Seacliff

Chapter two: The automaton nurse

1919

Saoirse had seen enough death the past five years to last her a lifetime. The war to end all wars had also ended her tears, which no longer flowed even as she held her aunt's ashes in a tin box to her chest.

Her faith had ended, too, buried in the Belgian trenches. Of late, however, Saoirse had begun questioning whether she'd ever had it. Kindness and compassion had been instilled in her from childhood, by her wise, loving parents, rather than some irrational fear of unseen divinity.

And so, she had remained kind and compassionate throughout the most brutal catastrophe humanity had ever witnessed. Shellshocked and severely wounded, soldiers abandoned their souls on the frontlines, repudiated divinity and spat on its teachings. Refused to believe in anything good anymore because they had seen the very worst.

But not Saoirse.

Saoirse kept a cool head and a kind heart as she cared for the injured, any injured, regardless of allegiance – even when the devastating news arrived that her husband had perished from the gas at Ypres.

She had cried then for the last time, alone in her little billet room, after reading the letter. She'd crumbled, screaming, to the floor and sat there, hunched over the narrow bed, as she wailed and wept and swallowed her sobs.

Though as abruptly as they'd come, the tears stopped. The light faded from her pale blue eyes. Her thoughts seeped out of her mind until it buzzed empty. Saoirse blinked and it was over. Life was over. Only the war endured, right there and then, an amalgamation of pain greater than her own.

Men less fortunate than her husband waited for her to amputate their gangrened limbs, to save their lives or comfort them as their suffering ended forever. Duty called and Saoirse answered like an automaton, mechanical and methodical. It helped that she did not have time to think.

It had helped – now all she had was time to think.

"Slán go fóill," Saoirse whispered to the wind and the waves, opening the box. As if to add his own farewell, her horse Danny whinnied nearby.

Saoirse upturned the biscuit tin into the sea – Aunt Aoife's peculiar sense of humour had not been dulled by illness – then rinsed it of ash in the water lapping at the grassy shore. The full moon had the tide at its highest, covering the entire swathe of Seacliff Beach and risen to reach the earthy edge of the woodland.

Drifting clouds obscured the brightness of the pearl in the sky, but the inky sea still glinted silver where the moon touched it. Darkness stretched above and below, seamless save for the blacker-than-night shadow of the Selkie Stone profiled against the horizon. At regular intervals, flashes of man-made luminescence pulsed from the lighthouse perched on its haunches.

Saoirse shook the excess seawater out of the tin and grabbed a cloth to wipe it dry. Barking dogs distracted her from the task. She turned to look and...

Waves swelled and sank like liquid obsidian that caught glimmers of moonlight and glittered. Saoirse frowned. There was something in the water that did not glitter. A lump that rose and fell, carried by the surging tide, suspiciously shaped like a human.

Saoirse didn't stop to think about what she had to do. The automaton nurse kicked in and her body just did it. With her skirts knotted on her hip, she rolled up her sleeves and waded into the sea one cautious step at a time. The tide had piled slippery rocks just below the grass-lined shore and one misstep could be fatal.

Adrenaline kept her going through the numbing cold. Sheer willpower she'd attained in France. It became clearer, as she advanced, that the lump was indeed a human body, naked and floating face-down. If she could only save one more life, just one more –

Briefly, she was up to her knees in mud again. Gunshots echoed in the distance. Men shrieked and cried. Her hands burgundy with blood.

"You're all right," she told the soldier cradling his spilled guts, "I've got you, you'll be all right. You're with Sister Saoirse now and you'll be safe. Upon my word, you will be safe, if it's the last thing I do."

A chant she'd learned to utter with utmost conviction. The boy believed her. Trusted her like he would his mother. And as he slipped away, trusting her still, she held on until his eyes lost their lustre and his body went slack in her arms.

Peace, at last.