by Betty Neels
Mrs Boekerchek came over that evening, rather grandly in an Embassy car with a chauffeur who followed her to the door of the patient’s room with a great quantity of flowers and several baskets of fruit which Mr Boekerchek would be unable to eat. Charity soothed his anxious wife and went to fetch Dof van Dungen, whose cheerful manner and sometimes uncertain English might put her patient’s better half at her ease far more than technical details of the operation. It gave her a brief breathing space too, to find Zuster Doelsma; she hadn’t been to the Nurses’ Home yet, a large, gloomy-looking building at the far end of the hospital courtyard. It was a good chance to slip over now, the Dutch girl agreed; she would lend a nurse for a few minutes to show her the way to her room.
“Tomorrow we treat you better, Sister Dawson,” she said kindly. “Today is bad, no time to yourself, for I must ask you to stay on duty until the night nurse comes on, but tomorrow do not come on duty until ten o’clock, so that you will have an hour or two to yourself. I think that Professor van Tijlen told you that he wishes that you stay on duty until midnight; it is better for the patient, you understand? It will be a long day for you, but there is a good nurse to relieve you, and after the first day it will be easier. Now if you wish to go to your room? and when you return we will go to supper together.”
Fair enough, thought Charity, accompanying the little nurse detailed to take her to the Home where she was delighted to find its dull exterior concealed a very modern and bright interior. Her room was on the fourth floor in the Sisters’ wing, an airy, fair-sized room, nicely furnished and with the luxury of a shower concealed in one of its cupboards. The little nurse, whose English was fragmental, having pointed out this amenity with some pride, grinned, said “Dag, Zuster,” and scuttled off, leaving Charity to tidy herself. She would have liked time to unpack, but it seemed she was to have none for the moment; she wasted no time therefore in getting back to the ward, where she found Zuster Doelsma bowed over the Kardex.
“I’ll just go and see Mr Boekerchek,” Charity suggested. “When do you want me back?”
“Supper in ten minutes,” the Dutch girl smiled at her. “That is a funny name which your patient has.”
Charity chuckled. “Yes, I expect his ancestors came from Russia, but the Arthur C. makes it very American, though, doesn’t it?”
Mrs Boekerchek was on the point of leaving. “But I’ll be here tomorrow—about six o’clock, that nice young doctor said.” She looked anxiously at Charity. “You’ll be here, won’t you, honey?”
Charity assured her that she would. “I’m coming on a little later in the morning and I shall stay with Mr Boekerchek until quite late in the evening, and there’s a very good nurse to relieve me at night, so don’t worry, everything will be fine.”
Her companion’s pleasant elderly face crumpled and then straightened itself at the warning: “Now, baby,” from the bed, and Charity turned her back and busied herself with the flowers, thinking that she wouldn’t much like to be addressed as baby, not by anyone—anyone at all; the professor was hardly a man to address anyone endearingly… She checked her galloping thoughts, telling herself that she must be tired indeed to allow such nonsense to creep into her head, and bestirred herself to accompany Mrs Boekerchek to the lift at the end of the corridor, where the little lady clasped both her hands and asked: “It is going to be OK, isn’t it, honey?”
“Of course,” Charity sounded very certain of it. “Professor van Tijlen is just about the best surgeon for this particular operation, you know.”
Her companion nodded. “I’m sure he is—such a dear kind man, too. He came today and explained to me just why he had to operate on Arthur, and when I cried like the old silly I am, he was so comforting. I trust him completely.”
Charity, diverted by her speculations concerning the professor comforting anyone; made haste to answer and was a little surprised to hear herself agreeing wholeheartedly with Mrs Boekerchek, and still more surprised to find that she believed what she was saying, too.
She met a number of the Dutch Sisters at supper; they all spoke English in varying degrees of fluency and she found herself with more invitations to do this, that and the other than she could ever hope to have time for, so that she went back to Mr Boekerchek quite cheered up; even if she wouldn’t have much time to go out, at least the other girls were friendly.
She set about the routine of getting her patient ready for the night and when the night nurse, one Willa Groene, arrived, a sturdy fair-haired girl of about her own age, she relinquished him to her with a relief which, though concealed, was none the less real. It had been a long day—and a surprising one, she reminded herself as she was on the verge of sleep.
Mr Boekerchek wasn’t in a good humour when she reached his room the next morning. His surly “What’s good about it?” in answer to her own greeting told her all she needed to know. His surliness, she had no doubt, hid a nasty attack of nerves; that terrible last-minute rebellion against a fate which had decreed that the only way out was to trust the surgeon. She had encountered it a hundred times: it passed swiftly but she had learned to help it on its way. She began the task of doing just that. There was quite a lot to do before they went to theatre; and she began, with cheerful calm, to do the numerous little jobs which would lead finally to his premed, talking unhurriedly for most of the time, pretending not to notice his silence, and after a while her patience was rewarded; he asked about her room in the Nurses’ Home and was she being well treated?
“Like a queen,” she assured him, and led the conversation cunningly away from hospital. She had succeeded in making him laugh, telling him about the professor’s Lamborghini and her father’s opinion of those who travelled in such splendid cars, when she realized that there was a third person in the room—the professor, filling the doorway with his bulk and looking as though he had been there for some time. He had.
“Your father’s stricture makes me feel every year of my age,” he remarked good-humouredly as he advanced to the bedside. “My only excuse for driving a Lamborghini is that I was given one when I was twenty-one, and twenty years later I haven’t found a car I like better.”
“What about a Chrysler?” asked his patient, quite diverted from his own troubles.
“A good car—but I think that I am now getting too old to change.” He stared at the wall, thinking his own thoughts. “Perhaps—if I were to marry—the Lamborghini is hardly a family car.” His manner changed and he began at once to talk to Mr Boekerchek, to such good effect that that gentleman remained cheerful until the moment he closed his eyes in the peaceful half-sleep induced by the injection Charity had given him.
The theatre, when they reached it, reminded her forcibly of quite another sort of theatre; there was the audience, peering down through the glass above their heads, and the instruments, while not the musical variety, tinkled musically as they were laid out in their proper places. Charity, who had remained with her patient in the anaesthetic room, his hand comfortably fast in hers, took up her position by the anaesthetist and watched Mr Boekerchek’s unconscious form being arranged with due care upon the operating table. This done to Theatre Sister’s satisfaction, a kind of hush fell upon the group of people arranged in a kind of tableau in the centre of the theatre.
Into this hush came Professor van Tijlen, dwarfing everyone present, his mask pulled up over his splendid nose so that only his eyes were visible. He paused by the table, greeted Theatre Sister, said a few words to his registrar, murmured briefly to his houseman, hovering nervously, stared hard at Charity—a stare which she returned in full measure—and turned his attention to his patient.
Charity watched him make a neat paramedian incision and then, stage by stage, demonstrate his actions to his audience. It was a pity that she couldn’t understand a word he said, but she was kept so busy that it didn’t really matter; blood sugar samples had to be taken every fifteen minutes, blood pressures had to be read, and the anaesthetist kept her on her toes with his requirements. But sh
e managed, all the same, to see something of what was going on. The professor was a good surgeon, with no pernickety ways; he was relaxed too, even though his concentration was absolute. There was a little sigh of satisfaction as he found and removed the adenoma which had been the cause of Mr Boekerchek’s illness; he spent some time searching for any more which might be there, with no success—presumably everything was as it should be; he began on his careful needlework and presently, when that was finished, stood back to allow the other two men to finish off the suturing. He left the theatre as the anaesthetist slid a fine tube down Mr Boekerchek’s nostril while Theatre Sister attended to the dressing, and Charity, kept busy with odd jobs, didn’t see him go. For so large a man he moved in a very self-effacing manner.
He turned up again, just as silently, half an hour later, when having got her patient into bed under his space blanket, checked the infusions of blood, dextrose saline and another, special solution, all located in various limbs and all running at a different rate; made sure that the cannula for the taking of blood samples was correctly fixed, and made certain that the blood pressure was being properly monitored, Charity was taking Mr Boekerchek’s pulse.
Beyond giving her a laconic hullo, the professor had nothing to say to her, but bent at once over his patient. It was only when he had satisfied himself that everything was just as it should be that he straightened his long back and came to take the charts from the desk. “You are familiar with the nursing care?” He looked at her, smiling a little. “Am I insulting you? I don’t mean to, but if there is anything you are not quite certain about I shall be glad to help you.”
Very handsomely put, she had to admit. “Thank you—I’m fine at the moment, but I’ll not hesitate to let you or Mr Van Dungen know if I’m worried.”
He nodded. “One of us will be available for the next twenty-four hours. Start aspirating in an hour and a half, if you please, and give water as ordered as soon as the patient is conscious. You will have help as and when you require it, but I must emphasise that you are in charge of the case and are responsible to me and no one else. You understand?”
There was a lot to do during the next few hours, but by the end of that time Charity had the satisfaction of seeing her patient sitting up against his pillows, the blanket discarded, nicely doped and doing exactly as he ought. She had been warned to send a message to the professor when Mrs Boekerchek arrived that evening; he arrived as she entered the room, her face held rigid in a smile which threatened to crack at any moment.
The professor glanced at Charity. “Go and get a cup of coffee,” he told her. “I shall be here for ten minutes or so—stay in the duty room.”
She went thankfully; she had been relieved for fifteen minutes for a hasty meal on a tray in the office, but now she longed for a cup of tea, but coffee it was and better than nothing.
She sat in the austere little room, her shoes kicked off, her cap pushed to the back of her head. There were still several hours to go before she could go off duty, but that didn’t matter; Mr Boekerchek was out of his particular wood provided nothing happened to hinder him. She swallowed a second cup of coffee, straightened her cap, shoved her feet back into their shoes and went back along the corridor.
The professor was ready to leave, taking Mrs Boekerchek with him. She had been crying, for her husband was in no state to warn her not to. The tears started again as she saw Charity, whom she kissed soundly. “I’ll never be able to thank you—you two beautiful people,” she said with a gratitude which wrung Charity’s kind heart, and was borne away by the professor, who, without a word to Charity, closed the door quietly as they went.
He opened it a minute later to say: “I should be obliged if you would come on duty at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. You will be relieved later in the day, but I prefer you to be here while Mr Boekerchek is ill. Naturally any time you have owing to you will be made up.” He turned to go again. “Thank you for your assistance today, Sister Dawson.” His goodnight was an afterthought as he closed the door once more.
He certainly had no intention of sparing her, but she fancied that he didn’t spare himself either where his patients, important or otherwise, were concerned. She dismissed him from her mind and started on her duties once again until she was relieved by the night nurse at midnight. It had been a busy day; as she got wearily into bed she wondered if the professor was still up, making his silent way through the hospital, or whether he too was in bed. She tried to imagine where he lived—probably in one of the old houses they had passed coming to the hospital on the previous day. She began to think about him, yawned, then yawned again, and fell asleep.
CHAPTER THREE
THERE WAS no time to spare for any thought other than that required of her work the next day, Mr Boekerchek was doing nicely, but there was a multitude of tasks to be done and none of them could be skipped, skimped or done carelessly. She took blood sugars, aspirated, checked drips, kept her patient comfortable and under sedation. The professor came in the morning half an hour after she had taken over from the night nurse, and in the afternoon he came again, expressed his satisfaction, consulted with Mr van Dungen, and went away again. And at the end of a long day Mrs Boekerchek came with such an overflowing gratitude for what she called Charity’s devotion to duty, that Charity was quite reconciled to the few brief moments which she had had to herself.
But the next day was better; Mr Boekerchek, in a positive tangle of tubes, drip flasks and drain bottles, was sitting out of bed, looking rather shrunken and pinched and surrounded by a veritable bower of flowers and with a background of get-well cards which Charity had pinned to the wall so that he could have something to look at while he lay in bed. The professor and Dof van Dungen had examined them too, wasting what she considered to be a great deal of time over it, instead of getting on with their examination of their patient. And on the day after that, free of almost all his tubes by now and feeling much more himself, Mr Boekerchek, sitting in his chair watching Charity making his bed, observed: “Why, honey, you’ve been here the whole day long and half the night, and heaven knows how long before that. You’re here early in the morning and you’re still here when I go to sleep. I do declare,” he went on in a voice that wasn’t quite as strong as it could have been, “I’ll ask Professor van Tijlen if you can’t have time off…”
“Indeed she can,” said the professor, and because he had startled her, Charity gave him a cross look; he had a habit of coming and going with that silent speed which could be disconcerting—he ignored the look and went on smoothly: “You are much better, Mr Boekerchek; you may have a second visitor this evening—I suggest that Sister Dawson gets you back to bed at four o’clock when your wife comes so that you may receive your extra company in your bed. Zuster Doelsma will keep an eye on you for a few hours.”
He turned to look at Charity. “Zuster Theatre asked me this morning if you would be free later on—she and some of the other Sisters are going to the cinema and want you to go with them. You would like that?”
She would like it very much. “Zuster Doelsma won’t mind?” she queried. “I don’t think she reckoned on my going off duty for the first few days.”
He smiled faintly. “She has reminded me already that you are being treated most unfairly,” he spoke with impersonal kindness. “Mr Boekerchek is sufficiently recovered for your hours of off duty to return to normal, but these matters are best left to the ward Sister, I find.”
Charity murmured a meek “Yes, sir,” feeling anything but meek; he somehow had conveyed the impression that she was a necessity to be put up with for the time being—an alien in his smooth-running hospital world. Her bosom heaved with her strong feelings and she looked up to see him watching her with a gleam in his eyes and a little smile touching the corners of his mouth which made it obvious that he had a shrewd idea of what she was thinking. She said woodenly: “You would like to see the charts, Professor,” and handed him the lot without waiting for him to say he did.
It was de
lightful to change out of uniform and join the small party of girls waiting for her in the pleasant sitting-room on the ground floor. They absorbed her into their circle with no effort at all; within half an hour they were all walking through the busy streets, taking it in turns to point out anything of interest to her, until they reached the cinema. The film was a German one, dubbed in Dutch. The girls on either side of her carefully translated it for her; she didn’t mention that she could understand it very well for herself; there was a vague idea at the back of her mind that the professor might get to hear about it and mention it—nastily—next time they met.
They were out of the cinema by half past eight and were standing on the pavement, arguing as to the best café to which they could take Charity, when Tina, the theatre Sister, interrupted herself to say:
“Oh, look, there is Professor van Tijlen,” and everyone stared into the street, where, halted by traffic lights, was a Daimler Sovereign with him at the wheel and a pretty, lint-haired girl beside him. Everyone—except Charity—waved, and he lifted a hand in a friendly wave as the car drew smoothly away.
“A new girl?” one of the girls wanted to know. “I have not seen her before. She is nice to look at, do you not think, Charity?”
“Extremely pretty.” She didn’t believe in half measures.
“He has a splendid taste,” observed Tina admiringly. “It is such a pity that he does not fancy any of us—we have all done our best.”
There was a little gust of laughter as they started off in the direction of the Esplanade Restaurant, which, they assured Charity, was large and modern and cheerful. “You could perhaps try your luck, Charity?”
It was the Outpatients Sister who spoke as they sat drinking their coffee. “With our professor, you know—you see him a great deal and you are not like us.” Her eyes flickered to Charity’s splendid hair, “You are new and you do not speak Dutch, which makes you interesting.”