by Kate Eastham
The ‘baby’ of the family, she’d always been allowed to sit on her father’s knee as she brushed her hair, and as she’d sat, he’d told her made-up stories about the cows and the sheep on the farm, giving them names and all kinds of adventures. Until her mother would glance up to the clock, give him a nod, and it was time for bed. Then they would both scramble up the stairs, her and Frederick Sampson, in his stockinged feet, still smelling of the warm breath of the cows that he tended. As she sat now, alone in her small room, she missed her father. She missed him so much, it felt like a pain in her chest. And she wanted him, and only him, to know about his granddaughter. She wanted him to come and see her. But it felt like that would never happen, not now.
Hearing the baby snuffle, she leant over the crib once more, her hair falling around her face and surrounding her daughter. Leaning very close, she listened to the steady rhythm of her baby’s breathing and then she was whispering to her; vowing that she would never give her up, no matter what happened.
‘You are my daughter, Victoria,’ she murmured. ‘Mine.’
The next morning, Alice stepped gingerly out of the alley, not only alert to plain-clothes police but also on her guard in case Jamie was lurking. As she made her way to the hospital she drew in a sharp breath on a number of occasions when she caught a glimpse of a brown jacket or a man with the same way of walking. She had to give herself a stern talking to, and try to put the events of yesterday out of her mind. She couldn’t let anything get in the way of her work at the hospital, not now that she was only weeks away from completing her training.
When she arrived at the Nurses’ Home, Eddy was there again, as promised. ‘All clear,’ she shouted as soon as she saw Alice. ‘All’s well.’
Once Alice had reached her and they were both standing on the steps, Eddy said reassuringly, ‘He’s probably gone back home this time, Alice.’
‘Probably,’ said Alice, glancing around her, even as she spoke. ‘Anyway, thanks, Eddy, you get yourself off to work.’
‘I’ll see you this evening,’ shouted Eddy, instantly on the move. ‘Try not to worry.’
‘I’ll try,’ murmured Alice to herself, as she turned to go up the steps. Then, remembering that she needed to get herself a new cap from the laundress, she swore under her breath and ran in through the door. Grabbing the squashed remains of her cap off the shelf, she set off running, but then had to run back to leave her cape and hat on the hook.
‘Oh God,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘As if I’m not in enough trouble with Sister Law as it is, without being late.’
Grabbing the squashed cap again, she ran to the laundry, where she hoped she would find the laundress ready and waiting to meet her requirements. As she approached, she could see steam pouring out through the door. Once inside she made out the shape of a huge mangle in the corner and there were baskets of laundry stacked up. But there seemed to be no sign of a laundress.
‘Hello, hello,’ she called, starting to feel a bit desperate.
‘Hello there,’ said a tall, broad-shouldered figure stepping out from the fug of steam. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Alice. ‘I had an accident with my cap yesterday and I need another one urgently.’
‘You wait there, young lady,’ said the woman, her sleeves rolled up to the elbow. ‘We’ll soon have you sorted.’
Alice handed over the cap. ‘This is a very sorry-looking object,’ said the laundress, putting it aside and already taking a hot iron to press a new one. ‘You must be the nurse who had some trouble on Male Surgical yesterday – is it Nurse Sampson?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Alice, amazed, as always, how news travelled around the hospital.
‘Well, there you go, Nurse Sampson,’ said the laundress, expertly folding the new cap. ‘And if he comes back to bother you today or any other day for that matter, you send for me. I’m Dolly. I’ll sort him out.’
‘Thank you,’ said Alice, grinning at the huge woman who stood before her and remembering that Miss Merryweather had told her that the new laundress had served in the Crimean War with Miss Houston.
Alice ran from the laundry and down the corridor to the ward. Arriving with seconds to spare, she joined the group of nurses already standing at the top of the ward with Sister Law. She’d been seen arriving late, she knew she had, but there was nothing she could do.
‘A word,’ said Sister Law, after she had allocated the morning duties.
Here we go, thought Alice, bracing herself as Sister Law puffed out her chest and pulled her shoulders square.
‘Yesterday was an absolute disgrace, Nurse Sampson.’
‘I know,’ said Alice, her head bowed. ‘And I’m so sorry.’
‘Typical of a member of the opposite sex,’ said Sister. ‘Throwing their weight about, thinking they know best. I will not have that on my ward.’
Alice looked up and Sister leant forward, her eyes shining. ‘If he comes on my ward to cause trouble for you again, Nurse Sampson, he will have me to answer to. I didn’t know the full story yesterday, but Mr Knox and Mr Delaney were able to furnish me with a little detail and I now have a clearer understanding of your situation. I will not have any young woman bullied or abused on my ward. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Sister,’ said Alice.
‘Now, get on with the work, Nurse Sampson. Let’s get these patients sorted out.’
Alice went straight over to Tommy’s bed. Sister had told them all during her report that Sister Tweedy had had some increased concern for him overnight. The wound was oozing even more, and he was still in a great deal of pain.
She stood by the side of his bed and spoke to him gently, but he was sleeping very soundly after a double dose of laudanum. She would make sure that she was around when Mr Jones came to review the patients. She needed to know more about Tommy’s situation.
Mr Swain, on the other hand, was sitting up in bed, looking quite chipper.
‘That pain doesn’t seem to have come back with the same intensity after that injection. I just needed some laudanum drops this morning. Sister is very pleased with everything and she said that you will be doing the dressing for me again today, Nurse Sampson. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Alice, looking forward to managing the whole thing by herself this time.
She made sure that she collected all the materials for the dressing and that the rubber sheet was in place to protect the bed linen before she started.
‘Now, as I’m on my own today, Mr Swain, please could you hold on to your leg for me, support it whilst I get the iodine soaks in place? Yes, like that. That will do nicely. Thank you.’
Alice couldn’t help but notice the long scar down her patient’s arm, cutting through an unusual tattoo – it looked like a black swan.
‘That’s my war wound,’ he said, noticing her interest. ‘Well, that and the leg. I got this one, on the arm, first. We were fighting hand to hand and I slipped, couldn’t hold my ground. My opponent was quick, he came at me with his bayonet. I thought I was dead, but I managed to push him off and, well … Anyway, I didn’t notice that he’d ripped clean through the sleeve of my tunic. And not until I saw the blood dripping from my hand did I realize that he’d sliced me, right down the arm. Once I saw that, my legs went a bit weak and the men had to drag me back to safety.’
‘Did you go to one of the military hospitals?’ asked Alice, as she soaked some more gauze in iodine.
‘They stitched me up in the field hospital, then they shipped me down to Scutari, packed on to a ship with hundreds of others. That’s when I met Miss Nightingale for the first time.’
‘Did you?’ said Alice, her eyes wide.
‘I did, she came to meet all the new men coming in on stretchers. She had a look at the arm and gave some instructions and that was it. I didn’t see her again till I was hit in the leg.’
‘So, how did that happen? I thought that Scutari was hundreds of miles away from the front line.�
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‘Oh, yes, it was. But they sent me back up there, to the front line, when the arm was healed … and – that’s – when – I got hit by a shell … Sorry, Nurse, that bit’s more painful than the rest.’
‘Bear with me one moment, Mr Swain. Last bit, then we’ll get the bandage round. You rest back now, just keep your leg bent like that. That will do … So what happened then, with the leg?’
‘I was unlucky. We were days away from the fall of Sevastopol, sitting it out in the trenches, waiting for the Russians to start retreating. But there was a lot of shelling in those last few days. We were bombarded. A shell came; my mate, right next to me, he was hit full in the face, he died instantly … And I got caught. The leg was wrecked, well, you can see the extent of it. They almost amputated it there and then. But there was a surgeon, a Dr Lampeter, and he made the decision to salvage it. I only met him briefly. He was a man of few words and he looked like he could be a bad-tempered bugger. But whatever he did that day, it made all the difference.’
Dr Lampeter, thought Alice, I’m sure that’s the one that Miss Houston told me about.
‘Anyway, they shipped me back to Scutari again. And I got really sick that time, burning up with fever. I thought I was going to die. They carried me through on a stretcher, and another surgeon was straight there. I can’t remember much about it, but he seemed very keen to chop the thing off. And by that time, I didn’t really care. They could have put me to sleep for good, there and then, for all I cared. But Miss Nightingale appeared beside me; she seemed like an angel with her calm voice and the attention that she gave me. They put the stretcher down on the ground and she knelt down beside me. Even though I was barely with it, I’ll never forget her face. She inspected the leg and told me that the nurses would clean up the wound and then they would dress it daily and see how it went. The doc was not happy, not one bit. There seemed to be some kind of argument going on, above my head. But that woman, she stood her ground. She saved my leg, did Miss Nightingale.’
Alice felt tears welling in her eyes, as he came to the end of the story. ‘That’s incredible, Mr Swain,’ she said, wiping her eyes as she turned away from his bed to collect the enamel bowl stained by iodine. ‘You should write a book about it.’
‘I might just do that, Nurse Sampson,’ he said. ‘And I’ll give you and Sister Law a mention for saving the bloody thing, yet again.’
‘Well, it’s down to you as well, you know,’ she said. ‘And you’re doing very well this time, Mr Swain. We hope to see you discharged very soon.’
‘That’s good to hear, Nurse Sampson … Shame about Tommy, though,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the opposite bed. ‘He’s had a terrible night.’
Just how terrible the situation was for Tommy, Alice was unaware of until Mr Jones pulled them aside for a private discussion before the ward round. Sister had selected her and Millicent to accompany them, plus the new medical student, Mr Stafford.
‘What do you think about Mr Knox, Sister?’ said Mr Jones quietly, gazing down the ward towards Tommy’s bed.
‘Well, sadly, there is still no sign of the wound healing, his pain is unmanageable at times, and his chest sounds a bit rattly. He seems to definitely be presenting as someone with cancer that has moved to distant sites. The tumour on his chest wall was very large.’
‘I’m afraid that you are right, Sister. I have a result back from my colleague with the microscope. Sadly, the tumour did contain cancer cells. We could start local treatment with arsenic, but I think we will be far too late to make any difference. And it is probably not worth causing toxicity. Sadly, I don’t think there is any possibility of cure …’ said Mr Jones, his voice sombre. ‘Only a post-mortem can establish the fact, but I think he almost certainly has cancer in the chest cavity.’
Alice felt her whole body shudder.
‘Are you sure, Mr Jones? Is there no chance that he might recover?’ she asked, tears starting to well in her eyes.
‘No real chance,’ said Mr Jones, and Sister was also shaking her head.
‘Surely this is all part of the work, Nurse,’ said Mr Stafford, almost tutting. ‘Is that not so, Mr Jones?’
Mr Jones turned on his heel to face his medical student. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said, ‘this may well be all part of the work, but this is a man’s life we are talking about here. Nurse Sampson has every right to feel concern for her patient.’
Alice didn’t care about Mr Stafford or his pompous opinions; all she wanted was for someone to say that Tommy was going to pull through. But it seemed there was absolutely no hope of that.
After the ward round, she went back to Tommy’s bed. Mr Jones had answered his questions in the best way he could. He’d told him that they thought it was the cancer, that things wouldn’t get better. Alice didn’t know if she wanted to talk to him about his condition or not, she thought it might just make her cry. But she wouldn’t avoid him, that was for sure. So there she stood, by his bed.
‘Well, Nurse Sampson,’ he said. ‘This is a bit of a mess, isn’t it? There’s me thinking I might be getting out of here and there’s Mr Jones looking at me with his sorry face and more or less telling me I won’t get better.’
‘I’m sorry, Tommy,’ said Alice.
He reached out to take her hand. ‘I still can’t believe that when my ship heads back out to the ocean, I won’t be sailing on her. I won’t be sailing ever again. I’ve got a different voyage to be going on, if you know what I mean.’
Alice could feel the tears brimming in her eyes, but she took a deep breath and stood her ground, right by her patient. If she started weeping it wouldn’t do him any good; he’d just be comforting her, and he might not want to talk to her again for fear of upsetting her.
‘Is there anything you need to do, Tommy, anybody you need to see or make your peace with?’
‘Well, I want to see my mate, Davy, again. We’ve sailed together many a year, and I’d like to spend some time with him, talk over the old days. He’s as close to me as any family. He’s been in a couple of times and he’ll definitely be here before the ship leaves. Apart from Davy, there is nobody else.’
Alice stayed put, as Tommy gazed into space, seeming miles away. ‘The worst of it is not going with them when they set sail … and it’s strange, when the doc started to tell me the news, I drifted out of meself somehow. I was standing on the deck of a clipper ship, somewhere off the coast of Australia, and the lads were all around me. And I could hear his words but all I could feel was the darkening of the sky, like when you know a storm’s coming. It felt like, once, when we were out on the ocean, we saw the world go dark, in the middle of the afternoon. Everything stopped and the world was black as night for the best part of five minutes. All we could see of the sun was a ring of fire, around where it had been. I can hardly describe the feeling of dread, and the silence that fell. The captain told us we’d witnessed an eclipse of the sun, but to us lads on deck, it felt like a glimpse of the end of the world …’
And then Tommy started to cry, silent tears at first and then sobs wracking his body. Alice had no idea what to say; there were no words. She stood by his bed and held his hand, tight. Her heart felt like it was breaking for him. She saw Sister Law pass quietly by the bottom of the bed, giving Alice a nod of approval and then carrying on her way. Alice knew that even if she had been ordered to another duty, she could not have moved from that spot at Tommy’s bedside.
Eventually, he stopped sobbing and she could see him starting to look around the ward. Alice pulled out a clean handkerchief and offered it to him.
‘Thank you, Nurse Sampson,’ he said, ‘you are the finest nurse in all of the world.’
‘And you are the finest patient,’ she said, not knowing what else to say. ‘You get some rest now, Mr Knox, and if there is anything at all that you want or that I can do for you, just let me know.’
‘Aye aye, Captain,’ he said, still dabbing at his eyes with her handkerchief.
Leaving the ward t
hat evening, Alice felt drained of everything, and almost forgot to follow Eddy’s instruction and check that Jamie wasn’t lurking. She hadn’t the energy to run. Just as she stepped outside she heard someone calling her name, and looked around to see the Reverend Seed trotting after her.
‘Nurse Sampson, Nurse Sampson,’ he said, a little out of breath. ‘I just wanted to remind you of the probationer nurses’ tea tomorrow. I wondered if you will be able to attend?’
‘I’m so sorry, but I have an afternoon off, and I have some business to attend to,’ Alice said, not able to tell him that all she really wanted to do was spend time with her daughter.
She saw how disappointed he looked; he couldn’t hide it.
‘I trust you are fully recovered from the incident on the ward?’
‘Yes, I am. And thank you so much for stepping in like that,’ she said, surprised to be feeling a little sorry that she wouldn’t be able to attend the tea that he’d arranged. After he’d intervened to save her from Jamie, she’d started to develop a new respect for him.
‘Was that young man … was he someone that you have an understanding with …?’
‘No, nothing like that, not now …’ She was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the direction of his questioning. ‘Sorry, Reverend, I do need to go. I have a friend waiting for me, please excuse me.’
‘Yes, of course, Nurse Sampson,’ he said, giving a small bow and then turning to trot back to the hospital.
Alice sighed. It all seemed too much for her. She just wanted to be left alone, for ever.
Walking on a little further, she could see Eddy standing outside the Nurses’ Home. She was so happy to see her.
‘All clear,’ shouted Eddy.
Alice couldn’t help but smile. Eddy never could keep under cover or do anything quietly.
She started heading towards her but was startled by a movement.
‘I see you’ve had a good day,’ said Roderick Morgan, stepping out from nowhere, right in front of her.