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No° 8 British General Hospital

Calais, France

October 1917

Caroline slipped out of her canvas tent invisible under the welcomed inky blanket of the new moon. Her dark blue eyes darted across her path, searching for trouble but when she found none she released the breath she held since she crept out of bed. Protecting herself further, she pulled her navy blue overcoat tight around her starchy grey nursing uniform, shrouding herself from potentially prying eyes more than unseasonably warm autumn night. She kept her head up, scanning the duckboards and fellow tents that surrounded her to prevent someone from accidentally catching her out of bed as her feet shuffled silently through the grass. Her ingrained ability to move through the world as a ghost had served her well as a nurse in France these past three years as it kept her safe from anyone's unwanted attention both on the wards and not.

France had a particular smell in the autumn; a freshness to it that summer lacked. Or perhaps, as the vicious Battle of Passchendaele neared its bitter close, the grave's commissions were at long last able to bury the mountains of dead. However, even at the height of summer, the stale air of the hospital was still more palatable than a breezy day in her sooty tenement back in the East End of London.

Poverty was the only certainty in her life growing up and before nursing was tossed in her lap Caroline had never considered life beyond her gas-lit house surrounded by the thick fog and cobbled streets of her infamous neighbourhood. Many aspects of Caroline had changed since arriving in France nearly a year ago as a skinny, ornery twenty- one year-old who could snap at anyone that merely looked at her wrong. Thankfully, she had outgrown many of those habitual characteristics and slowly she was replacing them with a hard-earned reputation as a gentile, unassuming nurse.

Despite those welcomed changes, the guilt plagued her every time she snuck out. Stealing was the last element that clung to the skeletal remains of her past.

A cool breeze caught her dark hair and she unconsciously reached for her nursing veil to find it gone. Panic ripped through her, fearing the loss of such a critical part of her uniform, but she remembered that she left it behind in her trunk. It wouldn't do her any good to have the pure white fabric catching anyone's eye tonight.

As she made her way past the officer's dining tent Caroline cowed her head, only hearing the raucous laughter and sounds of champagne bottles popping as she dashed past. Clearly, the doctors and fellow Royal Army Medical Corps personnel were still indulging in their monthly battalion dinner. That bought her at least another hour she remarked, smiling to herself. As always, her plan chugged along flawlessly and relief overtook her anxiety as she knew her plan had crested its crux. The hospital stores were located only about a kilometre from the hospital grounds itself, near the railroad station that carried in the supplies from the Calais ports.

As she whisked through the night, the sounds of the RAMC dinner faded into the background and soon the wood-slatted warehouse began to emerge from the blackness of the forest. Caroline let her feet carry her down the invisible path that she had memorised from her monthly haunts.

If it were not for the morphine she would not be a nurse. This was an undeniable fact she reinforced within herself whenever she found herself in front of the warehouse's double doors. Many others on the Western Front abused it in some form or another; so in the end, what did it matter? Either way, she needed it tonight and was she willing to risk the dire consequences to secure it.

The familiar feeling of adrenaline coursed through her as she picked the lock to the Quartermaster's stores, taking one last look over her shoulder. As a young girl, her father had been a dockworker and before the drink and the lung disease kept him bedridden, she would frequent the wharves and storehouses with him. With the time-tested skill still etched in her fingers' memory, she made quick work of the robust lock. Moments later, she was let into the musty room and was rifling through the crates of the newly delivered shipment. Her heart sang as she located a small crate and broke open the lid to find the glass vials sitting innocently in their straw beds.

Quickly calculating the approximate inventory, she had deduced that she could skim about five vials off a crate of this size without raising suspicion. When the Sergeant came to open it, there could always be an excuse for a broken bottle or a mistake in the inventory on either end supply network.

As her hand reached down to collect the vials, her conscience pelted out a series of guilty pangs that nearly stopped her. Wasn't the hallmark of a true criminal always a lack of remorse? She clearly still had a scrap of some left so she tried to shake off the offending thought by reminding herself again that without the morphine she would have never been pressed into becoming a nurse. Her thoughts drifted to the hundreds of men she had saved since coming to France and swallowing hard against the thought, resigned to her actions while making amends with the guilt before continuing to pocket the vials in her nursing apron. Perhaps she could find a way to truly make this the last time she ever had to do this.

Once the bottles were secure, she carefully replaced the lid on the crate before taking another quick look around the stores. There had been a new shipment that morning, and it filled the wooden slatted warehouse to the brim with fresh supplies. There had to be something here of value that she could placate her brother with at their next meeting.

Just as she was about to investigate a rather large crate, the discordant sound of someone humming emerged from the darkness. At first, it sounded like a pesky mosquito that had refused to die in the coolness of autumn. But as she listened hard, frozen to her spot, she could hear the sound getting closer to the door that she was nearly perched at. Cursing herself at her foolish error of spending an extra ten minutes searching the other crates, she desperately eyed around for an escape route. It was a rookie mistake that she would surely never make again if she got out of this mess unscathed.

Caroline quickly tried to adjust her apron to disguise the morphine bottles bulging out of starched fabric as the chains jangled and the door swung open with a creak.

With luck, she had managed to steel herself against the intrusion by slamming herself onto the nearest crate by the door and burying her face in her hands while heaving heavy sobs.

The Quartermaster's lantern took but a moment to flash across her face, his gruff voice sounding out over the pounding of her heart.

"Oi! What are you doing here? This area is strictly forbidden for nurses!"

Looking up, Caroline dried her tears with her fingers, feigning surprise as she pushed back her chestnut locks behind her ears and looked up through her eyelashes at the older Sergeant whose face had already softened by the time his eyes met her face.

"I'm so terribly sorry, Sir." she stammered, making her voice sound small and sweet. "I knew I shouldn't have come in but since this afternoon with all the new horrific wounds I became overwhelmed with,'' she fumbled around for the right word, trying to select one she knew would tug at the heartstrings of the old man. "With feminine hysteria!" She cried out, heaving an ugly sob yet again and throwing her hands up to her face for good measure.

"Ah duck," his voice chided as he set down the lantern and took a few steps closer to her. "I understand. War isn't a place for such a fragile creature. I knew there would be problems as soon as we started letting in young volunteers into places like these."

She nodded her head, playing along as he continued. "Dry your pretty little eyes. The men will take care of this mess soon enough and you can go back to your home where you belong. Take care of your embroidery and baking, yeah?" She kept nodding her head, her face still hidden as she was worried she might crack into laughter at any moment. Caroline had never even picked up an embroidery hoop, as crafting was never a luxury she had time for.

"You would like that, wouldn't you, duck? Back home in comfortable England? Get yourself a nice family to look after?"

"Terribly so!" she wailed, dabbing the crocodile tears that flowed so easily down her face. Her handful of a family was already the reason she was in France in the first place. So the idea of being married to a similar drunken dockworker and having his troublesome children made her nauseous. Especially after she witnessed firsthand how her mother became more of a shell of a woman she once was before she became a ghost herself. Now that she had tasted the freedom that nursing had provided for her, there was no chance she considered her old life as an option.

"You just take all the time you need. Ol' Harry is here for you." He said, patting her on the shoulder.

"Thank you, you are incredibly kind. A woman such as myself doesn't deserve such compassion and attention."

If it was bright enough in the warehouse, she was sure that he would have been blushing.

"Go on!" He breathed, brushing her off. "What a dear girl you are. Would you like some chocolate? I've got a few extra bars here that wouldn't go amiss."

She nodded her head gently while biting her bottom lip, sealing the deal.

Harry was back in a snap with five bars of chocolate, some fresh tea and a new bar of soap.

"A pretty girl like you deserves nice things." He said cheerily, "you're sure you can carry it all back?"

"I think I should manage," she said lightly, reaching out to grab the goods. "If I don't, I know which muscular man I can count on to aid me." She added with a sly wink to make him colour some more.

"Goodnight to you, Nurse Robinson. I hope I find you in good humour the next time we meet."

"I can't imagine why I wouldn't be, given how this meeting has turned my spirits." She smiled again, turning around and out through the doors.

Once outside in the crisp air of freedom, the smile slipped off her face, and she exhaled a deep sense of relief. That was far too close. If it was any other quartermaster, her goose would have well and truly cooked. Though for the stress of it all her efforts hadn't gone unrewarded as she felt the weight of her apron sagging with all the items she had collected.

When finally safe again, enveloped in the confines of the forest she reached down into her apron and grabbed the brand new package of cigarettes that she stole from the pocket of the Quartermaster when his back was turned.

"Poor old sod," she laughed to herself as she stopped to flick a match and light up the cigarette. Despite the pangs of guilt that she had felt earlier in the evening, she felt the familiar rush of triumph that came along with the success of her deception.