‘Carter, terribly sorry ‒’ Nurse Smith was in the doorway. ‘Watch Briggs and the Major for a tick. Dean’s in the ward if you need anything but you shouldn’t as both are flat out now. My heartburn’s giving me hell. I must get some Aqua Menthe Pip. Always works on me.’
Nurse Carter glanced at Nurse Smith’s face and then quickly away. She didn’t offer to get the dose of peppermint water for her. ‘Okay.’ She hurried back to the ward as the already fainter noise of the flying bomb faded away. She didn’t hear any explosion. Not for us, she thought thankfully, but God help us if Jerry does decide to make us his late night target tonight. She’s much too far round the bend to remember we could need all our stock brandy for the relatives.
Chapter Three
Nurse Smith heard the slow footsteps coming up the stairs and quickly pulled up her mask, closed the medicine cupboard, and put the medicine glass in her dress pocket. The cupboard was in the day duty-room that was immediately left of the liftwell and she had had to leave the door open as that particular door was only closed at night when the room was in use as a temporary morgue. Even to half-shut it would have at once evoked Nurse Dean’s suspicions.
Mr Jason, MacDonald’s house-surgeon, saw her as he limped round the screen across the stairs. ‘Hi.’ He touched his forehead with a forefinger in recognition and flicked aside his long forelock of straight light brown hair that kept falling across his glasses. ‘Welcome back to the old firm.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Who’s on the peppermint?’
‘Me. My stomach hasn’t adjusted to nights. First back.’ She looked upwards tensely. ‘Where’s that one gone? I haven’t heard it come down.’
He considered her mournfully. He was very tall, and thin, with shoulders to carry his height, but not to fit the short white coat that on him looked like a limp mess-jacket. His long pale very English face was very tired and surprisingly tough. Surprisingly, since he was a quiet young man of equable temper who seldom gave or appeared to take offence, as he usually kept his thoughts to himself. ‘Haven’t you heard the RAF’s latest, nurse?’ His deep lazy voice was mournful as his expression. ‘The chaps now lasso ’em in mid-air, slap on a Union Jack, spin ’em round, give ’em a kick up the backsides ‒ chug-chug-chug back to Jerry’s waiting arms. Kerplop. Poor Jerry. No arms.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Jason, but I don’t find that amusing. I must get back to my DILs. Excuse me ‒’ she swept by him rustling starch to rival Nurse Dean.
Jason blinked at her back and then at the backs of Nurse Dean and MacDonald slowly progressing up the surgical overflow beds on the left side of the ward. Bloody hell, he thought, who does she expect? Max Miller? ‘Now there’s a funny thing’ … He sniffed the air more keenly. If she’s knocking back a brandy and Aqua Menthe Pip. for every itinerant doodle, couple more hours and she’ll think I’m Sid Field.
He limped to the table. He had flat feet. He had worked the same hours as MacDonald that day and last night, and the usual ache in his feet had turned into pain. He saw Nurse Dean had noticed and was ignoring him. Being MacDonald’s houseman, he had, in theory, every right to join their round. After ten months on his job, he had learnt his boss was a natural loner who, unless taking a teaching round preferred, not only in Wally’s, to go round alone. MacDonald said the patients were far more likely to tell him the truth about themselves when there was no posse of chaps breathing down his neck making them feel a cross between lab. specimens and side shows, and that the nurse escorting him was far more likely to come out with the type of inside information on the patients that only the nurses had the chance to pick up since they lived in and didn’t merely walk the wards, if only one pair of ears was listening.
Probably still bloody-minded about that amputation, mused Jason, peering all round the ward as if searching for something he didn’t find. Made two of them. He’d just come from Rachel, and then met Sullivan in the basement corridor on his way up. He had better get on with his notes. Reams waiting. It was a hospital rule that every night the notes of every patient must be up-to-date before the houseman responsible went to bed. The only Wally’s notes he had had time to deal with that day were the transfers. He had still to write up those of the men who had come in since midnight and remained in the ward. He picked up the old diagnosis list and counted the names. Christ, he’d be at it all night. But he was too unhappy. He desperately needed comfort. He limped into the kitchen to wash his hands and did so with the slow thoroughness he used in the theatre.
Nurse Carter hadn’t noticed his arrival. She paused in the kitchen doorway and the tea-tray she had just collected tilted a little. ‘If you want a towel, Mr Jason, you’ll have to use a pillowslip. There. On your right.’ She sounded annoyed. She was annoyed with herself. She was much too pleased to see him.
Jason glanced round and looked bored, as always, when on the defensive. He loved seeing her. He had done so since her first night in Wally’s, but more than his natural reserve had forced him to keep this to himself. No bloody time to get to know her, he thought, not even for the odd natter, much less to try and date her. Not that she’d be interested. Any girl with her looks was bound to have queues of uniforms waiting. He hadn’t got one and what’s more he didn’t get food parcels. He was just a poor bloody civvy Englishman whose home was in Hastings. Should’ve faced it from the start; he never had a hope in hell of making first base.
He dried his hands and drawled, ‘Suppose there’s no tea left in that pot?’
She investigated. ‘About a cup. Black and icy.’ She nodded at the large brown tin pot on an asbestos sheet over an unlit gas-ring. ‘Finished. Used it up in this for Mack.’ She thought of suggesting adding hot water from the urn, glanced at his face and changed her mind. So what if Sullivan had opened his big mouth? At first, from the way Jason never stopped watching her in Wally’s when she was anywhere around, she’d been sure he was smitten. Obviously, just wishful thinking. Two months and all he ever did was loom over her like an outsize, broody hen. Just as well, actually, she reminded herself firmly. Once in hell was enough. She handed him the tray. ‘Give the cup a rinse whilst you’re there.’
‘This Mack’s?’ He emptied the dregs into the tea-bucket under the sink and rinsed the cup. ‘Needn’t really bother. I could use the other side. He hasn’t got VD, TB, or thrush.’
She looked up as she washed her hands. ‘How do you know?’
He wished she hadn’t looked up. She had such bloody wonderful eyes. ‘Because I haven’t caught them and I’m always having to use his dirty cup.’ He looked round vaguely then folded himself onto the large galvanized iron breadbin. ‘Must do my notes but haven’t the energy to reach the table. Not in your light, am I?’
She picked up the breadknife. ‘Not until I want another loaf.’ She didn’t remind him Night Sister would go round the bend if she saw him there as he knew this as well as she did. She saw him grimace over the tea. ‘Been stewing hours.’
‘What did you make it with? Leaves the wardmaid used on the floor? I swear I taste sawdust.’
‘Could be ceiling dust if that pot wasn’t used today.’ She jerked her head at the very cracked ceiling. ‘Last night did that. That pot lives on the dresser and this whole place was thick with dust this morning. I forgot to heat it for Mack. I hadn’t time to wash the lot. I just h’rrd round with my dirty apron.’
He grinned reluctantly. ‘Thanks a lot, Nurse Carter. Gastroenteritis’ll make a nice rest for my poor feet.’
She thought this over whilst she cut a few more slices. He watched the soft darkness of her downcast eyelashes, the delicate lines of her transparently fair-skinned face, the sweet curves of her unpainted lips. He thought of a face in Rachel and had to shut out the thought, but not before he shuddered inwardly.
‘I don’t suppose you’ll get it. Prof. Medicine told us in one of his lectures that if the hydrochloric acid in the stomach wasn’t strong enough to kill most bugs, Britain’s filthy cooking habits would’ve done Hitler’s job for him years ago.’ Jason
drank the milk from the jug. ‘Prof. Medicine called milk a dilute suspension of pus.’
He retched. ‘Lay off! I’ve only been qualified ten months. Nurse Smith’s stomach hasn’t adjusted to nights and mine hasn’t adjusted to nurses’ ladylike conversations.’
She put on her dumb face. She was pretty sure Jason had spotted what ailed Smith and the fact that she wanted to trust him did not, as Aristotle would have said, include the fact that he could be trusted. She had been raised on second-hand Aristotle as her father never stopped quoting him. Her father had no use for Plato. She looked dumbly at Jason. Nor had she. ‘How’ve you managed to stay out of uniform? I thought all our housemen got called up after six months?’
He was almost glad she was dumb. Dumb girls always irritated him. Maybe now he’d be able to stop fantasizing her. Dumb ‒ and bloody tactless. ‘The able-bodied chaps get hauled off after six. I can’t see a yard without my glasses, I’ve got flat feet and ‒’ he hesitated then thought ‒ what the hell does it matter! ‒ ‘varicose veins. Doesn’t stop them hauling me up to Medical Boards. They still haul up Mack. You’d think after five years some bod would’ve spotted the reference to his one kidney. Not the bods who sit on Medical Boards.’
She moved to fetch the margarine gently sweating on a plate on top of the fridge, put it on the table and began spreading the cut bread. ‘What happened to his other kidney?’
‘Taken out when he was a kid. I’m not sure precisely why as he doesn’t talk about it. His mother died when he was born ‒’ he helped himself to a knife from the table drawer and joined in the spreading, ‘his old man was stationed in Africa and he was shunted round relatives in Scotland until he landed up in hospital for three years. That’s how he’s kept out of the war. This butter or marge?’
‘Marge. Thursday. Wally’s always runs out of butter by Tuesday. Thanks.’
‘That’s all right,’ he said sulkily.
She looked at his lowered head. Needed a hair-cut but at least it was clean. Rather nice hair. Hell. ‘I thought Martha’s had asked for a stay on Mack. Can’t they? For senior residents with Membership or Fellowship?’
‘They can only keep them two years if they’re able-bodied. This is Mack’s second up here and before he did two years as SSO in the country.’ He smiled to himself. ‘Not that any of our present pundits would ask for a stay on old Mack. If they could swing it he’d be on the Russian Home Front for the duration!’
‘Because he’s a ripper?’
His head jerked up. ‘Like hell he is! Because he’s the best bloody surgeon, surgical pundits included, Martha’s has thrown up in the last ten years. They know that, so does he, and he won’t bloody bumsuck.’
She liked his reaction even if she didn’t like the way he was looking at her. ‘Keep your hair on, Mr Jason,’ she retorted with spirit, ‘how the hell am I supposed to know? I’m just the bloody junior. Dogsbody. Nearest I ever get to watching Mack’s technique is making him cups of tea and that’s near enough for this junior. I know his patients like him and most of his do pretty well, but he’s too much of an RLGA ‒ Right Little God Almighty in case you don’t know what that means.’
He flushed slightly. ‘I know. You don’t go for him?’ She shook her head. ‘Most women seem to.’ He was too upset at having angered her, for discretion. ‘Just as well you don’t, as you work with Dean.’
She concentrated on spreading. She liked Smith as a person better than she did Dean, but she infinitely preferred the latter as a ward senior. She thought Dean a bit wet with her passion for sticking to the book and to have fallen for MacDonald even if he was loaded with SA. The only reasons why the story had not yet reached the hospital grapevine, were that all the present night seniors were in Dean’s set; and all sets, whatever the individual members thought of each other, invariably presented a united front; she was the only junior who knew about it, and Jason must have kept his mouth shut. Any day, any night, the story could break and then Dean would be in real trouble. Mack was the SSO, beloved by Matron and the senior sisters, and a man; no one would blame him. Dean would cop the lot and be out with just enough time to return her Martha’s badge. They couldn’t take her gold medal from her, but they could, and would, take her badge as Mack was married. They had done that before. They weren’t doing it again with any help from Nurse Carter. Dean at her worst was far better at her job than any of the other seniors she had worked with, and Dean had one sterling quality; whatever happened she never flapped. Nurse Carter’s idea of professional hell was to work with a flapping ward sister or night senior and she had experienced both.
She moved away, stacked the spread bread on a large china dish on the dresser, covered it with a damp pillowslip and washed her greasy hands. ‘Could you shift, Mr Jason? I need another loaf.’
‘Sure.’ He handed her the loaf and moved to the doorway. He’d known it wouldn’t be any use. He peered at the ward. The round had reached Briggs. ‘They’ll be out in a minute. I’d better wash.’ He waited until she was back at the table then drifted back to the sink. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
‘And sawdust.’
They exchanged the stiff smiles of polite, hostile strangers. He said, ‘Sullivan says he’s got some for you.’
‘So he says.’ She looked up at him. ‘I suppose you haven’t got any tucked away or any pals on the black market?’
He began shaking his head then stopped. ‘Christ! That chap in William Harvey ‒ tame spiv ‒ psst ‒ you, boy ‒’ he switched into a superb cockney accent ‘here, doc! Anything you wants on ration ‒ anything at all ‒ you just got to ask. Coupons? Don’t make me laugh, boy, or I’ll bust me clips. After what you done for me, doc, would I take coupons off you? Lowest prices down the market I can get you ‒ it’ll ruin me ‒ ruined ‒ it’ll be a pleasure!’
She slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh. He had never seen her laugh before, and that fact disturbed him nearly as much as her presence. ‘Mr Jason, you’re a better prospect than a Yank Lootenant.’
Obviously her steady was a Yank. He’d forgotten the Yanks. He returned to his own voice and former gloom. ‘I suppose I could try and tap him for tea ‒ probably end up in the Scrubs for it.’
That prospect so disturbed her, she brushed his offer aside, ‘Don’t bother. I’m sure Mr Sullivan’ll keep his promise.’
‘Yes,’ he said shortly, ‘I expect he will. Right. Can’t say I exactly hanker for the Scrubs.’ He limped away and into the ward.
Nurse Carter dug savagely into the depleted margarine. God, she thought, how I hate this bloody war, and heard the click of heels accompanied by heavier footsteps on the stairs. She was in the flat when Night Sister ushered the Major’s wife round the stairs’ screen.
‘Get the armchair from the duty-room, nurse, then tell Nurse Dean I’m here with Mrs Browne.’
Mrs Browne was a stout, patriotically dowdy woman with short grey hair, invisible lips and the outward assurance of a visiting Matron. She accepted the armchair with a perfunctory nod and sat very straight-backed with her eyes averted from the red glowing dimness and the endless columns of shadowy white beds. She found the hospital unbearably hot after the unheated train, and she had just drunk two cups of scalding tea in the Matron’s Office; this was the senior Night Sister’s base at night. Mrs Browne still felt cold; the chill of shock was in her bones and she was conscious of a nebulous fear she refused to identify, yet recognized as one she had always sensed she would one day have to face.
Still in delayed-action shock, observed Night Sister, with the professional detachment of a person who had had to encounter more shocked, distraught relatives than she, or anyone else, could possibly number. It was not so much that she was unsympathetic, as that so many withdrawals had been made on her sympathy that her reserves were in short supply. She had already explained the Major’s condition, that Mr MacDonald wanted a word with Mrs Browne before she saw her husband, and had dealt euphemistically with the problems of the War Office. At sight she h
ad placed Mrs Browne as a woman who would regard ‘the Regiment’ and the War Office, as she herself regarded St Martha’s. Time enough to worry her with that later. She said, ‘You must be glad to sit after the long corridors and stairs, and that long anxious journey on your own.’
‘When one has been a soldier’s daughter and the wife and mother of serving soldiers, Sister, one learns to stand on one’s own feet. Not that the old pins aren’t a bit weary. Train was rather crowded ‒ but a nice lad in the Tank Corps gave up his seat. Three pips up.’
‘I’m sure he was glad to.’ Night Sister studied the face beneath the face. The retrousse nose was incongruously small between the flabby, podgy cheeks; the dulled, tired, blue eyes were half-hidden by the puffy lids, the complexion ruined by tropical suns and neglect. Once a pretty girl; possibly, very pretty. ‘Are your sons serving overseas?’ she queried, with professional concern. She might need to know the whereabouts of Mrs Browne’s next-of-kin after her husband.
‘We only had the one lad, Sister.’ Suddenly the well-bred authoritative voice was as toneless as if it had come out of a machine. ‘Bought it outside Caen. D-Day plus Five.’
Night Sister said gently, ‘You’ve had your share. ’
Mrs Browne sat even straighter and dug in her chins. ‘Proud of him. He was a good lad. A soldier expects to die for his country. That’s what soldiering’s all about, Sister.’ Briefly the machine stopped. Then, ‘Upset his father. Great chums. Always.’
Night Sister’s cap frills fluttered as she nodded to herself and made a mental note to pass this on to those concerned in the Major’s treatment, though she thought it exceedingly probable Mrs Browne would do this for her. In her experience the distraught came in only two categories; those who had to talk of their personal tragedies; those who could never bring themselves to mention them.
One Night in London: a hospital in wartime (The Jason Trilogy Book 1) Page 5