Hospital Circles

by Lucilla Andrews

  I did not hear Mr Waring’s reply. A glance from de Wint had told me to go, and shut the door behind me. Mr Waring’s presence with de Wint told me David Parker was still alive, but only just.

  The breaking of news to waiting relatives was as organized in the Unit as was every other job performed there. Good news could be given by any member of the Team. The Registrars were allowed to give serious news. When a patient was in a dangerous condition Mr Waring did the giving himself, with a staff nurse or the senior student nurse if women were present, alone when the waiting relatives were men. When a patient died in the Unit, as this morning, or was a B.I.D. (Brought in dead), the responsibility of telling his next-of-kin fell on the S.S.O., as that dresser had learnt this morning. When a medical patient collapsed and died in Casualty it was the S.M.O. who had to break it to his family. Obviously in certain circumstances it would have been easier and even more practical for Dr Curtis and Richard to delegate the task to Dr Jones and Mr Waring. In the past that had been known to happen occasionally, but never with our present senior residents. As I heard Mr Waring remark later that day to Mr Cook about the man who had died, it was not much consolation after one had lost a patient who a few hours earlier had been a healthy man, but it was something to know for certain that when one passed the buck it would never be passed back.

  It was tea-time before David Parker was fit to move to Marcus. He was still unconscious. By then we had had in an elderly man with a broken femur; a young man in coma after an acute electric shock; a little girl who had fallen downstairs and broken both wrists, as she had landed on her outstretched arms; a youngish mother of four children who had slipped when hanging new curtains. She had a cracked pelvis. All these accidents had taken place in private homes. We also dealt with five more road accidents before I went off duty, but none of these were as badly injured as the four car passengers and David Parker.

  The number of home accidents astonished me. Mr Waring overheard me discussing this with Daisy one evening in my second week. ‘Not really surprising, Nurse Dungarvan, if you remember that as many people get killed in their homes in this country as on the roads. Isn’t that right, sir?’

  He had spoken behind me. I turned. Richard was with him. ‘Quite right. I forget the exact figures for last year, but I’m reasonably sure the home figures beat the roads. An Englishman’s home may or may not now be his castle,’ he said drily, ‘but unless he’s careful there’s a strong probability it’ll now be his death-trap.’ He spoke to Daisy, as if I were invisible. He had treated me like that ever since I moved into the Unit, unless professionally forced to acknowledge my presence. He was only behaving exactly as he did around the hospital with the other girls and had done with me in Marcus. It had not riled me then, yet, stupidly, it did now. I asked myself, Why care? Was there any law that said one must be liked by one’s future uncle? Why bother because Margaret’s Richard had for some inexplicable reason ceased to be my mate Richard? It was that particular thought that made me realize I had ceased to think of him as Old Red. I tried to correct that mentally. I did not succeed, and as I could not see that my personal thoughts mattered to anyone but myself, Richard he remained to me.

  The Unit opened my eyes to more than the daily holocaust on English roads and in English homes. It was the first place in Benedict’s in which I had worked as a near equal with our men. In my theatre time I had been too junior to be even vaguely aware that under the gowns and masks were young men. I discovered that in the Unit. I discovered the men’s feet and backs ached, as ours did, that they fretted about their exams, girlfriends, and professional futures as much as, if not more than, nurses. I also discovered that on the job the vast majority were much nicer than they seemed off duty, when out to impress the girls. No-one in the Unit ever bothered to impress anyone. We were too busy, we all needed each other too much, and, working so constantly together, we were all too aware of how much work everyone else was getting through to feel anything but respect for each other as skilled individuals. The work was so highly skilled, and we had to work as such a well-knit team, that it took me only a short time to appreciate exactly why, whilst Sister had doubts about me, she had kept me out.

  Though the work continued to appal me when I stopped to think about it, the Unit itself was the happiest department I had ever worked in. At first I gave all the credit for that to Mr Waring. Later I realized a good bit was due to Richard. Mr Waring was responsible for all we did, but Richard was responsible for Mr Waring. Had the two men not so clearly liked each other and trusted each others judgements, life in the Unit could have been very different.

  Mr Waring was twenty-nine and highly tipped as our next S.S.O. Daisy said, ‘If Old Red has any say our Michael’ll get it. And so he should!’

  I agreed warmly. ‘But isn’t he rather young?’

  ‘He’s not all that much younger than Old Red. What’s six or seven years? Anyway, his job here doesn’t end until the end of this year. He’ll have to be an S.S.O. in another teaching hospital first, but if he then nips off to a smaller hospital for a year, though that’s not as much time as our big bosses like an S.S.O. here to have outside, I’ll bet they’ll stretch the point rather than lose him. He’s much too good to lose, as I’m convinced Old Red’ll tell them. As Old Red’s next move’ll be on to the Staff, his word’ll carry a lot of weight.’

  I thought of Mr Waring’s mobile face, quick manner, and expansive temperament. ‘I think he’s a poppet of an S.A.O., but I’m rather surprised he and Old Red should be such mates. They’re so different.’

  ‘Physically, maybe. But they’ve so much in common. They’re both surgeons, as near contemporaries in age as makes no matter, and they both like their patients more than they like their knives. Nor is that quite all.’ Suddenly her eyes danced. ‘They are both models of professional discretion.’

  ‘Both?’ I was puzzled. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Hey, Jo! I wasn’t born yesterday. You know what I mean, and you must have seen how Michael’s taking no chances either. He knows one look at the wrong moment and Sister’d hear and have Mary out lickerty-split, which is the last thing he wants, and not only for personal reasons. She’s a bloody good accident staff nurse.’

  ‘Mary de Wint? And Michael Waring? I’d never guessed!’

  She laughed and suggested I told that to the Marines. (Just as the Navy had left its mark on Sister, so did Sister’s phraseology rub off on anyone who worked with her.) ‘Not that I blame you for acting dumb. “No names no pack drill”, as Corporal Wix used to say in Marcus.’

  I had opened my mouth to protest. I closed it without saying anything, as there was really nothing I could say. Thinking things over later, I realized that even had I risked telling her the whole truth and swearing her to secrecy, she would almost certainly have not believed me, as she would not want to believe me. Though so sensible, now we had become great friends, I had discovered Daisy had a glorious unashamedly sentimental streak, and she enjoyed match-making for her friends as much as she did altering the colour of her hair. Time’ll sort it out, I thought weakly, and tried to forget it. I did not succeed, probably as I was having to see so much of Richard.

  Seeing so much of him began to have a rather disconcerting effect on me. I found myself missing him when he wasn’t there. Thursday evening suddenly became my unfavourite evening of the week. Mr Tomlin, the Senior Surgical Registrar who acted S.S.O. when Richard was off duty, was a pleasant man and much more civil to me than his boss. Yet I had only to see Mr Tomlin walk into the Unit to feel peeved. When I realized that, I was as peeved with myself as with the harmless Mr Tomlin.

  Being reasonably good at talking my way out of tight spots, I tried to talk myself out of this one. Being on the rebound, I was ripe to imagine myself in love with any man who caught my eye. I was falling into the common pit of believing the grape-vine. I was over-imaginative, over-impressionable, over-emotional. I was suffering from a father-fixation. I was sex-starved. I was the lot.

  I wa
s also, subconsciously, building up a series of mental pictures of Richard’s face. Richard smiling at some Unit joke; his intent expression and habit of occasionally frowning at the floor when listening to a case history; the kindness that softened the rather austere lines of his face when he talked to an injured patient; and the mixture of sadness, despair, and frustrated rage that lingered in his eyes after examining the battered body of a dead child.

  I did not want to watch him so closely or appreciate how much I must have done so, until I found his face was constantly in my mind and as familiar as my own in the mirror. Even then I refused to face facts. That was cowardly, but the Unit had taught me to prefer cowardice to folly. The consequences of the former could be unfortunate; those of the latter were almost invariably disastrous.

  Chapter Eleven

  A LETTER TO BILL

  General Francis had not had a growth. His first operation proved to have been purely exploratory. He was due to have a second and very extensive operation just as soon as he had recovered from the first.

  I was seeing very little of Margaret. Ostensibly, because we were so seldom free at the same time. We knew each other so well. For present events too well. On the few occasions when we ran into each other in the hospital the change in her appearance since her first afternoon back tore me in three. The equal parts were delight, despair, and guilt.

  The uniform suited her. The frilly sister s cap with its lace bow under her chin made her face younger and rounder. She had always had a small waist. Her splendidly buckled belt accentuated this the way her black nylons did her neat ankles. But it was not merely the uniform that altered her. She looked more serene and sure of herself than I had ever seen her. As serene as a woman who had come to terms with life and suddenly discovered those terms were loaded in her favour.

  I had no idea how much she was seeing of Richard in his meagre off-duty. I guessed as much as possible, though she only occasionally mentioned their private life to me. One Friday in the main corridor she told me of the high-powered dinner-party she had attended the previous evening in the pundits’ dining-room. The Dean had been host. ‘He remembers Simon well and asked most kindly after Dickie.’

  ‘Who else was there?’ I asked, after being brought up to date on Dickie’s prowess in his new school.

  ‘The Remington-Harts, Dr and Mrs Curtis, Matron, Richard, and myself. Poor Richard was called away when the coffee came in and never got back. I don’t yet know who wanted him. Your Unit?’

  ‘No. At least, not then. The Hall had a spate of P.G.U.s. (perforated gastric ulcers). Three came in inside one hour, then two appendices who couldn’t wait, and then just as I was going off at midnight we had in a man who’d been shot in the stomach in some night club. The Unit was buzzing with cops. The gunshot man was in the theatre till three.’

  She grimaced. ‘Poor devil! Still alive?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ It was ten to three now, and I was on my way on duty. ‘He was alive when the night girls came off, and he had a large cop sitting with him behind drawn curtains.’

  ‘Three,’ she murmured. ‘And then the poor man had all his night rounds to do. I hope they let him sleep once he got to bed.’

  ‘Yep.’ I hoped that so much I had to be terse. ‘How’s the dear old General?’

  Her smile reappeared. ‘He’s not that old, dear! He’s doing very well, and looking forward to seeing you and your friend Daisy Yates after his second op. That’s next Wednesday.’

  ‘Isn’t that the dodgy one?’

  ‘Uh-huh. What other news have you got?’

  ‘Not much. The Unit’s hectic as ever. Oh, yes ‒ Gwenellen and Tom Lofthouse have fixed their wedding day in next January. Aline’s still in Majorca.’

  ‘Still? Her food poisoning is taking a long time to clear up, isn’t it?’

  ‘She seems to have had a relapse. Gwenellen had a letter yesterday. There’s one thing more,’ I added more cheerfully, ‘you know Staff Nurse Humber? Well, she used to run around with a houseman called Robin Armstrong way back. It fell apart. Now it’s on again. I’m very glad, as I like ’em both. Honest to God, five to! See you.’ I hurried on, and was deeply ashamed at my relief in being able to do so. It was not that I wasn’t very fond of her. But this being torn in three seemed literally to be taking me apart.

  Sister Cas was in the Unit when I reported on. ‘Back aboard, eh, Dungarvan? Carry on.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister.’ I walked over to report to Nurse de Wint. Sister frequently popped in and out of the Unit to watch us, but she was very good about leaving the entire running of the Unit nursing side in Mary de Wint’s very capable hands.

  On Thursdays and Fridays Sister was a more constant Unit visitor than on the other week-days, since Thursday, being technically the lightest day of the hospital week, was the day chosen for our dressers to change. The boys ‒ and occasionally the student girls ‒ each worked weekly shifts during which they were on twenty-four-hour call. Being in their final year, by Friday afternoon most of them had settled in to accident work. If Sister entertained any doubts she discussed them with Mr Waring, and very, very occasionally a dresser was removed. We had a girl dresser that week. Her name was Monica Miles, she was small as de Wint, very fair, and looked sixteen. On present showing she was going to be very useful.

  June Bateman, Unit Two, had gone on holiday. Unit Three and I had moved up one. A girl from the Hall called Linda Oxford had come in to take my old place as Unit Four. Daisy was still our team leader.

  Linda had joined us on Monday. Sister had been keeping as close an eye on her as she had kept on me during my first week in the Unit. Linda was the only other woman in Benedict’s as tall as Sister. She towered over Mr Waring and de Wint, whom she was assisting. The knowledge that she was the object of Sister’s scrutiny made her flush beneath her mask and drop the roll of strapping she was holding. I felt for her.

  In a brief slack spell later I said as much.

  She said coldly, ‘Dungarvan, anyone can drop something once. But everyone hasn’t your emotional Irish temperament.’

  ‘Is that a fact, now?’ I copied old Paddy’s brogue. ‘Honest to God, Nurse Oxford, you’ll be after telling me next there are no little people to drink the fine saucer of milk I leave out for them every afternoon when I take Mr Waring in his tea.’

  She went puce. ‘Will you never grow up and realize nursing is a serious business?’ She stomped off before I could explain that now she was Unit Four taking in that tea was her job. I had continued to do it for the days she had been with us, as I had just happened to be free at the right time, she had been busy, and one of the nicest things about the Unit was the way in which everyone helped everyone else with his job. Daisy had collected the tea-tray for me during all my first week.

  Nurse de Wint was in our stock-room. ‘Yes, get it, Dungarvan. Those men need their tea today. They were called out of breakfast and lunch, and out of their beds by five this morning to deal with that road gang whose lorry overturned when taking them to work. The general theatre was only quiet for two hours in the whole night.’

  That meant Richard had only had, at the most, two hours’ sleep. ‘Nurse de Wint, what happened to the gunshot man?’

  ‘Died at lunch-time. Murder charge, now. Got enough money from the petty cash?’

  I showed her the usual five shillings in my palm. She added a ten-bob note from her pocket. ‘Get ’em sandwiches and buns. If we can’t give ’em sleep, at least let’s feed ’em.’

  I knew just how de Wint felt, but as she was a very senior staff nurse, I did not say so. I could see from her expression that she understood and did not object at all.

  As tea was served in the Doctors’ House, no official provision was made for the Unit men to take it in Mr Waring’s office. Whoever drew up that particular rule could never have been a hospital resident, or had any idea of what life in an Accident Unit entailed. The Doctors’ House was roughly a ten-minute walk away from Casualty and on the other side of the hospi
tal. No man constantly on his feet would willingly walk for twenty minutes to snatch a ten-minute break. The time allowed for tea, officially, was half an hour. Thanks to Sister’s thoughtfulness in badgering our pundits into supporting her ‘Private Tea Fund’, our petty-cash box allowed our Unit residents to take their tea-break packed in Mr Waring’s office, which was far more convenient for everyone, as that way they were always on the spot when wanted.

  Mr Waring was talking to Sister and Dr Jones in the Hall when I returned with my tray from the mobile canteen. ‘That’s a welcome sight,’ he said, as I went by. ‘Leave it on my desk and round up the others, will you, Nurse Dungarvan?’

  Mr Waring’s efficiency and the fact that he treated all nurses in exactly the same friendly way allowed Sister to smile on me approvingly, and even Dr Jones to look just a very little less pained.

  I passed Mr Cook in the Unit corridor. ‘Nurse Dungarvan, I’m so hollow my anterior stomach wall is flapping against my vertebral column. I’ll gather the lads and our one lass. They’re all in the I.C.R. playing with our natty new gadget. Last time I looked in one of the new lads had swallowed a safety-pin to let the others haul it out. There’s keenness for you!’

  Our new gadget was a machine that removed swallowed metal objects by means of a smallish magnet attached to a specially constructed wire that also had to be swallowed by the patient. Then, with the help of X-Rays, the magnet could be guided towards the swallowed safety-pin, coin, or other metal object, and once contact was made the two could be gently hauled up into the mouth. It was a brilliant and very useful invention, as we constantly had in children who had swallowed the wrong things, and the machine saved many of them from major abdominal operations.