The Nurse's War

by Merryn Allingham

  This morning she’d been on the ward long before seven, eager to get the day started. The sun had risen just as early and for once was flooding the long ward and streaking its high windows with a pink and golden glow. There were thirty beds in the room, fifteen on each side, and nurses were strictly allocated to one side or the other and not permitted to wander. Daisy gathered together several screens and walked to the furthest of her beds. She enjoyed this time of day. After the long night, patients were glad to see a fresh batch of nurses come on duty, glad to gossip, as they were made ready for breakfast.

  ‘How are you, my dear?’ The elderly woman’s face puckered into a wide smile and, despite her worries, Daisy smiled back.

  ‘Not too bad, Mrs Oliver. How was your night?’

  ‘Oh, you know. A few hours’ sleep and an awful lot of staring into the dark.’

  A week ago, Mrs Oliver had been bombed out of her house and lost everything: her home, her possessions, and her husband. She was recovering from broken bones, but her broken heart was something else.

  Daisy balanced an enamel bowl on the small bedside table. ‘Let’s see if a warm wash will perk you up.’

  ‘It always does,’ the old lady said, cheerfully, ‘leastways when you do it, love. Not too keen on some of the others.’ And she nodded meaningfully down the ward where Lydia was impatiently clanging screens together.

  Daisy ignored the hint and began to wipe the lined face with a warm flannel. ‘I’m afraid this towel has seen better days,’ she apologised, gently patting the woman dry. The hospital’s linen had not been replaced and much of it was now thin and rough.

  ‘Like me then.’ Mrs Oliver gave a hoarse chuckle. ‘So will I be seeing you all day? You’ll be here?’

  ‘Apart from a few hours this afternoon.’

  ‘Ah, off to see your sweetheart, I’ll be bound.’ The old lady smiled. And when Daisy’s cheeks flushed pink, she said, ‘See, I’m right. And why not? You’re a real looker—that’s what they say these days, isn’t it? But even better, you’re a sweet, kind girl. The very best.’

  ‘I’ll be certain to come to you for a reference,’ Daisy responded gaily, moving the screens on to the next patient.

  From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Willa half in and half out of the sluice room. This morning the girl had been given the task of boiling up the huge, oval fish kettles in order to sterilise the instruments and kidney dishes that had been used overnight. In mechanical fashion, she was lowering the items into the furiously boiling water. She was very pale, Daisy noticed, but seemed composed and she hoped the girl had taken her advice and was attempting to forget last night’s ugly incident. She would try to keep an eye on her in the next few days but it was difficult with so much to do on the ward, and the need today to rush to the Strand the minute she was given her free time. She took no lunch, working without a break until two o’clock, in the hope that Sister Elton would feel duty bound to let her go and not find her a new set of chores.

  She didn’t think it likely since she was rarely in trouble with the hospital hierarchy. She was the ideal nursing recruit. Mature and reliable. And even though she couldn’t match her fellow trainees in either education or background, she had the right manners. The manners of a superior domestic servant, she thought wryly. In general, Sister was strict but fair and only very occasionally difficult. Like many women of her generation, she had lost her fiancé in the Great War and, at forty, had little chance of marrying. Her job was everything to her, and it was easy to see how petty annoyances on the ward could escalate into a resentment of the younger women under her charge. The ward sisters at Barts were ‘ladies’ and, from her days in service, Daisy was sensitive to their position and understood how best to deal with them. The knowledge had afforded her a relatively easy passage through the daily tribulations of hospital life. At times, she’d had to bite her tongue, when she was asked to work again and again, long after she should have been back at the Home. But in wartime there were no rules. You did what needed to be done, and only then venture to put up your feet.

  Except there would be no putting feet up today. She had a long walk from the City to the Strand, although the going would be easy enough. It was daylight and the roads were clear; there had been no further bombing since the time she’d taken shelter in the Baker Street station.

  Once out of the hospital, she walked briskly, making good time along Holborn, past Chancery Lane and into the Strand, arriving at the tea shop slightly out of breath but on time. Grayson was already sitting at a table in the window and waved at her as she came through the door. His crisp white shirt and immaculate grey flannels made her feel shabby. Before leaving, she’d changed her pinafore and pinned on a newly starched cap but the rest of her was looking decidedly frayed. And would continue to look frayed, she thought, since the uniform must serve her for months, if not years, to come. The tea room was looking just as threadbare, its wallpaper faded to an indeterminate sludge and, beneath the brave polish, the dark wood of its tables and chairs wounded by myriad scratches.

  Grayson rose and pulled out a seat. ‘I’ve ordered tea, but I wasn’t sure what you’d like to eat.’

  It hadn’t been her intention to eat anything. The shorter the interview the better, but she found she was ravenous. Her last meal had been nine hours ago and hardly generous. The poster advertising breakfast wasn’t helping either: porridge, bacon and fried bread, dry toast and marmalade and a pot of tea for one shilling and sixpence.

  She scaled back her dreams. ‘A scone and butter would be fine.’

  He raised his hand to beckon the waitress over, while Daisy watched him covertly. He seemed cheerful. Did that mean he’d been successful? Or was he preparing her for failure, pretending the matter for which they were meeting was of little importance? Her stomach pitched unpleasantly. A young woman, neat and well laundered, arrived at their side in the familiar black and white uniform. A wide smile revealed the whitest of teeth. Daisy, her mind spinning this way and that, found herself wondering if Nippies had to pass a tooth test before they were employed.

  As soon as the girl left, Grayson said, ‘I should put you out of your misery. The papers for Gerald will be ready in two days.’

  A strange choking filled her throat. There was astonishment that he’d pulled it off, and even greater surprise that events were moving so quickly.

  ‘How?’ she stammered. ‘Where?’

  She knew she must sound slightly unhinged, but his announcement had sucked the breath from her body. Before he could reply, the Nippy returned with china cups and saucers and a large pot of tea. A plate of appetising scones and two white napkins were placed side by side in the centre of the table. A small oasis of civilisation in an uncivilised world, she thought, as Grayson poured tea for them both. She eyed the scones with interest, but he was speaking and she needed to pay attention.

  ‘In two days’ time the Foreign Office will be sending a new ambassador to New York. He’ll take with him a large team of advisers and supporting personnel, including a tranche of secretaries. Gerald has been recruited as an additional member of the secretarial team. According to the official record, his duties will be to keep the ambassador’s diary and arrange some of his appointments. The least sensitive, naturally.’

  Daisy’s spirits drooped. She looked down at the floor, tracing what pattern remained on the scuffed linoleum. The plan was unlikely to work, she thought, it was almost impossible to imagine Gerald as a secretary.

  ‘Of course, he won’t do anything such thing,’ Grayson was continuing smoothly. ‘Once he gets to New York, he’ll disappear. At least that’s the idea, and we can only hope he sticks to it.’

  That was better certainly, but she could still see flaws. ‘The ambassador, though. Won’t he find it strange when he suddenly loses a member of his staff?’

  ‘He’s been briefed. I imagine His Excellency will be only too pleased to be rid of the man.’

  Grayson was smiling and she felt bad that she cou
ldn’t stop finding fault. It meant too much to her, that was why. ‘But how will Gerald be able to disappear? When he gets to New York, he’ll be penniless.’

  ‘He’ll be provided with a new set of clothes, a new passport and sufficient money to keep himself for a month. After that it will be up to him.’

  ‘That’s very generous.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘How did you manage it?’

  ‘With difficulty. I had to sweet talk the section that deals with America and they in turn had to sweet talk the Foreign Office. I painted it as an operational emergency, saying that Gerald had been one of our men in India but had got into hot water during his work there, and we needed to spring him or else he might reveal some embarrassing secrets.’

  ‘You lied.’

  ‘I lied,’ he confirmed. ‘It helped that this week the Indian sector has been in turmoil and the whole of SOE has known about it. So my story about Gerald didn’t sound too corny.’

  ‘What kind of turmoil?’ She willed herself to believe it wouldn’t stop Gerald from fleeing the country.

  ‘Congress have sent a representative from Delhi for negotiations over independence. Do you remember, I told you Germany is determined to woo India, and we’ve been battling their propaganda? Anyway, Congress finally agreed to our request that they send someone to talk, and this is the chap. His name is Chandan Patel. We were given numerous demands before he arrived and we’ve been running around trying to fulfil them: the best hotel, a secretarial staff, high-level security, which is still up for debate, and naturally, access to top ministers. Congress appear windy. They want to talk, but not too eagerly, and they don’t want anything to befall their man. They should be windy,’ he said meditatively. ‘They’re trying to ride two horses. Always a dangerous thing.’

  ‘But lucky for me. I mean lucky that this Congress person has arrived at just the right time.’

  ‘Congress wallah is the term being bandied around my section.’

  ‘Congress person,’ she said firmly. ‘His turning up in London when he has, is the greatest good fortune. As you say, it will deflect people’s attention. Nobody will bother to find out whether Gerald really was an SOE man in India.’

  There was a small pause and Daisy thought this might be the right moment to thank him profusely and leave. But then he turned to her and his gaze caught hers. She tried to look away but found she couldn’t.

  ‘Tell me how you’ve been since we braved the raid together.’

  The words were oblique, but she knew they hid a question he wanted answering. He wanted to be clear about her feelings, and she shouldn’t be surprised. When they’d last met she’d been a storm of contradiction, throwing her arms around him, lifting her lips to his, and then as quickly withdrawing into the shell she’d built, determined to keep him at a distance. He must feel bemused. But then so did she.

  ‘I’ve been fine—enjoying the unaccustomed peace.’ She’d deliberately misunderstood his question. ‘Not a sound since that raid. I wonder if the Luftwaffe have decided to stay home for good.’

  ‘They’ll be back soon enough. But it’s certainly been a treat to be free of wailing sirens for a while.’ He’d decided to play along with her. ‘The last time I sat here, there were incendiaries falling out of the sky, dropping the entire length of the road. They hit with a curious plopping sound. I’d never heard it so distinctly before. And then they sizzled into a bluish white flame. I remember a man putting a steel helmet over one of them and the helmet going first a bright red and then hot white, and finally disintegrating. The newsvendor, the one you can see outside now, had the evening editions stacked in front of him. He was watching the helmet with a broad smile on his face, but he never once stopped bellowing, Star! News Standard! And all the time those incendiaries were raining down.’

  The anecdote moved her as much as it amused. It summed up the spirit of London during these long, weary months. There were bad people, of course, racketeers who used the war for their own purposes. Such people had always existed. There were even those who scavenged bombed-out buildings for anything of value, despite the fact that looting carried the death penalty. She remembered how stunned she’d been when she read of the Café de Paris bombing, a shocking transition from glittering luxury to wholesale destruction. While the women were having their wounds bathed in champagne, looters had moved in, breaking glass cases to steal jewellery and taking valuables from the bodies of those who had died. But these were the few, the very few. The great majority soldiered on through hardship, through fear, bound together by defiance as much as sorrow.

  Grayson sat in silence and she wondered what was coming. At last, he leaned across the small table and took her hand in his before she realised what he was doing. ‘I need to ask you something and you may not agree.’

  ‘What?’ He was worrying her.

  ‘Once the papers are ready, I must hand them to you personally. It would be too slow and too dangerous to post them. I think we should make the handover as innocent as possible.’

  She nodded agreement. This was not so worrying after all. ‘Where would be best to meet?’

  ‘I think we should go dancing.’

  She retrieved her hand and her lips opened to sound a silent ‘oh’. If ever there was a mad suggestion, this was it. Go dancing. With Grayson. She hadn’t danced with him since coming home aboard the Strathnaver. In truth, she hadn’t danced at all since then. It was Connie who danced. She had a momentary vision of them dancing elbow to elbow with her friend and Dr Lawson.

  ‘I know it sounds ridiculous, but dancing is what everybody does. It’s an activity least likely to attract attention.’

  ‘Do we need to be that cautious?’ she managed to say. It was a weak response, but he’d startled her and she was grappling for a way to say no.

  ‘I’m not sure, but better safe. Don’t forget that Mortimer told you he was being spied on by his fellow tenants, and you believed him.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘Shall we say I remain to be convinced? At one time though, you thought you were being followed too. And I confess that at the moment I’m feeling a tad jumpy. Mortimer’s false papers have nothing to do with India, but the men he’s worried about might have other ideas. With Patel in town, I don’t want to take any chances.’

  It still seemed mad. She’d more or less dismissed from her mind Gerald’s Indians, as she thought of them. She’d begun to believe that Grayson was right when he said they probably had things to conceal and were in hiding themselves. But then there was the strong sense she’d had of being watched, and that push on the underground platform. She’d almost convinced herself it had been due to a surge in the crowd, but a niggling doubt still remained.

  ‘If you’re right that Gerald is being spied on—and by association, you as well—my plan is perfect,’ Grayson was saying enthusiastically.

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘The men we’re talking about are Indian. Or at least one of them is. They’re most unlikely to go dancing.’

  ‘We could go for a drink. They wouldn’t drink either. We don’t need to dance.’ The thought of being held in Grayson’s arms was far too alluring. If they had a bar between them, she would feel a great deal safer.

  ‘We could, but bars are public and hotbeds of gossip. A dance and dinner will be far more exclusive.’

  ‘I’m not sure they do dinner at the Astoria.’ She was still thinking of Connie’s forthcoming evening with Dr Lawson.

  ‘Not a good idea. The Astoria is far too public and way too cheap. Anyone can gain admittance, and sneak in and out without being seen. We’ll go to the Ritz.’

  She laughed, but then she saw he meant it. ‘Does SOE pay you that well?’

  ‘The short answer to that is no. But this is by way of being an emergency. No one who shouldn’t be in the hotel will get past the doorman of the Ritz.’

  She was looking unconvinced. Part of her was very much wanting to say yes. But caution was uppermos
t. She’d already vowed that once this business with Gerald was over, she would see Grayson no more. Dancing with him was hardly an appropriate prelude.

  He watched her changing expressions closely. ‘I’ll reserve a table, we’ll eat dinner and whether we dance or not will be up to you,’ he said calmly. ‘It will look perfectly natural for us to be there together. I’ll pass you the papers just before we leave, put you in a cab to the Home and then I’m afraid you’re on your own.’

  That didn’t have a good sound. If someone was showing too much interest in Gerald, it wasn’t comforting to think she might meet that person when she went to the corner shop to leave the papers. But she could see that she was the one who must do it. She would hardly be noticed in the district, her uniform making her indistinguishable from any other nurse on the street. And there were plenty of those, more and more as the war progressed. Dozens of nursing staff were out and about during the day, walking in the fresh air, smoking a cigarette, joining a queue. If a man really had been following her these last few days, tracking her to the Nurses’ Home and maybe across London to Grayson’s office, he could do it again. But what would he discover, if he followed her to Gower Street? Nothing, as long he had no knowledge of the papers. All he would see was a nurse entering a small shop and making a small purchase. Better, then, to do as Grayson suggested.

  He was looking expectantly at her.

  ‘I’ll come to the Ritz,’ she said.

  ‘Good girl. I’ll make sure you get a decent meal out of it.’

  There was nothing remotely lover-like in his response and that was a comfort. He had a job to do and she had one too. The plan he’d devised was one he thought most likely to work. He’d gone to huge trouble in getting those precious papers, and she must do whatever she could to ensure his efforts hadn’t been in vain.