Authors: Sue Reid
War Nurse
Standhaven Military Hospital,
1939
We were all at home when the news came. It was an ordinary Sunday – just like any other Sunday in our family.
Mother was closeted in the kitchen with Cook. Father ambled out of his study, paper in one hand, pipe clamped between his teeth. Peter was bent over the wireless, fiddling with the controls. Peter’s my brother, two years older and a bit of a whizz with gadgets – at least he thinks he is. I told him to stop or we’d miss the Prime Minister’s broadcast – and then he told me we would anyway if he couldn’t fix it and we had a bit of an argy-bargy about it.
Then at 11.15 exactly – as if by magic – the crackles stopped and the Prime Minister’s sombre voice drifted into the room. Mother and Cook rushed out of the kitchen. Father slowly put down his paper and took the pipe out of his mouth.
Five minutes – that’s all it took to turn our world upside down.
We were at war with Germany. That’s what the Prime Minister had told us.
Deep down I don’t think any of us were surprised. Under their leader, Adolf Hitler, the Germans had already marched into Austria and Czechoslovakia. Then two days ago they’d invaded Poland. This time Hitler was given an ultimatum. If he didn’t agree to withdraw his army from Poland by eleven o’clock this morning, a state of war would exist between our two countries. He hadn’t.
I sat there, as if frozen. Peter’s hands were motionless on the controls. Suddenly, I found myself wishing that we hadn’t quarrelled. Then I heard a click as he leaned across and switched the wireless off. Somehow that seemed to wake us up again.
Mother got up first. “I’ll help you pack, Kitten,” she said, practical as ever. I got to my feet too then.
A week ago, I’d had a letter from the Red Cross. It said I was to report to Standhaven Military Hospital as soon as war was declared. I’d joined the Red Cross as soon as it seemed likely there’d be a war. I wanted to be a VAD – a Red Cross nurse. (We’re called VADs after the Voluntary Aid Detachments which we’re all members of.) Even though I’d been at school most of the time I’d managed to pass my First Aid and Home Nursing exams
and
complete my training in our local hospital. Now I’m allowed to nurse soldiers.
In my bedroom, I dragged my suitcase out from under the bed. The last time I’d packed it I’d been going back to school. All that was behind me now. But it still made me feel a bit odd.
There was a lot to go in. First, my VAD uniform.
I opened the wardrobe, where the uniform hung, and laid it out on the bed. There was an awful lot of it. Some of it – like the navy serge overcoat – I wouldn’t need until winter. Then there was my nurse’s uniform. Carefully I folded the grey-blue dresses and the white aprons with the big red cross on the bib. Then there were the white half-sleeves that I wear on top of my nurse’s dress, and caps to go in too. When everything was packed, I put on my “outdoor” uniform – a navy serge jacket and skirt, worn with a white shirt and black tie, black cotton stockings and rubber-soled clumpy black shoes (horrid!).
Mother pinned a badge on to my sleeve. She looked terribly proud as she did it. That badge says that I’m a “mobile VAD”, which means that I can be posted to an army hospital anywhere in the country. When I’m 21 – in two years’ time – I’ll even be able to serve abroad.
Last of all, I put on the hat. Peter roared with laughter when he saw me in it. He said I looked as if I had a pudding basin upside down on my head. “We army chaps had better look out!” he said. I felt annoyed and opened my mouth to tick him off, when something made me stop.
“We army chaps,” he’d said. Only then did it dawn on me. I’d be nursing young men – boys – like him. It could even be
my
brother, lying wounded, in bed. Suddenly I felt so frightened. Peter was joining the Infantry. He looked so young – far too young to be going off to fight.
“Oh, Peter,” I gasped suddenly. I flung my arms round him, burrowing my head into his shoulder, not wanting him to see that my eyes were wet. He hugged me back and then he stuck a finger under my chin and looked down into my face, all big-brotherly.
“Don’t be a goose, Sis,” he said, fishing in his pocket for a hanky. “I’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
Then the phone rang. It was Anne – my best friend. Like me she’d joined the Red Cross and we’d done our training together. Unlike me, she was still waiting to be called up.
“I rang to tell you the news,” she said.
“I know. War. Isn’t it awful?”
There was silence down the line. Something was wrong. “I’m not coming with you,” she said. She went on in a rush before I could say anything. “I’ve been posted to an army hospital – near Leeds! I can’t think why!” She gave that throaty laugh of hers. I felt too choked to speak. When I didn’t say anything Anne went on: “Kitten, look. I’m going to keep a diary. Will you keep one too? We can pretend we’re writing to each other. When it’s all over we can show them to each other.”
“Why don’t we just write to each other?” I said tearfully.
“The post’s bound to be awful, Father says. It’ll be fun,” she urged when I didn’t answer. “I will write to you too of course.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“All right then,” I said slowly, even though I wasn’t sure how I felt about showing my diary to anyone – even Anne. A diary is a private thing.
And then the line crackled and Mother called to me and so sadly I said goodbye and put the phone down. Everything in my life was changing – and all of it horrid.
The rest of the morning passed in a bit of a whirl. Somehow the news had leaked out that we were off and soon it felt as if the entire village was trooping into the house. Peter and I were made to parade up and down the drawing room in our uniforms. I felt awfully embarrassed but Peter looked wonderful in his lieutenant’s uniform.
Peter left first – everyone being terribly brave about it – and then it was my turn. Bert, our gardener and odd-job man, helped us pack up the car. “What have you got in here, miss?” he gasped as he heaved my suitcase into the boot. Then there was my bicycle and tennis racket – even my hockey stick – to fit in.
“Honestly, Mother, I’m not going back to school!” I protested when I saw her march up to the car with
that,
but she said you never know, it may come in handy. I don’t know how we got it all in.
As we drove away I turned back. It all looked so safe and cosy, the house nestling amongst the trees, Cook and Bert standing by the door, waving.
I felt as if I was losing something precious and my eyes grew watery again. I tried to pull myself together.
The old life was over, I told myself – but the new one was about to begin. It would be an adventure.
Truth to tell, I was feeling lonely and a bit frightened. We were at war and I was going away – far away from everyone I cared about. Already I felt homesick. Who would I talk to when things were bad? Who could I tell about how I felt?
Then Anne’s words floated into my mind. Her voice in my head was as clear as if she was in the car with me.
“I’m going to keep a diary. Will you keep one too?”
I haven’t kept a diary since I was a child.
I’d promised her I’d do this.
I needed a friend – a friend I could say
anything
to. Maybe my diary will be that friend for me?
I was dropped off at the station. From there I had to catch a train down to the hospital.
On the platform there were a lot of girls and young women, all wearing the same uniform as me. Some of the older ones had stripes on their jackets, which told me that they’d been VADs for far longer than me. I scanned their faces, but I couldn’t see anyone I knew. Where were the girls who’d trained with me?
We VADs weren’t the only people waiting for the train. As I skulked on the platform, a soldier winked at me.
“Going back to school, miss?” he asked. He was grinning as he looked at my hockey stick. I blushed hotly. “None of your lip, Private,” a Sergeant told him sternly.
The train drew up with a whistle and great puff of steam. Suddenly the Sergeant was by my side.
“We’ll help you with that, miss.” He jerked his finger at a group of soldiers. “Oy, you. Over here.”
I stood back, feeling a bit dazed as the soldiers swarmed around us, heaving suitcases, rackets and bicycles up on to the train.
Inside my compartment I studied the faces opposite me. We smiled shyly at each other from under our pudding-basin hats. We didn’t know each other now, but one day, I told myself, those faces would be almost as familiar to me as my own.
I’m writing this under the bedclothes, my diary on my knees, torch in one hand, pencil in the other. I can’t turn on the light or I might wake Nurse Mason. And in any case, there’s the blackout to think about.
I’ve not been at the hospital for one whole day, but already I’ve so much to write about.
I’ll begin with the hospital. It’s a sprawling Victorian building, rather like St Jude’s, my old school. As we drove through the grounds in the bus the army sent to meet us, I saw green lawns and tennis courts and then the hospital itself came into view, slipping in and out behind the trees.
Our sleeping quarters are in the hospital itself. Most of us are in dormitories, but I’m billeted in a small room on the second floor. I share it with one other nurse. All I know about her is that her name is Nurse Mason – and unlike me she’s very tidy; there’s not one thing out of place on the boxes we use as our dressing table and cupboards. I don’t know how she’s going to cope with sharing with me, or me with her.
The only other thing there’s room for in here are our beds. My bed’s awful. First of all it’s tiny so that if I stretch out in it my legs hang over the end. Then there’s the mattress – a horrid lumpy thing that Bunty says is called “army biscuits”. I thought she was joking but Marjorie and Molly say it’s true and their father’s a colonel so they should know. But when you look out of the window, you can see trees and through them a scrap of shimmering silver – the sea. That almost makes up for everything else.
After we’d been dropped off we were told to assemble in the hall. Matron and a QA Sister were going to talk to us. Mostly it seemed to be about what they expected of us – and what we could expect of them.
The QAs are members of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. They’re our superiors, for – unlike us – they’re fully trained professional nurses. The Regular QAs are full-time army nurses. The Reserves are civilian nurses who joined up when war broke out, like us.
Last of all we had a talk from a Sergeant, who reeled off a lot of stuff that I just know I’ll have trouble remembering. Army rules – there seem to be so many of them.
There’s one other important person I should mention. This is the Commandant. She calls us “Members” and we call her “Madam”. The Commandant’s a sort of chief VAD, and she looks awfully fierce. But she says we’re to go to her if ever we have a problem.
After they’d gone, I was standing in the hall feeling a bit lost and lonely again when suddenly I heard a shriek. “Kitten!”
I blushed pink. Now everyone would know my nickname!
And then I saw who it was weaving through the packed hall towards me.
“Bunty!” I cried. “Bunty!” I flew across the room and hugged her. “Where were you? I didn’t see you on the train.”
“Mother dropped me and the twins off,” she told me. I looked up at the two girls who’d followed her across the room. They grinned at me.
“Molly! Marjorie!” I cried, hugging each of them.
“Isn’t this fun,” said Bunty, beaming. “The old St Jude’s gang – together again.”
“Where’s Anne?” Molly asked me. “Didn’t she come on the train with you?”
“No,” I said dolefully. “The army’s sent her to Leeds.”
“How absolutely typical!” said Marjorie.
“But why? She joined the same detachment as us!” exclaimed Molly.
“Never mind,” said Bunty, hugging me again. “You’ve got us.”
After our “medicals” – all us new VADs have to have these – and supper in the VADs’ dining room (the army calls this a “mess”!) we piled into my tiny room. I dived into my luggage, scattering stuff everywhere, hunting for my chocolates – Mother’s farewell present.
“Your mother’s such a darling,” Bunty said, mouth full. “Remind me never to eat a meal in the hospital again.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” said Marjorie.
Just then the door opened and we all looked round. A tall, thin girl was standing in the doorway. I saw her stare at us, all squashed up on the bed together. My eyes followed hers round the room. It was an awful mess. I went pink.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Kitty Langley – you must be my roommate, Nurse Mason.” I smiled and held out the chocolates. “I’m sorry about the mess,” I added hastily.
She didn’t smile back. She just stared at the chocolates – as if she’d never seen one before. Most peculiar.
“No, thank you,” she said stiffly at last.
The door closed quietly behind her. We all stared at it.
“Not very friendly,” Bunty said.
“She’s probably just shy,” said Molly kindly.
I shrugged. It probably wasn’t going to be much fun sharing with Nurse Mason, but just then I had more important things on my mind.
Tomorrow I begin work – on a medical ward. I’m longing to start though I feel awfully nervous too, but Molly’s on duty with me. That’s something.