Surprise helped me recover my powers of speech. ‘I ‒ disliked you?’
He nodded. ‘You probably don’t recall an occasion outside Eyes, but I certainly do. You were remarking loudly to some friend what little interest you felt in whom I took to the Rugger Ball.’ He ground his cigarette on to the concrete round the seat and lit a fresh one. ‘There’s a touch of irony about that. I only bought those tickets in the hope that I might somehow manage to get a dance with you.’
‘But how could you know I was going? Bill hadn’t asked me when you bought those tickets.’
He said suddenly, ‘Oh, God. We shouldn’t smoke here. I forgot that.’ He stubbed out his new cigarette, then turned to me. ‘How did I know ‒ or think I knew? Because I know Martin tolerably well. I knew he was running that show, and I was pretty certain by the way he was behaving with you that he would suggest you break with precedent and go with him. Martin has made a hobby of breaking with precedent; he doesn’t do it so much now he’s qualified. He’s learning fast. He’s an intelligent, if very adolescent, youth.’
I said, ‘That’s exactly what Hector would have said.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Hector?’
‘My eldest brother.’ I told him about the boys. ‘Bill Martin has tested all Hector’s theories for me.’
He smiled. ‘So that’s where you picked up your wisdom. I wondered about that. I couldn’t help overhearing what he said to you that night in Bert’s; I heard your replies too. You seemed to me to be quite unimpressed by him, and I wondered why. He’s pretty successful with women as a rule. But when you got outside, then I did get rather disturbed. You looked so very young, Rose. It’s so easy to be taken in when you are very young; and you can get hurt.’
‘Was that why you looked anxious?’
‘You noticed that? I didn’t think you had. Yes, it was. I was suddenly afraid that you might take him seriously. He’s not a bad lad, but ‒’
I said, ‘Labelled “not to be taken seriously.” I did see that. I don’t believe anyone should take Bill seriously for at least another ten years.’
He looked amused. ‘I haven’t any sisters. I rather wish I had. They might have saved me as many growing pains at your age as your brothers have you. Did Martin send you those carnations?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought they were from him. I saw you guessed that too. You looked as displeased with those damned flowers as I felt. Why did he send them? Still persevering with his attempts to impress you?’
‘Partly.’ I hesitated. ‘Partly because of ‒ that night in Cas.’
‘I’ve been wondering about that, too,’ he said evenly. ‘You shouldn’t have let him kiss you, of course; but now that’s all past may I ask, did you know he was going to?’
‘I should have guessed, but I didn’t. I was annoyed with him about something, and I walked straight into that one. I really am sorry about it. It upset me a lot. Thank you for not reporting me.’
‘It upset me too; in more ways than one. But did you seriously imagine I’d report you?’
I could not pretend to him. I told him the truth.
He said he did not blame me for being uncertain about what he would do. ‘I was very angry ‒ and not just because you were you. But, for the record, Rose, I wouldn’t have reported any other girl. I don’t care to report people. I prefer to deal with things myself. But I do not seem to have dealt with all this conspicuously well. I have talked a great deal, and you’ve been very patient in listening, but now it’s time I took you back to have your lunch. If we delay much longer poor Bert’ll possibly have nervous hysteria about his ruined grills. And in any event,’ he added slowly, ‘there really isn’t anything else to be said. Thank you for not laughing. I appreciate that there must be some humour in my present situation, although at the moment it escapes me. Doubtless I’ll see the joke later.’
‘Joke?’ I asked sharply. ‘What joke?’
He put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. ‘You’re twenty and I’m thirty-six. You’re a girl starting your career, and I’m at the end of one career and the start of another. A career not open to very young men; and we are going to be working a couple of hundred miles apart. Just for to-day we’re together. And here I am, late S.S.O. at Martin’s, telling a first-year pro. I’ve only called by her Christian name this morning that I love her, that I love her very much, and that I would give just about everything I possess to have her as my wife. There’s no denying that it’s a good story, Rose; it’s a damned good story. It’ll rock the Nurses’ Homes and residents’ sitting-rooms. Don’t you agree?’
He looked so utterly defeated and tired as he spoke that the last vestige of reserve vanished from me. I only knew that I wanted to help him. And now that I knew that I could I did not bother about incredulity or wonder; I was going to help him, and nothing and nobody was going to stop me.
I said, ‘The hospital is going to do without its good laugh.’
‘Thank you.’ He stood up. ‘I did not really think you would rush back and give the news. I was talking academically. Now, come along; I’m sure you’re very hungry.’ He walked a few feet from me and stood with his back to me, looking across the lock. ‘I’m sorry to have delayed you so long.’
I watched his back and remembered another saying of Hector’s: ‘… and when a chap’s serious he makes mistakes all the way along the line because he’s so anxious not to do the wrong thing.’ Only a lunatic or a lover, I thought, could suggest that a woman would want to eat after having an honest proposal of marriage.
I closed my eyes, thought hard, opened them again. For once, nothing disastrous happened. Jake was still there with his back to me, watching the lock. I said quietly, ‘Jake, sit down.’
He turned slowly and stared at me. ‘What did you say?’
I repeated myself.
He sat down heavily. ‘That’s what I thought you said.’ He looked at me as if he had never seen me before.
I took a deep breath; not because I was breathless, but because I had a lot to say. ‘You talked to me, but you haven’t asked if I want to talk to you.’
‘My dear girl, I do try to avoid asking obvious questions. Why should you want to talk to me? You’ve been very sweet and kind and considerate, but what could you tell me that I do not already know? Apart from the pleasant fact that you don’t dislike me as much as I thought, I don’t expect you to tell me more; you and I have scarcely met, and when we have I have either lectured you or picked you off the floor. You will,’ he said gently, ‘have to be more careful how you go on in future, Rose. I won’t be on hand any longer. But, oh, my dearest,’ he said suddenly, ‘how I wish I could always be there ‒ for you.’
‘Then I think you’ll have to do something about it, Jake. I don’t see how I can go on at Martin’s without you. I just can’t.’
He looked at me now as no man had looked at me in my life. ‘Say that again.’
I said it again.
‘But ‒ this is ridiculous. We’ve ‒ just met. You don’t know me ‒ you can’t ‒ be in love with me?’
‘Why not? If you can be in love with me?’
He stared at me as if I had gone quite mad, then a smile that started in his eyes illuminated his whole face. ‘Suppose, my darling,’ he murmured, ‘you ‒ er ‒ tell me all about it?’ And so I told him.
It took quite a long time. When I had finished he said, ‘I don’t understand any of this, Rose, but I believe you. I always will.’ And then there was no more talk, and I was in his arms and he was kissing me, and if any of the dockers noticed us neither Jake nor I cared at all.
After some time he raised his head. ‘Where do you come from, Rose? Have you got parents or must I face Hector?’
‘Not Hector.’ I rested my head on his shoulder and thought how right and proper it felt for me to rest my head there. ‘My parents live in Hampshire.’
‘We’ll drive down there this evening, then I’ll bring you back in the morning.’ He rub
bed his cheek against mine. ‘I told you there wasn’t much time. Do you think they’ll let you get engaged? Or will they say you are too young?’ His voice altered as he said that. I tilted back my head and saw he was frowning.
I said I thought my parents would give three loud cheers. ‘They never could manage me. Mother said she thought the hospital would subdue me into a normally well-behaved young woman; father said I was far more likely to subdue the hospital.’
He smiled. ‘Then perhaps they’ll be on my side.’ He stroked my hair. ‘There’s one thing, dearest. Will you mind leaving Martin’s after only one year?’
I thought it over; not for long. ‘No. It’s been fun and shattering. I may miss it a bit, but I can bear to miss it. I can’t bear to miss you.’ And he kissed me again.
We sat on, watching the lock that was now filling again. It was very cold, but we were impervious to cold, Bert, the immediate future when we would have to go our separate ways, the prospect of springing our engagement on my parents, the life in the docks around us. But the docks had not forgotten us. While Jake was telling me exactly what had been in his thoughts as he held my head over my knees that afternoon in the surgeons’ room we heard a shout behind us. We turned and saw a man running towards us across the railway lines. ‘Hey ‒ mister!’ he shouted. ‘You a doctor?’
Jake disengaged his hand from mine and stood up. ‘Yes. Why? Someone hurt?’
The man came closer. ‘That’s right, mate. Bloke’s just been knocked down by a lorry in the road outside that there gate. The cop said to see if you was handy. He’s rung for an ambulance, but he said if the tall fair bloke with the fair young lady was still around to get ‒’
He did not go on, as Jake had given me his hat and said, ‘Hang on to that, darling ‒ right! By the gate?’ and was already half-way over the railway lines.
The man walked with me to the gate. ‘Cor ‒ can’t that tall bloke move!’ He gave Jake’s retreating figure an appreciative nod. ‘Reckon you got to be able to move smartish in his trade.’ He touched his cap to me. ‘Sorry I had to interrupt you and your husband, ma’am. I’ll be getting along now.’ He strolled away towards one of the loading sheds.
There was a small crowd on the far pavement. Jake was kneeling beside a crumpled figure in the road. The policeman saw me and told the crowd, who were nowhere near me, to stand back. ‘Let the lady through. She’s a nurse.’
The ambulance arrived as I reached Jake’s side. He glanced up. ‘They’ve come? Good. Sooner he gets into Martin’s the better.’
I knelt down beside him. ‘Anything I can do?’
‘Not a thing. He’s got a fractured base. I can feel it. Only superficial wound, but it’s right in. He needs hospitalization ‒ stat.’
I nodded and stood up, then moved back out of the way as the careful ambulance men lifted the unconscious man into the back of the ambulance. They recognized Jake. ‘You coming along with us, Mr Waring?’
‘Yes.’ He jumped into the ambulance, looked round, and beckoned to me. ‘Rose.’
I went to him.
‘I’m not sure how long I’ll be; not very long. Will you wait for me in Bert’s?’
I looked up at him. ‘I’ll wait for you,’ and for that brief moment he and I were alone in a private world. Then he closed the white doors in my face, and the ambulance moved off.
The policeman touched my arm lightly. ‘Best get out of the road, miss.’
‘Yes, of course. Thank you.’ I walked to the pavement with him.
On the pavement he stopped and surveyed the road which was now filled with traffic again. ‘Lucky the doctor was handy. Good when you can catch a chap on the spot. But bad luck for the doctor and him being on his holiday. ’Fraid he didn’t get much of a chance to show you round much.’ He took off his helmet, mopped his forehead and replaced his helmet again. ‘Doctors ‒ I dunno. Seems as if that’s one job in which you can’t ever be properly off, as you might say. Always someone needing you. But I reckon as you understand that, Miss, seeing as you’re a nurse.’
I said, ‘Yes, I do understand.’ We exchanged matey goodbyes, and I walked alone back to Bert’s. I walked slowly, thinking of the accident; of what was about to happen in Cas.; of the hospital; and above all about Jake and this fantastic and wonderful morning. I thought of what had been my first, and was going to be my last, year as a nurse; of the friends and the work and the laughter and occasional tears. I thought of Bill’s uncanny perceptiveness and Jake’s concern that I should not be hurt by Bill. And then I stopped thinking of anyone and anything but Jake: the man he was and the work did and was going to do in the future, and how when that was done he would come home to me.
I sailed into Bert’s and smiled and smiled at his woebegone expression. ‘You’re not going to tell me, miss, as Mr Waring isn’t coming for his dinner after all?’
I said, ‘He’s been held up by an accident, Bert. He’s back at the hospital. Don’t worry; he’ll come as soon as he can. And until then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to wait.’
One Night in London by Lucilla Andrews
If you enjoyed The First Year, you will also want to read One Night in London by Lucilla Andrews. This moving and gripping novel recounts one night in a busy London teaching hospital during the Second World War, as bombs and rockets rain down on the city.
Chapter One
The Thames was the colour of blood that night. Venous blood, Nurse Carter registered absently, and emptied her bucket of wet sheets into the damp-laundry bin on the ward balcony. On the opposite embankment the uneven frieze of jagged black shadows and the great gaps that even in the blackout stood out like missing teeth, were splashed with pink, and the face Big Ben turned to the river had a rosy glow. The colour came from the arclights of the rescue squads digging for the people buried by a V2 rocket sometime that afternoon. The diggers had to work slowly. No one knew for sure exactly where all the bodies were or how many of the bodies were still alive.
Nurse Carter glanced at the lights across the river, then turned her head and didn’t look back. She was now twenty-two and before she had been out of her teens she had learnt that she needed both physical and mental effort when she wanted to suspend thought and imagination. Earlier in the war she had only managed to practise this technique consciously, but as the war dragged on and particularly after the last two months, it had become one of her conditioned reflexes. It was two months to the night since she had been transferred from the sprawling conglomeration of Nissen huts sixty miles from London that was the evacuated home of her parent hospital, to work in what remained of St Martha’s Hospital, London. During that time, though fewer V1 flying bombs were reaching London, the V2 rocket attacks had started. Very occasionally she wondered what the V3s would be like, but never for more than a few seconds as that involved thinking of the future. By that night in October 1944 she had long learnt never to think of the future. Today was enough, unless one happened to be a night nurse, and if so, tonight.
She had to go back into the ward, but paused before opening the heavily-battened balcony doors and gulped in the clean cold night air, like a swimmer about to dive under water. Once inside, with the doors quickly closed behind her, she wondered once again how Wally’s patients endured, slept, and more often than not survived in the ward air.
Walter Walters Ward, named after a dead and otherwise forgotten Martha’s physician, had for the past century been ‘Wally’s’ to patients and staff, with two present exceptions. One was the Senior Night Sister, who objected to all abbreviations on principle; the other was Wally’s present night senior, Nurse Dean. Nurse Dean was a staff nurse who had won the gold medal for her year when her training ended and had nothing against abbreviations in general, providing they were nice.
Wally’s had initially been a men’s medical ward, but during the blitzes and again since the flying bombs started, in common with every other ward in Martha’s, London, Wally’s admitted surgical and medical patients. Technically, medicals were on th
e left, surgicals on the right, unless, as now happened regularly, the surgical overflow swamped both sides and emergency beds were put up down the middle. In normal circumstances Wally’s had forty beds, eighteen in line up each side, two set facing down the ward on both sides of the balcony doors. There was room for ten emergency beds in single file down the middle, but none were up that night and only one of the twenty-nine occupied beds held a medical patient. The long wide ward had once had a window between every bed, but shortly after the first blitz in September 1940, every window in the still usable parts of the hospital had been bricked-in. And every night Wally’s smelt as if it hadn’t been aired since 1940. The hot, stuffy atmosphere reeked of sweat, warm bed mackintoshes, pus, ether, iodiform, carbolic, tobacco, anaesthetics, and, when Nurse Carter came in from the balcony, especially of the sickly-sweet aroma of fresh-spilled blood. Half-an-hour ago one of the senior medical students up from the country hospital that day to start his week in residence as a Casualty dresser ‒ a job that currently trebled with that of unskilled porter and general messenger boy ‒ had heard his first rocket. It had fallen a good way off on either Fulham or Acton, and the vacolitre of whole blood in his hands had fallen onto the ward floor.
‘Jolly lucky it’s Group O,’ said Nurse Dean in a brisk murmur. ‘Cut yourself, Mr ‒ sorry, don’t know your name. No? Jolly good. Press on regardless back to the In-Patients’ Path. Lab. for a replacement ‒ where’s Carter? Oh, there you are. Carter, get weaving on this mess. Any minute now the theatre’ll ring to say the Major’s ready to come up.’
Only a few of the heavily sedated patients had been woken. The bedsprings creaked as neighbour leant towards neighbour. ‘If you ask me, mate, that young student don’t want us to feel out in the cold, seeing Jerry’s giving our side the miss tonight.’
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