by Maggie Holt
‘Yes, with her brother Teddy. But yer needn’t feel sorry for Maudie any more, Dr Knowles,’ she added with a smile, ‘’cause she’s gone on the stage! Me an’ Albert saw her at the South London Music Hall, and she was really good – and now she’s got a part in a pantomime at the Canterbury at Christmas. Trust Maudie to find her feet! And she’s walkin’ out with an officer in the Royal Flyin’ Corps!’
‘Never!’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘You know, Mabel, this war has changed the world we knew and things will never be the same again when it’s over. But I’ll never forget your courage, my dear, the way you brought your brothers and sisters through that ordeal.’
‘I shan’t forget what you did, either, Dr Knowles,’ she said very quietly.
He rose. ‘Come on, I’d better take you back to the Infirmary, or Matron Brewer will be on my track!’
Looking back, Mabel always thought it had been well worthwhile to faint in the street and renew her acquaintance with Dr Knowles. But there was still Matron to be faced the next day.
‘Well, Nurse Court, what’s all this about rushing around Battersea and falling down in the street from hunger? Do you realise that I had to bring a nurse back on duty yesterday evening to take your place on Men’s II?’
Matron looked sternly across her desk at the girl who had been a favourite of hers from the day she’d come for her interview and Mabel hung her head.
‘Dr Knowles told me that you had eaten nothing since breakfast. Why didn’t you have dinner in the dining-room before gallivanting off to Battersea?’
‘I’m sorry, Matron. I’ve got a soldier friend who’s been very ill, and –’
‘No excuses, nurse. Your duties to the sick patients here must always come first. And besides, what use will you be to this young soldier if you make yourself ill? Dr Knowles says he’s been out in Gallipoli, so thank heaven he’s safely home and has his mother to look after him. Tell me something, Nurse Court: how am I supposed to replace nurses who fall sick through not looking after themselves? Whom do I put in their place on the wards?’
Mabel looked up into a pair of searching and not unkindly eyes. Matron herself looked weary, not surprisingly, constantly struggling to maintain standards of care under increasingly difficult conditions. A girl like Nurse Court was an answer to prayer, but now it seemed that she too was chasing after a soldier and so might be lost to the profession.
‘Are you planning to marry this young man, Nurse Court?’ she asked point-blank.
Mabel was taken aback by the question, but answered clearly and directly. ‘Yes, Matron, just as soon as we can afford to. He’s a captain in the Salvation Army,’ she added with a touch of pride.
‘So you’ve given up the idea of nursing sick children, then?’
‘Er – no, Matron. I’m hoping to work in one o’ the children’s refuges in the Salvation Army when I’m – when we’re married.’
‘I see. Now listen to me very carefully, Nurse Court. You’re one of my best third-years and you’ll make an excellent nurse when you’re trained, but if you neglect your health and your studies, you’ll throw it all away, d’you hear me? If you marry before you complete your training, or fail to pass your final examination, you will not be able to call yourself a nurse.’
‘Er – yes, er – no, Matron,’ stammered Mabel uncomfortably.
‘Right. Now then. Heaven forbid that you’ll ever need to support a husband in poor health, but it seems especially important in your case that you gain your certificate, whether you nurse children or take up district or private work. Such options are not open to the unqualified, not any longer. Do I make myself clear, nurse?’
‘Yes, Matron.’
‘Good. Now I have a suggestion to make to you. I have a problem on the Maternity Ward here. The consultant obstetrician, Mr Poole, delivers a large number of women by Caesarean operation because they have deformed pelves due to rickets and can’t deliver normally. These operations are performed in the general theatre and the poor women often have to wait a long time until it’s available. Babies have been lost because of the delay. Now Mr Poole wants to do these operations on the maternity ward, in a small theatre next to the delivery room, which he has equipped at his own expense. It sounds an excellent idea, but needless to say the midwives are objecting. They don’t see the need to have theatre experience, nor do they see themselves as handmaids to the doctor, and especially not to Mr Poole, it seems. I have often found that midwives tend to be a law unto themselves and I could wish for – er –’
She checked herself from making any personal criticisms to a probationer. ‘Now, Nurse Court, you did very well in theatre and you could assist Mr Poole, as well as gaining your midwifery training, so as to qualify for the Central Midwives’ Board in addition to general nursing. You’ve done some informal midwifery at a mother and baby home before you came here, and I believe you assisted your grandmother with her district practice, so now’s your opportunity to become registered. It would be extremely useful to you. What have you to say?’
‘It sounds – er, all right, Matron. Thank yer,’ said Mabel, pleased at the thought of working with mothers and babies again.
‘Good. You’ll start on maternity next week, then. Very well, you may return to your ward.’
‘Thank yer, Matron. I – I’m very grateful.’ Mabel smiled as she rose and left the office, for she felt she could now see her way more clearly. Once qualified as a nurse and midwife in the summer of 1916 – less than a year to go – she would always be able to support her husband – and children when they came along – if Harry’s health should fail and prevent him from working. She would be an independent working woman in her own right, and when this horrible war was over she and Harry could at last begin their life together in the Salvation Army!
Poor girl, thought Sarah Brewer with a sigh. If her captain gets sent back to the fighting, he may never return and she’ll need her nursing skills to make a decent living. In which case she won’t be alone: there were going to be a great many lonely spinsters when this war was over.
Chapter Six
‘OH, NORAH, WHAT a dump, what a hole! I’ll never be able to stand it!’
Mabel was close to tears when she told her friend of the shock she had received. Any eagerness she had felt at the prospect of working with mothers and babies again had been dispelled in the first hour on the maternity ward at Booth Street.
‘That horrible woman Mrs Higgs, she’s been there for donkey’s years, back when it was a workhouse – and as far as that ward’s concerned, I reckon nothin’s changed. Matron ought to get rid of her!’
Norah listened in sympathy, knowing that Mabel had previous experience of maternity work and would not criticise without good reason.
‘At least the Rescue home was clean and me grandmother treated her mothers like human bein’s, Norah. These poor women are so downtrodden and ill-lookin’, some’ve got no teeth, one’s nearly blind and they all look as if they’ve never had a square meal in their lives – an’ that awful Higgs treats ’em like scum, shouts at ’em, tells ’em to stop makin’ that stupid noise when they’re cryin’ out in pain – she’s so cruel! And the smell o’ the place, Norah, I can’t describe it, it’s partly that horrid green soap they use for enemas, an’ a sort o’ sickly, sour pong as if they’d never had a wash. I can even smell it on my uniform – ugh!’
Mabel soon came to understand that the kind of women who were delivered in a Poor Law infirmary were either homeless or came from the sort of homes that doctors and midwives did not care to visit. The majority of them were below average intelligence and had been unlawfully used, sometimes by men who were close relatives: it was all horrifying to Mabel.
The maternity ward had ten iron beds with horsehair mattresses, five down each side of its dark-brown walls. In the middle stood a coal-fed stove with a pipe going up through the ceiling and next to the main ward was a smaller one reserved for infectious cases, mothers with puerperal fever, babies with stick
y eyes and diarrhoea, patients infested with fleas, head-lice or scabies. There was a kitchen with a flagstoned floor and a kind of office-cum-sitting-room where Mrs Higgs glowered over her knitting with a kettle always on the boil. Mabel had yet to understand Matron’s problem with the likes of Higgs: the difficulty of dislodging unsatisfactory staff from well-entrenched positions held for as long as anybody could remember.
‘So is this Mrs Higgs a Sister?’ asked Nurse McLoughlin.
‘They’re not called Sister or nurse on that ward, they’re all Mrs Somebody or other, an’ the only half decent one’s a Mrs Hayes who’s havin’ a week’s trainin’ on general theatre, so as to be able to assist Mr Poole with these Caesars. Otherwise there’s only me, which means I can’t ever get away to visit Harry –’
Mabel broke off, unwilling to tell her friend about the embarrassing scene with Mrs Drover and Mrs Swayne. She had mentioned the faint on Lavender Hill and being rescued by Dr Knowles, but not what had preceded it.
‘So I’m stuck here, Norah, an’ can’t ever get away. Even when I get time off I have to stay around to be on call for Caesars. Whatever can I do?’
Mabel’s transfer to Maternity coincided with a cold wind of disapproval directed against her from the Drovers, for of course they blamed her rather than the son they had so nearly lost. She was no longer welcome at Falcon Terrace, even if she could have got away, but the effects of this were not all bad. Harry was roused to bestir himself, to get dressed and get out of the house in spite of his mother’s protests that he would catch his death of cold. Within two days of Mabel’s hasty departure he had got on a bus and turned up at Booth Street, to Mabel’s joyful surprise.
But where could they go to talk and be together? The nurses’ hostel was absolutely out of bounds to all males of any age and the Infirmary had no private waiting-rooms; the days were growing shorter and chillier, and soon there would be fogs which could be lethal to a convalescent, however well wrapped up against the cold. With Mabel on round-the-clock ‘Caesar-call’, there seemed to be nowhere for them to be together.
Love, it has been said, will find a way. The Infirmary was constructed around a small square courtyard from which all its buildings could be accessed: the men’s and women’s wards, the maternity ward, the nurses’ hostel, the kichens and storerooms – and the boiler-room with its adjoining coalshed. A covered walkway ran round two sides of the square, meeting in the corner where the boiler-room stood, forming a sheltered angle. There were a couple of wooden bench seats where staff could sit out in warm weather and Mabel found that one of these just fitted in the doorway of the boiler-room. It gave them a reasonably comfortable seat, warmed from behind by the boiler and protected from the weather. With a blanket brought from Mabel’s bed to tuck around Harry’s legs, and with her hooded cloak over her shoulders, they could be reasonably comfortable in this makeshift nook. It was not private: they could be seen by anybody crossing the courtyard, so Mabel could be called at any time for a Caesar. There was no question of cuddling close, but they could hold hands under the blanket and talk in low voices without being overheard.
The midwives’ comments were predictable.
‘It’s a scandal, that’s what it is, a disgrace, the way that hussy sits there of an afternoon, canoodlin’ with ’er fancy man!’ declared Mrs Higgs, even redder in the face than usual.
‘I blame Matron for allowin’ it,’ sniffed an untrained assistant who kept her job by always agreeing with Mrs Higgs.
‘Huh! That one’s always bin able to twist Matron round ’er little finger, same as she gets round that Poole man – all these Caesars, it ain’t natural, an’ I don’t ‘old with it. If it ain’t meant to be born the proper way, it shouldn’t be interfered with, that’s what I say.’
Mabel was happily oblivious to this combination of ignorance and spite; and no longer having to rush between Lambeth and Battersea and miss meals, she found the arrangement more relaxing in some ways than the Drovers’ front parlour. She now heard more about Harry’s experiences of Gallipoli.
And he told her a very strange story of something that happened while he was in Malta.
‘I’ve never said a word o’ this to anybody else, Mabel, not me parents or brother officers – but I want to tell you, my love, because it makes a difference to the way I look at life now.’ He paused, turning something over in his mind. ‘Though yer may find it hard to believe.’
‘Go on, Harry, yer know yer can tell me anythin’, an’ o’ course I’ll always believe yer.’
‘It was in that hospital on Malta. They’d been standin’ round me bed, and I heard one o’ the doctors say there was nothin’ more to be done and he thought I’d be gone by mornin’.’
‘Harry!’ Mabel clutched at his hand beneath the concealing blanket.
‘They walked away, an’ soon after that I felt meself floatin’ up in the air, Mabel, out o’ me body – I could see it lyin’ there on the bed, as white an’ still as wax, along o’ the other men in their beds. Some o’ them were talkin’, but I looked – dead.’
‘Oh, Harry, did yer really? Are yer sure?’ Mabel’s first thought was that this must have been a dream.
‘And then I was outside an’ up in the night sky, the stars were all around me and I was goin’ up an’ up – it was like a tunnel, and I was travellin’ at a tremendous rate, up an’ up an’ up.’
‘Weren’t yer scared, Harry?’ Mabel’s eyes were wide.
‘No, that was just it, I wasn’t in the least bit afraid, I was as light as air, an’ there was no pain. I felt – oh, it’s hard to say, Mabel, but I know I was happy. An’ peaceful. I knew that everythin’ was all right, there was nothin’ to worry about. An’ then, I don’t know how long it was, I saw that there was a light at the end o’ the tunnel, an’ it was gettin’ nearer an’ nearer until I found meself right up close to it an’ lookin’ up into a – a – oh, it was light an’ bright an’ shinin’ like the sun, I can’t put it into words, Mabel, it was like nothin’ in this world.’ His features softened into a dreamy smile of recollection, while Mabel had an extraordinary sensation of losing him: of not being able to follow where he led.
‘What was it like, Harry? Try to tell me, please!’
‘There was happiness an’ peace, Mabel, and above all there was love. The air was full o’ love, and I saw a man standin’ there – and his face, Mabel, it was so kind an’ lovin’, and I knew him from somewhere long, long ago, more familiar than any face on earth. I just wanted to gaze an’ gaze on him. An’ ’e called me Harry an’ asked if I knew his name.’
‘D’ye mean – are yer sayin’ that this was the Lord, Harry?’ asked Mabel in a low, awestruck voice, wanting to know but aware that her words were clumsy and inappropriate for such a solemn confidence.
‘I think he was, Mabel – he was like the dearest an’ closest o’ friends, and so kind. He smiled as if he understood everythin’ I was feelin’, and then he said, “Well, Harry, here’s somebody yer know!” An’ there was me dear old grandfather Drover, standin’ there as large as life, just as when he used to take me to meetin’s as a boy – an’ play football an’ fly a kite up on the heath. I saw him an’ heard him, but I couldn’t get really close to him – he was inside an’ I was outside.’
Harry’s voice faded to silence and he paused again. Mabel waited, not speaking, hardly daring to breathe. She tightened her hold on his hand.
‘He said I couldn’t stay there, Mabel, not yet. He said I had to go back, there was work for me to do, duties to be done. It wasn’t time, he said, and I had to go back.’
Harry swallowed and his voice shook as he said, ‘And so we had to say goodbye.’
There was a very long pause, till at last Mabel broke the silence. ‘So then – yer came back.’
‘Yes, Mabel, it was a fallin’ back, fallin’ down an’ down. I saw the stars again, whirlin’ in the night sky, an’ I think I saw the earth, a great big ball hangin’ in space, beautiful it was, gettin’ nearer an’ nea
rer – and then I fell and landed in that bed in that ward, same as I’d left it, back in the pain an’ the weakness. An’ I cried. I remember I cried, Mabel.’
‘Yer cried, Harry? ’Cause ye’d come back?’
‘Yes, my love, ’cause I’d come back.’ He spoke very softly, almost inaudibly.
‘But didn’t yer want to come back? Didn’t yer want to live an’ see me again? An’ yer parents an’ Ruby an’ all yer friends in the Salvation Army?’ Mabel almost pleaded, bewildered both by the strange story and his absolute belief in it.
‘It’s very hard for me to say, Mabel. When I first realised I’d come back, o’ course I thought o’ you, an’ that I’d see yer again, an’ I was glad about that, ‘course I was. Only it changed me, Mabel, and I shan’t be afraid again. Not now that I’ve seen – and know.’
In the fading light of that November afternoon, Mabel had no reply. For him it had been no dream but reality – a true vision, as far as he could describe it. Mabel sensed that this had been something beyond human experience, and what he had shared with her was only a faint echo, a fragment of what he had seen and heard.
She glanced up into his face, which had become very pale.
‘Come on, Harry, ye’re tired, yer must get yerself home to rest,’ she said, rising quickly. ‘Do yer buttons right up to the top. Got yer scarf?’
She took his arm, and they walked out of the yard and down a passage that led to the battered wooden doors where ambulances drew up in Booth Street and stretcher cases were carried in. Her down-to-earth fussing seemed to restore their relationship to normality and she had an odd reluctance to mention the subject again, knowing it to be beyond her understanding.
Matron Brewer knew, of course, about the young couple’s meetings on the seat by the boiler-room. She knew of the complaints, the gossip about Mabel’s behaviour and the criticism of herself for tolerating it. But Captain Drover was an officer in the Salvation Army and a survivor of Gallipoli, and as she pointed out to a disapproving assistant matron, Nurse Court was far too valuable a member of staff to risk losing over a few innocent and very public meetings. Why, Mr Poole would go mad!