Regeneration by Pat Barker

Burns had kept asking himself why he was going back. Now, waking up to find Rivers sitting by his bed, unaware of being observed, tired and patient, he realized he’d come back for this.

5
    __________
    Rivers started his night round early. Sister Rogers was in her room, drinking the first of the many cups of coffee that would see her through the night. ‘Second-Lieutenant Prior,’ she said, as soon as she saw him.
    ‘Yes, I know, and there’s nothing I can do about it.’ Prior was a new patient, whose nightmares were so bad that his room-mate was getting no sleep. ‘Has he spoken to anybody yet?’
    ‘No, and if you speak to him he just stares straight through you.’
    It was unlike Sister Rogers to take a dislike to a patient, but there was no mistaking the animosity in her voice. ‘All right,’ Rivers said, ‘let’s have a look at him.’
    Prior was lying on his bed, reading. He was a thin, fair-haired young man of twenty-two with high cheekbones, a short, blunt nose and a supercilious expression. He looked up as Rivers came in, but didn’t close the book.
    ‘Sister tells me you had a bad night?’
    Prior produced an elaborate shrug. Out of the corner of his eye Rivers saw Sister Rogers’s lips tighten. ‘What did you dream about?’
    Prior reached for the notepad and pencil he kept beside his bed and scrawled in block capitals, ‘I DON’T REMEMBER.’
    ‘Nothing at all?’
    Prior hesitated, then wrote, ‘NO.’
    ‘Does he talk in his sleep, sister?’
    Rivers was looking at Prior as he asked the question, and thought he detected a flicker of uneasiness.
    ‘Nothing you can get hold of.’
    Prior’s lips curled, but he couldn’t hide the relief.
    ‘Could you get me a teaspoon, sister?’ Rivers asked.
    While she was out of the room, Prior went on staring atRivers. Rivers, trying to keep the meeting from becoming a confrontation, looked around the room. Sister Rogers came back. ‘Thank you. Now I just want to have a look at the back of your throat.’
    Again the pad came out. ‘THERE’S NOTHING PHYSICALY WRONG.’
    ‘Two l’s in “physically”, Mr Prior. Open wide.’
    Rivers drew the end of the teaspoon, not roughly, but firmly, across the back of Prior’s throat. Prior choked, his eyes watered, and he tried to push Rivers’s hand away.
    ‘There’s no area of analgesia,’ Rivers said to Sister Rogers.
    Prior snatched up the pad. ‘IF THAT MEANS IT HURT YES IT DID.’
    ‘I don’t think it hurt , did it?’ Rivers said. ‘It may have been uncomfortable.’
    ‘HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?’
    Sister Rogers made a clicking noise with her tongue.
    ‘Do you think you could give us ten minutes alone, sister?’
    ‘Yes, of course, doctor.’ She glared at Prior. ‘I’ll be in my room if you need me.’
    After she’d gone, Rivers said, ‘Why do you always write in block capitals? Because it’s less revealing?’
    Prior shook his head. He wrote, ‘CLEARER.’
    ‘Depends on your handwriting, doesn’t it? I know, if I ever lost my voice, I’d have to write in capitals. Nobody can read mine.’
    Prior offered the pad. Rivers, feeling like a schoolboy playing noughts and crosses, wrote: ‘Your file still hasn’t arrived.’
    ‘I SEE WHAT YOU MEAN.’
    Rivers said, ‘Your file still hasn’t arrived.’
    Another elaborate shrug.
    ‘Well, I’m afraid it’s rather more serious than that. If it doesn’t show up soon, we’re going to have to try to get a history together – like this. And that’s not going to be easy.’
    ‘WHY?’
    ‘Why do we have to do it? Because I need to know what’s happened to you.’
    ‘I DON’T REMEMBER.’
    ‘No, not at the moment, perhaps, but the memory will start to come back.’
    A long silence. At last Prior scribbled something, then turned over on his side to face the wall. Rivers leant across and picked the pad up. Prior had written: ‘NO MORE WORDS.’
    ‘I must say it makes Dottyville almost bearable,’ Sassoon said, looking up and down the