The First Year

by Lucilla Andrews

  As I was finishing Astor came to find me. ‘Standing, Sister wants to see you in her office.’

  My heart could not sink any further, so I did not trouble to ask Astor what I had done now. I knew only too well.

  Sister was writing at her desk. ‘All done, Nurse? Then, will you please come in and close the door? Thank you.’

  I obeyed in a trance of misery. Incompetent, chatty with housemen, not mindful of the patients. It could be any of those or all. I waited in front of the desk with my hands behind me.

  Sister began, ‘Nurse, I was talking to Sister Tutor at supper.’ And I thought ‒ this is the end. I knew what Sister Tutor thought of me; she told me each time we met at a lecture ‒ absent-minded, careless, and unpunctual. But Sister Cas. was continuing calmly, ‘And Sister Tutor tells me you illustrate your notes very nicely. Does that mean you can draw, Nurse Standing?’

  I said, ‘Draw, Sister?’

  She smiled. ‘Yes. Draw. Paint. Can you?’

  I said weakly, ‘Yes, Sister. I can, sort of.’

  Her smile broadened. ‘Then do you think, Nurse Standing, you could sort of draw me one vast Donald Duck?’

  Chapter Nine

  OPERATION CHILDREN’S PARTY

  One of us, I thought, must be mad. ‘Donald Duck, Sister?’ I echoed.

  ‘Yes, please. A big Donald and about half a dozen nephews. And I must have penguins; rows and rows of penguins. I want a frieze of penguins all round the Hall. Can you do them for me, Nurse? I’ll provide the cardboard, paper, and poster-paints, naturally.’

  I beamed with relief. ‘For your Christmas decorations, Sister? Yes, I think I can.’

  ‘Splendid.’ She looked amused. ‘We always decorate the Hall, as we have our annual children’s party here on Christmas Eve. All the local children who have come to us as patients during the year come, and they bring their brothers and sisters. We get somewhere around two hundred children attending. We make the decorations ourselves; the students help by putting them up, and the medical staff do the amusements. You’ll hear about them later. The important thing now is to get the decorations made. I was discussing this at supper when Sister Tutor mentioned your anatomical drawings, so I instantly thought you might be the very person I am most needing.’

  I was enchanted by the prospect of the party and the thought that someone thought I could do something well. I said I should love to draw penguins, Donald Ducks, and hosts of nephews.

  ‘Come with me, Nurse.’ Sister left her desk and led me to the plaster-room. She looked suddenly years younger. ‘I hoped you would be able to help, so I got everything ready for you. We always use this room on these occasions. Now’ ‒ she placed a chair at the table for me ‒ ‘settle down and see what you can produce. Don’t trouble to be too precise; draw everything much larger than life, as it will all have to hang up. I want large cartoon drawings and strong colouring. All right, Nurse?’

  ‘I think so, Sister. Thank you.’

  When I was alone I sat for several seconds staring at the clean sheets of cardboard. Now, I thought, I’ve heard everything. I’m past surprise. No matter what anyone tells me to do in future I shall be bland and calm. First I find myself running a surgical room with Bill Martin; then I find myself running it with the S.S.O. and making an utter mess of it; and then, when I think I’m being sent to Matron, I’m sent to the plaster-room to draw Donald Duck. And his nephews.

  I closed my eyes. How many nephews had Donald? And what did they ‒ he ‒ look like? I opened my eyes and reached for a pencil. Did he look like this ‒ or this? I scribbled a couple of tiny figures, and then I remembered him. I caught his furiously good-intentioned expression, his neat jacket, and irate stance. I finished Donald and began a rough sketch of one nephew; he turned into triplets. Then I recollected Sister saying she wanted at least half a dozen nephews; so I drew seven more. I was concentrating so much on the absurd little figures that I did not hear the door open or notice that anyone had come in until Sister appeared at my elbow.

  ‘Nurse, they’re perfect! You clever child.’

  She was not alone. Jake stood behind her.

  ‘Sister,’ he remarked, surveying my drawing, ‘I’m loath to say this, but Nurse is cheating horribly.’

  ‘Cheating, Mr Waring?’ She looked up at him and smiled. ‘Tell me how, please?’

  ‘Donald has only three nephews. You can’t possibly saddle the poor chap with ten.’

  Sister said, Not at all, of course she could! ‘We are going to have nearly as many nephews as penguins. I told you I wanted a frieze of penguins. And then I thought we might have a cottage ‒ Snow White’s house or something like that ‒ by the entrance. If we moved one of our portable lights into the cottage the children could look through the window and see, well’ ‒ she gestured widely ‒ ‘Nurse Standing can draw some dwarfs or pixies for us to illuminate.’

  Jake said he considered that would be most effective. ‘How are you going to build your cottage, Sister? Blankets? Or something more permanent?’

  Sister said smoothly, ‘I am hoping that the surgical side will solve that problem for me.’

  He looked at me. ‘I walked into that one, didn’t I, Nurse? The general surgeons are in for a merry week-end as bricklayers. Oh, well. Makes a change. But tell me something else, Sister. How are you introducing Father Christmas this year?’

  Sister said that was quite simple. ‘Dr Spence says as all modern children are so air-minded he has no option but to arrive in a jet.’

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘That, no doubt, makes it all so simple. Are you considering borrowing a jet from the Air Ministry?’

  He turned to me again. ‘I must tell you, Nurse, that Sister Casualty is not only capable of asking the Air Ministry for a jet aircraft for her children ‒ she is also more than capable of getting one.’

  Sister studied my ducks. ‘That’s all settled,’ she replied calmly. ‘The physicians have promised to make me a jet this week-end. We’re going to try it out with Dr Spence inside on Sunday night if all’s quiet.’

  Jake said he would look forward to the rehearsal. ‘It’s my week-end off, so I should be free to come and watch. And now how about the orthopaedic department? And the gynaecologists? You’re not letting them off?’

  ‘Good gracious, no! They’d be so hurt if I did! The orthopaedic department have been building me a miniature merry-go-round for some weeks. It’s nearly ready. It works by hand and will do for the very small children who aren’t interested in organized games. They are going to put it up outside the Almoners’ room. The gynaecologists are coping with the children at the other end of the scale; those too old for round games. We are going to have ‒’

  ‘The Big Dipper?’ suggested Jake.

  ‘No ‒ not this year.’ Her eyes laughed at him. ‘No. We are sealing off the area outside Eyes and building a small-size moon.’

  He said he was glad the moon was going to be on the small size. ‘But how about Mars, Sister? The Red Planet is an absolute must. Wouldn’t you like my house-surgeons to knock you up a replica instead of a cottage? We could shove it in the main corridor.’

  She said seriously, ‘Do we really want Mars as well as the moon? Won’t it be rather overdoing ‒’ Then she noticed his expression. ‘Mr Waring, you mustn’t mock me. If you do I’ll demand a Mars aswell as a cottage from you and your young men!’

  He laughed with her. ‘And we’d make them for you, Sister. You know that.’

  ‘I do, indeed. And I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you all.’ She drew me back into the conversation. ‘You see, Nurse, for so many of our children this is the big party of the year. They look forward to it so much, and as a good many of them come year after year until they reach the age-limit of eleven, we do try to have a host of fresh surprises every year. It makes a wonderful afternoon for all of us ‒ if a shade exhausting. But I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.’

  Jake added, ‘And I’m sure that never in Nurse’s life will she have heard a
nything to beat the noise that comes from this Hall on Christmas Eve afternoon. But we do have a good party. A very good party.’ He picked up one of my drawings. ‘And, as this is going to be the last Martin’s Casualty party for so many of us, we had better make this one worth remembering.’

  I felt suddenly cold as he said that. I looked at his face. His expression gave nothing away. Then I looked at Sister. She was glancing over his shoulder at the drawing he held. There was a faint colour in her normally pale cheeks, and the corners of her mouth were turned upward as if she was smiling to herself.

  Astor talked to me about the party as we went off duty that night. ‘S.M.O. is the traditional Father Christmas. Dr Spence looks gloriously right; as round and benign as a chubby little figure off a Christmas cake.’

  I asked the question that had occurred to me directly I heard of the party. ‘What happens to the patients on Christmas Eve?’

  ‘O.P.s take over for the afternoon. Their clinics stop at lunch-time. It’s the only time in the year that Cas. closes, and then it’s only for four hours ‒ from two till six.’

  ‘How do we get it ready if we are open for patients until two?’

  ‘At the last moment. That’s why everything has to be taped beforehand. The decorations go up ‒ generally the evening before; but the side-shows, food, etc., is all set and waiting. Then Sister gives the word and wow! Operation Children’s Party starts and Cas. is transformed. You won’t recognize the place, Standing. It all looks quite fantastic, but it’s a lot of fun. You’ll love it.’

  During the next few days Cas. and the hospital appeared superficially indifferent to Christmas. The stream of non-stop patients came into Cas., the dressing-rooms were as crowded as ever; the steady trickle of wheel-chairs and stretchers carrying new patients up to the wards never halted. But when the late evening came the atmosphere in Cas. altered, and anxious-faced young men in shirt-sleeves carrying strange lengths of wood and cardboard arrived in the office to ask Sister’s advice.

  ‘Should the merry-go-round be red, Sister? We feel it should, but wondered if you had any strong views on pastel colouring for infants?’

  ‘Red,’ said Sister firmly, ‘is essential, Mr Menzies. Children detest innovations. All the best merry-go-rounds are red.’

  Doctors Ross and Linton came in furtively, bearing between them what looked like a vast, hollow, silver-paper fish. ‘Sister, we’re worrying about our wing-span. Will this get through the front door? We’ve had to widen the body; it wouldn’t accommodate S.M.O., plus sack, as we first made it; but now we have reached the unpleasant conclusion that it’ll jam in the front door.’

  Sister admired the unfinished jet. ‘It’s going to look wonderful, doctors. And I’m sure it’ll pass through the door if we open both parts and tie them back. But how are you going to manage about smoke? It must smoke. Or can’t it?’

  They grinned and said the jet effect was on the Top Secret List. ‘We’ve roped in the senior dispenser, Sister. He’s got the answer.’

  The gynaecological registrar staggered in with a pile of space helmets. He slipped one over his head. ‘How’s this, Sister?’

  Sister summoned me from my painting. ‘You are the nearest to the present younger generation, Nurse Standing. What do you think of it? Will this satisfy an expert young space-man?’

  I had difficulty in not laughing outright at the superb spectacle of the solemn face of the registrar peering at me through the clear plastic helmet that contrasted so gloriously with his clean white coat, neat collar, and sober tie, and above all with the inevitable stethoscope that dangled from his neck. I said I thought the helmet was exactly right.

  Sister agreed. ‘How did you make it, Dr Evans?’

  He removed it gingerly. ‘Soaked old X-ray plates clean, then set them on the heads of the busts on our landing. Just the job for size and shape.’ He stacked it with the other helmets. ‘The moon’s taking shape nicely above stairs. Perhaps you’d care to step across and take a look at it to-morrow evening when you come up for the senior residents’ sherry party, Sister?’

  She thanked him warmly and said she would be delighted to inspect the moon. When he had gone Davis came in to admire the helmets. ‘I do think the men have excelled themselves this year, Sister. Really, if they gave up medicine I’m sure they’d all get work as stage decorators.’

  Sister looked up from the report she was now writing. ‘I’ve reached that conclusion every year I’ve been in the hospital. And down here I certainly do not know what we would do without them. I remember old Sister Casualty telling me when I took over that I could always rely on the men to make my party for me, no matter how busy they might be. They make the time ‒ if only in the middle of the night. And I’m afraid my cottage has been built in the small hours this time. The theatre has been unusually busy these last two days.’ She blotted her page. ‘Nurse Standing, it’s past nine, and time you were off. I don’t know what Home Sister will say to me if I let you stay any longer at my decorations. Pack up now and leave the rest for to-morrow evening. You should be able to finish them all then. Saturday evening is generally quiet; the rush does not start until Saturday night.’

  I went to see if there had been another post before going back to the Home. I found four cards for myself, looked in the ‘B’ and ‘F’ pigeon-holes for Angela and Josephine; they had two and five respectively. I stacked the lot under my apron bib and strolled out into the corridor. For once the main corridor was empty; all the juniors at this time of the night were either off duty or in Chapel. I had been excused Chapel when I asked permission to return to Cas. and paint after supper, which was why I was in no hurry. The senior nurses remained in the wards and Casualty until half-past nine every night, overlapping with the night nurses for half an hour at the end of the day, just as we all overlapped with the night staff for half an hour in the morning. The students had vanished to their lodgings and homes; the Consultants and lay-workers had all gone too; and the hospital now belonged to the resident staff and the nurses.

  As I walked down the corridor I thought, the hospital belongs to me. This is my home; this is where I belong. And then I began to think of the other nurses in other uniforms who had walked down that corridor. Martin’s had been standing for several centuries; and, although parts of the hospital had been added as time went by, the main block through which this corridor ran was part of the original building. I thought about those nuns who were the first women to nurse here. Why had they in time been replaced by the gin-swigging Sarah Gamps? I wondered what the Sarah Gamps thought of Miss Nightingale when, with ruthless courage, soap and water, a scrubbing-brush, and fresh air as her allies, she swept them from the wards. I thought of the three lines of tucks in the hem of my dress skirt, of my cape, and small muslin cap which I now found quite manageable. Miss Nightingale had designed the blue print of my uniform, and now every nurse in every training-school in the world wore some variation of her original design.

  As I walked on I passed her large stone statue. It was roughly ten feet tall and very imposing. I looked at it and smiled. Some student had decorated the statue for Christmas. A long spray of greenery was wound round the neck and over one shoulder like a scarf; a small bunch of mistletoe was fixed to one of the stone pleats of the cap; and the lamp was hidden by a vast bunch of holly. I thought Miss Nightingale would smile too if she was with me. I had read her Notes on Nursing. Those notes are full of common sense and humour.

  ‘Now, if you would only sit at her feet, Nurse Standing,’ called Bill Martin’s voice from behind me, ‘that mistletoe might serve some purpose. As it is, it’s no good to man or beast. Shockingly thoughtless lot of characters our student men must be. If I’d done her up I’d have put the holly in her cap and mistletoe in her lamp. You’re right under her lamp now.’

  I turned and smiled at him as he caught me up. ‘Hallo. You’re working late to-night.’

  He fell into step beside me. ‘What do you mean ‒ to-night? Night hasn’t started yet. This wa
s this afternoon’s session. And talking of late, love, what are you doing in the hospital after nine p.m. what time all good little pros. should be tucked up in bed swigging gallons of cocoa?’

  I said I was on my way to swig cocoa. ‘I’ve been making decorations in Cas. and got permission to stay on. It’s given me a whale of an appetite. Can’t think why, as I only had supper an hour and a half ago.’

  ‘Nervous strain, that’s what. Plays havoc with the blood-sugar ‒ and my blood-sugar is down to nil. We didn’t have time for tea ‒ the characters are taking it in the surgeons’ room now. Remember the surgeons’ room, love?’

  ‘Don’t remind me of it. Let’s just draw a decent veil.’

  He smiled. ‘The memory of old Jake tearing you off a strip too painful?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, he didn’t. He was really quite civil. It’s just that I prefer to forget the whole episode. I’m busy turning over a new leaf, Bill. The past is past. Period.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ he remarked rather oddly. ‘You don’t say.’ He glanced over his shoulder, then looked at me with a curious expression on his face. It was the expression he had worn the afternoon Jake relieved him for tea. ‘I say, Rose ‒ I’ve got an idea. You’re starving and I’m hollow, so why don’t we do something constructive about our mutual blood-sugars?’

  I shook my head. I could guess what he was about to suggest, because I knew where I was with Bill. Our house at home was always filled with young men like him. ‘If you are imagining that I am going to produce some cocoa for you the answer’s no. Juniors do not invite H.S.s to cocoa-parties.’

  ‘Who said anything about cocoa for yours truly?’ he asked plaintively. ‘I’m hungry; I want a man-size steak and I know where we can get one. How about it, Rose? You owe me this for standing me up at our Rugger Ball. Will you join me?’