A Hospital Summer Read online

  Mary asked, ‘Has Mr Slaney been round at all? I’ve only seen Major Endsby in here.’

  Sister explained that Joe Slaney had taken residence in Casualty. ‘They’ve been admitting since midnight last night. I don’t think any M.O.’s got to bed ‒ and by the look of it they won’t to-night, either.’

  The soldiers were tired, but much more talkative than the men this morning. They talked mostly about the R.A.F., and they talked bitterly. ‘Hear as you had the Brylcreem Boys in this morning, Nurse? Trust the boys in blue to get out of the scrap first! Don’t know what we got a R.A.F. for, Nurse ‒ I don’t, and no mistake! Not seen one of our planes for days, we haven’t. But Jerry ‒ he was there all the time. Wheeeee!’ The soldier I was washing yelled suddenly in his impersonation of a dive-bomber. We heard a lot of those yells as the days went on, but this was the first I heard. ‘Down he’d come,’ the soldier continued, ‘like a bat out of hell ‒ and he’d keep on coming. But the R.A.F.! Strike a light, Nurse! We didn’t never see them! What we says is, thank Gawd we got a Navy!’

  I could not answer him, or his colleagues who repeated his story, as I did not know the answer, and they were too bitter to be put off with invented explanations. Later Miss Thanet discussed this when she joined me as I cut the tea bread.

  ‘I’ll spread while you cut.’ She buttered the bread swiftly. ‘Have you heard what they’re saying about the R.A.F.?’

  She did not know about Charles. I said, ‘Yes. They sound pretty mad.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll say. Seems awfully queer, though; there must have been some of our planes somewhere. But all this talk ties up with what I heard this morning.’

  ‘What was that, Sister?’

  ‘I heard’ ‒ she laid a plate with buttered bread as she spoke ‒ ‘that they had to shift those men we had in out quickly, as the Army was coming in, and they didn’t want to risk mixing the two Services just now. Tempers are running high.’ She asked about Mary’s husband. ‘He’s a soldier, isn’t he? Over there?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a major in a Rifle Regiment.’

  She grimaced. ‘Poor girl. Any children?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Poor girl,’ she said again. ‘Must be hell for her. I haven’t liked to ask her anything, but I could see she’s all buttoned-up to-day. Let me know if she hears anything.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  She glanced at me. ‘Have you got a young man across the water?’

  I cut the bread more fiercely. ‘My twin brother. He’s a pilot officer. On bombers. He’s meant to be flying one of those aeroplanes that don’t appear to have been flying.’

  She put down her knife momentarily. ‘My God, Dillon ‒ I am sorry. If I’d known that I would not have said what I said.’

  I thanked her, and told her not to worry. ‘I’ve been hearing it, too, all afternoon.’

  After tea the Assistant Matron appeared in our hall. ‘Sister, I believe Mrs Frantly-Gibbs speaks fluent French? She does? Splendid. I want her to act as interpreter in the Acute Blocks. The M.O.s must have help. Can you and Miss Dillon manage alone here?’

  Sister said we could manage very well. ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference if I had said we couldn’t, Dillon,’ she added afterwards, ‘but it sounded better that way. Let’s get them all settled for supper, then I’ll have to get on with my report, as it’s going to be a mammoth one to-night, and you’ll have to cope with suppers on your own. Don’t let the men help, even if they offer. They’re far too tired to do anything tonight.’

  I had to re-lay and light the fire that had died from lack of attention that afternoon, before I started the suppers. Sister watched unmoved as I emptied the polish-tin and then threw on a couple of rags soaked in meth. to get the fire going. Joe joined her while I was reheating the baked beans and tea, which for once was cold, since I had not been free to serve it directly it arrived, and the cookhouse orderly had been too pressed to carry the bucket beyond the hearth.

  Sister and Joe did a thorough medical round, as I scampered up and down the seven wards with plates of baked beans, rather soggy toast, and very hot, if over-stewed, tea. I had to wake each man before he ate; some men were too weary to feed themselves, and those I fed. The majority of these were exhausted, shocked Frenchmen, who stared blankly at me as I coaxed baked beans and tea into them, and murmured, ‘Merci, Mademoiselle,’ and dropped back to sleep again before I left their bedside.

  I piled our largest tray with as many dirty plates and mugs as it would hold, and returned to the hall to find Joe alone at the desk. He looked up from his writing.

  ‘Get your chaps shaved?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ I put the tray on the floor and rubbed my back absently. ‘Those razors are clean and on the surgery table if you want to take them back.’

  ‘If I don’t there’ll be the devil of a number of bearded M.O.s on the staff to-morrow. I told my batman to swipe the lot.’ He noticed my tray. ‘You’ll give yourself a hernia if you carry weights like that. Why not stagger the load?’

  ‘My father says women seldom get ruptures. My inside’ll hold out. My feet won’t. I’d rather carry a mountain, and save my feet an extra journey.’

  He stood up slowly, as if not only his feet but every bone in his body was aching. ‘What will you do with that lot?’

  ‘Take it into the scullery to wash up.’

  ‘The scullery? Oh, you mean the sink cupboard.’ He lifted the tray from the floor. ‘You must be an exceedingly tough young woman, even if you don’t look it.’ He carried the tray into the minute cupboard that we graced with the name of scullery, and laid it on the draining-board. ‘Either that’ ‒ he leant against the door ‒ ‘or I’m getting old.’

  Something in his voice made me look at him closely. I had been too busy to do that before that evening. He did not look old, he did not look deathly tired, he just looked like death. His face was as grey as the men’s this morning, and his whole body was wilting against the door as if his bones were turning to water. I said, ‘Are you all right? What have you been doing? You look frightfully queer.’ As he did not answer I hauled a chair forward. ‘Look here, sit down and I’ll heat you some tea. There’s a little left, and you always like the dregs.’

  He did not even respond to that. He merely gazed at me and blinked. ‘Hold it,’ he said at last, without moving, ‘and stop panicking. I’m O.K. Don’t waste your time brewing me tea. You’ve enough on your plate. There’s nothing at all the matter with me. It must be the light playing tricks that makes me look queer.’

  ‘If you’re sure ‒’ I began uncertainly, then, before I could say anything else, he dropped on to the floor as heavily as if I had taken a mallet and knocked him on the head. He lay quite still and limp, like a puppet doll that had been thrown down by a bored child.

  Chapter Four

  AND STILL THEY COME

  I squatted by his unconscious figure, wishing that Sister had not disappeared. I tried hard to recollect all I had been taught in our first-aid lectures; my brain remained uncomfortably blank and Joe Slaney remained on the floor in front of me. His colour was shocking; he was so pale that for a few wild seconds I thought he was dead. I had never seen anyone dead then, and I did not know the unmistakable-waxy pallor of death. I touched his face gingerly, and felt his breath on my hand as I did so. I was infinitely relieved. Relief brought back my scattered common sense, and the teachings I had received in those lectures. I undid his tie, and loosened his collar and belt.

  He opened his eyes. ‘The technique, woman, is to stand well back and holler for a doctor. If that doesn’t work raise the feet to increase the flow of blood to the head.’

  I sat back on my heels. ‘Shall I do that?’

  He smiled up at me. ‘Over my dead body.’ He raised himself on one elbow. ‘The boy is himself again. How about that tea you offered me?’

  ‘Oughtn’t it to be brandy? You’re an awful colour.’

  ‘Tea. Just tea.’ He got to his feet unsteadily. ‘N
ever give unconscious characters alcohol. Bad scheme, that ‒ unless you’re certain as to the cause of their passing out. If you shove alcohol down someone at random, and they are having an internal haemorrhage, you really do let the cat loose among the pigeons.’ He swayed dangerously. ‘When in doubt stick to tea.’

  I was too concerned by his appearance to pay much attention to what he was saying.

  ‘Hey.’ I put my hands on either side of his waist. ‘You’ll pass out again if you aren’t careful. Lean on me ‒ it’s all right, I can take your weight ‒ I’ve supported heavier men than you. That’s it. Lean on my shoulders and I’ll shove you slowly back into that chair behind you. Good. Sit down, now.’ He dropped his hands from my shoulders as he flopped into the chair and folded them in his lap like an obedient child. ‘Just you stay sitting there, Mr Slaney, sir, and don’t get up until I’ve got you that tea.’

  The fire was glowing; reheating the remains in the tea-bucket took only a few moments. I stirred in five teaspoonfuls of sugar.

  ‘Be like syrup, I’m afraid, but my father says too sweet tea makes a splendid stimulant.’

  The ghost of a smile flickered over his haggard face. ‘Yes, miss. Just as you say. I won’t give no more trouble.’ His colour returned to normal as he swallowed the scalding liquid. ‘This is all very competent, Clare. Where did you learn all this?’

  ‘From our lectures ‒ my father ‒ all mixed up. But I wasn’t at all competent when you passed out. I was scared stiff.’

  ‘Were you now?’ He looked into his mug. ‘That makes two of us.’

  I said, ‘Joe, what happened?’

  He looked up. ‘I fainted.’

  ‘I know that. But ‒ why?’

  His expression was guarded. ‘People do faint.’

  ‘I know that too. But why did you?’

  He grinned. ‘I had the vapours. I was seized all of a tremble. It’s a terrible thing ‒ I eats well, I drinks well, I sleeps well. But when it comes to a job of work I go all of a tremble. That’s all.’

  I did not smile. ‘I’m not Madam. Don’t quote corn to me. I really want to know. What’s wrong with you? Why did you faint? Healthy young men don’t faint.’

  ‘Oh, hell.’ He stood up. ‘So they don’t? Well, I do. I pass out at the drop of a hat. As you saw. Now I’m back again, and I’ve the devil of a lot of work to do.’

  I watched him walk to the table. He certainly looked better, but he still looked ill. ‘Have you got a weak heart?’

  ‘Oh, sure, sure. It’s aching and breaking ‒ and all’ ‒ he produced a magnificent brogue ‒ ‘for the love of you! Now will you just relax, Clare Dillon, and leave a man to get on with his work. And ‒ er ‒ if you could forget this little episode, I’ll be damned grateful to you. Not that I’ll forget ‒ but I’d like it if you would.’

  I hesitated. ‘You ought to tell someone. You ought to see ‒’

  ‘A doctor? Sure, I’ll see a doctor. In hell, first.’ He looked at me steadily. ‘Will you listen to me and just stop flapping? I’ve told you that there’s nothing wrong with me; that I just fainted ‒ maybe because I was tired. I’m fine now. And I’m damned if I’m having any more talk about my little lapse on an evening like this. Hell, Clare, be your age! The hospital’s fit to bursting with real patients. What would I want to bother anyone with my fit of the vapours for?’

  ‘All right. If you say so. You’re the doctor. But I still don’t like it, and when this flap’s over, I do think you ought to tell someone.’

  He said softly, ‘And what makes you think this flap’ll be over? Girl, it’s just started.’

  Sister came in as he spoke. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Slaney, I was kept in the office. I hope you’ve been managing all right alone.’

  He beamed at her. ‘I’ve managed fine.’ He did not look my way. ‘Come and take a seat, Sister, and let’s get these admission forms signed. How many hundred have we admitted to-day? Tell me all. In triplicate.’

  It was dark before I got off duty that night. Beryl Jacks lent me her cycle and I rode slowly back to our Mess feeling grateful for the darkness, after the eternal sunshine of this summer. I tried to think of Charles; I was too tired; I was too tired to wonder any longer why Joe had fainted; too tired to think of anything. I only wanted to fall on a bed and drop asleep, or so I thought, until I went to bed. Once there I was too weary for sleep. I lay and looked at the grey shadows the night made on the ceiling of the Drawing-room, and thought about men with grey faces; I wondered if Charles was in some hospital to-night, and whether his face was grey too, or whether he was lying somewhere as limply as Joe Slaney had lain on the duty-room floor that evening, and if his face was not grey, but a waxen, greenish-white.

  Mary was not sleeping either. She raised her head as she heard my bed creak. ‘Let’s go outside and get some air, Clare.’ She climbed quietly out of bed, pulled her hospital cloak from her chair, and tip-toed in bare feet to the nearest french windows. I found my own cloak, remembered cigarettes and matches, and followed her out. We walked over the lawn and the first tennis-court, and lay on the sloping bank that was at the far end of that court. Mary folded her arms behind her head. ‘The grass is still warm.’ She changed her position and took a cigarette. ‘I wonder,’ she murmured, lighting it, ‘where David is tonight?’

  ‘What date was on that last trio of letters?’

  ‘They varied. The most recent was ten days old.’ She looked my way.

  ‘How about Charles?’

  ‘About ten days, I think.’

  The night was clear, the air very soft. There was no wind, not even a faint breeze, and nothing stirred in the garden. There was only one small transparent cloud in the sky; it hung just below the moon like a dropped pearl. We did not speak for some time; in the silence I heard far off the short scream of a terrified rabbit, and once the hoarse bark of a fox.

  Mary said suddenly, ‘I wonder if this is the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end? Does that sound corny? It doesn’t stop me wondering even if it does.’

  I waved the smoke of her second cigarette away from my face, and wished I could as easily wave the thoughts from my mind.

  ‘It’s all corny,’ I said, ‘sheer corn. Or has been until now. To-day. I’ve felt all the time as if I’ve been part of an act left over from the last war. I’ve felt some smug little Red Cross Heroine in a movie, with my long skirt and black stockings and red crosses embroidered all over me. I’ve even got a fine handsome twin brother at what has up till now been a non-existent Front. I’ve known all about me and exactly how I ought to behave because I’ve read all the books and seen all the movies.’

  ‘And now?’

  I sat up and looked down at her as she lay, a shadow in the shadows, with one pin-point of light glowing to mark her face. ‘Now I’m out of my depth. I don’t know how to behave. Do you?’

  She lay still. ‘How to behave when you face a retreating army? No, I don’t. I don’t know what to say or do. Either this morning or to-night.’

  ‘With your Frenchmen?’

  ‘Not so much with them. It was with one of our own men. A R.A.F. boy who was left behind in Acute Surgical because he was too bad to be moved. I heard him crying behind his screens, when I was translating for Archie Oliver. As soon as I could I went round his screens. He hung on to my apron and wept into the skirt. I had to borrow a clean one from Sylvia Frant. He was only a kid. He cried and cried.’ She was silent for several seconds. ‘We had a baby once. A boy. If he had lived he would have been able to fight in this war soon. He’d have been fifteen now.’

  I was so surprised and saddened for her, that momentarily I forgot the present.

  ‘Mary ‒ I’m desperately sorry. What happened? Or would you rather not talk?’

  She sat up then and watched, as I was watching, a new convoy of lorries drive along the road that was a silver ribbon in the moonlight. ‘May as well talk to-night. There’s nothing else to do.’ She turned towards me. ‘It was years ago. He
was born the year after we were married; he died when he was two. He got pneumonia and died.’ Her voice cracked slightly. ‘Poor little Dave. He was such a fat little boy ‒ and such fun. We never had another. I don’t know why not. We wanted children.’

  ‘Mary ‒ I am so sorry,’ I said again, because there was nothing else I could say.

  She sighed, not unhappily, but as if she were waking from sleep. ‘It’s all so long ago now that it seems to belong to a different person in a different life. It’s as if I’m talking of someone else’s baby, not mine. It was hell when it happened; worse hell than I ever could imagine. I didn’t know anything could hurt like that.’

  ‘I’ve heard that’s so. “What do you know of grief, you who have not lost a child?” ’

  She twisted her head sharply to me. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Marcus Aurelius. My father told me. It was when one of his child-patients died. He was terribly upset.’

  ‘Child-patients ‒ Of course, he’s a doctor.’ She lay back on the warm grass again. ‘That quotation’s right; quite right. After Dave nothing has ever really hurt again.’

  I said, ‘Mary, I think you’re rather wonderful. I honestly do. I never guessed that anything bad had happened to you. I didn’t even think that you and David had been married long.’

  ‘My good child, I’ve been married over sixteen years.’ She sounded amused. ‘I’m thirty-seven. David’s a year older. He’s pretty old for his rank, but he isn’t a very good soldier. In fact, he’s a lousy soldier, poor darling. He’s not at all martial, and he’s no head for details. If the War hadn’t been looming ahead this last couple of years he’d have been on the retired list soon. I wonder,’ she added slowly, ‘if he’s still alive.’