Flowers from the Doctor

by Lucilla Andrews

  I was dead tired, but once in bed found that I was too tired for sleep. Little mental pictures of the night kept flashing through my mind like a speeded-up movie. Richard’s telling me to clamp down on my imagination; Sanders’ weary, ‘Here we go again, Nurse!’ when he realized what was happening; the silence in the ward this morning, and the way the other men had avoided looking at the curtains drawn round 6; Johnny sitting in theatre clothes at the desk at dawn, his tanned face grey in that queer light, telling me he was not a patient man.

  He had not had to go on sitting there until Sanders came round. He had returned a live patient to us from the theatre, and in those circumstances most surgeons I knew would have come up to the ward for a quick look at their patient, told us to ring them if we were worried, and gone to bed. If I had known Johnny better I might have thought he had remained to give us moral support. I had known many physicians and a few surgeons do that kind of thing, but, although I had often worked with Johnny before, he had never struck me as being one of those fairly rare individuals ‒ a good surgeon with the consideration for nursing problems more commonly found in good physicians.

  It was then I thought ‒ do I really know him at all? Certainly I had seen him around the hospital on and off for years; had worked with him recently in the theatre, last year in Cas; but they were departments. Departmental hospital work is totally different from ward work and, particularly in the theatre, so much more impersonal. You could meet daily in the same department for three months and remain strangers. It was in the wards, above all at night, that you really got to know your colleagues. The last time I had worked in the same ward as Johnny was when I was night junior in Robert and he had been one of the many itinerant housemen and my senior’s responsibility.

  That set me wondering about that senior. What was her name? Oh, yes ‒ Jean Danvers. She had been a reserved, very senior senior, who did not approve of chatting with her juniors and had married someone I later worked with in Cas. I could not remember his name at all, only his stutter. I wasted a lot of good sleeping-time trying to get his name without success. Simeon’s was so large; we had over seventy residents in London alone, another twenty at the annexe. The residents changed round as regularly as the nurses, and, apart from one’s specific friends and occasional enemies, it was impossible to remember who was who.

  I dropped off to sleep at last. When I woke at two it was very hot and the sun was on my face. The storm threatened by that sky this morning had not arrived. I wished it would, as I threw off all my bedclothes but the top sheet. My room was like an oven. It was far too early to get up and dressed, even if Richard had fixed our usual evening date. For once we had both forgotten it last night. I guessed he had not rung to remind me of it this morning for the good reason that it was his weekend on and he was unlikely to have even an hour off to-day.

  The sun was too disturbing. I got up to draw my window curtains, stayed leaning out of my window for air. My top-floor room overlooked the main road and, across the road, the hospital park.

  It was a brilliant afternoon; the usual Saturday-afternoon coma had settled on the park. A houseman on a bench under a plane-tree was fanning himself with a file of notes. Four students obviously on Casualty call lounged on the grass a few yards from one of Cas side-doors, their shirt-sleeves rolled up, jackets on the ground by them.

  The staff car-park outside the Medical School was half-empty. Two students with tennis-racquets ambled out of the School across the grass to talk to the houseman, then climbed into a small blue coupé and drove off.

  I watched the car turn west and disappear down the main road in the direction of the hospital sports club farther down the river. I wished I was off and could join them, not for tennis but to flop on a river-bank.

  The blue car had vanished, but I went on looking at the traffic casually for something to do. A flash of scarlet caught my attention. It was the same colour as Richard’s car, so with affectionate interest I watched it weave through the traffic. As it came nearer I leaned out for a better look, remembered I was in pyjamas and Matron’s office would not approve, and backed a little just as the car slowed, then turned in at the hospital gates.

  It was Richard’s car. The hood was down. He was driving. His fair head was as unmistakable as Sonia’s smooth dark hair. If I had any doubts about her they were dispelled when she jumped out. She looked very attractive in a bright yellow dress.

  I was too surprised to move away. I saw her wave to Richard, then hurry across the road to the Day Home. Richard took his car on to the car-park, locked it, and walked briskly off to the Surgical Block. He seemed in as much of a rush as Sonia. Everyone else around was moving like a snail because of the heat.

  I went slowly back to bed. I was not at all worried at seeing them together, only puzzled. It was such an odd hour for a houseman on duty to be out. As for Sonia ‒ he had probably seen her waiting somewhere and given her a lift back. He always had detested driving alone.

  Sleep went on evading me. In desperation. I got up again and wrote a long letter to Phil Murrow, my greatest friend in the hospital. She was now working at the annexe as junior theatre staff nurse, loved hearing news of the old firm, and I wrote her reams weekly. I told her all I had gathered about the Ball; about that evening tea-party in the junior sitting-room; the crisis in Lister last night. I did not mention seeing Richard and Sonia just now. It was too unimportant.

  Writing did the trick. I was asleep within a few seconds of sealing the envelope. The next thing I knew Maureen, our floor maid, was hammering on my door. ‘Twenty-past seven and the second time I’ve called you, Nurse Francis! Are you awake now?’

  I fought my way up through waves of sleep. ‘Awake, Maureen. Thanks.’

  ‘And about time!’

  I rather hoped Richard would ring me for a quick chat before I went over to supper. He often did that when he could not get out. Our floor telephone rang constantly while I was dressing. Not for me. Either Richard was too busy or he could not get through. Both were equally probable and understandable.

  Sanders was a little better that night. Though still on the D.I.L., he no longer needed a special nurse. Bernard and I pushed back his curtains after we had settled him for sleep, so that we could watch him from any part of the ward.

  He was pleased about the curtains. ‘That’s right, Nurses. Be able to keep me eye on you again.’

  The other men smiled at each other. ‘Good to see old Tom again. Doing nicely, is he, Nurse? Mind you, that was a real turn and all he must have given you last night.’

  The whole ward was more cheerful, with the odd exception of Bernard. She was so sunk in gloom that I asked if she was feeling all right. ‘Not sickening for the measles?’

  She said she had had measles.

  ‘Sleep badly? It was wickedly hot.’

  She said she had slept well, felt fine. She did not sound or look it. I wondered if she had had a row with her faithful red-head. Then he came into the ward to ask if we could lend the Cas staff milk. I saw the smile they exchanged. Whatever was worrying Bernard, it was not her love-life.

  The residents were late for their rounds. Night Sister arrived first. She told me that Florence, the women’s acute general surgical ward, was having a sudden rush. ‘If it’s not one ward it’s another, Nurse! And poor Nurse Goodwin has a new junior to add to her worries.’

  I agreed Nurse Goodwin was having a hard time, asked after the Florence night relief who had had her appendix removed last week.

  Night Sister smiled drily. ‘She is away home, Nurse. Sister Nightingale is desolate. She has not one single sick nurse to cosset in her ward. It is really too bad poor Nurse Dinsford had to wait until she got to her home before admitting she was so unwell. There she is this evening with a high temperature and all the symptoms of a touch of the sun, according to her mother, and here we are with Nightingale empty.’

  ‘Staff Nurse Dinsford? From the annexe, Sister?’

  ‘Aye. From Mark. Well, I’ll be on my way,
Nurse Francis.’ Bernard joined me at the desk. ‘May I take the screen sheet, Nurse?’

  ‘Sure.’ I handed it over. ‘Did you by any chance sit out in the sun to-day?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Something Night Sister just told me made me wonder if that’s responsible for your any-more-for-the-tomb expression.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She smiled. ‘Expect I’m just sleepy. Someone caught the sun?’

  ‘Dinsford from the annexe. Don’t suppose you know her.’

  ‘I know of her. So she’s off sick? That’ll make a break for the Mark nursing staff.’

  I was surprised. ‘You are fierce.’

  ‘That’s nothing to what the set ahead of mine say about dear Staff Nurse Dinsford.’ She was quite pink with indignation.

  ‘I think that’s someone calling from the far end ‒’

  ‘Only Chivers talking in his sleep as usual ‒’ but she had already gone up the ward.

  It was Chivers. He was asleep. As we were quiet I suggested she sat down and ruled the red lines she had to rule nightly in the Admission Book. Normally she appeared to enjoy doing this early and having at the same time a matey chat about life in general. She was in no mood for chatting. ‘If it’s all the same with you, Nurse, I’d rather finish my outside routine first. I’ll keep an eye out for any men arriving to go round.’

  ‘Suit yourself, my dear. I’m going to wrestle with this miserable bedstate in triplicate. Why didn’t somebody warn me when I took up nursing that I’d have to keep putting down my lamp to fill in flipping forms?’

  She smiled vaguely, drifted back to the kitchen. I looked after her for a moment, wondering what was eating her. Probably she had been too long on nights, too. I returned to my bedstate and the problem that we seemed to have thirty-four men in thirty-two beds yesterday. I had not done a bedstate last night. One of Night Sister’s assistants had filled in my form for me, as we were so busy. It took me a few minutes to trace the error. The two men we had transferred to Robert yesterday morning had come in after midnight the previous night, which meant they were admitted and transferred on the same day. The Night Ass., obviously being uncertain if they were transfers or discharges, had only admitted them. I tore up the first three forms I had messed up and started again.

  Richard walked in when I was half through the first four-hourly pulse round. ‘Sorry I’m late. Crisis in Florence. How’s the family?’

  Switching from our personal to professional relationship was such a habit with us that we did it unconsciously. I was longing to hear about last night and how he had managed to get out that afternoon, but it did not even occur to me to mention either yet.

  ‘All quiet. Lots of forms, I’m afraid.’

  We went round all the men first, then sat at the desk. ‘Path forms first?’ I asked.

  ‘Let’s have ’em.’

  I passed him one at a time. ‘Blood count, haemoglobin content ‒ Ellis, Smith, Donlin, Ross, Sanders.’

  He looked up, smiled. ‘Which reminds me, I owe you one humble apology for pal Sanders. I meant to ring and say so before supper. No time.’

  I smiled back. ‘Forget it. One more path. White blood count for Chivers. Now X-rays.’ I handed on a whole batch. ‘The lot.’

  ‘Right.’ He added the necessary requests and his signature to the forms. ‘Just one more.’ He helped himself to Sister Lister’s memo-pad, and wrote quickly. ‘That’s it.’ He tore off the note. ‘For you, dear Nurse. From me. Thanks for the escort. Goodnight.’ He walked swiftly out of the ward.

  I read his note. It was very short.

  ‘So much to tell you, sweetie, but, apart from this not being the time and place, if I don’t get back to Flo your pet hate Johnny D will take me apart. I shall be ringing you in the morning. Nine do?’

  I pushed his note into my apron-bib, returned to my pulses. Bernard finished setting the kitchen for the men’s early tea and breakfast, crossed the flat to fold and sort soiled linen in the clinical room. There were various routine jobs we had to get done during each night, whether busy or slack. As senior I was not allowed to leave the ward for anything but the telephone and meals, so my routine concerned jobs that could be done at the desk, or in the sterilizing corner. Bernard had all the outside jobs.

  I finished the pulses, did another complete round to see all the men were all right. They were. It was getting late and time to start writing my midnight report for Night Sister, but I could not do that until Johnny or one of the other registrars came round, in case there was to be some alteration in someone’s treatment or drugs. I decided to start on the nightly re-sterilizing of the four hypodermic trays. I had carried the first down to the row of sterilizers to the left of the ward entrance when Olivers called out in his sleep again. I went up to the balcony end to make sure he had not woken himself or anyone else. No one stirred.

  I stood by the cluster of empty wheel-chairs, listening to the many snores and sighs and thinking of the extraordinary way a surgical ward can change its whole character in a matter of hours. Lister was now relaxed, serene, another world from this morning.

  ‘Do you always pass out on your feet?’ Johnny’s voice mumbled quite literally down the back of my neck. ‘I’ve been watching you from the desk. You haven’t moved in minutes.’

  ‘Just listening to the men. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you come in.’ We went back to the desk. His behaviour last night and early that morning was responsible for my at last being able to relax and treat him as I would any other registrar. ‘Come to do your round?’

  ‘What in hell’s name would I be doing but that at this hour? Paying a social call? Or hoping for a chance to murmur sweet nothings at this desk?’ He treated me to one of his best glares. His best was very good indeed. ‘I don’t mix business and pleasure, Nurse Francis.’

  He was acting S.S.O. I had been trained to treat S.S.O.s with great respect. I was grateful for what he had done for Sanders. Despite all that I would have given a great deal to hit back. My question was not as foolish as it sounded, and we both knew it. As Florence was having a crisis, he might well have only come in to ask after Sanders and be returning for his round proper later. That kind of thing was constantly happening at night.

  Keeping my temper on duty no matter what the provocation was another thing I had learnt in training, and at the same time how to deal with any medical man who chose to act like a Big Doctor. A Big Doctor was a Simeon’s nurses’ term for any member of the medical profession with a big head. We often observed how seldom the pundits, S.M.O.s and S.S.O.s suffered from the complaint, and it was pleasantly scarce in the more junior ranks, though it cropped up occasionally, generally among the newly qualified.

  I looked down my nose primly. ‘Yes, Mr Druro. I beg your pardon, Mr Druro. Of course you’re right, Mr Druro.’

  ‘What the devil is all that in aid of? Are you trying to humour me?’

  I was getting very bored with my nose. I kept on squinting at it. ‘Oh, no, Mr Druro. As I am sure you are very busy, shall we go round?’

  He went slowly, methodically round all the beds. When he spoke, which was seldom, it was in monosyllables.

  Back at the desk again he checked through the completed request forms. That was as much part of his job as the writing of them was Richard’s.

  ‘What about Ferguson’s X-ray?’ he demanded without looking up.

  ‘Ferguson in 25, Mr Druro? He had a portable done this morning. You wrote him up last night.’

  ‘Not last night. Early this morning. I know he was done today. I saw the wet plates. I want another set. I told Bartney.’

  I did not know what to say. I said nothing.

  ‘Form, please.’ He reached across me, helped himself from the file before I could hand one over. ‘He’s got to have it done.’

  His expression made me very sorry for Richard. He was not the first houseman I had known forget a request form at night. That was precisely why the registrars had to check on the housemen, just as the ward sisters ha
d to check on their nurses.

  He signed his name, pushed the form at me in silence. I had to say, ‘Sorry it was left out.’

  Any other registrar would have had a splendid moan about housemen being so much dead weight on hard-working registrars’ shoulders and felt much better. Not our Mr D. He ignored my apology, looked over to Sanders. ‘I’m glad he’s doing all right so far. This business of taking over for odd weekends is damned unsatisfactory. One might as well be doing a shift on a factory belt. It’ll be a relief to get back to the annexe tomorrow.’ He stood up. ‘Right. I’ll be in Florence for the next couple of hours if you should want me.’

  I got out of my chair. ‘Thank you, Mr Druro.’ I looked round the ward. ‘I hope I won’t want you.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’ He realized what I was doing. ‘You don’t have to see me out.’

  The S.M.O. and S.S.O. were the only residents whom etiquette ordained must be escorted to the ward door after their rounds, by day or night. As Johnny was only acting and prepared to waive that particular privilege, there was actually no reason why I should not have sat down again.

  I did not choose to sit yet. ‘Oh, excuse me, but I must, Mr Druro. As you are at the moment acting Senior Surgical Officer’ ‒ I looked deliberately at him ‒ ‘I have no alternative.’ I led him to the door. ‘Goodnight, Mr Druro. Thank you for doing your round.’

  He bowed. ‘Just one point, Nurse. You’ve forgotten something. The name,’ he said drily, ‘is Druro. ’Night.’

  Bernard joined me in the door as he shot down the flat as if jet-propelled. ‘He looks narked. Something upset him, Nurse?’

  ‘I hope so. I’ve done all I could in that direction without breaking one of Matron’s rules.’ I smiled at her expression. ‘Don’t look so worried, my dear. Doesn’t matter if I have. He and I are not likely to work together again, and last night was obviously the exception to the general rule that our Mr Druro and our Nurse Francis just loathe each other’s guts. Now I must go and tidy up that desk.’

  It was a relief to have the desk to myself. I put all the request forms into the Errands Basket. Bernard would deliver them on her way to breakfast in the morning. Then I opened the report-book. A small square of yellow memo paper, neatly folded, was fixed with a paper-clip to the blank page on which I would have to write my report. I removed it absently, my mind on my report, then realized it was Richard’s note.