CHAPTER 36
By the following day, the situation in Olney appeared to have stabilised somewhat. There’d been no new cases of the plague admitted to the field hospital, and those already committed to the beds in the marquee showed no signs of further deterioration. Even the Reverend Grafton was sitting up in bed, joking with the nurses, as was his neighbour, Billy Wragg, who’d seemed so close to death the previous day. Wragg was less inclined than the vicar to believe in divine intervention but couldn’t help joking that his close proximity to Grafton as he’d prayed might just have helped.
“If God reached out to touch the vicar, then maybe a little bit of his goodwill spilled over to reach my bed,” he’d said to Edith Kinnaird that morning.
Whatever the reason for Grafton and Wragg’s improve
