by Maggie Holt
‘No time for chatting, nurse,’ said Sister Colledge. ‘There are a lot of daily treatments to be done before the doctors arrive – I’ll go over the basics with you and then you can ask if there’s anything you’re not sure about.’
For the next hour and a half Mabel applied dressings to boils and abscesses, cleaned discharging ears, rubbed sulphur ointment into the shaved heads of ringworm sufferers and painted fungal rashes with tincture of iodine. There were several cases of impetigo associated with head-lice and both had to be treated. Cuts, burns and scalds had to wait to be seen by a doctor, unless very slight.
When the doctors arrived at ten to take their clinic, Mabel was sent to assist Dr Dunn, a chest physician.
‘I’ve put the medical student, Mr Green, with him, Nurse Court,’ said Sister Colledge. ‘Make sure the next patient’s ready to go in as soon as the last one comes out – there are a lot to see!’
Mabel soon discovered that Dr Dunn disliked the word ‘croup’, constantly used by the mothers. ‘It can mean anything from a simple dry cough to acute bronchitis, whooping-cough or diphtheria,’ he told her and Mr Green. ‘A mild condition or a killer disease – don’t ever let me hear you using it.’
Mr Green respectfully took note, but Mabel grinned to herself, being used to doctors and their bees in their bonnets; on the whole she found Dr Dunn a caring man, if a little impatient with the mothers. He remarked that the mortality rate among children had risen since the war.
‘We do what we can for them here, and then send them back to the conditions that caused their sickness in the first place,’ he said ruefully. ‘It’s the same way that we treat our wounded servicemen, when you come to think about it.’
Between twelve and one the nurses had to take turns to go for their midday dinner; the clinics went on until the last patient had been seen at around four or five o’clock. As the hours progressed and the noise of howling children and women’s chatter continued, Sister Colledge stood like a lighthouse in a turbulent sea, calm and reassuring towards all comers, including a girl of about ten who had brought in her little brother, aged two, who had cut his head.
‘Me mum’s ill, see, so I ’ad to bring ’im in,’ she told the Sister, holding the whimpering toddler in her arms and rocking him to and fro. ‘’E’s frightened yer goin’ to take ’im in, y’see.’
‘But shouldn’t you be at school?’ asked one of the probationers.
‘I’ve ’ad to stay orf again, me mum’s pretty bad,’ said the girl, and Mabel remembered the times in her own childhood when she had missed school through having to be a ‘little mother’.
And yet she was aware of a lifting of her spirits: she was at home among these children, it was like breathing her native air. She knew with certainty that she had done the right thing in coming to Shadwell.
At one point Mr Green wrinkled his nose and remarked about the smell of some of the women and children going in and out of the consulting-room. ‘Haven’t they ever heard of washing?’ he said to Mabel in a low tone, and was taken aback by her reaction.
‘You’d smell an’ all if yer had to live in a crowded hovel with no runnin’ water for cookin’, let alone washin’,’ she snapped. ‘I know the smell o’ poverty, I trained at a Poor Law infirmary.’
He stared back in astonishment and she later overheard him saying to another student, ‘Watch your step with that staff nurse with the cockney accent; she’s one of these reforming socialist types. Or possibly a Bible thumper.’
‘Is she? I thought she was rather a peach,’ said the other young man. ‘Nice eyes.’
Sundays were a day or half-day off for outpatients staff, and at the end of her first week Mabel set out for Battersea in the afternoon, anxious to find out if Harry was better for being at home. Doris Drover received her coolly, but the Major gave her a smile and led her into the front parlour where Harry lounged on the sofa.
‘Here’s Mabel to see yer, son – ah, I thought that would cheer yer. Ye’ll stay for tea, Mabel? Mother and I’ll be goin’ up to the Citadel later on.’
Which told Mabel that she would be alone with Harry for an hour or two.
Mrs Drover made no remark when Harry reached for a packet of cigarettes which he handed to Mabel for her to take and light one for him. It was clear that compromises had been made: half a dozen cigarettes a day had a calming effect on Harry, as did the daily jug of porter, which John Drover fetched from the Falcon Arms each morning before he put on his uniform. He attended to Harry’s personal needs, encouraging him to dress and undress with the minimum of aid, feed himself and practise writing with his left hand.
Alone together, Mabel was not short of stories to tell him; the Outpatients’ Hall provided her with endless incidents to recount, and amusing things that the children had said or done.
‘L – love ag-again, M – M – Mabel,’ he murmured, reaching out to touch her. She held his head against her blouse and let him put his arm round her; after his parents had left the house she undid the buttons and let him lay his face against the soft warm flesh. How could she deny him that much?
‘Harry – oh, Harry, my love.’ She yearned over him like a mother with her child: her sick and injured child. She loved him still and always would, though she recognised that her love had changed; the war had changed everything. This harmless intimacy which meant so much to him would be their special secret for as long as the present situation continued. Meanwhile her work with the children at Shadwell satisfied to some extent the longing in her heart.
From the Midway Norah McLoughlin reported that she too had settled in well and enjoyed her work with the children there. At first she had found it difficult to deal with recalcitrant members of staff who threatened to leave and join the newly formed Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps; her youth counted against her in a position of authoriy, but she had the backing of Mrs Spearmann and by the end of her first month was much more confident. Three years of training in a Poor Law infirmary had given her knowledge of the world without affecting her natural sweetness, and young nurserymaids found that they could tell her their problems and she would listen like an older sister.
‘So ye see, it’s all worked out well,’ she said when Mabel called one evening. ‘I know I’m in the right place for the time bein’ – until Albert comes home for good an’ we can be man an’ wife together – oh, Mabel darlin’, I’m sorry – your poor dear Harry –’ She bit her lip and put her hand over Mabel’s.
‘It’s all right, Norah. If I can’t marry him, I shan’t want anybody else. And haven’t I just been tellin’ yer how much I love it at Shadwell? And to think you’re here for these poor little souls – yer know, Norah, we’ve got a lot to be thankful for.’
Letters arrived from Belhampton, with the news that young Mrs Westhouse was expecting her first child. Her husband was back in hospital and Mr Gillies had carried out a skin-graft operation on his face.
‘It sounds very uncomfortable,’ wrote Aunt Elinor, ‘and he is taking a long time to recover. It must be such a help to him, knowing of the happy event due in July. We do not see much of Alice, unfortunately, living at opposite ends of Belhampton.’
‘I cycled over to see Alice last Saturday,’ wrote Daisy. ‘She said she was feeling very tired and had to lay down to rest. Mrs Westhouse is crochering a shawl for the baby to be chrisened in. Aunt Kate has had some bad cases at Pinehurst, like poor Harry. Please give him my love, and Norah too. Have you heard from Albert. I am pleased you like the children’s hospital.’
Alice must be five or six months by now, Mabel thought, and surely feeling the strain of having to pretend to be earlier. She had not written a word to Mabel, the only person who knew her secret.
Or did anyone else suspect? Mabel could not help wondering. Neither Mrs Somerton nor Miss Chalcott had experienced childbirth, but Gerald’s mother had and, living at such close quarters, might she have her doubts? And what would happen when Alice was delivered of a full-term baby two months prematurely? Would the
little boy or girl be accepted by its alleged father and grandparents? Mabel worried about it, but could confide in no one.
The days lengthened and spring returned again to London: a sadder, shabbier London of increasing shortages both of food and fuel. The new Prime Minister, Mr Lloyd-George, praised the work being done by the women of England and exhorted the nation to press on with every kind of war effort. The newly formed Ministry of Food encouraged the growing of vegetables, especially potatoes, in gardens and allotments, but in the mean and overcrowded streets of the East End this was a poor joke. Women, some with children in their arms, would start forming queues before six o’clock in the morning for such necessities as bread, sugar and margarine, and as supplies lessened, prices rose.
No sooner had the Zeppelins vanished from the skies than a new terror appeared over the south-east coast: the twin-engined Gothas like great silver insects flying in over the Channel, soon to be followed by the four-engined Giants, dropping bombs that left a trail of destruction. Once more under attack from the air, the civilian population listened in dread for the menacing hum, the woe-woe-woe-woe-woe of the Gothas and the doom-doom-doom-doom-doom that warned of the approach of Giants.
At the beginning of April Mabel was sent to Enfield Ward, mainly surgical. Post-operative care was largely a matter of keeping the children adequately nourished and Mabel taught the probationers how to tempt capricious appetites, such as when young children had hernias repaired and were nursed flat with roller towels across their tummies, weighted down with sandbags on each side. She was adept at pretending that sweet lemonade was ginger beer, mashed potatoes with gravy was meat pie, and steamed fish was fried fish with chips. Bread and jam, that standby of the poor, was cut into fingers and dipped in milk to make it soft to munch and swallow. She slyly introduced a competitive element at mealtimes, wondering aloud who would be the first to finish.
Enfield was a lovely ward, light and airy with a handsome stained-glass window, and each cot carried an individual brass plaque with the name of the donor on it: this might be the Duchess of Portland or a prosperous manufacturing firm. When the probationers grumbled at having to polish them, Mabel told them to be grateful for such generous patrons.
‘Oh, Lord, Nurse Court, you’re not going to start lecturing us again about that Infirmary!’
Mabel knew that they mimicked her accent and and giggled over her little homilies, but she took no notice, for her only concern was for the children.
‘If ye’ve finished polishin’ them brasses, nurse, yer can give me a hand with Oliver.’
Eight-year-old Oliver was recovering from removal of a badly inflamed appendix. He had to be nursed sitting up, with a bolster under his knees, so that the pus could drain downwards. He moaned when the nurses hauled him up the bed and Nurse Court examined his dressing; the discharge was still quite heavy and foul-smelling. Opposite him was another boy, Toby, with osteomyelitis of his right leg. He had been saved from blood poisoning in the nick of time, by having his tibia bone opened and drained. A bed cradle protected the swollen limb, and Nurse Court was constantly pressing him to drink the sweet and slightly salted ‘lemonade’ that was daily prepared in the kitchen.
A junior surgeon came into the ward, smiled at the two boys and announced to the nurses that there had been a victory at Arras. ‘The Allies have captured Vimy Ridge,’ he said. ‘It sounds like a new spring offensive, especially now that the Americans have come in at last. Another big push and the balance could be tipped.’
While the others enthused, Mabel shuddered at the very mention of the terms ‘spring offensive’ and ‘big push’ with all their remembered horrors of last year, the men killed, wounded, burned, gassed and blinded – and for a moment she felt physically sick. Thank heaven she was here in a children’s hospital, away from the blood and carnage of war!
Later, as she stood at the servery in the staff dining-room, she heard two Sisters talking.
‘You must remember, Dr Knowles!’ said one. ‘Trained at the London and came here to get sick children’s experience – found his niche and started to specialise in surgery.’
‘Of course, I remember him now.’ The other nodded. ‘Lovely with the children, wasn’t he? And didn’t he marry just before he was called up? Oh, no, don’t tell me he’s –’
‘No, he’s alive but badly wounded in the thigh and might have to lose the leg, so Mr Cowell was saying. He’s in the London. Isn’t it awful?’
‘Why, Nurse Court, you’ve gone as white as a sheet,’ said the girl standing behind Mabel in the queue. ‘Is anything the matter?’
Somehow Mabel managed to conceal her shock at what she had just overheard. But she had to find out what had happened to Stephen, whether he was really likely to lose his leg. Dear God, whatever next was to happen in this horrible war?
It was a Thursday and she had an evening off. Could she walk up to the London Hospital in Whitechapel Road, no great distance, and wait around for his visitors? His parents would be seeing him and his wife would surely be at his side; she might get a chance to speak to her old GP and express her sympathy.
And yet – why should she trouble the Knowles family? It wasn’t as if Stephen was a relative, which would give her the right to enquire. No, she mustn’t intrude. She would go to see Harry instead and wait until further news of Stephen came her way.
She did not have to wait long. As soon as she got off the tram at Lavender Hill that evening, she met Mrs Lowe, the midwife who had attended her mother at Daisy’s birth, a well-known figure in Battersea and always well up with local news. She sympathised with Mabel about Harry and then asked if she’d heard about Dr Knowles’s son.
‘Only that he’s been wounded in the leg – oh, Mrs Lowe, have yer heard how he is?’
It appeared that Stephen had been struck by a piece of exploding shell that had torn into his left thigh.
‘Dr Knowles says it’ll finish him for the RAMC, Mabel, and he makes no secret that he’s thankful for it, says it’s probably saved his son’s life by gettin’ him out o’ the fightin’. And – er –’ She hesitated for a moment, then went on, ‘And seein’ as it’s you, Mabel, I’ll tell yer as one midwife to another – it means that Captain Knowles’ll be home when the child’s born, if she don’t miscarry again. Let’s hope it’s third time lucky, eh?’
‘Oh, I – I didn’t know,’ faltered Mabel.
‘Yes, must’ve been when he was on leave at Christmas, so it’s due in September. She’s havin’ to rest up, that’s why she’s stayin’ with her parents up Northants way. They don’t want to take any chances this time – well, yer can understand it, can’t yer?’
Mabel took in this unexpected news, which was after all not so surprising. Stephen and Phyllis Knowles had been reunited at Christmas and now she was expecting again. It was wonderful news, of course. Only . . .
‘Ye’ll keep that to yerself, won’t yer, Mabel? She’s just about four months and could still lose it. It’s a shame she can’t come to visit him in hospital, though – that couple’ve spent more time apart than together. Still, they’re not the only ones, are they?’
When Mabel reached Falcon Terrace she found that just about everybody in Battersea had heard about the old doctor’s son, but she instinctively felt that the less said about Stephen in front of Harry, the better. As usual their talk was of Oliver, Toby and the other children in Enfield Ward, and Harry did not mind as long as he could look at her and hold her hand; anything more was not possible with his parents looking on. She felt that Doris Drover tolerated her because she was ‘good’ for Harry and he visibly brightened in her presence; but this time she had to make an extra effort to smile and hide the new anxiety in her heart.
Maud Ling was not a pretty sight when Mabel called at the lodging house in South Lambeth Road on the following Sunday morning. Her eyes were so puffy that she could hardly open them, her hair was unkempt and her nightgown distinctly grubby.
‘What, not up yet, Maudie, on a lovely spring day?
’ Mabel chided, then drew back sharply from a whiff of sour breath.
‘Bloody ’ell, Mabel, no need to shout, me poor ’ead’s frobbin’ fit to kill. Yer wouldn’t like to put the kettle on for a cuppa, would yer?’
Mabel obliged and Maud laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. While the kettle boiled on the gas ring, Mabel went to the window and threw up the sash to let some fresh air into the room.
‘Gawd, Mabel, ’ave an ’eart, them bloody bells go frough me ’ead like ’ammers,’ Maud complained. ‘Next fing we’ll ’ave the Salvation Army raising their oompahs just under me winder – ooh, sorry, Mabel, I’d put up wiv ’em for hours on end if only poor ol’ ’Arry could blow on ’is trombone again – aargh!’ She winced as a shaft of pain stabbed her behind the eyes. ‘What I need is a drop o’ the ’air o’ the dog that bit me last night – fetch the brandy out o’ the corner cupboard, will yer?’
Mabel reluctantly peered among the tins of tea and cocoa, jars of pickle, jam and Bovril.
‘There’s no bottle here, Maudie. Yer must’ve finished it. No wonder ye’ve got a headache!’
‘I never finished it! That little bleeder must’ve took it, damn ’is eyes. Wait till I get me ’ands on ’im – ouch! ’Urry up wiv that tea, Mabel, I’m dyin’.’
‘D’yer mean Teddy?’
‘Yeah, ’oo else?’
Mabel supposed that Maud’s young brother had removed the bottle to prevent her from finishing it off. Poor Maudie, what a mess she looked, not at all the smart and cheeky girl she liked to show to the world.
‘Did yer have friends in last night, Maudie?’
‘Nah, I was on me own. Teddy must’ve come in an’ put me to bed. Sat’day night,’ she added with a shrug. ‘This is the one day I don’t ’ave to go to the featre, yer see.’
‘Look here, Maudie, this won’t do,’ said Mabel who was quite upset by the thought of the sixteen-year-old boy heaving his dead-drunk sister into bed. It was not a pleasant picture. ‘Yer know the way yer father an’ mother went, and yer don’t want to go down that road, do yer?’