A Christmas Promise by Annie Groves Page A

missed her.
    He had dreamed of this day for many, long and agonising months. At last, the time had come when he could hold her in his arms and tell her that he had come back to make her his for ever. She had never sent his Harvard ring back to him so that proved she still loved him, and he would explain the reasons he had not got in touch. He never wanted to put his beloved Tilly through all that worry and heartache.
    He had deliberately aimed for the eve of her twenty-first birthday to return to Article Row because he knew they would not have to then wait a moment longer than was necessary to become man and wife. He had got the special licence and the rings – a better gift for her twenty-first birthday he could not imagine – and he had booked the little bed and breakfast where he and Tilly had once stayed. It was the idyllic place where they had once exchanged vows in the moonlight and would now finally consummate their love for each other.
    He could hear the oncoming hackney cab rumbling around the corner, its distinctive engine noise breaking the quiet, dignified silence of Article Row, and he could feel the hairs on the back of his arms stand on end, and the lurch in the pit of his stomach as he anticipated the first sight of his girl in almost a lifelong year of torment. Stepping back, not wanting to reveal the surprise just yet, Drew anticipated her look of surprise when they met up again, knowing she would be thrilled. And as he recalled the sweet pressure of her lips on his he could contain himself no longer. He had to go down there now and take her in his arms and tell her how much he had missed her, and then he would do what he had dreamed of for so long.
    The young nurse grabbed the notes from the bottom of the bed while, on Sally’s orders, another probationer went to fetch a consultant, and very soon Callum was being thoroughly examined. Pulling the stethoscope from his ears the senior doctor looked grave.
    ‘Can I speak to you in your office, Sister?’
    Sally knew that the news was not good. Her heart was pounding as she led him to the office.
    There was no preamble in his brisk manner, which the younger nurses so admired in the mature specialist. ‘If this man does not get the medication he desperately needs soon he will die. There is a serum … It is in its experimental stages.’
    ‘Can we try it?’ Sally felt desperate. Morag would have wanted her to do everything in her power to make her brother well again.
    ‘The early signs are that it has showed results bordering on the miraculous …’
    ‘Are you talking about penicillin?’ asked Sally. She had worked closely with army medics who had seen the phenomenal effects of the new drug, conceived here in London and developed in greater quantities in the United States.
    ‘The new wonder drug, as it is now being called, is said to be having such brilliant results with injured servicemen in the field that there was an urgent recommendation to the War Production Board to take responsibility for increased production,’ the doctor said.
    ‘Can we get hold of any?’ Sally asked.
    ‘I don’t want this being spoken about outside this office, Sister,’ his voice was so low she could barely hear it, ‘but I do have a little of this serum in my laboratory. However, I am not sure if it will be enough to get this chap through the crisis …’
    ‘Oh, please, God let it be enough!’ Sally prayed, her hands never still as she tidied her desk.
    ‘Back in July,’ the consultant said, ‘the WPB drew up a plan for the mass distribution of penicillin stocks to Allied troops fighting in Europe. After a mouldy cantaloupe was found to produce good quality penicillin in Illinois, some of it was sent here.’
    ‘Oh, Doctor, you must try!’ Sally cried. ‘You have to give it a chance; he must not be allowed to die!’
    ‘We, as always, Sister, will do our best,’ the doctor said as, coat-tails flying behind him, he hurried off to his laboratory.
    Sally