A Hospital Summer Read online

  Sister asked, ‘Which war? The Crimea?’

  The next ward was another hive of industry and her mouth tightened. ‘Don’t you V.A.D.s do any cleaning at all?’

  I looked at my hands before answering. I had tried hard to save my hands. I had used countless lotions, slept in gloves, rubbed in soap after washing ‒ none of them had been any good. Six months’ scrubbing, washing, polishing, black-leading, and fire-lighting, had left their mark, and nothing I could do could get my hands clean, soft, or remove the engrimed lines of coal-dust from my index fingers. I said, ‘We do clean, most of the time, in the other blocks. This Block is rather a law unto itself. All the admitting and discharging that goes on every day makes a lot of extra work, and we have only a small staff, as our men aren’t, technically, ill. When we V.A.D.s aren’t coping with meals, bed-making, temperatures, and the few medicines and treatments, we seem to spend the rest of the time unmaking beds and going to the Pack Stores for blues or uniforms.’

  She nodded, and made no other comment until we came to the last ward. She watched the men replacing the beds against the wall. ‘I think it’s all right for men to help you girls occasionally, but I don’t think it right that they should feel they have to work. After all, they are patients,’ she added reasonably, ‘and patients need to have things done for them, not the other way about. We’ll have to do something about all this.’

  I said, ‘Yes, Sister,’ because that was what she expected me to say. I did not think she would be able to alter the routine, or alter the military tradition that regards sickness as a crime, and insists that if a soldier is fit to be out of bed he is fit to polish something. The sight of the men at their housework did not worry me as it did her, not because I agreed with the official attitude to soldier up-patients, but because in the last six months I had learnt a lot about soldiers. I knew our men were happy to have something to do to help them pass the long, empty hospital hours: that neither I nor Mary nor any V.A.D. I had ever known had ever had to ask one single man to do a job. I had never met a soldier, sick or well, who did not at some time offer to ‘Lend you a hand with that, Nurse. Here ‒ you give that to me. I’ll shine, scrub, polish, or sweep it for you.’

  Our patients in the Ob. Block came in for ‘observation.’ Under that heading we had men admitted with tonsillitis and dermatitis, gastric ulcers and ringworm, Vincent’s angina and mumps, backaches and bronchitis, colds in the head and bad feet, meningitis and malingerers. While the men waited to be sorted, diagnosed, and sent to the Block specific for their ailments they lay patiently side by side, wearing white day shirts when we ran out of night shirts, and khaki uniform shirts when we ran out of day shirts; swapping cigarettes, magazines, and stories under their breath; keeping up a constant good-humoured civility to the nurses, an equally constant grumble of the horrors of Army life, and nostalgic sighing for the lost joys of Civvy Street. Their grumbling might be incessant, but it was never serious; their behaviour to their nurses was uniformly charming and considerate. Bad language we never heard in an other-ranks ward; nor, whatever the Army text-books may say, was there ever need to maintain discipline. The men disciplined themselves magnificently.

  Sister asked suddenly, ‘Do the men make good patients?’

  I glanced back at the ward we had just left. A small rifleman who was sitting illicitly on the end of his bed lighting a still more illicit cigarette ‒ it was after ‘smoking time’ ‒ caught my eye and grinned inquiringly, as he held the match-flame away from the end of his cigarette. His grin asked clearly, ‘Will you be on the carpet if I do this, Nurse?’

  I turned away quickly, so that Sister might not look back. ‘I’ve only really nursed soldiers, Sister, so I suppose I can’t be much of a judge.’

  ‘But do you find them good patients?’

  I said slowly, ‘Yes, I do. I should say that there may be other patients as good somewhere; I don’t think there can anywhere be any better.’

  ‘You may be right,’ she replied indifferently, as if regretting she had asked my opinion on a nursing point about which I was too inexperienced to express a view of any value. ‘What’s in there? Another ablutions annexe? I’d like to look at it.’

  We entered that last ablutions annexe more slowly, then immediately had to back out again quickly ‒ not because all the latrines were occupied, as had happened previously, but because just as we entered the annexe the two medical orderlies who were cleaning it out emptied their buckets of disinfectant over the stone floor and swept the creosote solution towards us. Miss Thanet stepped neatly out of the way of the unattractive stream. ‘Is this used as a substitute for scrubbing the floor, Miss Dillon?’

  The two orderlies watched her with expressionless faces, and leant on their squeegees, waiting for us to pass. I said, ‘Yes, Sister,’ and her mouth tightened primly, as it had done previously. As we walked away, she correctly preceding me, the two orderlies favoured me with a gloomy smile and the thumbs-down sign. I shook my head at them, and walked after her quickly. I did not think she rated a thumbs-down; she had to make a song and dance about hygiene and floor-scrubbing; she was a trained nurse, and I had never met a trained nurse who did not make a song and dance about both those things; but I was quite sure that if she stayed in the Ob. Block for a few weeks she would become quite human. The Ob. Block had that effect on Sisters, even on new Sisters like Miss Thanet, who arrived in the Block fresh from their beautifully equipped parent hospitals, with their minds filled with their excellent training, and professional notions that were often as unyielding as the starch in their fine new Army caps. It was impossible to remain unyielding about anything in the Ob. Block, where the patients, treatments, and Company Orders were altered daily if necessary; and where, since it was the emergency Block, you never knew for certain from one minute to another who was going to come in, or what was going to happen next. It was an interesting, occasionally infuriating, often frustrating, and always exciting Block in which to work; although it was considered a hard-working Block for V.A.D.s, it was very popular with us. Mary Frantly-Gibbs and I were considered very favoured to have been in the Block for three months; Janice Sims, the third untrained member of the nursing staff, who had only been four weeks in the hospital, was constantly being asked by our fellow-V.A.D.s which string she had managed to pull to get this Block as her first post. Janice, being new to all hospitals, accepted the irregularities of our working day as happenings common to hospital ward life; she had no ingrained professional ideas to be disorientated as poor Miss Thanet’s were now being disorientated. When she and I returned to the hall after our round Miss Thanet sat down at the improvised desk and read through the report-book, looking as if she did not know what had hit her. She was due to be hit a good many times more, if she only stayed with us a couple of weeks, and when she was posted elsewhere no Army hospital would ever surprise her again.

  She looked up from her reading. ‘Why do you use your hands to put on the coal?’

  ‘I want to make a nest of coal,’ I explained, balancing each piece of the precious fuel carefully. ‘We haven’t any tongs, and if I just shove it on from the bucket too much’ll fall out, and the whole thing will collapse. If I do it this way I can get a strong basis for the cooking-pots. Like this.’ I put the egg saucepan in position. ‘And this.’ The double milk saucepan. ‘Then they’ll cook while I go and wash my hands.’

  She said, ‘You should have joined the Boy Scouts instead of the Red Cross,’ and returned to her report-book.

  When I got back from washing she was waiting to ask me another question. ‘What’s N.D.K.? Every other man has that as a diagnosis.’

  ‘No Diagnosis Known. Sometimes there’s a “Y” added ‒ Yet.’

  ‘A variation on P.U.O. [Pyrexia of Unknown Origin]?’

  ‘Sometimes, not often, as they don’t necessarily have a “P”. This is a low-grade Block.’

  She grinned. ‘You are telling me, Nurse.’

  I smiled at her bent head and continued with my brea
kfast preparations, feeling very bucked at my discernment. On the whole I was a pretty bad judge of character; it was enchanting to discover that occasionally I could be right. She was not going to be bad at all; on the contrary, I thought she might be good fun to work under.

  The one splendid piece of equipment the Block possessed was the clock in the hall. It was framed in ornate gilt, had a highly unmilitary appearance, kept perfect time, and announced each hour with a set of low, musical chimes. It was fixed high on one wall, and could only have its weekly winding if you stood on a table; but it was the pride of our department and the envy of all the other Blocks whose staffs frequently remarked that the only correct observation ever made in the Observation Block was what time it was.

  The clock was chiming eight as Mary Frantly-Gibbs arrived on duty. Mary had worked late last night, as we were temporarily Sister-less, and had been given a half-hour’s grace this morning as a reward from Matron’s office. Mary was a tallish, sturdy young woman in her early thirties, with dramatic dark eyes, thick, dark, faintly greying hair, and the calm temperament of a person who had found what she sought from life and had no desire to seek further. She waved an amicable hand at me as she came into the hall, raised a dark eyebrow at Miss Thanet’s back, deposited her cloak and gloves on the chair behind the kitchen table that served as our hat-stand. ‘Morning, Sister,’ she murmured, passing the desk on her way to the front of the kitchen table. Once there she took up a large wooden tray and began setting it with white china mugs.

  Sister’s head jerked up, and her back stiffened. ‘What are you doing, Nurse Frantly-Gibbs?’

  ‘Setting a tray, Sister,’ returned Mary politely, jamming in another mug.

  Miss Thanet closed the report-book. ‘When you come on duty in future’ ‒ she glanced at me to show that I was included in this ‒ ‘will you be kind enough to ask me first what work I wish you to do?’

  Mary smiled affably. ‘Yes, Sister,’ and laid a second tray.

  Miss Thanet took a deep breath. ‘I feel I must tell you both ‒ although I cannot really see why it should be necessary ‒ that I see no reason why this department should not be run as a proper hospital ward, and I intend to run it so. As I understand I am responsible for the work you V.A.D.s do, I intend to draw up work-lists and daily routines and hope you will all be good enough to keep to my instructions.’ She looked round. ‘Shouldn’t there be three of you? What’s happened to the other V.A.D.?’

  Mary explained that Janice was off until one. ‘It’s her half-day, Sister. Mrs Smith gave her a morning instead of an afternoon, as Sims lives near and can get home for one night that way.’

  ‘I see.’ Miss Thanet did not look at all pleased with this intelligence. ‘Right. Will you please help Miss Dillon with the men’s breakfasts, and when they are cleared will you both report to me again, and I will tell you what I want done next?’

  Mary and I avoided each other’s eyes, and in our best scum-of-the-earth voices chanted, ‘Yes, Sister. Certainly, Sister!’ as the cookhouse orderly banged on the door.

  ‘Morning, ladies!’ He stomped in, dumped on the hearth one of the two large covered buckets he was carrying, then staggered off to the wards with the other. ‘’Ere y’are, Jock!’ we heard him greet Gabriel. ‘Put down yer ’arp and get started ’anding round the Rosy Lee, will ye, mate? Ta.’

  Sister came over to the hearth to examine the porridge. ‘It’s half cold.’

  ‘The cookhouse is a good way from this Block, Sister,’ said Mary fairly. ‘We have to reheat nearly all the food that comes across.’

  ‘Then what about their tea? Shouldn’t you heat that too?’

  We assured her that despite the distance from the cookhouse the tea would be very hot. ‘And strong and sweet,’ added Mary. ‘The troops will stand a lot, but they won’t stand bad tea. If the cookhouse dared send over lukewarm dish-water there’d be a mutiny, and no cookhouse orderly would dare show his face in the wards for fear of being lynched. That’s why it’s always safe to let the tea go straight in. I don’t know how they keep it piping hot when everything else gets cold; I only know that it’ll be piping hot.’

  Miss Thanet tapped her foot in answer and walked off to the wards ‒ we guessed to investigate the tea herself.

  ‘Blimey, Clare,’ said Mary gently. ‘We’re going to be learned.’

  I told her the opinion I had already formed of our new Sister. ‘She’s got a sense of humour’ ‒ I bailed out the eggs as I spoke ‒ ‘I think it’s only that she’s pretty young, and takes her job seriously.’

  Gabriel, having delegated the tea to some other man, had come to help with the cooking. He took the eggs from me and arranged them neatly on a large plate. ‘It’s always the young ones that give the most trouble, Miss Dillon. An old N.C.O. may wink his eye whiles; a good young one, never. Would the Sister be new to the Army?’

  ‘First day here, anyway,’ replied Mary. ‘Hey, wait a moment with those eggs, Gabriel. The porridge isn’t done yet.’

  ‘Och, the lads can eat backward, Mrs Frantly-Gibbs. It’s no matter to them. But we’ll be needing more help.’ He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled expertly. Archibald answered that whistle immediately. ‘Archibald, will you be taking the eggs, man? I’ll be waiting on Miss Dillon. The porridge is not yet done.’

  Archibald said with unusual clarity, ‘Ye’ll no’ be calling yon porridge, mon!’ He beamed at us as if he had made a brilliant crack, and shuffled off with the plate of eggs. Mary followed him with a tray of bread and butter; Gabriel crouched on his knees behind the vast pile of porridge plates he had put to warm in the grate and was turning all the time like a spit-boy, so that all sides of the plates should be heated, while I stirred the porridge hopefully and vainly, as no amount of stirring ever managed to remove the lumps.

  I was dishing out the steaming porridge when the telephone rang. ‘Heck ‒ I’m all messy. Why must it ring now?’

  Gabriel handed me a tea-towel. ‘Use that for ye hands, Miss Dillon. I’ll be giving it a rinse out for you after breakfast.’

  ‘Bless you, Gabriel ‒ and keep that porridge steady, will you? It’s about to topple over.’ I answered the ’phone. ‘Observation.’

  A voice that belonged to Corporal Jenkins, the N.C.O. in charge of the switchboard, inquired laconically, ‘Mr Slaney with you, miss?’

  ‘Have a heart, Corporal! It’s only just gone eight. Our M.O. never arrives before nine. He’s not here yet.’

  ‘I reckon as he’s on his way to you for all that, miss. There is,’ announced Corporal Jenkins grimly, ‘goings-on going on this morning. You not heard the news?’

  ‘Camp or B.B.C.?’ The difference lay in the fact that the camp news was always roughly two weeks ahead of the wireless bulletins; it was also remarkably accurate, which was why few of us in the camp in May 1940 ever bothered to read the newspapers ‒ except to look at Jane ‒ or listen to the wireless.

  ‘Camp,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing on the wireless yet, miss. They was just giving out the usual this morning about everything carrying on as was expected, and moving to carefully prepared positions. What they calls strategic, miss. But we had some of the lads stop by here early this morning, and they reckon as a lot more lads’ll be moving off to-day. The R.S.M., he told me not half an hour ago, he did, as he reckons there’ll not be a medical orderly left in the hospital to-night. Got to move out the patients, we have, too; the M.O.s in the major blocks are at it already, fixing to shift the lads out. Got to have spare beds, we have ‒ lots of spare beds, they say ‒ and they’re not saying what for. That’s why I got to find Mr Slaney. He’s wanted over here sharp-like, and he’s not in quarters. You’ve not seen him, eh?’

  ‘Not yet. Corporal, hang on a moment. Tell me. Who’s coming in? Our own wounded from France? Has there been a showdown?’

  He said he couldn’t say about that, he was sure. ‘But you take a tip from me, Miss Dillon, and nip down to the Pack Store smart and get all the stores you can out of
Staff there. You’ll be needing them, I reckon.’

  I put down the receiver and went back to the fire. The hearth was now very hot, yet I felt suddenly cold. I had a brother in the R.A.F. in France; another on a ship at sea. My elder brother, the sailor, had been at Narvik, and we had nursed men from that affair. The papers might call this a phoney war, but I knew, as did every other nurse in the hospital, that, phoney or not, already the young men had died.

  Gabriel glanced at me curiously. ‘Would there be a wee flap on, Miss Dillon?’

  ‘So Corporal Jenkins thinks.’ I told him about it as I ladled out the porridge. Mary came back when I was half-way through, so I had to start my story all over again.

  Mary said she did not believe a word of it. When Gabriel vanished with a tray of porridge plates she added, ‘I’ll bet it’s only another exercise, Clare. You know how the G.O.C. adores exercises ‒ and Jenkins adores spreading careless talk. I’ll bet Joe Slaney’s sound asleep in his bed at this minute and hasn’t answered the ’phone because he hasn’t heard it ring. That young man’s far too lazy to dream of getting out of bed one minute before nine. If the day ever dawns when Joe Slaney appears to do a round before nine-thirty, then, and then only’ ‒ she picked up another loaded tray ‒ ‘will I take this war seriously. Until then no one is going to persuade me that this is anything more than Jenkins’ usual bout of alarm, and despondency.’

  ‘And why,’ demanded a slow voice from behind us, ‘is Jenkins spreading alarm and despondency on this, a fine May morning when the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing tra-la, and all the world’s a song? Good morning, girls.’

  We did not need to turn round to recognize the owner of that drawling voice. Mary said simply, ‘My God. That does it.’ She handed her tray to Archibald, who had returned with the empty egg plate, and turned round. ‘Tell me, Mr Slaney, is Jerry with us? If not, what on earth are you doing up at this hour?’