by Lola Keeley
“It’s a lot like the NHS in that sense,” Cassie defends them automatically. “Dark humour for trying times? Something like that, anyway.”
“Don’t let the major drag you down to her level, Steven,” Alan says, patting his arm carefully above the fibreglass cast. “I’d better get back on the rig, but I just wanted to make sure this lot were looking after you. I mean, we did the hard bit on the scene, me and you.”
Steven nods gingerly in acknowledgment. “Well, the food’s a bit shit, but then they’re still giving it to me through a straw. I’ve definitely had worse all the same.”
“Any luck with finding someone to contact?” Alan persists. “Not that you want them visiting you yet. Wait for one of the comfy wards upstairs.”
“Just my unit, and Major Taylor here has sorted that,” Steven replies. “I suppose if I’d had a big family I might not have run off and joined the army, eh?”
“Exactly,” Cassie agrees. “You’ve still got plenty of time to start a family of your own when you get out of here. If you like that sort of thing.”
“You know, Doc, you scrunched up your face just then like someone suggested public whipping. Not the settling-down type?” Alan is teasing, but Cassie knows the buzz of the rumour mill is frustrated by lack of detail on her personal life. It seems even the paramedics are in on it here, even if they’re mostly passing through. Even in the busiest parts of the NHS there’s always time for a cup of tea and some gossip.
“Maybe for the right woman,” is all she’ll say, and Alan’s beaming smile suggests it’s exactly what he suspected. “But kids? Pfft, I get enough snotty noses and questionable life decisions from my staff, thank you.”
“At least I know now why you don’t fancy me,” Steven interrupts. “Here I thought I had lost my charm along with half my liver.”
“I’m sure your pride will mend, Sergeant,” Cassie says. “In the meantime, you let me know if anything hurts more or feels different. I’m going to do everything to get you home from here in one piece, okay?”
It’s the same promise she made to every conscious casualty brought to her medic tent. She found the strength more than once to repeat it as a blatant lie to soldiers bleeding out in her lap, freshly pulled from burned out vehicles. Every time she said it, the sentiment was true. Cassie would have given just about anything to send them all home, hale and hearty. The ones she couldn’t at least died with a few moments of comfort and all the pain relief she could provide.
“Now, is there anything else you need?” She should start checking on other patients at least.
“A six-pack and a decent film would be a start,” Steven says, smiling again. “You sure I need this other op, Major?”
“Only if you want to walk again.”
Alan departs with a cheery wave, and Steven gestures for Cassie to lean in. She does, feeling a little apprehensive. Quiet conversations with the badly injured are rarely a good sign.
“Major, I need a favour. All these forms, next of kin and that? I ain’t got anyone, not local. Can I… Would you do it for me? Just if it comes to it.”
“You’re getting better by the day, Sergeant,” Cassie reminds him. “There’s no reason to start panicking now.”
“I’m not, I swear. It’s just, you know how it is. Before you face the big guns, you’ve got to put your own affairs right. I’d feel better going under again if I knew you could call the shots. You know more than I do, for a start.”
Cassie considers. There’s probably an NHS policy against it. Or at least a specific St Sophia’s one. Still, her gut says to do it. The way she promised to call a dozen unspecified exes or estranged family members. That doesn’t mean she’s betting on Steven to die after all he’s already been through. She’s simply giving her patient peace of mind, and isn’t that the care and compassion she promised to practice with?
“I’ll see what I can do,” she promises, already picking up his chart. She’s interrupted on her way back to her barely occupied office by Wesley Travers, bustling about and trying to look important. How the Deputy CEO hasn’t melted in those heavy tweeds is beyond her, but then her uncle was always the same.
It’s so strange to be living in his house without him, everything boxed up and mothballed, apart from the guest room she’s been staying in since her childhood, the nearest bathroom, and some functional parts of the kitchen.
“Major, you’re looking purposeful.”
“There’s plenty to be done.” She doesn’t mind when other people use her rank, even to mock her a little. But coming from him it sounds disrespectful, as though he outranks her in military terms rather than in their relative jobs. A little rude, given he hasn’t served a day in his life. He probably has a home full of military portraits and second-hand medals, but Cassie has little patience for the historical voyeurs. Given her way, anyone who wants to pontificate on the trenches of World War I should have to pass basic training first. That would weed out a few of them at least.
“I hear you’ve got yourself something of a star patient?”
“You know how wards get with a bit of drama. Place has been crawling with the Met for days, and you know police don’t stick around hospitals if they don’t have to.”
Travers strolls around her office, pausing only to look at the empty message board, the lack of adornment on the windowsill.
“They catch the little criminal yet?”
“No, sir. They suspect he hangs around the area, though, so just a matter of time.” Cassie wishes she shared the confidence she speaks with. The bastard who flipped a good man off a thirty-foot concrete staircase will be just another statistic by the time the next spate of stabbings comes along to soak up time and resources. “Did you, uh, need anything?”
“You know, you’re not in barracks now, Major. No demerits for bringing in a plant or something. I know the other…women have a fondness for those splashy art prints. What they’re supposed to signify, I have no idea, but they do seem to insist on them.”
“Not much of a green thumb and I don’t know much about art,” Cassie counters. “I’m sure I’ll find something to make it more homey.” Maybe she should just drag the few cases and boxes stacked at home in here instead. She might have some energy left in the day then to unpack the damn things.
“Budget coming along okay?”
“So far so good,” Cassie lies. What she doesn’t know, she’s determined to work out. The acronyms and codes are nonsensical, and she’s done actual cryptography. “It’s not due just yet, is it?”
“What? Oh, no, no. Still a while yet. I got AMU’s budget this morning; put the notion in my head to ask around.” Of course Veronica got hers in before the deadline. Cassie isn’t sure she’s been less shocked in her life. “You know, I wouldn’t offer to just anyone, but with the timing of your appointment and all. Let’s just say my door is always open, should you have a question or two.”
“That’s very kind.” Cassie is actually trying to like him, but it’s off-putting the way he rifles through the few sheets of paper on her desk. For a moment it looks like he’s going to tap the keyboard and bring her screen back to life. If he’s that interested in her unread email, he’s welcome to it.
Pauline saves the day, having finished her rounds. “Ms Taylor?” She knocks even though the door is open. “The sergeant’s due for his next round of scans. You okay to let him go down?”
“Make sure they’re careful with the left shin this time,” Cassie warns. “I don’t need Ortho bitching that they need to align it again. Why they don’t just splint it is beyond me.”
“I’ll leave you capable ladies to it,” Travers says, slinking out into the corridor, no doubt to get under someone else’s feet.
“Let Steven know that I’ve done his form, could you?” Cassie turns away from the sight of him retreating and pats Pauline on the shoulder. “I’ve just been reminded I’d bett
er crack on with the budget. Otherwise you’ll all be farmed out to other departments and we’ll have no plasters.”
“I don’t mind as long as it’s back to AMU. It’s a pain in the backside, having to walk over there just to gossip with Lea and the boys.”
“Oh, we’ll have to set up a livestream, in case you all miss anything.”
“Yeah, you can float that one to Ms Mallick,” Pauline suggests, with a grin. “I’ll have them send Steven’s scans straight to you as well as into notes, yeah?”
“Perfect, as always.”
Cassie wishes the rest of her nurses had the same bustling capability as Pauline. If she hadn’t been reassigned, the rest might be a bit too wet and hesitant for trauma. It’s hard, trying not to compare them to field medics, but even the A&E lot seem more hands on from the little Cassie has encountered them. Maybe they should merge departments in the long run. No, just the thought of how many committees and panels and budget documents that might take is enough to make her dizzy.
She’ll make it work; she always does.
A while later, her eyes almost crossed from the nightmare spreadsheet of doom, Cassie gets up to stretch her legs. There’s a flurry of activity around a new admit, but they seem to be handling it. One to keep an eye on. The first shout that’s too tense, equipment clattering to the floor, and she’ll be right over. For now, Cassie has to learn to trust her team and let them work.
Steven is drifting back in from a nap when she approaches, offering a brief smile. No need to get sentimental.
“Heard you’ve been flashing the girls down in Imaging again,” she teases. “It’s not enough we gave you a gown that opens in the back, you have to show off your liver as well?”
“I reckon I showed them more than that. Pauline said you’d done the thing?”
Cassie nods, patting the top of the clipboard that holds his charts. “It’s all in here. But you listen to me, soldier. You’re not going to need that. The worst is already over, and I’ll check your scans myself to make sure of it. Once the bone docs do their magic, it’s just a matter of time before you’re in physio, and walking again.”
“They keep telling me it’s a miracle I’m not paralysed.”
“Apparently you’re very adept at falling. Managed to protect your spine. Luck of the gingers, eh?”
Steven sticks his tongue out, though his lips are still dry and chapped. “Something like that. Been a bit scary, all this.”
“It can be.” Cassie doesn’t patronise him by talking of taking fire or crashing choppers. She knows what decimates these young men most of all is the realisation that they’re not invincible, that so much of the body can break and betray them at once. “I’ve got some meetings, so behave yourself until I’m back. Stop telling my nurses they’re pretty.”
“To be fair, Major, that Adrian is a bit of a looker.”
“You must have been the comedian of your unit.”
He winces through the next smile, and without thinking she’s upping his morphine a notch. Steven settles when it flows through his bloodstream, sinking back into the pillow. Conversation is going to be too much effort for a while.
“I’ll check on you before your next op,” she says, a promise she won’t make any other patient, but to hell with the double standard.
She glances back just the once before heading to her general surgery weekly meeting. This one she actually wants to go to, because there are some terrible inefficiencies that need to be stamped out. They’re going to just love her.
Chapter 11
“Ms Taylor.”
Cassie makes no sign that she’s heard, continuing to massage the heart manually, almost elbow-deep in the chest cavity in order to get a grip on it.
“Ms Taylor!” An absolute bark from Peter this time. Veronica can’t remember the last time she heard Peter raise his voice. He’s usually so softly spoken that the secretaries transcribing his post-operative notes curse his name.
He can’t see what Veronica can, in her privileged vantage point beyond the glass. Cassie’s eyes are unfocused, her breaths coming high and shallow in her chest. Peter has already conceded defeat, dumping his surgical gown into the waiting waste bin, letting the nurses flurry around him. Heaven forfend a consultant surgeon actually dress or undress their operating garments in this hospital.
Only Pauline holds back, watching Cassie like a hawk. She’s ready with the tray, with fluids, with a handful of other useless remedies that budget and common sense say should no longer be wasted on the deceased.
Because, despite Cassie’s frantic efforts, the sergeant is gone. The monitors don’t lie, and the monotonous long beep has been piercing even Veronica’s eardrum out here in safety. Then she sees Peter about to make his mistake, one they can ill afford in a room full of sharp implements.
Veronica has only a second to act, and reflexes are on her side. She barges the door with her hip, the sanctity of the surgical field moot now, in practicality if not in procedure.
“Cassie, stop.”
Mercifully her words halt Peter in his tracks, but Cassie’s rhythmic movements continue. There’s really nothing else for it. Title alone might not be enough, so Veronica’s going to try sheer irritation. “Captain Taylor. Stand. Down.”
Finally Cassie’s muscles obey where her brain has been rebelling. She pulls her hands free with the elongated slurping and anti-climactic pop of pressure releasing.
Countless years in operating theatres and Veronica has never found that definitive noise to be anything other than slightly cringeworthy. It reminds her of overenthusiastic teenage snogging, all vacuum sealed and messy, ending with what sounds like the slap of wet clothing against a tile floor.
On unsteady legs, Cassie takes one step back, then two. Her body is trembling, but her posture is as rigid as any steel girder.
“Mr Wickham, we can handle this from here. Don’t let us keep you from your dinner plans.”
“Is she—”
“I said,” Veronica turns on him then, doing very little to hide the panic that must be screaming across her face. If he touched Cassie, tried to overpower her or pull her back, this could have ended terribly. “We can handle this. Have a good evening.”
He leaves, after what feels like a short eternity, muttering under his breath something about women and their moods. It’s strange, the things she didn’t notice about him while she was grooming him as her protégé. Like that supposedly ironic streak of sexism, overlooking the considerable privilege that let him walk into medical school and his job without breaking much of a sweat.
Or is it only now obvious by comparison to Cassie, with her rough edges and the way she approaches every job, major or minor, as though she’ll be kicked out of the door for failing. Veronica knows it still runs beneath all her confidence and achievements.
The call had panicked her, a frantic F1 sent to find the nearest responsible consultant. Luckily or not, that had been Veronica. It’s an almost unerring ability she has, to be the closest port in a storm.
That just leaves cleaning this scene up. Turning to Pauline, Veronica is able to summon a smile. “Pauline, if you could be a dear? Get yourself organised now and have our dedicated F1—Adrian—here step in to close up. Then it’s the usual arrangements until we can contact the sergeant’s family.”
“He doesn’t have any.” Cassie’s voice is cracking, and she doesn’t look at either of them. “He told me, on the ward. It’s why he joined up.”
“Nothing for him here, it’s a common enough story. All the same, we’ll have to check the paperwork for whomever he did name next of kin because—”
“Me.” Cassie finally looks over at Veronica then, the single word an accusation and a defence.
“Right, well,” Veronica hedges for time, out of both her depth and her element and fairly sure that it shows.
Pauline steps out to give
them privacy, having disposed of her surgical scrubs and dragged Adrian along with her. They’re alone, for the first time, and Veronica’s overwhelming urge to care for someone in such a broken state takes over.
Veronica lays her hands on Cassie’s shoulders, the one part of her definitely free of blood and viscera, starting to steer her gently towards washing off this tragic little scene.
“From what they told me, it was a massive embolism. There’s very little you could have done; his chest would have needed to be cracked already to catch that in time.”
“He wasn’t throwing clots,” Cassie mutters. “Just this one. I went as quick as I could, I did… I swear I did.”
“Of course.” Veronica isn’t great at reassurance; she knows that much about herself. All she can fumble towards is what she’d want to hear herself. “You did everything you could.”
“I was ready for everything else. I scanned and rescanned for pseudoaneurysms, just in case. He had as much Heparin as was safe, and still?”
“We can’t anticipate every twist and turn, Major.”
Cassie stops in her tracks, blinks a few times. “You called me Captain before. Why?”
“To get your attention,” Veronica replies. “I was reaching, I’m sorry. It really wasn’t a case of disrespect.”
“It doesn’t matter. I mean, it worked. That always irritates me.” Cassie shakes her head, and they move off again.
Their steps aren’t quite in rhythm, and for a moment it looks like Cassie won’t actually leave the theatre space entirely, but they make it to the scrub room with a few squeaks of sneakers against tile. She grips the edge of the sink, leaning over like she might be sick. When nothing happens, Veronica tugs experimentally on the first tie at the back of Cassie’s pale blue gown. It gives, and Cassie sighs in something like acceptance.