‘A girl with a cut wrist. It’s not much more than a scratch, but she’s had a row with her husband.’
‘Suicide attempt?’
I shook my head. ‘She was throwing a plate at him, it missed, and she cut her wrist when picking up the pieces. She’s livid with him about it.’
‘Typical female logic ‒ I think. What about that nipper?’
I explained. ‘The paediatric registrar is on his way down. If you’ll see that girl ‒ and here are those stretcher cases from the Wing.’
The first workman was very shocked and desperately anxious about his broken right arm. ‘It’s me hand, see, Nurse ‒ me right hand. I can’t feel nothing, and it’s me right hand. I got to have me right hand.’
Johnny, in theatre clothes, was beside me. ‘Take it easy, son. Just let me have a look. I won’t hurt.’
‘You ain’t hurting, sir ‒ that’s what worries me.’ Tears poured down the man’s dust-engrimed face, making streaks that shone in the strip lighting. ‘I can’t feel nothing ‒ it must be that bad.’
‘No,’ said Johnny quietly, ‘it’s broken, but nothing we can’t mend. You can’t feel anything yet because you are a bit shocked, and that’s holding up the pain. It will hurt later, I’m afraid, and in a few weeks it should be as good as new.’
The man sighed hugely. ‘Honest?’
‘Honest.’ Johnny patted his good shoulder, replaced the temporary dressings and blanket. ‘So no more worrying. I’m going to send you up to a ward now. When you have had a little rest we’ll take you along to the theatre and fix up that arm for you.’ He backed to the door, jerked his head at me.
I followed him into the hall, leaving a dresser with the man.
‘A quarter, stat. Admit to Lister for portable X-ray and theatre later.’ He signed the admission, prescription, and X-ray forms I had already filled in. ‘Tell Lister they must just put up another emergency bed. If they haven’t got one left they must borrow from the Private Wing. Where’s the next?’
‘In 3.’
The second man was more shocked than anything. He was sent to the Private Wing for the night The third man was the foreman. He had a query fractured skull, but was too concerned about his men to be shocked yet.
‘I can’t stay in here, Doctor,’ he told Johnny, ‘not now I’ve come to. I’ve got to get back to my lads. There’s three still to get out. I must get back.’
‘Not three, Mr Jones.’ Sister had come in. ‘Only one. The other two are very shaken, but otherwise unhurt. We’ll keep them in for a night or so.’
‘That’s a bit of luck, I can tell you, Sister.’ The foreman took a long breath. ‘When I heard that lot come down on us I thought as we’d all had it. Who’s still in, Sister? Would the lads have said?’
‘The last two out said his name was Brunton.’
That upset him so much he would have sat up if Johnny had not gently held him down. ‘Take it easy, old man. You had a nasty crack on the head.’
‘I can’t take it easy with old Dick Brunton still down there, Doctor! Old Dick and me’ ‒ he yawned widely, and went on yawning as shock began to hit him ‒ ‘we’ve been together since we were lads. He’s my old mate. And he was working by the stairs. If he’s trapped he’ll be right down under all that lot.’
Johnny said, ‘We know how you feel, Mr Jones, but you must lie still. We’ll do ‒ everyone’ll do ‒ everything possible to get your friend out. I know it must be hell for you to have to leave this to others ‒ but you just have to.’ He caught my eye. I had an injection ready. He gave it himself. ‘As soon as we have any news we’ll let you know. That’s a promise.’
Sister smiled reassuringly as the porters, with Nurse Margeson as escort, wheeled the stretcher away to the Private Wing. Then her smile vanished. ‘I only hope that news will be good. That poor man Brunton is somewhere down in the basement. There’s a mountain of rubble on top of him, and it’s having to be moved very gently by hand, as all the roof is not yet down and looks ready to fall at any second.’
Johnny tugged the mask hanging limp round his throat, as if the slack strings were constricting. ‘How do they know he’s in the basement?’
‘There’s a small hole in the ground floor. They can hear him down there. He sounds in a lot of pain. The basement stairs are completely blocked, and they are trying to enlarge the hole to allow Mr Halliday to get down to him. Unfortunately the enlarging process has to be very slow, as the floor is anything but safe. If it gives it’ll fall in on him.’ She sighed. ‘I hated leaving them to it, but, as Matron said ‒ she, of course, is there ‒ there was no more I could do, and my department might be needing me. If only that gap in the floor was not so narrow someone could be lowered down to give that poor man an injection to stop his pain. It was so dreadful hearing him, with everything possible he might need so near at hand, and not being able to do a thing.’
Johnny gave a queer little grimace. ‘Sister, are you sure none of us could squeeze through?’
‘Mr Druro, you are even larger than Mr Halliday.’ She glanced at Mr Leonard, who had joined us. ‘And you are bigger than both. No. It’s too narrow for me. Matron and I discussed it. No one much bigger than a slim child would have a hope.’
I said, ‘Sister, how about me?’
Johnny snapped, ‘This is a job for a man, Nurse.’
Sister ignored him. ‘I wonder ‒’ She measured my shoulders with her hands. ‘It might just be possible. I can’t be sure. But it might. Mr Leonard, this may seem unorthodox, but I have no time to worry about that. Kindly run my department for me for ten minutes while Nurse Francis and I see Matron. We must ask her.’
Mr Leonard was pink with astonishment. Johnny, white. ‘Sister, forgive my saying this,’ he said quickly, ‘but no one would ask or expect one of our nurses to take such a risk. Didn’t you say the roof and the floor might give?’
If Sister could be unorthodox, so could I. I answered for her. ‘No one’s asked me to do anything, Mr Druro. I do know what I’m doing. I only hope I’m the right size and that Matron will let me try.’
He turned on me. ‘I don’t ‒’ but he had to stop as a porter raced up. ‘Sister General Theatre’s calling for you, Mr Druro. She said to tell you they are all waiting for you now.’
He did not seem to hear. Then he roused himself. ‘Tell Sister General I’m on my way.’ He looked directly at me. ‘Be careful.’ He walked away very quickly.
Sister Casualty and I tore down the main corridor. ‘How I wish I was smaller!’ she said. ‘How I wish it!’
Chapter Eleven
SHADOWS ROUND MY BED
The workmen’s floodlights were full on, and added to by a row of emergency lights brought out from the hospital. Outside round the old wing it was nearly as bright as day. A great heap of rubble sprawled over the car-park. Above the rubble, part of the old roof jutted out, and the scaffolding still clinging to it swayed like the open front of a child’s dolls’ house.
There was dust everywhere. On Matron’s cap, the residents’ white coats, the firemen’s helmets, and on the faces of the hordes of students and porters who were helping the firemen, police, and those workmen who were unhurt remove the rubble brick by brick and broken tile by broken tile.
An area had been roped off. Matron, the Hospital Secretary, and a senior police officer were standing by the rope. As we went up to them the police officer was saying, ‘Every man I have here has volunteered to try and get down, but they are men, not boys.’
Matron noticed Sister, beckoned her, then tilted her head to listen to what she said. ‘Nurse Francis?’ Matron queried sharply, looking at me. Then, ‘Well, Nurse?’
I repeated the suggestion I had made in Casualty. The two men shook their heads, but left it to Matron to speak. Matron hesitated a little time. ‘I will have another word with Mr Halliday first.’
George Halliday was lying face downwards by the gap in the ground floor. The work went on round him. ‘Not much longer, Mr Brunton,’ he called q
uietly. ‘Try and hang on, old chap.’ He saw Matron, got carefully to his feet and moved off the precarious ground floor.
‘Well, Mr Halliday?’
‘Not well, Matron. That poor chap is some way off by the sound. He can’t move, and seems in a bad way. So is that floor. If they rush at it, it’ll give before the roof.’
Matron was silent. The workers watched her momentarily, then went on with their agonizingly slow work. It was very quiet, the only sounds the soft clink of bricks, the slither of rubble shifting a little on its own. The usual roar of traffic was gone. The police had cordoned off the road past the hospital and deflected the traffic to the side-streets in case any vibrations or sudden noise should cause the rest of the roof to fall.
The silence was broken by a cross between a sob and a groan. It was only a weak sound. Far too weak.
It made up Matron’s mind. ‘Very well, Nurse Francis. If you are willing to try and reach this poor man you may do so.’
George Halliday reacted like Johnny. ‘Matron, we can’t send a nurse down.’
‘A trained nurse, Mr Halliday,’ she corrected him gently, then tactfully overrode his further objections. And as in Simeon’s our Matron was the supreme authority on the nursing staff, he had to give in.
‘Someone must get to that chap mighty soon.’ He paused. ‘Maybe it’ll be too late if we have to wait much longer. All right, Matron. Well, Nurse. Let’s work this out.’
The work was called off for the time being. George Halliday, Mr Ellis, and a policeman lay on their faces round the gap, forming a three-pointed star. Two of them were to control the rope fixed round my waist. Mr Halliday was to lower a lit electric hurricane-type lamp on a stout string, then the hypodermic case and emergency-dressing tin. ‘We’ve thrown blankets down to him already, but he hasn’t been able to get them. Soon as you’re down we can let you have as many more as you want.’
Matron took my cap and apron. The gap was so narrow the men had to push rather than lower me through the first part of my descent. The air below was cold, clammy, and heavy with dust. As I slid through and the light followed, the floor looked a very long way off. I would have been very scared had there been time for thought. There was none. I could already see a crumpled heap lying in the shadows several yards to my right. The heap was mumbling with pain. ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!’ The words ran into each other, and slowed down like a record on a running-down gramophone.
‘All right, Nurse?’ George Halliday’s voice was way above my head. ‘You look as if you are nearly there.’
‘Another two yards ‒ no, feet!’ I landed with a slight bump. No worse.
What had seemed so impossible was suddenly very simple. The injured man was in too much pain and far too weak at first to be conscious I was there. I checked his pulse and blood-pressure on the machine that was lowered down after the dressing tin, then called the results softly up to the acting S.S.O. The men had warned me shouting was out, for obvious reasons.
‘He seems,’ I added, ‘to have broken both legs and his right wrist. As far as I can see, both leg fractures are tibs and fibs. The left looks compound. I can’t find any other wounds apart from general superficial lacerations, and there’s no sign of external haemorrhage. I don’t think there’s any internal with that pulse.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right. Give him that injection, stat, then make him as comfortable as you can without moving him. We can fix those fractures later.’
Brunton barely noticed the injection, but as it took effect his mind cleared. ‘What are you doing down here, miss?’
‘I’m a staff nurse, Mr Brunton. I’ve come down to be with you. It must have been a bit lonely down here alone. How do you feel? Pain going off?’
‘That’s right. Better now.’ He sighed, squinted at me in the moderately good light. ‘They shouldn’t have let a slip of a girl like you come down here, miss. Oh, dear, dear, dear! This is a carry-on. I dunno. It’s not right.’
‘I know.’ I tucked the blankets round his shoulders. ‘They’ll have us out soon. Try and have a little rest. That injection I gave you’ll make you sleepy. It won’t knock you out. You’ll just feel very nicely, thanks.’
‘You don’t say. You give me an injection? Streuth! I don’t remember.’
‘Nurse Francis.’ George Halliday’s flattened voice called again. ‘More blankets. A sweater for you. Matron says you are to put it on and to have some of the tea you’ll find in this Thermos.’
I was very glad of the sweater and strong, sweet tea. It was very cold in that basement.
Mr Brunton was a sturdy man in the late forties. He was able to sip some of the tea. ‘That’s real good, Nurse. Ta.’ His voice was growing stronger. ‘You wouldn’t be knowing after me mates?’
‘All out.’ I explained how I knew. ‘Mr Jones, your foreman, was so upset you were still in he wanted to come back at once to help. The doctors wouldn’t let him.’
‘Poor old Bill! I’m real glad they’re all out, Nurse.’ He yawned. ‘You were right about that stuff you give me. Feel just about ready for a bit of a kip.’
‘That’s fine.’ I rearranged the pillow under his head, and was already so acclimatized to our situation that it seemed as natural to arrange a pillow on a filthy basement floor as in a bed in one of the wards. ‘How’s that? Comfortable? Good.’
He dropped into a light sleep almost immediately. I sat by him, holding his uninjured hand and listening to the work that all that while had been going on stealthily overhead. George Halliday never left the gap in the floor, and, from the occasional snatches of conversation I overheard, Matron was there with him.
My companion woke up. He had more tea, and wanted to talk. As it would help to take his mind off the present, I did not try to stop him. He told me all about his family, his wife’s passion for budgerigars, his little daughter’s talent for dancing ‒ ‘You should see the cups as she’s won already, Nurse ‒ and that diploma’ ‒ his great friendship with Bill Jones, the buildings they had demolished together, the war they had fought side by side all the way across North Africa and up the toe of Italy.
‘Poor old Bill, he’s not going to like this little lot. Never had one accident before. And you say as he’s getting along nicely, Nurse?’
‘That’s right, Mr Brunton. He’s in our Private Wing. And I expect you’ll be seeing him there later, as we haven’t many spare beds away from the Wing.’
‘I’ll have a room to meself.’ He was amused. ‘Real class, eh?’ He glanced up. ‘When they get us out. Going to be a long job that, I reckon.’
‘They are having to be very careful,’ was all I said. It had been a very long job already, but there was no need for him to know that.
He studied the cracks on the shadowy ceiling with a professional eye. ‘More careful than you know, Nurse. That lot up there’s ready to drop.’ He looked round. ‘Do you reckon you could help me shift over to that corner back there?’ He jerked a thumb. ‘The main stack’s behind that wall, see. We’d be best off there if there’s another fall.’
I hesitated. George Halliday had said not to move him, but the slow snowfall of plaster and chips that had been dropping ever since I joined him was speeding up. I had not worked out what was obviously going to happen sooner or later, simply because I had not dared face the thought.
‘I think I’ll just ask the surgeon.’ I went over to the gap, and passed on his suggestion to George.
He hesitated too. ‘I don’t like the thought of your trying to lug him around with all those fractures. They say we’ll be another hour.’ He was silent. Then, ‘Worrying him?’ he murmured.
‘Yes.’
‘That’s no good. Do what you can, Nurse. But slowly.’
It had to be slow. Mr Brunton was a heavy inert man. I managed it by dragging the lowest of the blankets on which he was lying.
We settled down against the wall. I had an arm round his shoulders and his head was resting in my lap. ‘How about another little snooz
e, Mr Brunton?’
‘I’ll have a go, Nurse. But first ‒ what’s your name, Nurse?’
‘Francis. That’s my surname.’
‘Nurse Francis, eh. Funny. All this time ‒ and I didn’t know your name.’ The move had eased his mind, but had not done his general condition much good. I could tell he was talking to keep his mind off the pain that was beginning to come back. ‘My missus ‒ her name’s Margaret, like as I told you. She likes to be called “Margaret”, see. Gets real wild if I calls her “Maggie”. I likes “Maggie”.’
‘I do, too. Your wife a Londoner, Mr Brunton?’
‘Born in Simeon’s. Just lives across the way. She’s not going to’ ‒ he caught his breath ‒ ‘you know what I mean.’
‘Yes.’
We were still talking names about twenty minutes later when the wall behind me trembled. I hoped the man I was holding did not notice. I was suddenly cold with fear.
Then we heard a shout. ‘Get back, Halliday ‒ back ‒ it’s’ and the shout was lost in a deep, ominous rumble.
‘It’s coming down on us ‒ coming down ‒’ Dick Brunton was no coward, but he had already been through too much on his own. ‘It’s coming ‒ coming ‒’ His voice cracked with terror, and he shook and shook.
I was very frightened. I held him tightly with both arms, and bent over him purely instinctively, as the rumble altered to a deafening roar. Dust and bits of plaster hammered down on us and were in my eyes, my mouth, my lungs. I had just time to think, I wonder if Johnny can hear this in the theatre, when the ground floor gave with an almighty crack. Then something hit my head and I was floating away in darkness.
The lamp had changed colour. It was red as fire. Another fire burnt in my right leg. I tried to move it. That leg and my left arm were held fast. ‘They’ll need a crane to lift us out of this,’ said a voice. The voice was mine.
Another answered instantly. ‘It’s all over, dear. You are both out and safe. You are in bed in Nightingale. Don’t try and talk. Just rest.’
Flowers from the Doctor Page 16
