospital that had now been closed.

    The winter roads were crowded with refugees trying to return to whatever was left of their homes, and sometimes we found ourselves helping a child with the croup or a man with blisters on his feet from walking in shoes that didn’t fit. We found the man a pair of Army boots from a patient who had died from pneumonia that same week, and sent him on his way. Pneumonia was our enemy as the rains began. And then I was sent back to England with another convoy, as additional space was found in clinics there, and my ambulance drove through a cold rain all the way to Calais.

    The facial wounds were going to a clinic in Sussex where some attempt at reconstruction was being made, but a Sister who had been there told me privately that it was mostly a leather shield that kept the wound from shocking people. The burn cases were going for special surgical repairs of ears or nose, and something to help smooth out the tight, bunched scars. Amputees were destined for clinics where they would be kept until their stumps were healed. One Yorkshire man told me he was going to whittle himself a wooden leg, like pirates wore.

    I wanted to weep for all of them.

    The orderlies kept a suicide watch on board the ship as men grew more and more anxious the closer we came to Dover. A few sat in the lee of the deck, to watch for the white cliffs to loom out of the sheets of rain.

    One said to me as he spun his cigarette over the rail, I never thought I’d see England again. I expected to die out there.

    He’d been a solicitor in his life before the war. Although he’d lost an arm, he could go on being a solicitor. What worried him was his wife’s reaction to his wound.

    She had been told about it. But that was quite different from seeing it.

    But there she was, on the docks at Dover, waiting for him, and I could see the relief in his eyes as she watched him come awkwardly toward her. He would remain in a clinic for several weeks, but she had come all the way from Hereford to see him as soon as possible.

    Most of the wounded dreaded pity above all. Pity in the eyes of their loved ones and in the faces of people on the street.

    We’d run out of the rain halfway to London, but it was a cold, dreary evening all the same. It was after midnight when at last I was free to enjoy the four days’ leave I had coming to me. Not enough time to go to Somerset, but my mother had written that she and my father would be driving up to London to meet me.

    I walked out of the station with my kit in my hands, and there was no one waiting for me.

    Surprised—and more than a little worried—I looked around for a cab that I could take to Mrs. Hennessey’s. I’d kept my flat there for just such short leaves, and over the four years of the war, it had become a second home. And in a way I’d come to enjoy my independence. I was no longer the young girl I’d been in 1914, looking forward to tennis and parties and weekends in the country. Many of my prewar friends were already married. Or in some cases already widowed. I was still finding nursing satisfying—if sometimes heartbreaking. While men needed care, I was unwilling to resign from the Queen Alexandra’s.

    I was just about to hail a passing cab when I heard someone call my name. I turned and saw Simon Brandon walking briskly toward me.

    Hallo, I said, smiling. I didn’t expect to see you this evening. Mother mentioned that you were in Scotland.

    My train got in earlier. There was a telegram waiting for me asking me to meet you. Your mother has taken a chill and won’t be coming after all. Your father is in Paris, some conference or other. He thought he’d be finished with all that now, but he was right more times than the generals in France, and the Army is getting around to recognizing that. He took my kit from me, smiling down at me. How are you?

    "Tired. We left the hospital last evening, in order to reach the Sea Maid before the tide turned. And when we put into Dover, the trains hadn’t arrived from London. I think I’m sleepwalking."

    He laughed. You’ll be in your bed soon enough. I stopped in at Mrs. Hennessey’s to let her know you were coming in. That’s why I was late. She’s expecting you. Have you had any dinner?

    A bowl of soup in Dover. One of the ship’s officers brought it to me. But I don’t think I could stay awake through a meal, even one at Buckingham Palace.

    My motorcar is just over there. Mrs. Hennessey will have tea and hot water bottles waiting.

    It sounds heavenly, I answered.

    Mrs. Hennessey lived up to his promises, and even allowed Simon to carry my kit up to my room.

    There’s no one in at the moment, she said, rather spoiling the effect of this unexpected relaxation of her rule that no man could go up the stairs unless he was carrying luggage for one of her ladies, as she called us, and escorted by her. Even the Colonel Sahib was forbidden, which always amused him. Still, he was a very attractive man, and she guarded our reputations like a dragon.

    Simon came back, stayed for a cup of tea, and then was gone, promising to see me in the morning.

    Mrs. Hennessey, delighted as always to have me back in London, said as she followed me up the stairs, You have fresh sheets and towels, and there’s already a hot water bottle in your bed, and hot water in the pitcher on the washstand. Is there anything else you’d like, my dear?

    That’s more than enough, I reassured her. Any word from Mary or Diana, or Lady Elspeth? They had been my flatmates throughout the war, although we seldom were on leave at the same time.

    "Lady Elspeth is visiting Peter’s family at the moment. Mary was here a fortnight ago,

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