The First Year

by Lucilla Andrews

  She joined me in the changing-room and unbuckled her belt quickly. ‘The first part of the night was a bit hectic,’ she admitted, as she buttoned a clean apron round her narrow waist, ‘but I’m glad we’d a quiet morning. It makes it so much easier for you to find your feet if you don’t have to hurry.

  I had only enough breath left with which to gasp, ‘Yes, Nurse,’ then we smiled spontaneously.

  Her smile ended in a yawn. ‘I believe I’m tired.’ She sounded surprised. ‘But, truthfully, Standing, it hasn’t been a bad morning at all. All acute-medical wards are heavy in the morning; far heavier than any surgical ward can ever become, as medical patients are really ill and need to have so much done for them. They don’t just need a few days’ postoperative nursing, but all the time they’re in. It makes medical nursing hectic, but far, far more satisfactory. In fact, I don’t think you can know what nursing really is until you nurse medical cases. I like working in Margaret. It’s my favourite ward here. Now I’ve got to give Sister my report. All you have left to do is take a last look round to see everything’s tidy when Sister comes in for Prayers.’

  The ward looked perfect to my sleepy eyes when Sister swept out of the duty-room ten minutes later. She stopped in the ward doorway. ‘Where’s the night junior?’ she barked.

  I moved to her side. ‘Here, Sister.’

  ‘Nurse.’ With a magnificent gesture she pointed up the ward. ‘Look at that.’

  I looked obediently, but could see nothing out of place. ‘At ‒ er ‒ what, Sister?’

  ‘There is an empty cup on the locker beside Bed No. Nineteen,’ she announced in a voice of doom, ‘so will you kindly remove it at once and remember in future that I do not allow my night juniors to leave their work unfinished!’

  ‘Yes, Sister. I’m sorry, Sister.’ I scuttled up the ward and seized the offending cup and saucer. The woman in 19 whispered anxiously, ‘Ever so sorry, duck. I tried to get your eye, but you was busy.’

  ‘That’s all right, thanks. Don’t worry,’ I murmured and shot back to the kitchen, watched by all the patients, Sister, her day staff, and Nurse Jones.

  When Sister dismissed us I apologized to Jones. ‘I’m sorry I missed that cup, Nurse.’

  She swung her cape over her shoulders and buttoned the collar. ‘Don’t worry about that, Standing. It wasn’t a serious slip. In fact, it was proof that you had the ward looking very nice. Sister Margaret couldn’t find any other fault. And if she had you’d have heard about it. Sister Margaret never lets anything by, which is another reason why I like this ward so much. You know exactly where you are with Sister. With her silence means approval. If she disapproves she says so at once. It makes Margaret a very restful ward to work in.’

  Restful, I thought as I limped to breakfast. She called Margaret restful! I was very tired, but I smiled at my porridge. The girl who had told me so much last night was sitting by me again.

  ‘Hallo, Standing. You look very bright and cheerful for a morning after. What’s the joke?’

  I told her. She smiled wearily. ‘That’s Jones all right. Sharp said nothing ever puts Jones out. The more Sister Margaret bulldozes the more placid little Jones becomes. And she’s a bright girl.’ She tapped her head. ‘Got it up there. But I expect,’ she sipped her tea, ‘a lot of it’s love.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Love,’ she repeated. ‘Her engagement ‒ future ‒ all this and heaven too sort of thing. It must make a difference to a girl; it must take the edge off things ‒ and people like Sister Margaret.’ She sighed. ‘Maybe I ought to fall in love. Then life in Henry might be bearable at night.’

  I asked what was wrong with night-life in Henry? ‘I thought it was meant to be a pleasant ward?’

  ‘It might be all right,’ she glanced round cautiously, ‘with another senior. My senior’s not a bad sort, as far as I’m concerned, and she’s quite a good nurse. No medallist but decent-certificate type. But she’s just fallen in love, and the problem there is that I’m fairly sure Sister Henry has caught on about the affair and disapproves, plus.’

  ‘But why? If it’s all right for Jones?’

  ‘Jones’s young man isn’t in Martin’s, and she doesn’t have to meet him nightly on his rounds. Also, Jones’s love-life is properly organized, tied up with pink ribbons and an engagement ring. My senior’s affair is totally different; I don’t think it’s yet anywhere near the engagement stage ‒ and, knowing the man even slightly, I’ll be very surprised if it ever progresses beyond a normal hospital affair. I don’t think he’s really serious about her. But that,’ she added ‘makes it hard for my senior, who is pretty nearly crazy about him and can’t get him out of her mind or conversation to me at night. We talk her beloved Bill non-stop at every possible occasion in the night. And, being so preoccupied, the poor girl makes mistakes in the ward, which drives Sister Henry up the wall and makes it hard for me, because I always seem to be around when Sister Henry is going up the wall and have to carry the can.’

  I was having a little difficulty in following what she said. A night-nurses’ haze had settled over my mind after one night in Margaret, but I did catch the Christian name she mentioned and, although Bill is a very common Christian name, I was curious to hear more.

  ‘What’s your senior’s name?’

  ‘Dingle.’ She looked round again. ‘She’s not down yet. She’s a nice soul ‒ when not in love. Pretty, too.’

  I said I did not know her.

  ‘That’s not surprising. My set’s only six months senior to yours, and you’re the first of your set I’ve seen. Martin’s is so huge that until you work with a person you really only meet your own set ‒ apart from nights. The night staff, being smaller, get to know each other fairly well. Incidentally, I’m Ellis. I know you’re Standing, because last night we all heard Night Sister telling Sister Dining-room that you were taking Sharp’s place.’

  I said, ‘Sister Margaret aside, I rather think I’m lucky to be doing that. I like the look of Jones.’ And, to turn the subject back to night-duty in Henry, I added, ‘And lucky she’s safely engaged to her young man. Is he a Martin’s man?’

  She nodded. ‘A G.P. now. Assistant with view. Nice man, so Dingle says. She knew him; I didn’t.’

  ‘Do lots of girls marry Martin’s men?’

  ‘About seventy-five per cent. ‒ and that’s putting it low. Maybe more. The marriage rate is terrific. Inevitable, really, since the only men we see are our own men and vice versa. None of us have any time for a social life outside the hospital.’

  I could understand that. I asked, ‘Then why shouldn’t your Dingle eventually marry her ‒ Bill, was it?’

  ‘Is it not Bill!’ she retorted sourly. ‘It’s Bill, Bill, Bill ‒ and am I sick of him! I tell you, Standing, what I don’t know about Bill Martin isn’t worth knowing. And if it weren’t for Dingle shoving him down my throat all night I’d quite like him. Know him?’

  ‘One of the new H.S.s? Yes. He was a C.O. in Cas.’

  ‘That’s the man. Didn’t you think he was rather nice?’

  I said I did not know Bill Martin very well.

  ‘Suppose not, being Cas. junior. But he’s fun, Standing, although not, I should say, fun to fall in love with. He’s quite crazy and very much a one for the girls. Also, like most crazy people, he strikes me as being fundamentally sensible, and it isn’t sensible to get yourself matrimonially tied up when you’ve just started your first house-job. I’m afraid poor Dingle is asking for a packet of trouble by falling for him.’

  ‘Because he’s got a roving eye? Or dishonourable intentions?’

  She grinned. ‘The first. He’s too bright to have the second in the hospital. Remember, we all have to go on living with each other. And there’s something else. You can probably tell me more about this than anyone, as you’ve just come off days. We’ve heard a rumour at night that he’s now running round in the daytime with one of the first-years. Know anything about that, or who it is?’

&
nbsp; ‘Oh?’ I helped myself to another roll. ‘No one’s mentioned that rumour to me. But ‒ er ‒ do housemen even notice first-years?’

  ‘Not as a rule. Unless they are already engaged ‒ the rare young widow ‒ or someone else has noticed them first. From what Dingle and the girls say, Martin is one of those men who only take note of a girl when there’s another man in the offing. Bill Martin seems to make a hobby of cutting in and cutting out. He certainly did that with Dingle. She was almost engaged to Fred Lang, one of the pathologists, when Bill appeared on the scene and swept all before him. But now he’s succeeded in getting rid of Fred Lang he seems to have lost interest in Dingle. Which makes life exceedingly difficult for me! A senior who doesn’t get on with Sister Henry is bad enough; but when on top of that the poor girl is in the process of being crossed in love it makes life grim. You can’t imagine what I’m going through,’ she ended petulantly.

  ‘Must be grim.’ I did sympathize with her as a fellow junior, but I could not help feeling even more sympathetic towards this unknown Nurse Dingle. ‘And you can’t help seeing a lot of Martin, as he’s the S.S.O.’s houseman?’

  ‘No. They are both in and out of Henry all night, particularly now that we, and not Albert, are the official overflow from Francis.’ She looked at me. ‘I suppose you’re well up in the surgeons after Francis?’

  ‘With all the firms after Cas. It was the crime in Cas. not to know who was who. You had to have the resident staff taped.’

  ‘That reminds me ‒ as you’ve come from Cas. you must know even if you were the junior ‒ is there anything in all the new talk about Sister Cas. and the S.S.O.?’

  I shrugged. ‘I honestly wouldn’t know. He did take her to the Rugger dance, and they are obviously great friends, but whether things are working up or not ‒ I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t mention that dance to me!’ She gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘How I suffered over that dance! Dingle nearly had a nervous breakdown. First she took it for granted he’d take her and badgered Night Sister into changing her nights off so that she’d be free; then he didn’t ask her for ages, and poor Dingle got glummer and glummer, and wept on my shoulder most nights; and then all was sunshine, because at the last moment he told her that of course he was taking her and hadn’t bothered to mention it, as he simply took it for granted that she’d be going with him. But talk about my nerves! I was worn to a shred calming Dingle by night and Sister Henry in the morning. Actually,’ she added sanguinely, ‘I was certain she was flapping for nothing. I knew he was going to ask her. He may be a gay lad, but I wouldn’t say he was unkind and he has got charming manners.’

  I looked at her and added mentally, And a fresh scalp, obviously. I merely repeated that I did not know Bill well.

  She gave me an arch smile. ‘Then you’ve a treat in store. He goes for blondes.’ She was fair herself, and the knowledge clearly pleased her.

  I stood up. ‘That’s too bad, because so do I.’ And then I wished I had not spoken so sharply or so thoughtlessly. Luckily, she was no longer paying attention to me; she was waving to a very pretty, very fair girl with a harassed expression who had just come into the dining-room. As soon as she caught sight of my companion the newcomer came over to our table. ‘Nurse Ellis, have you got the stock-cupboard keys?’

  Ellis stood up. ‘No, Nurse. I didn’t go to the stock-cupboard last night. But I saw them hanging in the rack in the duty-room when we went on last night.’

  The girl, who was obviously Nurse Dingle, sighed. ‘Oh, dear. I did open the stock-cupboard about midnight. I must have put them down somewhere. I’ll have to go back to Henry. Sorry to disturb your breakfast, Ellis.’

  Ellis shook her head over her fifth buttered roll. ‘That means Sister Henry up the wall again! Ah, me. Not even the fact that it’s Christmas Eve is going to make Henry a ward filled with good-will to-night. Roll on, next month, when I come off.’ She glanced up at me. ‘How does the thought of three months on nights appeal to you, Standing?’

  I said at the moment all that appealed to me was the thought of a bed. ‘I even forgot it was Christmas Eve.’

  ‘If you weren’t a junior,’ she announced cheerfully, ‘I’d say you were in love too. You look in a trance ‒ like Dingle does at night. Must be night-duty. Juniors don’t fall in love, because no one loves juniors.’

  I said I was quite happy to go to bed and eat worms. ‘I’m too tired to go out into the garden to find ’em.’

  ‘Sleep well. In case I’m not sitting by you at supper to-night ‒ Happy Christmas.’

  ‘It’s not that until to-morrow.’

  She took a sixth roll. ‘It starts at midnight. Remember? And you’ll be there to greet the dawn. Won’t that be nice for you?’

  ‘Very nice. Sleep well yourself.’

  I was very thoughtful as I crossed the park. I had heard so much about the hospital grapevine; it was hardly surprising that that grapevine was so efficient if there were many girls like Ellis around. I had never met anyone who was so chatty on first acquaintance. I did not then appreciate the part night-duty played in her chattiness; night nurses ‒ in the morning ‒ become complete extroverts. The night nurses’ breakfast is always the noisiest meal in a hospital, and that was possibly why it was the one meal over which no sister presided. Even Sister Dining-room, I had noticed this morning, had retired into her office and made no attempt to quell the talk and frequent shouts of laughter coming from the tables. Possibly extreme physical fatigue stimulates uninhibited conversation; it certainly makes you light-headed. After only one night I had merely reached the peak of tiredness; later I discovered that you pass that peak and grow beyond fatigue, and feel, not drunk, but as if you have drink taken. It is quite a pleasant sensation and must be the main reason why Night Sisters and Home Sisters have to be so adamant at chasing night nurses to their beds. Without an irate sister to insist on that, most junior night nurses would remain chatting at the breakfast-table until it was time to go on duty again.

  This morning, however, I was only surprised that Ellis should have confided so much to a total stranger; I was also surprised about Dingle; I was not at all surprised to hear that Bill had another young woman. I thought it more than likely that he had two or three. What surprised me about Dingle was that she should have taken him seriously. Surely no young woman in her right mind could believe a word that man said? Then I recollected the advantage that the possession of brothers of your own age gave you; if it had not been for Hector, Piers, and Godfrey, I might have been taken in by Bill. Particularly on that night at Bert’s. That raised an old question: why had he bothered to ask me out at all? I had no pathologist in trail; I was not even engaged to an outsider like Gus ‒ so why? I reached an answer fairly easily: I was a blonde and a young woman; Bill was the type who had to have a woman about. My second brother, Piers, was of the same calibre. Piers always had some girl with him ‒ if he was only going to post a letter.

  Then I stopped bothering about Bill, who was unimportant, and thought about Jake and how desperately important he was to me, and how I had now been removed from any possibility of coming into contact with him again on duty. I wondered when exactly he would be leaving. I wanted to know ‒ and yet did not want to know ‒ the exact date. Would I see him again before he left? Would I even know that he had gone? Sooner or later, I thought wearily as I undressed, someone will tell me. Sooner or later someone always tells you everything here; all you need is patience. I was not naturally a patient person; I decided to try to acquire patience.

  To keep my mind off Jake, I thought about the party due to take place in Cas. this afternoon. I fell asleep thinking about my penguins. When I woke some hours later the pale December afternoon sun was shining on my face. I could not go back to sleep, so I lay half-awake and watched the sun slide slowly down the sky. Soon the short afternoon was dead, and it was quite dark. The vanishing sun reminded me of something Sister P.T.S. said on our last day in the school: ‘… In your modern phraseology, you ar
e going on a one-way ticket.’ The sun would be back in the morning, but as we moved on through the hospital we seldom returned to the same ward or worked twice with the same people. I had met him and moved on. I knew that I should never forget him; I doubted if he had noticed my absence.

  Chapter Twelve

  A BUNCH OF CARNATIONS

  Margaret was full of stars that night. Large, shining golden stars hanging over every bed, down the centre of the ward and across the doorways. Bunches of holly and trails of ivy were fixed all round the walls; long green and gold streamers stretched across the ward from window to opposite window; and at the far end, hiding the wheel-chairs, was a tall slender Christmas-tree that nearly reached to the high ceiling and was bright with electric candles, coloured balls, a multitude of small red-wrapped packages, cotton-wool snow, and glittering Epsom-salt frost.

  I admired the scene from the ward doorway before going on duty. ‘It’s perfectly lovely.’