by Maggie Holt
‘And the other?’ whispered Mabel.
‘Another girl – fractured base of skull,’ muttered Violet. ‘We can’t guess what her chances are, we’ll just have to wait and see. Come away now, Mabel. It’s time you went to bed.’
She led the way out of the room. ‘I’ve got to go to check the others now, and see how the probationer’s getting on with the hourly drinks. Will you be all right?’
Mabel nodded, and Violet glided away into the main ward where the last of the daylight still persisted. At the head of the stairs Mabel hesitated, feeling that she was going to vomit. Where could she go?
The sluice-room was empty and she lurched into it, holding on to the door frame and then the edge of the wide enamel sink with its adjacent sluice, like a giant WC where excrement was flushed away and soiled sheets were sluiced before being sent to the laundry. A row of enamel potties hung on hooks, and flat enamel bedpans and urinals were lined up on a shelf, each with its covering cloth.
Mabel leaned helplessly over the sluice. In the half-light the waterhole appeared dark as if filled with blood. Her stomach began to heave and her whole frame shook as she retched again and again into the sluice, though only a trickle of hot, bitter bile came up. She heard herself sobbing spasmodically between retches as the events of the day were replayed before her inward eye. She took that walk through hell again and this time without the armour-plating: she saw and heard and touched and smelled the violation of the children’s tender flesh. Her heart and mind were exposed to the full horror of what had happened at the school in Poplar on this day, and her mind reeled back five years to that other June the thirteenth in 1912 and the scene of a murder just committed. That picture had haunted her ever since, and yet how much worse had been the wickedness committed today! Where was good to be found? Where was God?
A long, low, despairing wail broke from her.
And then, like the answer to a prayer wrung from the heart, she found she was not alone. Two strong arms slid round her waist; two large hands met across the front of her apron as her body was firmly held, pressed back against a man’s solid frame. Dr Knowles’s chin came to rest on her left shoulder and she heard his voice softly speaking in her ear.
‘For a girl who could never nurse the wounded, you’ve done wonders today.’
Limp as a rag doll, she let her head roll back and gave herself up to the sensation of being supported by his encircling arms. After such a long time of caring for others, for Harry, for so many children, she now felt her own need to be upheld – to be cherished and looked after. Just for a few moments she experienced that blessed relief before the tears began to flow.
‘Ah, now, Mabel, there, there, we’ve all seen the worst that war can do today. We’re all crying inside. I’m here, dear, I’m here for you.’
His voice was comfortingly familiar, for she had known it all her life.
‘Oh, Dr Knowles, dear Dr Knowles, yer were always there for me – for us – for poor George on that terrible day when Dad was –’
‘Ssh-ssh, my dear, I know, I know,’ he said quickly, realising that she was addressing his father rather than himself.
She turned round within his arms and wept upon his chest, oblivious of their surroundings until a probationer came in for a potty and a bedpan. The girl gave a gasp of surprise, but Knowles gave her a conspiratorial look and put a finger to his lips. When she had left the sluice, he gently released Mabel.
‘Come along, now, it’s time you got some rest. When did you last eat? Did you get any of that late supper in the dining-room?’
‘No, no, I couldn’t – I was feeling so – so sick.’
‘Yes, of course, but you need to get something in your stomach before you sleep. Come on, there’ll still be something on offer – here, give me your arm.’
And together they carefully descended the stairs and made their way to the still open dining-room where a few tired-eyed nurses sat drinking tea and eating slices of bread with cheese and pickle. He poured two cups of rather stewed tea and stirred two teaspoons of sugar into each.
‘There you are, drink that, and have something to eat if you can. We owe it to the kids to keep ourselves stoked up. God alone knows what tomorrow will bring.’
She looked up at him over the cup of tea. ‘You’re so like your father, Stephen. He was the best friend our family ever had.’
‘And he thinks the world of you, Mabel. No, don’t say any more, just eat up.’
And much as he would have liked to stay with her, he waited only until she had swallowed the tea and eaten a slice of bread and margarine.
‘Promise you’ll go straight to bed now, Nurse Court?’
‘Yes, Dr Knowles.’
‘Goodnight, then. And well done.’
Chapter Eighteen
THE MASSACRE OF the innocents, as the Poplar incident came to be called, cast a long shadow. The communal funeral was a public occasion attended by Members of Parliament and local dignitaries, and marked by unusually violent displays of grief; grown men wept openly as the flower-strewn coffins were lowered into the ground.
Likewise a sombre atmosphere hung over the East London Hospital: the medical students’ concert was never performed, and if Mabel had not been so taken up with her duties, she might have noticed a significant change in attitude towards her from some quarters. Gone were the giggles over her oft-repeated maxims and the mimicking of her accent. Dr Lamarr had lost his patronising air and Mr Thompson was almost embarrassingly deferential; lady probationers were now eager to listen to and learn from Nurse Court.
Stephen Knowles observed the change with quiet satisfaction and was glad he had not made an issue over ‘Taught by Court’; but Violet Stoke-Marriner, who missed very little, began to have suspicions about another matter, of which Nurse Court seemed to be entirely unaware.
At Falcon Terrace Mabel had to face Doris Drover’s wrathful indignation.
‘Nearly out o’ me mind with worry, I was, when he didn’t get back till gone two. Some man had taken him to the Falcon, if you please, and the poor boy didn’t know what was goin’ on, you leavin’ him like that to make his own way back.’
‘I hadn’t any choice, Mrs Drover. I knew – I just knew that I had to get back to Shadwell as soon’s I could. And if ye’d seen what I saw in that Outpatients’ Hall when I got there –’
‘Yes, Mabel, we heard from some of our brother officers who were there,’ John Drover interposed in a gentler tone. ‘It was unfortunate that Harry was – er –’
Confused by Mabel’s desertion of him, and having been brought to the Falcon by a man under the instructions of the bus driver, Harry had left the pub and had been found wandering around Clapham Junction by a neighbour who had brought him home. Mabel was very sorry, but could not apologise for her hasty return to Shadwell.
‘O’ course I can understand Mrs Drover resentin’ me,’ she told Maud Ling as they sat together on a park bench in the little Arbour Square Garden between Commercial Road and Charles Street. ‘Her heart’s been broken and she’s got to blame somebody. But oh, Maudie, yer should see the way his dear brown eyes light up when I come through the door! His dad’s got him a wheelchair from the Red Cross and I take him out in it whenever I can, but she doesn’t really like me doin’ anythin’ for him.’
‘Hah! I know all abaht trouble wiv parents,’ replied Maud grimly. ‘D’ye know, Mabel, I got a good mind to go an’ see the Redferns at Elmgrove, an’ tackle ’em ’ead on, know what I mean? Say we ain’t seen Alex since ’e came to Chu Chin Chow, and Gawd knows when we’ll see ’im again, so can’t we just pretend to be friends, for ’is sake? D’yer fink I ought to?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Maud.’ Mabel was doubtful. ‘S’pose they gave yer the cold shoulder an’ yer lost yer temper with ’em? Yer could end up worse then before.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t let Alex dahn, Mabel, no matter what they said. It’d mean such a lot if we could meet and be civil to each ovver.’ Maud spoke wistfully and Mabel decid
ed that she should be encouraged.
‘Go on, then, Maudie, write a little note first, to give ’em a chance to put yer off, and if there’s no answer, just march up to the front door and say ye’ve come to make yer peace with ’em for Alex’s sake – yes, go for it, Maudie, and the very best o’ luck!’
‘Fanks, gal, that’s what I’ll do. It’s good to ’ave a friend to talk to. Teddy’s a good ’un, but ’e’s only a boy, an’ I can’t expect ’im to know ’ow it feels.’
‘How’s Teddy gettin’ on at the – Daily Chronicle, isn’t it?’
‘Ooh, ’e’s proper puffed up wiv ’imself these days – there’s this photographer bloke ’oo lets Ted ’elp ’im when ’e goes out wiv ’is camera, takin’ pictures o’ whatever’s going on. ‘Ouses wiv their roofs blown orf an’ women policemen in uniform, faces to strike fear into the ’earts o’ men, that sort o’ thing. Ted reckons ’e’ll get ’imself a camera one o’ these days, an’ do the same.’
‘Hasn’t Teddy done well, an’ yerself, too, Maudie!’ said Mabel admiringly. ‘Ye’re a good advertisement for the Waifs an’ Strays. The more I think about it, the more I reckon that’s what I’ll do after the war – get a job in one o’ their small homes for children.’
‘Right up your street, gal. Talkin’ o’ which, I ought to shift me arse rahnd to the Midway more often, to play wiv them little kids an’ give a few bottle feeds.’
‘A very good idea,’ answered Mabel at once, thinking of Maud alone in her cramped lodgings, tempted to turn to the bottle to ease her loneliness. ‘Norah’d love to see yer.’
‘But first I’m goin’ to get meself up to St John’s Wood an’ turn the charm on Ma an’ Pa,’ said Maud, raising her chin in resolution. ‘Just you wait, gal, I’ll ’ave ’em eatin’ aht o’ me ‘and!’
‘There’s another case of diphtheria confirmed on Mary Ward today,’ said Sister Heckford and Nurse Court grimaced. Diphtheria was a killer, for there was no cure, though research was being done to develop an ‘antitoxin’ that might be given in the early stages of the disease to combat the deadly poisons produced by the diphtheria bacillus. An outbreak in a hospital had to be contained in strict isolation, and the staff of Mary Ward occupied separate quarters where they ate and slept, cut off like lepers from their colleagues and from the outside world, where the news seemed to get worse with every week that passed. July the seventh brought another big air raid over London, with fifty deaths; people were taking to the Underground stations as a refuge, and the blackout regulations were tightened.
And still the wounded continued to pour into the country. A new major offensive began on July the thirty-first and the third nightmare battle of Ypres commenced, to drag on for four months in which four miles were gained by the Allies in the advance to Passchendaele Ridge, at a cost of over three hundred thousand men. From some quarters there now arose a serious call for an end to the carnage, but still it dragged on.
There was a knock at Mabel’s door just as she was taking off her uniform. It was late and she was tired, but Nurse Stoke-Marriner wanted to see her and the gravity of her expression alerted Mabel.
‘Come in an’ sit down, Violet. What’s up? Somethin’ I’ve done?’ she asked quickly.
‘It’s to do with you, Mabel, certainly. I’m sorry it’s late, but this is the only place where we won’t be interrupted.’
‘Go on,’ said Mabel, sitting on the edge of the bed.
‘I’ve been trying to shut my eyes and ears for some time now, Mabel, but I can’t ignore it any longer,’ said Violet rather breathlessly. ‘I must speak my mind to you as a friend. Mabel, there’s talk about you in this hospital. Gossip.’
‘Gossip? About me? Why, what’re they sayin’?’ Mabel was genuinely mystified.
‘About you and Dr Knowles.’
Mabel flushed crimson. ‘Dr Knowles? What, Stephen Knowles, yer mean? But yer know that’s ridiculous – he’s married and his wife’s expectin’ a child in September!’
‘Exactly. Which is why I reprimanded two probationers who were whispering about you. You were seen in a very compromising situation in Heckford Ward sluice on the night of the Poplar bomb, just after I’d taken you to see those two girls in the side ward. I thought you’d left after that, but it seems that Nurse Railton, the first-year, went into the sluice and saw you and Dr Knowles. And you were embracing.’
Mabel gave a gasp. ‘We were not embracing! I’ll tell yer what I was doin’ – I was being sick in the sluice, throwin’ up bile an’ almost collapsin’. He heard me retchin’ and came in to support me because me legs were givin’ way. To tell yer the truth, I can hardly remember what happened, I felt so bad. What absolute nonsense, to say we were –’
‘I’m sorry, Mabel, but Nurse Railton saw him with his arms round you, and she says he put his finger to his lips to signal that she was to forget what she’d seen.’
‘So why did she go straight off an’ tell everybody? I’ll speak to her meself when I see her next, tell her she’s caused a lot o’ mischief by spreading false tales. And on such a day, too! If Stephen’s heard any o’ this stuff, I’ll never be able to look him in the face again!’
‘All right, Mabel, let’s forget about Nurse Railton. You’ve been seen walking and talking on other occasions with Dr Knowles, inside and outside the hospital, and it’s being talked about.’
‘We went to the Prospect o’ Whitby one evenin’ in May or June, I can’t remember – and what he told me there was no concern o’ yours or anybody else’s, Violet.’ Mabel was by now thoroughly incensed. ‘I’ve told yer before, I know his father well, God knows I’ve got reason to bless that dear man – an’ Stephen knows all about my poor Harry, more ‘n anybody else in this place does. He drove me all the way down to see him at the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley just before Christmas, when yer could still get petrol.’
‘Look, Mabel, I’m sorry. I apologise. I believe everything you say, I’m not questioning you, just giving you a bit of advice as a friend, to avoid these occasions of being seen alone with Dr Knowles. Gossip will do neither of you any good and as he’s a married man –’
‘To hell with gossip and nasty minds that spread it!’ retorted Mabel. ‘I’m surprised yer could think such a thing o’ me, Violet. I’d’ve thought yer knew me better!’
‘I’m sorry, Mabel.’
‘So yer should be.’
‘I hope we’re still friends.’
‘Yes, but – oh, all right, I s’pose yer meant well. But next time somebody comes tittle-tattlin’ to yer, I hope ye’ll give ’em an earful. Now, if yer don’t mind, I’m tired an’ want to get to sleep.’
‘All right, Mabel. Again, I’m very sorry. Goodnight, then.’
‘Goodnight.’
Violet Stoke-Marriner went away, blaming herself for her blundering attempt at sounding a warning. She was totally convinced of Mabel’s innocence and had been all along, but she still suspected her of naivety. Everybody saw the way that Knowles looked at the girl . . .
Violet sighed, hoping that she had at least sown a seed and that Mabel Court would have the sense to be more discreet in future.
‘Darling, darling Maudie, I’ve only got tonight – I had to come over and hold you in my arms before we fly out over the lines again. Hold me – hold me now and for ever!’
He had been waiting for her outside the stage door. She thought at first that he was a vision conjured up by the intensity of her longing; but she soon discovered that here was no dream but her own Alex, her lover returned. He looked haggard and war-weary, yet he was impatient, almost running her back to South Lambeth Road through the empty streets under a full moon. Reaching the lodging house, they tumbled headlong up the stairs. His eyes held a feverish glint as she put the key in her door and he could hardly wait for her to lock it behind them.
‘Hurry up, Maud, and get your drawers off, I have to get inside you straight away – look, here he is, ready to burst – haven’t time to get my trousers down – quick! Ah
– ah, God! Oh, Maud, Maud – come into the garden, Maud!’
‘No, it’s you comin’ into the garden, Alex – that’s it, there y’are, in yer go, darlin’ love – deep, deep, deeper – aah!’
Passion leapt, to find instant mutual satisfaction; they needed to make love again within half an hour.
‘And this time with our clothes off, Maudie – you still had your hat on when I did it first.’
‘An’ you tore straight frough me petticoat. What in God’s name ’ad yer got in yer trouser pocket – a gun?’
‘No, I keep my gun down here in front, and it’s reloaded – oh, my own dear, sweet Maudie, I could lie with it inside you all night.’
‘It’d soon go limp.’
‘Then I’d put a finger in. Two fingers.’ He rolled over to face her as they lay on the bed. ‘Christ, Maud, you wouldn’t ever go off with one of those fucking stage door johnnies, would you? One time when I’m not there to keep an eye on you?’
‘Not unless yer said yer didn’t love me any more.’
‘Why the hell would I ever say a thing like that?’
‘Yer might, after the war, Alex.’
‘Don’t talk such bullshit. God, if you only knew how much I’ve longed for this – come on, open up – wider, wider –’ He spread her legs apart, then hoisted them up and held them one on each side of his head. ‘Come on, put them up around my neck, that’s my girl – give me a clear landing!’
‘What d’yer think I am, a bleedin’ contortionist?’
‘No, no, you’re just my own precious little darling Maudie – mine, and nobody else’s – mmm! Come on, here we go again – and again –’ He groaned as he thrust into her.
‘An’ again, an’ again,’ she echoed. ‘Ouch! This is better ’n ever, Alex, better ‘n ever – aah!’
So she said, exhausted as she was, uncomfortable and sore, yet never would she have dreamed of diminishing his pleasure by a single word of protest. When at last he fell asleep, his head cradled on her right arm, his snores close to her ear, she lay awake and stared up at the patches on the ceiling shown up by the pale moonlight that filtered through the thin curtains. Her arm beneath his head became completely numb, but she would not move it.