The Secret Armour

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Murphy in 15 doesn’t,’ she retorted serenely.

  ‘He’ll be an Ulsterman ‒’

  ‘He’s not. Merchant seaman from Cork. Jerry got him in the docks last night. He’s sweet. He’s promised to send me tea parcels next time he hits port outside the UK.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Sullivan played his ace. ‘It so happens I’ve half-a-pound in my room in the basement right now.’

  She flapped her eyelashes ecstatically. ‘Mr Sullivan, you’re a dreamboat. Will you give me some?’

  He flushed and fingered his tie. ‘When are your next nights off?’

  ‘Not till Thursday, Friday, Saturday next week.’

  ‘If I can swing it with my boss to get off Saturday, date? You can have the tea then.’

  She hesitated, still gazing at his face but seeing another man’s. Hell, she thought, he won’t like this and nor will I. And then she thought, My God, the things I do for England. ‘Okay, but only if I can have the lot tonight.’

  He didn’t hesitate. He knew she was just playing hard to get and he didn’t hold it against her. He was twenty-three. He understood women. ‘You’re on. I’ll nip it up later. Now about our date ‒’

  She waved him to silence and tilted her head to listen. ‘Night Sister’s heels on the stairs ‒’ she fled silently into the stockroom.

  Sullivan froze with terror. Being so newly qualified he had not yet shed his awe of the ward sisters or the more experienced staff nurses, and in the latter category he placed Nurse Dean as a spine-chilling example. But in common with the entire junior resident staff he placed the Senior Night Sister in Martha’s, London, in a class of her own; the Senior Night Sister struck the Fear of God and impotence into every houseman in every branch of the hospital.

  The Senior Night Sister was a thin grey woman in her forties with the perpetual stoop, hushed voice and pallor of the permanent night worker and the perpetually severe expression of a sufferer from chronic indigestion. She favoured Sullivan with a reproving nod as she walked to the ward entrance, to look all round without stepping over the threshold. She turned back to him. ‘If you’re waiting for Nurse Dean, Mr Sullivan, you had better come back later. Mr MacDonald,’ she added in the tone others reserved for the Almighty, ‘is in the ward.’

  ‘I’ll do as you say, Sister.’ Sullivan retreated thankfully to the stairs.

  Night Sister turned her reproving gaze on Nurse Carter who, as etiquette demanded, had re-appeared from the stock-room and stood at her elbow, her hands correctly held behind her back. ‘I’m not here for my round, nurse. I just want a word with Mr MacDonald. I’ll wait. Carry on with your routine.’ Nurse Dean, on her toes, had watched this exchange over the top of the screens. She didn’t mention it yet to Mr MacDonald. She settled back on her feet and returned her attention to the Major’s pulse-rate.

  Major Browne was still under the anaesthetic and the green bag fluttered rhythmically against his thin narrow chest. The shock had yellowed the tan and smoothed the lines in his high forehead, his blue-veined eyelids were peacefully closed and he looked asleep rather than unconscious. Briefly, Mr MacDonald held the mask a little above the narrow, fine-boned dreamer’s face. An anaesthetic dreamer’s face. ‘Doesn’t look fifty-four or a professional soldier,’ MacDonald observed in the quiet, flat tone used by all the staff at night since it carried far less than a whisper.

  Nurse Dean nodded non-committally and kept her gaze on her watch. ‘142,’ she said a minute later. ‘Thin but very regular.’ She looked at the unconscious man. ‘Very thin but wiry. Kept himself in good shape. The Army’ll have helped him there ‒ it’ll help him now.’

  MacDonald said nothing. He replaced the mask and wondered how the owner of that face had endured years of Mess life or would endure the prospect of his future life when he came properly round. He stepped back to measure with his eyes the height of the wooden blocks raising the foot of the bed. The angle was so acute that they had just had to tie on a pillow to pad the headrails and with crepe bandages tied the end of the huge, electric bedcradle to the footrails. The top of the bed was made up in two parts to leave constantly exposed the massive bandages covering the right hip and the sandbags packed around it. MacDonald looked unemotionally at the bandages, then turned to time on his watch the rate of the blood dripping through the glass drip-connection fitted into the transfusion apparatus. The transfusion stand was by the footrail and the blood was flowing into an ankle vein in the left leg. ‘Give him the rest of this bottle and the next at this rate, then if he’s still holding, slow the one after to half.’ He didn’t add, if he’s not holding let me know, as that was the established procedure in such circumstances. He pulled down his face mask and for a few minutes stood in silence watching his patient. This was one of his professional habits, but it often surprised sisters and staff nurses working with him for the first time, as it was one more commonly met in physicians than surgeons.

  At thirty-four MacDonald was the oldest and professionally most experienced man on the resident staff. With the single exception of the Senior Night Sister, he was the oldest member of the entire staff on-duty in the hospital that night. Just then his exact age was impossible to guess, as even in the red glow his angular, long-jawed face was grey with fatigue and his dark eyes were bruised with black. He never looked physically strong, but this was generally ignored by those who worked with him, since he had the apparently limitless physical and mental stamina of the strong-minded in their prime. In many ways he was a remarkably shrewd man and he had that disconcerting mixture of great sensitivity and great insensitivity that often accompanies an exceptional talent for surgery. His job as Senior Surgical Officer demanded all his stamina and skill. Last night he had had two hours’ sleep and this morning the theatre had recommenced operating at six. He had lost count of the number of patients he had operated on during the day. (Twenty-three.) He would not have remembered what day it was had his wife not reminded him this afternoon that it was Thursday. ‘You know I always have a half-day on Thursday. The Head was so helpful when I said I simply must come to London to see you. I just had to talk to you after your last letter and you know you never seem to be free to come home these days. The Head was marvellous. She said she’d take my morning periods herself and so long as I was back at school second period after lunch tomorrow she could cope …’

  MacDonald brushed a hand over his eyes as if that could brush out the memory and bent over the bed to raise each limp eyelid in turn. He rested a hand on the yellow forehead. ‘He’ll do, for just now.’ He straightened and glanced over the screen behind him. ‘Night Sister’s in the flat.’

  ‘She’s been there quite a while. Sullivan was there but she got rid of him.’ Nurse Dean kept her calm gaze on her patient. She was far too conscientious ever to risk looking into MacDonald’s eyes in the ward. ‘Obviously waiting for you but can’t be urgent or she’d have come in, and she’s not here for her round as she sent Carter away. I’ll just get Smith to take over here. She seems to have settled Briggs now and Jarvis is asleep again.’

  ‘Jarvis ‒ oh, yes ‒ your coronary. Right. Better see what Night Sister wants.’ But he didn’t move. He looked at her face, and kept the pain out of his voice but not his eyes. ‘I didn’t like taking it off,’ he said.

  She didn’t look up. ‘You had to save his life.’

  He grimaced. ‘Christ ‒’ he spat under his breath, ‘would I have butchered him for any other reason?’

  Nurse Dean blushed for his bitterness. ‘I’ll get Smith,’ was all she said.

  MacDonald walked away slowly as an old man. For a fractional moment she watched the back of his long limp white coat and the truth was in her eyes. Then she drew on the armour of her training and went round to Briggs’s bedside. She was still reporting on the Major to her colleague when they heard another flying bomb, this time unheralded by sirens, streaking inland and on over the river about a mile away. Nurse Dean glanced quickly away from Nurse Smith and watched the sleeping Briggs as
she continued to mouth her report. All the night nurses could lip-read. Nurse Smith folded her arms to hide the tremor of her hands and her mouth went so dry she couldn’t have produced a voice, and only just managed to move her lips for the necessary monosyllabic replies. And she could only make them when the bomb was well away.

  In the stockroom, Nurse Carter stopped rolling cotton wool balls into dressing swabs, closed her eyes and prayed. In the flat, MacDonald and the Night Sister exchanged resigned glances.

  As so often happened in the war, neither the three nurses nor Mr MacDonald heard the one bomb that night that affected all four personally and permanently.

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  A Nurse’s Life by Jane Grant

  Heart-warming and humorous tales from a 1940s student nurse

  In this warm and witty book, Jane Grant recounts her life as a trainee nurse in a busy 1940s London teaching hospital.

  Jane, and her friends Mary and Phyllis, discover that both happiness and heartache can be found on the wards of St. Bernard’s Hospital. Before long they realise it takes determination and a sense of humour to deal with the colourful characters of hospital life – and that goes for the staff as well as the patients.

  The young nurses gain their medical training under the watchful eyes of strict, but generally fair, sisters and matrons. They meet patients who are facing the biggest challenges of their lives, and share with them moments of bravery and fear. There are times of laughter, but also of tears.

  There is romance too, as Jane and her fellow student nurses enjoy the attentions of the hospital’s handsome young doctors, falling in and out of love for the first time.

  A Nurse’s Life is a moving and amusing account of a bygone era, brought vividly to life. Also available in this series, there is more from Jane and her friends and family in More From a Nurse’s Life, A Sister’s Life and A Country Life.

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  A Country Practice: New Beginnings by Judith Colquhoun

  Brendan and Molly Jones swap city living for a new start in the country. But are they prepared for rural life in Wandin Valley?

  A Country Practice follows the dramas, loves, secrets and dilemmas of the people in a small country town in south-eastern Australia. There is romance, humour and tragedy for the medical staff and patients of the Wandin Valley Bush Nursing Hospital, and their friends and neighbours.

  Brendan and Molly meet the colourful characters who will change their lives forever.

  Terence Elliott is the town’s respected doctor, but can he overcome his demons to save a mother and baby in danger?

  Simon Bowen, the newest doctor in town, is frustrated at being seen as an outsider by the tight knit country people. Will he succeed in winning them around ‒ especially young vet Vicky Dean?

  Police sergeant Frank Gilroy has his heart set on Vicky’s mum, Sister Shirley Dean. But is he the man for her?

  Meanwhile, a teenager in love clashes with her father and a serious car accident reveals a surprising secret about two of the town’s residents.

  A heart-warming and engaging tale, based on the award-winning, international hit television serial A Country Practice.

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  The Country Doctor by Jean McConnell

  Captivating tales from a young GP’s case notes

  Young doctor Linda Ford swaps a busy London teaching hospital for a six month post at a small West Country General Practice. She soon discovers that countryside life is far from uneventful.

  John Cooper, the senior doctor, warns Linda not to get emotionally involved in her cases. But Linda can’t help taking a personal interest in her patients, particularly when their problems seem to be more than medical. And as this is the late 1970s, Linda also faces some misgivings about a female doctor. Especially a young and pretty one.

  Linda clashes over medical matters with Dr Peter Cooper, the older doctor’s son. But there is an undeniable attraction too. Where will it lead? And as Linda is keeping Peter’s place until he joins the practice as his father’s partner, what will her future hold?

  This slice of rural life uncovers the dramas, family secrets and dilemmas which confront patients young and old. Their stories are in turn intriguing, poignant, and heart-warming.

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  A Doctor’s Life by Dr Robert Clifford

  A heart-warming, nostalgic look at life for a doctor in the 1940s and 1950s, perfect for fans of Call The Midwife and classics such as Dr Finlay’s Casebook and the Richard Gordon Doctor series.

  This charming and amusing story follows young doctor Bob Ramsden from his training at a busy 1940s London teaching hospital to life in general practice as a Somerset GP in the 1950s. It is also the tale of his love for the beautiful, clever Priscilla, the medical colleague he falls for at first sight, despite feeling sure that she is out of his league.

  Once at medical school, he soon discovers that both laughter and tears are to be found on a hospital ward.

  During his medical career, Dr Bob meets patients who can be brave, funny or a challenge. His fellow doctors provide moments of entertainment, as well as support. There are many tales of happiness and heartache in this nostalgic look at a doctor’s life in post-war Britain.

  Bonus Short Story: The Bevin Boy. Bob spends time as a Bevin Boy, working in a Yorkshire coal mine. There he enjoys the camaraderie of his fellow miners, but also experiences great tragedy.

  A Doctor’s Life is a poignant, feel-good account of a doctor’s love for his profession and his patients, as well as his devotion to the woman who is the love of his life.

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  Home from Home by Cath Cole

  Home from Home is the true-to-life, moving story of five student nurses in the 1960s.

  The lives of Theresa, Maggie, Jenny, Sarah and Chris are about to change forever as they start their nurse training at The School of Nursing at Farnton General.

  They soon realise that they have much to learn about life, both on and off the hospital wards. A strong bond is formed as the young women face the challenges presented by families, boyfriends and their nursing responsibilities.

  Friendships are tested as the young nurses experience the joys and heartbreaks of growing up. But for each of them, for different reasons, the hospital will become a home from home.

  A touching, bold and, at times, amusing account of the lives and loves of five trainee nurses in the 1960s.

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  City Hospital Book 1: New Blood by Keith Miles

  City Hospital: One busy hospital, five medical students, plenty of drama …

  Join five young trainee medics as they learn about life and love on the wards of City Hospital.

  Suzie, Mark, Karlene, Gordy and Bella share a house, and the ups and downs of being a medical student in a busy teaching hospital.

  In City Hospital Book 1: New Blood …

  An accident leaves a young life hanging in the balance. A guilty Suzie holds the key to catching the culprit.

  A party goes horribly wrong when an argument has unexpected and far-reaching consequences.

  Kar
lene discovers why it’s never a good idea to get too close to a patient.

  The City Hospital series is perfect for fans of television medical dramas. Further titles in this series are also now available.

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