"I can't stay for long today I'm afraid, so just time for a quick poem. I think we'll have one by Wordsworth. Do you like, Wordsworth? I like Wordsworth and if you don't, you'd better wake up and tell me so... I wondered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills... "
I'm standing before a lake, the still surface reflecting the sunlight and making me squint. Around the shore line, brilliant yellow flowers stand proudly as a lone swift dives through the air high above on its scythe-like wings. And then I see him. Standing at the end of a small jetty, instantly I feel warmer, less alone. He waves, gesturing for me to come to him and I begin to walk, but speed up quickly, until I am running flat out, yet no matter how hard and fast I run, I am no closer to him. If anything, he seems further away. His smile begins to fade and the sadness in his eyes mirrors my own. He beckons a while longer, but then I watch helplessly as he turns away and walks off along a path disappearing into the woodland. The sense of cold isolation returns.
"Seeing as I think you enjoyed Wordsworth so much, how about this one? One summer evening (led by her, I found a little boat tied to a willow tree..."
I hear a bell and it's not my alarm clock or phone. The ringing bashes around my brain, like a steel ball in a pinball machine, but it doesn't stop. Something isn't right.
Open your eyes.
I can't. My eyelids feel heavy and lifeless. The ringing sound begins again.
Move, dammit! Come on, move.
I try again and finally they open, just enough to let in a blinding white light that stings. I shut them, but a return to the darkness doesn't help the rising panic in my gut. My heart is thumping so hard I fear it'll bruise against my ribs.
What the hell is happening to me? Where am I?
With every remaining ounce of effort in my body, I will my eyes to open and stay open. Peering through the pain, I welcome the tears that have sprung, their moisture making the process of blinking feel less like dragging my eyelids across sandpaper.
Everything appears blindingly fuzzy, but slowly shapes come into focus and as they become less distorted I realise that I'm looking up at a ceiling. Paint is flaking off in large curls and a tea-coloured water stain is directly above me. The stain is roughly the shape of Australia. If I wasn't so scared I would probably find that comparison funny.
"Well, hello there."
I hear a female voice not far from me.
"Welcome back."
A young woman leans over me. A pretty face, she wears a frilly net cap and a warm smile.
"I bet you're thirsty."
She raises a cup to my mouth and a little tepid water moistens my lips. It has a strong chemically taste. Not unpleasant, just apparent. It trickles down my throat and dribbles down the side of my mouth.
Suddenly aware of just how thirsty I am, I gulp it down.
"Take it slowly, we don't want you choking, do we?"
She is kind. One of the kindest voices I've ever heard and it makes me sad for some reason. My eyes well up again and tears begin to run down my cheeks, meeting up with the water dribbling from my mouth.
"I think that's enough for the time being. Let's see if we can sit you up. Don't worry if you start to feel a little sick. It's only natural for someone who has been lying down for such a long time."
I'm in hospital.
She puts one arm beneath me and lifts me to a more upright position. Pain shoots across my body and I cry out.
What is wrong with me?
In spite of the pain, the urge to get out of the bed and flee overwhelms me as does the need to get into the fresh air and away from the scent of Dettol which is so pervasive I can almost taste it.
"Calm down. You are perfectly safe. Take deep breaths. In...out...In...out. That's it."
I'm breathing too fast and every movement of my chest hurts.
"The doctor will be along shortly. I'm sure you must be feeling very alarmed, but you have nothing to fe..."
*****
"She's coming round again, Doctor."
"Miss, can you hear me. Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."
I can hear voices but it's not until I feel someone take my hand that I know they are talking to me. I try to squeeze but fingers struggle to respond.
"Well done. Now I would like you to open your eyes for me now. Come on, there's a good girl."
With effort, my eyes open and I see a sharp light again as it moves from one eye to the next."
"Excellent. Pupils are alert and responsive. Say something to me. Can you tell me your name?
"Alice," I croak.
"Agnus, is it?"
I try to shake my head.
"Alice," I repeat, with some frustration.
"Alice?"
I nod.
"Excellent. Hello, Alice."
Big brown eyes, beneath bushy greying eyebrows look down at me with concern. As if I have become aware of gravity, my body suddenly feels leaden, and I can barely hold my head up. The room swims before me and I am gripped by nausea and I vomit what little water I have just sipped.
"Don't worry, Alice," he says, as the nurse places a metal pan beneath my chin. "Your body is just getting used to being upright. You will probably feel nauseous for a while. "
I heave several times more, but bring nothing up. My stomach is empty. It has never felt so empty.
"I'll be back in an hour to see how she is doing. Maybe tempt her with some tea and toast in half an hour. "
"Yes, doctor."
I watch as the doctor disappears from my limited field of vision.
*****
"Here is your toast and tea."
"What happened to me, how did I get here?" My voice doesn't sound like my own, but it is audible at least.
"All in good time. Eat up and I'll be back in a few minutes to answer your questions."
The nurse pats me on the arm and walks off across the ward to another bed, where an elderly woman is struggling to sit up. The room is near silent. Most of the patients around me are either sleeping or quietly reading. In the distance a new born baby's cry pierces the silence.
"Is that nice young fella of yours visiting today?"
The woman in the bed to my right places her book down and turns towards me.
"I said, is that nice young man of yours visiting again today?" Her voice is deliberately louder and slower.
"Sorry, I... I didn't realise you were taking to me. What young man?"
"More than one, have you lovey?" The petite lady with the round face and mop of curly grey hair cackles at me. "The bonny looking airman who reads poetry to you."
Daffodils come to mind; their petals swaying as a gentle breeze flows through them.
"Airman? I...I don't think I know any airman."
She laughs again. "That's what all the good girls around here say, but we know different don't we?" This time her laugh turns into a hacking cough and she grabs for a hankie. I can hear her chest rattling from here and as the coughing subsides she wipes her mouth with the hankie; a speck of fresh blood is visible on the pale yellow cotton.
"Are you okay?"
"Never mind me. I'm Tilly by the way. How are you feeling after your ordeal? Quite the heroine aren't you?"
I sit up a little straighter and the pain returns, but now more localised in my right leg. I look around for the nurse, to see if I could get some Paracetamol or Ibruprofen or stronger.
"I hear they'd have lost both of them, had you not been there."
I turn back to the Tilly. "I'm sorry, I've no idea what you're talking about."
"Now Mrs Roper, Alice here needs rest not interrogation." The nurse has returned and picks my plate up, the toast barely touched, and places it on the cabinet beside my bed. She takes hold of my wrist and checks my pulse against her pocket watch.
"That's much better and you finally have some colour in your cheeks. Are you up to a few questions?"
"Yes, but what...?"
"All in good time. First I need a few pieces of information for our records." She lifts up a wooden board which has some sheets of paper resting on it.
"Alice, what is your surname and date of birth?"
"It's Brown. Alice Rose Brown."
She writes it in the space provided.
"My birthdate is the thirteenth of the fourth, eighty-nine."
The nurse begins to write down the date. "One, three, April..."
"We'll come back to that one later," she says giving me an odd look. "Address?"
"It's number seventy-two, The Lane, Cheltwell."
The odd look is back on her face. "One moment," she says and hurries off the ward.
I turn to Tilly, but she is now sleeping and snoring loudly. It sounds like she has a small, angry animal stuck in the back of her throat.
Returning with the doctor, they approach my bed. The doctor moves a chair and sits down. The nurse hands him the paperwork and starts to fluff my pillows.
"Let's have a chat, Alice. Could you tell me your birthdate again?"
I repeat it.
He nods.
"And your address."
I repeat the address.
"Could you tell me your last memory before you woke up here this morning?"
Searching through my mind is like trying to swim through cotton wool. I didn't have an issue giving him my date of birth or my address, but trying to remember what I was doing before I was... here, is almost impossible. Then it comes to me.
"I was walking. In the woods. I was walking Jet in the woods."
"Jet?" He queries.
"Jet, my friend's dog. Oh my goodness, I hope he is okay, Mr Piper will be very concerned."
The doctor makes a note on the paper. "Don't worry yourself about that right now. Can you remember anything else?"
Feelings seem to come back to me more easily than actual events. I remember being cold and ... scared. Yes I was feeling scared for some reason. And a loud noise, and heat, and flames...
I gasp, as my chest tightens again, my breathing becoming short and shallow.
The doctor takes my wrist and monitors my pulse again. "Slower, Alice. In, out. In, out."
"What happened to me and where are my belongings, my phone? And please can I have something for my leg?" The throbbing pain and lack of straight answers is making me grumpy with frustration.
The doctor and the nurse, now either side of me, both wear serious expressions on their faces.
"Alice, unfortunately you were involved in a serious accident several weeks ago. I'm afraid your belongings, what little was found on you, were badly damaged. More importantly, in addition to some nasty cuts and burns, you suffered a compound fracture of the right leg and a serious head injury. It was touch and go for a time and if it wasn't for some exciting new medicine, still in its trial stage, you probably wouldn't have made it."
I feel like I have been kicked in the gut.
"It also appears that you are suffering from memory loss. Some of your answers to my earlier questions were inaccurate. However before we continue, let us get you something for that pain. Nurse Carpenter, aspirin please."
The nurse follows his request, although what good a poxy aspirin will do for this pain is beyond me. I turn to the doctor. "When you say compound fracture, do you mean the kind where the broken bone pokes out of the skin?"
He nods. I can feel the colour drain from my face.
"I'm afraid so. A very nasty break, but it is healing much better than we could ever have expected. Thank goodness for the penicillin. Stopped the infection almost immediately."
I'm feeling too queasy to really hear what he is saying and that is when I turn and see a man staring at me. Well over six feet, with strong shoulders and wearing a grey-blue uniform, I watch as he takes his peaked cap off. He places it under one arm and then smooths down his hair with his free hand. He doesn't take his eyes off me for a second and I have to look away.
The man in the uniform clears his throat and my doctor turns around.
"Ah good, you're here. " I watch as he gets up, walks over to the man and shakes his hand vigorously. They have a quiet word with each other and both briefly glance over to me before chatting again.
Although intrigued as to who he is, my patience has been tested for too long. I need answers.
"Sorry, to interrupt you both," I can't help but sound sarcastic, "but could someone, anybody please tell me what the bloody hell I am doing in here?"
They both look at each other and then they approach me slowly, the man in uniform hesitantly.
"Alice, I'd like you to meet someone very special. If it wasn't for you, he wouldn't be here now."
The uniformed man is now just a couple of feet from my bed and he smiles shyly at me.
"Hi."
Confused and self-conscious, I smile awkwardly, as the nurse arrives with my painkillers.
"Here, take this." She passes me a small glass filled with a white, cloudy water."
I sniff at the liquid which has a strange astringent aroma. I was expecting... hoping for some easy-to- swallow capsules. I've never been good at taking medicine, but the pain in my leg is getting worse, so I take the glass and down the liquid in one.
"If the pain hasn't subsided in the next hour we can give you a tincture of something a little stronger, but I would suggest you try to grin and bear it much as possible. I'm going to leave you two to chat for a while." He turns to the man in the uniform. "Go easy, her memory has taken a bump."
Both the nurse and the doctor leave us and I become all too aware that I must look dreadful. He approaches slowly, now holding his cap with both hands in front of him.
"May I?" He looks towards the chair by my bed.
I shrug a response.
"You look tired. I won't keep you long, I promise."
"Thanks."
"No, thank you."
His reply isn't just merely out of politeness. Just three words and yet I can feel they hold a deeper meaning.
"Why am I here, do you know?"
He nods.
I wait.
He swallows and perspiration beads on his forehead. His cap is now on his lap and he is slowly wringing his hands.
"Doctor Morris was correct when he said I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you." His eyes look up from the floor. A blue so pale and yet so brilliant, I can't help but stare at them. He notices and looks away, across the ward.
"So I did what, saved you or something?"
"Yes. We came down in the forest. I tried to make it to the base, but she'd taken a hit in her tanks and we'd lost too much fuel. I just couldn't..."
He swallows again, several times. Still looking away from me, but from the side I can see him blinking rapidly.
"I couldn't keep her in the air and we came down, hard."
"So what, I called an ambulance or something?"
He turns towards me.
"No, you found me and pulled me out of the cockpit before she exploded."
"I did what?" My only recollection is of a bright light and heat, but certainly not a plane crash and definitely not rescuing the man sat in front of me."
He nods again.
"Wow! I'm sorry I just don't remember anything at all, but... I am very glad I was able to help you."
"So you don't remember anything?"
I shake my head.
"Oh!"
"Why, is there something else I should remember?"
"No, no, nothing." He answered too quickly for it to be nothing. He stands up quickly and moves away from the chair.
"You're not telling me everything are you? Please tell me what it is."
"You're tired. I'll come back tomorrow."
"Please." He is now standing at the foot of my bed. I don't want him to go.
He pauses, studying my face carefully. "I'll come back tomorrow if I can. We can talk more then."
"No, not tomorrow, I want to talk now."
"Really I can't."
With large strides, he flees from the ward and I am left alone and feeling odd.
Several hours later, the sun has fallen in the sky. I have napped off and on all day, usually only woken up by the nurse and then the doctor completing his ward rounds. He told me earlier that he thinks my memory will probably return, but I'm to be patient and should try not to hurry it. When I asked about Mr Piper and Jet, he changed the subject abruptly. When I asked when I would be able to go home, all he would say was, "all in good time."
The pain in my leg has eased somewhat and not only am I feeling more wide awake, I am also bored rigid. No phone, no bedside TV and most alarmingly, no Kindle. I ask the nurse for something to read and she tells me that they don't have a very good stock of reading material. A few minutes later she returns with a newspaper.
"Here you are." She passes it to me.
"Nurse, nurse!" The woman across the ward from me is calling her again, so she rushes off.
I reposition myself against my pillows, unfold the paper and can't help but laugh. Lying before me, is a pristine copy of the Anglian Press.
"Nurse," I call out. "I know you said you didn't have much in the way of reading material, but are you kidding me?"
"What is it?" She asks, her voice tired and a little exasperated.
"Seriously, haven't you got anything a little more... recent?"
"But that's today's paper."
I look up from the paper, waiting for her to laugh, but she doesn't. She just tutts, mumbles something about being too busy for silly requests and hurries off.
I look back down at the paper and read the headlines out loud.
"Allies launch daring raid on Dieppe. Allied troops pulled back after nine hours of heavy fighting on the French coast at Dieppe, north-west of Paris. The withdrawal brings to an end the largest operation yet to include the army, navy and air force at the same time. Combined..."
I turn the page, there are only four of them. Amongst an array of stories similar to that on the front page, are adverts for dish soap, leather shoe cleaner and a reminder of the penalties for not blacking-out windows and doors at night.
I turn to the first page and check the date. It reads August 12th, 1942.
A chill runs through me as the realisation hits. How had I missed it, how had I not seen it before now? The smell, the lack of noise, the clothing, the room itself, the people. All at once I am out of my mind and out of my time, in a world that should only be accessible to me in history books or on a History Channel documentary. I do the one and only thing I can. I scream.