‘Must be,’ I said.
He saw me into the front hall. We thanked each other, said it had all been very amusing and interesting and we hoped we didn’t get pneumonia and would see each other in Olaf. ‘And please, Charlotte, don’t forget to let me have the cleaner’s bill for your suit.’
‘You’ve never let me have the bill for your jacket on the flight. And how about your suede?’
‘A different matter.’
‘Why?’
‘The first was not your fault. The second was mine, as your host. Settled? Good.’ He gave one of his little bows. I thought it cute. ‘Goodbye, for just now.’
‘Cheers.’
I waited and waved as he drove off. He waved back. He wasn’t smiling, either.
Chapter Seven
The maroons woke me just after seven and I got up to watch the streak of orange and blue making for the northern entrance. It was another lovely morning. The sky was pink, the sun was a red lantern, and fleets of guillemots were on early swimming parade all over the grey silk Sound. In the still, salty air, the distant, mechanical tick-tick-tick was clearer than usual. It had the sound not of machines but of men, in a hurry. Rich men hurrying to be richer, men of vision hurrying to transform dreams to reality, and for the moment both groups needed each other. And someone, somewhere, needed the lifeboat in a hurry. Practice and training runs for new crew members were done on Sundays, as all the crew had other full-time jobs. ‘Lifeboat work,’ said Mrs Ferguson, ‘is what they do in their spare time, sometimes.’
I met her later going on-duty. ‘No, dear, they’ve not taken a doctor. This Norwegian ship’s carrying an experienced first aid worker. Crewman seems to have appendicitis. Seventy-two sea miles out, but as Nina Kristina’s altering course to meet Harriet Ryan, it shouldn’t take too long in this weather. Wouldn’t mind a trip on a day like this myself.’
For once I had news for Sister Olaf. She sniffed. ‘If I’d the say, none’d sail the seas as couldn’t swim and still had their appendices. And how’d you fancy northern hills?’
‘Very much, thanks, Sister.’
‘Oh, aye? Don’t take root! Op day and happen we’ll have more than the one emergency in.’
Three more came in. An Englishman crashed his scooter avoiding a sheep: a Thessa lorry-driver skidded and overturned his vehicle on a hill bend: one of a party of students from Glasgow fell off a cliff, hit his head on the way down and landed in the sea with a fractured skull. His friends pulled him out and carried him to the nearest farm for help. Sister said the lad was in luck otherwise his body would have been one of the many she’d known to float back in with the tide. ‘Always dropping off cliffs, holiday times.’ His name was Calum McDonald and he was admitted to Casualty in coma and spastic. His operation delayed the rest of the scheduled and unscheduled theatre list nearly three hours. The whole list that day lasted ten hours and fifteen minutes. In the evening I was in charge when Alan limped in and flopped on to an office chair. ‘I’m a daft gowk to stick this job. What’s it got me? Swollen feet and skint! I’m turning oilman.’
‘Before you sign on, take a look at Calum.’
‘Jenny gave us your message that he’d surfaced when we were on the Anglo’s tib and fib. Daft man! What’s he doing on a scooter at his age?’
‘On hols and his hobby’s bird-watching ‒’
‘Dirty old man!’
‘Winged-type only. He’s round and so are the others.’
‘I’m glad some’ll live. The wee doctor’ll not. Have you work for me?’
‘Sorry, yes. This stack of notes to write up.’
He sorted wearily. ‘Before I get stuck in, how was yesterday?’
‘Very nice day, thanks. How was the sailing?’
He groaned. ‘I’ll never make a seaman.’
‘Sister says you will. “Lad’s got guts”.’
‘After Saturday she has to be joking.’ He sat back. ‘Has she told you of my first trip in Harriet Ryan?’ I shook my head and he grinned. ‘February. Early afternoon and pitch black and the wee doctor takes to the sea. An injured crewman on a trawler under tow with an oil tender forty-six miles out and a Force 8 on. Before we were passed the northern light the wee doctor was praying for death. You’ll be just fine, doctor, said the crew emptying another bucket. And when a hundred years later we reached the trawler, the wee doctor couldn’t stand unaided. “You’ll be just fine, doctor,” they said. “Let it to us.” You know what they did?’
‘Tell me,’ I begged.
‘They picked me up and they chucked me up from Harriet Ryan to the deck of the trawler. By then in a Force 9. Two of the lifeboat crew came up with me and one had my wee bag. “Just fine, doctor,” they said, holding me up between them. “Now we’ll see to the poor wee seaman.” I was so shattered I forgot to be sick. The patient was another with two busted legs as a chain had broken and twisted around him. He was in bad shock and with the wind still rising, we decided he’d do best to return on the trawler. Harriet Ryan stood by and escorted us in. I stayed on the trawler. Fourteen hours later we reached Thessa harbour. The patient was sedated and did all right. The wee doctor returned fit only for the morgue. Sister Olaf was temp Night Super at the time. I thought she might’ve told you?’
‘No.’ I dried my eyes. ‘Know something, Alan? She’s right about your guts.’
‘You’re just saying that ‒ but say it again!’
I left him and did another blood-pressure round. I was with Calum when Magnus came up for his belated evening round. He came quietly round the half-drawn curtains, and in silence studied the chart and then the now heavily sedated youth. Calum was nineteen, fresh-faced and only needed to shave once a week. Under the white cranial cap-bandage, he looked about thirteen. Magnus looked years older than yesterday and almost too tired for relief. He came round to my side of the bed. ‘His luck was in today,’ he murmured.
‘Very much so, Mr Moray.’
He just nodded, handed me back the chart and we moved on to the next bed. When we had been round the women, we walked slowly back to the head of the stairs. ‘I forgot to tell that Norwegian, Johannes ‒ whatisit?’
‘Olsen.’
‘Yes. Olsen. Nina Kristina’s due into Thessa tonight for minor repairs. He’ll like to know.’
‘I’ll tell him.’
‘Thanks, Staff. ’Night.’
‘Goodnight, Mr Moray.’
Momentarily as he went on down, I remembered yesterday. The next moment I had forgotten it again as I had the written day report to finish. I was still writing when the night staff arrived and as my verbal handing-over took a long time, I was over an hour late off-duty. Jenny Pringle came into the changing-room for her cloak as I was collecting mine. ‘One of those Mondays!’
‘Hasn’t it been, Sister!’
‘I must say I enjoy being busy. Particularly when all goes well.’
We walked over to the Home together discussing the scope of that day’s surgery in particular and in general on Thessa. I said I was now getting used to heads, gynae, gastro-intestinals and orthopaedics on the same list, but doubted anyone in Martha’s would believe me when I got back.
She said she had been met with blank disbelief when visiting her Scottish training hospital. ‘Rows of surgical units, but the uproar there’d be if the neuro-surgeons were asked to do a nephrectomy, or the E.N.T.s to pin a femur.’
I smiled. ‘If someone told our Sister E.N.T. Theatre that after a morning on tonsillectomies her afternoon list would include a partial gastrectomy, herniorrhaphy and be rounded off by an appendicectomy, she’d go stark raving mad. She can’t bear alterations as she’s such a lousy organizer.’
‘I’ve worked for theatre sisters like that. Some couldn’t organize a ‒’ she hesitated ‘a round of drinks in a brewery.’
As she had censored the wording I pretended I didn’t know the more usual version of that expression. I guessed she had picked it up at school along with her predominately English boarding-school a
ccent. This obviously worried her since she tried as hard to sound Scottish as Dai did to sound Welsh. ‘You enjoy organization, Sister?’
‘Tremendously. And having to adapt to the varying surgical techniques. Nothing more stimulating!’
She looked stimulated and only slightly tired, though she had been on her feet under the same lights for the same hours as the surgeons, and carried her own very considerable share of responsibility. She glowed with the satisfaction of someone in the right job when the job has gone well. Once again tonight she loved the world and as that included me when we reached the Home she asked me in to tea. ‘I feel like a fly cup. Come on up.’
Her room surprised me. It was neat and impersonal as an hotel bedroom and even her crockery was official supply. I used it, being temporary, but all the other girls along my floor had either bought or been given tea and coffee sets to suit their individual tastes, and all had obvious traces of their homes scattered around. Jenny Pringle hadn’t even a personal photograph in view and the transistor on the otherwise bare flat-topped writing desk, looked as if only switched on for the news and weather forecasts. And perhaps the time.
She had half a fruit cake in the tin in which it had been sold. She cut it in the tin, and went on talking ‘shop’ for a while, then on to Kirsty’s sister’s baby, the problems consequent on marrying impoverished artists, the useful doublethink that allowed men to dismiss birth as a natural event. ‘My answer to that,’ she said, ‘is to agree and add firmly, as is death. After that, the blethering ceases. Men so object to the reminder that they are not immortal.’
‘You don’t think women mind?’
‘I’m not saying they enjoy the thought, but being basically realists, they accept it with more maturity. Even the most intelligent man can be quite absurdly idealistic. Wouldn’t you agree?’
I guessed we were discussing Magnus, so I thought about him. ‘Certainly men get much more worked-up about impractical ideals than women. Did you get any kicks out of men bouncing around on the moon?’ She shook her head. ‘Nor me. Nor any woman I know. But it brought out the let-me-take-off-into-the-wild-blue-yonder in every man I know in London. Biggest thrill since the clockwork toy train. As my mother would say, men are boys at heart.’
‘And mine. Personally,’ she added, ‘I’ve no patience with the retarded adolescent syndrome. No doubt this is singularly unrealistic of me, but I expect grown men to think and act as adults.’
I wouldn’t have thought this one of her problems with Magnus. I didn’t voice that. ‘To be fair, I’ve met the hell of a lot of women who’ve never grown up. It’s often struck me the world can be divided into adults and children, but that division has nothing to do with age.’
‘That’s a fact. I mean, take yesterday.’
‘Yesterday, Sister?’
‘Och, Jenny, please, as we’re off. I hear you had an amusing but somewhat traumatic day? Is your suit quite ruined?’
‘I expect the cleaners’ll fix it. Anyway, doesn’t matter. My fault. You heard what happened?’
‘Och, yes!’ We were both smiling rather brightly. ‘I’ve a notion Magnus Moray was a wee bit bothered by the event. Many a lassie would have made a fair stramash of the ruined outfit.’ Her accent was now out-rivalling Alan’s. ‘I told him I thought you far too mature-minded to give it a second thought. I see I was right. Another wee cup?’
‘No, thanks. Time I went up one floor. Can I help wash these first?’
‘They can wait till the forenoon. I’m off till one.’
Back in my room I shed my shoes and cap, lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. It was as blank of writing as my walls, so after a few minutes I got up and had a bath.
Johannes Olsen was twenty-one and six foot six. He had a silver-blond, scrubbing-brush hair-style and gentle ‘Shetland’ eyes. Before he was up for the first time next day, he had asked every nurse in Olaf, including Sister, for a date. That afternoon he clutched his stomach with both hands, tottered to the front windows in the men’s ward, whooped and flung both arms in the air. ‘Oh ho! Now she has new berth I see her! You see, Nurse? There with the Norwegian flag is my Nina Khristina! I think you are too little to see ‒ I lift you!’
‘Johannes, don’t be daft!’ I dodged out of range and pushed an armchair up behind him. ‘Remember your row of new clips! Sit down, boy, before you bust ’em!’
Angus called, ‘He’s nae sae daft, Nurse! Just trying it on!’
The ward laughed and Johannes lowered himself into the chair. ‘I be good boy, I think. Such a good boy that when I have no more clips the pretty little nurse will coming dancing with me, yes?’
‘When you’ve no more clips, lad,’ said Sister from the doorway, ‘you’ll be off home to Bergen to dance. A word in my office when you’re done, Staff.’
A Mrs Ellen Laurensen was on her way in to Olaf. ‘Sit down, Staff, and read this.’ Sister handed me a massive file of old notes. ‘Bleeding again so theatre soon as she gets here. She’ll be on continuous transfusion first few days, as before. I’ve checked with the lab. We’ve ten pints of her group in our bank but that’ll be nothing like enough, so Mr Sinclair’s contacting local donors. He’s been here long enough to know he’ll not need to ring more than the one.’
Mr Sinclair was the newish laboratory technician. ‘The donors’ll ring each other, Sister?’
‘Happens the same every time. They all know their own blood groups and soon as one donor gets the call one rings round to t’other and they bring themselves up.’
‘Just like that?’
‘You’ll see.’
Mrs Ellen Laurensen was the youngish wife of a trawlerman and mother of four teenagers. ‘Fifty years back,’ said Sister, ‘she’d not have lived to bear the one. In and out of here and flown to the mainland for treatment more times than I’ve had Sunday dinners. Last time in she’d the thirty-two pints. We’d donors in from the other islands. Happen well need ’em again.’ She looked over my head. ‘Wanting me, Captain?’
I glanced round incuriously at the tallish, spruce, grey-haired and quite exceptionally good-looking man in uniform hovering politely, and felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of me. Sister had risen. I couldn’t. He bowed and offered Sister his hand. ‘If you please, Sister. Arne Haarlsen, Master of Nina Khristina to see my sick crewman, Johannes Olsen.’ Then he noticed me and stared. ‘Is not possible! Of course, is possible. It is!’ He grasped both my hands as I got unsteadily to my feet. ‘It is my little English friend Miss Charlotte Anthony! You now work on Thessa?’ I nodded, dumbly. ‘You are well, I see. I am most happy. And also well I know are the good young Mr and Mrs Drummond and the small boy Billy. I have in my cabin the letter and the photograph they sent to me from Sydney. Maybe one day I sail to Australia and we meet again. But the good Sister does not understand.’ He turned, apologetically. ‘I meet here an old friend, Sister.’
Sister looked at me. ‘Oh, aye?’
‘I was once in a sailing accident, Sister.’ Only God knew how, but my voice sounded normal. ‘Captain Haarlsen and his crew on a ship called Helge Ulvik, picked up four of our party. It ‒ it’s very nice to see you again, Captain. I hope you’re well?’
‘Most well, I thank you.’
She looked at him. ‘When was this?’
‘One night in July two years ago in the Strait of Dover. In July in the English Channel, often strong winds. Earlier in the night, maybe up to Force 10, but not long and falling when on radar we pick up the capsized vessel. Little yawl ‒ maybe twenty tons.’
‘You were lucky to be fished out alive, Staff.’
‘Yes, Sister.’
He said, ‘I tell you something, Sister. Not only Helge Ulvik that night saved lives from the sea. My friend here was holding the boy when they went over, she held him good and was able later to tie them both to a broken spar and hold him in her arms. Many hours. Singing many songs he told us. Nine years of age. Eleven now, as my little girl. I have three children. You have children, Sister?�
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‘Two lads, Captain. This lad an only, Staff?’
I was looking at the floor. ‘Yes, Sister.’
‘The remembrance is not happy. Better to say no more. I may visit my man?’
‘I’ll take you. Get back on those notes, Staff.’
I tried to, but was still shaking like an advanced Parkinsons’ when she came back alone, slapped on the desk a medicine glass of stock brandy and a cup of tea. ‘Get both down, lass. Right. Ellen Laurensen’ll be here sharpish so I’ll not dawdle what I’ve left to say.’
Ellen Laurensen had a fine-boned bloodless face, long dark straight hair and when Maggie McEuan and I removed the theatre turban and arranged the two thick plaits over her shoulders, the closed, unconscious face against the white pillows could have been etched by El Greco. She was on continuous blood, a drip, and the Dangerously Ill List. Maggie was her special nurse for the rest of the day.
Mrs Leisk stopped knitting when I came away from the drawn curtains. It was her last evening and she was finishing her third multi-patterned, tri-coloured, long-sleeved, man’s sweater since her op. She lowered her voice. ‘Poor Ellen will be all right, won’t she, Staff?’
‘We hope so, Mrs Leisk.’
‘Many’ll be doing that, dear. Sad worry for her man at sea and the bairns with their grandma. His folks. Ellen’s come from away north.’ She sighed. ‘Well I mind when Gil Laurensen brought his bride to Thessa. Bonniest lass you ever set eyes on. Sad worry for many, and for you, I can see, dear. As well you’re off tomorrow. You look right tired.’
‘The last couple of days have been rather busy.’
‘So they have.’ She picked up her knitting. ‘So they have.’
Magnus had come in. ‘Sister off, Staff?’
‘At late tea, Mr Moray. Mrs Laurensen?’
‘Please.’
Maggie rose from the locker seat as we appeared through the curtains. He checked the infusion needles and speed of the blood. ‘Keep it running in at this rate for the rest of this pint and the next, Nurse McEuan, then slow by a third for the following, unless Mr Black decides otherwise.’ He touched Mrs Laurensen’s forehead, raised one eyelid, took her pulse and exchanged an expressionless glance with me. ‘Thank you, Nurse McEuan.’
In Storm and In Calm Page 12