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'Nurse, what were those aeroplanes?'
'I'm sure I don't know. I didn't hear them. Probably fighters or bombers. I expect they were returning from France. Why, wh
at's the matter?'
'They were Ju-88s. I'm sure they were Ju-88s. I know the sound of the engines. There were two of them. What were they doing over here?'
The nurse came up to the side of his bed and began to straighten out the sheets and tuck them in under the mattress.
'Gracious me, what things you imagine. You mustn't worry about a thing like that. Would you like me to get you something to read?'
'No, thank you.'
She patted his pillow and brushed back the hair from his forehead with her hand.
'They never come over in daylight any longer. You know that. They were probably Lancasters or Flying Fortresses.'
'Nurse.'
'Yes.'
'Could I have a cigarette?'
'Why, certainly you can.'
She went out and came back almost at once with a packet of Players and some matches. She handed one to him and when he had put it in his mouth, she struck a match and lit it.
'If you want me again,' she said, 'just ring the bell,' and she went out.
Once towards evening he heard the noise of another aircraft. It was far away, but even so he knew that it was a single-engined machine. It was going fast; he could tell that. He could not place it. It wasn't a Spit, and it wasn't a Hurricane. It did not sound like an American engine either. They make more noise. He did not know what it was, and it worried him greatly. Perhaps I am very ill, he thought. Perhaps I am imagining things. Perhaps I am a little delirious. I simply do not know what to think.
That evening the nurse came in with a basin of hot water and began to wash him.
'Well,' she said, 'I hope you don't think that we're being bombed.'
She had taken off his pyjama top and was soaping his right arm with a flannel. He did not answer.
She rinsed the flannel in the water, rubbed more soap on it, and began to wash his chest.
'You're looking fine this evening,' she said. 'They operated on you as soon as you came in. They did a marvellous job. You'll be all right. I've got a brother in the RAF,' she added. 'Flying bombers.'
He said, 'I went to school in Brighton.'
She looked up quickly. 'Well, that's fine,' she said. 'I expect you'll know some people in the town.'
'Yes,' he said, 'I know quite a few.'
She had finished washing his chest and arms. Now she turned back the bedclothes so that his left leg was uncovered. She did it in such a way that his bandaged stump remained under the sheets. She undid the cord of his pyjama trousers and took them off. There was no trouble because they had cut off the right trouser leg so that it could not interfere with the bandages. She began to wash his left leg and the rest of his body. This was the first time he had had a bed-bath and he was embarrassed. She laid a towel under his leg and began washing his foot with the flannel. She said, 'This wretched soap won't lather at all. It's the water. It's as hard as nails.'
He said, 'None of the soap is very good now and, of course, with hard water it's hopeless.' As he said it he remembered something. He remembered the baths which he used to take at school in Brighton, in the long stone-floored bathroom which had four baths in a row. He remembered how the water was so soft that you had to take a shower afterwards to get all the soap off your body, and he remembered how the foam used to float on the surface of the water, so that you could not see your legs underneath. He remembered that sometimes they were given calcium tablets because the school doctor used to say that soft water was bad for the teeth.
'In Brighton,' he said, 'the water isn't ...'
He did not finish the sentence. Something had occurred to him; something so fantastic and absurd that for a moment he felt like telling the nurse about it and having a good laugh.
She looked up. 'The water isn't what?' she said.
'Nothing,' he answered. 'I was dreaming.'
