‘That’s to let us communicate directly with the local doctors, police, coastguards, chopper stations and lifeboat when she’s in range. When not, the coastguards pass on her messages. Having this in Cas. saves staff and time at night. The night porter deals with normal calls on the switchboard, but the local doctors use this number from eight p.m. to seven a.m.’ She ran through the system for transferring calls to Mr Black’s, the housemens’ and her own offices. ‘This one here, the Medical Superintendent’s home up the road. This, is Mr Fraser’s house. You’ll not need it tonight as Mr Moray’s out and will look in here before returning home for the night. Any wee problems, contact me, or ask Mrs Ferguson. She’ll be down for the night as soon as she’s helped settle Haralda. Here we go again!’ A blue bulb was flashing on and off, heralding an in-coming call. She pressed two switches. ‘Casualty Department, Thessa General. Night Superintendent speaking. Can I help you?’
‘Good evening to you, Sister!’ The caller was a local doctor. ‘I’ve a laddie of fourteen who I think’ll be an acute appendix before the night’s out and should come in now. Is Mr Black available?’
‘I’ll put you through to him, Doctor.’
Mrs Ferguson was the wife of Harriet Ryan’s coxswain. She was small and round, and had trained in the North of England just after the last war, and spent the rest of her life on Thessa, her home island. She worked as a part-time staff nurse, mainly in Haralda. ‘Except when I work a Saturday night when it is usually here. Always the same,’ she added placidly, after the blue bulb had flashed nearly non-stop for a couple of hours, ‘when a wee few foreign ships are in. Seafaring men far from home are apt to take a dram too many, and then try and settle old, or imaginary scores. But the boys’ve not done themselves too much damage tonight.’
‘No credit for that to some, Mrs F.’ Alan washed his hands after ushering out to his waiting friends, the Danish seaman he had just stitched. ‘The knife just missed that laddie’s left radial, and that Pole we sent to Olaf is more than lucky he still has his right eye. Did you see the position of that broken glass, Charlotte?’
‘I did.’ And as we were temporarily empty of patients, I added, ‘Yeuk! I’m never sure whether faces jabbed by broken bottles make me more sick or more angry. Probably equal of both.’
Mrs Ferguson asked, ‘You have much of this in St Martha’s?’
‘God, yes. Pushed in or hacked out faces while you wait on Friday and Saturday nights. We’re very near the London docks, and other even less healthy areas. No timid, or any other type virgin, or anyone else in their senses walks abroad alone round Martha’s on those nights.’
Alan said it had been the same in and around his parent hospital. ‘So you’re feeling home from home, Charlotte?’
‘Not quite. These drunks are much nicer. So polite.’
Mrs Ferguson’s pale blue eyes grew puzzled as again Alan agreed. ‘The times,’ he said, ‘the times some wee tearaway has tried to kick in my teeth for trying to patch up one of his gang. We used to say we should have danger-money. And double that in the football season.’
‘We once had a gang who somehow got in and tried to break up the Accident Unit, just for kicks.’
‘What happened?’
I smiled. ‘The head night porter’s an old hand. He rounded up the rugger club. The first fifteen went into action with the second in reserve as chuckers-out. The gang never came back to have their wounds bandaged. We heard later they had gone meekly over the river to Benedict’s and sat around like lambs waiting for each other.’
Alan laughed. Mrs Ferguson’s smile remained puzzled. ‘We’d no trouble of this nature when I was training in England. I never even heard of anyone attacking a doctor or nurse ‒ and not in the hospital!’
Alan and I exchanged similar glances and said times had unfortunately changed on the British mainland. I asked, ‘Don’t you get much vandalism here, Mrs Ferguson?’
Momentarily, and very obviously, she did not know what I meant. She thought hard. ‘I don’t think ‒ oh, yes. Oh, yes! Two years ago there was a brick thrown through one of the school windows. Very upset, we all were. Very upset.’
My mouth had dropped open. Alan nodded, grimly. ‘Even more greatly confused, Charlotte ‒ there she blows!’ Being nearest, he dealt with the call. It was another from the police. ‘This is turning into an outpost of the United Nations.’
Mrs Ferguson glanced from him to me and smiled at us both in a different way. ‘Wouldn’t you say it’s that already with just the three of us, Mr Donald?’
The Norwegian had a lacerated face, the German, two black eyes, and the very young Portuguese second mate only minor scratches despite ‒ as he insisted ‒ falling through a plate glass shop window. They were all a little unsteady, very courteous, and whatever had gone before, bosom chums. On leaving, the Norwegian fisherman shook all our hands, the German seaman clicked his heels and bowed three times, and the second mate beat his breast with disappointment at being fit enough to return to his ship. ‘Aie, aie, aie! Not so! I wish to stay with the two beautiful ladies!’
‘Not just now, boy.’ Mrs Ferguson took his arm. ‘Away with you like a good boy, and as I’ve a son your age, first you listen to me as you would to your mama. No more whisky tonight. Understand me?’ She wagged a finger. ‘And watch more carefully where you walk, or next time we’ll be fishing you out of the harbour. And what will your mama say then? There, there.’ He was near tears. ‘Just be a good boy and you’ll be fine.’
The boy with query appendicitis had come in and was in the theatre when I rang Jenny Pringle’s deputy. ‘Finished, Sister? Please Mr Donald when he can. Two males. Young. One knife-wound in forearm, one gashed left cheek. Neither severe or shocked.’
Alan arrived in theatre clothes and examined the two euphoric fishermen. They were Scots. ‘Why the devil can’t you laddies live in peace? Or are you telling me you’ve not done this to each other?’
‘Och, Dochtor!’ They protested in unison. ‘He’s ma pal! It was but a fine wee scrap! Where’s the harm?’
He made no comment until they had gone and he signed the log. ‘May the Lord have mercy on their enemies. The lot?’
‘Pro tem. How was the appendix?’
‘Ripe to come out, but out without problem. He’s filled Olaf. Any more male surgicals must go into Haralda. And if they’ll leave us this breather I can do my night round ‒ what am I saying!’ The blue bulb was alive. ‘Casualty. Thessa General. House-surgeon on call.’
It was a doctor on a nearby island. ‘I fear I’ve a query perforated gastric ulcer for you. Male, forty-seven, and he should be away in. Is Mr Moray there?’
‘Not just now, Doctor. Mr Black is on duty. I’ll put you through to him.’
‘Ach, I was forgetting tonight’s the Ball. Many thanks, Alan, lad.’
Mrs Ferguson went to a window. ‘A wee trip or two for Harriet Ryan,’ she remarked after the call was transferred.
‘More like four if I know your husband, Mrs F. The doctor’ll come over with the P.G.U. Your man’ll run him back.’
‘That’ll not take long, Mr Donald. Only a way over the water. There’ll be no mist with this breeze, and though the sea’s a bit choppy the lifeboat’ll be running with the tide when they bring the patient in.’ She turned from the window. ‘Wally’ll now be ringing the Ball as half the crew are there, but they should be back to the dancing later. It’ll not be the first party they’ve taken in two stages. They knew how it’d be when they volunteered.’
‘Volunteered?’ I echoed. ‘I mean, aren’t lifeboatmen sort of like firemen? Or isn’t the lifeboat a regular job?’
‘Oh no, dearie! All our lifeboatmen are volunteers with other full-time jobs. Ah!’ The first maroon went off. ‘Wally and the coastguards have had their chat. They always ring each other first, then Wally rings round for the crew and the coastguards fire the maroons.’
When the man’s ulcer had been repaired and he was warded in Haralda, Mr Black came in to ask Mrs Fergu
son to pass on his thanks to her husband and his crew for getting the patient to us so speedily. Mr Black was a portly greying man with a broad, weathered face who but for his hands looked more a sailor than a surgeon. He had the small, neat-fingered, squarish hands of every good surgeon I’d ever known. ‘Well, Nurse Anthony? Finding all this to-ing and fro-ing by lifeboat a trifle disorientating?’
‘A trifle, Mr Black, if not so much as at first.’
‘You’re at an adaptive age, young woman, and a member of the more adaptive sex. Enjoying Thessa?’
‘Very much, thanks.’
‘But still not altogether convinced you’re not dreaming?’
I smiled. ‘Well, yes.’
‘How well I recall that sensation from my early days here.’ He noticed the Martha’s badge on my apron bib. ‘And well I recall that insignia, though the name of that little cottage hospital over the river, temporarily escapes me.’
‘Martha’s, Mr Black.’
‘Ah, yes! Possibly you’ve heard of my parent establishment? Benedict’s?’
‘Isn’t that the new hospital across the Thames from Martha’s?’
‘Nice one, Nurse. You must forgive us, Mrs Ferguson! Our respective and respected teaching hospitals have been maintaining a running battle across the river since St Benedict’s rose from the ashes of the Fire of London and confronted the already aged St Martha’s on the other bank. Only Bart’s and Thomas’s are older than Martha’s and all three appeared in the twelfth century. A sad cross for a Benedict’s man. Yet we survive and expand. How many beds has Martha’s now, Nurse?’
‘I’m sorry I’m not quite sure. I think, in all, over two thousand.’
‘Benedict’s is moving towards the same number. Do you approve of the octopus syndrome?’
I hesitated then shook my head. ‘I can see the administrative advantages, but when hospitals get too big, the Establishment can seem a very long way from the bedside.’
‘I sensed this coming years back when I pulled out. I did my time as a tentacle of the octopus, but never wished nor had the ability to join the body. Admin, committees, medical politics, are not for me.’ He helped himself to coffee from the machine by the door. ‘I’ll drink this while I get tonight’s notes straight in Mr Moray’s office.’
He had about time to drink the coffee. He and Alan arrived together a minute or so after the next police call and between them pushed the stretcher-trolley out to meet the ambulance. I followed with the ‘Crash’ trolley used for major emergencies. ‘Boy aged about ten found unconscious by roadside.’ The official voice had been more than usually phlegmatic. ‘Presumed victim of hit-and-run accident. Name unknown. Nature of multiple injuries rendering identification difficult.’ Just under twenty minutes later, one policeman recognized enough to trace the parents.
Two hours later I had finished clearing up and was alone when Magnus came in again. He had first come in from the Ball just after the police brought in the driver and only passenger of the hit-and-run car. They were young men, tourists from the mainland and had only minor cuts and bruises. The driver was the more shocked. ‘Knew I’d had a few,’ he kept mumbling, ‘knew I should’ve stopped.’ The passenger was belligerent. ‘Could’ve happened to anyone! No lights away out of town ‒ could’ve been a sheep ‒ pony ‒ could’ve happened to anyone!’ The police stood around in silence. After, the three surgeons took them all to the morgue. I watched them crossing the hall on their way back to the police car. Both young men looked quite sober and the driver as if he had suddenly found himself in hell.
‘You’re going to lose your badge.’
I glanced down and re-pinned it on my spare clean apron bib. ‘Thanks.’
Magnus looked about. ‘Quiet, just now. Mrs Ferguson back in Haralda?’
‘Yes. They’re busy.’
He went over to the drinks machine, bought two coffees and handed me one. ‘Sit down and drink it.’
‘Thanks.’ I sat down mechanically. I had turned into a machine for the last couple of hours and as always when that happened, the armour took time to drop off.
Magnus sat on a high stool, sipped coffee and watched me. His eyes were bright, tired and very angry. ‘The parents insist on coming up.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes. They didn’t know he was out and still don’t know why. He was in bed at the usual time but as the back door’s never locked could easily have slipped out for some dare or something. His wee brothers may know but they’ve not woken them to ask.’
‘I hadn’t heard they’d other kids.’
‘Two younger boys.’
‘Something.’
‘Yes.’ He stared into the plastic cup. ‘Not that it’ll seem that way tonight. First-born.’
I looked at the desk and we sat on in the kind of silence I had so often shared with other tired, very angry men and women that I felt as if I had spent my entire life sitting them out in empty Accident Units. Cleaned, tidied Accident Units, with all visible signs of mutilation and death removed but with the sour-sweet smell of fresh blood lingering in the air, clinging to the back of the nose and throat. My other apron was soaking in cold water in the staff cloakroom the other side of the hall. I could smell it from that desk. I took care not to touch the rim of my cup with my clean fingers.
He said at last, ‘Remember our diverted flight?’
‘Yes?’
‘Before returning to my flat I called at the hospital to warn the man who’s borrowed it he’d find me in the spare room. I walked in on a rush and got involved.’ He looked slowly at the empty accident-table. It was not empty to him. ‘One wee girl. Almost identical body injuries but less cranial damage. Same cause. For a few hours there seemed a chance she’d a chance. No.’ He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was a quarter to three. ‘Over about this time.’
‘Driver identified?’
‘Not that night. Maybe by now. Maybe as well whoever it was wasn’t picked up and brought in for minor repairs that night. She wasn’t our only bairn in that time. Did you know it was a public holiday on the mainland?’ I shook my head. ‘It was. Three family cars ‒ whole family on outings ‒ seven other bairns in all. Four boys, three girls ‒ and we’d to sort out the pieces of the lot. We lost one boy earlier and another’ll be a vegetable. In each event the driver causing the crash was drunk. Had we to deal with another after that wee girl died, I’d have had a full time job resisting the temptation to slice the drunken grin off his face with the nearest knife.’ His voice shook with rage. ‘“Could’ve happened to anyone!” I nearly hit him.’
‘I wanted to strangle both with my bare hands.’
‘I know. I know.’ We looked at each other and heard a car turning off the road. ‘The panda back?’
I went to the window. ‘Yes. You’ll have to see them?’
‘With Mr Black.’ He stood up, straightened his bow tie, smoothed his hair. ‘I know them quite well. I must go,’ he added but didn’t move.
I took a clean white coat from a cupboard. ‘Help?’
He blinked at the coat as if he had never seen one before, then nodded. I helped him put it on. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
After he had gone I threw away the plastic cups and re-washed my hands. They didn’t feel clean.
Chapter Five
There was a mist that Sunday evening. Casualty and the wards were much quieter and Mrs Ferguson took over the department while I was out on an ambulance call with the house-physician, Dr Evans, and again, George Nicholson, to bring back an elderly woman who had had a stroke while cooking supper. Her home was sixteen miles south from the hospital. ‘If you ask me,’ said George, ‘all that hay-loading yesterday.’
‘Hay-loading?’ I echoed. ‘She’s eighty!’
‘Aye. And her man eighty-two. Still farms for himself.’
Dr Evans bristled almost audibly. Dai Evans was just older than Alan, had qualified in England and come to Thessa a few weeks before me. He was the son and grandson of university professors, and
his parental home on the Gower Coast had two bathrooms and a triple garage. In moments of stress his accent reverted to Oxbridge English. His parents still called him David, which upset him as much as their political views. His own in comparison put Marx far right of the one-time Monday Club. We hadn’t worked together but I had heard he was sound and helpful. In our chats over coffee he had also told me he was writing the novel that, inter alia, he said, would demonstrate his solidarity with his working-class brothers. To spare George and myself another sociological lecture, I asked how the book was doing.
‘Thrombosed.’
‘Why?’ The setting was a pork-pie factory. The treatment, he said, symbolic. ‘Strike?’
‘Settled, pro tem.’ He tucked back behind his ear the dark forelock that reached his chin. ‘It’s the girl.’
‘The one who spends all day brushing spare pastry off the pies and fancies the master-butcher?’
‘Read it, have you, Nurse?’
‘No, George. Dr Evans and I generally have our morning coffee-break at the same time.’
Dai said, ‘I’m not sure she does fancy him. She seems to have this fixation for his cleaver.’
‘Have you discovered yet if he fancies her?’
‘He doesn’t. He’s having it off with one of the male pastry cooks.’
‘Male pastry-cook fancies her? All set for a ménage à trois?’
He turned on me with Mr Smythe’s transported expression. ‘There’s a genius you are, girl! Obvious! That’s it! De-clotted!’ He peered forward. ‘How much longer, George?’
‘Mile or so to their loch.’
There had been no sign of any loch, voe, or hill since we left the hospital. Only the road unwinding slowly through the thick, landbased clouds painted yellow at ground level by the fog lights and above glowing in the strange incandescent blue from the roof light penetrating an astonishing distance. ‘Bloody creepy,’ rumbled Dai. ‘Shouldn’t we soon be seeing the lights they said they’d put out to guide us round?’
In Storm and In Calm Page 8