Highland Interlude

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Nurse.’ We were then in Dr MacAlistair’s office. My main job was note-taking. I gave them more tea, then sat at the desk. ‘What’s John’s full name and address? Age? Does he live with his parents? Have they a telephone? Good.’ I handed the answers over the telephone to Matron after filling in John’s admission card, and asking for their own personal details.

  They waited until I had put them down. ‘Why us?’ asked the one called Tom. ‘We’re not patients.’

  ‘Your families’ll be glad to know that.’

  ‘My God, I never thought of that! Poor old Mum and Dad! Will this be on the news?’

  ‘Been. B.B.C. and I.T.V. at six. No one can take any pictures yet, but weren’t there reporters at base?’

  They said only God knew who hadn’t been at base. ‘It’s been snowing like hell there the whole bloody time. That chap running the show seemed to know his stuff. Does he?’

  I said, ‘His name’s Charlie Urquhart.’

  ‘THE Charlie Urquhart?’ they chorused.

  ‘Aye, laddies.’ Dr MacAlistair was in the doorway. ‘Were you not aware he’s a Gairlie man?’

  ‘No. Sorry, Doctor,’ apologized Tom. ‘We haven’t been to Scotland before, though, of course, we’ve heard of him! We’re from England.’

  ‘A country I’ve heard of. Now then ‒ your friend is on his way to a ward. As he’ll be happier to see faces he knows near his bed, you may sit with him a while, if you sit quietly. If not, out you go. That clear?’

  ‘Fair enough, sir.’ The second student had spoken. ‘This exposure ‒ everyone keeps talking about exposure ‒ what exactly is it?’

  ‘Exposure is a severe chilling of the body surfaces leading to a progressive fall in the body temperature. Unhalted’ ‒ MacAlistair looked from one student to the other ‒ ‘it leads to death.’

  The speaker swallowed. ‘Can it happen any time? In the open?’

  ‘It can happen any time to any person exposed to cold, or high wind, or fatigue, or a combination of all three, in the open air. Tell me, were you laddies out dancing again last night?’

  ‘Only a few of us. Only till midnight.’

  MacAlistair nodded to himself. ‘Come and sit with your friend John.’

  On his return he sat on the desk-edge. ‘In bed at midnight. Up again at four-thirty. What kind of a preparation for a long climb was that?’

  I said, ‘But even though it’s his first time in charge, surely their leader realized the climbers had to get to bed early?’

  ‘I’ve no doubt he did. I’ve no doubt he checked them in their bedrolls before retiring himself. So he’d not have seen them later sneaking out the back and away to the dancing. No healthy laddie thinks to waste a holiday week-end in sleep ‒ as I well remember from my own student days. An experienced leader will always sleep with one eye open for such pranks. A young man suddenly taking over his first party has much to learn. Ah!’ He lifted the jangling receiver. ‘Aye, Matron. Good.’ He replaced it. ‘Three more on the way. Exposure and multiple grazes, but no other visible injuries.’

  It was dark when the next three arrived, and much colder. One of the ambulance men told me there was now a blizzard round the Ben. From that moment my fear reached saturation point.

  I did my note-taking in Casualty. Dr MacAlistair, young Mr Stewart, Sister Casualty, and Staff Nurse Smith were working in pairs. Smith was as surprised to see me as I was to see her.

  She sniffed. ‘Why haven’t you gone?’

  I asked, ‘Why aren’t you? You’ve got nights off.’

  We didn’t trouble to answer each other.

  ‘Miss Wade,’ MacAlistair beckoned me. ‘After you’ve handed on their names take a stool and a feeder of tea and feed yon laddie lying on his face.’

  The student’s name was Michael. He came from Bristol. He said he had slipped so far on his back that he had felt he’d travelled the entire face of the mountain. ‘The men who found me had seen where I came off. They said I’d gone about five hundred feet.’ He twisted his head to try to see over his shoulder. ‘It hurt like stink until they gave me that shot. Have I bashed myself up much?’

  Beneath the dressings the skin was hanging in ribbons from the entire surface of his back. ‘Quite a bit, but you’ll mend. Have some more tea.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m thirsty as hell.’ He had an attractive fair face and did not look much older than Robin. He was nineteen. ‘English, aren’t you?’ I nodded. ‘Worked here long?’

  ‘Not long.’

  When he had been moved to a ward and Casualty was empty again I asked MacAlistair, ‘Could he have slid five hundred feet and survived?’

  ‘It’s possible. Only last month we’d a man actually drop that distance and sustain no more than a twisted thumb. In the same week we’d another fall thirty feet and to his death.’ His head jerked round as Sister Casualty answered the telephone. ‘Only one? Well, one is one.’

  A posse of anxious friends accompanied the next admission. Charlie Urquhart had sent a message to base insisting that only Dick Evans, the skiers’ leader, and one student of his choosing should remain with the reserve rescuers.

  ‘A wise move from a wise mountain man,’ MacAlistair told me privately. ‘Charlie wants them well away before the night sets in and they take it into their well-meaning but foolish young heads to creep off in the darkness, lend a hand themselves, and add to the number still missing.’

  That admission was seriously injured. He had a fractured skull and was growing spastic from brain damage. At each of his incoherent mutters and twitches the posse winced in unison. The warm air of the little Casualty Department was heavy with a mixture of wet clothes, wet bodies, wet ropes, wet irons, wet wood, and the faint but unmistakable smell of fear.

  MacAlistair looked up over his mask. ‘The lot into my office. Miss Wade,’ he muttered. ‘Off you go, laddies, away with the nurse! We’ll attend to your friend.’

  They trailed after me, looking back as they did so. Mechanically they accepted mugs of hot tea, gave me their names and addresses, parents’ telephone numbers, and, when possible, addresses of parents themselves on holiday. They did not talk among themselves as I dealt with each in turn. They watched what I was doing intently, and when I suggested they remove their anoraks, gloves, and scarves and drape them on the radiators to dry I had to repeat myself before they slowly started unzipping.

  One had very dark and very long side-boards and a blue chin. He looked a little older than the others. I had taken down too many names and ages to identify him yet. I learnt later he was the oldest student. He was twenty-one, reading economics, and his name was Nicholas Hawkins. His home was in Exmouth.

  He roused himself with a visible effort. ‘Nurse, I’ve just remembered ‒ George Tucker’s parents aren’t home this week-end. They’ve gone down to Cornwall.’

  George Tucker was the head injury.

  ‘Any idea where in Cornwall?’

  He shook his head. I asked the others. They shook their heads.

  I asked, ‘Any idea what kind of a car his parents have? Or, better still, the number?’

  ‘No. Sorry. I say, Nurse ‒ how bad is he?’

  ‘Quite honestly, I can’t answer that as I don’t know the answer. Dr MacAlistair ‒ he’s the big one ‒ will be along soon, I’m sure. He’ll tell you.’

  ‘He won’t mind us asking? You know what doctors are.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but this one won’t. He’s good.’

  Matron’s line was busy, so I took my notes along to her office. In the lodge Mr Cameron and the night porter were side-by-side at the switchboard dealing with the non-stop stream of incoming English calls. Gordon, in the theatre gown and white plimsolls, was whisking an empty stretcher trolley away from the men’s wards and back to Casualty as I crossed the hall.

  The secretary of a local welfare organization was in the office with Matron. He was saying, ‘… beds offered and waiting will accommodate all eighteen sets of parents ‒’ when Matron saw me waitin
g in the doorway and held out a hand for my notes.

  I told her about George Tucker’s parents.

  ‘They should come up if they can. We need them. I’ll ask the police.’ Matron picked up her receiver. ‘Sergeant Cameron, please.’

  Recrossing the hall, I met Craig. She said Sister Kilsyth was running her ward single-handed, Lewis was doubling between Women’s Surgical and Men’s Medical, and she herself was in Men’s Surgical.

  ‘How’s your old lady?’

  ‘She began to rally about six. Still in coma, but still very much with us. Sister’s coping.’ We turned quickly as Mr Cameron tapped on his glass window and held up two fingers. ‘I’m muddled, Elizabeth. How many’s that?’

  ‘Seven down, eleven to come.’

  ‘God willing,’ said Craig, hurrying on.

  The waiting students were sitting on the floor and leaning against the walls when I took them in fresh tea and sandwiches about an hour later. A couple got up to make room for the tray on the desk. One was Nicholas Hawkins. ‘Is George any better?’

  ‘He’s sleeping.’ Dr MacAlistair had come in. ‘If he’s not much better, laddie, at least he’s no worse. But I’ve good news for you. Six more coming in two ambulances, and one of the six is your deputy leader, Mr Morgan.’

  They were all on their feet. ‘How are they all?’

  Dr MacAlistair shrugged. ‘Ask me after I’ve examined them. In the meantime you eat those fine sandwiches the nurse has made for you, or you’ll be hurting a bonnie lassie’s feelings.’ He caught my eye. ‘A word with you, Nurse.’

  I followed him into the corridor. He closed the door. ‘You’ve had just about enough. Time you were away to your bed.’

  ‘Doctor, no, please! I’m not tired.’

  ‘You’re not a good liar, either. Ach, the red light is flickering. The ambulances are turning in. I’ll see what we’ve got, then deal with you.’

  Mr Morgan was unconscious from exposure and a blow on the head from falling rock. His skull was intact, but his right tibia and fibula were fractured in two places.

  The official leader’s son was among the six. He had a more moderate degree of exposure and a broken ankle. His voice was husky, but he couldn’t stop talking.

  ‘Give him some lukewarm tea, Miss Wade,’ said Sister Casualty, ‘and let him talk himself out. It takes some that way.’

  For one very brief moment I remembered how much I had talked myself. I wasn’t sure which hurt more ‒ the thought of Dougal then or my own blindness. Then I thought of Dougal now, knew the answer, and stopped thinking.

  Between sips of tea the boy told me he was eighteen and had been climbing with his father for three years. ‘I climbed in Wales last summer with Bill Morgan. He’s good. It was hellish bad luck his slipping in that first snow this morning. He’d told us earlier we must all stick together, and we meant to, but suddenly the whole bloody world was driving white. My goggles weren’t any good. I couldn’t see a thing even when I took ’em off. No kidding, Nurse, I couldn’t even see the bloody mountain more than a yard up or down. Then it stopped a bit, and the only person I could see anywhere was the man hitched to me. Then’ ‒ he shuddered ‒ ‘he slipped. I felt the rope pulling me after him, but the belay held. Then I saw John in a sort of heap on a ledge below. He was out cold when I got down to him, and I couldn’t get him round. I stuck with him until it started snowing again. Then I thought I’d better get down for help. I stuck an ice-axe in the snow to mark him, unhitched myself from the rope, and spread that out to use it as well. Then I fell.’ He stopped for breath. ‘Have they found him yet? His name’s John French. I tried to ask when they found me, but I hadn’t any voice.’

  ‘He was first in. He’s doing all right.’

  ‘Good.’ He sighed. ‘Poor old Dad! He’s going to be even sicker over this than he was at Carlisle. Tough old Bill Morgan. Not his fault. How is he?’

  ‘Coming along nicely. Have another drink.’

  ‘Thanks. Helps my throat. Bloody sore.’ He smiled painfully. ‘I yelled for hours. I couldn’t shift as my foot was jammed. I’d smashed my torch when I fell and my whistle’ ‒ he produced the frayed end of his lanyard ‒ ‘don’t know when it came off. So I just lay there and shouted till my voice ran out. I couldn’t even croak when I heard them looking for me. I saw their signal flashes. I couldn’t signal back. That was the worst. I thought I’d be left out to die.’ He gripped my hand. ‘I nearly died then from sheer bloody funk. I was praying like crazy. They seemed to be moving away, and then they came back. I wanted to tell ’em about John, but I couldn’t. I heard someone say something about finding a glove. It wasn’t mine, but they came back and searched near me, and that time they found me. Funny that, isn’t it?’ Then he asked the question all those who were conscious asked, ‘How many still up there, Nurse?’

  Again Casualty was cleared. Men’s Surgical could take no more emergency beds. The emergency row down the centre of Men’s Medical was half filled. Mrs Spearn and the new patient in my room had been moved into emergency positions in Women’s Medical. Isol. One and Two were now small double wards. When I asked to help in the wards Dr MacAlistair said if I so much as put my head into one he would send me straight back to his wife. ‘I’m not joking, lassie.’

  I knew he wasn’t, so I removed myself to make more tea for the Cas. Staff.

  Mr Stewart and Smith had vanished to the theatre to deal with those requiring immediate surgery. In the lulls Dr MacAlistair did his night round. During one a middle-aged woman was admitted with acute appendicitis. A consultant physician attached to the hospital, who had arrived earlier to offer his services as anything from house physician to porter, was now giving the anaesthetics for Mr Stewart. ‘As routine an occurrence,’ remarked Dr MacAlistair to me, ‘as the arrival of an acute abdomen in any hospital crisis. She’ll have to be done tonight.’ He sat on a bench. ‘In any wee hospital the staff learn to resemble a stage crowd. It’s a hard life, though I doubt we’d change it.’ He patted the seat beside him. ‘Rest your feet while we’re empty and quiet.’

  The quiet applied only to Casualty. Outside the wind was screaming and the loch waves were thundering. ‘Such a ghastly night!’

  ‘It could be worse. There’s no mist, and that’s the real killer. That stops even the trained teams now working on the Ben.’ He sat sideways to look at me beside him. ‘That was why Dougal Grant had to sit out that night with you. No mist, and he’d have had you up that wee climb on his back in no time.’ He paused, briefly. ‘You’ll no doubt be aware that had he not been with you that night, ill though you’ve been in here, you’d not have got here in the first place.’

  ‘I realized ‒ no ‒ I didn’t. I knew I owed him a lot. Not my life. I do?’

  ‘Aye.’ He got up and walked over to a window, then faced me. ‘No easy position for any man to find himself.’

  ‘Not easy ‒ because he saved my life?’

  He nodded. ‘Since that’s the greatest debt any man or woman can owe another, the burden of your gratitude will weigh heavily on any man of honour and pride.’ He came and stood over me. ‘He’s never referred to that debt to my knowledge, but naturally his medical experience will long have informed him of the fact.’

  ‘I wish to God I’d realized this sooner!’

  ‘If you’ll forgive an elderly physician with a daughter your age talking to you as he would to his daughter, I’d say it may not prove such a bad thing that your decision to stay was made before you did. Gratitude can as easily force the hand of a generous recipient as it can tie the hands of a generous donor. Of course, there are some men who would not be averse to taking advantage of a lassie’s gratitude. I would never include Dougal Grant in that breed ‒’ He lunged for the suddenly ringing ’phone. ‘Aye, Matron?’ His eyes lit up. ‘I will. Yes. Grand news!’

  I jumped up. ‘All down?’

  ‘At the rest-hut. As that was the final call it came from there and not base, as the others. All exposure cases, but they’re
getting them under control, and no other injuries. The “recall to base” is going out now. In a few minutes the searchers still on the mountain will be making their own way down.’

  Relief numbed me. ‘How will they hear any signal in this gale?’

  ‘You think they’ve not been keeping one eye cocked all this time for the wee firework display?’

  ‘Fireworks?’

  ‘A series of green followed by thunderflashes and whistle signals as well. Ach, that’s a weight off my mind!’ He stretched his shoulders. ‘A pack of bairns, the lot! They could’ve been my own sons. The Tucker laddie’s not too good, but given time he should do. Thank God I’ll not now have to face any English parents tomorrow with the words that’ve been lurking at the back of my mind since that alarm call came in. I’ve had to say them too often, and it’s made worse by the laddies being healthy and on holiday.’ He sat on the bench, his heavy body sagging with relief. ‘It’ll be hours before they get ’em to base and here. I’m not letting you wait on that, and nor is Matron. She’s just asked me to thank you kindly and pack you off.’

  ‘Doctor, please, I don’t want to go.’

  He looked up at me. ‘Lassie, you’ve learnt fast, but you’ve still a lot to learn. Listen. After the victims are down and away the search-party has to re-muster, record individual reports, bring back, clean, check, and replenish the communal equipment before stacking it away ready for immediate use. There’s no saying how soon it may be required again. All that’ll take time, and weary men need to take their time. The searchers’ll most literally need to get their feet back on the ground again. They’ll need a wee chat together, a wash, a fag, a cup of tea, maybe a dram or two. They’ll not have touched a drop while they’ve been up, but who’ll deny their right to a few once down?’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I thought you would. It’ll be morning,’ he continued, ‘before Charlie Urquhart walks in here to take a look at the rescued for himself, as is his custom before returning to his home after a search. So away with you to my good wife and tell her to expect me when she sees me, which may be for my breakfast.’