A Christmas Promise by Annie Groves

of laughter lines around the outer corner of his eyes. He looked peaceful now, Sally noticed. As she watched his restful slumber, allowing herself the luxury of prolonged observation, the ghost of past anger seeped from her heart. In another time, given the chance, she had so very easily fallen in love with Callum.
    She experienced that zing of delight the first time she ever set eyes on him when Morag brought him from their native Scotland to her own home in Liverpool. She had never seen a man more handsome – and when he spoke: she remembered how the rich Celtic timbre of his voice washed over her and she thought she had died and gone to heaven.
    Sally sighed for lost chances. That was then.
    As she put back her cup on to the saucer she knew things were so much different now. She must put those silly thoughts from her head: they both led different lives now and the one person who had bound them together was gone.
    Absent-mindedly picking up the patients’ notes that were awaiting her instruction, Sally heard the urgent tap on the office door and called for whoever it was to enter.
    A young nurse came in and said in a quietly concerned tone, ‘Sister, I think you’d better come and have a look at this!’
    Sally did not go haring down the ward between the regimented, iron beds as the young nurse had done; instead she followed at a more dignified pace and reached Callum’s bed almost at the same time.
    ‘What is it, Nurse?’ she said, watching the nurse gently easing back the covers from Callum’s chest. Sally observed that he didn’t move a muscle as his striped pyjamas were being opened. Moving forward, Sally watched as the nurse removed the surgical dressing that covered the wound where his appendix had been removed.
    To her horror she noticed a vivid, puce-coloured wheel of infection surrounding the stitched area out of which a foul-smelling, pale green fluid oozed. Immediately Sally rolled up her sleeves and set to work. She didn’t need a thermometer to know that Callum had a raging temperature and she could hear the shallow rasp as air struggled to reach his lungs. There was no mistaking the sudden onset of pneumonia.
    ‘When was his wound last examined?’ Sally tried to stem the rising panic in her voice, knowing that infection killed more soldiers than actual bullets did.
    Article Row, even at this late hour, was still illuminated by the daylight that was now triggered by double summertime, while the fresh breeze, sweet with the tang of the recent rainfall, gently billowed the net curtain through the two-inch opening of the sash window in Ian Simpson’s spare front bedroom.
    Drew listened intently, hearing the rumbling in the distance. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest in anticipation of Tilly soon being here. He’d heard Tilly’s mother talking to Nancy Black earlier, saying she had received a telegram, and Olive was all excited, telling Nancy that Tilly was due home at nine p.m. and would get a taxi from the station. Vaguely, he wondered where she had been.
    Clambering slowly off the bed, Drew could feel his strength coming back at a steady pace. There was no rush to be at the window. Given the distant sound of the engine he knew the taxi hadn’t turned into Article Row yet.
    He intended to resume work on his father’s newspaper, as, frustratingly, he had been exempted from military service on medical grounds. But this wasn’t going to stop him serving his country in other ways. He would work alongside the troops to report their plights and successes – but there was something else he had to do first.
    A rush of adrenalin made his heartbeat accelerate. He could feel Tilly’s imminent presence even though he could not see her. He had waited a long time for this moment and he didn’t want to mess it up. For the first time in over a year, he would see her again. He would gaze into the heavenly sea-green of her eyes framed by her lovely dark hair and he would tell her how much he had