by Kate Eastham
Maud just nodded. ‘Mercifully, from what I can see, the eye seems to be undamaged. The facial wound is deep, it will need to be seen by a surgeon as soon as possible, but at least we’ve managed to slow down the blood loss,’ she said. ‘Thanks to this coachman here, who has provided excellent assistance …’
The man stood as if in a dream, still gazing down at Sue as she lay unconscious on the bed. His hands were covered in blood and Maud could see the bright red stain of it on the sleeve of his grey jacket.
Maud saw Alice coming down the ward. She walked quickly towards her friend and took her hand. ‘One of the new admissions is Sue Cassidy, Alice. I saw the whole thing. She was hit by a horse and carriage on Brownlow Hill. She’s breathing, she doesn’t seem to have any broken bones or internal damage, but she does have a deep wound all the way down the side of her face.’
Maud saw Alice frown as she tried to take in all the information, and then her eyes widened. She bowed her head for a second, but when she looked at Maud her mouth was set in a firm line. ‘Thanks for forewarning me,’ she said. By the time she reached Sue’s bed, her voice was steady. ‘I know this girl,’ she said.
Maud turned to speak to the coachman, who still stood at the bottom of the bed in his ruined jacket. ‘I cannot thank you enough for helping me. I would never have got her up here to the hospital if it hadn’t been for you. And I don’t even know your name …’
‘I’m Thomas Wright,’ he said, reaching out to shake her hand but then realizing that his was full of blood.
He gave a wry smile. ‘Well, that’s what you get for helping out at the scene of an accident, I suppose.’
‘You did a good job,’ said Maud.
‘I witnessed the Charge of the Light Brigade during the war,’ he said. ‘We had to deal with all kinds of injuries.’
‘Oh, I see,’ breathed Maud, reaching out to place a hand on his bloodstained sleeve. ‘Thank you for stepping up again today.’
He was nodding, lost in his own thoughts for a moment, and then he looked up with the semblance of a smile.
‘Now, I’ll ask one of the nurses to get you a bowl of water and you can wash your hands and try to sponge those marks off your jacket. It is rather a mess, I’m afraid.’
‘It’s of no importance,’ he said, glancing once more towards Sue and then across to the boy. ‘These children are all that matter.’
Maud was quickly back at the bedside.
‘Right, nurses,’ said Sister quietly. ‘Sadly, I’ve had a good look at the boy and I think that time is very short. I’m assuming that he was alone, no family with him?’
Maud nodded. ‘There was a policeman in attendance, and I asked him to try and find out who the boy was. But you know how many stray children there are on the streets …’
Sister nodded, her face sombre. ‘And the girl?’
‘Her mother is a flower seller on the market,’ Alice said quietly.
‘And I asked the policeman to find her,’ added Maud. ‘So, hopefully, we might see her here in due course.’
‘Good, well, there’s no more that can be done for the moment. Now, given that the bleeding from the girl’s wound has been contained, we can afford to wait for our surgeon to attend. I’d like to get her treated within the next couple of hours, but we do have time. She is deeply unconscious, so we need to keep a careful eye on her. If you could do that, Nurse Sampson. We need to wash her and change her out of that filthy dress and into a clean nightgown. But I don’t want to move her just yet and risk disturbing the wound – so if you two could do that when we’ve got her into theatre.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ said Maud.
Then Sister turned to gaze at the small figure lying so very still in the next bed. ‘But the boy …’ she said wistfully. ‘There is nothing more we can do, I’m afraid, except keep him comfortable. Nurse Linklater, perhaps you could help Nurse Devlin to give his face and hands a wash. Again, I don’t want to disturb him too much, so don’t change him out of his clothes … just be gentle with him.’
‘Of course,’ said Maud.
‘Oh, and Nurse Sampson, bring the wooden screens down here, will you? Let’s create a quiet space for the boy in the corner of our ward … and when Nurse Latimer returns I will tell her to go and fetch the chaplain to say a few prayers. The Reverend Seed needs to know about both of these admissions.’
As Maud walked up the ward to collect a bowl of water from the sluice, she slipped the dusty nurse’s cape from her shoulders and folded it into a square. Seeing one woman silently crying, Maud took a moment to go to the side of her bed. ‘We’ll do all that we can for the boy, to keep him comfortable,’ she said gently.
‘I know,’ murmured the woman, taking a handkerchief from the sleeve of her nightdress and wiping her eyes. ‘It’s just that he looks about the same age as my William was when he died. He was killed in the street, crushed by a cart when he was out playing. I should never have let him out of my sight that day …’
‘I’m so sorry,’ soothed Maud, feeling her chest tighten with sympathy for the woman. After what she’d just witnessed out on Brownlow Hill, she could have knelt down by the side of the woman’s bed and cried alongside her, there and then. But there was so much that still needed to be done. And, of course, she could never do that – a nurse had always to be strong for her patients.
‘I’ll come back and see you later,’ Maud said quietly, and the woman nodded.
Once she was safely inside the sluice, Maud leant back against the closed door for a few moments and took some deep breaths. Everything had happened so fast, it was hard to believe that she was instantly back to work on the wards. But here she was, and she needed to keep moving. Still clutching the soiled cape in her hands, she found a place to leave it, then gave her hands a good scrub with carbolic soap, seeing the red blood dissolving quickly into the water. But even with a brush she was not quite able to get it all out from under her nails.
With no time to waste, Maud reached for a nurse’s apron from a neat pile of spares at the side. She shook it open and tied it tightly around her thin waist, smoothing down the white starched material before collecting her bowl of water. A steaming kettle stood by the side, ready to use, so she poured just enough into the cold water to make it a comfortable temperature. Then she quickly took a soft flannel and a clean towel from the shelf, placing them neatly over her arm so that once she was out through the door she could carry the bowl with both hands as she walked down the ward.
When Maud slipped behind the wooden screens, she found Nurse Devlin crouched by the boy’s bed. The probationer hurriedly stood up and tried to compose herself but Maud could see that she had tears in her eyes.
‘It’s all right,’ said Maud quietly, placing her bowl of water on a small side table. ‘You can be upset. But we just need to be aware that sometimes patients can still hear us, even though they seem to be out cold. So let’s talk to him and reassure him.’
Nurse Devlin nodded. ‘Yes, I can do that,’ she said, her lilting voice gentle and distinctly Irish.
As they worked together, Maud used the soft cloth to wash the boy’s face and hands whilst her assistant gently dried them with the towel. She was glad of Nurse Devlin’s big grey eyes, glancing to her for reassurance or for instruction. It helped her to keep exact focus on the crucial work that they were doing for their small patient.
‘Now, young man,’ said Maud softly, ‘we’re going to lift your legs and bend your knees so we can soak your feet in a nice bowl of warm water to give them a gentle wash.’
Covering the boy’s upper body with a warmed blanket that Sister had provided, Maud indicated for Nurse Devlin to spread a towel over the bottom sheet. Then, placing the bowl on top of the towel, she took each small leg in turn and placed both feet in the bowl, gently washing and cleaning the dust of the streets from the boy’s poor ragged feet.
‘He must have always been without shoes,’ murmured Nurse Devlin, as the cuts and calluses became visible.
&
nbsp; Maud could see her blinking back tears again. ‘Yes, like so many others,’ she said. ‘But we’re washing your feet now, aren’t we, young man? And I’m going to find some soothing cream in a minute to make them shine.’ Maud made herself smile, even though all she wanted to do was kneel down by the bed and weep.
When she came back with the cream, Maud found Nurse Devlin quietly humming a gentle tune. ‘An Irish song me mother taught me,’ she said, looking up with a tentative smile.
Maud nodded her approval. ‘Right, young man,’ she said, ‘we’ll just dry your feet and apply the cream, and then we’ll get you comfortable.’
As soon as they had him settled beneath the small blanket and covered with a clean sheet, Maud asked Nurse Devlin to go and find a stool so she could sit with the boy. When she was gone and Maud was alone, she took the boy’s hand, instantly noticing how cold it was, and when she checked for a radial pulse, there was nothing. He was still breathing, but only just, and Maud knew that he was very close to death.
Kneeling by the bed, she took his tiny hand in her own again and whispered, ‘My lovely boy. I’m so sorry that this world hasn’t treated you any better than this … I hope you can find some peace now.’
Maud saw Nurse Devlin’s face change as soon as she came back behind the screen. Her eyes filled with tears again and she wiped them away with the flat of her hand before placing her stool beside the boy and gently taking his other hand. She looked up at Maud and nodded, indicating that she was all right, she wanted to do this.
Maud stood up and gave her a small smile. Even if this was the girl’s first ward, Maud knew that she would have already seen death by now. But seeing a child so young, that was different. It seemed, however, that despite the girl’s youth and her wide grey eyes, she was a person with some resilience.
‘You will make a good nurse,’ Maud told her, quietly, before turning from the bed, feeling confident to leave Nurse Devlin behind the screen alone, whilst she went back to check on Sue Cassidy.
Five minutes later, the Reverend Seed was there, just in time to say prayers. After he had spoken briefly to Alice, Maud saw him slip behind the wooden screen and then the whole ward full of women were listening to the words of his prayers as the boy took his final breaths.
When the chaplain’s voice fell silent, Maud heard small gasps and some gentle sobs from those patients awake or alert enough to know what was going on. The collective grief was palpable in the air as the chaplain emerged from behind the screen and stood looking down the ward towards all of the women.
As if from nowhere, a patient started to sing. Quiet, almost inaudible at first, and then her voice swelled within the silence of the ward. The words were Welsh. Maud knew the song right away, she’d heard it many times in Liverpool. It was ‘Suo Gân’, a lullaby. And as another woman’s voice joined the singing, the two voices seemed to soar up to the high ceiling of the ward. Maud’s arms prickled with goose bumps as she stood by Sue’s bed, reciting in her head her understanding of the song’s translation. ‘Nothing shall disturb your slumber … Nobody will do you harm. Sleep in peace, dear child. Sleep quietly on your mother’s breast.’
Maud blinked back tears as she stood by Sue’s bed. When she looked up the ward, she could see Alice crouched by the bed of a woman who was weeping and Sister Pritchard speaking to another patient. The Reverend Seed was now carefully making his way from one patient to another. But the other probationer, Nurse Latimer, stood impassive at the top of the ward. Maud made a mental note to check on the girl later, make sure that she was all right.
Maud’s head began to swim a little and she took hold of Sue’s hand to steady herself. But when she looked back down at the girl, lying on the bed with the blood-soaked dressing on her face, Maud felt her heart thud as if she were feeling the shock of the accident all over again. For a split second she heard the terrified scream again and she almost felt the moment of impact. It made her gasp. And then her head was crowded with thoughts. If only I’d managed to get to Sue a few seconds sooner. If only I’d walked faster, or set off with Alfred a few minutes earlier, I might have managed to get to her in time. I might even have seen the boy about to run and been able to grab him. If only …
6
‘… our great English hospitals are places in which more is done for the relief and cure of human misery … than in any other places in the world.’
Florence Nightingale
‘You’re still wearing your district nurse’s hat, Nurse Linklater,’ said Miss Merryweather as she joined Maud at the bottom of Sue Cassidy’s bed.
Maud reached up her hand and gestured towards removing it.
‘No, leave it,’ smiled the superintendent. ‘I hear you’ve been far too busy to think about nurses’ caps. And you’ve certainly made your mark back here already. Sister Pritchard has given me all of the details. This is a very sad business, isn’t it? And on your first day, as well.’
Maud nodded. There didn’t seem to be any words.
‘I’ll just go in and see the boy,’ said Miss Merryweather.
‘Yes,’ said Maud, glad of a few moments to compose herself.
When Miss Merryweather emerged from behind the wooden screens she was dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. ‘Such a poor, tiny boy,’ she murmured. ‘And as far as we’re aware no family have been located?’
‘Not as yet. But if the police do manage to locate someone, I’m sure they’ll send them here.’
‘Well, we are his family now, if no one turns up, and we’ll make sure that he is dealt with in the proper manner. My sister, Miss Elizabeth, has some money set aside for such eventualities …’ Then, clearing her throat, ‘I was going to allocate you to Female Medical, Nurse Linklater – we have long-standing staffing issues on that particular ward – but given the start you’ve made here, I think there is no choice but to offer you a position with Sister Pritchard. Subject to, of course, any requests for additional help on other wards. Is that satisfactory?’
‘Yes, very much so,’ replied Maud.
‘Now, I won’t delay you any further, Nurse Linklater, except to say, well done. And do call by when you get the chance to fill me in on your exploits in New York.’
And with that the superintendent turned on her heel and was gone.
‘I can stay on and help in theatre,’ offered Maud as soon as Sister Pritchard came back to Sue’s bed.
‘Really? Are you sure? That would be an enormous help. I’ve already lent a nurse to Sister Law on Male Surgical because they’ve had a big case in theatre this morning.’
‘I’m sure,’ Maud said as Sister Pritchard slipped behind the screen to assist Nurse Devlin. ‘But before I do anything else,’ she murmured to herself, glancing up the ward to the other probationer, ‘I just want to go and have a word with Nurse Latimer, make sure that she’s all right.’
She spoke to her colleague gently, taking a step back when the sharp-faced probationer turned on her with an empty stare.
‘I just wanted to make sure that you were all right, with what happened to the little boy?’
‘I lost a brother and a sister before I was ten years old. I am fine,’ replied the probationer.
‘I see,’ said Maud, knowing that the girl’s response was decidedly askew. But from the glassy stare that was levelled at her, she also knew that there was no way she could pursue the issue any further.
‘Well, just let me know if you need help with anything,’ Maud said, offering a small smile.
The girl nodded and started to turn away but then she switched back. ‘And you are?’
‘I’m Nurse Linklater, a trained nurse. I’ll be starting, officially, tomorrow. I’ll be helping Sister Pritchard with the supervision of the ward,’ Maud said. ‘You can speak to me at any time.’
Nurse Latimer didn’t reply but continued to gaze at Maud with her too bright eyes. The probationer made Maud feel out of kilter, unsettled. In a way that she hadn’t experienced since she’d worked with Nancy Sellers.
Maud started to feel more uncomfortable, as if she needed to apologize for something that she knew she hadn’t done.
She started to speak again, but Nurse Latimer had already turned away and was walking towards the sluice. Maud frowned, trying to make sense of what had just happened, but she had more pressing concerns so she put it out of her mind as she walked back to Sue Cassidy’s bed.
As soon as she reached her patient she saw the tall, slightly dishevelled figure of the senior surgeon, Mr Jones, coming through the ward door. Maud gave an involuntary sigh of relief; she had worked with him many times in theatre, and he was always a very reassuring presence. He seemed thinner than she remembered him, though, and more distracted.
‘Ah, Nurse Linklater,’ he smiled. ‘So pleased to see you back, we are desperate for a true theatre nurse. Now, I believe you have a patient for me already …’
‘Yes,’ replied Maud, giving the surgeon all the details of the case.
‘Well,’ he said, checking Sue’s level of responsiveness, ‘I can see she is knocked insensible and, given that our man with the chloroform, Dr McKendrick, has been called away to a difficult case, I think that we should get her straight into theatre, before she wakes up.’
‘Righto,’ said Maud, ‘I’ll call for the orderlies to come with their stretcher.’
‘They too are busy with Dr McKendrick,’ said Mr Jones. ‘But given that she’s only a slip of a lass, I think I can manage her,’ he said, pulling back the sheet and carefully sliding both his arms beneath the girl.
‘Come on, dear girl,’ he said gently as he straightened up from the bed and turned to carry her up the ward as if she were the most precious thing in the world.