A Wartime Nurse

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Nurse!’

  Theda turned her head and looked in the side ward from where the call had come. It was the Canadian – oh, what was his name now? She couldn’t think. But there was no forgetting his distinctive blue eyes, looking out from a swathe of bandages. Bandages covered his hands and forearms too, up to his elbows.

  ‘I’m not on this ward, but if you need something I can get it. Or shall I fetch one of the others?’

  His voice sounded strange, muffled by the bandages, but so much like Clark Gable’s voice in Gone with the Wind that she was half-convinced he must be putting it on, rather the way Chuck would imitate Charles Boyer or Douglas Fairbanks.

  He moved his head slightly from side to side and then winced.

  ‘Oh! I shouldn’t have done that,’ he exclaimed. ‘I forget sometimes. It’s you I want, Nurse. Come in, will you?’

  ‘Well . . . I ought to be getting back.’

  ‘Come on, the Krauts will manage without you for a few minutes, I’m sure. And if Sister kicks up a fuss refer her to me, Pilot Officer Eugene Ridley, ma’am. At your service. Or I would be if I could get out of this bed.’

  Theda went into the side ward and stood by the bed. ‘I’m Staff Nurse Wearmouth. Do you want me to get you a drink? Orange juice? Water?’ She was looking at his lips, dried and cracked and only just visible through a split in the bandages.

  ‘No, thank you. Staff Nurse, eh? Is that something special?’

  ‘It just means I’m fully trained, nothing special at all,’ she admitted.

  ‘I remember you, that night I came in, standing over me like a beautiful angel. I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven. What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Staff Nurse Wearmouth.’

  ‘No, your first name. You do have a first name?’

  ‘Theda.’ She smiled as she said it, remembering the night he had come in – how she had dreaded looking at him and how relieved she had been when she saw he was not badly disfigured with burns after all. He could talk. Oh, yes, he could talk all right. His facial muscles and his mouth could not be damaged.

  ‘Theda? Like the film star? You could be in films, you know that?’

  ‘Hmm. Do all you Canadians talk like this? Where do you expect such flattery to get you?’

  ‘I’m not Canadian, I’m an American. And it’s not flattery, it’s the truth. And I expect it to get me everywhere.’ She could have sworn that underneath the bandages he was grinning, she could hear it in his voice. And she couldn’t help laughing in return, almost as though he had made a great joke.

  ‘I’ll have to go now.’

  ‘It’s Christmas Day, Nurse – can’t you take your lunch hour and stay and eat with me? Here I am, alone in a strange land, no one to care for me in my suffering. You can’t be so hardhearted?’

  Oh, yes, thought Theda, I could cheerfully stay if I wasn’t on duty. His light-hearted banter was just what she needed to cheer her up, make her forget about last Christmas Day and how Alan had been at the gate of the nurses’ home in the evening with a forty-eight-hour pass and they had gone to the Wear View Hotel and, instead of the hospital supper of bubble and squeak from the leftovers of Christmas dinner, had eaten steak. A suspiciously fishy steak though the price had been scandalous and Alan had declared it was whale steak.

  The sudden flash of memory sliced through her like a knife. Her smile disappeared, leaving her looking stricken. She stared at the American for a second before turning blindly for the door.

  ‘What did I say? Hey, look, I’m sorry, come back . . .’

  But his voice was fading away as Theda rushed for the stairs and ran down and out of the front door and across the tarmac to the hutted section. A few yards from the gate, she slowed to a walk. What a fool she was. The guard would think something was wrong. He was watching her approach curiously.

  Stopping, she took out her handkerchief and blew her nose, composing herself before showing him her pass, which was mandatory even though he knew her well by this time.

  ‘Something wrong, Staff?’ he asked, his face showing his concern.

  ‘No, just late,’ she mumbled. ‘I think I have a cold coming on too. Just my luck when I’m off tomorrow.’ She hurried through the gate and set off down the ramp, leaving Tom gazing after her.

  The American was just being sociable. He probably flirted with all the nurses, and was probably as bad as the Italians, she told herself. For goodness’ sake, woman, pull yourself together.

  ‘Staff?’

  The voice came from right behind her. Turning, she saw Ken Collins, his Father Christmas suit changed for his usual major’s uniform, a set of case notes under his arm.

  ‘Oh, hello, sir. Merry Christmas.’ Blast it all! The last thing she needed was a telling off from him. What had she done now? He was solemn-faced, completely different from the jovial Santa Claus of the Children’s Ward.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said, automatic in his response. ‘You’re going to the ward? Good. I wanted to have a word with you. Major Koestler seems to think there was some misunderstanding between you and the men in the choir this morning. Is that right?’

  Theda’s patience snapped. ‘There was no misunderstanding, sir,’ she said tightly.

  Ken looked at her consideringly, then he nodded. ‘Oh, well, the major must have been mistaken.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Er . . . it’s your day off tomorrow, isn’t it? I wondered, would you like a lift back to Winton Colliery? I’m going anyway. Say ten o’clock at the main gate?’

  Chapter Thirteen

  I should have refused the lift, thought Theda, the bus to Winton runs every half-hour. But instead she had climbed into Major Collins’s car which had been standing discreetly down the road from the main gates of the hospital.

  ‘Good morning, Staff.’

  ‘Good morning, Doctor.’

  The greeting was stiff and formal as he pulled away into Newgate Street which was empty of people, the shops shuttered on this Boxing Day.

  ‘Was there a misunderstanding between you and Major Koestler yesterday morning?’

  Ken was manoeuvring the car around a greengrocer’s cart pulled by a sturdy dales pony with feathery legs and large brown eyes which it turned disdainfully on the car as it passed. Theda watched it as he abruptly broke the silence.

  ‘No,’ she said, and stared out of the window. The car slowed down at the lights and then turned into South Church Road.

  ‘It’s not wise to get too close to one of the prisoners, and Major Koestler is a prisoner.’

  Theda looked at him in astonishment. What was he talking about? ‘I don’t know where you get the idea that I am interested in him or any other German,’ she said with some heat.

  ‘As I came into the ward yesterday you looked to be quite close to him. He was holding your arm, in fact.’

  ‘Did you offer me a lift so that you could lecture me about Major Koestler?’

  Ken had the grace to look uncomfortable. ‘No, of course not. I was just wondering, that’s all.’

  Theda considered telling him to mind his own business. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him why she had been talking to the German doctor, though she was still angry about the other prisoners’ attitude to the disabled girls. Let him think what he liked. Though how he could think there was any romantic involvement . . .

  ‘Never mind, I’m sorry I brought it up,’ said Ken. She glanced at him. He was staring straight ahead at the road but his ears and cheeks were pink.

  ‘Yes, well, considering that only a week or two ago you were complaining that my attitude to him was unnecessarily antagonistic . . .’ she said. Luckily, by this time they were turning into the lane where the manager’s house stood, slightly set back from the road behind a wooden gate. The gate had replaced the ornate cast iron one that had been taken down at the beginning of the war and still stood waiting, leaning against the hedge, to be taken away to be melted down to make armaments.

  ‘You can let me
off here. No need to take me down to West Row,’ said Theda. ‘It’s not far to walk.’

  ‘Sure? It’s no trouble.’ But he was slowing down already and she had her hand on the door handle. As she climbed out of the car she couldn’t resist a parting shot.

  ‘There’s a war on, you know, the country can’t afford to waste petrol on unnecessary journeys.’ And as an afterthought, ‘Thanks for the ride, anyway.’

  Before he could say anything else she had the door closed and was striding away down the lane, the collar of her short, brown utility coat turned up against the bitter wind. A daft thing to do, she thought ruefully as icy shafts of sleet began needling her unprotected face and head and she began to run as soon as she was round the next bend. Arriving breathless and with her wet hair sticking to her scalp at the back door, she burst into the kitchen.

  ‘By heck, our Theda,’ commented Bea, ‘where’s your head scarf? Could you not have covered your head?’

  ‘In my bag,’ she admitted. ‘I forgot all about it.’

  Bea raised her eyes heavenwards before taking the kitchen towel from the rail under the mantelpiece and throwing it at her daughter. ‘By, for somebody who’s supposed to be clever, you can be as gormless as our Clara,’ she said. ‘Go on, dry your hair and we’ll sit down and have a cup of tea. Your da’s away to the pit, he’s working today so he can have New Year’s day off. Chuck an’ all. And Clara’s gone to Violet’s, so we have the place to ourselves for once.’

  Theda looked closely at her mother when she mentioned Clara but it was obvious that Bea still knew nothing about her pregnancy. Misgivings filled Theda as she went to the pantry to the tap and filled the kettle.

  They drank the tea which tasted slightly funny because Bea had run out of cows’ milk and was using goats’, from the nanny kept by Mr Allen, one of the neighbours, at the bottom of his garden. But the slice of Christmas cake she had saved for Theda tasted surprisingly good despite the imitation currants.

  ‘One of the doctors brought me down. He was going to his uncle’s,’ Theda volunteered.

  ‘An’ who might that be?’

  ‘Major Collins. I must have mentioned him before. His uncle is Tucker Cornish.’

  ‘The gaffer? I didn’t know he had any relatives around here.’

  The Wearmouths were relative newcomers to Winton Colliery in that they had moved there in the early-thirties. They had come from a mining village the other side of the county where Bea had known everyone and it still galled her that she didn’t know everything about everyone else in these rows.

  She listened to everything the rest of the women talked about when they were standing in the queue at the Co-op store or the fish shop. If she heard some intriguing snippet about anyone she would worry at it until she had the whole story. And, of course, she had soon found out that Tucker Cornish was related to the most notorious family who had ever inhabited Winton, Colliery or Village. But she had never managed to get all the facts.

  ‘Eeh, they were a funny family, those Cornishes,’ she said now in the strong lilting accent of her native Wheatley Hill. ‘I did hear that Sally and the lass an’ all were no better than they should be, though I don’t think Sally was Tucker’s mother.’ Bea shook her head, looking puzzled. ‘Yet they have a lad a doctor, have they? A cousin mebbe, is he?’

  ‘Mam, I said Tucker was his uncle.’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ Bea nodded but her eyes took on a faraway look and Theda knew she was wondering who would tell her about Tucker’s nephew next time she was down the Co-op.

  ‘Do you wish you could have stayed in Wheatley Hill, Mam?’ Theda asked, not for the first time, and Bea looked exasperated.

  ‘Why, what do you think, lass? I was brought up there, all me friends were there. But never mind, we’ve been fine here, haven’t we?’

  Theda nodded. For herself she liked Winton, liked being near the town too. Almost twelve years they had lived in Winton Colliery, she mused. Da had often told the tale of how his name was drawn out of the hat at Wheatley Hill when the Agent reckoned there were too many working there when demand for coal was so bad and going down. And Matt was one of the unlucky ones, even though he played the cornet in the colliery band and they had gone down to Crystal Palace in London and been placed in the brass band championships.

  Theda remembered that, and the celluloid doll Da had brought home for her, and a pink teddy bear for Clara and a blue one for Chuck.

  ‘You daft thing, Clara’s too old for a teddy bear,’ Bea had commented. But nevertheless Clara still had it, sitting on the chair by the side of the bed. The celluloid doll was long gone, Chuck having thrown it in the fire in a paddy. Theda still remembered the way it had flared up into strange green and violet flames.

  Matt and Chuck came in from fore shift at one o’clock and the family sat down to cold belly pork and chicken saved from the Christmas dinner, and potato and turnip mashed together and fried in the iron frying pan on the fire. Christmas pudding had been impossible this year and there was no rice to be had either. So Bea had made a huge milk pudding with the goats’ milk and barley and part of the sugar ration she had been saving for weeks and there was enough left over to warm up too.

  Theda’s thoughts were still running on those early days when they had come to Winton Colliery. When Chuck and Matt had had their baths and Chuck had gone out to meet his girl, she sat opposite her father by the fire. Bea was sitting back in the leatherette chair, newly bought when Matt got his rise at the pit, her apron over her head. She was having her two minutes, ‘resting her eyes’.

  ‘Tell me about how you came to Winton, Da?’ said Theda.

  ‘Eeh, lass,’ he answered, leaning forward and poking a newspaper spill through the bars of the grate to light his pipe, ‘I’ve told you many a time.’

  ‘I know. But I’ve forgotten.’

  Matt puffed at the pipe until he had it going to his satisfaction and then he sat back. ‘You know me name came out of the hat.’

  Theda nodded. ‘I was just thinking about it this morning.’

  ‘Aye. Well, there I was, four bairns still at school and no work. And we had to leave the house, it belonged to the colliery, you know, and if I didn’t work there, well . . . Anyroad, I reckoned I would get a job if I looked hard enough. I walked round the county looking an’ all. Five weeks it took but then I stayed one night with your grandma at Ferryhill and next morning I went to Chilton pit.’

  Matt fell silent. His pipe had gone out and he lit another spill and puffed away.

  ‘And you got taken on?’ Chilton pit was eight miles away from Winton.

  Matt grinned. ‘Aye. Well, I had my cornet with me, I was taking part in a concert that night. And, praise the Lord, they were short of a cornet player for the band. Only trouble was, there were no colliery houses empty in Chilton. But the pit here belonged to the same company and there were houses here, so here we came.’

  ‘But how did you get to work?’

  ‘I got a bike on a five-pound club from the Co-op. It was grand that first fortnight. But then some flaming . . .’

  ‘Matt!’ The exclamation came from under Bea’s pinny.

  ‘Aye, well. It was enough to make a saint swear. Me bike was pinched from the pithead yard. I had the eight miles to walk back and forth till the club was paid and we could afford to get another. Aye, well. At least I got transferred here at the beginning of the war.’

  Theda stared into the fire, thinking of the hard times before the war. The days when the food her mother could put on the table made today’s rations seem like an abundance. Maybe things would change after the war, who knows? If the pits were nationalised Utopia might come.

  Matt went to his bed and Bea had fallen into a proper sleep under her apron. Theda sat half-dozing herself, memories of Alan crowding in on her. There was no bitterness, just his face laughing down at her, a lock of his hair, free from Brylcreem, falling over his forehead.

  They had been to a dance at Coundon and had a great time, jitterbugg
ing to a band made up of piano and drums and the trumpet played by the cornetist from the colliery band, and it sounded funny somehow, not really like the records of Glenn Miller or Joe Loss which they heard over the wireless on the Forces network. But they had danced nevertheless, Alan swinging her off her feet and whirling her round so that she ended up a breathless heap in his arms. And afterwards they had walked the couple of miles home to Winton Colliery, one couple amongst many but spread out along the road so they were quite alone under the stars.

  Alan had pulled her gently into the shade of a tree at the entrance to the bunny banks and they had kissed, softly at first but then with increasing urgency, and he had undone the buttons of her coat and slid his hands inside and ran his fingers up and down her back, and shivers of ecstasy had engulfed her. And he had cupped her breast with one hand and the nipple had thrust out against his palm and he moaned.

  ‘Marry me, Theda,’ he had said. ‘Marry me . . .’

  She sat up with a start, disorientated. She must have fallen asleep. The feeling of happiness and love fell away from her, leaving her bereft and cold. Picking up the poker, she pushed it through the bars of the grate and stirred the fire, then raked coal down from the shelf at the back on to the red and grey embers. The fire crackled and spit and sent showers of sparks up the chimney.

  ‘Shale in the coal,’ said Bea, sitting up straight and smoothing her apron down over her hips. ‘The coal here isn’t as good as the roundies we got at Wheatley Hill, not by a long chalk.’

  ‘Are you expecting Clara back soon?’ asked Theda. The nagging worry about her sister had returned, deepening the depression she felt as the dream of Alan faded. She would have to have a real talk to her.

  ‘After tea, I expect. I don’t know what gets into those girls’ heads, I don’t really. All our Clara cares about is being away with Violet. Chasing lads, I shouldn’t wonder. I don’t know. I reckon it’s not good for them to earn so much money, that’s the trouble. It can’t be good for them.’