For King and Country (24 page)

The questions came thick and fast. ‘What!’ ‘Where?’ ‘Armstong, how can you?’

‘Who with?’ Sally asked. ‘And what about your family?’

Armstrong shrugged, and took a sip of her tea, then said, ‘So many questions! I’ll try to explain, and maybe that’ll answer them all. The most a sister can earn here is about
forty pounds a year, fifty at the absolute maximum, right?’

Right, some nodded, but other girls were shaking their heads, Sally among them.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve never asked. I’ve never thought about what anybody gets, except me.’

‘Well, take my word for it, you’ll never get more than fifty, and you’ll be lucky to get that – in England. Hardly the pathway to affluence, is it? So you can look
forward to a lifetime of twelve-hour days looking after other people, and a bleak old age with nobody looking after you.’

‘That’s true,’ Richmond grimaced, the first time Sally had known her to join in a discussion with junior probationers. ‘Remember poor old Sister Harrison with the
whiskers on her chin and the cap that tied underneath with strings? I used to see her coming on duty when I first started. She did night duty until her legs were so swollen she could hardly stand,
and she’s in the workhouse now.’

‘Sure, and the people she nursed will have forgotten her entirely,’ said Curran, with feeling.

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Sally protested. ‘I still remember the nurses who looked after me when I had diphtheria.’

‘Yes, Wilde,’ said Armstrong, ‘but my point is, what good will that do them when they’re too old to work? It won’t keep them out of the poorhouse, will it? If I
were staying in England, I’d be fighting for the Nurses’ Registration Bill, to stop unqualified people like the VADs underselling us, but I’m not, because the society
clique’s got nursing battened down pretty well in this country and you’ll never get rid of them, or the serf mentality of people who suck up to them. I’m off to a country
that’ll take me on merit and won’t begrudge me a decent living. ’

‘Why, I thought I was doing all right with twenty pounds a year and all found,’ said Sally, who’d never imagined more, and so never aspired to it.

‘And that’s for a twelve-hour day, and being at the beck and call of the hospital for the rest of the twenty-four, if needed. Your conditions were set by the last generation, Wilde,
women who were so grateful to have any job at all that they just about worked for nothing. You couldn’t blame them then, they had no option and they took what they could get, but we’ve
had our eyes opened by this war. Just think about it! For an eight-hour day in New Zealand a trained nurse can get
between fifty and a hundred!
Same in Australia. In fact, if you were
lucky enough to get into the Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, they’d pay you between
a hundred and a hundred and twenty
! It gets even better. In Canada, in one big hospital, the
head theatre sister’s drawing a hundred and eighty,
and all found
! And it’s not only the money. An eight-hour day gives you the chance to have a life of your own. And
it’s not only the shorter hours, either. The colonial nurses can hardly believe the way we’re treated, it’s so different in the colonies; the nurses are respected there. So tell
me, my pets, where shall I go – and who’s coming with me?’

There was such a buzz of excitement in the air at these dazzling possibilities that Sally and Curran were both caught up in it, and Curran and a couple of the third years volunteered themselves
without a second thought.

‘A hundred and eighty a year?’

‘Canada, of course!’

‘Some people seem to think a lot of Australia, an’ all,’ Sally said. ‘Our Arthur’s already told us that’s where he’s going as soon as he gets out of the
army. And it’s a lot warmer there than it is in Canada. But we can’t go anywhere yet, Curran, it’s another two years before we sit our finals.’

‘That decides it. Australia it is, then,’ said Armstrong. ‘We’ll blaze the trail, and you can come out to us as soon as you pass, can’t they, girls? Fair
dinkum.’ Most of them nodded, quite beguiled by Armstrong’s fantasy.

‘Don’t take them all, Armstrong,’ Richmond said. ‘Some of us ought to stay and fight for the Registration Bill, and I must say, that lecture we had from the Medical
Officer of Health about what a Ministry of Health could do for the babies and children of this country made me think. That’s something else we should be fighting for. There are a lot of
changes coming, and there’ll be plenty of scope here for nurses of the right calibre.’

‘Yes, but the government doesn’t want to
pay
for nurses of the right calibre. It wants everything done on the cheap, with women who’re qualified by nothing but their
titles or their bank balances in charge of it all, so that everything can roll on in the same feudal way as before. But there’s another advantage to the colonies I haven’t mentioned
yet, especially Australia. Some of you might think it’s the best thing about it.’

‘What’s that?’ a few of the girls chorused.

‘I know!’ Curran was laughing. ‘It’s men!’

‘Yes,
men
!’ Armstrong declared. ‘Hordes of them, a surplus of men in some places, or so I’ve heard. And bigger and better ones than you’ll ever see in
England!’

There was a grin on every face and an outcry of giggles and protests filled the sitting room.

‘Terrifying thought!’

‘Thrilling, you mean.’

‘Just give me half a chance!’

‘You can book my passage.’

‘I’ll apply for my passport tomorrow!’

‘The colonies,’ Sally mused. ‘Not much chance of ending up in the workhouse there. I bet they don’t even have them. Oh, but I wonder, Armstrong? I can’t really see
there being that much of a surplus of men anywhere, after four years of war.’

‘Sure, and as long as there isn’t a surplus of women,’ Curran said, ‘at least we’ll have a fighting chance of getting a husband.’

‘And what about the Australian nurses, when we descend on them to pinch their jobs and their men? I can’t see them giving us much of a welcome,’ Sally said.

Curran batted the side of her head with a cushion, and Armstrong said: ‘What a bloody Jeremiah you are, Wilde! I’m warning you, if you pour any more cold water on things we’ll
ban you from the sitting room altogether.’

‘Not after tonight, you won’t. You won’t be here to ban me,’ Sally grimaced. ‘I’ve only just realized – this is the last time you’ll be here. If
they’ve given you a staffing job you’ll be in with the sisters and staff nurses tomorrow, unless you’re leaving altogether.’

‘Don’t be too sure about that, I just might be here again, unless
you
ban
me
,’ said Armstrong, with a cautious glance in Richmond’s direction.
‘But I admit, nothing stays the same for long. You two, Curran and Wilde, it doesn’t seem two minutes since you started, and here you are, second years already. You’ll be sitting
your finals before you know where you are. Work hard and make sure you pass, and Auntie and her friends will have jobs and husbands waiting for you in Australia.’

Sally opened her mouth to ask what happened if they didn’t pass, but Armstrong held up a hand to silence her. ‘Ah! And stow your wet blanket, Wilde. You’re both
coming.’

Curran was misty-eyed, entirely carried away by the idea. ‘Sure, and just tell us how to get there!’

Sally gave a wry smile. ‘Just get on the right boat, I suppose.’

‘Oh, there’ll be formalities, no doubt,’ said Armstrong, and there was a tinge of bitterness in her voice when she added, ‘and it might not altogether surprise you to
know there’s been a society formed to help British women to deal with them, and be gone. When the army demobilizes, the men who are still in one piece will want their jobs back, and the
powers that be will want rid of any surplus women who might stand in their way. It’ll be, “Thanks for everything, and now you can get back into the kitchen.”’

‘But we’re not doing men’s jobs,’ someone protested.

‘No, but there’s no denying we’re surplus women,’ said Sally. ‘Destined to be old maids, or shrivelled old spinsters, as I’ve heard somebody say.’

‘Disgusting, isn’t it?’ Richmond spoke very quietly. ‘Women devote their lives to teaching or professional nursing, or playing the dutiful daughter at home, and in return
they find themselves the butt of ill humour and cheap witticisms.’

‘Sure, and I can hardly wait to get the next two years over with,’ said Curran.

‘Hm,’ said Sally. It was all right for Curran, she’d already made the break from hearth and home and had come to live as an exile in a strange land, among strangers who talked
in different accents and had different ideas. Curran hadn’t seen her family for a year, not even for one day a month. On her days off she roamed around Newcastle, strolled on the quayside, or
went to Jesmond Dene, usually alone. The thought of leaving everybody she loved suddenly confronted Sally with what that must mean, and she began to see Curran with new and more respectful
eyes.

Shrivelled old spinsters.
The phrase came back to her that night, just before she went to sleep. A man could be a bachelor all his life and still be respected, but not
a woman. Well, she’d rather be a spinster till her dying day than have anything to do with the sort of man who dealt such insults, Sally thought. And spinster she may be, but she would refuse
to shrivel. She’d make her own way in the world. She’d take courage, maybe enough to cross half the world in Armstrong’s wake, to seek her fortune. And she had no doubt at all
that Armstrong would go, it just remained to be seen how many would go with her. They were the sort of people that a girl with no prospect of marriage should model herself on, Curran and Armstrong
– sane, competent, brave, good humoured, optimistic, adventurous and altogether admirable spinsters.

A man like Dr Campbell, who everybody thought a good catch because of his profession, and his family and connections, would be a poor exchange for friends like those. Not that he was likely to
be making Sally any offer of marriage, and she wouldn’t have wanted it anyway, from a man who was capable of ruining a girl’s life for half an hour’s pleasure. And as for Will
Burdett, well, if it depended on her, men like him would be left bachelors until they dwindled and shrivelled away ‘entirely’, as Curran might say.

Or until they learned better manners.

‘Holy Mother of God!’ they heard Curran exclaim, ‘There’s a hell of a commotion down there!’ The nurses paused in their various tasks and looked
at each other, and the few ambulant kids dashed towards the door. Sister Harding sent them back to bed, and then left the ward to see what the matter was.

‘Listen! What’s up, Nurse?’ A ward full of children turned to Sally and another probationer, their eyes alive with curiosity.

‘I don’t know; we’ll find out when Sister gets back,’ Sally shrugged, but her heart leapt at the thought of what it might, just might be. If it was what she suspected,
her brothers might be safe and bound for home, but what about Will?

‘Sure, and I’ll find out,’ Curran volunteered from the door of Mary’s room, ‘if you’ll come in and watch her for a minute. Our best girl’s got a
headache, and she feels sick.’

‘All right, but be quick, and be back before Sister.’ Sally left her place beside Louise to enter the little room where Mary was prostrate in bed. ‘Do you think you will be
sick?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Mary whispered, ‘but I feel like it, and my head aches, and there’s a ringing inside my ears.’

Her breath smelled bad, and her gums and teeth had a nasty coating. Sally put a vomit bowl within reach, and set the mouth tray on the bed table. ‘I’m just going to make your mouth
taste a bit better. All right, pet?’ she said, already dipping a swab into bicarbonate of soda solution. ‘And as soon as Sister gets back, we’ll ask her for a headache
tablet.’

A couple of minutes after the job was done Curran returned, with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. ‘The war’s over,’ she announced, ‘and I don’t know why
I’m so happy, because I was never at war with the Germans in the first place. It had nothing to do with the Irish.’

‘Oh, thank God. Thank God!’ Sally jumped to her feet, and grabbing Curran round the waist, danced her out of Mary’s room and around the ward. Louise laughed, and clapped her
hands together, and quickly stopped.

‘’No! Don’t you do that!’ Sally said, ‘It hurts, doesn’t it?’

‘Go on, Wilde,’ Curran urged. ‘It was your war, you go and jig with the rest of them down there.’

‘I daren’t, not without Sister’s permission.’

‘Go and find her and ask for it, then. Sure, and we’ll be all right for five minutes.’ The other nurse pulled a face, but made no objection.

‘All right, I will. She ought to come and see Mary, anyway.’ Sally was at the ward door and out onto the top corridor almost before she’d finished the sentence, to join a crowd
of laughing, chattering people who were pouring down the stairs and onto the main corridor below. She scanned the throng of patients, nurses, orderlies, doctors and kitchen staff, but Sister
Harding was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Will. Instead, she bumped into Dr Campbell as he came out of theatre.

‘Have you heard the news?’ she said. ‘Peace! I can’t believe it.’

‘Not quite peace – an armistice. But it’s over for now, at least. Four years late, but never mind. No more men with hideous, mutilating wounds. No more lungs or yards of skin
destroyed by gas, no more blind eyes. No more slaving for hours in theatre trying to save an arm or leg to see the patient die of shock, or gangrene, or tetanus! It’s hard to believe,
isn’t it?’

‘No more women made widows, or children fatherless! No more mothers losing their sons or sisters without brothers!’ Sally exclaimed, ‘Oh, I hope mine get home all
right!’

The corners of Dr Campbell’s lips stretched in a broad smile. ‘No earthly reason why they shouldn’t now, is there? Well, peace evidently agrees with you, Nurse Wilde!
It’s brought a shine to your eyes, and I’m sorry, but I can’t resist. In fact, I won’t resist!’

Just as she pursed her lips to ask ‘Resist what?’ the church bells began a joyous pealing out of the news, and his mouth descended on hers. She offered a token resistance, and then
surrendered.