A Wartime Nurse (6 page)

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Authors: Maggie Hope

Tags: #Nurses, #World War; 1939-1945, #Sagas, #War & Military, #Fiction

BOOK: A Wartime Nurse
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Obediently, Theda called up the stairs and after a moment Matt Wearmouth answered: ‘I’m coming, I’m coming, there’s no need to wake the whole row,’ just as he always did.
She heard him cough as he got out of bed and the nurse in her paused, listening. Was it worse than it had been last year? Perhaps not. But she had little doubt that he was beginning to suffer quite badly from what he called ‘the miner’s lung’. Still, if he was no worse . . . Satisfied, she returned to the table and began to spread margarine thinly on the bread. The butter ration was too precious to eat with anything as tasty as salmon. Butter was best eaten on its own on new bread, when it could be savoured properly.
The tune that Alan had liked to sing was still running through her head, refusing to go away. The miners had taken it up, devising their own words to suit the melody.
‘Will the galloway pull the tubs for me?’ She found herself humming softly and the words brought to mind the time before the war when Joss had been fined five pounds for kicking a pit pony, a galloway that had refused to pull the tub and so threatened to put his whole weeks’ wages in jeopardy. She’d been a young girl at the time, studying in her spare time so that she could pass the entrance examination to Newcastle General Hospital. She remembered the row there had been at home, though.
‘How could you do it, lad, a poor dumb beast?’ her mother had cried. ‘And five pounds lad, it’s a mint o’ money.’
But Theda had known why he did it and so did his mother really. For weeks Joss had come home from the pit full of frustration because Bessie the galloway had found herself a nice narrow part of the tunnel and wedged herself there, refusing to move. Oh, she was a wily pony all right. She would turn her head and look at him, Joss would say, and he swore that in the gleam of his head lamp her eyes would be triumphant. In other circumstances it would have been funny but when it meant the difference between a living wage and a pittance, oh, yes, she understood. The seam of coal was poor enough as it was. It wasn’t long after that that Joss’s name had come out of the hat when the mine had to cut down expenses. The gaffer had decided that that was the best and fairest way to choose and Joss had lost his job and had to leave Winton. For some reason, thinking of that reminded her of wild strawberries . . . what a butterfly mind she had, she chided herself.
Theda cut the sandwiches in two and arranged them on a plate and got out the blackberry pie her mother had made with the last of the season’s berries. She would have to be getting back to the hospital as soon as tea was over. There was flu among the nurses and she had to work extra hours.
On the bus going into town Theda was lucky enough to find a seat by the window and sat dreamily looking out of the window at the darkness. She thought about Alan, lying somewhere in the Dutch countryside, but for the first time her thoughts were not really melancholy. She had met him first on a bus and then at the dance at the church hall in Eldon. Oh, he was handsome in his soldier’s uniform with the sergeant’s stripes, his red beret tucked into his shoulder epaulette . . .
The bus had reached her stop. She struggled to the front and got out, pulling her uniform hat firmly down on her hair for the wind was strong now. At least, she thought, she had been to see Mr and Mrs Price. Alan would have been pleased with her about that.
Poor Alan. Oh, not because of how he had died – though bad enough, it happened to thousands in this hell of a war. No, poor Alan for being landed with a girlfriend as stupid as Theda Wearmouth! Why hadn’t she said yes that time, the last time he had been on leave? She should have gone away with him, anywhere so long as they could have been together, snatched a few days and nights on their own, gone to bed together. How could she have denied him?
But the pain of that thought was too much for her altogether so she set off up the path that led to the road outside the hospital, trying to concentrate her mind on the ward and the work that lay in front of her.
The Children’s Ward was quiet, the patients already bedded down for the night, the lights dimmed. Sister was in her office finishing off the report and her junior nurse was walking softly round the beds and cots, giving sips of orange juice out of feeder cups to the one or two children still awake, fetching a bedpan for one little girl who was whimpering with the need to go and fear of asking.
‘Nothing much to report tonight, Staff Nurse,’ said Sister. ‘By, the nights are cutting in, aren’t they? I suppose before we know where we are it’ll be winter.’ She yawned and sat back in her chair; Sister was never in a hurry to get off these nights unless her husband happened to be on leave from his unit, something which wasn’t happening very often these days to any of the soldiers, Theda knew.
She went into the cloakroom and took off her coat and outdoor hat and pinned on her apron and cap. She looked at herself in the tiny mirror and rubbed at her cheeks, trying to bring some colour to them. You’re not the only one to lose your man, she told her reflection fiercely. But it didn’t help. She was the only one to lose
Alan
.
Chapter Five
‘What do you mean, you don’t want to work with the prisoners, Staff Nurse? You’ll go where you are directed, like everyone else. Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ Matron stared sternly over her half-glasses at Theda.
‘But, Matron, I don’t understand why I’m being transferred? Surely I’m needed where I am, on Block Five? When we’re short-staffed as it is—’
‘Are you presuming to tell me my job, Staff Nurse?’
‘No, no Matron. I’m sorry.’
Theda lowered her eyes and gazed at the floor, the habit of obedience to orders reasserting itself. It had been too long ingrained in her to do anything else. But at the same time a wild emotion was surging within her, churning her stomach, and the emotion was close to hatred.
‘Flaming prisoners-of-war!’ Chuck had said when it was first proposed that the wounded POWs should be nursed in the hutted wards of the emergency hospital, which had started out as a workhouse hospital. ‘There’s likely to be Nazis and worse in among them. Right in the middle of the town, an’ all! It’s bad enough having the Italians giving our lasses the glad eye, but Germans! Well, I ask you. Someone should complain to the council.’
But the council had had little to say in the matter; it was a Government directive. And besides, the huts had been added to the hospital for the care of war casualties, and wounded were wounded whether they were allies or enemies. Theda had pointed the facts out to Chuck but he had simply snorted his disapproval. She dragged her wandering thoughts back to the present.
‘You will start on Monday, Staff Nurse,’ Matron was saying.
Theda lifted her head and answered meekly, ‘Yes, Matron.’
Well, at least she had almost a week to accustom herself to the idea, she thought numbly as she left the office and walked over to Block Five.
A week to say goodbye to the children in this side ward, the ones with the sadly misshapen spines who had never known life outside the hospital. A week to say goodbye to all the other child patients, especially the long-stay ones she had time to grow fond of.
You’re being stupid, she told herself savagely as she hung up her cloak in the tiny cloakroom and pinned on her all-enveloping cap. In all the years she had been nursing it had always been hard when she’d had to move to another ward, first in Newcastle General Hospital and then, these last two years, here at home. But this time it was different, this time she had to go to the hutted wards, separated from the old workhouse hospital by barbed wire and with sentries at the gates. This time she would be nursing Germans. One of them could actually be the one who had shot Frank on the beach at Dunkirk . . .
‘You look as though you lost a shilling and found a penny?’
Theda looked up as the Senior Assistant Nurse on the ward spoke to her. Nurse Jenkins was English. She had married a miner in the Welsh valleys but he was killed in a pit disaster and she had returned to her native Durham where, when the war broke out, she became a nurse.
‘Morning, Nurse,’ said Theda for anything less formal was frowned upon as likely to cause a breach of discipline. But she smiled at the plump, good-natured woman, so loved by the children and yet immensely practical and a great asset on any ward. ‘I’ve been transferred,’ she added, and couldn’t keep the dismay out of her voice.
‘Oh, dear, I’m sorry to hear that, Staff. Are they sending you to Durham? My friend went there. Mind you, she likes the place all right.’
‘No, not another hospital. I mean, I’m to go over to the other side. Hut K.’
Nurse Jenkins looked relieved. ‘Oh, well, that’s no so bad, is it?’
Theda was saved the necessity of a reply for just then she heard Sister coming in through the main door. It must be two minutes to eight and if they were not ready and waiting in Sister’s office by the time she had removed her cloak and straightened her cap, ready to receive the night report on the patients, there would be trouble.
‘Hello, Millie. That’s a lovely doll you’ve got there, may I have a look at it?’ Theda asked the child in the cot nearest the door of the disabled children’s room. She held out her hand and Millie proudly gave her the doll. ‘It’s nice, isn’t it, Nurse Elliot?’
Nurse Elliot, the young Assistant Nurse who was helping Theda change the beds, nodded her agreement.
‘My mother sent it to me,’ Millie said proudly.
‘What’s her name?’ asked Theda, thinking how much better it would have been if Millie’s mother had actually brought the doll herself, but she never came near the hospital. Still, at least she kept in touch.
‘I was waiting till you came. I’m going to call her after you, Staff Nurse. What’s you name?’
Theda laughed. ‘I don’t think you want to do that. My name’s Theda – and no one’s ever called Theda! Why don’t you name her Clara? My sister’s name is Clara. She’s named after Clara Bow, the film star. Theda is after Theda Bara, another film star of long ago.’
‘I’ve never heard of them,’ said Millie doubtfully. Though she had not seen a film in her life, she was an avid reader of
Film
Fun
and the
Silver
Screen
, magazines which Theda brought in for the children every week. Millie could even read the captions on the pictures, unlike Jean and Mary, the other two girls in the room.
‘Why don’t you call her Lana after Lana Turner?’ suggested Nurse Elliot.
‘No, I will call her Theda after Staff Nurse,’ said Millie. ‘But not after that Theda Barry, mind.’
‘Well, thank you, it’s a great compliment,’ said Theda. ‘Now let’s get you sitting up in bed. Nurse Jenkins is coming round with the cod liver oil and orange juice, isn’t that nice?’
The children beamed. They weren’t so fond of the cod liver oil but they loved the concentrated orange juice which came to them courtesy of America. Theda left them sipping the juice contentedly and went to make sure the main ward was tidied up properly for Matron’s round.
Every cot and bed wheel had to be turned to the correct angle, and every counterpane smoothed with just the right amount of sheet turned down over it, every pillow plumped up and the opening of the pillow case facing away from the door. Trouble was, the children tended to rumple the bedclothes as soon as they were straightened. And better so, Nurse Jenkins had remarked to Theda, for if the bed remained tidy it usually meant the child was too ill to wriggle about.
Matron came in on the stroke of ten and walked round the ward with Sister, pausing at each bed as they talked about its small occupant and each child gazed at her with round solemn eyes, impressed by such an important personage. As she was leaving, she stopped where Theda was laying the trolley in readiness for the dressing round.
‘Oh, Staff Nurse Wearmouth,’ she said. ‘I want you to take your dinner hour early if Sister will spare you. You can go over to Ward K and have a word with Sister Smith. Best go early, she’s off duty this afternoon.’ Taking Theda’s agreement for granted, she swept off the ward and into Sister’s office, the deep triangle of her cap fluttering behind her.
‘You can go as soon as Mr Kent has finished his ward round,’ Sister said to Theda before she followed in Matron’s footsteps. They would be closeted in there for half an hour, thought Theda rebelliously as she stared at the closed door, no doubt having a good gossip. And when was she supposed to eat the Woolton pie which was always on the dinner menu on Mondays? She dipped the large forceps she was holding into the boiler and fished out an enamel kidney dish, banging it on the trolley and filling it with sterile pads of gauze. She laid out the instruments and the sharp-pointed scissors she would need to take out David’s stitches if Mr Kent gave the go-ahead. Finally she covered the lot with a sterile dressing towel from the autoclaved drum.
It was no good kicking up a fuss, it would only upset her more than anyone else. Besides, she had to keep cheerful for the sake of the children. They soon picked up any bad atmosphere in the ward. But nevertheless she felt pretty rebellious as she set off on a round of the ward.
Not long after Matron left, the opening of the ward doors heralded the approach of Mr Kent and his junior doctor.
‘Bring me the case notes from my desk, will you, Staff?’ Sister asked over her shoulder as she went forward to meet the surgeon who strode into the ward, his houseman trailing behind him. But there was someone else with them. Theda stood to the side as they passed and saw he was a soldier, an officer in fact, a major. A doctor friend of Mr Kent’s home on leave, perhaps? she conjectured as she went to get the notes and bring them back to Sister. He walked with a limp, he could be on sick leave.

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