A Wartime Nurse

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Your temperature is nice and steady now,’ she remarked as she returned from washing her hands and begun to clean the wound in his shoulder which Nurse Harris had already uncovered. The dressing she removed was almost clean, Theda saw, the wound nearly healed. There would be a nasty scar but at least he would be able to use his arm as normal. He lay passively, accepting her ministrations, but keeping his head turned away.

  ‘It won’t be long before you can leave us and go up to the camp among your friends,’ Theda said. ‘Now you have the plasters off your leg and arm.’

  She knew he could understand English but he didn’t answer her.

  ‘Waste of time talking to him, Staff.’

  They finished the dressing and made him comfortable in bed, cradling him in their arms and lifting him up against the pillows. He was a tall boy but thin, only just beginning to put on a little weight as his appetite returned. He would have been easy to lift were it not for the fact that he tensed as they held him, his face turned away in disdain.

  ‘You will soon be going up to the main camp up the dale,’ Theda persevered. ‘This afternoon we will get you out of bed, we must have you walking again.’ She smiled at him. He was so like her own brother Frank had been, patriotic as only the young can be. He was just a boy after all.

  ‘I will get away,’ he said, surprising them both as they were in the middle of removing the screens from around the bed. It was the first time he had spoken to either of them.

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ snapped Nurse Harris, her patience exhausted. ‘Where do you think you will go?’

  ‘I will get away,’ he repeated. ‘You will see, I will escape. It is my duty.’

  His voice had risen and he raised himself from his pillows, his face flushed as he glared at them. ‘It is the duty of us all, everyone who is prisoner. Some have forgotten—’

  ‘Private!’

  A sergeant had risen from his seat by the stove and was stamping down the ward as fast as his game leg would let him. He raised his walking stick as he reached the bottom of the bed and drew himself up.

  ‘You will be civil to the nurses, Private, you hear me?’

  Johann’s flush deepened. He subsided on to his pillows, muttering something Theda took to be a yes. Obedience to authority was too well ingrained in him for it to be anything else.

  ‘What is happening?’

  She turned and saw that Major Koestler had come into the ward and was standing just behind her. He looked very inch the arrogant Prussian officer, she saw, completely different somehow.

  ‘It is nothing, Doctor—’ she began, but the sergeant was speaking in rapid German and Major Koestler was asking questions and completely ignoring the nurses.

  ‘Come on, Harris,’ she said. ‘We have plenty to do without joining in their squabbles.’ They moved on to the next man to be dressed and pulled the screens around the bed.

  ‘Let them sort out their own,’ said Nurse Harris. ‘What do we care what a silly kid thinks? Mind, you’d expect him to be grateful at least for what we’ve done for him. I bet one of our lads wouldn’t have got the same treatment in Germany.’

  Theda didn’t answer. The man in the bed was looking from one to the other of them, straining to understand what they were saying. He caught the gist of it for he nodded his head vigorously.

  ‘Oh, yes, good treatment in Germany,’ he said.

  Theda smiled at him. ‘I’m sure there is, Hans.’

  ‘Well, come on then, let’s have a look at your leg. We haven’t got all day, even if you have.’

  The corner of the ward where Johann lay was quiet now, the boy seemingly asleep and the sergeant back by the stove where he was whittling a small horse from a piece of wood. Theda watched his hands, swift and sure as they formed the head, the mane flying back as though in motion, the legs at the gallop. All the time he chatted easily to a friend or whistled under his breath, turning the wood in his hands, bringing it alive. He felt her gaze upon him and looked up.

  ‘I clean up after,’ he said, indicating the chips of wood on the red-tiled surround of the stove. He was a man in his forties – ‘Poppi’ the other prisoners called him – old enough to be the father of most of them, though not so old as some of the recent prisoners. Regular army, she supposed.

  ‘That’s all right,’ she replied. ‘Just so long as Matron doesn’t see the mess.’

  ‘She will not.’

  She returned his conspiratorial smile. It was hard to keep her distance from men like the sergeant, enemies though they were. Every day there was a further chipping away of the reserve between them.

  The sergeant could have been her father, carving a wooden dolly for her when she was younger out of the discarded end of a pit prop, sitting by the fire and letting the bits drop on to the tin hearth plate, being told off for the mess when her mother saw it. Mam would bustle about with a brush and small shovel, sweeping up the chips and throwing them on the fire so that they flared up with blue and orange flames, just as these did when the sergeant threw them in the stove.

  The dressing round ended and Joan Harris went for her break. There was no sign of Major Koestler who must have left the ward. Theda couldn’t get used to calling him ‘Doctor’ as he had asked, for he was a surgeon. If he had been English she would have called him ‘Mr Koestler’. In any case, he was still in the army and he was a major.

  Theda went to help Nurse Cullen who was going round the bedfast patients treating their pressure points with methylated spirits and dusting powder to keep away bedsores. The red-haired young nurse was flushed and angry, her eyes beginning to look suspiciously damp as a group of Italians clustered around the stove at the top of the ward, began calling to her, goading each other on.

  ‘You can rub my back, Nurse, I get into bed now, eh?’ one said, and made as though to get undressed. ‘What’s the matter, Nursie? You like to wait till tonight? Romantica, yes?’

  His companions were laughing, whispering suggestions to him. He was a dark-eyed man in his twenties, thick moustache curling as luxuriant as his hair. He held out his arms in mock entreaty. ‘Bella! Bella!’ he cried, turning up his eyes to the ceiling and smacking his lips.

  Theda scowled heavily at him. ‘Stop that this minute!’ she snapped. ‘You will show Nurse Cullen some respect or I will put you on report.’

  The Italian pulled a face and turned away, muttering to his companions. She caught some of what he was saying, sure that it was derogatory and about her but ignoring him.

  ‘Now then, Nurse, I’ll give you a hand to finish. There’s plenty to do yet before dinnertime.’ Theda spoke briskly as she seized hold of the trolley and moved it on down the ward, giving Nurse Cullen a chance to recover herself.

  ‘Something will have to be done about those Italians,’ she said later as she sat in Sister’s office having a cup of coffee with her while Sister went over the bed list. They act as though they are in a . . . a . . .’ She paused, searching for the expression she wanted.

  ‘A brothel, Staff?’ Sister Smith grinned at her. ‘I suppose their own hospitals are staffed by nuns,’ she said. ‘That must cramp their style! In any case, they’re going back to the main camp tomorrow, Major Collins tells me.’

  They must be expecting a new influx of wounded prisoners, thought Theda, but even though she and Sister were alone in the office she did not say it aloud. One never knew who was listening, as the poster on the wall, Careless talk costs lives, implied. Someone on the ward could be a spy, could be giving the enemy warning of a big attack, someone could have a wireless set hidden in acrutch . . . Theda smiled to herself. She was letting her imagination run away with her.

  The thought reminded her of her brother Chuck, a frustrated soldier if ever there was one. He had drilled with the Home Guard every Sunday morning since he was old enough. He scanned the Northern Echo every day for news of battle, exulting when the allies were victorious, discussing developments with his marras from the pit and anyone else who would listen. When the Americ
ans were halted in their advance he considered it a national character defect. If it happened to the British, it was the fault of the generals of course.

  Dear Chuck, she thought, he worshipped Joss, listened eagerly to everything he said about the war, would have changed places with him like a shot. As Joss would change places with him, no doubt, she thought with a wry smile. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Now he was out of the pit he probably wouldn’t want to go back.

  ‘You’re not day-dreaming, are you Staff? No, of course not. Just thinking about your work, weren’t you?’

  Sister Smith’s voice cut into her wandering thoughts. Theda sat up and put down her coffee cup.

  ‘Sorry, Sister. What were you saying?’

  ‘You must be ready for your day off,’ said the ward sister. ‘Well, come on, I’ll check the drugs with you and you can do the medicine round before Ken Collins gets here. I want to get off in good time today – looks like we’ll be busy enough next week.’

  Chapter Nine

  Kenneth Collins was in his office running over the lists of wounded prisoners he had to fit into the available beds somehow. He stretched out his right leg under the desk. It always ached but this damp December weather intensified the pain, making it more and more difficult for him to control his limp or even keep his thoughts on his work.

  Icy rain rattled the window of his office, and he sat back, sighing. It must be hell on earth out there on the German border, he thought. Why wasn’t he there, doing what he could for the wounded? There would be plenty, he was well aware of that; the Germans wouldn’t give up easily but would fight every inch of the Allied advance to Berlin. Which was pig-headed of them and most of them knew it, the officers in particular. It would be so much better for them if the Western allies got there first, rather than the Russians.

  Ken sat back in his chair and gazed out of the window at the rain. He considered taking extra medication for the pain in his leg but decided against it; he couldn’t afford to dull his reactions, he had a theatre list in the afternoon. He got painfully to his feet and went to the cupboard in the corner. A couple of Anadin he could take. Pouring himself a cup of lukewarm coffee from the almost-cold pot, he swallowed it with the aspirin, pulling a face at the taste of the bitter liquid.

  At least it was Thursday tomorrow, his day off. Tonight he would go out to Winton village to visit Uncle Tucker. Tomorrow he would take some of his precious petrol ration and go over to Marsden, see the family, his mother and his gran.

  Suiting action to deed, he picked up the telephone and got through to the operator.

  ‘Shildon 29, please.’

  After a short delay he heard Uncle Tucker’s voice. He had rung directly to the mine office for, since the death of Aunt Betty the year before, there was unlikely to be anyone at the house. Tucker had picked up the phone, probably to stop its irritating ring, but was still talking to someone in the office.

  ‘Number 9 seam on Busty, I want—’

  Whatever he wanted was indecipherable to Ken as Tucker must have turned away from the mouthpiece. Ken waited, letting his thoughts drift idly again. He remembered the last time he had been out at Winton Colliery, a few weeks ago now. A dark, miserable November night, and he had given the staff nurse from Hut K a lift back in to the hospital. A pretty girl, if you liked dark eyes and hair. Very dark her eyes had been that night, in the gleam from his flashlight. And very big and frightened too. Who on earth did she think he was – the bogey man? The ghost of a tommy knocker? A dead entombed pitman?

  ‘Hello? Manager’s office. Cornish speaking.’

  The voice of his uncle cut into his thoughts. Ken sat forward carelessly, jarring his leg against the side of the desk and wincing at the stab of agony that coursed through it.

  ‘Uncle Tucker?’ he forced himself to say.

  ‘Ken? What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing . . . nothing’s wrong. I just thought – I have the evening and tomorrow off, and wondered if I could invite myself to dinner? It’s a while since I was out. If you haven’t anything else on, that is?’

  ‘Delighted, old lad, any time. Pot luck, of course, but I’m sure there’s something in.’

  ‘I can get some food points . . .’

  ‘No, no need. Mrs Parkin will have something in. You know her, she’ll rustle up something. It’ll be grand to have a chin-wag, looking forward to it. See you about seven, then? Have to go now, Ken, things to do.’

  Ken replaced the handset, his melancholy mood of the morning lifted. Uncle Tucker was right. It would be grand to have a good meal and a quiet talk in front of a roaring coal fire like the ones from his childhood instead of these infernal electric heaters or, worse, the smelly coke stoves in the huts.

  He pulled the theatre list and pile of notes to him and opened the case notes of the first name on the list. There was the afternoon to get through first. The orthopaedic man was coming in from Darlington. There was a fractured tibia that had to be broken and reset for the man had lain for almost a week in the mud at the front. A man who must be fifty-years-old at least, though he swore he was only forty-five. Poor devil, he must have been in the last show. Defeat twice in a lifetime was too much for anyone.

  Ken worked away steadily, reading the notes to remind himself of each patient on the list, then he went over the bed list which Matron had prepared for the whole of the section. When he had finished he rose and took it along the corridor to her office.

  The sitting-room fire in the manager’s house in Winton Colliery did indeed roar up the chimney as Ken had known it would. He sat in an armchair opposite his uncle and stretched his legs to the blaze, feeling relaxed and cosseted for a change. There had been fish for dinner, bought in fresh that morning from Shields and queued for by Mrs Parkin at Campbell’s fish shop in the town. Bless the woman! And thank God fish wasn’t rationed too.

  ‘More whisky, Ken?’

  Tucker Cornish held out the decanter and poured some into his nephew’s glass and Ken added water from the jug on the occasional table by his side. Taking a sip, he smacked his lips in appreciation.

  ‘How did you manage to get hold of it? Single malt, isn’t it?’

  ‘Glenmorangie. I bought it in 1939. This is the last bottle, I’m afraid. Still, with any luck the war will be over soon, and things will get back to normal.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. Oh, not that the war will be over soon, at least the war with the Germans. I mean that things will get back to normal. I don’t think we will be able to afford luxuries. The country has taken a battering. It’s going to take an awful lot to get it back to normal. Wars don’t come cheap either in men or money.’

  Tucker stared into the fire, his face sombre. ‘Now we have to win the peace. We can’t let it happen again as it did after the last show; the miners and others thrown on the scrapheap. Something will have to be done, as the Prince of Wales said before the war. Not that he did anything, nor anyone else either. It took a war to do that.’

  ‘I think Labour will get in. The soldiers coming home this time won’t stand for what happened between the wars. There’ll be a revolution else.’

  The room grew quiet, both men staring into the fire as they contemplated what would happen after the fighting ended. Ken wondered if his uncle remembered the miners’ strike of ’26 and the long depression which had lasted for years after. He himself had been a small child at the time and living on a farm by the coast, but he could remember the unrest at Marsden Colliery. The poverty was all around him, the children stricken with rickets and other results of malnutrition.

  He also remembered the murder of the mine agent in Winton and the trials of Tucker’s natural father and half-brother. How Wesley Cornish, Tucker’s father had been found guilty. Ken’s mother was the daughter of Meg and Jonty Grizedale, her childhood sweetheart, Meg told him all about it when he moved to Bishop Auckland to work in the hospital. She feared he would hear it from local gossips. Jane was born after they moved away to Marsden. She had told him how Wesley
had deserted her and her two boys, Jack and Tucker, and moved in with Sally Hawkins.

  Now Tucker was the only Cornish left in Winton. Ken wondered why his uncle had not changed his name to Grizedale when his mother married Grandda Jonty, perhaps it would have been better.

  ‘No, it can’t happen again,’ Tucker said, breaking into his thoughts. Ken watched his face in the firelight. Funny, he had not noticed before that he resembled Ken’s own grandmother Meg. The same fair complexion, though Tucker’s bore the blue-marked scars which were a legacy of working in the pits; the same steady, open gaze which was fixed on himself now.

  ‘Well, lad, mebbe you should be away to your bed? You look properly done in.’

  ‘Aye. But it’s been good to talk, Uncle Tucker. Good to relax.’

  Ken got to his feet and stretched his long body, yawning hugely. ‘I’ll say goodnight then.’

  ‘Right, lad. Mrs Parkin will have put a bottle in the bed, you know which room by now.’

  ‘Thanks. See you in the morning then.’

  He left his uncle staring into the dying embers of the fire, a pensive expression on his face. It must be lonely for him now, Ken reflected, with Aunt Betty gone to her Maker and his cousins away in the army.

  Ken drove up to Marsden next morning. It was still early for he had breakfasted with his uncle on a dried-egg omelette before he left for the mine office.

  ‘Tell Mam I’ll get up as soon as I can, mebbe this Sunday,’ said Tucker. ‘Depending if there’s nothing in the pit needs my attention. I’m sorry I haven’t got there sooner, but you know how it is.’

  Indeed Ken did. His uncle had been working seven days most weeks since the war began, for with the men’s week extended to six days the safety work had to be attended to on Sundays. And the equipment down below was getting desperately old and worn; make do and mend was the order of the day. The owners were reluctant to spend good money on new equipment when the nationalisation of the mines was a prospect looming large after the war.

  ‘I’ll tell her,’ Ken promised.