One Night in London: a hospital in wartime (The Jason Trilogy Book 1)

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘That, I understand ‒ who wouldn’t after five years without one, at my age.’

  Once more, she forgot herself, ‘Good God, man! You should worry! This is your second year up here as SSO and before that you had all the blitzes.’

  He smiled slightly. ‘Not all. I was here all ’40 and for the mini-blitz we had this last January, but I was out of London for the ’41 blitz. I ‒ I’d just been pitched down to the country. Remember they opened the first Nissen hut wards that spring? But why nursing? Why not the Women’s Services. With a degree you’d have got a commission almost immediately.’

  ‘Not this graduate, Mr MacDonald. I wouldn’t have survived basic training. I loathe outdoor sports. The first time anyone tried to get me square-bashing, I’d have gone AWOL. Anyway, I loathe martial uniforms. They’re bad enough on men ‒ the end, on women.’

  He was amused. ‘Nurse Smith, you’re the first woman I’ve met in this war who doesn’t appear to consider a uniform does something for a man.’

  ‘You’re wrong there. I think it does. I think it turns most men into professional killers. One of the reasons why I chose nursing was that I didn’t think I’d meet those types in white coats and nor have I ‒ apart from the odd, bungling amateur ‒ oh, my God!’ Her eyes laughed at him. ‘Will I make that worse if I say that honestly wasn’t intended as a dirty crack at you?’

  MacDonald grinned. ‘Much worse. Don’t let it get you down. Even Homer sometimes nods. Drink up that milk.’

  She took a sip. ‘Have you always wanted to be a surgeon?’

  ‘I was about ten when I got hold of the idea.’ He folded his arms and settled more comfortably on the table with the air of a man settling down in the chimney corner. ‘At that time I was hospitalized for a year or so, always in the same ward, and I got interested in the white coats, the rounds, the whole set-up. Gave me something else to think about.’

  ‘I can imagine. Nice ward?’

  ‘Reasonably so. It seemed big as Waverley Station to me but had a much better view. We’d a loch to look at and the hills behind.’ He paused and his abstracted eyes softened affectionately. ‘Our Ward Sister was a tough old body built like a bulldozer, but kind, very kind. She had the uncomplicated, somewhat unimaginative approach that makes kids feel safe. We always knew where we were with her and that if we stepped out of line she’d sort us sternly, and then follow up her blast with a sweetie round. You’ll have met the type.’

  ‘Yes.’ She watched him more closely. My God, she thought, he’s so exhausted he’s even forgotten I’m Dean’s set. ‘Did you tell her you wanted to be a surgeon?’

  ‘That’s right.’ His voice was dreamy. ‘It was one day when she was doing my dressing. Having blurted it out I then wanted to die of shame as I thought she’d laugh, or tell me to stop my blethering and let her get on with her work. She didn’t.’ He smiled dreamily and unconsciously, produced the old woman’s broad Glaswegian accent, ‘ “Aye, laddie, maybe you will at that. You’ve the right wee strong hands. A guid surgeon aye requires wee strong hands.” And then she went on to explain in detail my dressing and wound as if to a medically ignorant but otherwise intelligent adult. I only understood one word in three, but I nearly bust my stitches with pride. From then on, instead of chucking out old Spencer Wells, she gave them to me to play with and let me have snippets of clean bandages and cotton wool for my pretend ops. She cadged out-of-date textbooks from the surgical staff for me to look at. I didn’t understand them either, and the illustrations made me want to puke, but my books made me feel hellish important. She was a very fine nurse.’ He shook his head. ‘Just how fine I only properly appreciated when I qualified. She’s been dead years, but I’ve never forgotten her nor, I suspect, have any of her kids in that ward. We couldn’t forget her name ‒ Sister Stirling ‒ as not a day went by without her reminding us, “Stirling by name and Stirling by nature!” Glasgow, born and bred ‒ never crossed the Border in her life ‒ and regarded Edinburgh not merely as an alien but an enemy alien city.’ He looked very slowly towards the hidden ward, then all round the flat as if seeing it for the last time and then back at the small, still, watchful girl in the chair as if seeing her for the first time. ‘It’s just occurred to me that if anyone’s basically responsible for my being just here, just now, it’s that good, kind, long-dead old Sister Stirling.’

  Nurse Smith smiled gravely and fitted another piece into the jig-saw puzzle taking shape in her mind.

  Nurse Dean waited for Nurse Carter under one of the central nightlights about a yard from the foot of Jarvis’s bed. ‘I must aspirate Briggs again, Carter, and I don’t want Jarvis left. Sit on his locker and hang onto his pulse.’

  Nurse Carter glanced anxiously at the sleeping Jarvis. ‘Looks the same, nurse. Is he fibrillating again?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’ Nurse Dean watched Jarvis as she spoke and the rosy glow on her face enhanced rather than concealed the usual perturbation in her expression. ‘He’s behaving quite nicely on paper. I just don’t like the look of him.’ She held up her watch to the light. ‘Nurse Smith’s got another seven minutes and I don’t want to get her back unless I must. She’s a bit fagged tonight.’

  Nurse Carter had forgotten Nurse Smith in her concern for Jarvis. ‘You don’t think he’s going to spring another?’

  Nurse Dean appalled her junior by hesitating. ‘I’ve nothing to go on, or I’d ask Night Sister to call up a physician. The SMO won’t like it at all if I get one out of bed now for a patient who is sleeping quite well and has a satisfactory chart, just because I somehow don’t like the look of him. Not that there’s anything even the SMO himself could do, or would do, if he saw Jarvis now. Sleep is the thing that’ll do him most good. But I’ve put him on a five minute pulse chart and keep your hand on his pulse. If it alters either way, get me, stat., whatever I’m doing, whoever I’m with.’ She jerked her head at the screened entrance. ‘The SSO’s in the flat. I expect he’ll be in any moment. I’ll deal with Briggs.’ She took another long, clinical, anxious look at Jarvis and moved silently away.

  Nurse Carter stood on her toes and over the screen glimpsed MacDonald on the table and the back of Nurse Smith’s cap in the armchair. She had never seen MacDonald sitting on the table before, but the sight did not surprise her. She guessed he was now being hit by delayed-action shock and she had noticed that made most people feel the need to sit down and talk ‒ generally about things that didn’t matter ‒ and, ideally, to people who didn’t matter.

  She sat carefully on Jarvis’s locker-seat, studied him apprehensively, and tried to persuade herself Dean was only flapping uncharacteristically because of Mrs MacDonald’s death and because Mack was hanging around outside chatting to Smith instead of coming straight in. She didn’t succeed. She had worked too long and too closely with her night senior. She hadn’t sufficient experience in medical nursing to recognize why Jarvis’s apparently satisfactory condition was worrying Nurse Dean, but from her personal experience she recognized it was a worry and not a flap. She had known Nurse Dean worry over other patients; she had never known that worry misplaced.

  Jarvis did not stir when her fingers took a gentle pressure on his limp, fat wrist. She timed the pulse beat, added another dot to the pulse-chart on her lap and sighed silently with relief. No change in the beat or on the chart. Surely, he couldn’t be about to have another? And then she went cold with fear as she suddenly thought, how do I know? I’ve never seen any patient just before a coronary or actually having one. What’ll happen if he does have another? Will his pulse just stop?

  Go berserk first? Will he gasp? Shout? Scream? She tried to remember the cardiac lectures Professor Medicine had given her set last month but even though these had been delivered at 9 a.m. for the benefit of the night nurses, she had never been able to keep awake for more than the opening and closing words. All she could remember now was Jarvis telling her about his first attack, ‘Wicked pain, nurse, wicked … come on out of the blue … just sitting down for a qui
et listen to the wireless … wicked pain … never known anything like it … never want to again …’

  She couldn’t close her eyes as she had to watch him and count his respirations. She prayed for him with her eyes open and hand on his radial pulse. Please God, not dear old Jarvis, please, don’t let him have another ‒ please, let him go on sleeping and let Dean be wrong this time ‒

  Suddenly she stopped praying to listen.

  MacDonald heard the same sound and slid off the table. ‘Just as I was thinking I must finish my final round and be away to my bed. He can even read my thoughts.’

  Nurse Smith stiffened, ‘I can’t hear anything.’

  ‘I’ve radar ears. You will ‒ there ‒ Moaning Minnie’s wound herself up.’ He tilted his head. ‘I can just hear him away in the outskirts and coming fast. Probably another for poor Benedict’s. They’re buying the lot tonight.’

  She leapt up, trembling, ‘Please don’t tempt providence ‒’

  ‘Don’t waste energy on infantile superstitions, nurse,’ he retorted impatiently. ‘Stick to facts again. The RAF don’t shoot ’em down over Central London ‒’

  ‘What are you talking about? The RAF never ‒’

  ‘Och! Just remember Jerry’s a methodical chap. He dealt with our side last night, he’s dealing with the other tonight. If this drops our side it’ll be a mechanical fault ‒ and Jerry makes very good machines.’

  The bomb was very near, very loud. She rounded on him, frantically, ‘My God, must you ask for it?’

  ‘Keep your voice down, nurse! Want to wake the ward?’

  ‘Me? What about that bastard up there?’

  The roar overhead drowned her shouts but he had lip-read her words and recognized her condition. He dived for the open ward doors, kicked free the metal hooks and closed both with what seemed one movement.

  Chapter Eight

  She clung to the table, her whole body shaking, her lips twitching, her face bluish-grey. There was an ambivalent expression on MacDonald’s black and white face as he watched her, and he waited motionless beside her until the engine of the bomb that was now well over the river, cut-out. He caught her arms, ‘No need to fling yourself under that table, nurse. Way over the other side.’

  She tried to struggle free, then buried her face in his chest. He looked down at her as if she were a patient and his grip altered from restraint to comfort. He felt her long, shuddering exhalation when the sound of the distant explosion faded, and not ungently disentangled himself and pushed her back into the armchair. ‘What did I tell you, nurse? Just sit there and take a few good deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. That’s it.’ Her dilated pupils were returning to normal. ‘Now get your cap straight ‒ more to the left ‒ that’s it.’ He handed her the glass. ‘Finish up this milk.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She needed both hands to keep the glass steady and her voice had the quaver of old age. ‘Sorry about my ‒ my LMF.’

  He said evenly, ‘One doesn’t have to lack moral fibre to be terrified when one of those swine switch off. Merely to have imagination.’

  She drained the milk and looked as exhausted as she felt, but her mind was functioning normally again. She said, ‘I really am sorry about this, Mr MacDonald.’ He nodded noncommittally and went on studying her clinically. ‘I should’ve taken a better grip. I’ve been able to do that inside Wally’s tonight but ‒ out here ‒’ she glanced at the closed doors, ‘and particularly right now when I knew the patients couldn’t see me ‒ I ‒ well ‒ you saw ‒ let go.’

  ‘That’s understandable and so is the fact that being suddenly pitched back to London has sparked off your present phobia. Did you suspect this would happen when you heard you were coming back?’ She didn’t answer. ‘I see you did. Why didn’t you tell Matron? She’s a very understanding woman. She’d have sent up someone else.’

  She looked up at him and there was a strange, self-derisive resignation in her eyes that he would have recognized had he known her as a child. ‘I hadn’t got the guts. I just hoped I’d enough to handle this.’

  ‘You have,’ he retorted, ‘or you couldn’t admit this to me now. But you’ll need a bit of help and you’ve got to be got out of London fast. You shouldn’t be on duty ‒’ he glanced at the telephone, ‘and you must be taken off as soon as Night Sister ‒’

  ‘Please, Mr MacDonald, please ‒ wait!’ She stood up, urgently. ‘Listen, please.’ She was suddenly poised and in control. ‘I know I’ve put you in the hell of a spot, and I know you’ve got to report this to Night Sister, but as it’s so late, couldn’t you wait till morning? I’m sure I can last out till then and there are so many reasons why I must ‒ I mean that,’ she urged, reading his expression, ‘and I’m not just trying to kid myself that I’m indispensable to Wally’s tonight ‒ in a way I am. Night Sister can’t send up a relief for me now. She hasn’t got a single spare senior ‒ that’s why I’m here. Dean’s got a heavy enough ward without having to carry the full weight of my trio ‒ Carter’s a very bright kid, but she is only a second year ‒ she hasn’t enough experience to special, particularly Briggs or Browne, who could produce major haemorrhages at any moment tonight, as you and I know. I don’t think Browne will, but I’m far less sure about Briggs and anyway, they’ve got used to me by now and you know how DILs hate being suddenly handed over and I’d hate to hand them over before morning. And with Browne ‒’ she hesitated, but was too desperate to avoid the truth, ‘it’s vital I stay till morning when he should be coherent enough to know exactly what he says. I hope he won’t slide back into confusion, but there’s always that possibility after the amount of drugs he’s had ‒ and at his age. If he starts talking about that tram to Nurse Dean, she will put it into her night report and tell Night Sister. Night Sister’ll go to the stake before she bends one of her principles. She’ll report it officially to Matron who will have to hand it on. That’ll finish two people’s lives ‒’ she broke off as the closed doors were suddenly pushed open.

  Nurse Dean was poised in the doorway. She looked from one to the other with impatient curiosity. ‘Night Sister doesn’t allow us to close these doors at night. I couldn’t open them sooner as I couldn’t leave Briggs. That last one woke him and he’s slightly delirious. I’ve had to get Carter from Jarvis to stay with him and Jarvis isn’t too well either. Is something wrong?’

  MacDonald said quietly, ‘I closed the doors. I’ll explain why to Night Sister myself. I’ll see to Briggs. Nurse Smith could do with a cup of tea.’ He disappeared into the ward.

  Nurse Dean swiftly removed the open screen, watched Jarvis until Nurse Carter scurried back to him, re-hooked the doors then turned sharply to her colleague, ‘What happened?’

  Nurse Smith smiled with her lips. ‘Me. I had an attack of the vapours on poor Mack.’

  Nurse Dean’s face blazed with anger, but she kept her voice low, ‘Smith, you are the giddy limit! As if that man hasn’t had enough tonight what with having to do Gill’s op. and still staying on just after hearing about his wife’s death ‒’

  ‘Hearing ‒ WHAT?’ The whisper was half-strangled. ‘His wife?’

  Nurse Dean explained briefly, briskly, and added, ‘I didn’t tell you before as I knew you’d flap. You may as well know now as the rest of the staff must.’

  Nurse Smith dropped onto one arm of the armchair and wheezed with shock. ‘You ‒ should’ve ‒ warned ‒ me.’

  ‘Stop that, stat.!’ Nurse Dean snapped out the order as she stepped closer to hide the other girl from the sight of any watching patients. ‘You aren’t an asthmatic or an epileptic! Don’t try that hysterical asthma on me as I won’t have it! I’ve seen you trying this one before ‒ remember? I know and you know it’s purely functional and you can breathe perfectly normally if you want to. Stop it, or I’ll slap your face ‒ and don’t think I wouldn’t in front of my ward because if necessary I will!’

  Nurse Smith knew she would and that knowledge sent up her adrenalin-rate. She gasped les
s painfully, ‘God ‒ you’re a bitch!’

  Nurse Dean was unmoved, very stern, very much in command. ‘See? Breathing’s better now and your colour’s almost right. It’s all just another of your lines. You’re only pretending to be upset about Mrs MacDonald ‒ how can you be? You never knew her. But you always have to dramatize things and you only do it to draw attention to yourself and you’ve done that ever since we were in the PTS and I’ll tell you now I’m jolly fed-up with your poses! I’m jolly fed-up with the way you always have to pretend you feel things more than anyone else and make a song and dance about headaches and curse-pains the rest of us just put up with! Didn’t matter so much when we were pros ‒ matters like mad, now! We’ve got a ward of ill men in there ‒ you’re a staff nurse not a patient ‒ staff nurses are supposed to be able to cope! If you can’t ‒ go straight down and report sick to Night Sister. I can cope with Wally’s with only Carter. I’ve done it before. Well?’

  ‘Of course I’m not going off sick.’

  ‘Then jolly well pull yourself together! If you want tea ‒ you make it! I can’t waste any more time on your hysterics, but I warn you ‒’ Nurse Dean added grimly, ‘if you dare throw one more attack on me or anyone else in my ward tonight I’ll ring Night Sister stat. and have you taken off even though you are my set. I will not have you playing up my residents or upsetting my patients ever again! Got that? Right. Take a few more minutes off to take a proper grip then come back to the job you’re supposed to be doing!’ Nurse Dean stormed back into Wally’s, but she stormed silently and gracefully.

  Nurse Smith stumbled rather than walked into the kitchen, flopped onto the breadbin, leant back against the wall and closed her eyes. For years she had suspected Nurse Dean disliked her, but she had only just realized how much she disliked Nurse Dean and the innumerable other Nurse Deans of both sexes and all ages that she had encountered since her early childhood. No room for self-doubts in their neat tight minds; no colours but black and white in their blinkered visions; as they thought in clichés, they thought themselves the salt of the earth, the people who really kept the wheels turning. That last, she decided, was probably the hideous truth, and responsible for most of the world’s problems. She was irrationally angered and hurt by Dean’s strictures, partially as her intelligence had forced her to recognize the amount of truth they contained, partially as Nurse Dean’s attitude had so contrasted with MacDonald’s. She refused to face either of those truths now. She preferred to rekindle her old irritation with all the we’ll cope-ers, the muddling through-ers, the we can take it-ers, the it’s a lovely day tomorrow-ers, she had met in the last five years, who had kept the wheels of the war-machine turning, treated the war as a jolly game, and who had also invariably accused her of dramatizing when she had reminded them that the fundamental object of any country involved in a total war was to murder as many of the enemy as possible. ‘It’s all right for me,’ she said, ‘I’m an agnostic. If I were one of you lip-service Christians I’d come out in a cold sweat every time a bishop blessed a new battleship.’