by Jane Grant
When Mrs Denning returned in triumph, bearing some stolen coffee, Mr Bell was in the changing-room and the patient was anaesthetised and ready on the table. The atmosphere that one bad temper can produce had again descended on the little theatre. Mrs Denning merely shrugged philosophically and put the coffee in a saucepan to keep hot. I started to clear out our tiny linen cupboard to make room for the large quota from the children’s theatre.
Suddenly the door opened, and in walked Phil!
I tried hard to compose myself, and told myself grandly, ‘I must treat him just as he treats me, tough and casual,’ but his first remark completely took the wind out of my sails.
‘Why did you stand me up last night, Jane?’
I felt my self-possession slipping badly. ‘I – I don’t really know,’ was my weak reply.
‘Well, could you –’ he began with a smile.
He was interrupted by a voice calling, ‘Staff! Staff!’ urgently. I did not at first recognise it as the voice of the Junior, it sounded so strange and forced. It’s funny, I thought, how fear alters people’s voices.
I went to the door and said quite calmly, ‘Yes, Nurse?’ Though I saw her terrified white face I felt quite detached.
‘Staff!’ She ran to me as though I were a sanctuary. In a voice close to tears she said, ‘The patient’s collapsed. I think he’s dead.’
Chapter Eleven
Although it could only have been a matter of seconds after her fatal words that I stood there with Phil staring at the girl, it seemed like hours.
‘All right, Nurse,’ I said in a quite unfamiliar voice. ‘I’ll come.’
I dropped the pile of linen on the floor and hurried out of the door and into the theatre. Mr Bell stood against the theatre wall looking ghastly, and the anaesthetist, a rather brash young Welshman, was pumping oxygen into the inert form on the table.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked.
Mr Bell started upright with an effort.
‘I don’t know. He must have had a reaction to something.’ He nodded towards the anaesthetist.
‘He’s given him antidotes for everything. We’ll try artificial respiration with the oxygen, and if that’s no good we’ll have to cut down.’
I looked at the tiny tray of heart stimulants, and I don’t think I have ever been so pleased to see anything in my life. I turned round to the Junior and said as calmly as my shaking voice would permit: ‘Nurse, I want you to go to Sister Wright and tell her the situation.’
As soon as she had gone I realised that if I had kept my head a little we could easily have telephoned.
The atmosphere in the theatre became tenser every moment.
‘Is his heart still beating?’ I asked, as Bell felt the patient’s pulse.
‘Just about,’ he grimaced. And even as he held the wrist he said quickly, ‘No. Knife, Nurse, quickly!’
Then began the fearful preparation, when my hands felt all thumbs, awkward and useless. I ran to the dish and seized a knife handle, and in fumbling to get the blade on, cut myself. Mike ran to the drum stand, in his agitation plunged his hand in and thus desterilised it. He brought out a bundle of dressings. Phil walked across to the anaesthetist’s tray and took a mouth gag to use as a retractor.
Afterwards I felt as if I had imagined or dreamt the whole thing. The waiting – the rhythmic contraction of Bell’s hand as he tried to induce the heart to beat of its own accord – the waiting again – and then Bell getting cramp in his hand, flexing it and going on. More waiting. I saw Sister Wright walk in quietly, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the Junior, who was ashen and shaking all over.
I managed to walk over to her, although to move at all seemed an enormous effort.
‘Go outside, Nurse,’ I said, ‘and sit down.’
She crawled to the door and went out.
We went on waiting. Just as I was beginning to feel I could not bear the tension any longer without screaming, there was a triumphant cry from the anaesthetist.
‘That’s it. OK, OK, that’s it.’ His voice sounded rather hysterical.
Bell closed his eyes and withdrew his aching arm. Then came more waiting, while we stood not daring to hope too hard, to see if the weakened heart would take up the beat of its own accord. It began spasmodically and jerkily, and then gradually became more even. I was aware that I was holding my breath, and noticed that everyone else was too.
‘Well –’ said Bell. ‘Well – I –’ He stopped, and the pregnant silence again descended.
Although it seemed hours since that first frantic call, it was in fact only twenty minutes to the moment when our suspense was over. Everyone suddenly began talking together.
‘He had a cerebral,’ said the anaesthetist. ‘I don’t know how bad, but he’s had a haemorrhage all right.’
‘That’s the last time I do a rodent ulcer under General,’ said Bell in a poor attempt at flippancy.
‘I’ll sew up,’ said Mike.
‘I’ll get some coffee,’ said Phil practically.
‘I’ll sit down,’ I said weakly.
Then we all went through the awful reaction that follows such a fright as we had had. It made Davies the anaesthetist cross, and Bell facetious, and Mike pale and quiet, and Sister Wright and myself bustling, but Phil seemed to have no ill effects, and went on talking shop in his normal voice.
Mike and I took the patient back to the ward, while Sister rang up to prepare them for the extra work that would be necessary in nursing him.
When we got back, we found the others still sitting in the office and still going over the scene in theatre.
‘Crumbs, I got a fright,’ said the anaesthetist.
‘You got a fright?’ exclaimed Bell. ‘I might tell you I’ve never done a cardiac massage before, and I’ve only seen two. I thought,’ he added ruefully, ‘my arm was going to drop off.’
‘Jane,’ said Mike suddenly, ‘you should have seen your face! I thought you’d be the next candidate for the table.’ As he spoke I saw Phil look towards me, I caught his eye and he smiled.
‘Oh, it’s all too fresh to joke about,’ I said. ‘I never felt so awful in my life.’
‘That’ll teach you,’ said Bell unsympathetically, ‘to approach that well-known cardiac surgeon Edward T. Bell’s sessions with a little more respect. Well I remember being told to get on and get out because you had a lot of work to do.’
‘I never said anything of the kind,’ I said hotly.
‘Well if you didn’t say it you thought it,’ was the truthful reply.
At this moment I saw Sister Wright sitting quietly in a corner sipping coffee and watching and listening to all this byplay.
‘Well, it’s all over now,’ she said quietly, and the men stopped talking and laughing immediately at the authority in her voice. ‘Mr Bell,’ she added, ‘I think you ought to go and see how your patient is.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, Sister,’ he said meekly, and left the room.
The others seemed to take this as a token of their dismissal.
‘I’ll come too,’ said Davies.
Mike and Phil got up too, and Mike went out, Phil stood by the door for a second and looked towards me. Then he too left the room.
I stood before Sister feeling like a naughty child.
‘Well, Nurse,’ she said after a pause. ‘You have been well and truly blooded into theatre this morning, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, Sister,’ I said. The exaltation of relief had now left me, and I felt depressed and lifeless.
‘Nothing went wrong,’ said Sister, ‘but I feel it was more luck than judgement.’
I nodded wearily.
‘Nurse, I know this is the first time you have seen a cardiac massage, but you must not be so affected by it.’
I looked at her without feeling anything at all.
‘You see, Nurse,’ she went on, ‘the first attribute of a theatre nurse is calmness. To keep your head in such an emergency as this is completely essential. Now I will say
no more, but I know you will understand more what to do should another case such as this arise.’
She got up and set down her coffee cup.
‘What was Mr Van Burgh doing here?’ she asked casually.
Taken aback, I had no time to think up an excuse. I blurted out: ‘He came to see me.’
She looked at me quickly, and her large luminous eyes seemed to be questioning me.
‘I see,’ she said quietly, and turned to leave. As she got to the door, she stopped and said: ‘I suppose everyone has warned you against him?’
‘Yes, everyone,’ I said boldly.
‘Would another warning – mine – carry any weight?’
She looked hard at me. I did not answer.
‘Well, anyway, here it is for what it is worth. He is a professional heart-breaker. Any interest he has in you is because you haven’t succumbed to his charms, and as soon as you fall in love with him, he’ll drop you.’
I again said nothing, but returned her look for look.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘I know, child. Believe me.’
For a long time I stared at the door after she had left. I knew in my heart that what she had said was right. He was only interested in me now because I had done what probably no other woman had ever done to him – stood him up.
My nerves were too shattered and my forces too scattered by the events of the morning for me to concentrate now on my line of conduct. Eventually I stopped trying to sort it all out and went off to lunch.
The meal was the usual dull sliced meat with anaemic carrots and lumpy potatoes. As I sat down O’Connor came and joined me.
‘Well, I hear you had a bit of a lark in Minor Ops this morning,’ she said cheerfully, wading into her meal with every appearance of enjoyment.
The hospital telegraph system still amazed me. You had only to scratch your nose on one side of the hospital for the fact to be known with embellishments on the other side, in about half an hour. The outposts like X-ray and Physiotherapy would take a little longer – about an hour.
‘Yes,’ I replied wearily. ‘We had some excitement, and I might add, if that is excitement, I’ve had all I want for a year at least.’
‘I hear the old boy’s doing quite well,’ said O’Connor casually pushing a large carrot covered in tomato sauce into her mouth. ‘Of course he’ll be as mad as a hatter. Had a terrible haemorrhage. Shouldn’t wonder if it isn’t Dai Davies’s fault, I always said he didn’t know one end of a Boyle’s machine from an ether jar. Hullo, Kendall,’ she added, as a large Staff Nurse from the Children’s Ward came and sat down at our table.
‘Hallo, Jackie. What a do in poor old Minor Ops, eh?’ she said to me. ‘My dear, I’d just about have given in my notice. I’ll bet it was ghastly.’ She managed a whole carrot and half her meat allowance in one gulp.
I reached out to put my plate aside, I couldn’t face the congealed mess any longer.
‘Jane – what have you done to your hand?’ asked O’Connor.
‘Oh – I cut it putting the blade on for the cutting down,’ I said casually.
There was a shocked silence, and the nurses looked at me with a new respect. Then they both started talking at once.
‘My dear,’ said Kendall, ‘there’s been such a do in the kids’ theatre. You know the new Ass Mat Harold or Harrod or some name like that?’
‘Oh, I know,’ corroborated O’Connor, ‘the one that took Birch’s place, praise the Lord.’
‘Well,’ went on Kendall, anxious not to be diverted from her story, ‘well, she came in and found Trevelyan sitting on Foster’s knee.’
She paused to see the effect of this juicy bit of scandal on the assembled company.
‘Oh, Kendall, come off it,’ I said wearily. ‘She’s not likely to be sitting on Tony Foster’s knee on duty. For one thing he’s such a little pipsqueak she’d probably break his legs.’
‘Well,’ said Kendall rather sulkily, ‘that’s what the cleaner told me, and she went with Harrod to the office.’
‘Probably found them having a fag,’ I said cuttingly, and leaving my soggy jam tart, I got up and left the dining-room.
‘Poor girl,’ I heard Kendall say in a stage whisper as I weaved my way out between the tables. ‘She’s had a tough time.’
I went to collect my post and saw there was a letter from Phyllis, which I took to my room to read later. As I reached my floor I met a little blonde Staff Nurse, one Straker, a pleasant girl who worked on Main Theatres.
‘Hullo, Jane. I hear you had a cardiac massage this morning,’ she said.
‘Everyone seems to have heard that,’ I replied cynically.
‘Oh Dai Davies was full of it. Said Sourpuss floored the lot of you and practically did it herself.’
This was rather a surprising twist. ‘No, she didn’t,’ I said. ‘Why should he say that?’
‘Well, I don’t think they get on,’ she said frankly. ‘But to hear him tell it, he revived the patient single-handed.’
I laughed shortly and went on to my room. ‘By the way,’ called out Straker, ‘how’s your hand?’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Didn’t Ted Bell cut it snatching the knife out of it?’ she asked.
‘Kendall again,’ I said bitterly.
In my room I plonked down on the bed. Give Kendall another hour I thought, and I’ll have had a below shoulder amputation. Then suddenly it began to strike me as screamingly funny, and I began to laugh. All over the hospital, I thought, everyone knows what a mess I made of it. What a hoot! I wonder they haven’t got hold of Sourpuss’s warning against Phil. Oh golly, I’ve never been so amused in my life. Then the tears came to my eyes and I gradually started sobbing, and so I indulged in my first fit of hysteria, laughing and crying, and when it was spent, I sat thinking what a terrible flop I had been.
Obviously theatre isn’t the place for me, I’ll have to leave. I could get a transfer, said a little voice at the back of my brain. No, no. I’ll have to leave. No one could stay in the hospital after they had made such a fool of themselves.
Chapter Twelve
Eventually I had it all sorted out in my mind. On Monday I would go to Sister Wright – I would not go till Monday so that it would not look too much as if I was walking out after my first crisis. I would tell her I wanted to leave. She might, the small voice said, she might ask you to try again. Never, replied the voice of black despair. On Tuesday Matron, and a month’s notice, and then a quiet field of pasture for a bit. Later on I could think of some type of work for which I was suited, but for the moment the important thing was to get out.
I looked at my calendar. It was rather unfortunate that if I gave in my notice on Tuesday, I should miss the Michaelmas Ball that I had hopes of Phil taking me to. Well, perhaps if I made it the week after. Yes, that would be even better, because Sister Wright would know then that I hadn’t been scared. So marking the following Tuesday week with a large circle, I settled down to read Phyllis’s letter.
‘Dear Teakhead,’ it began, ‘I’m giving in my notice. I can’t face it any more. I’m on night duty, two of us with twenty beds. You start the evening with milk drinks for the mothers, then feeds for all the babies, they have to be changed, taken to their mums, watched to see if they’re feeding properly, then collected and shoved back in their cots. By the time the last baby has started, it’s time to collect and return the first. In between you’ve got to fit in such jobs as expressing milk for incubator babies, and making up feeds for babies whose mums haven’t got enough. Then there are always the poor little Caesar and forceps babies who are cot-nursed at first.
‘When you’ve done all that and cleared up, the next feed is due for the under-weight babies who are fed during the night. The others of course are being trained to sleep through the night, and they don’t like it at all, so the ones who ought to have a feed don’t want it, while the others are yelling their heads off with hunger. The first one who wakes up and yells wakes all the others, and by two o’
clock you’re going bats because you’re confronted with twenty screaming babies. At first I was so sorry for them that I rushed around with a little something in a bottle when Night Sister had gone to Meal. By now I’m getting hardened, and just try to stop some of the din by farming out babies in various little rooms like the linen cupboard and the bathroom. As the night goes on these rooms get steadily fuller of howling babies, and your temper gets steadily worse. By six o’clock, when you’re just about ready to hit them on the head with a hammer, they all go off into a sound sleep and you have to wake them up to give them feeds they’re too exhausted to take.
‘To add to the confusion, there is a steady trickle of mothers who have just produced arriving in the ward. Their arrival wakes up all the other mothers, who start asking for bedpans.
‘At six o’clock you start all over again; babies to mothers, bottles, expressing breast milk, babies returned, cot babies fed, and all this has to be worked in with washings, bed-makings and breakfasts. By the time you go off duty you’re so bad-tempered that if one of the mothers says “Isn’t he a bonny boy?” you nearly give the wrong answer.
‘I hope this hasn’t bored you too much, but I just had to write and tell someone about it all. Honestly I feel so sub-human here, as though I have no intelligence at all. Mind you, when it comes to deliveries, let’s face it, my IQ is minus 100 per cent, but it’s nice to remember the old days when I seemed to know what I was doing.
‘By the way, have you seen Mike lately? I don’t know what’s the matter with him, he hasn’t written for weeks. Jane, I hate to confess it to anyone, but I really love him. All the men down here are so dull compared to him, and I live for his letters and news about him. Do you think I stand a chance?’
This was indeed a new angle, Phyllis, the self-confident, feeling insecure about a man! I smiled slightly and went on reading.
‘Well, enough of my love life. Let me know how you are. It’s so nice to hear of a civilised world where people eat and drink and do normal things. If I can save the cash, and if I don’t have my day off changed, and if I can wake up after sleeping the sleep of dead exhaustion, I will come and see you next Wednesday, which will be your day off, I hope. Write soon. Are you doing any appendices yet. Lots of Luf, Phyl. P.S. Let me know any news of Mike, anything, I’ve even forgotten the way he blows his nose.’
