Wartime for the District Nurses

by Annie Groves

  Kathleen remembered how Mattie had teased her parents, accusing them of doing it out like a holiday caravan, but now, as they crept inside, she was grateful for the small comforts: a table, torches, some old cushions from a long-discarded armchair, a rag rug on the hard earth floor. ‘You stay here and I’ll be back in no time,’ she said, hastening to the kitchen. Good job she knew exactly where everything was, she thought, as she found two flasks, made tea from the recently boiled kettle, and then – as an afterthought – some meat-paste sandwiches, in case this lasted for a while. She tucked more cushions and towels under one arm and returned to the shelter, the siren wailing incessantly as she did so.

  Mattie clutched her arm as she crouched beside her. ‘We’re going to be all right, aren’t we?’

  Kathleen nodded steadily. ‘Course we are. Mrs Bishop will take care of Brian and Gillian so we don’t have to worry about them. Anyway Gillian just popped out, didn’t she? So there’s no need for you to get het up.’ She hoped that would prove to be true.

  Mattie was sipping at her tea and Kathleen had poured one for herself when an explosion rent the air, making them both spill the hot liquid.

  ‘Put it down, Mattie.’ Kathleen’s first reaction was automatic, snatching the cup away from her friend to stop her getting burnt, almost as if she was a toddler.

  Mattie turned to her in the gloom of the shelter, her eyes wide. ‘That was close, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I bet—’ Before Kathleen could finish her sentence, another explosion assailed them and then another. They were louder than she could ever have imagined. Her ears rang, her vision blurred, and she could barely think straight, let alone form a sentence.

  ‘Kath.’ Mattie gripped her wrist. ‘The contractions are getting stronger. I think they’re closer together. Oh, God. They really hurt now.’

  Kathleen took a deep breath and aimed to speak slowly, not to show her own fear. ‘Try to hang on,’ she said, as another explosion rocked the shelter. ‘Just a bit longer then this will pass over.’

  Mattie gasped and gripped even tighter. ‘I’ll try, Kath, but I don’t know if I can.’ She gave a sob. ‘What if it goes wrong? After my scare, I mean? How do we get help in all this?’

  ‘It won’t,’ Kathleen said staunchly. ‘It’s going to be all right. It was just a little scare. You won’t need anyone.’

  Mattie nodded and shut her eyes, as if willing the pain to fade along with the crashing and banging outside. In between those noises there was a faint rushing sound accompanied by a smell, barely noticeable at first, but which grew stronger with every passing moment. It was smoke. Something was burning.

  Kathleen raised her head, as if that would help determine the direction of the fire. It was becoming more and more pungent. She gave a cough. As long as it didn’t get any closer, they should be all right.

  ‘Do you think I should go and look?’ she asked, unsure what would be best. She hoped against hope Mrs Bishop had got the toddlers safe in her small shelter.

  ‘No, stay with me,’ Mattie said at once. ‘What difference will it make if you look or not? Stay here with me, we’re safest under this roof.’

  ‘Good job your brothers got it done in time.’ Kathleen looked up at the curved corrugated metal, which was heaped with earth on the outside for insulation and protection. ‘You could grow veg on top of this; I’ve heard people have started doing that.’

  ‘Yes, we could get fresh salad for the kids.’ Mattie’s brief burst of enthusiasm was cut short by another contraction, and her face convulsed with the pain of it. ‘Kath, I don’t want to worry you but … I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like before.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t think it’s right, somehow.’

  Kathleen tried not to show her alarm. ‘How do you mean? Isn’t it because we’re stuck in here and not in the house with everything around you?’

  Mattie miserably shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I tried telling myself that but it just doesn’t feel like before. It’s too sharp; it’s like something’s twisting inside. Kath, what shall we do? It’s got to be all right. You know … for Lennie. It would kill him if—’

  ‘Don’t talk rot,’ Kathleen interrupted. ‘None of your “ifs”. You got to believe it will all work out. You hold on to that. Then,’ she swallowed hard, ‘if, when all the explosions have stopped, you still feel bad, I’ll go for help.’

  ‘Promise?’ Mattie’s eyes were larger than ever.

  ‘I promise,’ said Kathleen, hoping it would not come to that. She had no desire to leave the safety of the shelter, but she knew she could not cope with a difficult birth on her own.

  They waited.

  It seemed like an eternity before the noise abated, leaving just the faint roar that they both knew must mean a fire somewhere, not too far away. Kathleen looked long and hard at Mattie. ‘Do you still need me to go?’

  Mattie paused and then nodded. ‘I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to,’ she said in a whisper, barely there. Her fear was all too obvious on her face in the dim light.

  ‘I know.’ Kathleen understood that this was a situation of the utmost gravity. Mattie was not given to flights of fancy. If she did not go, something terrible might happen to the baby, or her friend, or both. And yet if she did go, she herself might be in danger. It was an impossible dilemma. Yet she had promised.

  ‘All right, I’ll make a run for it,’ she decided, unfolding herself from the wooden bench running down one side of the shelter. Mattie was on a similar one on the other side, propped up with the cushions. As Kathleen opened the shelter door she could see her friend more clearly, lit by the strange orange glow of the sky beyond. ‘Stay here, whatever you do. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  ‘Please.’ It was the only word Mattie could manage as another contraction took hold.

  Kathleen scrambled out of the metal door, propping it carefully shut after her. Then she ran through the house, which was thankfully undamaged, and out of the front door, hurriedly pulling her handkerchief out of her patch pocket and holding it over her nose. She’d left her gas mask in the shelter, the one time she actually needed it. Then again, perhaps it was better that Mattie had it. In all the commotion of her going into labour, Mattie’s mask was overlooked. It was probably still in her bedroom, Kathleen thought.

  What had been a glorious early September afternoon just a few hours ago had changed to something unrecognisable, everything lit by a strange orange glow, though Kathleen could not see over the roofs of Jeeves Street to work out what was on fire. As she rounded the corner, it looked as if the main source of the light was to the south, where the docks were. But there were also fires closer to hand, in all directions. The stench was vile, catching in the back of her throat, as she ran, heedless for her own safety, desperately searching for anyone in authority.

  ‘Miss! You shouldn’t be here!’ A cry came from a shop front further down the road. Kathleen ran towards the voice, making out the shape of a man with the distinctive ARP warden’s hat. Not Billy, and not Stan, who she hoped had stayed put in Portsmouth, but their colleague, the market trader.

  ‘I need help!’ she cried as she came closer. He ducked into a doorway and she joined him.

  He looked at her in recognition. ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You go down Ridley Road with your nipper, don’t you? You’re Billy Reilly’s friend. What are you doing running around in all this?’

  ‘Is Billy here?’ She cast around, desperately hoping to see his familiar face.

  ‘No, miss, he’s on duty a bit later on. What’s the trouble?’

  Kathleen took a moment to catch her breath. Smuts and soot drifted in the air, and stupidly she could only think that the washing would be ruined, that it would have to be done again. Then she gathered herself together and told him.

  He pulled a face. ‘Trouble is, with all this going on, the ambulances are busy,’ he said. ‘Do you think she’s so bad as to need one? It’s poor timing and that’s a fact.’

  Kathleen sighed in exasperatio
n. ‘Yes, but the baby doesn’t know that. It’s just decided to come a bit early. I don’t know if she needs to go to hospital or what, but we can’t get her there on foot. She’s in ever so much pain.’

  The man seemed lost for words. Trust it to be the one time that neither Stan nor Billy were on duty, she thought. Then the solution struck her.

  ‘Can you get a message to the district nurses?’

  The man gave her a sharp glance and then nodded in acknowledgement. ‘That would be easier. They aren’t far away, and I could use the ARP telephone to call them directly.’

  Kathleen agreed. ‘It’s no distance. They all have bicycles. And to save even more time, could you ask for one who knows the house – several of them do. Then they could just come straight over. Ask for Edith, Alice or Mary. My friend would trust any of them.’

  The man’s expression grew stern. ‘They’re all equally well trained, miss. They would all do as good a job as any of the others.’

  Kathleen gritted her teeth in her effort to make him understand. ‘Yes, I realise that. I didn’t mean to cast aspersions. It’s just, she’s had one scare in this pregnancy already; she knows this isn’t the simple birth she’s had before, and to top it all her husband’s a prisoner of war. If we didn’t have to explain all of that all over again, it would save time. So please, would you ask for one of them?’

  The man gave in to her insistent pressure. ‘Well, it ain’t regular,’ he admitted. ‘But seeing as it’s you, and I don’t want Billy to bite my head off or nothing. Edith, Alice or Mary, you said?’

  Kathleen’s shoulders began to sag with the stress of it all. ‘Yes please. Any of them. If they aren’t there, then any of their colleagues. Please, just call the nurses of Victory Walk.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Bridget huddled against the wall in the service room, Gladys close beside her. They were meant to be in the refuge room, the space in the nurses’ home that had been deliberately set aside for raids as there was no possibility of a shelter in the paved back yard. However, they had decided to risk it and take the time to practise injections on the sponge ball. Gladys reckoned the service room was as safe as anywhere, being on the lower-ground floor, surrounded by stout walls and with only one small window.

  All the same, once the bombing started, her confidence dwindled.

  ‘I’m not so sure about this now,’ she confessed, staring out of the glass panes that had been crisscrossed with tape to prevent them shattering. ‘My mind’s not on it, miss.’

  Bridget sighed with relief, as her hands had begun to shake, and not from fear of syringes for once. ‘No, I feel the same,’ she admitted. ‘We can maybe try again another time. This won’t do us any good.’ With that, the sky above them lit up in a burst of orange. ‘Shall we go to the refuge room?’

  Gladys shook her head. ‘You go ahead, miss. I would rather stay here where it ain’t so crowded, then I can hear if anyone comes to the door or whatnot. Heaven knows what’s happening out there. You nurses might be needed.’

  Bridget gulped at the idea of venturing out into the heart of an air raid. The reality began to hit home that this was what she had signed up for. What had started as an adventure, leaving Dublin for a new country, was suddenly no longer fun but a very real danger. ‘Do you think we will?’

  ‘Bound to be,’ predicted Gladys, and then an even louder bang prevented her from saying any more. They pressed themselves against the thickest wall and stared out of the window, watching as the flame-coloured sky grew brighter still.

  Eventually the noise died down and they stood upright again, neither one wanting to admit to how terrified they had been. Then came the sound of the telephone.

  ‘I better go. I don’t know if they’ll hear it in the refuge room,’ Gladys said.

  ‘Be careful. We don’t know if the upper floors are damaged,’ Bridget warned her.

  Gladys wiped her hands on her apron. ‘I’ll find out soon, won’t I.’ She slipped out of the door, through the canteen lit by the weird orange light and up to the hallway. The building around her was still sound.

  ‘Victory Walk Nurses’ Home,’ she said, as she had heard Gwen do many times. ‘Er, right, I see … yes, I will enquire for you. Please hold the line.’ Then she rushed to the refuge room with her message, full of dread for what was taking place a few streets away.

  ‘Are you certain that you both want to go?’ Gwen regarded Alice and Edith, ready in no time at all with their refilled Gladstone bags at their feet.

  ‘Yes, it’s best if there are two of us.’ Alice didn’t need to add that it was because if one of them was injured on the way, at least the other one would make it through to the emergency. Gwen would know that as well as they did.

  ‘Very well.’ Gwen waved them off, trying to keep her anxiety for their safety from showing. It would do them no good to realise that she, with all her years of experience from the Great War, was thoroughly alarmed at the conflagration all around them. Coughing, she retreated back into the relative safety of the nurses’ home and headed back to the refuge room. There was no point in putting herself in danger as well.

  ‘You all right there, Al?’ Edith was pedalling ahead, squinting through the unfamiliar light so that she did not take a wrong turning on this, the most familiar of routes in her adopted home borough. ‘Not fallen off, have you?’ The noises all around drowned out the gentler sound of her friend’s bicycle.

  ‘I’m right behind you,’ called Alice, her eyes smarting. She kept her gaze firmly on Edith’s back, refusing to be distracted by the evidence of bomb damage in the area. Victory Walk was unscathed, and the road that linked it to the high road, but just further south towards Dalston Lane there appeared to be major problems. She couldn’t do anything about that now; other medical staff would have been called there. She had one job to do, and that was to deliver Mattie and Lennie’s baby on this unluckiest of days to choose to be born.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Edith replied, as they crossed the main road and hurried towards the Jeeves Street turning. None of the houses here had been hit but everything was speckled with soot, and loose bricks and window panes had been dislodged, littering the road and pavement. ‘Mind that pile of glass, Al, we don’t want any more punctures.’

  Alice could hardly reply as the smell was catching at her throat, making it hard to speak. She swallowed hard. ‘Look, there’s Kathleen at the door. Quick.’

  They swung themselves off their bikes. ‘Bring them into the hallway, I’m sure Stan and Flo won’t mind,’ Edith suggested. ‘We don’t want those loose bricks landing on them. God knows they’re rickety enough already.’

  Kathleen helped them and then gave Edith a big hug. ‘I’m so glad to see you. I didn’t know if you’d come. Mattie’s so worried, and I don’t know what to do.’ She began to move swiftly through to the kitchen and out to the back door. ‘We’re in the shelter.’

  ‘Will there be room for all of us?’ Alice wondered, manoeuvring her bag past the familiar furniture made strange by the weird light.

  ‘Have to be,’ replied Edith bluntly, feeling in her pocket to check for spare torch batteries. Allowing Kathleen to forge slightly ahead, she took Alice by the arm. ‘Al, have you ever delivered a baby?’

  ‘Of course. When we did our training.’

  ‘Yes, but on your own, on the district?’

  ‘No,’ Alice admitted. ‘Only when someone else was in charge.’

  ‘Me too.’ Edith looked up at her friend. ‘Oh well. Here we go.’

  Mattie was panting for breath as they squeezed into the shelter. At first she was too overcome by the latest contraction to acknowledge them but then, once it had passed, she looked up, her face pale and slick with sweat. ‘Oh thank God. I thought I’d have to do it on my own. I was afraid Kath had got killed. And now you’re here, I’m so glad it’s you. Aaaah …’ And another contraction overwhelmed her.

  Edith glanced at Alice. Two so close together could only mean the birth was imminent. ‘R
ight, I’m going back into the kitchen to get some hot water and then we’ll get cleaned up and see how you’re coming along,’ she said, switching into professional mode, trying not to think of Mattie as her close friend.

  Alice took over the role of making Mattie comfortable, rearranging cushions and Kathleen’s makeshift equipment. ‘Kathleen, if you could sit by the door please. We’ll need a bit of room to work,’ she explained. Kathleen was only too happy to do so, now that proper help was at hand. She knew she had done what she could and now the experts were taking over. ‘I’ll go with Edie and make some tea,’ she offered.

  Alice knew that was a risk, as the shelter would still be the safest place, but tea would be a comfort to everybody, and making it would give Kathleen something to do. Now they had to concentrate on the reason they were there: delivering the baby. Once Edith returned with hot water, they carefully set aside their cloaks, cleaned their hands and began to assess their distressed patient.

  In the shadowy darkness lit by their torches and the slightly open door, they worked together, scarcely having to say anything other than murmur vital notes: temperature, respiration, pulse, frequency of contractions. Edith thought there was much to be said for training together month after month. They didn’t need to ask each other anything unnecessary, but worked as one. She wondered if Alice had had the same concern that was at the forefront of her mind: that this could indeed be related to the scare, and possibly a problem with the placenta.

  ‘I want to push!’ Mattie suddenly screamed, half sitting up on the rudimentary bed. ‘I have to!’

  ‘Right, I’ll stay here at your head and Edith will be at your feet,’ said Alice as calmly as she could, hoping the twisting pain Kathleen had told them about was nothing too out of the ordinary. Edith moved into position, helped Alice to pull back the sheet that Mattie had been huddled under, and prepared for what was to come next.

  Mattie squeezed her face as tightly as she could and pushed with all her might but nothing happened. She lay back on the cushions, exhausted. ‘I can’t do it. It’s no good.’