A Hospital Summer Read online

  Mrs Ellis gave a soft gasp. ‘Oh, Sister ‒’ She touched the baby’s petal-soft face with one finger. ‘Oh, Sister ‒ oh, Sister ‒’ she repeated over and over again.

  For a few seconds Mackenzie stood looking down at the mother and child; her gold head was still capless, her face was half covered by her mask, her eyes were serene. An air of contentment filled the Labour Ward, making me ignore, rather than forget, the raid that was still going on. I felt as if the noise was merely a too loud wireless that needed turning down; I did not think I was alone in that feeling. For those few seconds three women had forgotten the War as we shared the victory and wonder and happiness that can come with the birth of a healthy baby.

  Mackenzie said, ‘I’ll take that position from you, Dillon. Move your hands from under mine as I did. Then fix that black-out on the window behind you. I’ve just noticed it’s come away again. There’s a jinx on that window. It just refuses to stay black-outed. Use adhesive on it.’

  It took a whole roll of two-inch strapping to get that black-out screen in position again. ‘I think it’ll stay now, Sister.’

  ‘Hope so.’ Mackenzie glanced over her shoulder as she stood at the sink examining the after-birth. ‘I’ve at least one more baby coming off to-night, and this raid looks as if it’s going on until dawn. By the sound of it they’re coming in close again. Is that the office ’phone I hear?’

  ‘Shall I go and find out, Sister?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t loiter in the passage. Those windows outside have taken a shaking to-night. They may give.’

  I did not loiter in the passage; I ran along to the office. The telephone bell was ringing furiously. I raised the receiver and held it away from my ear until the ringing had stopped. ‘Families, night V.A.D. speaking.’

  ‘Nurse!’ The voice the other end was as furious as the bell had sounded. ‘This is the Garrison P.A.D. officer. You are showing a light in a top-storey room on the west side. Will you please see to it, instantly.’

  I explained that the screen had become dislodged by the blast. ‘We have just mended it.’

  ‘About time too! It should have been seen to directly it fell down. Kindly ask Sister to be sure that no light is shown again.’

  Miss Mackenzie received this request with a curt nod. ‘Do you suppose the silly so-and-so thinks I have time in the middle of a delivery to start playing with black-out screens? All right, Dillon. Thanks. It’s fixed now, so perhaps he’ll relax. Now will you take this infant, wrap her in blankets as I showed you, put her in her cot by her mum, then mark two wristbands with her name, Rose Ellis, date, time of birth ‒ that was 1.10 a.m. ‒ and sew one on each wrist. When you’ve done that go back to the shelter.’

  ‘Do I take the baby with me, Sister?’

  She looked across to Mrs Ellis, who was lying with her eyes closed, and shook her head. ‘For one thing ‒ the corridor and lift are too draughty; for another ‒ I never part them at this stage. Mrs. Ellis will have to stay up; she can’t go gallivanting in lifts after the amount she’s lost; a little more and we’ll have a P.P.H. on our hands. She must lie still, and her babe must stay where her mum can see her.’

  The women in the shelter were enchanted to hear Mrs Ellis had a daughter. ‘There, she did so want a girl! Is she to be called Rose, Nurse? Ever such a pretty name, it is! And how lucky she’s been to have that Sister Mackenzie to deliver her. She wanted it to be Sister Mackenzie. She’s a lovely Sister, that Sister; ever so clever, for all she’s so young. And you never catch that Sister getting in a state. Always cool as a cucumber, that’s Sister Mackenzie.’

  The alert lasted for an hour and a half longer. During that period the Labour Ward black-out fell down four times. I knew exactly when it fell down, even though I was in the basement, because the telephone in the basement corridor rang within a few seconds of the screen falling. ‘Garrison P.A.D. officer here! Will you please put that light out instantly as the screen is inefficient!’ I went up to the Labour Ward after each message to hand it on to Mackenzie. With each message Mackenzie’s actions continued calm, but her normally restrained language grew more purple. ‘Can I help it if the bloody Germans drop their bloody bombs all round this bloody camp, Dillon? Fix the b‒ again! I must have a light. Both my women are coming off now. I’m just praying one will be five minutes ahead of the other; if not I’ll have to ring for you again.’

  She rang her SOS fifteen minutes later. When I arrived panting in the Labour Ward she told me to wash quickly and put on the rubber gloves she had laid out for me. ‘Then come here ‒ get your fingers like mine ‒ spread them, and get the head in the palm of your hand. That’s it, now just let Junior do what he wants to, don’t force anything, but hold the head steady.’ She stood up and smiled at the woman by whose bed we were bending. ‘That’s it, my dear, Nurse knows just what to do ‒ you’re being very good ‒ save your breath for the next pain ‒ good girl ‒’ She darted to the other bed, that was now only a yard away. Mrs Ellis and her baby had disappeared, I had no notion where. I concentrated on what Mackenzie had told me to do automatically; there was no question of my believing any of this, there was no time for belief, there was only time to act.

  Mackenzie was talking to the other mother. ‘Now, dear ‒ only one more pain, I think, and then ‒’ She stopped, as the first bomb for several minutes dropped a fair distance off. The explosion helped both women, they gasped, relaxed, and their babies were born within a minute of each other and yelled their objections about life together.

  Mackenzie moved like silent lightning between the beds. ‘Get the name tapes at once, Dillon, and tie them on. They’re both boys. We won’t worry about Christian names. Ginger here is Bevis; your chap is Taylor. Now, you’re sure you’ve got that? Just see to their names, date, and time. That’s right.’ She glanced up. ‘Congratulations, ladies. You’ve both got boys. Fine boys; all complete. Nice work, both of you.’ She rolled Master Bevis under her arm and gave him to his mother. ‘Here’s a fine redhead for you, my dear. He’s a splendid boy.’ Then she dealt with Master Taylor, whom I was holding. ‘Meet your son, Mrs Taylor. A tough if ever I saw one. Look at him doubling his fist already.’ She turned to me, and mopped her brow with the back of her forearm. ‘What time is it, Dillon?’

  ‘Twenty to three, Sister.’

  ‘All-clear gone? The raid seems over.’

  I was surprised to discover the night had grown silent. I had not even been aware that the gunfire had stopped. ‘I’m not sure, Sister, I don’t think I’ve heard it.’

  ‘I don’t wonder.’ She tugged her mask down round her neck as if she needed air. She looked round the Labour Ward. ‘This place looks a shambles with all those smashed bottles.’

  ‘Shall I sweep them up, Sister?’

  ‘No, they’ll have to wait. I want you to do something else for me. I’ll have to get Major Scott back. I’m not at all happy about Mrs Ellis.’ She looked very worried. ‘My bones tell me she’s going to have that P.P.H. after all. Will you tell him that, and say I’d be grateful if he’d come, stat. For your information, stat means at once.’

  ‘Yes, Sister. Er ‒ what’s a P.P.H.?’

  She smiled faintly. ‘Poor kid. I keep forgetting how green you are. A Post-partum Haemorrhage, and a nasty thing. If he asks, she is grouped and we’ve got the blood. All right?’

  The switchboard orderly was curt: ‘I can’t get the Major, miss, not yet. He’s operating. We’re having a busy time, you know.’

  ‘Then get us the O.M.O., and quickly!’ I snapped back. ‘And don’t tell me there’s a raid on. We know it. We also know that one of our mothers may be going to die. She’s just had her first baby. How would you feel if she was your wife? If you can’t get Major Scott get any M.O. over here quick as you can.’ I slammed down the receiver feeling better for my outburst. Oddly, until I lost my temper with that unfortunate orderly, I had no idea that I was feeling on edge at all.

  The all-clear was sounding as I returned to the Labour Ward to tell
Mackenzie of my telephone conversation. ‘Let’s hope this means Major Scott can be over soon. The O.M.O.’s all right, but I’d rather have a specialist for a woman as ill as I’m afraid she may be going to be. Go and get your babes from the basement and help my mothers back to bed, and then perhaps we may be able to get some work done.’

  The babies were all sleeping peacefully in the women’s arms; they did not wake when they were transferred to the trolley and the mattress to await their turn on the trolley, so as the mothers looked exhausted I first helped them up in the lift, then went down for the trolley-load of babies. When they, still sleeping, were in their cots I returned for my final load. The basement lights went out while I was in the shelter. The A.T.S. sergeant had returned my matches to me, so I lit the hurricane lamp and hung it on the end of the trolley, stacked the babies, a bundle of spare shawls, and the tray of bottles on top, and pushed the trolley out of the shelter and along the now dark basement corridor. I felt suddenly dazed with fatigue; I could only think about Mrs Ellis, and whether Mackenzie was right, and she was going to bleed, and if she would bleed to death. She had looked so happy after her baby was born; it was such a nice baby, much nicer than the two red pug-faced little boys. My trolley hit something soft while I was remembering the ginger-headed baby I had helped into the world. I stopped still, momentarily too tired to be interested in what I had hit, since the trolley and the babies were intact. In the yellow light from the hurricane lamp I saw feet on the floor ahead. Feet in Army boots. The owners of the feet were silent, and they remained silent as I counted them. Ten feet, five pairs, five men. My brain worked very slowly. I lifted the lamp from the trolley to look at the men’s faces. I discovered I recognized only two of them. One was Steve Heller, one of the M.O.s; the other the R.S.M., Mr Smith. Beside Mr Smith stood a man with a belligerent expression and a major’s crown on the shoulders of his battle-dress tunic.

  The R.S.M. cleared his throat. ‘Morning, Miss Dillon. Garrison P.A.D. officer here. The Major’s come to complain about the light that’s been showing here to-night.’

  The garrison air defence officer was the next person to clear his throat. ‘It’s been most disgraceful ‒’ he began importantly. He could not go on. A voice from the head of the stair-well interrupted him. The voice belonged to Mackenzie.

  ‘Dillon, what do you think you are doing, loitering down there with those babes? Do you want to give them pneumonia?’ The men’s heads jerked upward as if they were puppets and Mackenzie had pulled their five strings. The light on the top-floor had not gone out, and we could see the outline of her fair, still capless, head clearly.

  I said, ‘The Garrison P.A.D. officer is down here, Sister. He has come to complain about that light in the Labour Ward.’

  The Garrison P.A.D. officer cleared his throat for a second time. ‘It should have been ‒’ but for a second time he was unable to finish his protest. The dignified and efficient Mackenzie suddenly exploded quite as violently as the bombs had been exploding a short while ago.

  ‘God Almighty, Dillon! Are you telling me that man is still nattering on about that light? Does he know it was in the Labour Ward? And if he does will you tell him from me that if he wants the bloody babies delivered in the bloody dark with a tin hat and respirator on at the alert, he can come and deliver them himself! Being only a qualified midwife, I have to see what I’m doing! Can I help it if those stupid Germans knock down my black-out screens with their blast when I’m scrubbed up and holding a baby’s head? Ask him that, Dillon! And you can also tell him that while he’s been pestering me with his bloody ’phone-calls I’ve brought three babies into the world, and I’ve got a mother who’s going to leave this world mighty soon if I don’t get back to her, and someone doesn’t get me an M.O. quickly! For the love of Mike, get those babes back into their cots, and then sit on the ’phone until someone gets me a doctor! If they can’t find Major Scott get anyone ‒ even that moron Heller. Isn’t he O.M.O. to-night? Where the hell’s he got to? Why isn’t he here?’

  I called quickly, ‘Sister, Mr Heller is ‒’

  ‘Don’t tell me!’ she spat back. ‘I know. Held up by a roadblock or a land-mine or something! He would be. God help us! God help all women when men start playing at soldiers!’

  She swept back to the Labour Ward with a swirl of her starched skirts. Mr Heller changed instantly from a harassed O.M.O. into a concerned young doctor. ‘Who’s having trouble, Miss Dillon?’

  ‘Mrs Ellis. Sister says she’s going to have a P.P.H.’

  ‘Is she?’ He shot a look at his companions, then made up his mind. ‘Excuse me, sir, I must go up. A woman needs transfusing.’ He went up the stairs three at a time.

  His disappearance was followed by utter silence. In the silence I hung my hurricane lamp in its original place on the end of the trolley. The Garrison P.A.D. officer helped me with ostentatious gallantry. ‘Useful things these, aren’t they, Nurse? What’s happened to your basement lights?’

  Mackenzie had inspired me. I said coldly I had not the faintest idea.

  ‘Oh? Oh. Oh.’ They were three quite different sounds. He turned his attention to my babies. ‘Jolly lot of little fellows you’ve got here!’ The Major managed a positively matey laugh. ‘Make a good football team, eh?’

  His charm rolled off me. I was on Mackenzie’s side, and on a corner of her soap-box. I said my babies would make a rotten football team, as there were only nine on the trolley, four of whom were girls.

  ‘Really?’ He cleared his throat again for want of inspiration, then turned on the R.S.M. ‘Well, Sar’nt-Major, what are we waiting for, eh? I’ve got work to do, man! Can’t hang around here all night delaying this young lady at her excellent work. Expect you’ve had a hard night, eh, Nurse?’

  I said, ‘Yes. It has been busy.’

  The R.S.M. was magnificently phlegmatic. ‘I’ll get that screen replaced immediately, sir.’

  ‘See you do, Sar’nt-Major! I don’t want these good ladies to be worried again in this fashion!’

  ‘Yes, sir! Certainly, sir!’ The R.S.M. clicked his heels, then stood aside to let me proceed with my trolley. As I did so the lamp illuminated his impassive face. The left side of his face was away from the Garrison P.A.D. officer and his two attendants. The R.S.M. murmured, ‘Good night, Miss Dillon,’ and slowly lowered and raised his left eyelid.

  The Major was not to be outdone. ‘Ah, Miss Dillon, is it? Any relation to my good friend Paul Dillon in the 17/21st?’

  ‘None at all, I’m afraid. Neither of my brothers are in the Army.’ I was too peeved to explain more; I hoped he would assume both were conscientious objectors.

  Apparently he did. He coughed and muttered something about lots of fine chaps still being tied up in Civvy Street. ‘I know we mustn’t keep you down here with your precious cargo. Good night, Miss Dillon.’

  ‘Good morning,’ I returned frigidly, and stalked on towards the lift with my trolley.

  Major Scott was racing up the stairs when I reached the top floor. He stopped when he saw me. ‘I hear Sister’s wanting me, Nurse?’

  ‘Yes, please. For Mrs Ellis ‒’

  Mackenzie came out of the ward as I spoke. ‘Sorry to have to get you back, sir. I’m glad you’ve come. Mrs Ellis is having a P.P.H. Mr Heller’s doing a cut-down.’

  Major Scott removed his tin hat and draped it over the end of the banister. ‘How much has she lost, Sister?’

  Mackenzie said evenly, ‘I should say four. Might be more. She hasn’t stopped properly yet.’

  ‘How much of her group have we got?’

  ‘Six pints.’

  He had removed his jacket and was rolling up his shirtsleeves now. ‘Child all right?’

  ‘Perfect. A girl.’

  ‘Good.’ He yawned. ‘That’s half our battle won already. Right, Sister, let’s go and see her. Sorry I couldn’t come before. I was held up in the theatre. Gervase Gill cut his right hand ‒ flying glass or something ‒ and I had to take over for him.’
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  They went into the ward then. I closed the nursery door and tucked down my babies, feeling no longer tired or peeved; I felt only very thoughtful. When the nursery was tidy again I stood for quite a long time looking round at the babies I had brought back from the shelter, and then I drifted over to the white-screened corner by the radiator and looked at the three babies I had seen born that night. Mackenzie must have carried their cots from their mothers’ bedsides after the all-clear. The two little boys were asleep, Rose Ellis was awake. One of her minute hands had escaped from her shawl and was pressed like a small, fat starfish against her round cheek. She blinked up at me with wide, unfocusing eyes that looked incredibly wise. I touched her hand with my little finger. ‘You’re much too fat to be new,’ I said aloud. ‘You ought to have red skinny hands like the others. I think you’re a fraud, baby. I think you’ve been here before. You look as if you know all the answers. I wish I knew a few of them.’

  ‘What are your questions?’ Mackenzie had come in from the Labour Ward. She did not look surprised to hear me talking to the baby, because both she and I often talked to the babies when we thought ourselves alone.

  I turned to her. ‘I was thinking about the raid, Sister. All the noise and the mess and people killing each other ‒ and Mrs Ellis haemorrhaging ‒ and wondering why?’

  She shrugged. ‘You never want to waste time wondering why about anything. Leave silly questions to silly people who have nothing better to do than ask them. Certainly you must never stop to ask why in any hospital, no one can answer you ‒ and what does the why matter? What does matter is the job in hand. Which is why I’m in here. Will you make some tea for Mrs Ellis and the two men? Bring it up to this floor, and I’ll serve it.’