The Country Nurse Remembers

by Mary J. Macleod

  After a moment, I said, ‘What are you going to do? Can you go home?’

  He shook his head. ‘The Russians would come after me. You see, I killed a man. A Russian. He lived in Poland before the war, and he had raped Elise. I knew where he lived, and while I was on the run from the Germans I found him and … I killed him.’

  I didn’t know what to say. How do you react to someone who tells you that he has killed a man? He glanced at me and must have seen the confusion in my face.

  ‘No, it wasn’t in cold blood, as that sounds. I was going to give him a beating. I had a heavy stick. But I was weakened by starvation and illness, and I was getting the worst of the fight. He had me pinned to the ground in the barn where I had found him and was trying to strangle me when I felt something beside me. It was metal and heavy. With what strength I had left, I hit the back of his head as he bent over me. He died instantly.’

  Sveto gave a huge sigh, which seemed to come from the depths of his soul.

  ‘So you see, I have to stay here where I am safe until I can think how to prove that I killed in self-defence. I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted to give him a beating for Elise.’

  He stopped talking and sighed again, as he rose to go.

  ‘I should not have bothered you with all this, but it is a relief to talk to someone sympathetic.’

  I was glad that he thought so, but if he had known my real reactions and reservations, my horrors and my wanting him to stop, he would not have felt that he had a sympathetic listener at all.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘What shift are we on?’

  He left, nodding to the other nurses. I suddenly realised that we must have been the subject of much scrutiny and gossip, as we were sitting at a separate table.

  Natalie came over. ‘You have made a hit there,’ she said.

  ‘No, it’s not that at all. He just wanted to talk.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ She did not believe me, but I could not tell her what we had really been talking about, and I realised that there would be gossip. I hoped that Sveto would not hear it!

  The Toy Car

  It had taken me longer than I had anticipated to save up for Robert’s toy car, as I had had to buy another pair of ‘duty shoes’. These had to be brown lace-ups with a rubber sole. My original pair had been black; they had been tolerated because I was new and I had explained that they were the only suitable shoes that I had. After a month or so, the Sister who seemed to be in charge of the nurses’ welfare lost patience and ordered me to get the correct uniform shoes. They were known as ‘Oxfords’ and were good shoes but expensive for the time—about £2—while ordinary shoes could be bought for a little as a pound. This had cut into my previous month’s salary of £5.

  My day off was coming up, so I went to the toy shop and excitedly bought a pedal jeep with full camouflage paint. I staggered back to the nurses’ home with it to the vast amusement of the Dragon as I passed through the hall. She found equal amusement the following day when I departed for my day off complete with toy car. The bus conductor was more understanding.

  ‘I’ll put un in yer,’ said he, as he stowed the car under the stairs of the double-decker bus. I sat where I could keep an eye on my precious purchase and proudly carried it the considerable distance from the bus stop to home. Robert came to the door, as he had seen me coming up the road. I had tried to keep the car behind my back, but he could see that I had something.

  I put it down on the front path. Robert ran to it and immediately jumped into it, his grin as wide as his face.

  ‘Is this for me?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course it is!’ I could see how thrilled he was.

  Mum stood in the door with a look of amazement. ‘Where did you get that?’ she asked.

  Taking her literally, I answered with the name of the toy shop.

  ‘You mean you bought it?’

  How else did she think I had acquired it?, I wondered. ‘Yes, of course. I’ve been saving for this, but I had to buy shoes last month or he would have had it sooner.’

  Mum was silent. Meanwhile Robert was ‘vroom-vrooming’ his way down the path. I dumped my belongings on the step—wow, I was getting brave!—and ran after him.

  Mum and Dad had moved from Meadow View, and in front of the house they now lived in there was a circular path around a grassy area, so Robert and I spent some time going round and round on the path, but he was not good at steering yet, so there were many spills and lots of laughter.

  Dad was amazed when he came home.

  ‘I thought nurses were badly paid,’ he said.

  ‘They are,’ said Mum, to my surprise. ‘But she saved up for this car for Robert.’

  ‘It must have taken nearly all your money,’ observed Dad.

  I was now confident enough to laugh, as I said, ‘Yes. Nearly.’ I didn’t know how, but I felt that a barrier of some sort had been overcome and that I was talking to them as an adult.

  The ‘adult’ thing did not last. But Robert’s joy was what mattered, and that was very apparent.

  Dancing

  Sveto and I worked together for several days, as I showed him the job of a new first-year nurse. One day he said, ‘What do you do when you have an evening off?’

  ‘Not a great deal,’ I replied. ‘I haven’t much money. But when I can afford it, I go to the pictures with friends.’

  ‘Do you not go dancing? Young ladies in my home country love to dance.’

  ‘I do, too,’ I said. ‘Sometimes the university has dances and then I go with other nurses, and the medical students usually ask us to dance.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Well, I belong to a very nice dancing group,’ Sveto explained. ‘We go to dances in the big hotel ballrooms.’

  ‘That would cost far more than any of us could possibly afford. How on earth do you afford it?’

  ‘I have some money. After the war, the Polish authorities got in touch with me and gave me my father’s compensation money and what little my parents had in the bank. So I am not, as you say here, “broke”.’

  I blushed as, belatedly, I realised that I had been rude to ask. I was used to the other nurses always talking about how they couldn’t afford this or that, and it hadn’t occurred to me that Sveto might be different. I should have been more discreet because he was twenty-six; he wasn’t just a young person straight out of school like the rest of us.

  ‘Would you come with me?’ Sveto asked.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I asked if you would come with me—to dance. Or do you have a boyfriend who would be jealous?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I mean no, I haven’t a boyfriend, and I would love to go dancing with you.’

  ‘Good. The ladies usually wear long dresses,’ responded Sveto.

  I think he guessed that I would not own such a thing and was warning me. I thought rapidly: ‘I could borrow one.’

  Sveto smiled, and two evenings later we went to a smart hotel, one of the few that had escaped the bombs and still clung to its pre-war opulence. People were well dressed, except many of the men were only in lounge suits while the women were in evening dresses. I had borrowed a rather childish white dress with puff sleeves, but it was full length. I promised myself that I would get something better as soon as possible.

  I found that Sveto was a very good dancer—at last my dancing lessons were useful. With such a good ‘lead’, I could do all the moves, and we danced together very well.

  ‘I have to be in by eleven,’ I told him.

  ‘Next time you must get a late pass,’ he said, obviously intending us to go dancing again. I was delighted, as I loved dancing and I liked Sveto, although he seemed remote. Polite and correct—but remote. I could not tell what he thought about the dancing or me, and he never did refer to his past again. It seemed that having once made me aware of his circumstances he just wanted to concentrate on the present. Or perhaps he was just waiting to be able to return to his own country and his career as a doctor.

  We went dancin
g whenever we had evenings off together. I bought a beautiful pink evening dress for a few shillings from a girl who was leaving to get married. I had that dress for years. It had huge dark-pink flowers on it and was well cut, with an accentuated waist and low neckline. I loved that dress!

  I was silly enough to tell Mum and Dad about the dancing. Mum had liked dancing when young, and I thought she might be interested. Wrong! Mum did not like the idea of the pink evening dress, and Dad was horrified that I had ‘taken up’ with a foreigner.

  ‘I don’t think you should have anything to do with this man. You have to remember that the foreigner is not like us.’ He was very stern.

  I was wise enough not to argue or ask in what way ‘the foreigner’ was not ‘like us’. I was told not to see him again outside the hospital. I managed not to actually promise, but I think they were under the impression that I would do as I was told.

  As it happened, I did not see him again, in or out of the hospital. When I returned from my day off, Sveto was not there. He was now working with a second-year nurse to learn the skills expected at that stage of training, but he should have been in the hospital. I overheard the second-year nurse say that the Ward Sister had expected him. Why was he not around, then?

  I asked the nurse.

  She seemed quite concerned. ‘None of us know why he has not turned up for duty. He was always most punctual and a very good worker, and Sister is making enquiries at the YMCA, where he sleeps.’

  But the YMCA could not shed any light on his disappearance: he was paid up to date, and his belongings, such as they were, had gone. I liked Sveto and I wondered worriedly if this had anything to do with the man he had killed, but I obviously could not mention this.

  It would be nice to be able to say that he turned up with some good reason for his absence, but that did not happen. We never saw him again, and, to this day, I have no idea what happened. It was as if he had never existed.

  At least I was able to tell Mum and Dad that I was no longer seeing him.

  I missed the dancing. As I look back, I wonder how any of us had the energy for such things. But I heard that a military camp a few miles distant was putting on a dance for young officers and had sent an invitation to the nurses’ home. It was a fairly frequent event apparently, as many of the men were away from home and had little money to spare for amusements. Rather like the nurses!

  The camp sent a minibus for us, and those lucky enough to have the evening off dressed in our evening dresses, if we had them, or best short dresses if not, and set off for an evening of dancing, light supper and fun!

  ‘Fun’ was very necessary, as we dealt with sickness and death all the time.

  We had all obtained late passes until 1 am and the bus driver knew that he had to get us back by that time, but when we assembled at the camp gates, there was no sign of him or his bus. The guards were not too helpful, so we stood about wondering what to do.

  A very smart, older officer came by, and we told him our tale of woe. He immediately ordered one of the guards to investigate. We waited and were eventually told that the minibus had broken down out in the countryside while on another job. The officer immediately ordered a staff car and driver, and all seven of us squashed into the big Humber. No seat belts then!

  Inevitably, we were late. It was 1:30 a.m. when the car dropped us outside the hospital. The nurses’ home was in darkness (the Dragon must have gone off duty), so we had to go through the hospital entrance. A Deputy Matron sitting at a desk just inside looked at us and pointedly at her watch. We explained what had happened and showed our late passes.

  ‘Hmm. I understand that it was not your fault, so I shall not need to send you to Matron. I shall ring the camp in the morning to complain. A group of young girls should not have been left waiting with no explanation.’

  Whilst relieved that we had got off lightly, we were very afraid that if the Deputy made a complaint we might not get asked again. We staggered off to bed for a meagre four hours’ sleep, and for the first time I was very glad that the Dragon had such a loud voice when calling: ‘Five-thirty, nurse.’

  Learning All the Time

  The three-month college time began. I was delighted to be learning so much, not only about nursing procedures, but also about the human body, the diagnosis and preferred treatment of various diseases, complications to look for and the chances of complete recovery. Heart surgery was in its infancy and new drugs for heart disease were being discovered all the time, so there was great excitement in that field.

  Much of the nurses’ work we had already done on the wards, so this part seemed a waste of time to me, though I think our practical skills had overtaken the theoretical teaching because of the rush to try to catch up with the ‘list’ patients, many of whom were still awaiting operations or treatment four years after the end of the war. We still worked on the wards from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m., then departed for the college, where we spent the day until six p.m., with a break for lunch. College also meant that we had the evenings off.

  Much of our time off-duty was spent in the nurses’ home, chatting with friends and colleagues, because most of us had only our salary of £5 a month and so the pictures and dances were out of reach a lot of the time. I was delighted to have any money of my own at all and at first was almost surprised that my work was rewarded in this way. This sounds quite ridiculous now, as it probably did then to some, but I think my gratitude for pay was a result of having done a great deal of housework at home for no reward. I’m sure many other girls helped at home, but my work had been wrapped up in the myth that Mum was teaching me useful skills, when in fact scrubbing floors, dusting furniture, beating carpets, polishing lino and washing up were the only things I was taught, and I did those over and over for years and years, only learning anything new when Robert came along: then I added baby care to my accomplishments.

  Other girls seemed to have learned a bit about the cost of things, or how to cook, or care for plants or clothes, but they were not expected to do the same thing all the time. When I was still at school, I used to listen to girls talking in a very grown-up fashion about how such and such was done or how you made a certain cake or why you washed and ironed some garments and dry cleaned others. Some even talked about the government or the council or, perhaps, what was going on in London or the recovering countries in Europe. I knew nothing of all this and had so far had no inclination to find out. I was still, in effect, a child—one who had always waited to be told things, had not thought for herself. It was just as well for me that the discipline and ethos of the nursing training at that time was so much like school—maybe boarding school. I would have been completely at sea if I had had to find my own accommodation, pay ‘rates’ or income tax or budget for heating, lighting and food; in fact, anything beyond trying to stretch next month’s £5 to cover a new pair of shoes or a present for Robert or my bus fare ‘home’. The first money I had handled was aged seventeen, when I was allowed the price of the dancing lessons. (Those wonderful dancing lessons that I was so glad I had had!)

  So now to be taught practical skills on the wards—new things almost daily—and theoretical learning of such immense interest, and to actually be paid for doing it, seemed a small miracle.

  One of my cousins had a holiday job while at university and was unhappy with his pay, which he felt should have risen when he was given more responsibility. He told me that he was going to ask for more. I was horrified that he should even think of asking for more money! Why, we nurses had to line up once a month, accept our pay packet and say, ‘Thank you, Sister,’ in a humble manner. Sister Ackerson accepted the gratitude as though she had personally reached into her own purse to pay us.

  But apart from occasionally putting my foot in it through ignorance or misunderstanding, or perhaps carelessness, I was very happy in my training—on duty and off.

  Fire and Water

  There were still times when I made mistakes or was in trouble because I had not understood some instruction or p
erhaps had done something that was considered ‘inappropriate’. One day was a complete disaster. In fact, two disasters, as one was the reason for the other.

  I was in charge of the sterilisation of the syringes, of which there were many that morning. I arranged them, wrapped in gauze, in a row in the shallow saucepan, filled it with water and set it to boil on the gas stove in the ward kitchen, which was a little way along the corridor outside the ward itself.

  Because of the next disaster, I forgot them. When I eventually remembered and rushed to the kitchen, I was greeted by smoke and a frightful smell. The pan had boiled dry, and about eight syringes and most of the needles were burned, as was the gauze surrounding them. The kitchen maid was happily drying some dishes and appeared not to have noticed. (She was a ‘special case’ employee; in other words, one who had special education needs but was quite capable of routine kitchen work.) Something out of the ordinary, it seemed, like smoke, was too much for her to comprehend.

  I was in deep trouble with Sister, who told me that I would have to pay for new syringes. Luckily, when Matron heard about it and the reason why I had forgotten—which I shall explain shortly—she was cross with Sister rather than with me, which was most amazing.

  ‘What nonsense!’ she said, ‘Of course you do not have to pay for the syringes.’ And that was the end of it. But I don’t think Sister liked me much after that.

  The other disaster that day was the reason for the first.

  We had two large, hard-working domestics who took their duties very seriously, deeming the nurses’ work less important than theirs. We, the younger nurses, were terrified of them. They were always complaining that we were in their way, saying how did we expect them to do this or that if, for some reason, for example, we were late doing our duties (making the beds, for instance, because as we finished each bed we pulled it away from the wall so that they could sweep or vacuum behind it. They would stand and glower at us until we caught up.)