Nightingales at War

by Donna Douglas

  Dora put her hand to his forehead. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any fever, which is a good sign,’ she told his worried mother, who sat anxiously beside him. ‘Just keep him warm, and make sure he gets plenty of rest.’

  ‘Easier said than done in this place!’ Mrs Trewell said grimly.

  Paddy Trewell coughed again. His little chest went into spasm, his ribs jutting painfully through his skin with every cough.

  ‘He also needs something for that chest,’ Dora said. ‘An inhalation of turpentine or Friar’s Balsam would be best.’

  ‘I’ve got some liniment, would that help?’ her mother offered.

  Dora nodded. ‘It might relieve the pain, at any rate,’ she said. ‘Bring it here, and I’ll show you how to rub it into his chest. Bear in mind, you’ll need to do it every couple of hours . . .’

  ‘You know, you’re wasted here,’ her mother said later, after Dora had shown Mrs Trewell how to treat her son’s cough. ‘You should be back at that hospital, not here making cups of tea.’

  Dora held up her hand. ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ she said flatly.

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’m never going back to nursing, and that’s an end to it.’

  She went to finish the washing up, but her mother followed her. ‘I don’t understand why not,’ said Rose. ‘I thought you enjoyed it?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘I enjoyed it too much, Mum. That was the trouble.’

  Matron had tried to warn her on that day back in the spring when she went to ask for her job back. She’d told Dora that nursing would consume her entire life and test her priorities, and she was right. Except Dora had got her priorities wrong. She’d put her work above her family, and Danny had paid the price for it.

  Rose Doyle sighed. ‘How long are you going to go on punishing yourself, Dor? You know it wasn’t your fault Danny died. And stopping nursing ain’t going to bring him back, is it?’

  ‘I know that,’ Dora said quietly.

  She scrubbed at a pan, until she felt her mother’s hand on her arm. ‘He wouldn’t have wanted you to go on punishing yourself, love,’ she said quietly. ‘He would have wanted you to help people.’

  ‘I am helping people, Mum.’

  ‘Not like this,’ Rose said. ‘I mean really helping. Why don’t you go back to nursing, love? I’m sure they could do with you at the hospital—’

  ‘Don’t, Mum,’ Dora cut her off. ‘I can’t go back, all right? Don’t ask me again.’

  The truth was she couldn’t even walk past the hospital without averting her gaze. Just the thought of going back through those gates made her feel sick.

  But she had to. By the following day, Paddy Trewell had got much worse. Dora could feel the burning heat coming off his face before she’d even put her hand near his sweat-glistened cheek.

  ‘You need to get him to hospital,’ she told his mother.

  ‘Can’t you do anything?’ Mrs Trewell begged. ‘Maybe some more of that liniment—’

  Dora shook her head. ‘Liniment won’t help now the infection’s taken a hold. Hospital’s the best place for him, honestly.’

  Mrs Trewell’s lip trembled. ‘But I’m scared,’ she said. ‘They took my Albert into hospital and he never came out . . .’

  ‘Paddy will be all right, I promise,’ Dora assured her. ‘But he needs proper treatment.’

  ‘Will you come with us?’ Mrs Trewell asked.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Please, Dora? I’d feel a lot better about it if you were there.’

  ‘I’ve got to stay here and look after the twins.’

  ‘They’ll be fine with me,’ Rose Doyle stepped in. ‘You go, Dora. Do what you can for little Paddy.’

  Dora sighed. As her mother said, she could never turn her back on anyone in need. More’s the pity, she thought.

  It took all her courage to walk through the hospital gates. By the time they reached the courtyard, Dora was trembling so much she couldn’t face going into the Casualty Hall.

  ‘You go in,’ she urged Mrs Trewell. ‘I’ll sit out here and wait for you. It’s all right, I’ll be here if you need me,’ she said, when the other woman looked reluctant.

  ‘Promise?’ Mrs Trewell said. ‘Promise you’ll stay here?’

  ‘I promise.’

  She sat down on the bench under the plane trees in the middle of the courtyard, huddled in her coat against the December chill. How strange that the trees and the bench had stayed standing when so many of the hospital buildings had come down around them, she thought.

  There was building work going on around the Casualty Hall. The tented structure remained around what was left of the building, its sign still resolutely in place.

  The Nightingale Hospital – open for business as usual.

  They’d laughed about it when Matron had it put up, but it had made them feel proud, too. As if it was somehow one in the eye for Hitler. They were standing up to him, defying him.

  And now they were rebuilding the walls of the Casualty Hall, making it bigger and better than ever by the look of it.

  ‘Dora?’ She swung round. Helen stood behind her, navy blue cloak wrapped around her shoulders. ‘I thought it was you.’ She smiled. ‘What are you doing here? You haven’t come to ask for your old job back, have you?’ Her face brightened hopefully.

  Dora shook her head. ‘One of the kids at the rest centre was taken poorly. I see you’re rebuilding?’ she changed the subject, nodding towards the Casualty Hall.

  ‘At last!’ Helen said. ‘I must say, I’ll be glad to work in a real building again. That tent gets a bit chilly at this time of year, and we practically have to wrestle the blankets off the nurses to give to the patients!’ she laughed.

  ‘I can imagine.’

  Helen nodded towards the building and beamed with pride. ‘Can you believe we raised most of the money to rebuild it from that collecting jar Matron left on the booking-in desk?’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘It’s true. You’d be amazed what people put into it. One man walked in and stuck a five-pound note in, just because he was so proud of us for staying open through the Blitz! And those workmen are mostly volunteers,’ she added. ‘Just ordinary people, giving their time and their labour for nothing, because they want to put the Nightingale back together again.’ She turned to Dora, smiling. ‘It’s wonderful when you think about it, isn’t it?’

  A lump rose in Dora’s throat, and she could only nod in agreement.

  It was wonderful indeed. And it made her proud that she had once been a part of it. Seeing it again made her realise why she had been so reluctant to come back to the hospital. It was because she knew how much she still missed it.

  As if she could read her thoughts, Helen suddenly said, ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come back? I’d love it if you did. A few more of our nurses have gone off to serve abroad, and we’re desperately short. And now David’s leaving, too—’ she stopped short, biting her lip.

  Dora stared at her. ‘Dr McKay’s been called up?’

  Helen nodded. ‘He’s joining the medical corps. He’s been wanting to go for a while, but he didn’t want to leave while London was being bombed. But now the Germans seem to be laying off us for a while, there isn’t as much to keep him here.’

  ‘Except you,’ Dora said.

  Helen lifted her shoulders in a graceful shrug. ‘We all have to do our bit. I understand that.’

  ‘Doesn’t make it any easier, does it?’

  ‘I suppose not.’ She managed a brave smile. ‘But really, I’m no worse off than hundreds of other women, am I? We see them in here every day, wives and mothers who have had to send their men off to war. I’m lucky that I’ve been able to keep him with me for so long. But I always knew this day would come . . .’

  Her voice tailed off, but Dora could read only too clearly the thoughts behind her unhappy dark eyes. Poor Helen. She had already had her heart broken once in her young l
ife. She dearly hoped her friend never had to endure that pain again.

  ‘Anyway, I think I’d find it easier to bear if I had a friend here,’ Helen went on, pulling herself together. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t consider coming back?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Dora said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Helen paused. ‘I understand, you know,’ she said. ‘You can’t help blaming yourself when someone close to you dies. You constantly ask yourself if there was anything you could have done differently. When Charlie died, I blamed myself too.’

  ‘That was different,’ Dora said. ‘You couldn’t have stopped him getting scarlet fever.’

  ‘And you couldn’t have stopped that bomb dropping.’

  ‘No, but I could have been there.’

  ‘And then you might have died too, and the twins would have been without a mother.’ Helen sent her a considering look. ‘Are you sure you’re not just punishing yourself by turning your back on something you love? Because I’m sure Danny wouldn’t have wanted you to do that—’

  ‘Stop,’ Dora begged her. ‘I’ve heard it enough from my mum. I don’t want to talk about it, please?’

  Helen nodded. ‘Then I won’t try to force you,’ she said. ‘But please, promise me you’ll think about it at least?’

  Dora nodded, but she already knew what her answer would be.

  Perhaps Helen was right, she thought. Perhaps she was punishing herself. But if so, it was the right thing to do. Danny had lost his life, and the least she could do was to lose something that she treasured, too.

  I am doing the right thing, aren’t I, Danny? She sent the thought up into the empty air.

  Just then Dora spotted Mrs Trewell across the yard, and went over to meet her.

  ‘What’s happened? How’s Paddy?’

  ‘They’ve taken him in,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘But it’s all right, the doctor said they’ll be able to treat him. He reckons he’ll be as right as rain in a day or two. He’s already brightened up no end, especially once he got a look at all the toys on the Children’s ward!’ Mrs Trewell gave Dora a shaky smile. ‘Thanks for talking some sense into me.’

  ‘That’s all right. We all need someone to talk sense into us sometimes.’

  As they walked back across the courtyard, Dora heard a sound that stopped her in her tracks.

  ‘What is it?’ Mrs Trewell frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Dora held up her hand to silence her. She turned her head, listening for the sound. At first she thought she’d imagined it. But then she realised it was one of the workmen, up a ladder, singing. His voice drifted down to her, carried on the chill wind.

  ‘You are my sunshine, my double Woodbine, my box of matches, my Craven A . . .’

  Mrs Trewell smiled. ‘It’s a daft song, isn’t it? I’ve heard some of the men singing it in the shelter. Those ain’t the real words, though.’

  ‘I know,’ Dora said quietly. But she wasn’t listening to the words. She was listening to the oh-so-familiar tune, drifting down from the top of the ladder, as if it was coming down from heaven.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  THE DAY AFTER she’d arrived home from hospital in Kent, Jennifer was helping her mother to put up Christmas decorations when Cissy called round.

  ‘Tell her I’m not in,’ Jennifer said immediately, peering through the net curtains.

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ Her mother smiled at her encouragingly. ‘Cissy’s been dying to see you. She asks after you all the time.’

  ‘I mean it, Mum,’ Jennifer pleaded. ‘Tell her I’m not well enough for visitors. Tell her I’m not ready . . .’

  ‘It’ll do you good,’ Elsie Caldwell said. ‘Besides, you can’t hide away for ever, you know. You’ve got to get used to seeing people again.’

  She went to answer the door and Jennifer automatically put her hand up to her face, feeling the roughness of her skin under her fingers. Everyone said the scars were healing well, but Jennifer hadn’t looked in a mirror since that day she’d woken up in hospital after her accident.

  She had spent the past month in the Nightingale’s sector hospital, recovering from a fractured skull. She’d been glad to be able to hide herself away. She knew she looked a terrible sight, her shorn head hidden under a hospital cap, her face a sickening mess of tiny cuts. Her hair had started to grow back, but she could still feel the rough line of the scar that crawled across her scalp underneath.

  She heard her mother talking to Cissy in the hallway and concealed herself behind the Christmas tree, pretending to be draping tinsel from its branches.

  But even then, she noticed Cissy flinch when she walked in and saw her friend. It was the first time they’d seen each other since that day in the hospital. Any faint hope Jennifer might have had that she was looking better vanished the moment she saw the appalled expression in her best friend’s eyes.

  A second later Cissy’s bright smile was back in place. ‘Hello, stranger,’ she greeted Jennifer.

  ‘Hello yourself.’ Jennifer kept her eyes fixed on the piece of tinsel she was draping, as if it was the most important thing in the world.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘All right, I s’pose.’

  ‘I’m glad to see you,’ Cissy said. ‘I would have come down to visit you, but I couldn’t get any time off from the hospital.’

  ‘It’s all right. I didn’t really want visitors anyway.’ Jennifer nodded towards the small bag in her friend’s hand. ‘What have you got there?’

  Cissy blushed. ‘It’s a Christmas present for you,’ she murmured. ‘Only—’ She stopped talking abruptly.

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Cissy’s blush deepened. ‘You might as well have it anyway.’ She thrust it into Jennifer’s hands as if she couldn’t wait to be rid of it. ‘I was so pleased when I found it . . . you can hardly get them anywhere these days.’ Her words tumbled out in a rush. ‘I didn’t stop to think . . . I’m sorry . . .’

  Jennifer opened the bag and stared down at the powder compact in her hands. Once upon a time she might have been delighted to receive such a gift, but now it seemed more like an insult.

  ‘Reckon it’ll take more than a bit of powder to make me look better.’ She tried to sound light-hearted, but she couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  ‘As I said, I didn’t stop to think that you—’

  ‘That I might look like a monster?’ Jennifer finished for her.

  Cissy blushed. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ she mumbled.

  ‘You might as well have it back, anyway.’ Jennifer went to hand it over, but just at that moment her mother came in.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got? Oh, is it a present? Isn’t that kind of Cissy, Jen? I’ll put it somewhere safe for you, shall I?’ She took the compact and put it in her apron pocket. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on, shall I?’ she went on briskly. ‘You’ll stay for a cuppa, won’t you, Cissy?’

  Jennifer willed her to say no, but Cissy smiled politely and said, ‘Yes, thank you, Mrs Caldwell.’

  Elsie Caldwell bustled off, leaving the two girls alone. The silence stretched between them, awkward and unfamiliar.

  ‘You didn’t have to stay, you know,’ Jennifer said.

  ‘I wanted to. I’ve been looking forward to a good old gossip.’

  Jennifer sent her a sceptical look. ‘How come you’ve hardly said a word, then?’

  Cissy looked uncomfortable. ‘Your tree’s looking nice,’ she commented at last.

  ‘It will be, when it’s finished.’

  ‘Can I help you?’ Cissy offered.

  ‘You can unravel that tinsel, if you like.’

  They worked together in silence. Usually they would have been chatting away nineteen to the dozen, but now they struggled to find something to talk about.

  As Jennifer hung the baubles from the tree, she was aware that her friend was staring at the ornaments on the mantelpiece, the pictures on the walls, her own shoes . . . anything but at Jennifer�
��s face.

  ‘I look a fright, don’t I?’ she said finally.

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Cissy said quickly.

  ‘Then why can’t you look at me?’

  Cissy slowly lifted her gaze to Jennifer’s face, then glanced quickly away. ‘The scars are healing up nicely,’ she mumbled.

  ‘So they tell me.’

  ‘And your hair’s growing back. It suits you short.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’ Jennifer smoothed her hand over her dark cap of wispy curls. Losing her crowning glory was nearly as heartbreaking as having her face ruined.

  The silence stretched between them. Jennifer cleared her throat. ‘So,’ she said. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘This and that. It’s not been so busy at the hospital since all the bombing stopped, and they’ve started to admit patients again instead of sending them down to the sector hospital. There’s even talk of opening up a couple of the main wards again, once they’ve finished repairing the buildings.’

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ Jennifer replied without enthusiasm. The last thing she wanted to talk about was hospitals, as she’d spent the last month in one. But she couldn’t think of anything else, so she let Cissy carry on as she finished decorating the tree.

  ‘Actually, I’m going to start training properly,’ Cissy said. ‘I’ve talked to Matron about it, and she says I can start in January.’

  Jennifer frowned. ‘You, a nurse?’

  ‘Why not? I know I didn’t like it much when we first started, but I’ve actually started to enjoy the work, especially now they’ve moved me up to the Female Acute ward.’

  ‘Wonders will never cease,’ Jennifer muttered.

  ‘Eve’s signed up too. You should join us, it’ll be fun.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Jennifer said. ‘I’ve seen enough of hospitals to last me a lifetime, thank you very much.’

  ‘But you always enjoyed nursing,’ Cissy said. ‘And you were a lot better at it than I was. You’d be a natural—’

  ‘I don’t want to!’ Jennifer cut her off abruptly. ‘Besides, you’ve got your friend Eve now. And you know what they say – three’s a crowd.’