“I’ll do my best. Perhaps we shouldn’t wait-perhaps we should go to one of the doctors.”

I shook my head. “They’ve got their hands full with the living. More wounded just arrived. No, Matron is the best choice. I’ve seen her cope in every sort of emergency you can imagine.” But could she cope with murder? It was my turn to hesitate. “You do understand, don’t you? It hasn’t been very long since Major Carson was killed. Whoever put him here could be one of us-an orderly, someone from the canteen, you, me, one of the ambulance drivers.”

“Not a pleasant thought, is it?” Private Wilson said.

He helped me finish wrapping the Major as best we could, so that he appeared to look more or less like his neighbors. I’d been dizzy before, but the disinfectant in here seemed to be aggravating it. I was finding it hard to concentrate, was eager to leave the shed and step out into the fresh air to clear my head. But duty was duty.

I stood there for a moment longer, remembering Lieutenant Carson. He’d been young and eager, his shock of unruly red hair setting him apart, and his grin had been contagious. Now his hair was short-cropped and showing signs of graying, and it was a man’s face I’d looked into, thinner, deeply etched by his years in the trenches, dark circles beneath his eyes from lack of sleep and too many horrors witnessed. The face of war, my father had called it.

I felt a pang for my father when the news reached him. He’d thought highly of Lieutenant Carson, and he’d told me once that he wouldn’t be surprised to see Lieutenant Carson in command of the regiment one day. Even then his knowledge of military strategy and tactics had been outstanding, and I had believed the Colonel Sahib’s prediction.

“We’d best be going, Sister,” Private Wilson said, urging me toward the shed doors. “We don’t want to arouse curiosity, lingering here, like.”