In Storm and In Calm
Lucilla Andrews
Copyright © The Estate of Lucilla Andrews 2019
This edition first published 2019 by Wyndham Books
(Wyndham Media Ltd)
27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX
First published 1975
www.lucillaandrews.com
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Cover artwork images © Marcin Kadziolka / Blackday (Shutterstock)
izusek (istockphoto.com)
Cover artwork design © Wyndham Media Ltd
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Also by Lucilla Andrews
from Wyndham Books
The Print Petticoat
The Secret Armour
The Quiet Wards
The First Year
A Hospital Summer
My Friend the Professor
Nurse Errant
Flowers from the Doctor
The Young Doctors Downstairs
The New Sister Theatre
The Light in the Ward
A House for Sister Mary
Hospital Circles
Highland Interlude
The Healing Time
Edinburgh Excursion
Ring O’ Roses
Silent Song
One Night in London (The Jason Trilogy Book 1)
A Weekend in the Garden (The Jason Trilogy Book 2)
In an Edinburgh Drawing Room (The Jason Trilogy Book 3)
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Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
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Author’s Note
I wish to thank most sincerely the medical and nursing authorities, the Coxswains and crew of the Lerwick Lifeboat, the executive, technician and construction workers in the oil industry, and the many other Shetlanders and Orcadians whom I met, in private or professional capacities, for all the help, advice, kindness and friendliness I received while in the Shetlands seeking the geographical and technical background for this novel.
The enchanting Shetland Islands exist and have their own excellent and admirable Health, Welfare, Lifeboat and other services. But the Isle of Thessa does not exist, as all the settings, circumstances and characters in IN STORM AND IN CALM are fictitious.
Lucilla Andrews
Chapter One
My first glance round the reception lounge at Dalry airport that morning took me straight back to the Yukon, to California, to Humphrey Bogart sweating it up the Sierra Madre, to countless other old, gold-rush movies on television and cinema screens. After a minute in the in-transit queue I had cast a Texan for the Bogart bit and started searching hopefully for a Robert Redford.
The Texans had their base just to the right of the bookstall at the far end and though theirs was one of the smallest groups of standing men it was the most noticeable owing to its restlessness and the uniform off-white stetsons over the tanned, shrewd, fortyish faces. One after the other, the Texans roamed the aisle separating the middle benches from the long padded seat against the one outside wall of the ground floor lounge, or paused to re-read the advertisements over the Hire Car Bureau, or drifted out to re-survey the few grounded planes, or watch the latest helicopter dropping from the wide, parchment, northern Scottish sky. They all wore their hats at the same angle and walked in the same way. They walked warily, on the balls of their feet, yet with a faint swagger of the shoulders, as if aware of their unarguable worth, but not too sanguine about the natives.
The British, and by far the largest standing group, had the floor in front of the hot and soft drinks counter. They looked younger than the Americans, and some had clever eyes, some hard, tight mouths and jaws, some the expressions of vacuous good-humour that can conceal great intelligence, but more frequently camouflages the particular form of arrogant stupidity that builds and destroys empires. They all had the faces of men accustomed to working in the open with brains rather than hands, and wore good business suits and carried expensive briefcases. The Scots had the longer hair and thicker sideburns, the English had the furled umbrellas. They talked, joked discreetly together and kept an eye on the Texans.
The Australians had the entrance of the side-corridor to the bar and for once the faces above the hand-monogrammed in Hong Kong silk shirts didn’t seem unusually leathery. I recognized their shirts with such affection I didn’t look at them twice.
A correct little square of West Germans by the sweet machines kept their eyes and conversations to themselves: a bunch of Frenchmen blocked the counter-aisle to argue the best air route from Lagos to Madagascar: the Spaniards, Portuguese and South Americans formed a Latin block round the paperback racks and, between sighs, did a visual strip job on any passing air hostess, or one of the very few girls present with enough self-confidence to buy something to read.
Only three of the standing men had beards, but the younger men packed into the middle benches looked as if they hadn’t seen a comb, razor or worked indoors, for months. They wore anoraks, donkey-jackets, jeans, and read comics, or sports’ pages, or slept. Their clothes were crumpled and stained, but the quality was very good and the smokers only smoked king-size and handed round to strangers and friends without a casual glance at the emptying packets.
The man beside me on the early flight from London said a skilled driller on a rig could earn three hundred pounds a week. ‘Roustabouts and roughnecks’ll probably get about that a month.’
‘They’re unskilled?’
‘Yes, but they earn it. Long hours and no booze.’
‘The rigs are dry?’
He nodded. ‘Very strict rule. Any guy caught bringing on booze gets fired back on the next returning chopper. Hours have to be long as the weather limits how much work can be done each year in the North Sea. Maybe you’ve got six or seven months, so you can’t waste time. Know Scotland well?’
‘Not at all. My first visit.’
‘I know the Lowlands fairly well
and I’ve once been to Aberdeen.’
I said I had heard it was an interesting city and put on my reading glasses. He seemed about thirty, and had light brown hair, a strong, plain face and intelligent eyes behind thick glasses. He glanced at me over the rims, as the short-sighted do when wanting a better look at a close object, and his expression assumed the studied lack of interest worn by young middle-class Englishmen when wondering what a girl’s like in bed. Since our voices had placed us for each other and we’d been engrained by the same tribal customs, once I opened my book he opened his briefcase. For the rest of the flight we treated each other as invisible, but without the silent hostility that can evoke in those who don’t share the English passion for fencing in their gardens and themselves. After we landed at Dalry he handed me my grip from the floor and noticed the airline label. ‘I hope our flight to Thessa gets off on time.’
‘Hope so. Thanks.’
He had disappeared when I joined the queue at the transit counter. The line of counters faced the middle seats across the second aisle and was presided over by spruce young men in dark blue, with angular Celtic faces, soft voices and exquisite manners. ‘A wee delay, alas. The weather over Thessa is not too good just now.’
Directly ahead of me, a mint-new blonde in a sugar-pink trouser suit demanded her elderly escort find the bar and buy her a drink. He said if he knew anything about Scotland the bar would be closed and anyway it was too early for drinking. She was about to object, when she took her first proper look around. She closed her mouth with an almost audible snap, widened her eyes and flung out her bosom. Then, ‘Tell you what, dearie ‒ why don’t we have a nice cuppa? We can get one up there!’
Her South London accent gave me only a momentary problem. Why shouldn’t Klondyke Annie be an English emigrant? I signed her up, mentally and was about to continue the search for a Robert Redford when I reached the head of the queue and reality intruded.
Under the counter glass was the first map I had seen of the British Isles to show the Shetlands in their correct geographical position and not tidied into a little box off the top right tip of the Scottish mainland. The clerk smiled over his practised joke: ‘If you’re thinking to return by rail from the Isle of Thessa, miss, remember your nearest station will be Bergen, Norway.’
A row of elderly women on the seat against the wall moved up to make room for me. They wore sensible hats and shoes and were laden with shopping baskets and brown paper parcels. They chatted together incessantly, softly, in a language that sounded basically English though I could only follow the occasional word. From their hand-luggage labels they were returning to Thessa from Glasgow and Edinburgh, but they looked as if they were waiting for a country bus. They had sturdy, weathered, countrywomen’s faces and strangely calm, pale blue eyes. They were the only waiting passengers I saw who didn’t bother to look at their watches or the clock on the opposite wall.
I envied their calm and glanced uneasily out of the window behind me. Growing against the building was a bed of rather lovely bronze chrysanthemums and across the road the autumnal grass edging the tarmac had the vivid green of spring. There was no sign of the sea but I knew it was near. I knew I was wearing what, if only for me, were the right clothes; denim slacks, sweater, bra, pants, socks not tights, slip-ons and an anorak. The two last were easily shed and I could swim in the rest. Not that swimming was a good idea in certain circumstances since it wasted energy. It was far better just to keep afloat and if possible grab on to any buoyant bit of the capsized craft. Or aircraft.
Last night the girl with whom I shared a flat had watched me pack. We had known each other six years, having started our general nursing training in the same student set. She said, ‘I think this is a mistake, Charlotte.’
I shrugged. ‘Anyway, Kirsty was my special chum in general.’
‘Yes, but she hasn’t seen you for three years or she wouldn’t bleat for you now.’
‘She didn’t specifically bleat for me. She merely asked if I could swing the O.P.A. to find her a relief for this month. Thessa’s so isolated, they can’t get full-time temps just like that.’
‘I don’t see why she’s got to go herself. The French have Mat. Hospitals ‒’
‘Not anywhere near the village where this younger sister lives.’
‘Why does she have to live there?’
‘Husband’s an artist and the light’s right.’
‘He make any money?’
‘Not much.’
She snorted. ‘If Kirsty can afford the flight fare, surely it’d be more sensible to send her sister the cash and have her fly to Martha’s? Obviously with her obstetric history she needs hospitalization. This’ll probably be another stillborn.’
‘That’s why Kirsty wants to be there. Her sister refuses to leave home. Kirsty knows her midder. Remember she did a year in Glasgow when we did ours here, and then she had another midder job in Canada before returning to general surgery on this Thessa job. I think she’s doing the right thing.’
‘Maybe for her sister.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘I still don’t see why Mrs Warren has to send you.’
‘She thinks a month in a small country hospital’ll be useful experience before I take over a highly specialized acute ward like Victoria next month. The timing actually works out very well, as for this month the Accident Unit has its full quota of senior staff nurses. Sister A.U.’s happy. So’s Mrs Warren.’
‘Sister A.U.’s always had a sadistic streak, and Mrs Warren only came back to us as P.N.O. last year.’
‘I know.’
‘I just hope you know what you’re doing,’ she said in the tone of one convinced of the reverse. ‘At least, you’re flying.’
‘I must to be there by Wednesday and that’s when Mrs Brown the P.N.O. at Thessa General told Mrs Warren she’d like me. Sit on this case, or I’ll never shut it.’
She obliged. ‘You do realize you’re going to have to see a bloody awful lot of the sea?’
‘Could cure my hang up.’
‘Like to bet?’
‘If there’s one thing I like about you, dear, it’s your sunny, optimistic nature!’
She smiled, reluctantly. ‘I’ll say this for you ‒ whatever may be wrong with your psyche, there’s nothing wrong with your instinct for self-preservation, so you should be all right. And women always have a higher exposure tolerance owing to their greater proportion of biological fat.’
An Australian physician once said much the same to me on the evening of the night during which he died and I lived. I thought of him in the bath last night. The water was very hot, but when I got out I was still so cold I took two hot water bottles to bed.
I didn’t notice how long I had been staring at my denims or the furled umbrella had been suspended above my feet when its owner addressed me. He was my neighbour on the flight up. ‘Excuse me, but did you hear that announcement about Flight 436 to Thessa?’
‘No.’ I stood up. The elderly women had vanished. ‘Thanks. Can we board?’
‘Doubt it. They want to chat us up at Information.’ He took my grip and we went over to join the crowd round the Information counter. He was about a foot taller than me and I could see over most heads. Being five three, I settled for shoulders. The official voice filtered through ‘… extremely sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but there it is. We’ve the aircraft, the pilot, the passengers, but no control over the weather. We can but hope the mist will lift during the afternoon and allow us to land you on Thessa. There’ll be another announcement later.’
‘It bloody must lift as I’ve got to be on Thessa tomorrow morning!’ My companion turned to someone at his own eye level behind us. ‘If the scheduled flights can’t get through, would you happen to know the chances of a charter? Couldn’t a small plane get in under the mist?’
‘Not in the type of mist presently over Thessa. No plane of any size has been able to get in since the day before yesterday.’
I turned. ‘Why didn’t they tell us this at Heathrow?’
The speaker looked at me thoughtfully and took his time. He was a very long, slight man in elegant tweeds, roughly the same age as the Englishman, with black hair, a very high-cheekboned face and the languid air of one to whom time is not merely unimportant, but a distasteful subject. He had a case of fishing rods under one arm and from his pallor only fished at night and needed the missing sleep. ‘There is nothing unusual in this situation. The weather frequently isolates Thessa for days, and it can be for weeks. This has been a particularly bad summer for mists up there.’ His voice was educated, deep, slow and I was so fascinated by the way the English words floated up and down under the alien colours of his Scottish intonations that I almost stopped listening to what he was actually saying. ‘The mist can clear abruptly. Eventually, it will.’
The Englishman asked about the steamer. ‘Presumably, there’s a regular service from here and the weather doesn’t hold that up?’
‘Not the mists, but, naturally, the steamer can be delayed by storm force gales. Indeed, yes ‒ she sails from here twice a week ‒ but she is presently over in Thessa. She’ll next sail from here on Thursday afternoon, or early evening. If all planes are still grounded by Thursday, the airline’ll get us all over on the steamer. Until the weather decides to improve, regrettably all I can advise is patience.’ He bowed languidly and drifted off.
The Englishman and I exchanged intentionally blank glances. ‘No wonder,’ he murmured, ‘the Yanks wreck their blood-pressures trying to get some action up here! You should hear my boss on the subject of Highlanders!’
‘Is he a Yank?’
‘No. Scot. Edinburgh-born and bred though he now works in London. I’ll have to ring him.’ He returned my grip. ‘Better have this in case I forget it and someone takes it out and explodes it.’
‘Thanks.’ I couldn’t make up my mind whether I was relieved or appalled by the delay. ‘I guess I should ring my boss.’
‘Not on holiday?’
‘Temporary job.’
We joined one of the shorter ’phone queues but had a considerable wait as the man at the head was making several calls and all at the top of his petulant voice. He was English, but only he was proud of it. ‘If you ask me, bloody inefficient … crappy little joint … size of a village cricket pavilion … have to cut the grass before the planes can land …’ He was youngish, fair, florid and if he shed a couple of stone would have been quite good-looking. The girl with him was not very young, or pretty, aside from her beautiful, dark and unhappy eyes. When at last he rang off she was puce. The Englishman and I exchanged another glance then looked at our feet. When we reached the head he stood back for me.
In Storm and In Calm Page 1
