A Hospital Summer Page 10

  I gave her the brooch. ‘One of those Maginot Line badges.’ She read aloud the arrogant engraving we knew by heart. ‘Ils ne passerant pas.’ She grinned. ‘Not bloody likely.’ She passed it back to me. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Keep it for my grandchildren.’

  ‘My dear, they’ll have had half a dozen fine wars of their own by then. They won’t want to listen to your war stories.’

  ‘They certainly will ‒ whether they like it or not. No point in living through a war if you can’t bore people with your war stories afterwards. I’m going to be a fearfully tough grandmother, and my grandchildren will say, “Yes, Grandmamma, no, Grandmamma, anything you say, Grandmamma!” I promise you they will.’

  ‘To produce these grandchildren you’ll need a husband first. What about that?’

  I removed my remaining garments. ‘That can wait until after the War. If I have a husband I want to have him around, not just for a couple of days, and then at the end of a ’phone or as some nebulous writer of letters. I don’t hold with war marriages.’ I wrapped my dressing-gown round me. ‘No stability. I want stability ‒ a home ‒ kids ‒ the works ‒ but not to a background of war. Fun’s fun, but a girl doesn’t want to laugh all the time. So right now I’m going to spend at least an hour in a bath. Want me to run you one?’

  I could not spend an hour in that bath, as Joe Slaney rang me while I was still in it. I went along to the telephone room, feeling damp and a little peeved at being denied my long soak.

  Joe said he had called to tell me he was delighted Charles was safe. ‘Care to come over for a drink to celebrate? I could pick you up at once, if you like.’

  ‘You can’t do that; I’m not dressed. I’m just out of a bath.’

  ‘Well, hell,’ he answered reasonably, ‘you can dress, can’t you? Or are your feet too worn out?’

  ‘Actually, they are.’ I thanked him for his call and invitation. ‘Joe, do you mind if I say no, honestly? I am thrilled about Charles, and if I wasn’t so whacked I’d love to celebrate. There’s another point against going out; Sister said he was going to try and ring me later, and though I doubt that he’ll get through, as our line is always out of order for trunks, there’s faint hope that he might manage it, and I wouldn’t want not to be here.’

  He said he quite understood. ‘You stay where you are; put your two feet up, and maybe have an early night.’

  He was being so nice that I felt slightly guilty about refusing to join him. ‘Sure you don’t mind?’

  ‘I’m breaking my heart,’ he retorted. ‘The damned organ is rattling inside me right now, in many little pieces. I’m in a shocking state ‒ but I’ll be worse before I’m done.’

  ‘Why not go to bed early yourself? You look as if you could use the sleep.’

  He laughed. ‘What’s come over you, girl? Since when have you cared two damns about how I look?’

  ‘Since you passed out at my feet. I have to keep an eye on you in case you do it again. You’re bigger than I am, Joe. You might take me down with you next time.’

  ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘it mightn’t be a bad idea at that’ ‒ and he rang off.

  I smiled at the receiver as I replaced it. I certainly had walked into that one. The telephone rang again while I was watching it. It was the office wanting to talk to Madam. I went to look for her, told her she was wanted, and went back to the bathroom for my things. Mary was in the bath I had vacated.

  ‘What did Joe want?’

  ‘To date me this evening. Drinks at the Mess.’

  She soaped her sponge and handed it to me. ‘Wash my back, Clare. What did you say?’

  ‘Not to-night, Josephine!’ And we both rocked with laughter at my feeble joke, because we were on that delightful plane of happiness where the most infantile remark strikes one as exquisitely funny.

  Next morning we arrived on duty to find the hospital square littered with stretchers. The stretchers were covered with grey blankets, and occupied by men whose faces were the same colour as their blankets. They lay still, mostly with their eyes closed. They were not dead, yet they did not look like living men.

  We stopped a sweating stretcher-bearer. ‘Where are these from?’

  He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. ‘The Navy fished this lot up yesterday. On some hospital ship they were. Seems as they lost a couple of thousand in that lot. These are some of those Scots lads as went from here, and that Geordie unit what pulled out a month back.’ Four more ambulances crawled into the square as he was speaking; they stopped just inside the arch. They could not get closer to Casualty because of the stretchers. ‘’Struth. Not another lot.’ Our informant shook his head. ‘I dunno where we’re going to put ’em. Be shoving the lads up on the roof next, we will.’

  We walked on, threading our path in and out of the many stretchers. We smiled at the men on the ground ‒ one or two smiled back, the others returned our smiles with staring eyes that seemed to see nothing.

  We found Sister and Joe were already on duty. Sister had removed her shoulder cape, her sleeves were rolled high, her face hidden behind a white mask. Joe was improperly dressed in his shirt-sleeves, his stethoscope dangled from his neck, his face, like Sister’s, was disguised by a mask. Beryl Jacks, tired, and rather fractious, told us that Sister and Joe had been on duty since half-past four that morning. ‘We’ve shifted all the men you left in here last night. An enormous convoy left for Garden East at six. God, what a night! I thought we had had the worst. Last night just took the biscuit.’

  Sister gave us a brisk report. ‘We’ve still got twenty empty beds, but they’ll be filled in the next half-hour by the look of what’s left to come in. None of our men are dangerously ill, some are seriously hurt, all are badly shocked. They were in the sea for a long time. Will you two give every man as much hot tea as you can get them to drink, and give them as many cigarettes as they want? There’s a crate of cigarettes under the kitchen table. You needn’t keep count. When you’ve done that start on washings and dressings, one at each end as before, and work towards the middle. If I finish my round with Mr Slaney I’ll come and help you, but the round is bound to take a very long time, as we have not had a proper chance to look at them, and have only just got them into their beds. Leave the other admissions to me; Mr Slaney will see them as they come in, and help me get them into bed. Breakfasts are going to be sent over an hour later this morning, to give us a chance to get the men comfortable first. All right? Good.’

  Mary turned to go, then turned back. ‘Sister, what about breakfast? Shall we knock off when they come up, serve them, then go back to the washings again?’

  ‘If you haven’t got through by then, yes.’ Sister smiled faintly. ‘And, incidentally, if you get around to the cleaning and want the polish-tin, don’t bother to look for it. It’s empty. I lit the fire this morning. I agree with Dillon. Floor-polish is the only answer.’

  The cookhouse orderly arrived just then with buckets of fresh tea. ‘I’d take it in for you, ladies, but I haven’t the time. Time! I tell ye! We’ve served one complete round of breakfasts, and now we’ve another to do.’

  Mary took one bucket from him. The men drank their tea gratefully.

  ‘Ta, ever so, Nurse. This is the stuff.’

  ‘Och, Nurse, this is real good tea. And we can have a wee smoke? Ye’re spoiling us!’

  I did not see Sister, Mary, or Joe for over an hour. Then Joe appeared at my elbow as I removed the large iron kettle from the fire and added boiling water to my bowl of washing-water. ‘All under control?’ he asked.

  ‘More or less, thanks. I haven’t got through the first layer of oil on any man yet.’

  ‘You won’t do that for days. The poor devils have been soaking in it.’

  ‘Were they really on a hospital ship that was sunk?’

  He nodded grimly. ‘Red Crosses and all; she’s now at the bottom of the Channel. She was a genuine hospital ship. Unmistakable. Must have made a good target. Finish
ed with that kettle?’

  ‘Yes, it’s pretty empty. Want me to get you some more water?’

  ‘I’ll get it myself,’ he replied shortly. ‘I’m just about capable of doing that.’

  I followed him into the ward, and noticed that he was stooping this morning. I felt suddenly sorry for him ‒ poor old Joe ‒ he looked really depressed; I felt a pang of shame at being so content myself, yet it did seem such a good world. Why did men have to mess it up like this?

  The Highlander I washed next was a long, dark man with a soft voice. I was sure his hair was black until I washed it with ether soap and discovered it was a flaming ginger. His body was so begrimed with oil and salt that it was only after I had changed the water in my bowl four times that areas of his skin showed signs of approaching cleanliness. I apologized to him for taking so long.

  He smiled. ‘I am thinking it is I who should be apologizing to you, Nurse. You are being very gentle. Rub harder. You will not be hurting me.’

  ‘Have you no pain anywhere?’ I scrubbed his chest. ‘Sure?’

  ‘I am only sure that I am having a very pleasant wash and am very comfortable.’

  Beneath the oil and the dirt I discovered thirteen large flesh-wounds on his thighs and legs. The most severe was in his right thigh. When I had washed off the filth it showed to be flayed from his hip to his knee. I washed on, very carefully, and under the still thick oil saw a glint of metal. I stopped what I was doing. ‘I’m afraid you’ve still got some shrapnel in there. Didn’t you feel it?’

  ‘Only a wee bit,’ was all he would allow. ‘It was paining me when I was walking.’

  I finished washing him, covered his worst injury with a clean towel, then laid a couple of blankets over him. ‘I’m going to leave you for a moment. I want to ask Sister about you.’

  Sister was in the next ward, helping Joe set up a blood-transfusion. I told her about the Highlander. She said simply, ‘Take it out, Dillon, and put on a flavine dressing. It can’t stay in.’

  My patient was patiently smoking when I returned to him. He stubbed out his cigarette politely. I asked if he would mind my removing his shrapnel. ‘I’m afraid it may hurt a bit.’

  His blue eyes were untroubled. ‘If it will not be troubling you, Nurse, I will be very grateful for you to pull it out.’

  I set a sterile-dressing tray, left it on his locker, tightened the strings of my mask, scrubbed my hands in the sink in the nearest ablutions annexe, and went back to him with my hands held high as if in prayer. I felt like praying; I was very scared at the prospect before me. I had done dozens of simple dressings before, but nothing like this. I consoled myself with the thought that my Highlander must only be slightly injured in comparison with the badly wounded men in the Acute Blocks, and that if Sister had not considered this dressing easy she would not have told me to do it.

  The initial stages of the dressing went well, as I was only removing oil, now with a swab held by forceps rather than a flannel in my hands. Then I took a pair of artery forceps, gripped the protruding end of the piece of metal in the forcep’s teeth, and attempted to remove it gently. The shrapnel refused to shift; now I was gripping it I could feel how firmly it was embedded in the tissue of his thigh. I looked at him.

  ‘I should have another cigarette. I’ll wait while you light it.’

  I waited, watching his face. There were beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip, mingling with the beads of oil that remained despite the many washings I had given his face. When his cigarette was drawing I said slowly, ‘I’m very afraid I’m going to have to hurt you a lot. Would you like to hang on to the bedrail? And do curse if it helps you. I won’t mind at all.’

  He smiled slightly. ‘I will just be spitting teeth, Nurse. You do what has to be done. I will not be moving.’

  I tried twice more to shift the shrapnel gently with the forceps. Gentleness was no good. I wrapped my left hand in one of the towels from my tray and leant on his knee, took a much firmer grip on the forceps with my right hand, pulled carefully. The metal moved slightly, but refused to come out. ‘Hang on, Jock,’ I said, ‘I’ll try and get it over quickly.’ I tugged really hard that time, the shrapnel shifted, and with a sickening slither came free. It was a piece of steel half an inch broad at its widest and nearly five inches long. When I had felt it give properly I also felt violently sick. More than sick ‒ I felt light-headed; my vision was suddenly blurred. I thought wildly, God, I can’t faint now! I turned away quickly with the metal, dropped it and the forceps in a kidney dish, and forced myself to look back at the wound. To my utter astonishment and relief it was only bleeding slightly. I looked at his face, and what I saw there helped me pull myself together. His colour was greenish, and he was now sweating so freely that his sweat was black with the oil it was forcing from the pores of his face.

  ‘It’s all over now,’ I said, dressing his wound rapidly. I took up the half-smoked cigarette he had dropped in his ash-tray and put it between his lips, holding it for him while he inhaled. ‘Poor boy. I’m so sorry I hurt you like that. I’ll get you a cup of tea in a minute.’

  His lips were white. ‘Poor Nurse. I am thinking it was not a nice job for a young lady.’

  ‘I’m a nurse. This is what I’m here for.’

  He reached out and touched my apron skirt. ‘And I and the boys are thanking God that you are being one.’

  I badly wanted to cry. Instead I covered his leg with the blankets. ‘Thank you. It’s nice of you to say that.’

  ‘It is not nice of me at all, Nurse,’ he contradicted in his gentle voice. ‘It is the truth I am speaking. It is good, when you have seen all the bad is being done, as we have seen, to know that there are people like you young ladies who nurse us who are doing only what is good. You cannot be knowing, Nurse,’ he added sincerely, ‘what it is meaning to all of us to come back and find you nurses waiting here to be kind to us. We are being very grateful to you.’

  At that I nearly broke down and wept over him. I did not want to embarrass him, so I rushed away for extra blankets, another hot-water bottle, tea, and brandy. I had to force the brandy on him; he wanted me to drink it instead. While he was sipping the tea I had to leave him in a hurry. I ran to the ablutions and vomited into the first latrine.

  Someone came into the ablutions as I was vomiting. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard Joe’s voice. ‘Now get your head down, girl. That’s it. Down between your legs. You’d best kneel on the floor as there’s no chair. Good girl. You’ll be better soon.’

  The floor was about to hit me in the face. It did not, because of that guiding hand. I raised my head once. Joe’s face loomed disproportionately large and close to me. He wiped my mouth and forehead with some cloth, then squatted by me. He was still in his shirt-sleeves, and his shirt was spattered with bright blood. ‘All right, Clare?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ My voice sounded odd, but as I could talk I decided I must be all right. I stood up unsteadily.

  He caught my shoulders. ‘Relax. Just let yourself go limp for a moment. I won’t let you fall. And I won’t say one word about the blind leading the blind or this making us quits.’

  I was too giddy not to obey him. I let my head drop on to his shoulder and let him take my weight. As I stood there I heard a drum beating. I moved away. ‘What’s the drum doing? Not another band, surely?’

  ‘No band, no drum, no music. This isn’t the day when everyone has to burst out singing. You were up against my heart. It must have been that you heard.’ He looked me over. ‘You’re all right now. What made you vomit?’

  I told him. ‘I hope I took it out correctly?’

  ‘If the chap and the shrapnel are both intact, and he hasn’t bled, you did it right. Five inches, did you say? I’ll come back with you and take a look at him.’

  When we were clearing the lunches that day our Commandant appeared in the hall. She looked unusually concerned about something. She spoke first to Sister, who was at the desk with Joe. Sister did not look my way
, but I saw the look Joe shot at me, and I saw him wince. I wondered what Madam could have said to have that effect on Joe. Then Miss Moreby-Aspin was at my elbow. ‘Dillon, m’dear, I want to talk to you. Sister says you may leave the ward and come with me to the office.’

  I glanced at Sister. She nodded. ‘It’ll be all right, Dillon. Frantly-Gibbs will be able to manage the clearing on her own. Go with your Commandant.’

  Mary’s eyebrows were raised to her hairline. I caught her eye and shrugged slightly, then went out of the Block with Madam.

  She took me to her small office, closed the door, told me to sit down. She did not sit down herself, she leant against the edge of the desk directly in front of me. She did not say anything for perhaps a minute; she just looked at me, and breathed carefully as if she needed to conserve her breath. It was hot in the little room, the windows were closed, and the sun blazed through the glass turning the room into an over-heated conservatory. The scarlet potted geranium that ornamented the desk was wilting for lack of water, and the muffled throb of the ambulance engines outside in the square made the room sound as if it was filled with weary bees.

  Miss Moreby-Aspin said very quietly, ‘Dillon, m’dear, I am afraid I have to give you sad news.’ And to my eternal gratitude, without wrapping the words in tactful cotton-wool, she told me at once that my father was dead. Then she explained how he had been killed.

  Chapter Five

  A BIG BLACK CROSS

  I could not believe her; I could not believe that the world could go on without my father. I had been braced against the news that Charles might die ‒ Charles was so gentle and vulnerable; I had thought about Luke dying ‒ you cannot have a brother at sea in a war without the thought occurring to darken your mind; it had never occurred to me to worry about my father. He was strong, middle-aged, a general practitioner in that small seaside town in Kent where I had grown up; he was indestructible, and he was my father. I had not forgotten his passion for sailing, I simply had not thought it important; he had said that his beloved yawl would have to be beached in our garden for the duration. I had never connected the Margurita with the War.