A Hospital Summer

by Lucilla Andrews

  A Hospital Summer

  Lucilla Andrews

  Copyright © The Estate of Lucilla Andrews 2018

  This edition first published 2018 by Corazon Books

  (Wyndham Media Ltd)

  27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX

  First published 1958

  www.lucillaandrews.com

  The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Cover artwork images: © Irina Bg / Georgethefourth (Shutterstock), izusek (istockphoto)

  Also by Lucilla Andrews

  from Corazon Books

  The Print Petticoat

  The Secret Armour

  The Quiet Wards

  The First Year

  One Night in London (The Jason Trilogy Book 1)

  A Weekend in the Garden (The Jason Trilogy Book 2)

  In an Edinburgh Drawing Room (The Jason Trilogy Book 3)

  Corazon Books is reissuing

  all of Lucilla Andrews’s novels.

  Be the first to know about the next reissue

  by signing up to our free newsletter.

  Go to www.lucillaandrews.com

  For

  MARNIE and BASIL

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Preview: One Night in London by Lucilla Andrews

  Preview: A Nurse’s Life by Jane Grant

  Preview: A Country Practice by Judith Colquhoun

  Preview: The Country Doctor by Jean McConnell

  Preview: A Doctor’s life by Robert Clifford

  Preview: Home from Home by Cath Cole

  Preview: City Hospital by Keith Miles

  Chapter One

  LIFE IN OBSERVATION

  The Sister in charge of the Observation Block that morning was new to the hospital and the Army. She had arrived in the camp yesterday afternoon on finishing her brief initiation period of military hospital life in London. She was young, good-looking, and she wore her new uniform with the efficient air of a highly trained nurse. Her name was Miss Thanet; her rank, Sister in the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Military Nursing Service Reserve. Last evening Matron had shown her briskly round the Ob. Block. Mary Frantly-Gibbs and I, the two V.A.D.s on evening duty in the Block, had decided Miss Thanet was a very pretty girl, and the answer to an M.O.’s prayer. We had reserved our judgment on her as a Sister, since, as Mary said, ‘The prettier they are, alas, the bitchier they get. On past showing, Clare dear, I would so much rather have had her look like the back of a bus.’

  The door of the hall that served the Ob. Block as duty-room, stock-room, sterilizing-room, and kitchen was wide open when Sister arrived on duty. It was on the ground floor; the early sun that was illuminating the square outside shone through the open door, and made the polish of the hall floor seem dim and drab.

  The sunshine was cut off when Miss Thanet appeared in the doorway, and stopped still, surveying with patent horror the prospect before her.

  The prospect was me. I was kneeling on the floor in front of the open grate at the far end of the hall, throwing dollops of floor-polish on to the collection of green twigs that one of the patients had scrounged from some garden to serve as kindling.

  Miss Thanet recovered herself and walked up to me.

  ‘Nurse ‒ Dillon, isn’t it? Nurse, what do you think you are doing?’

  I said, ‘Good morning, Sister. Lighting the fire.’ I heaved on another handful of polish to show willing.

  She shuddered. ‘Nurse Dillon. Did not Matron tell me last evening that you had been six months in this hospital?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ I was sorry not to be able to give her my full attention, but I was too anxious about my fire, which was still only spluttering weakly. I threw on more polish.

  ‘Nurse!’ Her voice rose slightly. ‘Will you please get off the floor when you are talking to me? And will you please never again let me see you kneeling on the floor ‒ and in an apron! What impression would the patients have if they saw you in this undignified position?’

  I stood up, reluctantly. The last handful of polish seemed to be doing the trick, but I did not trust that fire. The grate was shockingly temperamental and if you did not watch it constantly at the early stages of lighting, even if the twigs began to flame, as now, it would produce a sudden draught and blow out the fire without conscience.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ I apologized, ‘but you see ‒’

  Miss Thanet tapped one elegant foot. ‘Please do not try to excuse yourself, Nurse. There can be no excuse for such unprofessional conduct. And just what do you think you are doing, wasting good floor-polish in this way? Do you not realize’ ‒ I braced myself, waited, and, as she was so new, it came ‒ ‘that there is a war on? Stores are precious, and to be saved. And do you not also realize that it is May, a warm day, and one on which we shall certainly not require a fire?’

  I dusted my apron as I listened to her, and kept one eye on my fire. I did not intend to let it go out again. I did not interrupt her lecture, because, as she had just reminded me, I had been six months in the Army, and those six months had taught me, among other things, that when authority was on a soap-box the technique was to listen in silence until authority stepped off the soap-box, and then carry on as before. Sisters had to lecture V.A.D.s ‒ that was their job; mine, at this moment, was to get that fire going properly; so when she finished speaking I apologized humbly. She turned away, and as her back was to me, I carefully dropped another lump of polish on to the smouldering twigs.

  Unfortunately, the lump sizzled; so did Sister. She swung round. ‘Nurse Dillon, did you hear one word I said?’

  I hesitated. I was wary about the explanation she was forcing me to make, as I knew she was not going to like being taught certain aspects of her new job by an untrained V.A.D., half a dozen years younger than herself.

  At last I said, ‘I’m sorry, Sister, but I’m afraid we have to have a fire. I can’t light the coal without wood, and these twigs are too green to burn without help.’

  ‘But this is May ‒ and my duty-room. So will you be good enough,’ she demanded coldly, ‘to allow me to choose if I wish for a fire or not?’

  I began again. ‘It is not just for keeping the room warm, Sister. I’ve got the breakfast eggs to boil; they are over there in that iron pot on the serving-table. And the milk has to be heated for the men’s porridge, and the porridge warmed when it gets here. The porridge and the tea will be up soon, and we have no other means of heating anything in this Block.’ As she said nothing I added, ‘We’ll need it after breakfast too, for any poultices ‒ things like that ‒ and to boil the kettle for the M.O.’s tea.’

  She seemed to have grasped only one of my points. ‘Poultices? You can’t put a kaolin poultice on an open fire! It’ll get covered in soot.’

  ‘We heat the kaolin pot in a saucepan of water and then spread it.’

  ‘Why’ ‒ it appeared that she found difficulty in speaking ‒ ‘can’t you heat the poultices on the lid of the sterilizer?’

 
I looked at her. ‘We haven’t got a sterilizer, Sister.’

  ‘Surely we at least have a fish-kettle and a couple of “Primuses”?’

  ‘No, Sister.’

  ‘Then ‒ how ‒ do ‒ we ‒ sterilize?’

  I nodded at the vast bottle of methylated spirits that towered over the rest of the equipment on the table marked ‘Surgery.’

  ‘We flame everything in a large bowl.’ I did not tell her that had she come in a few minutes sooner she would have seen me dangerously throwing meth. at my wretched fire. I had come on duty to find the Block polish-tin empty, the green twigs soaking, and was desperate. One of the patients, a Scot called Gabriel, had come to my rescue. It was Gabriel who had produced the twigs during the night: he had the reputation of being able to scrounge anything, from anywhere, at any time, and had come back after a three-minute absence with a new tin of polish, which he had said he had got from the O.C.’s batman. Knowing the Archangel, as he was inevitably nicknamed, I did not doubt this.

  Miss Thanet was temporarily speechless. She walked to the surgery table and examined the contents. ‘This should not be in here, with the kitchen utensils on one table beside it, and my desk with the men’s papers on the other side. It must be moved to one of the bathrooms. I did not get a chance to see them last night, but the bathroom most convenient to this room will do. Will you see to it’ ‒ she swallowed ‒ ‘directly you have your fire going?’

  I was becoming quite sorry for the poor girl. ‘We haven’t any bathrooms in this Block, Sister.’

  ‘No bathroom?’ She drew her poise acquired in training round her like a cloak of dignity. ‘How many beds have we got? Isn’t it seventy-two?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ The fire was crackling now, the coal had caught; so I was able to relax and give her all my attention.

  ‘Then how do our patients have baths? Aren’t most of them up-patients and capable of bathing themselves?’

  ‘Yes, Sister. They seldom stay in more than a few days; often less ‒ only part of a day.’

  ‘And they do not have baths automatically on admission?’

  ‘Officially no, Sister.’

  A faint smile removed the shocked expression from her eyes. ‘And unofficially, Nurse?’

  ‘Sister Dirty Surgical upstairs is very good about not noticing the Ob. Block men in her bathrooms. The D.S. Block has seven bathrooms, and most of their men are bed-patients, so they can generally lend us a couple of bathrooms on the quiet.’

  She looked at the fire. ‘Would floor-polish be the unofficial official fire-lighter?’

  I decided I was going to like Miss Thanet. ‘Yes, Sister.’

  She turned to me thoughtfully. ‘How long have you worked in this Block, Nurse?’

  ‘Three months, Sister.’

  ‘I see.’ She studied her feet now. ‘So you must know all about the work here?’

  I walked mentally round that one. ‘I’ve got used to it, Sister.’

  ‘Have you ever worked in a proper ‒ that is, a civilian general hospital?’

  ‘Only when I did the fifty hours’ training we have to do before we can be called up as Mobile V.A.D.s.’

  ‘Fifty hours,’ she echoed, and smiled properly. ‘I’ve spent less than half that in this camp. If we throw in my four years’ general training to your side, I’d say we rate about equal in experience, Nurse.’ She was relaxing too. ‘I don’t suppose you know this, but my original posting here was to work in the theatre. Miss Makins ‒ isn’t that the theatre Sister’s name? ‒ was due to be transferred yesterday, but her posting has been altered, and she is staying here for a while. Matron said yesterday that she expects I’ll be posted overseas almost at once, and asked me to take over this Block for the time being, as I gather your Red Cross Sister who was previously in charge has gone to some Casualty Clearing Station?’

  ‘Yes, Sister. Mrs Smith left for Rangmere yesterday morning.’

  ‘That was the place. As I was saying, I was not really intended for this Block, and before Miss Makins’ posting was cancelled Matron took me all over the Acute Surgical Block. I must say that A.S. Block seemed to be adequately equipped, but this one ‒ no doubt ‒ has different functions. Matron only had time to take me quickly through the wards last night, and I was not able to get a proper impression of the place. I think it would be a sound scheme if you took me right round now, Nurse.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Incidentally, do you V.A.D.s get called “Nurse”?’

  ‘Only by the Reserve Sisters, Sister. The Regulars call us “Miss So-and-so.” ’

  She nodded as if she grasped the full meaning of what I had said. ‘One can understand that,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘You girls aren’t nurses ‒ you can’t be; you haven’t had any training.’

  I added more coal to my fire, hid the polish-tin for my use tomorrow morning, washed my hands in the nearest ablutions annexe, then returned to the hall to escort her round the Block.

  The Observation Block consisted of six twelve-bedded wards; wards that were as neat and spartan as the wards in military hospitals commonly are. The morning cleaning was in progress as we went round. The very few bed-patients lay amusing themselves with Blighty and Razzle; the shirt-sleeved up-patients were occupied in the traditional and orderly method in which British soldiers clean rooms. In each ward a man was pulling the beds away from the walls; one man swept the cleared space, followed by a man throwing down floor-polish, a third one was swinging a bumper (the long-handled polisher with a heavy flat head, beloved of the Army); and after the floor trio trailed a varying number of men carrying brass-polish, rags, nail-brushes, scrubbing powder, old biscuit-tins, and dirty ash-trays.

  In the first ward Gabriel, in a spotless white shirt, well-creased blues ‒ he always put them under his mattress at night ‒ and neatly tied red tie, balanced an old biscuit-tin and cluster of rags on the palm of his good hand as he came forward to greet the new Sister about whom the men were as curious as the V.A.D.s. ‘Good morning to you, Sister.’ He beamed at me. ‘We have not done the scrubbing of the locker-tops yet, Miss Dillon, but we will have them white in a wee while.’

  A tall, very untidy, very dark youth shuffled forward in plimsolls. Like Gabriel, the youth, whose name was Archibald, had his left arm in plaster. He stopped by Sister, smiled warmly, and uttered a long, incomprehensible sentence. The words fell like soft water from his nicotine-stained lips.

  Sister said, ‘I’m sorry; I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch what you said?’ She glanced at me for assistance, but I could not help her, as I could seldom understand Archibald unless he spoke in monosyllables.

  Gabriel translated willingly. ‘Archibald was wishing the new Sister a fine morning, and saying that he would now be doing a wee bit of brass-polishing for you, Miss Dillon.’

  Sister’s smile was thoughtful. ‘Thank you.’ She watched a third man ‒ another Scot, and another arm injury ‒ washing the electric-light shades. ‘Do the men do all your cleaning?’

  ‘Most of it, Sister. They’re a wonderful help, as there are only three of us on days here, and often only one V.A.D. on at times.’

  Her expression made me feel she was letting this pass for the moment only. ‘How do we come to have so many orthopaedic cases? Do we do any plastering?’

  ‘No, Sister. We just get used as an overflow from the Orthopaedic Block ‒ that’s the wing opposite to us across the square. These men came in last evening, and are due to go over to have their plasters changed or off this afternoon. They’ll probably go out to-morrow.’

  ‘Have they been in here before? Is that how you seem to know them so well?’

  Every man in the ward was listening openly to our conversation. Gabriel, emptying a nearby ash-tray, answered for me. ‘There’s not a man in the camp as doesn’t come into the Ob. Block afore he’s away, Sister. Many’s the time we’ve all been in here for a wee spell.’ His attention was drawn to some dust on the third lamp-shade on the right. ‘Hamish McAlistair, ye’ve left a streak of dirt on the right
side of yon shade. Man, it looks awful bad from here.’

  Hamish McAlistair shook his head. ‘I canna reach it, man. Ye’ll have to give me a leg up.’

  Archibald, the largest and possibly most good-natured man in that ward of good-natured men, came forward without a word, and stood by McAlistair. The smaller man, again one-handed, pulled a chair into position. Archibald put one foot on the seat of the chair; McAlistair hopped cleverly and dangerously on to Archibald’s knee, balanced himself with the help of his silent companion’s good arm that was clamped round his own legs, and removed the offending dirt from the shade.

  Sister opened her mouth as if to protest, closed it again, and waited silently until the operation was over. When both men were again on their two feet she said, ‘You know, you should not climb about like that. You might crack your plasters and injure yourselves. But tell me ‒ how is it so many of you seem to have the same fractures?’

  Gabriel, Archibald, and McAlistair were only too happy to explain how very easy ‒ according to them ‒ it was to crush your hand and forearm in a tank if you were newly mechanized, and how they and their mates were apparently in the habit of losing up to five fingers daily. Their explanations were added to by the other up-patients, who joined the little crowd round us, each with a more hideous and gory tale than the last; the whole being finally rounded up by Gabriel’s repetition of the favourite camp story of the mythical staff-sergeant who lost both hands at one go. ‘And there he stood, Sister, with nothing but the wee stumps! And the blood was everywhere … I tell ye ‒ they say ye can still smell the blood in that machine to this very day!’

  ‘There’s only one flaw about the staff-sergeant, Sister,’ I told her as we moved on to the next ward, ‘and that is that no one in this hospital ever heard of him being admitted. But the men adore telling it. You’ll hear it roughly once a week if you stay here.’

  She smiled slightly. ‘Mightn’t it have happened in peacetime? This was a peace-time hospital, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. The staff-sergeant in the Pack Store is an old Regular, and he told me this place was built before the first War.’ We were walking into the first ablutions annexe as I spoke; we walked out again, very quickly.