She sighed, it was also two weeks since that night at the cinema and the debacle with Ellen and she hadn’t seen Frank since. He hadn’t even been near the house to see Patrick. So that’s that, she thought, forget him: he’d probably moved on to some other girl by now. And Ellen had been giving her the cold shoulder since then. Mary wiped the plastic mattress with broad, almost angry sweeps. With both her sister and her father ignoring her, the atmosphere in the house was awful. She didn’t care about him but she missed her sister. For days now, a cold misery had settled in Mary’s stomach and, despite her reassurances to her mother, she knew if things didn’t change, she’d have to get away, escape.
She was glad of the diversion when the ward doors opened and three men in navy dustcoats and carrying mops and buckets came in, followed by a plump middle-aged nurse who gazed around with a look of distaste. ‘There are no minor ops today, so I’ve been asked to help out here. I’ll start on the dressings … if that’s all right with you?’
‘Thanks.’ Mary forced a brief smile, noting the unfriendly tone. She knew Hilda Lewis thought that she should have been given the Sister’s post on this ward. Dear God, she thought, what next?
Mary lined up the bed with the wall and straightened up, holding the middle of her back. Stretching her neck, she moved her head from side to side to ease the tension that had been building since the start of the shift, suddenly noticing the three men standing at the doorway to the ward looking in her direction.
Tucking a stray strand of her hair behind her ears and adjusting her cap, she hurried towards them, smiling. She liked the Camp Commandant; although he was at the end of his army career he was fair with both prisoners and his staff, and the camp and the hospital had improved since he’d arrived a year ago. He took off his cap as he spoke. ‘Sister Howarth, I’ve just spoken with Matron. This is Doctor Schormann and Doctor Pensch who are taking over the duties of Dr Müller.’
‘Good morning, Doctors.’ She acknowledged the men standing to attention in front of her. Both had the white patch sewn onto their uniforms to declare their indifference to National Socialism, so she knew they were regarded as trustworthy, but her only concern was their attitude towards the work they had been allocated. The last thing her nurses needed was another arrogant Müller. The smaller and older of the two men gazed back at her, nervously pushing the thinning grey hair back from his forehead with his fingers. Mary thought he looked tired already as he bowed his head and clicked his heels together; his eyes were bloodshot and underscored by dark shadows.
She turned her attention to the other doctor. She was as tall as he was, his pale blue eyes were on a level with hers, but, despite her direct gaze, he did not return it so she had the chance to study him. He was about thirty; fine blond hair cut very short, high forehead, high cheekbones and a long nose. Useful for looking down on everybody, Mary thought, her heart sinking. Damn, another Müller. He stood, confidently professional, broad shoulders held rigid with disapproval as he stared around the ward, his square chin lifted.
‘Gott in Himmel,’ he muttered to the man next to him. There was a cold arrogance in his features as he turned to Major Taylor. ‘This is a British Army hospital, yes?’
The Commander shook his head. ‘No, civilian.’ He smiled at Mary. ‘And Sister Howarth and her staff are very much valued here. If we didn’t have the hospital next to the camp there would be many problems for both our men and the prisoners.’
Mary forced a small tight smile. ‘I can assure you, Doctor, you will find all my nurses deal professionally and compassionately with the men here. We do the work we were trained for.’
The German raised his eyebrows, lifted his heels and snapped them smartly together before turning towards the Commandant. ‘If you would be good enough to tell myself and my fellow doctor what you require of us, I would be grateful.’
His dismissal of Mary was obvious and she flushed with anger. She looked over his shoulder. ‘Sergeant Strausse, I will take the doctors around and explain the daily routine of my ward. I would be grateful if, as interpreter, you would explain to them anything they do not understand.’
‘Ja, Sister.’ The Sergeant barely concealed his smirk of amusement.
‘I’ll leave things with you then, Sister,’ the Commandant said. ‘Doctors, when you have finished here, please ring through for an escort back into camp.’
Mary led the group of men to the first bed. ‘You find us understaffed today, gentlemen. Two of my nurses have not reported for work yet. I believe the area they live in was the target of an air raid last night.’ She emphasised the words. Neither man spoke. ‘However,’ she continued, ‘I think you will find this has not affected our care of the patients.’ She smiled at Dr Pensch. ‘We simply work twice as hard. This is Nurse Lewis.’ The woman looked up briefly, continuing to remove the soiled bandage from the man’s leg and clean the skin with the solution of Picric acid. ‘Did you sleep well?’ Mary said to the soldier.
‘Haben Sie gut geschlafen?’ Sergeant Strausse said.
Out of the corner of her eye, Mary saw Dr Schormann look quickly at her as the man answered, ‘Well, danke, I slept well,’ and felt a twinge of satisfaction.
‘Sergeant Strausse –’ Mary inclined her head towards the burly Sergeant ‘– is very helpful, so that often, by the time the men leave here, they understand enough to answer “Yes or No” for themselves to routine questions.’
She left the two doctors to follow her around the ward, discussing each patient she passed and then led them into the cubby-hole that was her office. Indicating chairs on the opposite side of her desk she sat down. ‘Now, gentlemen, if we could discuss our daily routine.’ She was careful to keep her tone neutral but she was aware that only the older doctor had spoken to her so far. ‘As I said, eight a.m. is the start of the day duty shift.’ She passed a sheet of paper to each of them. ‘The reports of the night nurses are read and discussed. At nine I check the patients with my staff nurse and one of the prisoner orderlies.’ The younger man straightened in his chair. ‘You have a question, Dr Schormann?’
The man held up his hand. ‘No, Sister. Please … continue.’
‘At nine thirty the Staff nurses and the orderlies dress the wounds, attend to the needs of the patients. At ten thirty the nurses and orderlies have their break, the German orderlies using the side room over there. ‘She indicated one side of the ward, then the other. ‘The nurses and British orderlies over there. At eleven the ward round is carried out. At least one of the doctors previously here were always present. I presume that will still be the case?’ She looked inquiringly at them.
They nodded. ‘We understand that is so,’ the older doctor said. The younger man stifled a yawn.
‘Good, thank you Dr Pensch.’ Mary smiled at him. She tapped her pen on her teeth and continued. ‘Lunchtime is twelve thirty. In the afternoon the patients are left to rest, occupy themselves with board games or if fit enough they are allowed into the camp to meet their comrades, take exercise and so on. Five o’clock the dressings are done again and sometime between seven and seven thirty the orderlies serve supper.’ She spoke quickly. ‘We have prisoner staff permanently here to clear away and wash everything and to clean the wards. After supper, if there is no one seriously ill needing peace and quiet, they have a singsong. I believe in not letting the men brood. They get better quicker if they are not depressed. Do you have any questions?’
‘No, none, thank you Sister,’ Doctor Pensch said.
Doctor Schormann lifted a hand. ‘Nein.’
Both men stood immediately Mary got up from her chair and walked to the door. ‘The routine varies little, unless, of course, there is an emergency. Now, Dr Pensch, Dr Schormann, if you will excuse me, I will continue my duties.’
Sitting behind her desk again, Mary stared at the chair where the young doctor had been. Perhaps he was as exhausted as the older man but wouldn’t show it. She’d been doing this job long enough to have heard all the horror stories of the long jou
rneys the prisoners endured on their way to Britain and the POW camps; about the poor conditions of the makeshift transit sites where the prisoners were interrogated. Against all the regulations, Strausse had told her only last week that one of the new patients had told him how frightening the two-day journey from France inside the landing craft had been, how, in the crowded darkness, it was like floating in a coffin. She leant her elbows on the desk and covered her eyes. God in Heaven, what was happening to the world?
Chapter 9
Reluctant to go home, Mary made her way to her favourite bench by the lake. One of the boats had broken free of its moorings and was drifting aimlessly in the middle of the lake, its rope trailing behind. For once she was unable to bring back the happy times she spent there with Tom.
Instead her thoughts settled on Frank. Whichever shifts he was on, they hadn’t coincided with hers. Or he was keeping out of sight. Either way, if they did meet she wasn’t sure what she would say to him and besides she had enough on her plate with her job and home. Nevertheless tears prickled the back of her eyes and she closed them; she must be more exhausted than she realised.
Mary lifted her face to the weak afternoon sun, smelling the faint whiff of smoke that permanently hung in the air. Resolutely she turned her mind to work.
According to Matron at the end of shift meeting, Schormann had been a general practitioner in civilian life who then became a captain with the Red Cross. As such, and in line with the Geneva Convention, he shouldn’t have been taken prisoner, but he had been and Matron was pleased to have him in the hospital. She hadn’t said much about Pensch, except that it was good that they now had two doctors to cover the four wards and, much to their annoyance, she’d added she expected each of the Ward Sisters to keep excellent order … as if they needed telling.
They’d all hurried away after that, eager to go home, so Mary hadn’t chance to find out if Schormann had been as offhand with everyone else. Obviously he must resent what had happened to him, especially if Matron was right about the rules of war. Mary paused in her line of thought to wonder how anybody decided on what set of laws there could ever be for killing and maiming another human being.
By the time the doctors had left her office all her nurses were back on the ward and they’d had plenty to say about the two men. Leaving her door open she’d listened to the chatter afterwards and although she heard them all agreeing that the older doctor seemed all right – he’d greeted them with a tilt of his head and click of the heels – the younger man had won himself no favours with his cold attitude and his reluctance to acknowledge the group of young women.
‘He looked straight through us,’ Jean had said, indignant, ‘with his bloody fish eyes.’
Mary had privately agreed with her friend but felt obliged to reprimand them. ‘Let’s keep things professional, please. The doctors have been transferred here to do a job, not make friends … especially not to make friends,’ she’d said, repeating Matron’s mantra. ‘As long as they are civil when they are working, that’s all we should expect. And I expect courtesy from my nurses.’
Hilda Lewis, standing apart from the group, hadn’t let that one pass. ‘I hope you’re not including me in your lecture on etiquette,’ she’d said.
Mary’s ‘Of course not, Nurse Lewis’ had been lost in the melodramatic groans of the others. Mary had ignored them; she knew the woman was not the most popular member of the hospital staff.
A young mother trundled a large wheeled Silver Cross pram across the grass and carefully pressed on the brake with her foot, before she sat next to Mary. Undoing the knot of her headscarf, the woman smiled at her. ‘Just off duty?’
‘Yes.’ Mary smiled, watching the other child, a small boy, climb the wheels of the pram to peer into it and poke a grubby finger at the baby’s stomach.
‘Steady with her,’ the woman cautioned. ‘He’s a really good brother, aren’t you, love?’ The boy beamed self-importantly. ‘She’s lucky to have you as an older brother, isn’t she?’ He nodded.
Mary stood. ‘I’m sure she is.’
‘Don’t go because of us.’
‘I’ve got to get home.’ She’d had a brief recollection of Tom laughing and running full pelt down their street pushing that old pink pram with her hanging on for dear life. And, just as quickly she pictured him in that cheerless visiting room at Wormwood Scrubs. She felt sick.
When she got to the top end of their alleyway on Greenacre Street she had the urge to turn and run away. Lower down a gate opened and the large figure of their next door neighbour appeared and began to beat a mat against the brick wall. Through the dust, and the smoke that drifted up from the clay pipe clenched between yellowed teeth, the woman squinted curiously at Mary. ‘All right, girl?’
Mary spoke shortly. ‘All right, Mrs Jagger.’
The woman removed the pipe and gestured with it towards Mary’s house. ‘Quiet in your house, these last few days. You’d think there was no one in, most of the time.’
‘Would you?’
Discomforted, Edith Jagger swung the mat back and forth from one hand and replaced the pipe in her mouth. She waited a moment and then wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a dusty stain. ‘Well, I can’t stand here all day nattering. I’ve lots to do.’
Mary went into her own yard and waited. She could see the top of the turbaned head of the woman hovering by the wall. She stopped by the tin bath, tapping her fingers on it and called out. ‘Bye, Mrs Jagger.’ There was a loud snort, a final small puff of smoke and the bang of a door closing.
Mary smiled, gratified for the small victory over the neighbour who had kept the gossip flowing when Tom had gone to prison the first time. She remembered the morning he was arrested, Edith Jagger waiting on the pavement outside to watch as he was led through the front door by the two policemen. ‘Look after Mam,’ he called over his shoulder. Mary had put her arms around her weeping mother and they’d stood in the kitchen doorway long after the front door had slammed shut. Her father had stayed in bed.
She made a slight movement of her head as though to shake off the memory. Holding on to the catch of the back door, she heard her father’s cough. He was in the kitchen and there was someone with him.
‘I don’t know who I hated the most when I first went to France – the Huns or the army.’
Frank! What was he doing here? Mary held her hand to her throat. She could feel the pulse in her neck quicken.
‘I joined up in April ’39 and applied to be a driver in the Royal Artillery. Instead I finished up as a gunner in the 91st Field Regiment. We all had to take a test and the cheeky buggers said my score was low … so that’s what I had to be, a pissing gunner. Bloody sergeant had it in for me right from the beginning. Bastard …’
He sounded different, harsher than before. She pushed the door slightly open and stood still.
‘Come in, girl, you’re letting the bloody cold in. You remember Frank, don’t you? Patrick’s mate? He’s waiting for him an’ we got talking.’ Bill spoke impatiently as he looked up at her from the table and then back at Frank, who was sitting opposite him. No mention of the quarrel the younger man had witnessed. No indication this was the first time that her father had spoken to her for over two weeks.
‘So I see.’ She stepped into the kitchen and closed the door.
Frank kept his back to her and carried on talking. ‘Our training was a farce. When they sent us off in September we were given what stuff they could find for us; bloody old service uniforms, light armour that wasn’t worth using, and guns that had half the sodding range of the Jerries’ artillery. I tell you Bill, we were a right sorry sight …’
Mary raised her eyebrows. Not only did he seem completely unaware of her presence, he was now on first name terms with her father. She couldn’t remember any of her or her brother’s friends calling her father Bill.
‘’Ang on a minute lad.’ Bill looked out of the corner of his eye at Mary. ‘Your Mam and our Ellen’ve gone round to Mrs
Booth’s. Her Ted’s copped it.’
‘Oh no.’ Being ignored by someone she barely knew now seemed unimportant. ‘Not Ted.’ Mary was barely aware that Frank had swung round in his chair to watch her. She’d liked Ted Booth; a couple of years older than her, she’d known him all her life and he’d grown into a quiet and thoughtful man. She’d often sat at the kitchen table between him and Tom in the months before war was declared listening to her brother earnestly explaining why, as a Christian, it would be morally wrong for him to contribute to something that meant killing another human being. She’d heard them discuss what they would do if the Government brought in the Conscription Act. Then they did and one day Ted was gone, unable to follow Tom’s actions. Now he was dead.
For as long as she could remember he’d been sweet on Ellen. There was even a time when Mary thought her sister would give in to his persistence and go out with him, but it hadn’t happened and, despite his letters that had regularly arrived for her, Ellen very rarely mentioned him. Mary wondered how she’d reacted to the news of his death.
‘Mary!’ Her father’s shout startled her.
‘What?’ She was close to tears.
Bill sucked greedily at his cigarette. ‘I said make us a brew.’
‘I’ll get changed first, if you don’t mind,’ she snapped. Running upstairs she sat on the bed for a few minutes trying to work out what she felt. Sad for Ted, of course, irritated by her father, but angry at Frank as well and she couldn’t work out why. Blowing her nose she changed into slacks and her favourite jumper; not that it mattered what she wore. She combed her fingers through her hair and checked her face in the mirror. She looked pale and tired. Blow it! Hanging up her uniform she noticed a dirty mark on her cap. When she went downstairs she took it with her.
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