I thanked the clerk and went down the stairs again, thinking furiously.
What had become of Captain Barclay? Surely he hadn’t been set upon in the streets after leaving me safely at the convent door!
Was he lying hurt somewhere? But I’d taken the same route from the hotel and back to it this morning. I hadn’t seen anything to arouse my suspicions.
Outside once more, I debated, and then finally went to the nearest police station, to ask if there had been any trouble in the area during the previous night.
“My orderly was to meet me this morning. He’s missing,” I explained.
But there had been no trouble, no arrests, no calls for assistance. The gendarme in charge assured me that it had been a quiet night. “They often are, Mademoiselle. There is little money for drunkenness and even less to steal.”
I nodded, then asked where someone would be taken if he had been found injured on the street. “If he was English, Mademoiselle, he would most likely be carried to the American Base Hospital.”
“Yes, of course.”
Once more I was back in the street, this time on my way to the American Base Hospital in what used to be Rouen’s handsome racetrack.
The orderly minding the gates was yawning prodigiously as he stretched, as if it were past time for him to be relieved.
I asked him if an American or British or Canadian soldier had been brought in during the night. “Someone found injured on the street, perhaps?”
“There’s been a convoy of wounded, Sister, but only nine men this journey. All from sector aid stations. No one else has been brought in since well before midnight.”
Then where had Captain Barclay got to?
I thanked him and went to find the officer in charge of the port.
He couldn’t help me at first, and then he spoke to his sergeant, on the off chance there was any information that hadn’t yet been officially reported.
The Sergeant, eyeing me with interest, said, “There was an orderly who couldn’t account for himself wandering the streets last night. He’s been taken up for desertion. I’ve sent to the Base Hospital to ask if he’s one of theirs and what we should do with him. So far there’s been no answer. And that’s been several hours.”
“Taken up for-” I exclaimed. It was the last thing that had crossed my mind. “Could I see this man, please?”
“It’s a military matter, Sister,” the officer told me politely. “He isn’t the person you’re looking for.”
“Yes, I understand about the military matter,” I said. “But I must also locate my missing orderly before I report to my own sector. If you have him, then I can explain why he isn’t with me.”
“What was he doing in the streets of Rouen, then? If he’d come in with the wounded, why didn’t he say as much?” The officer was losing patience with me.
“I don’t know. He’d been hurt himself.”
“In a fight most likely,” the Sergeant muttered. “We had a-there was a spot of trouble bringing him in.”
I stood there, waiting. Finally the officer said, “All right, Sergeant Brent. Take her to him. If she does know him, we’ll have a name, and then we can find out what he’s running from.”
I wanted to tell the Major that this particular man was resisting arrest because he was to meet me in the morning at the Hotel de Lille. But that would never do.
The Sergeant led me through the maze of the port to the small square building where miscreants and deserters were held until their situation could be determined. As I neared it, the odor of urine, stale spirits, cigarette smoke, and unwashed bodies struck me.
Three of the men incarcerated here were, the Sergeant told me, drunk and disorderly. He asked me to wait outside, and after a moment he brought out a reluctant Captain Barclay, who blinked in the watery morning light and then recognized me. There were new bruises and scrapes on his face, but I read the message in his eyes quite clearly.
Watch yourself.
I took a deep breath before I spoke.
“What’s to become of him, Sergeant?”
His gaze never leaving the Captain’s face, he said with some satisfaction, “He doesn’t have the proper papers to be in Rouen. Desertion is a capital offense, and so is spying. And if you ask me, he looks more like a blood-a German officer than an orderly. He doesn’t even sound like an Englishman.”
“Yes, well, I expect that’s because he’s Canadian. He’s an orderly, one Private Barclay, and Dr. Hicks can vouch for him.”
“And who is Dr. Hicks when he’s at home?” the Sergeant demanded, turning to look at me. I was suddenly grateful for the nuns’ care in cleaning my coat and cap. The Sergeant was prepared to think the worst.
I told him, but it made no difference. Dr. Hicks wasn’t here, and he wasn’t likely to leave his post to come here and identify this man, much less explain why he had no pass.
We were getting nowhere.
I said, “Very well, take me back to the Major. He’ll have to deal with this matter.”
Turning on my heel, I started back the way I’d come, and the Sergeant was hard-pressed to usher Captain Barclay into his cell and still catch me up before I reached the Major.
I said, as I was summoned to his presence, “The man you have in custody is one Private Barclay, a Canadian. If you will contact Colonel Crawford through the War Office, you will be told why Private Barclay is in Rouen.”
“Sister Crawford? Any relation to this Colonel?” he asked, dubious.
“That’s not the issue here. Please contact the Colonel immediately. It’s urgent business, and he will not care to have this man in your custody any longer than absolutely necessary.”
“How is it that you know so much about this matter?”
I said, showing my exasperation, “I was asked to provide a reason for Private Barclay to pay a brief visit to Rouen. He was the driver who accompanied me when I was transferring patients from the forward aid station to the Base Hospital here.”
He didn’t believe me. But I thought perhaps he was just curious enough about what was going on to contact London.
The Major said, his voice sour, “And if that’s the case, why wasn’t a pass provided?”
“You must ask Colonel Crawford the answer to that. I expect there was no time to see to it.”
“Why Rouen? And why weren’t we told?”
“I’m not Colonel Crawford, Major. You must ask him. I’m overdue at my own post, and must make arrangements to return. I wish you a good morning.”
Before the Major could think of a reason to detain me as well, I left his untidy office and walked away from the port with some misgivings.
And what was I to do now? I was hungry and it was starting to rain. I had no papers assigning me to transport to England, and I wasn’t likely to be given them by this officer. I still had no way to reach my father. My best hope was that the Major would indeed contact him, and once the Colonel Sahib heard that Captain Barclay was in difficulty, he would assume that I needed help as well.
The only thing left to me, then, was to go to the Base Hospital, beg paper and pen, and then haunt the port until I found a Naval officer I knew by sight. With a smile and some excuse such as not having had time to write before this, it might be possible to persuade him to carry my letter to Portsmouth and post it there.
The American nurse in charge this morning looked askance at me when I was ushered into her tidy office. The small board on her desk identified her as Nurse Bailey.
“Sister Crawford? What can I do for you?”
“My transport back to the aid station hasn’t come,” I said pleasantly. “Is there somewhere I could sit and write letters? They will reach England sooner if I can hand them to someone at the port.”
I could see that she was of two minds about offering me space. She was new to me, a small woman with light brown hair and a thin scar on her cheek. Pursing her lips, she considered me.
“The convoy back to your sector has already left,” she told me primly. “You came in with wounded, I think? I was just going off duty.”