I sat and stared at her as she repeated the telephone conversation she had had earlier with my mother. ‘Your father and his partner were away for three days. Your mother said she understands they made several trips. She asked me to tell you that Uncle Michael is well, and that he was with your father when he died yesterday morning. Your mother knew nothing until your father’s partner brought the yawl back late last night.’ She moved from the desk and stood with her back to me at one of the windows. ‘I don’t have to tell you, m’dear, how distressed I am for you.’
I said, ‘Thank you very much’ as if she had passed me the salt. I sat still on that hard chair, and slowly I realized what she had told me, and I realized that I was never going to see my father again. I could not fully comprehend that; how could I be alive if he was dead? Yet I was alive, and she said he was dead. And the last time I had seen him was at a railway station. He had dropped me off on my last leave; he had not been able to wait for my train to come in, as he was late for surgery. He had kissed me quickly. ‘Take care of yourself, darling; write to your mother ‒ she loves getting letters from you brats ‒ and remember, if you want us, Mother and I are here at home.’ He had driven off swiftly; like all family doctors, he was always overworked, always in a hurry, never in for a meal on time, never far from his aged black bag. I did not wonder if he had taken his medical bag in the Margurita. I knew neither he nor Uncle Michael felt themselves dressed without their bags in their hands. I gazed at the potted geranium, and saw, not the slightly weary petals of that flower; I saw two greying, portly G.P.s in their fifties lugging that wretched Margurita down our garden and on to the beach, shoving her off the pebbles into the sea. Two ordinary, middle-aged fathers, sailing to bring the men home.
Miss Moreby-Aspin had moved. She stood behind me and put an arm round my shoulder. ‘I have seen Matron; naturally, you may have compassionate leave. I have looked up the trains for you. You will have to go through London; the cross-country journey is out of the question at the moment. I would rather you did not leave this afternoon, as you will almost certainly be delayed several hours, miss your connection in London to-night, and I do not like the idea of your having to spend to-night on your own in London. I think you should leave by the first train to-morrow morning. I will arrange transport for you. Do you agree, m’dear?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
She patted my shoulder. ‘Right. I’ll see to it. Now, about the rest of to-day. Would you like to be excused duty? Matron says you may do exactly as you choose.’
I had no feelings, no wishes, no tears. I was quite numb, and very cold. ‘I’d rather not go off duty, Madam, but I don’t mind what I do. I’ll do what you say.’
She helped me to my feet as if I were an invalid. ‘I’m going to take you to have some lunch. I know you don’t want to eat, m’dear, but you’re a sensible girl, and you’ll eat. Then I want you to go back to your Block. You’ll be better working. I’ll send a wire to your mother for you. I’ll try and book a trunk call for you, but you may not be able to get through. Your mother told me she had to wait four hours to talk to me.’
No one mentioned my father when I returned to the Ob. Block after lunch, yet every movement they made when I was around made me aware of their unspoken sympathy. There was a great deal of work to do, and Sister made sure that I did it. She did not give me a spare second until she sent me off duty at six. She held out her hand as she dismissed me; ‘Dillon, I wish I could say something that would help, but I can’t. Good-bye; good luck. I won’t be here when you get back. I’ve been posted. Thanks for all you’ve done.’
Joe was waiting by the cycle-rack. He had tied my cycle on the back of his car. ‘Get in, Clare. I’m going to run you home. Archie Oliver’s standing in for me for an hour.’
The trance-like stare in which I had existed since I followed Miss Moreby-Aspin into her office still held me in its grip. I obeyed him mechanically. He did not run me straight home. He stopped at his Mess. ‘Come in. You’re going to have a drink.’ He took my arm and walked me into the hall, pushed me like a stuffed doll down on to a leather sofa, vanished for a few seconds, and returned with two glasses. ‘Ever drunk neat whisky before?’
‘No.’
He gave me the glass. ‘You’re going to drink it now. Knock it back. It won’t go to your head to-day.’ He sat down by me and produced cigarettes. He lit two together and handed me one. ‘I know you’re in uniform. Forget it.’
He said nothing at all after that. We sat there in silence for perhaps fifteen minutes. I was grateful, and faintly surprised by his sensitivity. He was equally silent in the car when we drove the rest of the way. Only when we arrived at the V.A.D. Mess did he speak. ‘When you get back, Clare, if you feel glum give me a ring. I’ll buy you a drink. If I’m still here.’
‘Thanks, Joe. For that ‒ and this. Why? Think you’ll be posted? Like Sister?’
He nodded. ‘It’s on the cards.’ He looked at me. His eyes were half closed, making two brilliant blue slits in his sallow face. ‘I’m sorry your father’s dead, Clare. I’m very sorry. I wish I could have had more than one hour in which to help you now. I wish there was more time ‒ for a lot of things. There isn’t.’ He got out, walked round the car, and opened my door. ‘Hope the train doesn’t get held up too many times for you to-morrow.’
‘Yes.’ I thanked him again. ‘See you when I get back.’
He put his hands in his pockets. ‘I’ll be around. Maybe.’ He stayed standing by his car while I walked up the steps into our home. I did not see him drive away.
Late that night I got out of bed and went out into the garden alone. It was a very quiet night. The moon was full; very bright, very low, it hung over the tennis-courts like a great white foolish balloon. No convoys of lorries heavy with dumb men roared along the road into the camp and disturbed the night; the air was broken by not one but three nightingales, singing in rivalry in three separate trees. I listened to the nightingales, and tried to think of our home without Father, without his humour, his solidly reassuring presence, and the gentleness of his hands. I wished I could weep; I could not. I lay and watched the moon, and thought how stupid and lonely it looked, and how stupid and lonely I must look, lying in this quiet garden on this lovely peaceful midsummer night. I fell asleep at last on that grass bank beyond the first tennis-court. When I awoke the sky was red with the new daylight; the birds were singing their dawn chorus, and the grass beneath my cloak was soaking with dew, as if the earth had wept my tears for me.
When I got back from my compassionate leave Miss Moreby-Aspin told me I had been moved from the Ob. Block. ‘I’m not sure if your transfer is temporary or not, Dillon, m’dear. Matron’s got her hands full, with all her Sisters being posted overseas and their places taken by the new Sisters called up; our members are just as bad. All my old girls are being moved, and now,’ she added sadly, as if this were the last straw, ‘the A.T.S. are to have a permanent hospital of their own. They’ve taken over a couple of those empty houses in the M.O.Q. for the purpose, and I’ve had to send Frantly-Gibbs down to live there. Carter and yourself must go along, and help Frantly-Gibbs until our new members arrive. I’m expecting ten more in the next week. Carter will sleep down there, pro tem.; you’ll have to stay in your room here and cycle down daily. Cut along at seven-thirty to-morrow morning and report to Frantly-Gibbs.’
I cycled out of our Mess next morning with mixed feelings. I detested leaving my beloved Ob. Block and the men; I was not enthralled with the prospect of nursing A.T.S., pleasant young women though they were; but I was delighted to continue working with Mary. And if she was going to be boss until we had enough patients to rate a Sister life might be highly amusing.
I had gone about a quarter of a mile when a lorry overtook me, screamed violently to a stop, and a man jumped out of the front seat. It was Staff Williams.
‘Hallo, Miss Dillon! Couldn’t leave the camp without saying good-bye to you. I didn’t know as you were back.’ He wrung my hand.
‘Missed you from the Ob. Block, I have. How you been keeping?’
‘Well, thanks. Nice to see you, Staff.’ I looked meaningly at the new light paint on his tin hat. ‘What’s that in aid of? Don’t tell me you’re leaving us?’
He grinned. ‘You might say as I’ve already gone, miss. On me way out, I am. This morning an’ all.’
‘Staff! You mean you’re deserting the Pack Store? You can’t do that. How are we going to manage without you? How dare you go off to sunny climes and leave us with no one to guide us through all those forms?’
‘You’ll get by, miss.’ He wagged his head. ‘You know your way about now. Reckon I’d best be getting on.’ He shook my hand a second time. ‘All the best, miss. I ‒ er ‒ was real sorry to hear about your dad. Shame. Still, you’ll keep your chin up. Your brother doing nicely?’
‘Fine, thanks. He’s at St Athan now; the other one is home on sick leave with his leg in plaster. How about your son?’
‘He’s beat his dad to it again. Went overseas last week, he did. Maybe I’ll catch up with him. Oh, well, miss, mustn’t keep you. Glad as you happened to be on the road to-day. Cheerio.’
‘Good-bye, Staff. Thank you for stopping. And thank you for all your help while you were in your store. We’re going to miss you badly. I do hope you meet up with your son. Good luck.’
He climbed back into his lorry, the driver started the engine, and Staff Williams leaned out and waved to me until the lorry was out of sight. I never saw him again. He was killed in Africa later that year. I often thought of him ‒ of his rigid soldier’s figure, rigid soldier’s face, kindness, and incredible patience. Mary wrote to tell me he had been killed, and I wrote back:
‘I can’t believe it. I’m sure somewhere he’s presiding over a celestial store handing out white wings and harps with a resigned expression. “You young Angel ladies! What will you be wanting next? All right, take ’em ‒ but that’s me last pair of best whites, and me last set of halos, and how I’m going to make up me numbers I don’t know. Never mind, miss. Don’t you worry. I’ll see to it for you.” Mary, I don’t mean to blaspheme, but he did so love his store. He was one of your good men. I do hope he’s happy.’
An open ambulance stood outside the gate of one of M.O.Q. houses that morning. Mary and Agatha greeted me from the back of the ambulance. ‘Clare ‒ nice to see you again! Come and join in.’
Mary put down a tray loaded with medicine bottles and jumped down into the road beside me.
‘How are you, dear?’ she asked more quietly. ‘And your mother and the boys? All well?’
‘Mother’s been wonderful. Both the boys got home. Luke’s still with her. He’s on sick leave.’ I thanked her for the very sweet letter she had written me. ‘It was good of you to write.’
She rested her hand on my arm. ‘It’s nice to have you back with us. Now, shove your bike somewhere, come and help us shift these things in, and then we’ll have a cuppa. We’ve got to empty this ambulance first, as Green is burning to get away.’
Green was the R.A.S.C. driver of the ambulance. He overheard Mary’s final remark. ‘Too Green to burn, miss!’ He smiled delightedly at his own brilliance. ‘Where do you want me to put them bowls?’
‘Put everything in the hall, please,’ said Mary. ‘We’ll organize them later. Clare ‒ take this tray for me, will you?’
Agatha came away from the depths of the ambulance in which she had been rummaging. She held up three urinals. ‘Why have they sent us bottles? There are about twenty here. I thought this was for A.T.S. only?’
Mary said placidly, ‘Well, dear, you never know; they may come in handy. We’re meant to be only catering for A.T.S., but that doesn’t mean we will. We may have to take an overflow of troops from the hospital, and if we do that we’ll need bottles. Shove ’em in the hall.’
Obediently we shoved everything in the hall of that first house, and incidentally blocked the foot of the stairs so we had to unstack into the garden, then restack all over again. Despite his expressed hurry, Green helped us willingly.
When the removals were over for the moment Agatha sat down on a pile of folded sheets. ‘Thank goodness that’s done. My back’s breaking. What about that cuppa, Mary? Think our union will allow it before we do any more?’
Mary said she thought our union would be all for it. ‘What about you, Green? You got time for some tea?’
Green said he reckoned it would be a black day, it would, when a lad couldn’t make time for tea. ‘Much obliged, miss.’
Mary smiled, and suddenly bellowed, ‘Sarge? Half-time?’
‘Who’s the Sarge?’ I asked.
‘Sergeant Stevens. Our A.T.S. cook. She’s O.C. kitchen, and has a couple of Volunteers as minions. Merrick and Blakney. Nice kids, both. The Sarge,’ Agatha explained, ‘is a bit terrifying on sight, but she’s all right underneath.’
Sergeant Stevens was a youngish woman with a tight bun and thin lips. She was a good cook, and a better organizer. She popped her head round one of the doors leading into the small hall in answer to Mary’s bellow. ‘Come and get it, ladies! It’s all set!’
Green accompanied us into the kitchen and sat on the table with us three V.A.D.s and the two A.T.S., while Sergeant Stevens poured tea from an enormous metal pot. ‘Sugar, all?’ The tea was very strong and very hot. Green was very content. ‘I hope as they want some more stores fetched along of you, Sarge. Bring ’em like a shot, I will. Best cup of char I’ve had this week, this is.’
As we drank our tea Mary explained roughly what was to be our work. ‘We are to get both houses ready to take twenty-eight beds in each. We’ve got to spring-clean first, then organize as a hospital wing.’
‘How soon do we expect patients?’ I asked.
Mary said no one had told her that. ‘As soon as more A.T.S. than can be dealt with in Families fall sick.’ She looked hopefully at Merrick and Blakney. ‘You girls feeling well? Wouldn’t you like a few days in bed? We V.A.D.s are going to get hellish bored once we’ve got the houses straight.’
Merrick and Blakney giggled. ‘Give over, Nurse! What’ll the Sarge say?’
They were pleasant girls, given to giggling, whom we discovered to be fantastically hard workers. Green whispered something to Merrick just then, and it produced such an outburst of giggles that both girls had to leave the room.
Sergeant Stevens refilled our cups. ‘You men!’ She scowled at poor Green. ‘Carrying on that way with two girls! Shocking, I call it!’ She glanced through the window, and her jaw dropped. ‘And there’s the Sergeant-Major! And this place all in a mess ‒ oh, dear ‒ oh, dear!’
Agatha was looking through the window too. ‘It’s only Monica Gilroy.’ She slipped off the table, went out to the hall, and came back at once with a very pretty fair girl in A.T.S. uniform. ‘Monica, this is Clare Dillon. Clare ‒ meet Monica. We were at school together ‒ and now she turns up as a Sar’nt-Major.’
‘Good Lord.’ I was too surprised to say anything else. I noticed Green was also staring open-mouthed. Monica was very pretty.
She laughed at my astonishment. ‘Have you never seen one before?’
‘Not a female one.’
It was too much for Green. He climbed off the table. ‘Reckon,’ he murmured, to no one in particular, ‘I’d best be getting off. Ta for the tea, Sarge. Morning, all.’
Mary washed her cup. ‘Come on, girls. Let’s leave these exalted lady soldiers to their kitchen. We’ve got to rub up our lamps and transform M.O.Q. 3 into a hospital. Thanks for the tea, Sarge. Give us a shout when you want us to eat again.’ Agatha and I followed her into the hall. She told us to help ourselves to buckets and scrubbing-brushes. ‘I hate to break it to you, Clare, but every floor in both houses needs scrubbing. They’re filthy after standing empty for so many months.’
Agatha said she quite enjoyed scrubbing floors. ‘I find it soothing ‒ only I detest getting my apron messy. Think we dare take them off, Mary?’
‘I don’t see why not. N
o one can scrub a floor in a spotless apron, and keep it spotless, and do the job properly. If Madam turns up and makes a fuss we’ll put our aprons on again. Quite simple.’
We spent all the morning and most of the afternoon on our knees. When we finished the house smelt fairly pleasantly of wet, clean wood and our knees were sore. Mary said we could leave the other house until next day. ‘Let’s shift that stuff from the hall. And let’s be highly organized. Agatha, you do the stock cupboard, linen, and cleaning-things; Clare, you be O.C. bathrooms, turn them into sluices if you can; I’ll put up beds all round, and we can make them up later.’
Some time later Mary came into the second-floor bathroom to see how I was getting on. ‘How’s it going, Clare?’
‘Fine. Only one snag; we’ve so much equipment that when I get it all in one no one’ll be able to open the door.’
She sat down on one of the fracture boards I had put across the bath. ‘Somewhat different from the Ob. Block.’
‘I’ll say. Couldn’t we have done with all these glass trolleys there! Look at them; we’ve got six on each floor, and we had only one for the whole Ob. Block! And all these lovely, lovely instruments ‒ and that dirty great electric sterilizer that is sitting outside this door on the floor! If they had these things in store ‒ why couldn’t they have let us have them there?’
‘God knows.’ She yawned. ‘That scrubbing’s just about finished me.’ She looked round the crowded bathroom distastefully. ‘Oh, how I’d like to be back in the Ob. Block! I’ve always detested housework, and I don’t like this having no patients.’
I said I’d been hankering for the Ob. Block all day. ‘I feel frightfully cut off after one day here. We haven’t heard one single rumour to-day. The invasion might have started, and they’ve forgotten to tell us.’
‘You’d better ring up Joe Slaney. He always has the latest.’
‘Is he still here? When I left he thought he was about to be posted.’
A Hospital Summer Page 11
