A Wartime Nurse

by Maggie Hope

  ‘You will start on Monday, Staff Nurse,’ Matron was saying.

  Theda lifted her head and answered meekly, ‘Yes, Matron.’

  Well, at least she had almost a week to accustom herself to the idea, she thought numbly as she left the office and walked over to Block Five.

  A week to say goodbye to the children in this side ward, the ones with the sadly misshapen spines who had never known life outside the hospital. A week to say goodbye to all the other child patients, especially the long-stay ones she had time to grow fond of.

  You’re being stupid, she told herself savagely as she hung up her cloak in the tiny cloakroom and pinned on her all-enveloping cap. In all the years she had been nursing it had always been hard when she’d had to move to another ward, first in Newcastle General Hospital and then, these last two years, here at home. But this time it was different, this time she had to go to the hutted wards, separated from the old workhouse hospital by barbed wire and with sentries at the gates. This time she would be nursing Germans. One of them could actually be the one who had shot Frank on the beach at Dunkirk . . .

  ‘You look as though you lost a shilling and found a penny?’

  Theda looked up as the Senior Assistant Nurse on the ward spoke to her. Nurse Jenkins was English. She had married a miner in the Welsh valleys but he was killed in a pit disaster and she had returned to her native Durham where, when the war broke out, she became a nurse.

  ‘Morning, Nurse,’ said Theda for anything less formal was frowned upon as likely to cause a breach of discipline. But she smiled at the plump, good-natured woman, so loved by the children and yet immensely practical and a great asset on any ward. ‘I’ve been transferred,’ she added, and couldn’t keep the dismay out of her voice.

  ‘Oh, dear, I’m sorry to hear that, Staff. Are they sending you to Durham? My friend went there. Mind you, she likes the place all right.’

  ‘No, not another hospital. I mean, I’m to go over to the other side. Hut K.’

  Nurse Jenkins looked relieved. ‘Oh, well, that’s no so bad, is it?’

  Theda was saved the necessity of a reply for just then she heard Sister coming in through the main door. It must be two minutes to eight and if they were not ready and waiting in Sister’s office by the time she had removed her cloak and straightened her cap, ready to receive the night report on the patients, there would be trouble.

  ‘Hello, Millie. That’s a lovely doll you’ve got there, may I have a look at it?’ Theda asked the child in the cot nearest the door of the disabled children’s room. She held out her hand and Millie proudly gave her the doll. ‘It’s nice, isn’t it, Nurse Elliot?’

  Nurse Elliot, the young Assistant Nurse who was helping Theda change the beds, nodded her agreement.

  ‘My mother sent it to me,’ Millie said proudly.

  ‘What’s her name?’ asked Theda, thinking how much better it would have been if Millie’s mother had actually brought the doll herself, but she never came near the hospital. Still, at least she kept in touch.

  ‘I was waiting till you came. I’m going to call her after you, Staff Nurse. What’s you name?’

  Theda laughed. ‘I don’t think you want to do that. My name’s Theda – and no one’s ever called Theda! Why don’t you name her Clara? My sister’s name is Clara. She’s named after Clara Bow, the film star. Theda is after Theda Bara, another film star of long ago.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of them,’ said Millie doubtfully. Though she had not seen a film in her life, she was an avid reader of Film Fun and the Silver Screen, magazines which Theda brought in for the children every week. Millie could even read the captions on the pictures, unlike Jean and Mary, the other two girls in the room.

  ‘Why don’t you call her Lana after Lana Turner?’ suggested Nurse Elliot.

  ‘No, I will call her Theda after Staff Nurse,’ said Millie. ‘But not after that Theda Barry, mind.’

  ‘Well, thank you, it’s a great compliment,’ said Theda. ‘Now let’s get you sitting up in bed. Nurse Jenkins is coming round with the cod liver oil and orange juice, isn’t that nice?’

  The children beamed. They weren’t so fond of the cod liver oil but they loved the concentrated orange juice which came to them courtesy of America. Theda left them sipping the juice contentedly and went to make sure the main ward was tidied up properly for Matron’s round.

  Every cot and bed wheel had to be turned to the correct angle, and every counterpane smoothed with just the right amount of sheet turned down over it, every pillow plumped up and the opening of the pillow case facing away from the door. Trouble was, the children tended to rumple the bedclothes as soon as they were straightened. And better so, Nurse Jenkins had remarked to Theda, for if the bed remained tidy it usually meant the child was too ill to wriggle about.

  Matron came in on the stroke of ten and walked round the ward with Sister, pausing at each bed as they talked about its small occupant and each child gazed at her with round solemn eyes, impressed by such an important personage. As she was leaving, she stopped where Theda was laying the trolley in readiness for the dressing round.

  ‘Oh, Staff Nurse Wearmouth,’ she said. ‘I want you to take your dinner hour early if Sister will spare you. You can go over to Ward K and have a word with Sister Smith. Best go early, she’s off duty this afternoon.’ Taking Theda’s agreement for granted, she swept off the ward and into Sister’s office, the deep triangle of her cap fluttering behind her.

  ‘You can go as soon as Mr Kent has finished his ward round,’ Sister said to Theda before she followed in Matron’s footsteps. They would be closeted in there for half an hour, thought Theda rebelliously as she stared at the closed door, no doubt having a good gossip. And when was she supposed to eat the Woolton pie which was always on the dinner menu on Mondays? She dipped the large forceps she was holding into the boiler and fished out an enamel kidney dish, banging it on the trolley and filling it with sterile pads of gauze. She laid out the instruments and the sharp-pointed scissors she would need to take out David’s stitches if Mr Kent gave the go-ahead. Finally she covered the lot with a sterile dressing towel from the autoclaved drum.

  It was no good kicking up a fuss, it would only upset her more than anyone else. Besides, she had to keep cheerful for the sake of the children. They soon picked up any bad atmosphere in the ward. But nevertheless she felt pretty rebellious as she set off on a round of the ward.

  Not long after Matron left, the opening of the ward doors heralded the approach of Mr Kent and his junior doctor.

  ‘Bring me the case notes from my desk, will you, Staff?’ Sister asked over her shoulder as she went forward to meet the surgeon who strode into the ward, his houseman trailing behind him. But there was someone else with them. Theda stood to the side as they passed and saw he was a soldier, an officer in fact, a major. A doctor friend of Mr Kent’s home on leave, perhaps? she conjectured as she went to get the notes and bring them back to Sister. He walked with a limp, he could be on sick leave.

  ‘This is Major Collins, Sister. Major, Sister Allison,’ Mr Kent was saying. ‘Oh, and Staff Nurse Wearmouth. Major Collins is joining us on the other side mainly, though he will be available for the civilian side if necessary.’

  He was very tall, the major, Theda noted as she acknowledged the introduction. He looked down at her with level grey eyes from a deeply tanned face which nevertheless had an underlying pallor and grooves of pain etched between the eyebrows. But his gaze lasted for only an instant for Mr Kent was striding up the ward to his first patient, six-year-old David who had had his appendix removed the week before.

  ‘Thank you, Staff,’ Sister said quietly, dismissing her. ‘Go and check that the side wards are fit to be seen, will you?’

  At a quarter to twelve, Theda crossed the grounds to the hutted section of the hospital. The day was overcast and a bitter cold wind blew over the tarmac as she walked so that she wrapped her cloak more tightly around her slim body, thankful for its warmth. The sentry at the
gate let her in when she showed her pass and she walked down the ramp to Hut K and opened the door. A long corridor stretched before her and she paused, trying to remember the layout of the huts. The door on the left must be the patients’ toilets, on the right the bathrooms, and further along the kitchen. The last door on the left had to be Sister’s office.

  She walked towards it, her rubber-soled shoes silent on the highly polished composite floor. She knocked and went in as Sister Smith called ‘Enter’.

  ‘Oh, Staff, thanks for coming.’

  As though I had any choice in the matter, Theda thought, but she smiled. ‘Hello, Sister. Matron told me you wanted to see me.’

  ‘Yes. Sit down, Staff. It might be a good idea to have a look round before you start next week. I don’t think you’ve worked on the huts before?’

  ‘No, just the civilian side. Children mostly.’

  ‘And you don’t want to move,’ said Sister, observing Theda shrewdly.

  ‘Like everyone else, I go where I’m told,’ she answered, and Sister Smith nodded.

  ‘For the duration, anyway.’

  Theda had to suppress a smile. The expression had become common over the war years. Shops had notices stuck to their shutters, Closed for the duration, council services had been cut For the duration. It had almost become synonymous with When the Boat Comes In. Only that morning she had heard one of the children announce he was saving his sweet ration for the duration.

  ‘No, Jackie,’ she had protested. ‘What do you think the duration means?’

  ‘Everybody knows that,’ he had declared stoutly. ‘It means the big party we’ll have when we beat the Jerries.’

  He had been so nearly right that Theda hadn’t contradicted him.

  ‘You can eat your sweets now, Jackie,’ she had said instead. ‘There’ll be plenty after the war.’

  Sister rose to her feet and motioned Theda to the window set in the wall of her office, overlooking the ward. Theda went to look over her shoulder.

  The ward was long with no side wards, forty narrow beds lined up to either side. There were round black stoves at each end and some of the ambulant patients were seated round them on hard wooden chairs. In the centre of the ward was a table and other patients were sitting there, playing a card game. The beds nearest the door had men lying in them, some reading and some just lying looking at the ceiling. Theda gazed at them curiously.

  Some of the ambulant patients wore their field grey uniforms, all with the yellow or orange-coloured patch sewn on the back of the jacket denoting their prisoner status. She stared at the men nearest her.

  They were mostly young, though there was a sprinkling of middle-aged men there too. Many were wearing plaster casts on various limbs and two were in bed with legs strung up on systems of weights and pulleys. Fractured femurs, she supposed. Her gaze focussed on one boy – he was only a boy, looked to be no more than eighteen – who had his left arm in a cast and his leg in traction. His head moved restlessly on the pillow and his blond hair was dark with sweat despite the coolness of the day. Running a temperature, she thought to herself.

  ‘You see, not one with horns or a tail,’ commented Sister Smith, glancing sideways at her, and Theda flushed.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she murmured.

  Sister laughed. ‘I’m sorry, but if you could have seen your face when you came in here!’ she said. ‘Do you want to do a round of the ward? Have you time before you go back?’

  Theda consulted her wristwatch which was attached by the strap and a safety pin to the pocket of her dress. It was already twelve-thirty.

  ‘I haven’t had anything to eat yet and I have to be back on the ward by a quarter to one, Sister.’

  ‘Oh, well, no matter. Come back sometime, Staff. How about Friday? I’m on duty all day.’

  Theda agreed to return on Friday and tied on her cloak ready for the walk to the dining-room. As she opened the door, she was startled to come face to face with a German officer and jumped back hurriedly. But he too stepped back and gestured courteously for her to pass him, clicking his heels together as he did so in a gesture entirely foreign to her. She mumbled something incomprehensible and walked past him, taking with her an impression of light-blue eyes and dark hair, and an odour of carbolic soap and something else that was indefinable.

  ‘Oh, Major Koestler, do come in,’ she heard Sister say before the door closed behind him. ‘I wanted you to look at—’

  Whoever it was Sister wanted the German to examine, Theda didn’t wait to discover. She hurried to the dining room where she took a plate of luke-warm Woolton pie and mashed potatoes and sat down to eat before finding that her appetite had left her.

  For some reason she hadn’t thought there would be a German doctor ministering to the prisoners. But, after all, it was only logical when she thought about it. If a doctor were taken prisoner, then of course he would be useful to his own countrymen. If nothing else, he could speak their language. But was she expected to take orders from a German? Her very soul rebelled against the idea. The first chance she got, she decided, she would see Matron and find out what the position was.

  Abandoning her meatless dinner Theda went back to Block Five, breathing a sigh of relief as she heard children’s voices from the ward. This was where she ought to be, she loved working with children.

  There had been an emergency admission, an eleven-year-old boy who had been playing with his friends among the abandoned pit buildings at Black Boy colliery and fallen fifteen feet from the rusty wire rope of what had been the aerial flight, the overhead transport system which, when the pit was working, had carried tubs of coal. The boy was unconscious with a possible fractured skull and broken arm.

  Theda’s afternoon and evening were fully occupied, attending the houseman as he examined the boy and carrying out his instructions. The patient was laid flat and a temporary splint put on his arm until he should be judged well enough to go to the X-ray Department, which had been provided by the government along with an operating theatre in the hutted section of the hospital.

  Nurse Jenkins helped Theda to tie a pillow carefully over the bedhead, just in case the boy should thrash about and catch his head on the iron bars, and then it was a case of watching and waiting and keeping the rest of the children quiet. And, of course, trying to allay the fears of the boy’s parents who hovered in the corridor as they were not allowed in the ward just yet. Sister was having her two hours off-duty so it was up to Theda to usher then into the office and talk to them.

  ‘I’ve told the lads till I’m sick not to play on the old aerial flight!’ the father said the moment the door was closed. ‘It’s not safe, it’s not been safe for years, I don’t know why it wasn’t cleared away years ago. All that scrap iron and they leave it. No, they’d rather take down folk’s perfectly good railings to get iron for their factories. Eeh, I don’t know how their minds work, I don’t. If they have any minds, that is.’

  He stood in the middle of the room, a man of medium height but with heavy powerful shoulders as most miners had. He spoke nervously, angrily, almost as though he didn’t know how to stop once he’d started.

  ‘Mr Patterson,’ said Theda before he could go on, and he closed his mouth and put an awkward arm around his wife who was gazing anxiously at Theda, her lips working spasmodically.

  ‘He’s going to be all right, isn’t he, Nurse?’

  ‘We’ll known soon enough, Mr Patterson,’ she answered. ‘Mr Kent, our consultant, will be here shortly to have a look at him.’

  ‘I know you, you’re Bea Wearmouth’s lass, aren’t you?’ Mrs Patterson spoke for the first time. ‘I heard she had one a nurse.’

  ‘That’s right, Mrs Patterson,’ said Theda. ‘Now, would you like a cup of tea while you’re waiting?’

  ‘By, I’m glad it’s you – we can talk to you. But never you mind bothering with tea for us, you’ve got plenty to do without that, I fancy. Eeh, I’m that glad you’ll be looking after the bairn, I feel better in my mind n
ow. I’m not much good talking to doctors and nurses and such.’

  ‘Sit down, do, Mrs Patterson,’ Theda said gently. ‘And you too, Mr Patterson. You look pretty tired yourself. Have you been on fore shift?’

  ‘Aye, that’s right. I hadn’t been long in, just had my bath when the lad came running in to tell me Peter had had an accident. A good job I had an’ all. I didn’t have to come here in me black, like.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have mattered. Well, I’ll get Nurse to bring you some tea anyway. The doctor won’t be long and maybe there’ll be some good news about Peter. Then you can go to your bed; you look as though you could do with it.’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep anyroad.’

  The miner shook his head but sat down alongside his wife, and, bending forward, took his cap out of his pocket and began twisting it round and round in his hands. There was nothing more to say so when the tea tray arrived, Theda excused herself and withdrew, murmuring something about checking on Peter.

  He was just the same. The young auxiliary nurse she had set to watch him for any signs of change stood up as she approached the bed. Theda felt his pulse; it was thready but could have been worse.

  ‘Let me know if there’s any change at all,’ she said to the auxiliary. ‘Mr Kent shouldn’t be long anyway.’

  The girl nodded and sat down again, staring fixedly at Peter’s white face as though she was frightened she would miss something. Ah, well, better that than someone who let her attention wander with thoughts of her boyfriend or the like.

  Chapter Six

  It was half-past nine and a wet, cold night with the raindrops mixed with hail when Theda descended from the bus at the end of the rows in Winton Colliery.

  ‘Got your flashlight, Nurse?’ asked the conductor solicitously before he closed the door after her. ‘You want nothing wandering about on a night like this without one.’

  ‘Yes, I have it here, thanks, Tom. Goodnight then, see you tomorrow.’