‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘I wouldn’t be too certain. Poor Mr Brewer the foreman is doing his best to keep control of everyone, but I feel the situation is getting away from him!’
She grinned. James didn’t think he had ever seen her looking so full of life. Out of her severe black uniform, she looked far younger than her forty-odd years, laughter sparkling in her grey eyes.
‘It’s looking splendid anyway,’ he said.
‘Do you think so?’ Kathleen looked around her. ‘We won’t be able to get all the furniture back in place and the curtains up until the paint’s dry tomorrow morning, but hopefully it should all be ready by the time the casualties start to arrive.’
‘You’ve done very well.’
She blushed. ‘I felt I should correct my mistake,’ she admitted quietly.
‘Not to mention prove Miss Hanley wrong?’
Kathleen sent him a quick look, then a slow smile spread across her face. ‘I’m afraid you may be right,’ she admitted shamefaced. ‘Is that very terrible of me?’
‘Not terrible at all, if it means the ward is ready for when the men arrive. But you do realise if you manage to pull this off, Miss Hanley will probably claim it was all her idea?’
‘You may be right about that, too.’ Kathleen looked rueful. James had to fight the urge to reach out and rub the smudge of paint from her nose. ‘But we still have quite a lot to do, so I’m afraid Miss Hanley may yet have the last laugh.’
‘Could you use an extra pair of hands?’
She frowned. ‘Surely you’ll want to go home, if you’ve been in Theatre all this time?’
He thought about Simone, waiting for him, spoiling for another fight. Or his house, dark and unwelcoming. ‘I’d like to do my bit.’ He shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. ‘So where do you want me to start?’
‘Well, you’ll need to change first . . . if you go and see Mr Hopkins, he’ll kit you out in something suitable. Then . . .’ Kathleen looked around the ward, ‘if you have a head for heights, you could make a start on the ceiling?’
As they worked on into the early hours, James was surprised to find he was enjoying himself. The medical students and nurses seemed to have an endless supply of energy, even breaking off from their painting to perform a spirited rendition of ‘The Lambeth Walk’.
James caught Kathleen Fox’s eye across the ward. She was still perched on her ladder, watching the couples and clapping along to the gramophone music. She had exactly the right idea, he thought. She understood that everyone would work a lot harder if they were allowed to have fun at the same time.
He was just glad Miss Hanley wasn’t there to see it. She would have had a fit, he decided.
‘Have you ever seen anything like it?’ Mr Brewer, the decorators’ foreman, said from below his ladder. ‘In all my born days, I don’t think I’ve ever worked on a job quite like this one. Don’t think I’ve ever worked on a Sunday either, come to think of it.’
‘It’s very kind of you to give up your day off to help us,’ James said.
‘Didn’t have much choice.’ Herbert Brewer nodded towards Kathleen. ‘Turned up on my doorstep she did, just after my missus and I had finished our dinner. She explained about the lads coming back from France, and how she needed the ward to be ready for them, and of course I couldn’t refuse. Neither could any of my lads. We’ve all got sons and brothers in France, we’d want them to be looked after. Wouldn’t like to think they didn’t have a decent place to come home to.’ He grinned up at James, showing wide-spaced gaps between his yellowing teeth. ‘Wouldn’t like to try saying no to Miss Fox neither. She’s got a way about her, your Matron,’ he said.
James looked at Kathleen again, still perched on her ladder, clapping in time to the music. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘She certainly has.’
Chapter Nine
HELEN WAS ALREADY waiting in the Casualty Hall for Dora when she reported for duty first thing on Monday morning. Matron was with her.
‘Oh, there you are, Riley,’ Miss Fox greeted her. ‘I just wanted to let you know you’ll be moving today.’
‘Moving, Matron?’
‘We’re opening up Holmes ward for the Dunkirk casualties, and I want you to help out for the next few weeks. I know you’ve settled here in Casualty, but we have urgent need of you elsewhere, I’m afraid.’
‘Yes, Matron.’ Dora’s reply was automatic but her heart was beating rapidly against her chest, as if it could fight its way out of her ribcage.
‘Get changed and report to Holmes as soon as possible, would you? I know Sister Holmes would be very grateful for some help. The casualties are expected within the next hour, and there is a great deal to do before then.’
‘Yes, Matron.’ Dora watched her walk away, glad she had managed to resist the urge to argue. It wouldn’t have done any good, since Matron’s decision was always final.
‘I’m sorry,’ Helen said, when Miss Fox had gone. ‘I wanted to keep you, but Matron insisted.’
‘Why me?’ Dora asked, trying to sound calm. ‘Why couldn’t she send Kowalski instead?’
‘From what Matron told me, they need an experienced nurse up there. They only have Sister Holmes and one of the new VADs to look after the whole ward.’
Yes, but why me? Dora repeated silently. It was her worst nightmare come true. She had started work at the Nightingale hoping it might help take her mind off what was happening to Nick across the Channel. And now she had been put on a ward looking after servicemen just like him. They would be badly wounded, too, in just the way she feared Nick might be one day. How she would ever cope she had no idea.
‘You heard what she said. It’ll only be for a couple of weeks.’ Helen’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘If you really can’t manage then I’m sure Matron will send you back, under the circumstances—’
Dora stared at her friend’s sympathetic expression, appalled she had given herself away. She’d had no idea her fears were written so clearly across her face for all to see. The last thing Dora wanted to do was let on how afraid she really was.
She quickly readjusted her features. ‘Oh, I’ll be all right,’ she said as breezily as she could. ‘I just thought I might be of more use here, that’s all.’
‘Are you sure? I thought you might be worried about Nick.’
‘Why should I be? I told you, Nick can take care of himself.’ She gritted her teeth into what she hoped was a convincing smile. Helen sent her a sideways look but said nothing. Once again, Dora was grateful to her friend for her wisdom. She wasn’t sure she could have kept up the pretence if Helen had questioned her further.
Up on Holmes ward, she found a state of orderly chaos. The porters were still wheeling empty beds and lockers on to the ward and setting them up in two tidy rows either side of the vast room. Two VADs were making the beds as quickly as they arrived, while another was cleaning the floor, and yet another sat at the table in the middle of the ward, stitching hooks into blackout curtains. The tall windows had been thrown open, but the whole ward still smelled strongly of fresh paint.
In the centre of it all stood Miss Pallister, Sister of Holmes ward. She was another familiar face from Dora’s training days. Sister Holmes was in her late thirties and movie-star glamorous, with her rounded figure, pillowy lips and wavy blonde hair. She was also living proof that appearances could be very deceiving indeed. Those soft curves hid a spiky temper and a heart of pure granite.
She barely bothered to greet Dora, ordering her instead to start making up hot water bottles.
‘I sent the new VAD to do it half an hour ago, but the muddle-headed girl doesn’t have the first idea what she’s supposed to be doing,’ she sighed, rolling her eyes heavenwards. ‘And you,’ she called across the ward to the girl who was making the bed. ‘What did I tell you about making sure all the wheels point the same way?’
Dora found the new ward VAD in the sluice, filling hot water bottles. Sister Holmes was right, she di
d seem to be making rather a meal of it, carefully expelling the air from each bottle by pressing it against the flat bib of her apron, then fastening the stopper and checking it over and over again for leaks. At the rate she was going, the bottles would be cold long before she got them into the beds.
She greeted Dora with wide-eyed enthusiasm. ‘Oh, hello, you must be Nurse Riley?’ she lisped. With her blonde plaits and buck teeth, she looked and sounded as if she’d just skipped off the lacrosse pitch of a posh girls’ boarding school. ‘I’m Daisy Bushell.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’ Dora nodded towards the hot water bottle in the girl’s hands. ‘How are you getting on with those?’
‘Nearly done, I think. It’s all terribly exciting, isn’t it?’ Daisy whispered. ‘I can’t wait for the patients to arrive.’
I can, Dora thought grimly.
‘My fiancé is in the RAF,’ Daisy continued. ‘I applied for a military hospital, so I was awfully disappointed when I was sent here instead. But now it looks as if we’re going to be nursing real war casualties after all.’
Dora stared at her blankly. ‘Real war casualties?’
‘You know – wounded soldiers and so on. Isn’t it thrilling?’
‘Thrilling isn’t a word I’d use,’ Dora muttered. ‘Besides, sick and injured people are all the same, whether they’re in uniform or not.’
‘Well, you say that. But there is difference, isn’t there?’ Daisy smiled knowingly. ‘I mean, you really feel as if you’re doing your bit when you’re nursing soldiers, don’t you?’
She was young, Dora told herself. Young and naïve, and she didn’t know what she was saying. But with Dora trying to hold on to what was left of her nerves, the last thing she needed was a chatterbox like Daisy Bushell trampling all over them with her nonsense.
‘If you really want to do your bit, you’ll get those bottles into the beds before they turn stone cold,’ she snapped.
They had finished airing all the beds as the telephone rang on Sister’s desk, warning of the first casualties’ arrival. Dora busied herself, straightening her cap and adjusting her apron to steady her nerves, while all the time Daisy chattered on behind her. It was all Dora could do not to turn round and shake the girl until her teeth rattled.
And then they arrived, a filthy, bleeding mass of exhausted humanity.
As the porters wheeled them in, Dora, Sister Holmes and the doctors got to work immediately, peeling off dirty dressings and examining wounds. Sister Holmes had already instructed Dora that she was to assess the men herself, treating those she could and sending the worst cases down to Theatre, or referring them to one of the doctors.
With Daisy Bushell still behind her, craning over her shoulder to get a good look, Dora approached her first case, a young man whose leg had been blown off. As Dora peeled the filthy dressing from the bloody stump of his leg, she could already see the wound seemed to be moving. Sure enough, she lifted the dressing to reveal a seething mass of maggots.
‘Oh, my gosh!’ she heard Daisy whisper from behind her hand. ‘How revolting . . .’
‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ Dora said. ‘The maggots will eat away at the dead tissue, so it’s less likely to get infected.’ But it was too late. Dora heard the thump behind her as Daisy Bushell slid gracefully to the ground.
At least it shut her up for a minute.
From that moment on, they didn’t stop all day. They worked steadily, cleaning, stitching and dressing wounds, setting up infusions, and giving morphine injections. As she was plunging the needle into another patient’s arm, it suddenly occurred to Dora that her hands were no longer shaking. The nerves that had plagued her on her first day in Casualty had been chased away by the adrenaline surging around her body.
The men were in a shocking state when they arrived – dirty, exhausted and starving. Some had been lying on stretchers on the beaches for twenty-four hours. They had been sent straight from the Casualty Clearing Station on the south coast, and wore scrawled labels from the army medics, stating their injuries. In most cases no label was needed. The filthy makeshift dressings wrapped around shattered limbs or bloodied stumps were all anyone needed to see.
The whole time she was working, Dora’s heart was in her mouth, terrified that the next body she encountered would be Nick’s.
She tried to push it out of her mind, determined to stay focused. The men didn’t need her sympathy. They needed her help, and she gave it unstintingly, until her eyes ached and her hands were sore and her legs could barely hold her up any longer.
Unfortunately, Daisy didn’t have the same strong stomach or capacity for hard work. Every time she caught a glimpse of blood she would keel over. Dora got so tired of stopping whatever she was doing to haul the girl off the floor, that in the end she dumped her in the sluice with a bottle of sal volatile.
‘I don’t know why you want to work in a hospital if you can’t stand the sight of blood!’ she snapped.
‘I didn’t know, did I?’ Daisy wailed. ‘I had no idea how awful it would be. I couldn’t imagine—’
‘What did you expect? They’ve been in a war, they ain’t going to come back with grazed knees, are they?’ Dora stared at her. ‘And to think you wanted to work in a military hospital! You couldn’t nurse a cold!’
‘I’m sorry!’ Daisy burst into noisy tears. ‘It’s just every time I see one of those poor men, I think of my fiancé Richard. What if he’s been injured? What if he’s dead?’
‘You can’t think like that,’ Dora said.
‘I can’t help it!’
Dora watched her sobbing, huddled on the floor of the sluice. In spite of her annoyance, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for the girl.
‘Wait there,’ she said. She hurried off to fetch a tot of brandy from the locked cupboard in the kitchen, and handed it to the VAD. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Now pull yourself together, and don’t let Sister catch you crying or you really will be in trouble.’
‘Thank you.’ Daisy sniffed back her tears and lifted the glass shakily to her lips, grimacing at the taste. ‘Sorry for being so wet, Nurse Riley. I only wish I could be as strong as you, I really do.’
Dora didn’t reply. Deep down, she wished she could be as wet as Daisy Bushell. Perhaps letting go and having a good cry might stop the terrible ache in her chest.
Chapter Ten
WHEN EVE ARRIVED for the final First Aid lecture, the first thing she noticed was Jennifer, sitting on her own in the back row. There was no sign of Cissy.
Eve scuttled past her to her usual place in the far corner of the room as the instructor began her lecture on bathing.
‘If a patient is too ill to bathe themselves, then you will have to do it for them,’ she said. ‘Washing a patient is the most important of your duties. Do it skilfully and you will make the patient feel better and gain their confidence. Do it clumsily and you will badly affect their comfort and health.’
Eve glanced across at Jennifer. She was inspecting her nails, hardly listening as usual. She was dressed up to the nines in a cornflower blue dress, her dark hair carefully curled.
‘I would like you to experience for yourselves what it feels like to be washed, as it may give you a better understanding of what you’re doing,’ the instructor continued. ‘So this evening you will be practising giving each other a blanket bath, rather than the dummy. We will assume for the purpose of the exercise that it is a medical patient without any obvious injury. Get into your pairs, please.’
Eve looked around for her usual partner, then remembered that Miss Witchell had told her she had to visit her elderly mother in Basingstoke, and wouldn’t be coming to the class. Her gaze travelled the room, looking for another partner – and found Jennifer. For a moment their eyes locked, and Eve saw her own dismay reflected in Jennifer’s face.
‘You two,’ the instructor said. ‘Pair up quickly, please.’
Eve felt Jennifer’s dark mood as they set the trolley together. She clattered the nail scissors, ha
irbrush and comb, and splashed water into the hand basin so carelessly Eve had to rescue the flannel, sponge and soap before she soaked them.
It’s not my fault, Eve wanted to shout. I’m not enjoying this any more than you are. But she bit her tongue as they set up the screens and pulled the upper bedclothes off the bed.
‘I’ll go first,’ Jennifer announced abruptly, slipping off her dainty sandals and hopping on to the bed before Eve could argue.
Not that she would. She was relieved not to have to submit to Jennifer’s rough ministrations. She could only imagine how she would wield the flannel, the mood she seemed to be in.
‘Where’s your friend this evening?’ Eve asked, as she carefully rolled the mackintosh sheet and blanket underneath her.
‘She’s not feeling well,’ Jennifer replied, tight-lipped.
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘She’s making herself ill, that’s what!’ Jennifer looked cross. ‘She reckons she’s too upset to come out. She’s spent all week shut away indoors, listening to the news on the wireless.’
Eve was thoughtful as she covered Jennifer with a warmed blanket and went through the pretence of removing her clothes in preparation for washing her.
‘Is her boyfriend in France, then?’ she asked.
‘He’s in the Royal Navy.’
‘Oh, dear, no wonder she’s so worried.’ Even Aunt Freda had been glued to the wireless for the past few days, waiting for news. ‘Those sailors are so brave, aren’t they, going in under fire like that? And with so many ships being sunk—’
‘Don’t,’ Jennifer cut her off coldly. ‘I hear enough about it from Cissy. I’d rather not talk about it any more, if it’s all the same to you?’
‘Sorry.’ Eve fell silent, concentrating on her task. She was surprised by the way Jennifer had spoken about Cissy and her boyfriend, though. She and Cissy were such good friends, surely Jennifer should have been more sympathetic.
Nightingales at War Page 7
