The Sisters all adored the S.S.O.; and since I liked a quiet life, and the way to a quiet life in hospital is to agree with Sisters, I said Mr Dexter was a splendid surgeon, and nearly added, worried or happy.
Peter had finished his round and was waiting by the kitchen door. He overheard my last words, and a corner of his mouth lifted. ‘What goes on, darling?’ he asked when Sister had gone. ‘Wherefore this build-up for our John?’
I said it was a beautiful friendship that had blossomed and died tonight.
He smiled. ‘You had me worried, love.’
I smiled back. ‘No call for that. John had just had a surfeit of perforations, so for once he broke down and almost talked like a human.’
‘He did, eh? The old devil. I’ll thank him not to act human when you’re around, Gillian ‒ and if he wasn’t my boss, or such a ruddy Goliath, I’d tell him so myself. But I ain’t no David. Don’t even own a catapult.’
‘Peter’ ‒ I shook my head ‒ ‘you’ll have to excuse me. I haven’t done anything tonight yet. I must get on. And that reminds me ‒ I must rustle up hot milk and aqua menthe. pip. for Bracey. He’s hiccuping.’
He said, ‘Not now he isn’t. Uncle Peter beat you to it ‒ with your pro!’
‘Bless you,’ I was going to walk round him, but he blocked my way.
‘Aren’t you going to offer me some coffee, darling?’
‘You can have a gallon,’ I said, ‘if you help yourself. It’ll be on the stove in the kitchen.’
He grimaced. ‘I can’t drink alone. Fatal thing. Turn into a secret drinker while you watch. I’ll get you a cup. After all,’ he added, as I was about to protest, ‘you’ve got to keep your strength up ‒ and think of the morale of the resident staff. I look forward to my nightly drink in Robert all day ‒ that’s why I leave this ward till the end. To that ‒ and seeing you. How do you like being the carrot to my donkey, sweetie?’
I liked it very much, but I was not going to say so here.
‘Look,’ I suggested, ‘I’ll nip round and then go and write my first report beside the Admiral, and send Carol to drink with you. She’s low tonight and needs boosting.’
‘Doesn’t she care for Admirals?’
‘Peter! It’s about her parents. You remember.’
‘Darling,’ he murmured, ‘I have a head like a sieve for stocky brunettes. What about them?’
I explained, and he grew serious.
‘You can’t have told me, Gillian,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have forgotten that.’
‘Of course …’ I remembered that it had happened when he had been on holiday himself, and then when he returned he had vanished to our sector hospital immediately and had only been back in London for the last few weeks. ‘And you wouldn’t have seen the English papers in Italy, I suppose?’
‘Why did it rate the papers?’ he asked curiously.
‘Ashton Ash,’ I said quickly. ‘He was always news.’
His rather long jaw dropped. ‘Did you say Ashton Ash? My dear Gillian, you are not seriously telling me she is that Ash? The daughter of the man who made all those machines?’
‘Yes. Only daughter. Only child. That’s what’s made it so awful.’
He said, ‘I never realised that.’
‘Surely I told you years ago? I thought everyone knew. Most people do.’
He shook his head. ‘No. I didn’t. Well,’ he sighed, ‘haste to your errand of mercy, love, and leave your little friend to Uncle Peter! Morale-raising is my forte. But,’ he smiled, ‘I’d much rather talk to you.’
‘I’ll send her,’ I said, and tore back into the ward. When I reached the table I realised I was still carrying the morphia, so I took the D.D. book and box back to the medicine cupboard and relocked it safely before I went round the patients. Once I looked back to the corridor. Peter had not gone into the kitchen, but was still standing where I had left him. The light was on his face, and his expression was unusually serious. I thought how nice he was, to be so concerned about Carol.
Night Sister came for her official round; the general Surgical Registrar and a couple more housemen arrived for theirs; and then the night settled, and by five o’clock Nurse Fraser and I had caught up with all the dressing-making, book-ruling, laundry-folding, report-writing, bread-and-butter cutting, and trolley-laying that constituted our regular nightly routine, apart from the care of our forty patients.
Carol came in to the duty-room at ten minutes to eight, when I was changing my apron.
‘Mind if I go, Gillian? He’s sleeping and the blood’s all right. That last bottle is still half full. I think I had better get back to Ellen. Sister Ellen will create if I’m not there to explain my absence in person, and I don’t want to be late off as it means missing my train.’
I had forgotten that she had the next two nights off.
‘You go,’ I said, ‘and enjoy yourself as an Old Girl.’
She said she did not really know why she had said she would go back to the speech day of her old school. ‘I suppose one must do these things.’
‘One must,’ I agreed. ‘I hope it isn’t too bad.’
She looked at me in silence; it was a queer look, as if I was a stranger. Then she smiled slightly. ‘Thanks. I hope so too. Have fun while I’m gone.’
My mind was on the verbatim report on my forty men which I was due to deliver to Sister Robert and all the day nurses in seven minutes’ time. ‘I’ll have a splendid time,’ I said absently; ‘never a dull moment in Robert.’
She said, ‘So I’ve gathered. How nice it must be for you, dearie. Well, if you’ll explain to Sister Robert I’ll nip off.’
‘I’ll explain.’ I fixed the buckle of my belt. ‘She’ll understand. Sister Robert is a honey.’
Sister Robert was perfectly amicable about Carol’s absence. She was a large, placid woman, only annoyed by the sight of faded flowers. She would greet disaster calmly, but a withered leaf roused her to fury.
‘I expect you’ll be glad to be off yourself, Nurse Snow,’ she said kindly, when my report was over. ‘Sleep well.’
I did not sleep well. At half-past eleven that morning Home Sister woke me; and when I got back to bed two hours later I had a couple of good reasons for not sleeping. Neither of them was pleasant.
Chapter Two
A VISIT TO MATRON
Home Sister said, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Nurse Snow, but I am afraid you must come to the telephone. Sister Robert is very anxious to talk to you.’
I fought the sleep that filled every corner of my brain and ran down the corridor, tying my dressing-gown as I went. I did not know what I had left undone, but I knew it was something serious. Ward Sisters, these days, do not rouse night nurses for trivialities.
It was no triviality. Sister Robert asked if I had checked the morphia that morning.
That was it. I remembered instantly. I had put the box back in the cupboard meaning to check it later. I had not gone back. I closed my eyes, although I had lost all desire for sleep.
‘No, Sister. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I forgot.’
Sister spoke quietly, ‘That was very reprehensible of you, Nurse Snow, but I should not have woken you for that. I find we are a grain short. Four ampoules are missing.’
In a glorious wave of relief I remembered about Charity Ward.
‘Night Sister borrowed four ampoules for Charity, Sister.’
‘I know that, Nurse ‒ it’s in the drug-book. We are still four short. Where have they gone, Nurse?’
My hand slipped on the receiver; I changed hands, and wiped my palm on my dressing-gown.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know, Sister.’
She was silent a moment; then I heard her sigh.
‘I’m sorry, Nurse,’ she added, ‘but you have apparently mislaid a grain of morphia. I’m very sorry’ ‒ she sounded it ‒ ‘but I am left with no option but to go to Matron. I think you had better get dressed and come over to the hospital and apologise to her at once. She will want to
see you.’
‘Yes, Sister; thank you, Sister,’ I said mechanically.
Home Sister was waiting anxiously outside my room. She was not surprised that I had to dress. Sister Robert had already spoken to her.
‘Think hard, Nurse, dear. Where can they have gone?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, Sister.’
‘Perhaps you made a miscalculation somewhere? I expect that is what has happened.’
‘I hope you are right, Sister.’
I was pretty sure that she was not. A miscalculation over a quarter of a grain injection might occur ‒ it was unlikely and I had never heard of it happening, but it was just possible ‒ but there was no possibility of four doses being overlooked. A quarter of a grain of morphia is a good dose. We seldom gave more.
As I dressed I went over the night mentally. Carol was the only person besides myself to have been to the drug cupboard; she had brought the whole box into the ward, and I had opened it and taken out the one ampoule.
It was inconceivable that she would have taken any out before reaching me. Nurses do not pocket ampoules of morphia lightly; even the lowest pro is aware that to touch a dangerous drug illicitly is probably the most serious crime a nurse can commit and would certainly result in dismissal and possibly, if you were State Registered, in being removed from the register.
No, there was no question of Carol’s having anything to do with this. Apart from any other reason, there would be no point in her taking them. Carol was an intelligent young woman and far more thoughtful than myself. She never made a foolish mistake. There was a lot of her father in her. Ashton Ash was a self-educated and brilliant man who had learnt his engineering at night schools and from his colleagues in the workshops, and then built the best aeroplane engines any country had yet produced. He not only had the skill; he had the brains to make money, and a great name and business for himself, from his engines. Carol was her father’s daughter physically; and from the little I had seen of him in our holidays together, I should have said that she was like him mentally. She was not the type to drop morphine ampoules around a ward without noticing it.
But if they were not lost, where were they? The only alternative was that they had been taken. And the drug keys had been in my possession all night from that one time. I had handed them back to Sister Robert on handing over the ward this morning. As Night Senior, the keys and the contents of the drug cupboard were my sole responsibility when I was on duty.
I put down my brush and stared at my reflection in the glass. It was possible that I might lose my job over this.
Matron folded her hands on the desk in front of her and looked at her spotless white organdie cuffs. When she raised her head her eyes were cold, and her lips were set in a thin line of displeasure.
‘Where have they gone, Nurse Snow?’ she asked for the second time.
And for the second time I repeated, ‘I am sorry, Matron. I am afraid I don’t know.’
She said quietly, ‘But you should know. You were the nurse in charge of the ward. And you are sure you gave the keys to no one but Nurse Ash? Did you leave them on the table at any time? Could someone else have picked them up and used them?’
I hesitated. I could remember having the keys in my hand for a brief period after we gave that injection, but I was not sure now if I had repinned them on myself immediately afterwards or not. I must have done that at some time, as they were there when I felt for them this morning before the report. There was a slight possibility, I now realised, that I had left them under the report book when I was talking to Night Sister about the drugs for Ellen. I had done that before when I had been rushed.
I could have left them there unconsciously and picked them up again, equally unconsciously.
I said, ‘I don’t think I did, Matron.’
She was on to that at once.
‘You should know. Think now.’
I tried to concentrate, but I was too cold for thought. So I told her what had been in my mind.
She shook her head at me, and the lace in her cap frills rustled disapprovingly.
‘Nurse Snow, you know that that is forbidden. Those should never leave your possession, and no one, not even your fellow senior nurses, should go to your drug cupboard. It was remiss of you to hand over the keys to Nurse Ash, but I can understand that. I cannot understand your criminal carelessness in leaving the keys lying on the table in the centre of the ward. Do you realise,’ she went on, ‘that, due to you, someone may be walking round this hospital with a near-lethal dose of morphia in their possession?’
I realised all right. ‘Yes, Matron.’
‘Who,’ she asked pertinently, ‘was in the ward around that period?’
I did not have to hesitate over this. I had been over this in my room. ‘Mr Dexter had just left, and if he returned I did not see him. Mr Kier was going round by himself. Nurse Ash was with Admiral Kerry. Night Sister was with me during that time. Nurse Fraser was mostly in the sluice-room and the laundry.’
Matron’s voice was dry. ‘Presumably she was also attending to the patients, Nurse?’
‘Yes, Matron.’
‘Then she must have been in and out of the ward also. I shall have to ask Home Sister to waken Nurse Fraser and speak to her.’ She picked up a pencil and fiddled with it. ‘No dressers were there?’
‘No, Matron.’ For some reason there had been no students in the ward the previous night. I was glad of this; it let the boys out. The doctors were beyond suspicion, since there was no point in any doctor’s helping himself to something for which he could quite legally file a prescription at the nearest chemist.
Matron tapped the desk with her pencil. ‘We must take it that that is what you have done, Nurse. And that while the keys were on the desk someone used them to take the drugs and replace them under the report book again.’ She sighed and asked if I knew where Carol had gone for her nights off. ‘It is highly improbable that Nurse Ash will be able to help us, but we must overlook no eventuality. She may have noticed the number of ampoules in the box when she brought it to you.’
I said, ‘I don’t think she did, Matron, as I opened the box. She had just tucked it under her arm and brought it along.’
Matron said, ‘I will telephone to the school before we decide that point.’ She glanced through her hospital report book. ‘You have no patients in Robert at the moment who are capable of getting out of bed without assistance?’
‘No, Matron. No one with their stitches out.’
She nodded. ‘Wait outside please, Nurse, while I call Nurse Ash.’
The next fifteen minutes dragged by more slowly than many a month I had known. Then Matron opened her office door.
‘Come in, Nurse Snow.’
She said Carol had not reached the school yet, and that she had left a message asking Carol to ring the hospital immediately she did arrive. She said I had better return to my room.
‘Can I go back to duty in Robert tonight, Matron?’
Her pale brown eyebrows met in a straight line; she glanced at the list of night nurses at present working in the hospital that was propped on the desk beside her and pursed her lips. She did not answer my question directly.
‘Night Sister has a spare senior relief tonight,’ she said, ‘and she may take over Robert tonight. That will give me time to consider this matter carefully, and also to discuss it with the Committee. I am afraid there can be no question of your returning to duty until that is done.’
I said quickly, ‘But I did not take the morphia, Matron.’
‘If I thought for one moment that you had. Nurse Snow,’ she replied sharply, ‘I should dismiss you at once! As I feel you have been guilty of criminal carelessness, I am willing to discuss the matter with the Committee. But I cannot countenance your working, or being in charge, in a ward. I have never’ ‒ she looked up at me ‒ ‘permitted any nurse I could not trust to work in the wards of this hospital.’
I said, ‘Yes, Matron.’
‘
Your conduct and work until this episode,’ she went on, ‘have been unexceptionable. I am taking that into account now. But, Nurse’ ‒ she suddenly seemed much older and quite human ‒ ‘how could you let me down in this way?’
I said, ‘I am very sorry, Matron, that this has happened.’
Matron said, ‘I do not doubt that you are, Nurse. That will be all.’
I did not go back to my room immediately. I could not face the silent Night Nurses’ Home. I was shivering with the cold all night workers feel in the day-time, so I decided to have some cocoa in the canteen.
The canteen was milling with hungry students, a few nurses, several physiotherapists, and half the medical staff. I saw a good many people with whom I was acquainted, but no one whom I knew well. In a large hospital you are frequently among strangers, even in your fourth year. Our hospital was very large. There were over five hundred nurses on the staff, and over that number of students in the medical school. I never discovered the size of the physiotherapy school, but it was one of the biggest in London, nor was I ever able to count how many resident doctors there were connected with all the various departments, but it must have been somewhere around sixty.
I collected my cocoa and carried it to one of the small red-covered tables against the far wall. I drank the cocoa absently, thinking over my interview with Matron, those wretched drugs, and how I hated leaving Robert. I loved that ward; I loved the men and the work; I liked my nice pro and Sister Robert. I wondered about Admiral Kerry, and Toms, my favourite patient, an antique but active stevedore, who was not, as he frequently admitted, ‘a one for changes.’ And I thought again about the missing grain of morphia.
A white coat stopped in front of my table. ‘You’re up late, Nurse Snow.’
I saw who it was and stood up. ‘Yes, Mr Dexter.’
He said quickly, ‘Please don’t move, I’m just passing.’ I sat down again, but he did not move. Instead he said, ‘I’m glad Admiral Kerry had a good night. Let’s hope he repeats the performance tonight.’
‘Yes, Mr Dexter.’ I did not tell him I should not be there to see how anyone in Robert slept. He was on the Committee. He would hear what had happened soon enough from Matron. I was quite relieved that she, and not I, would have to tell him. He was not a man to whom I would care to admit a mistake.
The Quiet Wards Page 3