The Secret Armour

by Lucilla Andrews

  One of the dressers was waiting in the doorway of 31. ‘Thank Heaven you are here, Nurse. I’m afraid I’ve mortally offended a chap in here. Can you come and calm him with your womanly charm, and persuade him to let me look at his finger?’

  I followed him into the room. 31 was straight surgical dressings. The ‘chap’, a small black-haired urchin, sat glowering on one of the dressing-chairs. He jerked a furious thumb at the dresser. ‘E’s not touching me! Not ’im!’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve put the cat among the pigeons,’ murmured the dresser.

  I walked away towards the desk. ‘What happened?’

  He said, ‘I was filling in his Cas. card, and I asked the usual. Name, age, was his mum outside, or who had brought him up?’

  ‘What was wrong there?’

  The infant in the chair snorted with rage. ‘Me Mum! To bring me up to ’orspital! At my age! I’m SIX!’

  It took me the best part of ten minutes to calm his outraged feelings and get the dirty, sticky, home-made bandage off his badly cut finger.

  He said his name was Nobby Baird. When his finger had been seen by the nearest house-surgeon, and redressed by the student, I said, ‘Do you know your way out from here, Nobby? And will you come back in three days to see the doctor again? And tell your Mum about not touching it?’

  He looked me up and down in kindly contempt. ‘You don’t ’ave to worry about me, little ’un,’ he said. ‘I been coming up to this ’ere place since I were a nipper, I ’ave.’

  It was Monday morning. The clock struck nine, as Rose rushed by on her way to the medical-admission room.

  ‘Any post for me, Maggie?’ she whispered.

  I pulled a letter out of my apron bib. ‘Here.’

  Sister Casualty bellowed across the hall, ‘Nurse Barnaby and Nurse Howard! Perhaps when you have finished gossiping you will be kind enough to give the patients a little attention? This is a hospital, not a canteen!’

  We jumped to attention. ‘Yes, Sister. Sorry, Sister.’ We leapt in opposite directions.

  My room was packed. The dressing-benches against the wall were lined with men. I moved four cut hands over to the long sinks, and left them soaking their hands in a peroxide solution. The hands were all from the sawmill that lay behind the bottle factory. We always had a crop of hands from that mill on Mondays. The week-end seemed to make them careless with their machinery, or it might have been only a coincidence. Whatever it was, it was a fact.

  Two more students, their shirt-sleeves rolled high, their faces pink from the morning rush across the park, appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Where do we start, Nurse?’

  ‘Could you help the men on the benches take their dressings off, please? Some of them have stuck.’

  The houseman who was on Casualty duty for 31 that morning lumbered in from the hall and over to the log-book on the desk. His name was Dickie Peters. ‘My, my, Nurse Howard, but we’ve got a lot of customers in here,’ he murmured gloomily.

  ‘It’s Monday morning, Mr Peters.’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘You sound in revoltingly good form.’ He signed his name on a Cas. card, then looked up. ‘You look it too. What’s up? Is this the very breath of life to you?’

  ‘Remember I’ve just had a holiday.’ I nipped over to the door as I finished speaking and took the red priority card that a new patient was nervously holding in front of him.

  I put the card on the desk. ‘Could you see this patient, first, please, Mr Peters?’

  Dickie Peters dropped his casual, sociable manner like a coat. ‘Right, Nurse. Let’s have a look at that foot, old chap. What’s the trouble?’

  The men on the benches murmured to each other. I went over to them, taking the priority card with me.

  ‘If you are a night worker, ‘I explained, ‘or your firm need you back in a hurry, or something like that, and you are given a special note for the hospital, you can get one of these cards from the porter at the door and can gate-crash the queue.’

  The men relaxed. They said it was a good idea at that. I left them chatting it over. Keeping the patients on the benches happy was as much part of my job as removing their bandages, or soaking their wounds.

  Busey wheeled a stretcher-trolley into the room.

  ‘Behind the screen, Nurse?’

  ‘Please, Busey.’ I took the notes from him and smiled at the man under the blankets before I realized the man was unconscious. ‘Has Sister seen this man, Busey?’

  He nodded. ‘She told me to bring him in here. She’s rung for the S.S.O., and Mr Corford said to tell Mr Peters to look at this bloke and he’d be down at once.’

  I took the notes over to Dickie, who was still with the priority man.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt you, Mr Peters, but you had better see this new man now.’ I held the notes in front of his face.

  He sighed. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘Some bricks dropped on his head half an hour ago. I expect he’ll have to come in. Mr Corford is on his way down.’

  Dickie murmured, ‘Back in a minute, old chap,’ and disappeared behind the screen at the end of the room.

  One of the dressers came up to me. ‘What’s Peters going to do to that chap, Nurse?’

  ‘Not much, I expect. Attempt a neurological exam and write him up for X-ray.’

  ‘All right if I go and watch?’

  ‘Do. We’ll be held up anyway until Mr Peters is free again.’

  Dickie’s head popped up over the screen at that moment. ‘He’d better go along to X-ray before anything, Nurse. Then they will be ready for the S.S.O.’

  I walked quickly into the hall and caught Busey by his coat-tails. ‘X-ray for that man, please, Busey.’

  Sister appeared at the door of Room 27. ‘Nurse Howard, what are you doing out of your room?’

  I explained, and she said, ‘Tell Mr Peters to wait until Mr Corford arrives; I don’t want that man moved before the Senior Surgical Officer sees him.’

  Dickie swore quietly when I repeated this. ‘Why couldn’t the woman have said that in the first place and saved me the trouble of looking at him?’

  ‘I expect she thought it good experience,’ I whispered; ‘she’s very hot on the training of house-surgeons.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ he said bitterly. ‘Now, I must get back to those poor devils on the benches. They’ve been here ages.’ He whisked down the row of cut hands. ‘Stitches here, Nurse. Stitches. Flavine dressing. Along to the S.C.O.’s room for further examination.’

  The dressers were busy with the stitching-trays. They were final-year boys, and extremely useful.

  I said, ‘If you stitch, I’ll dress.’

  ‘O.K., Nurse,’ said the nearest dresser.

  Dickie was carefully feeling a bruised foot. ‘X-ray for this chap, please,’ he called over his shoulder.

  ‘Would you just stay where you are for a second or two,’ I asked that particular patient, ‘then the porter will wheel you along to the X-ray department.’

  ‘Nurse,’ said a dresser, ‘some miserable wretch has moved my stitch-tray. Can you see it?’

  The student who was sitting with the unconscious man put his head round the screen. ‘Can I have a bowl, please, Nurse? This fellow is coming round.’

  Dickie Peters said, ‘Two more for X-ray here, Nurse Howard.’

  Someone beside me murmured, ‘Little on the hectic side, aren’t you, Nurse Howard? Where’s this query fractured base?’

  I turned quickly. ‘Behind the screen, Mr Corford,’ and led the way.

  Alistair Corford’s examination was quick and thorough.

  ‘Admit to Judson now,’ he said, ‘and tell ’em to do a portable up there.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Corford.’ I shepherded him through the crowd to the standing desk and the admission-forms. ‘Will you sign him in, please?’

  He wrote briskly, then glanced as briskly round the room. He said, ‘This isn’t the time or the place, but I’m going to be busy in the theatre all day, and I w
anted to see you.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Corford?’ I was not really listening; I had caught a dresser by the arm. ‘Would you take that man with the septic toe to the Senior Casualty Officer’s room ‒ and tell the nurse there that he’s already queued in here ‒ I don’t want him to have to queue again if she can possibly avoid it.’

  ‘Can do! Will I need a wheel-chair?’

  ‘Please. Thanks.’

  Alistair Corford had finished writing; he handed me the admission-slip and the request for the portable X-ray. ‘Fix this man up at once, will you, Nurse Howard?’ In the same business-like tone he went on, ‘My brother is coming along for dinner to-night. He wondered if you would care to join us? Would you? And are you off?’

  I said, ‘Yes, Mr Corford,’ and he nodded.

  ‘Right. I’ll tell him. Where’s Sister Casualty?’

  The group of walking-patients waiting for X-ray was getting larger. I sent them off with a porter and brought in six more men from the benches outside.

  Dickie said, ‘I’ve just seen fourteen broken toes in a row. What’s the matter with them all this morning? All feet.’

  ‘You’ve seen twelve hands,’ I said.

  ‘Have I?’ He smoothed his prematurely thinning hair. ‘My dear Nurse, at the rate we are going this morning I wouldn’t know. What time is it?’

  ‘Half-past ten.’ I laid out a row of Cas. cards on the desk. ‘Good time to-day. Will you sign these now?’

  He took out his pen and frowned at one of the cards. ‘Ainsworth? That’s the chap who was septic. This card should have gone with him.’

  ‘He was Ainsworth, M. This is Ainsworth, K. The cut wrist by the far sink.’

  He looked up, still frowning, then smiled. ‘You win.’ He signed his name, and began to stack the cards neatly. ‘The only thing I will say about this job …’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes, Mr Peters?’ I dodged away into the doorway and stopped an outgoing patient. ‘Do you know when you have to come back and have those stitches out?’ I checked on the card in the man’s hand. ‘Next Tuesday, same time. Don’t forget.’

  ‘Don’t they fall out by themselves, Nurse?’

  ‘Not this kind. Only the ones you have inside you.’

  He grinned. ‘Right you are, miss.’

  I went back to the desk. ‘You were saying, Mr Peters?’

  Dickie walked over to our sink to wash his hands. ‘I was giving birth to to-day’s great thought. Casualty. The cure for all the medical and nursing staff’s ills. Never so much as a dull moment with which to brood on said ills. Where now?’

  I said automatically, ‘The far bench.’ And I thought suddenly, I am going to see David to-night.

  A new priority man appeared in the doorway, I reached for his red card. ‘Sorry, Mr Peters, could you see this patient first, please?’

  Dickie straightened his back, apologized to the man over whose foot he was bending, and came over.

  ‘Like I said, Nurse Howard. Never a dull moment. Now then, old chap, come over here under the light, and let’s have a look at that wrist.’

  At five minutes past six that evening Rose limped wearily into our cloakroom.

  ‘My feet are killing me, Maggie. Let’s ask for late supper and go to a movie. If I stay in the Home I’ll only go to sleep.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said, ‘I’m having dinner out.’

  Rose swung her cloak over her shoulder lazily. ‘You never told me. Who with?’

  ‘Alistair Corford. His brother is one of my grateful ex-patients from way back in Willy B.’

  Rose stood still. ‘Maggie, you devil! But there, I always said there was more to you and Alistair Corford than meets the eye.’

  ‘Then you said a lot of nonsense, honey. I hardly know the man.’

  ‘But think of the opportunity he’s providing you for getting better acquainted,’ she said. ‘Do tell me, Maggie, has he a thing for you? Of course,’ she said wisely, ‘I see it all now! He is your exception.’

  Rose always made me laugh. ‘Exception to what?’ I asked weakly when I had enough breath with which to speak.

  ‘You said you liked dark men. Well, that’s sheer rubbish ‒ when you are dark yourself. Quite wrong. And here’s our Mr C., who couldn’t be blacker. No, stop laughing, Maggie ‒ I’m serious. And what are you going to wear?’

  We went back to my room and examined my wardrobe. There was not much to examine. I only owned one respectable afternoon-cum-evening dress. Rose shook out the dark green folds, critically.

  ‘It’s got a good line,’ she said seriously, ‘and the colour is perfect for you. Would you like to borrow anything of mine? My pearl choker, or earrings?’

  I thought it over ‒ David had never seen me out of uniform, and I wanted to hit him between the eyes.

  ‘Better not, thanks, Rose. I’m too short for much jewellery. I’ve got that clip the parents gave me for my twenty-first. I’ll pin it on somewhere and leave it at that. I can look like a Christmas-tree only too easily if I’m not careful.’

  She agreed. ‘But do have anything you want if you change your mind. I’m afraid it’s useless offering you a dress. Mine would swamp you in all directions.’

  I knew Rose’s wardrobe as well as my own. I thanked her again and said, no.

  Alice came rushing along the corridor in uniform; she passed the open door, then came back.

  ‘What’s going on in here? Dress parade?’

  Rose said, ‘No. Maggie is moving in high society and dining with the S.S.O. in state. So we are rising to the occasion.’

  ‘Maggie doing WHAT?’

  ‘Alistair Corford has asked me to dinner,’ I explained patiently.

  ‘Why?’ asked Alice.

  ‘To meet a grateful patient,’ said Rose. ‘Maggie nursed his brother in the dim past.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Alice. ‘What fun!’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ I turned on her. ‘And what are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were meant to be on?’

  Alice said she was. ‘But one of my little dears has just emptied his bread and milk into my lap, so I had to come and change. Enjoy yourself, Maggie. Come and tell me later how the other half lives.’

  ‘I will,’ I promised.

  I was in the bath when Rose banged on the door. ‘Maggie, telephone.’

  ‘Ask them if they’ll ask them to hang on,’ I called. ‘Do they know who it is?’

  She said, ‘There’s no “they” about it. This is on the inter-com. It’s the S.S.O.’

  Now what? I thought desperately. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’

  I listened, and heard her say cheerfully, ‘Nurse Howard is in the bath, but she won’t be long.’

  I was as quick as I could be. I raced to the corridor telephone.

  ‘Hallo?’

  ‘Nurse Howard? Corford speaking.’

  At least it was not David to tell me he had another engagement.

  ‘My brother and I were just wondering if we wouldn’t turn our dinner into a party. Mike Mellows and his fiancée are up here too. Trouble is we are short of another girl.’

  My heart nearly stopped beating with relief. ‘Do you want me to bring one?’ I thought instantly of Rose.

  Alistair Corford apparently had had the same thought. ‘I wondered if that pretty friend of yours ‒ the tall dark one ‒ Rose Something ‒ was off?’

  ‘She’s off,’ I said. ‘Shall I ask her?’

  ‘Do you think she’ll mind? A last-minute invitation like this?’

  ‘I doubt it. After all, it’s rather a last-minute party, isn’t it?’

  He laughed. ‘You’re dead right, Nurse Howard. Would you ask her, please?’

  ‘Hang on, and I’ll go and find out.’

  ‘Right.’

  Rose was lying on her bed staring at the ceiling. ‘Rise up, my love,’ I said, ‘and if not fly with me, will you come and dine with the S.S.O. with me? That was to ask if my pretty dark friend would care to join the party.’

  ‘No!�
� She bounced off her bed. ‘Maggie, how splendid! I feel just like a party.’

  ‘And I thought your feet were killing you, Nurse Barnaby?’

  ‘That was only because I wasn’t doing anything to-night. Now they feel fine! Like me. Anytime is party time as far as my feet and I are concerned.’

  The Senior Resident’s sitting-room was small and comfortably furnished in a masculine way. The chairs were deep and shiny, the carpet soft; the tone of the radiogram perfect, the ash-trays multiple and unused. The fireplace was littered with ash, and there were no flowers. The windows looked like spare book-shelves, and had clearly not been opened in the past half-century.

  Alistair and Mike Mellows, the Orthopaedic Registrar, had shed their long white coats; Judy Ash, who was a theatre Staff Nurse as well as being Mike’s fiancée, Rose, and myself were in mufti; David had come straight on from his work, and he alone was in uniform.

  He came over to me as we entered the room. He did not look at Rose. ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said quietly, ‘a long, long time.’

  The expression in his eyes was the old expression I remembered so well. I felt quite hollow. I said, ‘I’m so glad you’re well again and back on the job.’

  He did not smile, instead he said seriously, ‘You don’t know how glad I am.’

  ‘David,’ said his brother, ‘I want to introduce you to someone I’ve only just met myself, although we’ve worked over two years in the same establishment. Rose, may I introduce my brother David? David, this is Rose Barnaby.’

  David shook hands almost automatically; he was still looking at me. Then he turned to Rose. ‘I can never understand doctors,’ he said; ‘they work surrounded by beautiful young women, and never see them at all. We manage things better in the Navy. We always see our Wrens.’

  He smiled politely at Rose as he spoke, and then the smile vanished from his face. He looked at Rose; he went on looking at Rose; he went on looking at Rose all that long, endless evening.

  Chapter Eleven

  ADVICE FROM AUNTIE ROSE

  It had taken David a good many months to decide whether or not he was a little in love with me. I do not think it took him more than a few seconds to realize how he felt about Rose.