A Nurse's Duty

by Maggie Hope

  Karen’s heart dropped even further but she wasn’t going to give in on this, not when Joe was coming to London.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t, Matron. I have arranged to meet my brother. After all, I worked through my last off-duty night.’

  ‘There’s no such word as can’t for a nurse …’ Matron was beginning, but stopped as she looked at Karen’s flushed but determined face and sighed heavily.

  ‘Oh, very well, Sister, you have the right to take your off duty of course.’ Pushing the off-duty list aside she picked up the report book and went through the list of patients with Karen, her voice icily formal.

  Later in the evening, Karen was just emerging from Ward 1, the former drawing room of the house, when she met Father Murphy again.

  ‘Good evening, Sister,’ he said, and again she felt that little spark of attraction. She couldn’t understand it, she thought, as she answered his greeting.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, Sister? I mean, my disturbing you at half-past nine at night. But I did promise I would come back to see Private Buckley. Poor man, he’s lost his younger brother. He got the news today.’

  ‘Of course. But it’s lights out at ten, you understand? I’m sorry, but I have the other men in the ward to consider. Though I was really sorry to hear about Private Buckley’s brother, it was in his report.’

  He went into the ward and Karen sat down at the table in the hall and took out the medicine list. Calling Nurse Ellis from the ward to double check the drugs with her, she opened the dangerous drugs cupboard with the key fastened on a chain to her dress pocket.

  Karen sat on the train going up to town. She felt rested and happy and was eagerly looking forward to seeing Joe. Gazing at her reflection in the carriage window she saw that excitement had brought roses to her cheeks. She moved closer to the window and realized the dark smudges under her eyes were much fainter than they had been lately. Short tendrils of hair had escaped from under her cap and she put up a hand to anchor them into place before leaning back in the seat and closing her eyes, letting her mind wander.

  The night before had been fairly quiet, giving her time to chat a little with the wakeful ones. And there were always wakeful patients, no matter how many sleeping draughts she gave out on orders from the doctor. Father Murphy was good with them, she mused, he didn’t seem to mind how long he sat patiently listening to a wounded soldier. A nice man he was.

  After the priest had gone she had sat a short while with Private Buckley, just listening to him, letting him talk about his brother.

  ‘Tom and me, we had a vegetable barrow before the war,’ he had said. ‘There were just the two of us, you know. Our dad was killed when he was thrown from his cart when the axle broke. And Mum, well, she died in ’07. She had the consumption.’

  Private Buckley had smiled, and Karen knew he was remembering his mother. ‘She was a good ‘un, my mum. A fighter. She came over from Ireland to be a housemaid when she was only twelve. And then she met our dad and they got married. I was only four when he was killed and our Tom only two.’

  Private Buckley had gone quiet and Karen knew he was thinking of his brother. After a while he started again.

  ‘Our Tom was only seventeen, you know. He shouldn’t have been there but he would go. He couldn’t stand being left on his own, see.’

  Karen thought he had talked enough for the time being.

  ‘You should try to sleep, Private. I’ll bring you some cocoa. That will help,’ she’d said. The soldier had looked at her blankly.

  ‘Thank you, Sister, but I don’t really want to sleep. It’s the dreams and that. You dream everything’s all right again and then when you wake up … Anyway, I’m off home tomorrow for a week, then it’s back to France for me.’

  Karen shook her head slightly and sat up straight as the train drew into Liverpool Street Station. Forget about the hospital and Private Buckley, she told herself. You’re going to meet Joe and you’ll have a lovely time. Tomorrow you can think about the war and the hospital but tonight is for Joe and a lovely time with him. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ as Da would quote.

  A wave of love washed over her as she saw Joe waiting at the barrier. An older, graver Joe than she remembered, she had time to note, though he still had a ready smile and wave when he caught sight of her. She ran the last few yards and flung her arms around his neck and she was laughing and crying together.

  ‘Why on earth are you crying, lass?’ he chuckled after he’d lifted her up and swung her round in the air and put her down again.

  Joe laughed and hugged her again but there was something lurking in his eyes which belied his laughter and brought a faint foreboding to her. She chided herself for being fanciful as she took his arm and they walked out of the station.

  ‘Where shall we go, Joe?’

  As if it mattered where they went so long as they were together and could talk like old times.

  ‘We’ll go in here, why not?’

  Joe steered her towards a little teashop and opened the door, ushering her in before him. The bell tinkled and people sitting at the tables looked up at him, at his Australian sergeant’s uniform and his bronzed face under the bush hat with the brim turned up at one side. He easily attracted the attention of the waitress though the teashop was full and somehow she found them a table in a corner, away from the door.

  They ordered tea and scrambled eggs on toast, and when the waitress had gone Karen sat back and happily gazed at him.

  ‘You look different, Joe.’

  ‘Well, I am a few years older, pet. Mind, you don’t look any older. Still the bonny lass you were when I went off to Australia, you are.’

  ‘No, you’re different, not just older,’ she insisted.

  Joe laughed again, a deep laugh which had heads turning in their direction once again. ‘I’m a sergeant now,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s the air of authority. I have to keep my dignity now or I’ll lose my stripes again.’

  ‘Again? You lost them? How did that happen?’

  Joe glanced away for a moment before he answered. ‘Oh, just a little misunderstanding. I was having a joke with one of the lads,’ he said easily, and Karen relaxed. He was still the same Joe who had taken a toad into Chapel and let it loose among the pews, causing the girls to scream and stand on the seats in the middle of the reading from the Gospel. The same Joe who had tickled her side while they sat together during those interminable sermons, trying to get her to laugh. The same Joe who had been ordered to bed so often without any supper for his behaviour in Chapel, and the same Joe for whom she had smuggled food under her pinny.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ His eyes crinkled in amusement. ‘You look so far away. You always were a dreamer. Penny for them?’

  ‘I was thinking of the old days,’ she confessed. ‘Sitting in Chapel with Kezia and Jemima and you. Mam and Da sitting in front, and Da turning round to hush you and threaten you with dire punishment when you got home. How many Sunday teas and suppers did you go without, do you think?’

  ‘Don’t remind me. All that baking Mam would do for Sunday tea and the only cakes I got were the ones you smuggled up to me. Aiding and abetting a criminal, that was. And Jemima and Kezia so prim and proper.’

  ‘There’s only Kezia at home now,’ said Karen. ‘Jemima doesn’t go home very often and I don’t get many holidays. If it wasn’t for Kezia, I don’t think Mam could manage.’

  ‘No.’

  They fell silent, thinking of Kezia. When they were younger they had not realized what a hard time she had had of it, leaving school and skivvying at the manager’s house up on the hillside above Morton Main, close to the older agricultural village of Morton. Then spending the whole of her day off working in her mother’s house, cooking and cleaning. Kezia lived for her family and Karen felt a pang of guilt as always when she thought of her.

  ‘I have to talk to you, Karen. I have news of Dave.’

  Joe’s voice brought her back to the present and she stared at
him. Having dropped his bombshell, Joe was sitting back and watching his sister anxiously.

  ‘News of Dave?’

  Karen was suddenly shaking, her heart beating so loudly she thought Joe must surely hear it from across the table.

  ‘He’s dead, Karen.’

  The statement was blurted out baldly. Joe was full of concern as he saw her fluttering hand begin to fiddle with the cutlery. He leaned forward and laid his hand over hers, stilling it.

  ‘Don’t, Karen, don’t be upset. He wasn’t worth it, really he wasn’t.’

  ‘No. I know. I’m not upset,’ she murmured, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘How do you know he’s dead?’

  ‘I went to Australia House to look at the casualty lists. I was looking to see if any of my old mates were on them. And there it was: David Mitchell, Sydney. But I was on my way to France and I had no time to come to see you and didn’t want to put it in a letter.’ He paused before adding, ‘Gallipoli. It was at Gallipoli.’

  ‘Gallipoli?’ repeated Karen, wonderingly. How could he have been killed at Gallipoli? He was in Australia, wasn’t he? No, Joe must have got it wrong. David would never have volunteered for any war, he wouldn’t have been at Gallipoli.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I had heard he had joined the army at the beginning of the war.’

  Karen sat quietly thinking it over. Numb, that was mainly how she felt. For one wild moment, when Joe had mentioned Dave, she had thought he was coming back into her life and panic had seized her. Not again, she had thought. I couldn’t go through that again. I don’t want him back. I don’t love him. I don’t think I ever did. She raised her head to Joe who was still gazing anxiously at her over the table. And she thought, the main thing I feel is relief. I’m relieved it is over.

  ‘It’s all right, Joe,’ she said calmly. ‘Perhaps I should be heartbroken but I’m not. I don’t know, maybe I am for the wasted life, but there are so many wasted lives, aren’t there? But for myself, no, I can’t pretend to feel something I don’t. It was all over so long ago, for me he was already dead.’

  ‘Well, I thought I’d better tell you straight away, Karen. I wrote to Mrs Mitchell too, it was only fair.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Karen thought about Dave’s mother, she would be grief-stricken. Karen was sorry for that.

  ‘We won’t talk about it any more, eh?’ said Joe. ‘Let’s just enjoy our tea and then we’ll go out somewhere after, what do you say? We could go to a music hall if you like.’

  Karen opened her eyes wide and held up her hands in mock horror.

  ‘A music hall? Joe Knight, how can you suggest such a thing? I’ll tell Da on you, I will.’ She grinned wickedly. ‘Which music hall do you fancy then?’

  They went to the Alhambra and saw Vesta Tilley impersonating a sergeant major. And they giggled and laughed and sang along with everyone else in the crowded theatre. Forgetting Dave and the war and the hospital for a whole two hours, they had a roaring good time.

  Afterwards, still chuckling, they came out on to the dark street and Joe went with her back to the station. They waited in a companionable silence for the train to Romford where Karen would get her connection to Littlemarsh, the small market town near Greenfields village.

  At the last minute Karen was overwhelmed with sadness and anxiety for her brother; he had not mentioned the Front but she could imagine what it was like for him there by the things she had heard from her patients.

  ‘Where are you staying, Joe, is it a good place?’ She could ask him about that even if she couldn’t ask him about France.

  ‘Oh, yes, not far away either. The local Wesleyan Minister arranged it for me.’

  Karen nodded, that was all right then. She sought for something else to say. Goodness, they had been chattering all evening, why was it so hard now?

  The train came in and the precious evening was over.

  ‘See you soon,’ Joe called as she leaned out of the window. ‘Keep your pecker up!’ And as an afterthought, ‘God bless and keep you, lass.’

  And you, thought Karen as she took her seat. And you, Joe, God keep you safe. Then she was on her way back to Essex.

  Patrick Murphy was sitting with Father Brown, the parish priest, enjoying a bed-time chat over a glass of whiskey. He stretched his legs out to catch some slight warmth from the desultory, smoking fire and wished for his bed. But the old man sitting opposite him was looking expectantly at him, wanting to be told of Patrick’s afternoon at the hospital. Until recently, Father Brown had performed the hospital visiting but he was getting older and his legs gave him trouble so Patrick had been sent to take over the most arduous of his duties.

  ‘How is that young man, Father, the one who had both his legs amputated? Private Lynch, is it? He’s on Ward 2 as I remember.’

  ‘He went home at last, Father. No more fighting for him,’ answered Patrick. There was no way they could patch up amputees and send them back to fight, thank God, he thought, thinking of another boy who had been pronounced fit to return to France only that morning. Patrick was a troubled man, more troubled every day. How did one counsel boys, tell them that the Lord was watching over them, and then watch them go back to the battlefields of France?

  ‘Have another, Father?’

  Father Brown was holding out the whiskey decanter and as Patrick assented he splashed a generous amount of liquid into his glass.

  ‘You look tired tonight, my boy,’ he commented, and Patrick seized the opportunity to make his excuses and go to bed.

  ‘I am, Father, I am. If you don’t mind, I think I will have an early –’

  The sound of the telephone bell coming from the hall made him pause and both of them listened to the footsteps of Mrs Best the housekeeper as she went to answer it. A telephone call at this time of night could only mean a call from the hospital. Not many people in the village apart from the doctor owned a telephone. Urgent calls for the priest usually came by messenger.

  Mrs Best, her plump form wrapped in a woollen robe and her hair hanging in a thick plait over one shoulder, opened the door.

  ‘It’s Greenfields, Father Murphy,’ she announced.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Best.’

  Patrick got to his feet, went out into the hall and picked up the telephone.

  ‘Hallo, Father Murphy here.’

  ‘I’m sorry to bring you out on a cold night, Father, but it’s Private Buckley. He is so very low, almost suicidal, Father.’

  ‘I’ll come straight away,’ said Patrick and put the phone back on its hook. Calling an explanation to Father Brown, he picked up his bag and went out to the stable. Patrick had recently acquired a pony and trap, for the house he shared with Father Brown was one-and-a-half miles from the hospital.

  As he harnessed the pony a feeling of sadness came over him in connection with Private Buckley. The soldier had been doing so well until he got the news of his brother’s death, but now the heart seemed to have gone from him.

  Patrick sighed, feeling inadequate. Here he was, going to offer the comforts of his faith to yet another eighteen year old who should have been at home with his family, not lying broken on a hospital bed. Except that this particular eighteen year old didn’t have a family anyway, he reminded himself dismally.

  Sister Knight, the young Night Sister, popped into his mind as he led the pony out into the road. Now she was good with the men: not only at relieving their bodily discomforts but seeming to know exactly what to say to comfort their minds too. He climbed into the trap and flicked the reins, setting the pony into motion, still thinking about Sister Knight. He often found himself thinking of her lately. Too often, he knew.

  Karen was only half a mile down the road from the station when she heard the sound of a pony trotting behind her, its hooves ringing out smartly on the metalled road. She moved over to the side and looked back, hoping it was someone from the village who would give her a lift. She was deathly tired now and emotionally wrung out after taking leave of her brother once more without knowing wh
en she would see him again.

  As Karen turned to face the driver of the trap a shaft of moonlight appeared through a gap in the darkly scudding clouds and illuminated her face, making it glow strangely white against the dark background of the hedge. The pony shied, neighing in fright until soothed by soft tones which Karen recognized with a tiny lift of her spirits. Father Murphy. He must be out on a call.

  ‘Hallo there, are you after a ride to the village?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Father Murphy, please.’

  His lilting brogue was a delight to her and she smiled as he got down from the trap and handed her up. He was silent as he resumed his seat and took up the reins, encouraging the pony to a fast trot, all his attention on the animal.

  ‘I’m very grateful for the lift.’ Karen peeped at him but all she could see was his dark profile against the sky.

  ‘Sure now, it’s a pleasure, Sister,’ he replied, and fell silent once again.

  Karen felt she ought to make some small-talk, but what could she say to a priest? He was a great mystery to her. She knew nothing much about Catholicism or priests, coming as she did from a strict, Non-Conformist background. She had met priests often in the hospital, of course, but it was different here without her stiffly starched apron and cap …

  ‘Going to the hospital, are you?’

  They were rolling along nicely now with the lantern on the front bobbing merrily. The priest relaxed and turned his attention to Karen.

  ‘No, not tonight, Father.’ The title sounded strange in her ears, she had used it so rarely before. But why should she call this man Father? she wondered abstractedly. She called her priest Mister …

  ‘Been up to London, have you, Sister?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I’ve been up to see my brother, he’s home on leave from France. Well, not home, exactly, I mean he’s in England. He’s with the ANZACs.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, he emigrated to Australia before the war. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since then. Oh, I’ve had a grand time this evening, it was lovely to see him again.’

  ‘I’m pleased for you,’ he said.