War Nurse (7 page)

The town’s been battered by frightful storms. I cannot think what it must be like to be on board ship out on the swelling grey sea. I feel sick just looking at it.

All leave’s been cancelled so I won’t be able to go home. It’ll be my first Christmas ever away from home. Felt awfully choked, and then I reminded myself how much worse it is for our patients.

I feel really happy today. Mother’s written and told me that they’re going to drive down and take me out for lunch on Boxing Day. I feel so touched – they’ll probably use up every last drop of their petrol ration. Bunty’s told me that she’s got her ward – Officers’ – making streamers for Christmas.

“I doubt Sister Rook will let anyone put streamers up on our ward,” I said to her. We were curled up on my bed.

“Get that dishy doctor to ask her.”

“Who do you mean?” I asked. I wasn’t really listening. I was watching how my breath hung in the air – it was freezing in our room. I burrowed deeper under the blankets.

“Kitten, I despair of you, really I do,” Bunty said, grinning and pulling the blankets back off me. “Lieutenant what’s-his-name.”

“Venables,” Marjorie said promptly.

“See, Marjorie knows, and she’s not even working on your ward. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?”

I just smiled sweetly at her and pulled the blankets totally over my head.

Woke in time for Christmas lunch, which we had in the VADs’ mess. The long tables looked so pretty – holly and candles on the starched white tablecloths. Our cooks had done us proud; just like at home we had turkey and all the trimmings; there was even Christmas pudding – about a mouthful each. One of the VADs who’d been on leave had brought back crackers. Someone tried to put a paper hat on, but she couldn’t get it on over her white cap.

Soon the whole table was shrieking with laughter – hats toppling off caps. Then Madam came in and we whipped them off. Her face creased into a big smile as her gaze swept the tables. I think she was pleased to see our happy faces.

We’d barely finished our meal when all the lights went out. Pandemonium! A tree had toppled over in the high winds, bringing down one of the lines near the hospital, and all the power failed. Later we found out that in the midst of it all, an emergency appendix was brought in and they had to operate by hurricane lamp. The poor VAD on duty had to sterilize all the surgical instruments on top of primus stoves as the sterilizers weren’t working. At least – being Christmas – it was the only operation they had to do today.

After lunch, I popped into the ward to wish our patients a happy Christmas. I gasped when I pushed open the door. It was festooned with greenery and many of the patients had cards by their beds. One of them whipped out a sprig of mistletoe from behind his pillow and asked for a kiss! So embarrassing! Another gave me a bar of chocolate. I felt really pleased and handed round the cards I’d got for everyone.

Lieutenant Venables was there, too. He waved at me across the ward and then he came over to wish me a happy Christmas. Then suddenly I remembered what Bunty had said about him and I felt this huge blush flood my face. I don’t know what he must have thought of me.

Writing this hurriedly before going on duty. Heavenly day. When Mother met me at the hospital she told me there was a surprise waiting for me in the car. She had a big smile on her face but I couldn’t guess – so I rushed out ahead of her.

Inside the car, two faces beamed out at me. Father – and Peter!

It was absolutely my bestest Christmas present ever!

I’m writing this at home. I finished my first bout of night duty a few days ago and so I have four nights and days off – bliss!

Father’s away, and Peter of course has gone back to France. We don’t often talk about the War, but on Boxing Day I’d asked him to tell me what it was like across the Channel. Not a lot’s been happening, he told me. No one’s fired a shot yet, except in training. His unit’s been busy digging anti-tank ditches and spreading wire and he’s also been working on the roads. He looked awfully tired, but fit. He pretended to be shocked when he saw me and said that my arm muscles were bigger than his! “You’ll never get a husband now, Sis,” he joked. He told me that he knew what we VADs are nicknamed and when the parents weren’t listening he whispered it in my ear. (Unrepeatable!)

Giles has been on leave, too, and yesterday evening he came over and we went to the flicks together. I’d felt very pleased when he rang to ask me out – I hadn’t expected him to – he hadn’t answered my last letter. He looked awfully handsome in his powder-blue pilot’s uniform and flying cap. I was glad I’d dolled up – I spent ages in the bathroom, as it was a special occasion! And I was wearing the lipstick Peter gave me for Christmas. Bright red too!

In the cinema, as soon as the lights had dimmed, Giles took my hand. I thought I’d feel pleased, but I didn’t – somehow it felt all wrong. When the lights came on again he snatched away his hand, as if he felt awkward too.

But later he tried a kiss, in the car as he dropped me off. That felt wrong, too. We sat in the car for a minute in silence.

“I nearly didn’t call you,” he said at last, giving me a sidelong look. “I wasn’t sure you wanted to see me.” He hesitated. “When you didn’t answer my letter for so long I wondered – I wondered if you’d met anyone else. I didn’t write again because I didn’t know what to say.” He turned quickly away and looked out of the window, as if he thought he’d see my answer in my face and was secretly dreading it.

“I haven’t—” I began. I was about to explain how I felt, when I saw him smile; he looked hugely relieved. I just couldn’t tell him the truth then – that I didn’t feel for him the way he felt for me. He promised that he’d write and he gave me a quick peck on the cheek. He was rather subdued, and I felt a bit tearful, and I’m sure he thought it was because of him, but it wasn’t, or rather it was, but not in the way he thought. Giles is nice, and he’s very good-looking, but all evening I’d felt as if he was a stranger.

At breakfast this morning
I
was very subdued. Mother kept glancing at me across the table, but she didn’t say anything. Afterwards, when I went upstairs to pack, she came into my bedroom – to help me, she said – but I knew she wanted to find out how my evening with Giles had gone.

“Well?” she said at last, when I still didn’t say anything. She looked worried. Now is not a good time to fall in love – especially with a pilot.

Suddenly I felt a big gush of misery. I flopped down on the bed.

“Oh, Mother, I don’t know,” I wailed. I told her that I wasn’t sure I’d see him again. That I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. And . . . and. . . All at once I felt my lips tremble.

“Oh, my poor Kitten,” Mother said, hugging me, as if she knew all too well what I was feeling. “It’s not easy, is it? Being young.” I shook my head, trying to smile, but I felt all choked up inside.

There was a letter from Anne waiting for me when I got back. It’s been ages since I heard from her. I tore it open eagerly. There was a lot about the awful weather up in Leeds, and that she was trying to get transferred south. That wasn’t all.

“Giles sounds such a stick,” she said. (I’d told her about my unsatisfactory letters from him.) “Poor Kitten! Don’t worry about it. You can do a lot better.”

At that I just laid my head down on my arms and cried.

It’s all round the hospital how plucky the Finns have been. The story goes that they’ve made a new sort of weapon to hurl at the Russian army’s tanks. It’s a grenade, nicknamed a “Molotov cocktail” after Molotov, one of the Russian ministers. Anyway, the Russians were very surprised to find that the Finns didn’t surrender straightaway, as next to Soviet Russia, Finland’s just a small country. Three cheers for the Finns I say! I hope
we
show as much courage when it’s our turn to face the enemy.

Here in the hospital
our
worst enemy is the snow. Last night it fell thickly again. When I took down the blackout boards on the ward this morning, I gasped. The world had turned white. Later in the day, I was woken by tyres skidding outside the hospital and a barrage of hooting. Half asleep still, I went to the window and looked out. An ambulance was desperately trying to get through the snow. In front of it, a lorry was stuck fast. There were soldiers swarming all around it, trying to get it moving again. One of them even put his shoulder to it and tried to push it up the drive!

A minute later the ambulance doors opened and a stretcher was carefully passed down. The stretcher bearers walked slowly through the snow to the hospital, eyes fixed on the ground in case they slipped.

Sister Adams was looking rather flushed last night and I heard her sneezing when I went past the office. There’s been an outbreak of influenza in the hospital. I do hope she’s not going to be its next victim.

Absolute pandemonium!

The hospital’s overflowing with cases of influenza – both patients and staff. In our ward first it was Sister Adams, and now poor Molly’s sick. The patients have had to be shifted in and out of wards, and forms have to be filled in each time someone’s moved. I’m amazed we’ve not lost anyone yet.

Yesterday we ran out of beds and the stretcher bearers had to dump the stretchers on the floor between the beds, their occupants still in them. When I came on duty last night, Sister took me on one side. She told me that she’d asked for extra help, but that there isn’t any. All the other hospitals in the area have been hit hard by flu, too.

Between the two of us we have to do everything: settle the patients down for the night – including all the extra ones, who’re still lying on the floor – take round the medicines, give injections and do the TPRs. A lot of this will be down to me now as Sister will be flitting through the other wards in her charge. She told me to call Matron or the duty MO if there were any emergencies. I felt really scared but I knew I just had to knuckle down. I’ve always wanted responsibility. Well, now I’ve got it.

Several of our patients have bronchitis and we’re afraid that we might have a case of pneumonia on our hands, too. Even our marvellous new drug – M&B693 – cannot always cure pneumonia and the illness requires very careful nursing. And Sister Adams is still a bit weak after her illness. Just how we’d cope I cannot imagine.

Thomson developed pneumonia on Wednesday night and we had to move him into a side room. That first night I spent most of my time running in and out of it – and once we had to redo his kaolin poultice, which he’d been given to soothe the pain in his chest. It gets worse when he coughs, which is often. Then every four hours Sister popped by to give him his medicine.

We were so busy! Last night, though, there was another VAD to help us. My word, weren’t we pleased to see her! If I hadn’t been so busy, I’d have smiled at her nervous, eager expression as she hovered at the ward door – so like me, the day I began. I find it hard to believe that was only a few short months ago. Sister asked her to “special nurse” Thomson, and so she sat down obediently by his bed and glued her eyes to him.

“Any change in his condition must be reported to me at once,” Sister told us firmly. “If you can’t find me, tell the MO.”

Our new VAD nodded, eyes still stuck on Thomson. She looked terrified, so after a while, I went up to check that everything was all right. At about one o’clock she looked as though she was struggling to stay awake so I told her to make us all a mug of Ovaltine. She looked very relieved as she scampered off to the ward kitchen. I sat down in her place. Poor Thomson’s breathing still sounded awfully heavy so I propped him up a little on his pillow and gently rubbed his back. Sister had been called to another sick patient and I prayed I wouldn’t need to call our MO. We’re woefully short of doctors now, as so many of them are down with flu, and poor Lieutenant Venables is rushed off his feet.

At four o’clock I did have to run for the doctor. Our new VAD had told me that Thomson was awake but behaving very strangely. “I think he’s hallucinating,” she told me anxiously.

Lieutenant Venables looked at Thomson attentively. His breathing sounded better but he was gibbering away. Then he turned and looked full at the doctor.

“Good morning, Sister,” he said, smiling brightly.

A broad smile spread over the doctor’s face. He told us not to worry that Thomson was talking nonsense. “It’s just one of the side effects of the medicine,” he whispered. But just to make sure, he gave Thomson a quick check-up before he was called away again, and then I reported to Sister when she came back on to the ward.

I felt a bit of an idiot, but very relieved. Lieutenant Venables is so dependable. It’s such a relief to know that I can call on him.

Thomson pulled through the night and I collapsed into bed and slept and slept and slept. Jean looks exhausted and even paler than usual. I do hope she’s not going to be ill next.

No more new cases of flu today, but we’re still very overstretched on the ward. I’m sure that’s why I left an unwashed glass on the ward table when I came off duty early this morning.

I’d been in bed for about an hour when I was woken by a knock on the door. One of our new VADs told me that Sister wanted to see me. Her face looked very apprehensive. What could Sister Rook want? I wondered tiredly, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. I got dressed in my uniform, and made my way sleepily back down to the ward.

It wasn’t Sister Rook who was glaring at me in the office – it was a Sister I didn’t know, Sister Richardson. Sister Rook’s ill, she said shortly, when I asked.

I couldn’t think why I’d been summoned, but I was soon to find out. Sister marched me straight into the centre of the ward and pointed at the table.

“What is the meaning of this?” she said.

Every bed in that ward was full, but you could have heard a pin drop. The VAD who’d come to get me stopped what she was doing. Her face was crimson. I didn’t know what Sister was talking about. I looked blankly at the table.

“Well, Nurse!” said Sister.

Well,
what
? I thought.

She gave a deep sigh, as if she thought I was really stupid. Then she leaned over the table, picked up a glass and handed it to me.

“This,” she said, “was found – unwashed, Nurse – when I came on duty this morning. I was told that you left it there.”

I’d forgotten all about that glass.

I began to feel angry. Three months earlier I’d probably have blushed and apologized, but not now. I’d been working nights with very little help for weeks on end, and now I was being hauled in – for this! I knew that glass had been left there to humiliate me – in front of all the patients too. I felt so upset. I wanted to walk out of the ward, down the passage and out of the hospital and never come back. Instead, I took a deep breath, picked up the glass, marched into the annexe, washed it, put it away in its proper place and marched out of the ward again, head held high.

Sister just stood there, watching me. I’d thought Sister Rook was tough. She is, but she isn’t petty like Sister Richardson.

Who, I wondered, had told her that I’d left that glass there? Someone who was scared of Sister, a little voice whispered inside my head. Someone like that new little VAD who’d been sent to get me. I knew who I felt sorry for then.

Back in bed again I pulled the bedclothes up over my head. I’ve been made to look a fool in front of all my patients. I don’t know how I’m going to face them again.

When Jean came in I poured out the whole story.

“I don’t think you’ll have a problem with the patients,” she said. Oh, I pray she’s right.