A Hospital Summer Read online

  The french windows were wide open that evening, but the room seemed airless. I blew some dust off Charles’s photograph; wiped Luke’s with an old apron, as Mary had spilt her tea over my orange-box that morning, then, feeling I had done enough cleaning for one day, took the assortment of daily papers I had brought from the sitting-room, some cigarettes, matches, and a rug and strolled out of the nearest window into the garden.

  There were three tennis-courts laid out beyond the small, sloping lawn outside our room. The first tennis-court was occupied by four V.A.D. cooks. ‘Want to cut in, Dillon?’ they called amicably.

  ‘No, thanks. My feet won’t stand it. I’ll watch.’ I spread out my rug and settled down on the lawn to read the newspapers. I did not spend long on them. Their news was old to the camp. I looked at Jane in the Mirror, because the boys were so fond of her. Charles said they never considered the day had begun on his station unless Jane had her clothes off at breakfast.

  I pushed aside the paper, lay on my stomach in a position where I could watch the cooks idly. I found their tennis soothing to listen to as well as to watch. They played well together, and as my head twisted from side to side watching the ball I thought about Joe Slaney. I had been very cross with him in the car; I have a quick temper and like most quick-tempered people I get cross very easily, but find it hard to stay cross. I wondered why he had bothered to rouse me as he had; he reminded me, now I came to think of it, of the many young men my brothers had brought home ‒ young men who attacked with yawns, belittled and scorned every serious subject of conversation, and infuriated my father and his friends. I smiled at the tennis-players, thinking how my father would describe Joe. ‘The worst type of medical man. He probably subscribes to one of these lily-livered peace unions!’ I decided it was highly possible that Joe Slaney had belonged to the Peace Pledge Union, if the P.P.U. served tea at its meetings. His belonging to that would not have prevented his volunteering now. I knew that, because I had listened to and talked with those other young men when my father was out of the room. They talked differently in his absence ‒ not because they were afraid of him, but because they were too polite to state their real feelings before him. The majority, like my brothers and myself, had long ago had their manners instilled by their nannies, and you cannot shed easily the teachings of an English nanny. It was our Nanny Haskins who was principally responsible for my thanking Joe for his lift. ‘Say thank you, dear, nicely. Look the lady or gentleman straight in the face. That’s right, dear. Remember, never forget your manners.’

  Nanny Haskins had been very upset about Charles’s flying. ‘Now, if it had been you, Miss Clare’ ‒ she had added the prefix when I left school ‒ ‘I shouldn’t have been surprised. You and Mr Luke were always a proper pair of tomboys! But Mr Charles was always the gentle one ‒ like madam ‒ with his playing the piano and writing stories. I always said you should have been the boy and he the girl ‒ but there it is! And you’re going to be a nurse? Whatever will you be up to next? You will mind how you behave, Miss Clare ‒ and be sure always to wear your vest. There’s nothing like wool next to the skin ‒ and I’m sure the Doctor will agree!’

  Nanny Haskins was now retired. She was an old lady, but her strong sense of duty, her certainty of her correct place in society, and her fixation about vests were undaunted. A Conservative government, good digestion, and wool next to the skin, according to Nanny Haskins, solved most of life’s little problems.

  A small yellow Tiger Moth chugged its way over the sky like a fat homing bee. I rolled over to watch the moth until it disappeared in the direction of the Flying Training School at Upper Weigh, fifteen miles to the west, and wondered if Charles was flying to-day. I hated the thought of him flying as much as my mother did, but for his sake I was glad he had taken my father’s advice and gone to Cranwell, as until he flew Charles had never been wholly alive.

  He wrote me one letter when he first started flying: ‘Clare, you cannot know what beauty is until you get above the clouds. It’s like being in a dream and not having to wake up, as the dream is all around you and belongs to you alone. I wish you could see it.’

  I could not see his dream, yet I could see Charles. Nanny was right; I might be Charles’s twin, but I looked and thought like Luke. Possibly because we were so alike, Luke and I had always fought as small children; then later, when Luke vanished to Dartmouth, Charles and I grew up alone, and he and I had never had more than a mild argument in all our lives. Father said that was because Charles was like Mother and I was like him. He was probably right about that; my father was right about most things. He was one of the wisest men I ever met, and yet, returning to my original thoughts of Joe Slaney, I could not help wondering if Father had been right in his condemnation of those young men who filled our house at the week-ends.

  I stared at the empty sky, trying to remember where they all were; David and Henry ‒ they had been in O.U.A.S. at Oxford and were at some Flying Training School ‒ or they had left it by now? Peter Billings had had one pip when I was last home; Peter Ash was an Ordinary Seaman ‒ but what had happened to Michael Ash?

  ‘Dillon! Wake up!’ The shouts from the cooks interrupted my meandering thoughts on one Michael Ash. ‘Come over here and see what’s coming in ‒ come over here ‒ by the road!’

  I blinked and sat up. The cooks had left the tennis-court and were standing by the low hedge at the far side of the garden. There had once been a high, pointed iron railing separating that hedge from the road; the railing had gone during my first month in the camp.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I stood up before I noticed the convoy of lorries that was coming towards us from over the hill. The hill was a long way off, and I had joined the others before the first lorry of that convoy reached us. ‘What’s so special about this lot, girls?’ I asked, feeling faintly annoyed at being hauled from my rug to watch what was a daily occurrence in the camp.

  ‘You look,’ said one cook, ‘and see if you notice what we did. Seven lorries have been by already. This is the next batch.’

  I looked obediently at the lorries as they drove by; as I looked slowly I had the sensation that I was looking at one of those puzzle pictures you find in children’s books. In those pictures you have to spot the objects drawn out of place.

  I said, ‘What’s the Army doing driving the R.A.F.? Why not R.A.F. drivers? R.A.F. lorries?’

  They said the other lorries had been Army lorries too. ‘But they were full of R.A.F. And silent. As these are.’

  That, I realized then, was what was so strange. The backs of those lorries were open, and we could see they were packed with men. The men watched us as they passed by, and not one man made a sound. There were no catcalls or wolf-whistles; no shouts or snatches of song; only men watching us in silence.

  I was noticing other things. ‘They’re filthy. Look at their uniforms. But they can’t be wounded. Those aren’t ambulances.’ The five of us sat down on the bank beside the road in the soft evening sunshine and stared at the men who stared so blankly at us. Some of the men stood, some sat, all were huddled in some enveloping garment ‒ R.A.F. greatcoats, Army greatcoats, red hospital blankets; a few clutched the multicoloured knitted shawls the Red Cross provided, and hunched their shoulders like tired old women. The sunshine touched the colours with light, making them seem indecently bright in contrast to the grey, unshaven faces of the men.

  Another cook said, ‘They look ‒ frightened.’

  The girl who had spoken first disagreed, ‘Not so much frightened as old. They look terribly old,’ and none of us said any more.

  That second convoy was followed by a third, then a fourth, each longer than the original seven lorries. At intervals, three more convoys rolled by. We sat there for close on an hour, watching the dust rise from the road as the lorries, heavy with their silent cargoes, thundered on into the camp. When at last the road remained empty for several minutes we looked expectantly at the hill far on our right. There was no movement on that hill now, and the
light summer dust was settling on the road again. The sun was still fairly high, yet I found I shivered, as if the evening had turned cold. Slowly, without speaking, we got up and walked back towards the house. Two of the cooks wandered off to the court they had just used, collected the balls, and lowered the net, although the evening was still perfect for playing tennis.

  Chapter Three

  THE MEN COME HOME

  I collected my rug and papers and went back to the ‘Drawing-room’ without knowing why. I sat on my bed, lit a cigarette, then stubbed it out almost at once, the tobacco tasted sour. I walked restlessly over to one of the french windows and stood there staring at the still empty road. I was standing there a few minutes later when our Commandant came in: ‘Busy, Dillon?’

  I turned. ‘No, Madam.’

  She came briskly into the room. ‘Just standing and staring, eh, m’dear?’ And, since she always had a magnificent stock of platitudes handy, she added that the Devil could always find work for idle hands, so she had best give me a job to do!

  We were all fond of our Commandant. Miss Moreby-Aspin was a kind, quite sexless person, who we felt would be insulted to be termed a woman. She clearly loved the War, and the opportunity it had given her to get back into uniform and assume her First War medal ribbons. We had never been able to discover if she had ever done any actual nursing, but she had an imposing number of years’ service in the Red Cross to her credit, was a good administrator and caterer, and generally considered quite harmless. Her brisk bark and her platitudes she assumed with her uniform. In a dressing-gown she had sloping shoulders and a soft, cultured voice. We never saw her in mufti, and it was rumoured that she had never worn mufti, but had spent the period between the wars on the shelf of some large cupboard in the War Office labelled: Ladies Only Reserved For Emergency.

  I asked if there was something I could do for her?

  She slapped my back and said she could see the War really was making a man of me. ‘Afraid you were a bit too young and airy-fairy for the work when you first arrived, Dillon, m’dear! You looked as if the first puff of wind would bowl you over, with that match-stick figure of yours! Should have remembered you were a sailor’s daughter. Nothing like a sailor for raising the Right Sort!’

  Normally I enjoyed swapping platitudes with Madam, and much appreciated the fact that she ignored the years that had passed since my father left the Royal Navy and took up medicine. That evening I only smiled feebly, and reminded her that I was now a G.P.’s daughter.

  She slapped me again. ‘Shows your father’s made of the Right Stuff, Dillon. Now, m’dear, will you just run back to the hospital for me? I’ve left my glasses in Matron’s office, and can’t go meself as I’m tied to the ’phone. Polly’s off this evening.’

  Polly was Miss Polinson, the Home V.A.D.

  ‘Of course I’ll go for them, Madam.’ I remembered my flat tyres. ‘Are you in a hurry, as I’m afraid I’ll have to walk?’ I explained why.

  She was in a good mood, so she only repeated ‘For Want of a Nail’ in full and told me to bustle to. ‘Take mine, Dillon. No punctures, mind!’

  I was pleased with the excuse to go back to the hospital. I seized my black summer uniform straw hat, sat it on the back of my head, and cycled as quickly as I could back to the camp.

  I saw no sign of any of the lorries en route; when I had collected Madam’s glasses I called in at the Ob. Block. Removals were going on there as usual, but neither Sister nor Mary had heard anything about my lorries. I walked over to Casualty and spoke to the Orderly M.O. and the Casualty V.A.D.; they knew nothing, but like Mary and Miss Thanet were eager to hear all I could tell them. After Casualty I went to the Pack Store ‒ Staff Williams was missing; his corporal looked glum. ‘Coming in, did you say, miss. Thought as much. What’s that? No, nothing at all in here. Can’t be no wounded among ’em.’

  Feeling very dispirited, I cycled quickly and illegally across the square. No one stopped me until I sailed under the arch and ran into Joe Slaney. I ran into him literally, and had to jump off as I discovered belatedly that Madam’s brakes did not work. ‘Sorry, Mr Slaney. Did I hurt you?’

  He dusted his knees. ‘Not so you’d notice it.’ He looked at the cycle I had now retrieved. ‘I thought you had two flats, not no brakes?’

  ‘This belongs to Madam.’ I explained what I was doing. ‘I thought you had the evening off?’

  He said grimly he had thought so too. ‘We’ve all been hauled back. There’s another flap on.’

  ‘Is there?’ I told him about my lorries. ‘Do you know anything about them?’

  He removed his cap and pushed his hand through his hair. ‘So that’s who needs the billets.’

  ‘What billets?’

  ‘I’ve just been told to produce billets for two hundred men in our chaps’ barracks to-night. Must be for the chaps you saw come in. R.A.F., you say?’

  I nodded unhappily. ‘Yes.’

  He looked at me. ‘I’d say they’ve knocked the fight out of you, Clare. You apologized for knocking me over, and haven’t attempted to black my eye. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes. You’re right.’

  ‘Brother Charles on your mind?’ he asked not unkindly.

  ‘Not only him ‒ but mostly him.’

  He said conversationally, ‘Tell you something, young Clare. Never any point in beating your head against a wall of trouble. Gets you nothing but a headache. Tell you something else’ ‒ he took my bicycle from me and wheeled it through the arch towards the road ‒ ‘if you find yourself getting het up over all this any time give me a ring. I’ll buy you a fizzy lemonade, and have a damned fine row with you to take your mind off things.’ He glanced down at me. ‘What do you say? Why should we leave all the fighting to Jerry? Why can’t you and I have a private war?’

  I had to smile. ‘Mr Slaney, this is very big of you. Thanks.’

  He smiled back. ‘Big-hearted Joe, child. That’s Slaney. Here.’ He held the bicycle steady. ‘Hop on, and I’ll push you off.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ I took it from him. ‘I like scooting.’

  ‘Did you say you were twelve or twenty?’ he called after me as I rode away.

  I waved back, and returned to the V.A.D. Mess feeling slightly more cheerful, although I was not at all sure why. Once home I gave Madam her glasses, swapped a couple more platitudes about many hands making light work, and helped her lay the suppers. After supper I tried to ring my mother, as I needed the reassurance of her voice. I did not get it, as the girl on the exchange said there would be around five hours’ delay for the call, and I could neither wait that long nor disturb my parents in the middle of the night just to say, ‘Hallo, this is Clare.’

  It grew very hot as the evening turned into night. In the Drawing-room we lay wakeful. The room was airless despite the open windows, and we talked quietly to each other. No one slept much that night. Just after eleven the convoys began again, and all night long the lorries thundered along the road beyond the tennis-courts. Once Mary went into the garden in her pyjamas. She came back after twenty minutes. She walked in wearily, the bright moonlight outlining her sturdy figure, and making her look like a tousle-haired child. ‘They’re still the same,’ she told no one in particular, ‘full of men, sitting like sacks. They can’t be wounded. I haven’t seen one ambulance go by.’

  Miss Moreby-Aspin came in to early breakfast next morning. She looked very tired. ‘Members, I have a few changes to announce.’

  Janice Sims was one of the changes. Madam told her to go straight to the Acute Surgical Block. ‘Frantly-Gibbs and Dillon will have to manage in Observation as best they can.’

  Mary and I exchanged glances. ‘The old girl looks out on her feet,’ murmured Mary.

  Polly, the Home V.A.D., overheard. ‘Not surprising. She’s been up since three.’ And she moved off with a pile of used plates before we could ask her more. I could not stay to wait for her return, as, being cycle-less, I had to leave breakfast early to allow for walking. Mary caugh
t me up as I reached the hospital arch. ‘It seems, Clare dear,’ she announced, ‘that we can expect to find everything including the fairies at the bottom of the garden in the Ob. Block.’

  Beryl Jacks, the night V.A.D. in our Block, looked even more exhausted than Miss Moreby-Aspin. ‘You girls here already?’ She thrust her untidy hair under her cap with a weary hand. ‘Thank God. I’m just about whacked.’

  Mary asked, ‘Beryl, have we got them in here?’

  ‘Have we?’ She smiled without humour. ‘For the record, girls, you’ve got twenty men in each ward. I’ve spent the night putting up beds and lifting sleeping men from the floor and shoving them into the beds.’