A Hospital Summer Read online

  Next morning Mary and I again had the same off-duty, this time from ten until one, so we decided to go together to the garrison church. We went there straight from the Block, wearing our indoor uniform and scarlet-lined blue cloaks.

  The church was almost full when we got there. As Mary led the way to the V.A.D.s’ pew our aprons rustled, and on both sides of the aisle the men’s heads swayed like twin fields of stubble corn in our direction. I noticed Joe Slaney’s back in the R.A.M.C. officers’ pew ahead of us. He was wearing his best uniform that morning; it was well-tailored, and his leather belt made his normally slim waist look in danger of breaking in two. Mary, noticing him too, whispered, ‘If that man gets much thinner he’ll fade away. He’s nothing but bone ‒ not even skin.’

  The service was short, with plenty of hymns. The men’s voices sounded tragically sincere and sad, as men’s voices singing in chorus always do, if they are only singing Sweet Violets. One of the hymns we sang was O God, our help in ages past. That hymn reminded me suddenly of my father; it was his favourite hymn. I felt a queer little wave of homesickness, hearing it that morning. I had never really missed my home or parents; I had loved both, but was much enjoying the glorious freedom of being on my own, and I liked my new job. But I can only hear music with my emotions; I cannot listen to it mathematically, as I believe a true musician can. That particular hymn, my father, and my childhood were all bound up together in a pleasantly vague yet satisfying memory. I thought about my father, and was glad that he was too old to fight in this war, and too busy with his practice at home to have time to know the War was on. The behaviour of the troops around me drew my attention back to the present. They were behaving very badly; their concentrated boot-scraping, cap-dropping, and yawns were infuriating their N.C.O.s and enchanting Mary and me. She nudged me slightly. ‘Look at that sergeant on your right, Clare. He looks about to explode.’

  When the next week began properly the ‘Patients to remain in the Observation Block for twenty-four hours only’ order was still in operation. Miss Thanet looked a little pale, but was otherwise composed; Joe Slaney produced a pound of tea for us. ‘I thought maybe your girls might be getting a little short of the stuff, Sister. My granny sent it me. Now we can really go to town and have a decent cup.’

  Mary, staggering under another bundle of kit, asked, ‘I suppose your granny didn’t send you any poteen, Mr Slaney? That I could use.’

  Sister looked shocked; Joe unmoved. ‘Well, now, she didn’t. But I’ll write and ask for some, Mrs Frantly-Gibbs.’

  In the Pack Store even Staff Williams was wilting visibly; his assistants were near breaking-point. ‘For Gawd’s sake, Miss Dillon! Not another pack from the Ob. Block! Give us a chance, miss! We won’t have a spare set of blues left at this rate! O.K., miss! Hand it over.’

  Miss Thanet settled in admirably. She stopped calling us ‘Nurse’; gave up her attempts to turn us into well-trained probationers; left us to get on with our own work, turning a blind eye to floor-polish as a fire-lighter, and to Mary’s habit of serving meals with her sleeves rolled up ‒ Mary wore the older version of the British Red Cross uniform, with long sleeves, and that habit had tried Miss Thanet sorely on her first day. Sister was also icily patient with our lethargic M.O., who alone remained unhurried during those hurried days, and obviously irritated her by his endless consumption of tea.

  One Wednesday evening in that second week he stopped his car to offer me a lift home. ‘What’s happened to your bike?’ he asked, opening the door.

  ‘Two flats. Fore and aft. I can’t ride it.’

  ‘One doesn’t bother you?’

  I sat down in his little car, grateful of the opportunity to get off my feet. ‘Not really. It only means you bump a bit.’

  ‘You also ruin the wheels.’

  I said I did not hold with that theory. ‘I’ve proved it false. Not only me; every V.A.D. in the hospital rides on flats, and our wheels don’t buckle.’

  ‘Why not be a real devil and mend the punctures? Or get the chaps to do it for you?’

  ‘If you ‒ or the O.C. ‒’ I retorted bitterly, ‘would only leave us one able-bodied man in the Ob. Block for more than a few hours I could have my bike mended easily. As it is, the poor men have barely time to walk into the wards before we have to wrest their khaki off their backs; then no sooner have they climbed into bed to be examined than they are climbing out of bed into blues; then we are seizing their blues from them, and pitching them back into bed again to wait for their khaki. I wouldn’t mind at all having someone mend my bike in his underwear, but soldiers are so frightfully proper. They’d be shocked to death if I wheeled my bike into the ablutions and asked them to fix it in their smalls.’ I had an idea, and looked at him hopefully. ‘I suppose you don’t know anything about mending bikes?’

  He smiled at the road ahead. ‘Not I. Not one thing. It devastates me to say so, you’ll understand, Miss Dillon. There’s nothing I’d like so much as to mend your bike ‒ it’s too bad that I can’t do it for you. Machinery’ ‒ he almost sang the word, so slowly was he talking ‒ ‘the internal combustion engine, the whole box of tricks, scare the daylights out of me. I wouldn’t know where to start with any of them. I prefer sex as a hobby.’

  I said, ‘Is it the only alternative?’

  He glanced at me. ‘Can you tell me a better?’

  ‘I would have said yours was drinking tea.’

  ‘That’s no hobby, woman,’ he replied mildly, ‘that’s my virtue. Think of the good it does my kidneys.’

  I was not interested in his kidneys; there was something else I wanted to ask him. Since Miss Thanet’s arrival he had not been free to natter with us as in the past, when Mrs Smith ran the Ob. Block. This was not only because of the increased rush of work, but because Miss Thanet clearly disapproved of our previous informality with our M.O., and was not disposed to turn a blind eye to this, as to so much else. Consequently Mary, Janice, and myself now avoided the duty-room as much as possible, and although this saved me a considerable amount of irritation ‒ since sooner or later Joe Slaney invariably irritated me ‒ I found it did shut down one of my most useful lines of information. Staff Williams could tell me a lot about the situation; but it was Joe Slaney who in the past had regaled Mary and me with the fascinating details of exactly what the O.C. said to Major Endsby during that row in the R.A.M.C. Officers’ Mess, and why Matron was insisting that Sister So-and-so should be sent to the Families Hospital as extra Sister, when the theatre was running short-staffed.

  ‘Why did Mrs Smith move so suddenly, Mr Slaney? We thought she was with us for the duration.’

  ‘I hoped that, too,’ he agreed. ‘Strangely, she went only because she was posted. I gather Matron was as sorry to see her go as we were ‒ and I know the O.C. liked her. She was a good soul, was old Mother Smith. She’d the right touch. But they are opening Clearing Stations all over the place. Hospitals, too.’

  ‘Where are they getting the staffs from? You can’t produce trained nurses out of a bottomless hat.’

  ‘The big general hospitals are coping. All the Big Five, and the others. They’re lending their nurses and medical staff to set up places like Garden East ‒ that’s the place all our chaps are going to from here. It’s around sixty miles inland; an ex-looney-bin that’s got two thousand Service beds to date.’ His dark face was illuminated by one of his rare genuine smiles. ‘The chaps’ll like the difference.’

  ‘What difference?’

  ‘Between a military and civilian hospital. In a civilian hospital a patient is a guest and not a convict.’

  I would have liked to disagree with him. I could not, as I knew nothing at all about civilian hospitals ‒ fifty hours does not grant you any knowledge ‒ and I knew that he was right about the Army. ‘Why did you become a soldier? Doctors can still be reserved, can’t they?’

  He said he had not the faintest idea.

  ‘You must have volunteered, then?’

  A corner of his mouth
lifted. ‘Naturally. I’m the hero calibre. Don’t I look it?’

  ‘No.’

  He laughed. ‘Well, now, and to think that I walked into that ‒ and with my chin. And since we’re having such a fine time being frank with each other, there’s a question I’d like to ask you, Miss Dillon. How old are you? Did you have to give a false age to get in?’

  ‘No. I’m twenty.’

  ‘Are you now?’ He ignored the road, and surveyed me coolly. ‘It’s those big eyes of yours that fool one ‒ and that schoolgirl haircut. Why do you wear your hair in that straight cut? Have you not heard of permanent waves, or do you not approve of them? Not, I’ll grant you, that it doesn’t suit you. It does. But it makes you rather unique in this era of curls, and that puzzles me. Why should you care to look unique?’

  I said between my teeth, ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  He concentrated on the road again. ‘It doesn’t go with the rest of you. You’re so very typical of the long-legged hand-me-my-hockey-stick-and-let’s-have-a-damned-good-game Englishwoman, who’s got a beautiful figure and does her damnedest to hide it. And it doesn’t go with your leaping into the first available uniform and racing round with a broom and dustpan mentality. Those are both traditional and correct attitudes; your hair-style quarrels with them. It almost leads one to suppose the shocking heresy that maybe you’ve a mind of your own.’

  I said evenly, ‘If I owe this to two flat tyres, next time I’ll walk.’

  ‘You can walk now if you wish. But as we’re nearly at your Mess you might as well sit it out.’

  I turned on him. ‘Just what do you think I should be doing? Sitting by the burning home fires knitting? Entertaining the troops to coffee and macaroons?’

  ‘Tea,’ he murmured dreamily, ‘with tea. Only the upper classes care for coffee, but the poor damned bastards of soldiers are too polite to say so. If you entertained them to tea and ham rolls you might be doing some good.’ He slowed to a stop by the side of the road to allow a small convoy of carriers to rattle by. ‘I imagine you feel bucked as hell that you’re Doing Your Bit?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’ I watched the convoy. ‘No one tells me anything.’

  He took his hands off the wheel. ‘Suppose I tell you something?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  He smiled faintly as if I had made a weak joke. ‘Right. I’ll do that. Why waste your time in this racket? If you want to nurse why not learn to do the job properly?’

  ‘Someone has to be a V.A.D.’

  ‘Certainly they do. Sensible young women like your pal Mary Frantly-Gibbs, who’ve husbands and homes to return to when the party’s over, and others, older than she, who can do a good job at it, as it’s too late for them to do anything else. But a young, strong, damned healthy young woman like yourself has no business to stay here playing at the job. Unless,’ he added softly, ‘you are of the mind that this is just a game for the girls after finishing school. If it is I’d say you won’t have much difficulty in graduating. Not with your legs.’

  ‘Graduating?’

  ‘Getting a husband. Isn’t that the main object of being finished? You come out, in a fine white dress, go to the right parties ‒ and that just now means wearing a red cross on your bosom ‒ and then sling your hooks.’

  His conversation had been only annoying me until now. I was downright angry as I answered, ‘Mr Slaney, you offered me a lift home. Thank you very much. Had I realized what I was in for I would not have accepted your offer. Do you realize that you’re being exceedingly rude?’

  ‘So what? I’ve no nice feelings, and neither the pretensions nor desire to act like a little gentleman. I’m not often curious, but when I am I ask questions. I’ll admit I’m curious about you, Miss Dillon, and if you don’t want men to be curious about you’ ‒ he looked down at my ankles ‒ ‘you ought to wear black woollen stockings and keep your dress-hems down to the ground. Legs like yours ‒ in black silk ‒ invite questions.’ He looked up at my face. ‘Or wouldn’t you know about that.’

  ‘I know,’ I said ‒ wearily, because I really was tired after all the running across the square I had done that day, ‘I know. I’ve two brothers, and one of them’s my twin.’

  ‘So they’ve told you the facts of life? I wouldn’t have thought it after watching your modest violet act in the hospital. Eyes to the ground when an M.O. comes in.’

  ‘That’s because I like a quiet life.’ I met his eyes deliberately. ‘The way for a quiet life if you are a V.A.D. is to keep your eyes on the ground and leave the M.O.s to the Q.A.s. And from what I’ve seen of M.O.s, the ground is far more attractive.’

  He grinned. ‘Well, well, well. And there was I thinking you too much of a little lady ever to hit back.’ He started the car as the convoy had passed. ‘This is going to be interesting.’

  ‘What is?’

  He said he would tell me some other time. ‘Over the dinner table, maybe. If you’d care to dine with me? Have to be in our Mess, I’m afraid, as we’re all confined to camp, but the food’s not bad. What about to-night, as we are both off?’

  If we had not had the previous conversation I should have made a civil excuse about having a headache. I said, ‘Not tonight, thank you.’

  ‘Got a date?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good God, woman! Then why not?’ And he seemed honestly surprised.

  ‘I don’t like young doctors. I see enough of them at work.’

  ‘You’re telling me you don’t like doctors?’ The car swerved dangerously and took his astonished attention from me. ‘My dear girl, you’re talking absolute nonsense! Everyone likes doctors. We’re highly respected citizens, our intentions are always honourable ‒ they have to be, as we daren’t risk breach of promise cases for fear of being struck off ‒ and just think of the glamour attached to a medical man!’

  ‘I don’t care for glamour in men. And I didn’t say I disliked all doctors, merely young doctors. At the smug stage. I like doctors over forty-five ‒ very much. My father’s one, and so are his partners. I like them. They’re kind ‒ and polite.’

  He winced extravagantly. ‘Watch out. There go my back teeth. You shouldn’t kick a man when he’s driving, Clare. And don’t tell me I’ve no right to call you Clare, because you’ve just given me the right by joining in a free for all. Not that I bear you any hard feelings about it. Just call me Joe next time you insult me.’ He swung into the drive that led up to the V.A.D.s’ Mess. ‘You’ve given me quite a character, you know. I’m smug, unkind, impolite, glamorous. That’s some list.’

  ‘You can omit the last one.’ I jumped out of the car and slammed the door. Our Commandant was standing within earshot on the top step by the front door, so I had to thank him more civilly than I would otherwise have done. ‘Thanks for the lift, Mr Slaney.’

  His vivid blue eyes were alight with laughter. He saluted Miss Moreby-Aspin, ‘Good evening to you, ma’am,’ then lowered his voice to me. ‘It’s too bad you won’t dine with me, Clare Dillon. I’d have enjoyed blacking the other eye ‒ and you could have pushed my front teeth down after the back. Have a jolly evening with the girls. See you around the Block ‒ if you ever look up from the ground. Good night.’

  Miss Moreby-Aspin called to me directly he drove away. ‘Dillon, m’dear, you’re showing far too much hair under your cap. Pull it forward, girl! And what are you wearing on your legs? Black silk stockings? Go in and change them at once for your regulation grey wool!’

  Joe Slaney’s attack had surprised me; Miss Moreby-Aspin’s did not surprise me at all. And I knew quite well how to deal with her, and that was in the way that all women deal with their female officers after a few weeks’ experience.

  I said, ‘Yes, Madam; of course, Madam; I am so sorry, Madam. I’ll change my stockings as soon as my grey wool are dry.’ I tugged my cap forward obediently and went inside with not the slightest intention of changing my stockings. Directly I was out of her sight I pushed my cap back on my head again.

  It
was a lovely evening and I had been looking forward to it all day, since free evenings were scarce in the Ob. Block. In a perverse fashion, now that I had refused Joe’s unexpected invitation to dinner, the long, double-summertime hours of daylight that stretched ahead seemed empty. I had a bath, changed into a clean uniform dress, then wandered rather aimlessly round my bed, tidying the minute area that belonged to me in the converted drawing-room that I shared as a bedroom with nineteen other young women.

  The room was large, well-proportioned, it had a high ceiling ornamented with gold leaf, three fine glass chandeliers that hung at intervals down the centre of the room, and four wide, long mirrors that were fixed to three of the walls, and were a veritable godsend now that it was a bedroom. The twenty Army beds were arranged at right angles to the walls, and down and across the centre of the room. My bed was one of those in the centre. The beds were identical, as were the twenty orange-boxes that served us as dressing-tables, lockers, and chests-of drawers combined. An immense variety of suitcases were piled under every single bed, the orange-boxes were littered with framed photographs of young men in uniform, and there were enough cosmetic-jars and bottles visible on every convenient and inconvenient ledge to stock a fair-sized beauty parlour. The drawing-room was called ‘The Jungle’ by all but its occupants; we liked our bedroom. We liked the privacy that you can only acquire of necessity when living in a crowd; we liked the fact that, as there were so many of us in that room, at least one person’s portable wireless was certain to be working; we liked our Commandant’s theory that only the youngest V.A.D.s should be subjected to living in a herd, which meant that the older, and more sedate members of our company were not there to see what time we came in at night, or complain because we fell asleep smoking in bed! Above all, we liked the french windows that opened on to the garden, giving us the quickest route to the new bathrooms that had been built in the old conservatory, and the easiest route in and out of the Mess at any hour of the day or night, making it impossible for Madam to supervise our coming and going adequately. Miss Moreby-Aspin was a good soul who took her duties seriously; she even went round all the bedrooms at night, reading a roll-call before locking the front door. The way round her roll-call was simple; we used to make a point of returning from our dates at ten-thirty when she read the roll; obediently chanting, ‘Here, Madam,’ then smugly we donned our dressing-gowns over whatever we were wearing, seized our sponge bags, wandered out of the window to the conservatory for our baths, deposited our dressing-gowns and sponge bags in one of the bathrooms, and returned to our various escorts, who were waiting in their cars, with the lights prudently switched off, for us to continue our evening’s entertainment.