Fire and Ice
Summary:
New Year's Eve, 1940, revives bad memories for Foyle. A sequel to Derailment.
Disclaimer:
The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.
Author's Note:
Robert Frost's (1874-1963) poems, I was surprised to learn, were actually published in Britain before they made it into print in the US.
I have always loved his work.
...
Foyle and Sam belong to Mr Horowitz. Guy Grindley belongs to my grandmother.
...
One more for my ladies all around the world in different time zones.
Fire and Ice
"Fortunate that I'm within walking distance." Guy Grindley had been thankful for the winter boots under his trousers as he trudged up Steep Lane from his surgery.
"Her temperature tells me that it's influenza," he continued gravely, "but there's nothing special in the way of medicine that I can offer you for this. Aspirin you have, of course. So use it in the normal dosage. Apart from that, the girl will need close nursing till her fever breaks... and fluids. See to it that she drinks plenty."
The doctor stretched his arms and yawned. Foyle's worried call had hauled him from his bed at half-past nine. As usual, Guy's nightly slumber had been interrupted by his patients' needs, and he had wanted to lie in a bit. But no rest for the wicked, Grindley, eh?
"Did I hear you say you'd tried to call her mother?"
The snow lay thick upon the ground outside. Foyle's consternation showed, although his hands stayed in his pockets with the customary restraint.
"Tried several times last night and then again this morning, Guy. The lines are down."
He'd thought of sending Brooke to Lyminster in the car, but road conditions being what they were, he couldn't ask it of the man—of anyone. And even if Brooke got there, there would be no guarantee that he could drive back safely with Sam's mother.
A real dilemma, then.
Now, with Guy's diagnosis to confirm his fears, Foyle recognised that getting through to Lyminster on the phone could do no good. What would he tell the Stewarts anyway? 'Your daughter's got a fever, if it breaks, she'll be all right, but if it doesn't...'?
Better in a way they shouldn't know. In weather such as this, at least they'd realise their daughter wouldn't try to travel home.
He fixed an apprehensive gaze on Sam, cheeks flushed, hair matted to her forehead, shivering in bed. "Just tell me what I need to do," he pressed his friend. "I'll see her through this."
Grindley slid the girl's wrist back under the covers. "Pulse is elevated. Upwards of a hundred."
He turned and took in his companion's grim-jawed face. "Are you completely sure about this, man? Can you not get a neighbour in? A local woman who could see to her? It could get very personal."
"Come on, Guy." Foyle pulled a hand out of his pocket, gesturing out of the window. "All my women neighbours are either pushing seventy or harassed with young families. Nothing for it. I'll look after her." He started on his inside cheek, as the practicalities of what he had committed to struck home.
Grindley studied the small figure on the bed, dwarfed under layers of blankets, before pulling the heavy eiderdown up around her neck.
"For now," he instructed, "with all her shivering, she'll be more comfortable covered. But if she throws the covers off, it means she's hot, and there's no merit in her suffering discomfort buried under all this bedding. Uncover her completely or else use a single sheet. I can write instructions down for you..."—the doctor hesitated, casting his old friend a glance that spelt concern at the revival of old, painful memories, "if you feel you need me to, that is."
"Nup," Foyle shook his head. "No need. Just leave me a thermometer, will you? Andrew broke our last one..." his voice trailed off, well aware the detail was irrelevant. He finished anyway. "Brewing beer, of all things."
"Happy to oblige." Guy Grindley rummaged in his leather bag and brought out several small-but-sturdy tube-shaped metal cases. Selecting one, he planted it with the firm precision of a surgeon in the middle of Foyle's outstretched palm. Then he leant around in front of the man's face to capture his attention, which was fixed intently on the girl.
"Don't let her temperature rise above a hundred and four," he warned. "Check hourly. And the pulse. I'll look in on you both tomorrow."
"Mmmh. Thanks, Guy." Foyle tried, absently, to slip the case inside his waistcoat pocket, but finding that it stuck up awkwardly, he laid it on the bedside table next to Sam's flushed, sweat-bathed forehead.
"Sponge her down from time to time," urged Grindley. "Make her feel more comfortable."
"Yes," said Foyle, and bit his lip. "I know the drill."
He knew the drill. He knew it from his own son's influenza, at the age of ten, and then from Rosalind, struck down with typhoid at the age of twenty-nine. His son had beaten fever, but... his wife had not. Rosalind had not seen thirty. One to Foyle, and one to the Grim Reaper. Even score. His face hardened. If there was about to be a re-match over Sam, he wasn't going to capitulate on this young life without a fight.
...
The doctor's huddled figure disappeared off down Steep Lane, collar raised against the elements, feet sinking past his trouser-turnups in the snow.
Foyle watched him go with some degree of envy. Here was a man who made a difference every day that he drew breath. A man who reeked of peppermints and whisky, ran a practice on compassion and a shoestring, decently as he could, and more decently than he needed to. If heroes actually walked this earth, then surely one of them was Guy.
Foyle closed the front door after him and walked into the kitchen, where he filled a rubber bottle from a kettle just gone off the boil. Then he heated up some milk, stirred in some cinnamon and sugar, and carried all of it upstairs.
Sam's teeth were chattering as she shivered underneath the covers, but her eyes were open now. Foyle noticed she was squinting in discomfort at the intrusively low-angled sunlight. He placed the hot milk on the bedside table and moved over to the window, where he drew across the curtain just enough to stop the sun from getting in her eyes.
"How are you," he asked gently, walking back towards the bed.
"C-cold, S-sir," Sam croaked. "S-sorry for the trouble."
"Nonsense," he said. "This will help," and, lifting up the bedclothes just enough to slip his hand beneath, he slid the bottle in against her. He could feel her quaking as his fingers brushed against her flank.
With some relief, Foyle watched her face relax under the added warmth, then moving to the bottom of the bed, he raised the covers a mere inch or two and felt round for her feet. Sam barely flinched from the sensation as his hand closed round her toes.
His brows knitted in concern. Almost numb, like two blocks of ice.
"Bedsocks," he informed her, giving her toes a valedictory squeeze, which she did feel. "Going to find you some. Well, something, anyway," and left the room.
Sam could've cried at his kindness, if only shivering weren't using all her energy. On top of that, there was the dull weight on her chest; and then her head hurt, and the weakness frightened her. A phrase swirled in her mind—her mother's—'couldn't knock the skin off a rice pudding'—it always made her laugh in normal circumstances. But not today. Today was different. A day when even blinking was an effort. She whimpered with the shock of her own helplessness. Where was Mr Foyle...?
Drawers long-unvisited in the master bedroom were being rooted through. Foyle hadn't held out that much hope on finding bedsocks. The last pair that he'd seen had, naturally, belonged to Rosalind, and though so many of his wife's things had lain and hung for years entirely undisturbed, he'd had a clearout in the summer for the St Clement's jumble sale, and it seemed quite likely that the socks had moved on to a different owner then.
Nil desperandum. Scratching at his consciousness, the frigid claw of predatory illness steeled his determination. Returning to his son's room, where Sam lay, he began to rifle through the chests containing Andrew's mess, until he found the thick-knit woollen hiking socks he'd known were lurking somewhere. A fetching shade of khaki, he noted absently, like so much clothing nowadays.
"Sam?" his hand alighted with a gentle pressure on the eiderdown that rested on her shoulder. "There's some hot milk for you in a moment. But I'm going to put these on you first," he held the socks where she could see, "so don't be startled."
Her eyes peeled open, puffy, moist, and sent him such a grateful look... Had she been weeping?
"Sam." He was insistent. "Did you hear?" For some reason, it mattered to him that she shouldn't shrink back from his touch when he began to put the socks on.
Sam nodded, weary but content, and closed her eyes again.
"All right now," he announced in warning, "brace yourself. You might just feel a draught."
Foyle untucked the blankets from the bottom of the bed, and folded them back to expose her feet. Her toes were still quite white with cold, and it occurred to him that if he simply pulled the socks on over them in such a state, they might stay cold for some time yet. Remembering the way he'd brought the circulation back into Sam's fingers on Christmas morning, he pressed the toes of one foot in between his hands to warm them, feeling as the chill bleed out of her and into him. The first sock slipped on easily, as it was far too baggy for her foot, but, Foyle reasoned, things were better thus. Too tight, and there'd be no room for her toes to move.
The second foot took him a little longer to enliven, as his hands were already chilled. But Foyle persisted, eyes fixed on the business of Sam's comfort. He had a job to do, he told himself, and that did not include a mind allowed to wander.
The human mind, though, had a way of drifting along paths unbidden. Foyle glanced up at Sam's flaming cheeks, and as he thawed her delicate bones between his fingers, he was put in mind of the fragility of life: the fever that had taken Rosalind from him, and the icy truth of loss.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
These lines... he knew them from a favourite poem of his wife's. The thin volume of Robert Frost still stood upon his bookshelf—Foyle dipped into it only rarely as the poetry had such a melancholic tone that squeezed his heart and stoked his sadness. But Fire and Ice had always stuck with him in memory, and in these times, the haunting verse epitomised the suffering that the world was visiting upon itself.
He slipped the second sock onto Sam's foot and rearranged the blankets. When he looked up from his task, her eyes were on him, steady, fearful. He could tell her shivering had not abated.
"Milk," he told her, smiling under puckered brows, and grasped the cup in his right hand, slipping his left arm underneath her shoulders to raise her head. A skin had formed upon the surface of the milk since he had placed it on the table. He frowned, and lowered her again, then ran a fingertip across the surface, hooking the thin membrane from the top, and draping it across the knot of his exposed wrist. "Nasty," he opined with wrinkled nose, as if communicating with a child, then raised her torso properly, so she could drink with comfort from the proffered cup.
Her body now, in contrast to her feet, was hot to touch, and he could feel the moisture of her perspiration dampening the nightdress at her shoulders.
"C-cold. Still cold," she managed between sips. He held her firm until she'd finished the last drop, then reached inside his pocket for his handkerchief and wiped her lips.
"Rest now, I'll bring you aspirin in an hour," he said, and helped her sink back underneath the covers, tucking them around her, though not tightly.
...
When he returned to check on her, Foyle was dismayed to find Sam shivering still.
"Still feeling cold? Shall I fill up the bottle for you?" he asked.
She nodded mutely, pushing feebly at the rubber bottle, until it fell out of the bedclothes onto the floor.
"S-sorry," she managed weakly.
"Couldn't matter less." He picked it from the floor and carried it downstairs, returning promptly as he could with aspirin and a glass of water. He made Sam down the pills and laid a hand across her brow, sliding the hot water bottle back under the covers.
"You're burning up though. Open!" He slotted the thermometer under her tongue. After a few moments, he removed it. It read 101 degrees.
"Just c-can't seem to get warm, Sir," Sam whispered, adding huskily, "Can't remember when I've felt so ill."
Foyle cast around for ways to make her warmer. The room was like an oven with the gas fire burning; she was covered with more bedclothes than two average beds. Hot water bottle next to her. He bit his lip.
"Look, Sam," he winced, "the only thing I've got to offer now is body heat. It's up to you." He thought the last phrase over. "No, in fact it's not. Move over."
Sam blinked up at him, big-eyed, but still quaking from the cold. If she was blushing, nobody could tell—her colour was so high already. Their eyes met for a moment, and he raised a brow and shrugged.
Quietly, she turned onto her side, away from him. He reached under the covers for the bottle, and slid it round the front of her.
"Hold onto this. And tight," he said, then climbed onto the bed behind her, underneath the eiderdown, but separated from her by the sheets and blankets. He wrapped his uppermost arm around her middle, drawing her back to him, and tucked his other arm under his head, his nose pressed up against the dampness of her hair.
"All right?" he asked, and felt her nod. "That's it then. Try to settle down now and stop shivering."
It took three quarters of an hour or so before she stilled, by which time he was nearly dead from heat, and stiff from immobility. When, finally, he felt her breathing even out, and realised her shaking had subsided, he slid back off the bed, and straightened, wincing in discomfort.
Staying only long enough to tuck the eiderdown around her, he retreated to the bathroom, where he plunged his face into a sinkful of cold water and dabbed it dry.
Foyle leant heavily on the rim of the washbasin, staring at himself through the bathroom mirror. He looked, and felt, dishevelled. Old.
He plucked experimentally at his shirt. The singlet underneath was plastered to his chest. He felt as if he'd spent an hour inside a Turkish bath. But Sam had finished shivering at least.
Creeping back into the bedroom now, he wondered how to take her temperature without disturbing her rest. He contemplated sliding a thermometer under her armpit, but thought better of it, and instead retreated to the kitchen where he drank two cups of tea and sank his head into his hands.
An hour later, he returned upstairs to find that in the intervening time, Sam had pushed the covers off herself and was now lying in her nightgown, drenched in sweat, head tossing on the pillow.
He strode in smartly, extinguished the gas fire and, placing one hand on her brow, slipped the thermometer under her arm. "Sam? Sam!" he leant across her so that she could see his face. "You're hot now?"
The question hardly needed asking, for her forehead underneath his hand told him she was burning hotter than before, and the thermometer obediently confirmed this by reading 103 degrees. Sam looked blearily up at him and began tearing at the high neck of her nightdress in an effort to cool down.
Foyle stayed her hand and pulled one sheet up over her, leaning in to make sure she could hear and understand him. "Stay like this," he pleaded. "I will cool you down, I promise." Then he strode across the room and threw the window open.
An icy blast entered the room, and plunged the temperature to a moderate warmth in minutes. By the time he closed the sash again, Foyle had a better plan in mind and strode into the bathroom, where he ran a deep cool bath through sotto voce mutterings of 'To blazes with the water ration'.
Moments later he was standing at Sam's bedside once again, and lifting back the sheet and blankets so they trailed over the tailboard of the bed. He pulled off her makeshift bedsocks, and took in the sorry sight of her, covered with a layer of sodden cotton nightgown, her blonde hair darkened from the perspiration.
He'd watched, nine years ago as fever had consumed his wife. Now it was back again.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
Foyle screwed his eyes shut, mustering his composure, then stooped and fed one arm beneath her knees and slid the other round her shoulders, encouraging her arm till it hung limply round his neck. Gently, he brought his arms together, folding her in two, then, straightening his legs he lifted, cradling her against his chest.
The thought, 'she weighs so little!' flashed through his mind before he turned, manoeuvring them through the bedroom door and across the landing to the bathroom.
There he lowered Sam gently into the bathtub, grateful for the buoyancy the water's depth provided, to compensate for the strain the awkward angle put upon his back.
The water closed around her, rising to her shoulders. To his shame, it rendered the cotton of her nightgown transparent. Foyle's shirtsleeves were sodden too, and the dark hairs on his forearms stood out through the thin material. He closed his eyes and reached toward the corner where the bathtub joined the wall, feeling for the sponge he knew was always kept there. Finding it, he plunged the springy mass into the water, then, opening his eyes, he focussed on Sam's flushed face, and began to sponge her features and her neck, encouraging the hair back from her forehead and her cheeks. He pressed two fingers to her neck and felt her pulse. It was still racing.
Foyle sat back on his haunches on the bathroom floor and sank his chin onto his folded hands along the narrow rim of the tub, staring intently at her dampened face. He reached out for a facecloth, and leant in to dab her features dry.
Her eyelids fluttered. "Sir?"
"Hush, love," he said. "Sit there until you're cooler." He plunged his hand into the water and lifted her one arm out of the bath, so that it trailed over the side, then eased her torso gently toward him so that her armpit anchored her from sliding down.
Satisfied she was secure in that position, Foyle strode across the landing to his bedroom, where he dug into the bottom of his chest of drawers and drew out a long, brushed-cotton nightshirt that had once belonged to his father and hadn't seen the light of day in years. Stopping on the way to pick up the thermometer from Andrew's room, and a large bath-sheet from the airing cupboard on the landing, he carried the bundle back into the bathroom and placed it on the closed lavatory lid.
Then he lowered himself to sit on the bathroom floor, his back against the bath panel, wrapping Sam's arm around the front of his neck and holding it in place so that she couldn't sink into the water.
They stayed like that for half an hour, until he heard her stir her legs and make a gentle splashing sound. Turning, and rising to his knees, he could see now that the water in the bath was soiled.
Foyle placed a hand under Sam's chin, and tilted her face toward him. "Sam," he stroked her cheek, until her eyes opened. "I need to take your temperature again."
She opened her mouth with tired obedience to accept the cold, thin instrument.
Her temperature had fallen to 100, and at that, he felt his own pulse slowing.
"All right," he said, "you're coming out now. Arms around my neck. Sam. Arms... that's right." He reached down, pulling out the plug, and heard the noise of draining water as he rose and lifted her bodily to her feet so that she stood upright in the tub.
The bath sheet was behind him on the lavatory lid, and he reached back blindly, feeling with his fingers until they closed around the terry fabric. Yanking it towards him, he draped it over the side of the emptying bath.
"Hang on tight to me," he spoke into Sam's ear, "I'm going to peel this off you. Stand still," he added, not entirely usefully, since in any case, he bore her weight.
With Sam's arms slung round his neck, he reached down for the cotton hem and peeled it upwards with one hand. When it was level with her shoulder blades, he tucked the surplus fabric in between them to prevent it slipping, then he reached down for the bath towel and fed it awkwardly around the back of her. It was the best that he could do. The front of him was getting soaked, but Sam clung on around his neck, and he was able to push back just enough to push the towel around her front and tuck it reasonably firmly underneath her armpit. With a free hand now, he pulled the soaking nightgown forwards up over her hair so than it hung down from her upper arms, still draped around his neck. Then, wrapping one arm round her waist, he peeled her hands away and stripped the garment from her, dropping it into the bath behind her.
"There," he said, and swung her up out of the tub so that her feet were planted on the bathroom floor. Sam slumped against him and he rubbed her back. The pressure of her body up against his drove the moisture from the front of her into the layer of towel between them. Once more, he reached behind him, this time for the nightshirt, which he slipped as best he could one-handed over Sam's head, freeing the towel as he did so. Staying focussed on her face, he helped her arms into the loose shirt, and encouraged it to fall around her legs.
Sam swayed into him then from dizziness, head lolling on his shoulder. He raised the bath sheet, still grasped in his hand, and patted at her hair till it was dry enough to push back from her face. Then he let the towel drop to the floor and took her by the shoulders, pushing her away from him to examine his handiwork.
She was a reasonably dry rag doll, and so he lifted her again and carried her back to bed, covering her once more with the bedclothes.
Sam curled up facing him and fell immediately asleep. Slumped exhausted in an armchair across from her, Foyle sat and watched, almost unblinking, every muscle-movement in her face.
He fell into a doze, awakening an hour later, and satisfied to find that her temperature hadn't risen, dosed her with more aspirin and a long cool drink of water.
"Rest," he said, and stroked her hair back from her forehead. "I shan't disturb you any more."
"Sorry for the trouble, Sir," she said again. He fancied, to his vast relief, that her voice was steadier and stronger, but when he drew a hard-backed chair close to the bed and answered "You're no trouble, Sam," she was already fast asleep again.
His fingers rose to touch her face, but there was no excuse to touch her now. No temperature to take, no drink or aspirin to give, no cooling bath, no drying, no extremities to warm. He folded down his fingers, closed his eyes, and sat back against his chair...
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say...
The poem wouldn't leave his head. That February night he had lost Rosalind, the drive home from the hospital had been the bleakest time for him. The act of leaving her behind, and knowing that the house, so full of Roz's spirit, would be empty of her now, forever. And the winter roads were icy in the small hours. Just like glass. The car had skidded badly, careered off the road and up a kerb into a lamppost. He had emerged, unscathed, with not a soul about to witness what had happened. He'd fallen to his knees and howled his hatred at the world. Then he'd picked himself up and walked home, dazed, abandoning the vehicle. And he had never driven since.
I think...
I think...
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction
Ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
He sat quite motionless across from Sam—quite upright—his hands resting on his knees; and in due course, the cotton of his shirtsleeves dried and turned opaque again. The steady music of her breathing lulled him, and in time, the fatigue took him and he let himself slump forwards so his head lay on his arms beside her on the mattress.
...
Sam woke to find his head just inches from her hip atop the eiderdown. His eyes were closed, head canted to one side. The dark line of his lashes brushed his cheek, and there was beard-growth shadow on his jawline.
Her head felt heavy, like a swollen fruit, and her whole body ached, exhausted. But the dreamlike state that had possessed her yesterday was gone. She felt clear-headed. And extremely thirsty. Sam licked her dry lips, and settled back to wait for him to wake.
A movement of Sam's leg roused Foyle from sleep, and as his senses sharpened, he could feel her fingers resting on his hair. When he began to stir, Sam trailed her hand along his cheek and curled her fingers round his chin.
He gazed up to find Sam squinting at him through a soft smile. "Christopher?"
He blinked, then sat up, groggy still from sleep. But had he heard her right? He reached, and grasped her hand between his own, then opened it and pressed his lips into her palm.
"Something to drink?" he asked.
"Yes please," she said.
"Hungry?" he asked hopefully.
"Perhaps a slice of toast..." her smile was wan, but interested.
Foyle squeezed her hand, and left the bedroom. Arriving at the foot of the stairs, he lowered himself stiffly onto the bottom tread and sank his head into his hands. When he looked up again, his eyes were wet with tears.
He rose and made his way into the kitchen.
*** FIN ***
Author's End Note:
Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
...
Happy New Year to the Foyle fandom!
... and there is a Valentine's Day sequel called Where the Heart Is
GiuC