The year 1941. Patrick's point of view (and some bold Shelagh).
Two weeks later, due to the damage of bombings at the London Hospital, the Lab was temporarily moved to the nearby Nonnatus Clinic. The removal made it more difficult for Doctor Turner to combine his working hours with his research interests, as he now had a longer trip to the Lab from his room at the London resident wing. At the Nonnatus Clinic, everything was crowded: pregnant ladies, infants, medical students, all under the command of the long-suffering Doctor Musgrove and the Matron, his wife Enid Musgrove. Doctor Turner learned that the ever-elusive Nurse Mannion was a niece of Mrs. Musgrove. It seemed she was lodging with them.
One night there was an air raid alert again when Doctor Turner had just arrived at the lab. He followed the others to the bomb shelter, but at the threshold decided to turn back. The shelter was totally full and very noisy. He thought he would prefer to spend some time at the lab with his tubes and spirit lamps and scientific reading, It would now be nice and quiet there.
At the lab door, he was startled. Someone was already there. Nurse Mannion was trying to light a spirit lamp.
"Good evening. Anything important going on, Nurse Mannion?"
She turned around. "I thought I'd spend the air raid cleaning these spirit lamps."
"Do you often stay here during air raids?"
"Yes. No. Sometimes. I'd like to keep the regular offices while on duty. It is easier here than in the shelter."
"Oh. The prayers."
"It is easier to pray here than in the shelter. Oh, this lamp, it is so stuck."
"Let me help you." Nurse Mannion was going to give him the lamp, but at that moment an explosion was heard outside and the lamp fell and broke. "Oh, no! " She knelt down and tried to pick up the pieces.
He knelt, too. "Please, Nurse, don't. You will hurt your hands. " Then he realized that she was crying.
"It's only a lamp. Shelagh. Look at me."
She sat down on the floor and leaned her back onto the desk, her head in her hands. He sat by her.
"Shelagh, what is it?"
"Oh. This wretched war. This...my life is in million pieces."
He hesitated. Then he put his arm around her very lightly.
"No. You're not in million pieces." She didn't resist his arm. "You're a beautiful human being."
She leaned a little deeper on him and shook her head.
"What's to become of us? Doctor..."
"Patrick."
She stuttered a little. " Patt...rick. I don't know anything anymore."
"You don't have to. Shelagh, let's get you up." She rose slowly with the support of his arm. "So, that was not so bad, was it? Let's take you to the other room. These shards of glass. It's dangerous."
"The bombs are coming down and you're afraid of some pieces of glass."
Patrick gave a nervous laugh. "That's good. Keep the spirit up. Walk with me. Let's take this examination table and you can rest on it. You certainly have a long day behind you."
She lay herself down on that table. She was still shivering. He sat down by her on another bed.
"There is something I'd like to ask," she said in a nearly inaudible voice.
"Please do."
"Would you mind lying down beside me? And holding me for a while?"
He swallowed and made an effort to speak. "Shelagh. Nurse Mannion..."
"Would you just...do it? "
"All right." He did what she asked. He put the other table close to hers and lay down and put his arms around her. After some minutes he made one more effort to say something.
"Hush...Would you mind...not talking?" she said.
"No. I don't mind."
"It is after all the Great Silence. A convent rule. No conversation after the midnight prayer."
"All right. No conversation".
The all clear sign was heard. The noises of people leaving the shelters were heard from the street. Then a loud bang was heard from downstairs. The Nonnatus Clinic door hit something. Nurse Mannion rose quickly and fled to the ladies room.
Doctor Turner was there alone when the Matron arrived with some nurses.
"Oh, you were fast. Didn't I see you in the shelter?"
"Yes, you did." Patrick didn't wish to reveal that he had left the shelter during the bombing.
Nurse Mannion arrived.
"Shelagh, where have you been? I didn't see you all night. Surely you didn't spend the night here again?
"I am perfectly all right. Let's go home, Aunt Enid."
The day unfolded grey and foggy. There was quite a lot of damage at the docks, but Patrick couldn't think about it. He was going to leave for his regiment in Africa the next week. He had briefly checked how his ex-wife and her family were doing at Aldwych. They were fairly well, considering. Then he went to his lodgings at the London.
He found out that Nurse Mannion was not at work at the London that day nor the next day.
He went to see the Musgroves. He had to see Shelagh once more. Mrs. Musgrove received him with the news that Nurse Mannion had gone to Chichester.
"She is such a wonderful girl, but the war has taken a great toll on her. It is good for her to stay with Sister Julienne for a while."
"Could you...give me the address to Chichester, please. There is some research literature I need to deliver to her."
"Certainly. But I wonder if she will really be interested in that now. You know she will give the promises next year. We hope of course that she will continue working here, but I am not sure if it will be allowed."
In a hurry, he wrote her a postcard. In addition to his regiment's address, there was only a short sentence on it: "A letter follows. Captain Turner."
He wrote to her from Dover, and twice from his post in Africa. He never got any answer. Doctor Tracy wrote once and told that he had seen the Nonnatus Clinic people, and that the Musgroves sent their best regards. There was a short post scriptum:"Nurse Mannion seems to have gone permanently to Chichester."
Finally, by some accident, he got in a post a circular letter from the Friends of Nonnatus. There was a picture of the new nuns in it. "After joining the Order, Sister Bernadette will be carrying on her duties as a Ward Sister in the temporary military hospital at Chichester." That Sister Bernadette had the delicate features of Nurse Mannion.
Women. He could not make the sense of it. The dusty evening in Africa seemed suddenly dustier than ever. A sense of not only a loss, but a betrayal was nagging him. Yet what had she promised him? Was he in a position to demand anything? Words, revelations shared with a cigarette or two, the odd encounter on the night of the bombing. Why was he still thinking that he had a, let's say, legitimate interest in Shelagh Mannion? Sister Bernadette. The new name choked him.
Her body had felt so warm in his arms. Just two strangers passing in the night of London? She had been in a shock. She seemed to be going through a crisis. There surely were enough reasons for that, like the clash of her needs and beliefs in the great devastation of the war. He still thought he had been right in not trying to persuade her to trust in him and to tell what was the matter. She was a novice, for God's sake. What is a man expected to do? She had shattered his world more than he cared to acknowledge.
His comrades were shouting at him. "Come on, Turner, let's go for a drink." Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love. He wasn't sure if it was true, but amid so much death he felt he could not tell. He left for a drink.