by Maggie Humm
“Sorry, Matron,” she mumbled, and quickly stacked everything. How long had she been watching? The slight Danish inflection made her sentences sound crisp, but the tone wasn’t cross. Matron always spoke purposefully but was never unkind. The slim young nurse had told her stories of matrons in Charing Cross Military Hospital, where the nurse had completed her probationary training. She’d been ordered to redo bed covers again and again if a blanket was folded incorrectly or if the insignia of the hospital wasn’t visible beyond the turned-down sheet. Lucky to have avoided such ridiculous strictures, Lily had no time to wonder if she was doing things right or not, or to redo tasks again and again. Here jobs had to be completed as fast as possible.
Stretcher-bearers ran into the ward with doctors following close behind, their white coats blowing back like stiff wings. Ward rounds had obviously ceased for the day. One of the older doctors, his remaining hair slicked down with grease, told her to bring a clean kidney bowl and to stay alongside.
“You will need to wash the wounds, nurse,” he ordered, “and apply a dressing for each man as I list his injuries on the chart.”
It was the first time she’d tackled a dressing, and the Highlander’s skin made repeated harsh cracks when the doctor squeezed reddish-brown fluid from his blisters. The sound resembled the crunching noises Father made when chewing browned pork crackling on the Sunday roast, and she felt sick and faint for a moment, pushing her fingernails into her palms to avoid any humiliating weakness, but she couldn’t take her eyes from his wounds: the raised weals, the mottled skin, and the streaks of blood in little streams from each cut.
The sight of the doctor’s calm, smooth features was settling. “It’s gas gangrene,” he said, his eyes deep in black shadows. “Don’t worry, my man, we make the treatment one of our specialities here at Queen Alexandra’s.”
Wiping foul-smelling fluid from the patient’s chest, the doctor continued his reassurances. “All the dead tissue has already been removed. The wounds will heal nicely.” As he pushed the curtain back, he told Lily to disinfect the injuries with alcohol solution and to apply bandages, asking her quietly to note on the charts if any men vomited.
She frowned, wondering why. “They all may have liver damage or kidney failure to come,” he whispered, making a wry face. “It’s impossible to tell at this stage.”
Straightening her cap, she stood more erect, glad to have his information, eager to stay at his side while he treated patient after patient along the ward. She felt like she was stepping into a new self, a person who worked in a real life.
“At least with Highlanders,” the doctor said, “you don’t have to cut through breeches and puttees to get to the wounds, although I can’t understand half of what they say.”
Lily glanced up. His face was unmoving in spite of the quip, severe with tiredness, but he seemed a sensitive man, his hair prematurely grey on his sideburns—doubtless why he combed his hair with dark grease—and she wanted him to think her a good worker, feeling included in his decisions in some way.
It was mid-afternoon before the nurses were allowed into their station for the usual cocoa and buns. The conversation was spasmodic, unnatural. Sitting down, she wondered if she would ever stand up again. They were all too tired to joke or to tell stories. It would always be this—a long line of nurses sinking into their skins with caring and exhaustion.
Matron arrived carrying what looked like another long list of duties. “Nurse Briscoe, I need you to go to Barry Ward for an hour,” she said. “They need a number of dressing trays prepared.”
She’d have time to talk to Eliza. They only seemed to meet on the stairs or in the corridors as they crisscrossed the hospital collecting medicines from the basement pharmacy. Today perhaps they could plan a Sunday outing. Lily rubbed her chapped hands together and left immediately before Matron could change her mind.
Sorting supplies in the Barry Ward’s nurses’ room, she beamed, seeing Eliza skipping towards her with, thankfully, no matron in sight.
“I had a strange dream last night,” Eliza said. “We were standing side by side in Talland House, painting at our easels.” Her face fell. “But the dream turned into a nightmare because we couldn’t make the paint stick to the canvas, and Prue’s face was growing fainter and fainter with each of my brushstrokes.”
“I’ve been too tired to dream,” Lily replied, “but I’m glad. I’d miss St Ives even more if I did. Sit next to me and help me sort all this. I’ve an hour before I need to return to Ward C.” She wiped her forehead, clammy with tiredness, then rearranged the syringes she’d thrown into a tray into neat parallel lines.
Church bells were ringing for Sunday services when the two women set out. Glad she’d invited Eliza to sketch for the day, even if St. James’s Park was further away than she’d remembered, Lily drew the fresh air deep into her lungs. The winding bank of the Thames was definitely uglier than before the war, with the War Office huts blocking the river views and crowding pedestrians onto narrowed pavements. Eliza and Lily passed women clutching children, gaping up at the monumental bronze figures attached to Vauxhall Bridge. Feeling gratified some were statues of women, Lily smiled at all the passers-by. Sunday was their one free day now, with women conscripted into factories and transport to replace the men at the front. At least she’d freely chosen to be a nurse, however exhausting the work.
The Palace of Westminster loomed ahead through the smog, and soon it felt as if they’d crossed two map pages in minutes by walking so fast. Barrow boys selling hot chestnuts at the corner of Parliament Square were busy raking the embers of braziers, and the heat thawed Lily’s nose when she leaned over to breathe in the caramelised scent.
“I’d so love some nuts,” Eliza said, “but we can’t dirty our hands with the charcoal or we’ll smudge our sketches.”
Lily nodded, looking up at the massive grey tower of Big Ben close to Westminster Bridge. It was silent, the unlit white-and-black clock difficult to see in the smog. Missing the striking of hours and quarters, she felt outside of time, and the streets, too, seemed to float free, as if a grey ocean had swept up the Thames, enveloping them all. The entrance to the underground station across the road was dark, the smell of dead air like a mothballed cupboard muffling the morning further. Surprised to find plenty of horses in the streets since many must be at the front with the army, she watched hansom cabs cut in front of horse-drawn carts in the melee of Parliament Square. Rubbing her eyes free of tiredness, she stared at the bustle—a whirl of life after the hospital—feeling a little guilty at relishing any London sights in wartime.
With the sun burning up the mist, the park ahead shone through the smog, uncut grass heaving up against the few remaining railings. Since she’d begun nursing it had felt to Lily as if London’s colour was draining away, but nothing was more exquisite to her at this moment than the city’s green spaces and the liberation from hospital timetables; they were free to sit and sketch wherever they wished.
“I can see the hospital everywhere I turn. Look at the lake,” Eliza said, pointing. “It’s curved like the kidney bowls we wash every day. It’s all too screamingly sad.”
“At least it’s been drained.” Lily smiled. “No urine or blood.”
They chose deckchairs near the empty lake, and the breeze felt warm on Lily’s cheeks in the balm of midday. All around them people were now sleepily slouched in chairs or resting on the grass. Some smiled up at the two women, their grey capes and uniforms marking them out as nurses, and Lily smiled back, relieved the sun had at last cleared the smoggy sulphurous smell from the air.
“Whatever happens,” Eliza said, “as long as we both live, we’ll always have this beautiful spring day.”
Lily laughed—Eliza sometimes sounded absurdly optimistic—and stared ahead at children in woollen berets and smart velvet-collared coats whipping tops along a path, followed by brown-uniformed nannies rushing to keep them safe, the spinning tops’ multicoloured circles all blending together in a whirlp
ool.
“The park’s like a Canaletto,” Eliza said, glancing around, drawing outlines on her pad.
“I agree,” Lily said, “the figures look as if they’ve been placed for effect.”
“You always sound like a tutor,” Eliza said, smiling. “I’m choosing the most interesting group to fix on the page.”
They sketched contentedly for hours from their seats in a secluded haven facing the drained lake, empty of the usual birds. The fountain on the island was dry, the shrubs had wilted, and without any bird sounds or rippling water people strode past without looking. A solitary man was marching briskly around the perimeter of the lake, his head thrust forward in a way making Lily think it was Mr. Ramsay. But she must be imagining things. Why would he be here? Surely this man was thinner than Mr. Ramsay? She pushed her hair back from her eyes and stared. It was him—tall, grey-haired, dark-suited, swinging his arms back and forth with military precision.
“Isn’t it Mr. Ramsay?’ Lily whispered, and Eliza glanced up, frowning.
“Not that unpleasant man, surely,” she said, putting down her pencil. “Why on earth would he be here?”
Children were scattering out of his way. “Stormed at with shot and shell!” he was bellowing as he stared fiercely at any remaining children. Lily heard the familiar words hover in the afternoon hush. He’d quoted them so often at Talland House. For a second, she could barely hear anything else, as if she’d drifted out of time. An image of Mrs. Ramsay trying to calm her husband spouting poetry on the terrace flashed into her mind. Then she realised he was walking in their direction. She had to stop him, talk with him to find out more about the family. He’d be with them in an instant. As he approached, she spoke loudly before he could pass by without noticing them.
“Mr. Ramsay, how do you do? I thought Kensington Gardens were your favourite haunt?”
He stopped abruptly, staring at them as if they were ghosts. Lily had never seen him look so startled.
“I knew your choice of poetry instantly, Mr. Ramsay,” she added. “Isn’t it ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’?”
His eyes flickered back and forth examining their clothing as he raised his hat. Could he recognize them in their nurses’ uniforms?
“Miss Briscoe, Miss Stillman, I had no idea you were serving our country,” he said, his cheeks slowly turning pink. “How admirable of you both to do so.”
He’d ventured a compliment, something altogether new in Lily’s experience, and it gave her the courage to ask the questions she’d wanted answers to for so long: questions about Mrs. Ramsay, about Talland House, and now, more than anything, whether she could call upon the family on the next free Sunday afternoon. For a minute she puzzled over what to say without suffering his usual disdain, and he continued looking surprised. He’d probably never talked to women away from the supportive presence of his wife. Had Mr. Ramsay ever had an equal conversation with a woman? In St Ives, where his control of hearth and home was insurmountable, he’d spoken with invited women guests.
“And Mrs. Ramsay and the children?” Lily asked. “All well, I trust? Have you been down to Talland House?”
Hesitating, she held back the question about visiting, anxious she’d said too much because he was already glancing awkwardly down at his highly polished brown boots.
“We’re very well. But we’ve not returned to Talland House since war broke out. My son Andrew is fighting at the front. Mrs. Ramsay is beside herself with worry,” he said, and his shoulders stiffened.
“How courageous,” Eliza said without looking at Lily, as if speaking for them both.
Lily felt confused, unsure how to speak, since Mr. Ramsay was now staring down the path ahead with the straight-backed stance of Matron. Aware he seemed unwilling to talk, she wanted a question about Sunday visiting to pop complete into her head, but her thoughts felt jumbled and her throat was dry. Swallowing, she began to say, “Perhaps I might ask to …” but he’d already replaced his hat.
“I have an appointment in Whitehall, meeting one of my former students,” he said curtly. The man needed, it seemed, to discuss philosophical ideas even in the midst of his wartime clerking. He made a slight bow and walked off without another word.
In these past months she’d been trying to push away her memories of the Ramsays in order to focus more on the present, on becoming a nurse, a professional independent woman. Sometimes it was like completing a patient’s chart, ticking the signs of recovery, and now, with one sight of Mr. Ramsay, the chart was blurred. She’d wanted so much to find out more about Mrs. Ramsay, anxious to know what she actually thought about the portrait, whether Andrew was right she disliked it, oh so many things, but the moment was over, and Lily watched his back straighten even more as he strode away from them through the park to Whitehall.
Ward C was busy the next day, most bedsides attended by a doctor or a nurse. Mr. Ramsay’s tall, upright figure was in Lily’s mind. She hadn’t slept well, picturing their encounter but with empty black holes: all the questions she hadn’t asked, the answers she’d wanted to hear, and her overriding wish to visit Mrs. Ramsay never stated. Distracted, she leaned towards a patient to give him water.
“He must not have liquids, Nurse Briscoe,” a doctor ordered, standing behind her. “He’s to be operated on today.”
She hadn’t read the notes. Thankfully it was the kindly looking doctor with twinkly eyes rather than Matron, who certainly kept a mental scorecard with the faults of all her nurses. Lily must be top of the list. Replacing the cup with its long spout on the bedside locker, she held her hands behind her back in the customary deferential pose. Nodding at her, the doctor stretched out the patient’s leg.
“We can save his foot, I believe, by removing some toes,” he muttered to Lily. “Although the skin is mottled and blackened, I believe the trench foot is superficial.” He turned back to the patient and spoke reassuringly. “No sign of gangrene, old chap,” he said, placing his hands soothingly on top of the man’s clenched fists.
Would the operation be successful? The patient was skin and bones and ghastly pale, but his eyes were bright, and the doctor’s good news made him talkative.
“We had an excellent officer, sir,” the patient said. “Lieutenant Brooke made us responsible for checking each other’s feet at night. If it was left to me, I’d have thrown myself dogtired down on the blankets.”
“And lost your foot to gangrene, no doubt!” the doctor said with feeling.
He ordered Lily to resume her duties, but he smiled at her as his white coat swept him from the ward. She collected her broom, beginning to hate the dreary daily routine of sweeping the ward floor and cleaning empty bedsteads. The bedside cupboards were worst of all. Door handles were wiped first with carbolic solution and then made to shine with dusters, but it was difficult to reach the inside corners. Luckily all the nighttime bedpans were left drained by the late-shift nurses before coming off duty, but the pans needed careful cleaning and sterilizing with steam from the big kettle in the nurses’ station.
She was working on them, preventing herself from looking at the watch pinned to her uniform in case it was an hour to the end of her shift, when the same doctor reappeared carrying a large square box with a handle. Placing it down carefully near the sink, he rushed out and returned with a horn and a case of shellac records.
“At least we can give the men some normality,” he said. “Help me to set this up, Nurse Briscoe.”
Together they carried the gramophone to the long table in the centre of the ward where the healthier men usually played cards.
“Each evening patients may choose records to play,” the doctor announced with a broad smile. “Dancing is also permitted.” He smiled at Lily.
The nearest patient struggled to sit upright; an officer at the end of the ward had already swung his legs over the edge of his bed. She stared at the unusual sight. It was like a Greek myth—the field of skeletons coming alive in front of Jason and his Argonauts.
“Music
will get them out of their beds, make them more mobile,” the doctor whispered to Lily. “Even those with one leg can use their sticks.”
After she speedily cleared away the food trays, the patients who tended to groan and shout for nurses sat up, calling out titles to a man on crutches balancing on his remaining leg as he searched through the records. “Burlington Bertie from Bow” battled with “All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor,” and a symphony of excited chatter replaced the ward’s usual upper notes of feverish moans and cries.
She was due to go off duty but stayed—the transformation was more magical than any theatre. The patient on crutches turned the gramophone handle and placed a needle onto a disc, swaying his body in time to the music, and the scratchy record quelled the chitchat. The music hall song sounded dreadfully strained, as if all the orchestra players had muffled their instruments, but, as she stood listening, feeling her heart beat faster, the scratches became indistinct. “Yes, You Are” was playing in her mind as well as in the room, underscoring the sea crashing against the stone walls of the studio in St Ives. Louis always played the song, the students clustering around the piano, the gaslight glowing, and his rich tenor reached her across the years. Stepping closer to the gramophone, she felt like she was standing next to his piano, turning the pages of his sheet music, smiling directly into his eyes whenever he glanced up. She didn’t blink in case Louis disappeared. It was sufficient to see him.
Lily smiled at the patients and swung into the chorus. With the song’s last note the ward returned to its habitual sounds. A bed scraped the linoleum, and another patient took his turn at the gramophone. Carbolic displaced her whisky memory, but the room had changed. Patients who’d been silent ever since she first started nursing were talking to each other, and the moonlight shining through the windows, crisscrossed with safety tape, threw diamonds of shimmering white over them all. Glancing up, she saw the doctor standing in the open doorway, bent with exhaustion and leaning heavily on the doorframe but smiling broadly, and she smiled back.
