Read Online Blitz by Claire Rayner - Free Book Online Page B

canna’ fight and kill. Indeed, I will na’. It’s as simple as that. So I came here to work instead.’
    ‘But you can’t want the Nazis to take over the world?’ she said wonderingly. ‘They will if they can.’
    ‘Aye, so we’re told,’ he said. ‘And have every reason to believe, the way they’re behaving now is – it’s sickening. But all the same I believe all life is sacred. I canna’ take it, nor can I inflict pain. It’s not a thing I can do. So, I do this work instead.’
    ‘It’s a pity you’re not a woman. Then you could be a nurse,’ she said, and he laughed.
    ‘Oh, I could join the army and say I wanted to be a stretcher-bearer or a medical orderly, but there’s no guarantee that they’d let me. And I might find myself with a gun put in my hands and then what? Do I turn and refuse and make it worse for the other men? Better to stay here. As for training as a nurse – I could for the mental hospitals, I dare say. They use male nurses. But I don’t want that. After this horrible war is over, as God willing it will be, I’ll be back to university.’
    ‘Back to – ’
    ‘I want to take my master’s degree. I’ve got my bachelor’s. I’m a biologist,’ he said simply and she stared at him again, seeing him in a whole new light.
    ‘But what waste to be emptying bedpans and scrubbing crappy mackintoshes!’ she said. ‘Why aren’t you doing that sort of work now? It must be more useful than this – ’
    He shook his head. ‘The only sort of work that is useful in biology right now is warfare,’ he said bitterly. ‘They’re even thinking of germ bombs. It makes me sick – faugh!’ And he made the expressive sound deep in his throat and she felt a little chill of cold move in her.
    ‘I see,’ was all she could say, and that weakly, and he laughed then.
    ‘It’s difficult for you to understand. That I can hate the Nazis for the dreadful things they’re doing and yet not feel able to take up a gun against them?’
    There was a silence and then she said. ‘Well, yes. I’m sorry, but I do. It’s just that – I thought we all had to be in this together.’
    ‘I am in it,’ he said. ‘Aren’t I? Here at the hospital. Even scrubbing babies’ crappy mackintoshes is a contribution, isn’t it? It releases people like you to do more important work.’
    She managed a smile. ‘I suppose so. I wish I really understood though. I have so many friends, you see –’ And then she stopped.
    He nodded. ‘I know. In the services.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘One’s in the Navy.’
    He made a face. ‘Oh, God, that’s awful. I’m sorry.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Me too,’ and then stopped suddenly. ‘Are you religious? Is that it?’
    He laughed. ‘Because I call on the name of God from time to time? Bad habit that. Just slang for me, I’m afraid. Me, I’m a real freethinker. Agnostic, you know? Not an atheist, mark you. That’s as arrogant as being a theist – I mean, swearing there’s no god is the same really as maintaining there is. Neither side have any evidence either way. Me, I don’t know, and don’t care too much. I think people matter most.’
    She leaned forwards then and touched his arm, suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude. ‘Oh, I am glad you said that. I think I’m the same really. I’ve never talked about it, but it matters to me. I mean, I think about such things sometimes. Especially when – ’
    She was never to know why she did it, but the words came tumbling out of her.
    ‘I’m a quarter Jewish, you see. I had a Jewish grandfather. I have this Jewish aunt – well, great-aunt really. She’s lovely. But my father, and now my stepfather – they’re just the usual English thing, you know, Church. Not that they go much, but they belong and I sometimes feel a bit bewildered by it all.’
    ‘I can well see you would,’ he said. And then lifted his head. Somewhere outside the long-awaited wail had started in the distance and they listened hard