A Nightingale Christmas Carol

by Donna Douglas

  The needle slipped from Kitty’s fingers and fell to the ground.

  ‘Oh Lord, I’m sorry . . .’ She fumbled to pick it up, but Nurse Riley’s hand came down on hers, warm and steady.

  ‘Take your time, Jenkins,’ she said quietly. Dora Riley was no beauty, with her snub nose, square chin and broad, freckled face topped off by a curly thatch of red hair. But the kindness and understanding in her muddy green eyes transformed her, making her seem quite lovely.

  ‘We’re all in a bit of a state today, aren’t we?’ she said softly.

  Kitty swallowed hard. ‘Yes, Staff.’

  She quietly set about preparing the needle again, trying to shut out the man’s voice as he described the dastardly new weapons the Germans had in store for them, and how they would all surely perish.

  ‘Mind you, they wouldn’t have had time to invent them if our lot had got their fingers and out launched this invasion sooner,’ the man said as he rolled over on the bed to await his injection. Now it was Dora Riley’s turn to tremble, Kitty noticed. But one look at the staff nurse’s set face and Kitty knew it was suppressed rage and not fear that was making her hands shake.

  ‘If you ask me, some of our boys have been treating it like a holiday,’ the man went on. ‘I’ve heard what they’ve been getting up to in Italy, sunning themselves and enjoying the local hospitality – ow!’ He yelped in pain as Dora jabbed the needle into his bare buttock. ‘That hurt!’

  ‘Did it? Oh dear, I’m sorry.’ But Nurse Riley didn’t sound in the least bit apologetic. In fact, she was smiling as she handed the needle back to Kitty.

  ‘I should think so, too,’ the man muttered darkly. ‘It’s a pity they can’t get any proper nurses in here, instead of leaving it all to you lot!’

  Kitty glanced at Dora, waiting for her to snap back. But the senior nurse’s face was a mask of composure as she applied a dressing to the injection wound.

  Dora Riley was too experienced a nurse to get a simple injection wrong, Kitty thought. Which meant she must have done it on purpose to shut him up.

  And Kitty didn’t blame her, either. If her husband was out there fighting for his country, she would have probably wanted to puncture the opinionated oaf where it hurt, too.

  Just before midday, the green line bus arrived to transport the patients down to the country. Kitty’s brother Arthur was one of the porters who came up to the ward with a trolley.

  ‘You’ve heard the news, then?’ he grinned, barely able to suppress his excitement. ‘They’ve taken a couple of the beaches already. Now they’re making their way inland, and the Germans don’t stand a chance!’

  ‘Shh!’ Kitty glanced back at Dora. She was busy dealing with the burns patient, but Kitty knew she would be listening to every word. ‘I’m not supposed to talk to you while I’m on duty, remember?’

  Arthur shrugged dismissively. ‘Oh, I’m not bothered about her. You should have heard the way she spoke to Mr Hopkins this morning. Almost like she didn’t care about what was happening. He was very put out about it.’

  ‘I expect she’s got a lot on her mind,’ Kitty murmured. But there was no telling Arthur. He might be five years younger than her, but that didn’t stop him knowing everything.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘if what I hear is right, you might not have to work with her for much longer.’

  ‘Why? What have you heard?’

  ‘Oh, so you want to talk to me now?’ Arthur gave her a maddening smile. ‘I’ve a good mind not to tell you . . .’

  ‘Arthur Jenkins!’ Kitty hissed, exasperated.

  He laughed. ‘Oh, all right, then. Mr Hopkins reckons we’ll be getting some military patients soon.’

  Kitty stared at him. ‘They’re coming here?’

  ‘It makes sense, doesn’t it? We’ve got all these wards standing empty. And there are bound to be a lot of casualties coming over, after what’s happened today . . .’

  Dora Riley approached them. Kitty saw her glowering expression and quickly shushed Arthur.

  ‘We have patients ready to go and a bus waiting downstairs, when you two have finished gossiping?’ Dora said, her sharp gaze moving from one to the other.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kitty saw Arthur’s face change, and prayed that he wouldn’t be cheeky to Dora. Her brother could be his own worst enemy sometimes.

  ‘I was just saying, Nurse, we’ll have some more patients for you soon,’ he said, in that cocky, confident way that always made Kitty cringe. ‘Injured soldiers, back from France.’

  Kitty saw the colour drain from Dora’s face, her freckles standing out against the milky pallor of her skin. But then she collected herself.

  ‘Let’s hope for their sake you’re not responsible for bringing them up to the ward, or they’ll never get here!’ she retorted. Then she turned to Kitty and added, ‘Don’t you have anything to be getting on with, Jenkins? Because I’m sure I can find a job for you if you haven’t.’

  ‘Yes, Staff. Sorry, Staff.’ Kitty bobbed her head apologetically and scuttled off. As she reached the doors, she saw Dora saying something to Arthur. She hoped he would have the sense not to answer back for once. Arthur was like their father; he always had to have the last word.

  But the news he’d given her stayed on Kitty’s mind. Later, when all the patients had gone and they were cleaning the empty ward, she plucked up the courage to talk to Nurse Riley about it.

  ‘Staff, do you think it’s right what Arthur said, about us getting military patients?’ she ventured, as she swung the buffer to and fro to polish the floor.

  ‘No one’s said anything to me about it,’ Dora replied shortly.

  ‘What’s this?’ Miss Sloan glanced up from her cleaning. ‘Did you say we were getting military patients here? Oh, that’s marvellous news!’

  ‘It’s not definite,’ Kitty said, her wary gaze still fixed on Dora. She was on her hands and knees, head down, scrubbing away at a bed wheel as if her life depended on it. She had never known a senior nurse so willing to get her hands dirty. ‘My brother just told me they might be opening up some of the wards—’

  ‘Oh well, it must be true,’ Miss Sloan said, pushing her spectacles up from the end of her long, hooked nose. ‘The porters know all the news before the rest of us, don’t they? I hope it’s true. I would relish the chance to help our brave soldiers. Wouldn’t you, Nurse Riley?’

  Dora still didn’t look up from her scrubbing. ‘I think we have our hands full enough looking after our own patients, Miss Sloan,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Hardly,’ Miss Sloan dismissed. ‘I mean, look at this place. The patients are barely in their beds for five minutes before they’re transported off. It isn’t exactly real nursing, is it?’

  Dora sat back on her heels. ‘Real nursing?’ she echoed.

  Kitty heard the chill in her voice. Even Leonora Sloan, who wasn’t known for her sensitivity, faltered slightly.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she murmured.

  ‘No, Miss Sloan, I don’t think I do.’ Dora got to her feet, her scrubbing brush still in her hand. ‘What exactly do you know about real nursing?’

  ‘Well—’ Miss Sloan started to say, but Dora cut her off.

  ‘No, you listen to me. Just because the Red Cross has seen fit to give you a uniform and a few weeks’ training, that doesn’t make you a nurse. You don’t know the first thing about real nursing, otherwise you wouldn’t be standing there spouting this nonsense.’ Her green eyes glinted with anger. ‘I’m sorry if you don’t think making beds and sweeping floors is exciting enough for you, but it’s as much a part of nursing as mopping soldiers’ fevered brows.’

  ‘I didn’t say it wasn’t,’ Miss Sloan said in an injured voice, but Dora ignored her.

  ‘And as for you,’ she turned her angry green gaze on Kitty, ‘I’ll thank you and your brother to keep your rumours to yourself. And pay more attention to what you’re doing,’ she added. ‘You’re supposed to be using that buffer to polish the floor, not danc
ing with it!’

  She dropped her brush into the bucket and picked it up. ‘You two can finish cleaning this ward. And I want to be able to see my face in that floor when you’ve finished. Because if I can’t, you’ll be doing it all over again!’

  She stormed down the length of the ward, slamming the double doors behind her.

  ‘Well, I never!’ Miss Sloan turned to Kitty, bristling with indignation. ‘I don’t think we deserved that, do you?’

  ‘No, we didn’t.’

  ‘I mean, I know she’s under a lot of strain with her husband being away and everything, but all the same . . .’ Miss Sloan shook her head. ‘I do hope she isn’t going to carry on like this.’

  Kitty stared at the double doors. ‘So do I,’ she said. Otherwise she really would be volunteering to nurse on the military wards.

  Chapter Four

  It seemed as if Kitty Jenkins was right. As the days passed, wards that had lain empty since the Blitz were reopened, their curtains taken down, mattresses aired and windows flung open to let in the fresh June air. More VADs arrived, scrubbing floors, climbing up ladders to damp-dust light fittings, and making up beds.

  Soon after that, a steady stream of nurses from the Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service began to appear at the Nightingale. The hospital passageways bustled with a sea of scarlet and grey uniforms.

  Dora watched from the window as a new linen order was unloaded from the back of a lorry.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve been asking for new bed linen for six months but everyone said it couldn’t be found. And now look!’

  ‘Yes, well, it’s for the soldiers, isn’t it?’ Miss Sloan said piously. She had been very tight-lipped with Dora since her outburst a few days earlier.

  Dora still felt ashamed when she thought about how she’d lashed out at them. Poor Miss Sloan didn’t deserve it, and neither did Kitty. She had apologised to both of them the following day, and even though they seemed to accept it Dora could tell they were still wary of her.

  She didn’t blame them for being so bewildered. She had always done her best to be firm but fair with them, so for her to snap so harshly was completely out of character.

  She only wished she could explain to them how frightened she was. The idea of nursing injured soldiers might seem noble and wonderful to them, but all Dora could think of was that one day those doors might open and it might be her own husband brought in on a stretcher, close to death. The fear haunted her so much she could barely think of anything else.

  It was a warm day in the middle of June when the first of the wounded soldiers began to arrive. Dora and Kitty were on their way down to lunch as the military ambulance rumbled into the courtyard.

  ‘Here they come,’ Kitty said.

  ‘So I see.’ Dora went to hurry past, but Kitty slowed down to watch as half a dozen QA nurses swarmed towards the rear of the ambulance, preceded by orderlies bearing stretchers.

  Dora followed the junior nurse’s avid gaze. ‘I suppose you’ll be asking Matron for a transfer now?’ she said.

  Kitty didn’t reply at first, but a tell-tale blush crept up her neck from under her starched collar. ‘I wouldn’t do that, Staff,’ she said loyally. ‘Not while you need me on the emergency admissions ward.’

  Dora smiled. Her outburst had obviously shaken the poor girl. ‘But you’d rather nurse soldiers?’

  Kitty’s chin lifted, her eyes still fixed on the ambulance. ‘It’s what I’ve been training for, Staff.’

  Dora glanced sideways at her. She had known Kitty Jenkins for many years, long before she had started her training at the Nightingale. Their families had lived around the corner from each other in Bethnal Green, and Kitty was a close friend of Dora’s younger sister Bea. It was a surprise to everyone when the girls were conscripted, and Kitty had decided to sign up as a nurse instead of following Bea into factory work. No one, least of all Dora, had imagined she would finish the training, but Kitty had proved them all wrong.

  She had done well so far, but Dora knew from her own experience that nursing patients with fevers and failing hearts was a lot different from dealing with injured soldiers.

  ‘It’s not easy,’ she warned her.

  ‘I’m not afraid of hard work.’

  ‘I’m not talking about physical work, although once you’ve lifted a full-grown man in and out of bed a few times you’ll know about it! No, I mean it gets you up here.’ She tapped her temple. ‘You see some terrible sights, men with their limbs hanging off, their skin and hair burned away . . . Some of those scars are so horrible they’ll stay with you forever.’

  ‘Surely I’m the last person to worry about that?’

  Kitty put her hand up to her left cheek, where the starched edge of her cap met her dark hair. Dora saw the gesture and could have bitten off her tongue.

  ‘Jenkins—’ she started to say, but Kitty cut her off.

  ‘Sorry, Staff, I’ve just remembered my mum asked me to pass on a message to Arthur,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if I go and do it now?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’ll see you in the canteen . . .’

  But her words were lost on the air as Kitty hurried away across the courtyard in the direction of the porters’ lodge.

  Dora watched her go. The poor girl, she couldn’t wait to escape.

  How could she have forgotten the terrible scars Kitty had suffered from that air raid three years earlier? She carefully hid the side of her face under her hair, but the withered flesh on her left arm was still visible whenever she had to roll up her sleeves.

  Dora knew how sensitive she was about them, and she was mortified at her own thoughtlessness.

  She looked back towards the ambulance. The orderlies had opened the back doors, and Dora could see the first of the men being taken off, their khaki uniforms stained brown with blood. She averted her eyes and hurried past.

  The hospital dining room, as Dora had once known it, had long gone, destroyed by a German bomb shortly after the start of the Blitz. Since then, the nurses and doctors had been fed from a mobile canteen set up by the WVS in one of the basement rooms. It was dark, damp and crowded. But as Matron was always reminding them, it was better than nothing.

  Today, as usual, she joined the queue in front of the worthy women of the WVS in their green uniforms, who were handing out thin-looking paste sandwiches.

  Dora looked down at her tray. ‘No hot food today?’

  ‘We’ve lost power in the kitchen again,’ one of the WVS women told her apologetically. ‘Someone is trying to get the emergency generator going, but it might take a little while. You can have a cup of tea?’ she offered, pointing to the large urn on the end of the counter. ‘It’s a bit stewed, but at least it’s warm.’

  While Dora waited for the woman to coax tea from the steaming, spluttering urn, she looked around the basement. Once upon a time, when she first started training at the Nightingale, the dining room upstairs would have been arranged with rows of tables, each occupied by different nurses according to their rank. There were still a few tables in the basement, but now they were mostly occupied by QAs.

  It was nice to see the hospital so busy again, but she missed seeing the ward sisters, and the staff nurses, and the nervous probationers in their striped uniforms. She missed the familiar faces of her friends, the girls she’d trained with. Mealtimes were when they could all meet up to chat and gossip, to share the gruesome stories of what they had done and seen, or to console each other over Sister’s latest telling-off. Whatever happened, they generally ended up laughing about it . . .

  Her roaming gaze suddenly snagged on a particular face sitting among the QAs at a corner table. Dora squinted, not sure whether she was seeing things. It was as if she’d summoned the young woman up from her memory and made her into a living, breathing being.

  It couldn’t really be her, could it? Surely not. The last time Dora had seen that face, she was waving her off on a hospital ship. As far as she knew, she was still
there. Surely she would have written to let her know if she was coming home, especially if she was returning to the Nightingale?

  But that face did seem very familiar . . .

  ‘Your tea.’ The WVS woman planted the cup and saucer down in front of her, making her jump.

  ‘Thank you.’ Dora turned to put it on her tray. But when she turned back again, the young woman had gone.

  Dora gazed around and saw her heading towards the door, her tall, graceful frame setting her head and shoulders above the other QAs. This time there was no doubt in her mind it was her.

  ‘Dawson?’ She abandoned the tray without thinking and hurried after her, ignoring the WVS woman’s cry of protest.

  ‘What about your tea? You can’t just waste it, you know. There is a war on!’

  Dora pushed her way through the throng of QAs and hurried out into the passageway.

  ‘Dawson!’

  Further down the corridor the young woman stopped and swung round slowly to face her.

  ‘Riley?’ Dora saw her mouth forming her name, and hurried towards her, edging past the QAs making their way towards the canteen.

  She had changed. Dora could see it as she drew closer. Helen Dawson had always been slender, but she’d lost so much weight, her eyes were like huge, dark pools in her drawn face.

  The other QAs drifted off, leaving one scowling, dumpy girl still standing at Helen’s side.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here!’ Dora grinned.

  ‘You too.’ Helen looked as surprised as Dora felt. ‘I didn’t realise you’d still be here. I thought they’d moved all the Nightingale staff down to the country with the patients?’

  ‘What, me leave the East End? That’ll be the day!’ Dora shook her head. ‘No, there are still a few of us here, battling on. But what about you? When did you get back from North Africa?’

  ‘A few days ago.’

  ‘And they didn’t send you straight off to France?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘We were transferred back to England to deal with the casualties.’ It was the other girl who spoke for her. Her voice was so loud and brusque it took Dora by surprise.