The nurse laughed. “That’s Mrs. Walker. She was on night duty and she’d been asleep. She wasn’t expecting anyone.”

While we were talking she was undressing me, and when I was undressed, except for the bandages, she washed me, very gently and smoothly. The washing felt very good. There was a bandage on my head but she washed all around the edge.

“Where were you wounded?”

“On the Isonzo north of Plava.”

“Where is that?”

“North of Gorizia.”

I could see that none of the places meant anything to her.

“Do you have a lot of pain?”