A Nurse's Duty

by Maggie Hope

  Doctor Clarke began a conversation with Father Murphy and Karen turned to the neglected day report. Why on earth she was thinking so much about the priest she didn’t know, it wouldn’t be long before she had to write the night report for Matron, she thought wryly. Just as well to read the day report first. The old house creaked a little and the occasional snore or grunt came from the wards, but apart from that there was only the murmur of voices from the priest and Doctor Clarke. Perhaps it was going to be a quiet night after all.

  ‘Well, I’m going to get some sleep while I can,’ said the doctor finally. Standing up, he drained his cup and went out. Father Murphy sat on a while, taking his time over the tea. Karen finished reading the report and sat back for a moment or two.

  ‘What is it, Sister?’

  Karen started, realizing she had been staring at him. Hurriedly she got to her feet, feeling flustered.

  ‘Oh, nothing. I’m sorry if I seemed to be staring – I’m tired, I think. It’s a good thing it’s my night off tomorrow. I must get on with my rounds now.’

  He also rose to his feet. ‘Your night off, is it? You’ll be going up to London, perhaps, are you?’

  ‘Oh, no. I’ll just be pottering about, helping Annie my landlady, maybe taking a walk if it’s a fine day.’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘I will be visiting in the village tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll see you.’

  Karen nodded, thinking he was only being polite. ‘Well, goodnight, Father Murphy.’

  She went into Ward 1 to check with Nurse Ellis, who was sitting in the pool of light by the centre desk.

  ‘Everything quiet, Sister,’ the nurse reported. Private Harvey was sleeping, looking even younger than when he was awake.

  ‘With a bit of hick everything should be quiet until “lights on” at five o’clock,’ said Karen.

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  Karen left the ward, noticing that the priest had gone from the hall, presumably home to bed. Well, she thought, she still had to check the smaller wards upstairs before getting on with the office work.

  Upstairs it was quiet too. The nurses were folding gauze and lint squares and packing them in steel drums, ready for the steam sterilizer. They worked in the dim light of a lamp placed at the end of the ward where they were least likely to disturb the patients but could still keep an eye on them.

  ‘Good work,’ Karen whispered. ‘Don’t bother coming round with me, not when you’re busy.’ Sometimes there was so little time for this work that the supply of dressings and swabs needed during the day could run out. She went silently round, pausing at each bed, noting one patient, Private O’Donnel, who was restless in his drugged sleep, muttering to himself and moving his bandaged head from side to side. She watched him for a moment but he showed no signs of waking properly so she went on her way down to the desk in the hall.

  The whole house was quiet as the dawn light began to filter in through the high windows. Karen hardly noticed as she worked busily on, writing her report and checking the early-morning treatment sheets.

  When at last she could relax, it was Father Murphy’s face which came into her mind. She couldn’t think why she found him so intriguing, she was no longer interested in men and certainly not in a priest, be he never so attractive. But he was attractive … too attractive altogether for her peace of mind. There, she’d finally admitted it to herself.

  She wondered what his Christian name was as she gathered her notes together and placed the tidy piles in their folders. But the day was almost here, she had other things to think about. She could hear voices coming from the wards, the deep tones of the soldiers mingling with the lighter ones of the nurses. Getting to her feet, she smoothed her apron and straightened her cap. It was time for her to help with the difficult dressings, not to indulge in romantic fantasies.

  Chapter Nine

  PATRICK DROVE AWAY from Greenfields Hospital filled with a sense of utter inadequacy. The bitter words of Private O’Donnel went round and round in his head, questions he had answered with platitudes and statements he had been unable to refute convincingly. The pony clopped his way along the country lane, the reins slack as he relived the scene as he’d sat by the soldier’s bed only an hour ago.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about God, Father,’ the soldier had protested. ‘I’ve heard enough, so I have.’ He sat up in bed with his back straight as a poker and his bandaged eyes staring straight ahead sightlessly, his lips compressed into a thin, hard line.

  ‘Don’t be saying that,’ said Patrick. ‘You know you will be sorry for it when you feel better and go home to Ireland. Just now you feel low because of what’s happened. But you must hold on to your faith for God in his mercy –’

  ‘Mercy? God’s mercy, is it, Father? And where was his mercy when my mate was blown up in front of me? Blown to bits with not a decent piece of him to bury even? Not that we have time to bury any of the poor devils. No, it’s over the top we have to go, climb over the bodies, be they dead or dying, over the top into –’

  ‘Hush now, hush, my son, this does you no good,’ said Patrick. He got out of his chair and took the soldier’s hands in his, trying to instill some calm into the boy. Private O’Donnel’s voice was rising hysterically and his head began to move from side to side in agitated, jerky movements, but as Patrick held on to his hand he collapsed back on to his pillows and was quiet. After a moment, Patrick tried again.

  ‘God –’

  Private O’Donnel interrupted savagely. ‘There is no God,’ he stated.

  Patrick marshalled his thoughts.

  ‘You’re overwrought, my son. You must hang on to your faith, you are saying things you don’t mean. What will your poor mother think? You will break her heart.’

  Private O’Donnel smiled without mirth. ‘My mother is dead, Father. She died of a fever after we were evicted from our home. I was four years old. Now, Father, where do you think your God was when that happened?’

  But Patrick had no ready answer – at least, not one which did not sound like yet another platitude. Nurse Ellis came and gave the soldier a sleeping draught and as he fell into a troubled sleep, Patrick crept away.

  As he drove home he felt restless, unsettled in himself. He almost went into the church but changed his mind and headed off down the road in the direction of a patch of woodland. The wind blew coldly off the Essex marshes but he hardly felt it. His thoughts were melancholy. He was homesick, not so much for Ireland as it was now but for the Ireland of his childhood. He felt isolated somehow, cut off from his own kind in spite of the presence of so many Irish soldiers in the convalescent hospital.

  Or maybe it was because of them, he admitted to himself. Especially the very young ones, some of them barely eighteen, the boys who looked up at him from their narrow beds with such trusting eyes despite their experiences in the trenches. They reminded him of himself as a young boy, full of hope for the future. Of the first time he had dared to think that he himself might be a priest, if he worked hard enough and prayed hard enough.

  The day Father Brannigan had said to him, ‘Do you ever think of becoming a priest, Patrick?’

  Himself a priest? Oh, he remembered well the wonder of it. The revelation it had been to him to think that he could do it. He could, he could. To be a priest and bend over the Host and say, ‘Hoc est Corpus Meum’, This is My Body. Patrick sighed, deliberately breaking off that particular memory. It had been a long hard road since that day and perhaps he would have fallen by the wayside were it not for his mother; she had been so filled with ambition for him he thought it would have killed her if he had failed.

  How ecstatic she had been when he had won the scholarship and gone to the school run by the Brothers. He remembered only the contempt and hatred he had had to face there. How his bowels would turn liquid when he had to enter the classroom presided over by Brother Jamieson so that he had to race for the lavatories in the yard, the water closets which should have been so much cleaner than the earth closet at home on the farm but smelled
so much worse, so that he often vomited as well and was even later getting to the classroom. And how Brother Jamieson would run the leather strap across his own palm once or twice with an anticipatory gleam in his eye and the other boys would titter nervously.

  ‘Hold out your hand,’ Brother Jamieson would say, and it was a point of honour not to flinch or pull back even though your palm stung and burned with a fire which surely must be as hot as the flames of Hell.

  Patrick rubbed the palm of his right hand with the thumb of his left, feeling the heat of that old pain despite the cold of the December day. Then he put the hand up to the side of his face, feeling the blow which had so often followed the leathering.

  ‘Impertinent boy!’ Brother Jamieson would hiss, his light blue eyes half closed in menace. ‘What do you mean by looking at me like that?’ And the blow would knock Patrick off his feet so that he fell against the legs of the desk, his head flung back to crack against the hard wood. And when he could stand he would stumble to his seat, not looking at his classmates in case he should catch a gleam of sympathy and break down crying.

  Dear God! What in heaven’s name was making him so maudlin? Patrick shook his head and thrust his hands deep inside his pockets. Those days were long gone and there was no sense in dwelling on them. It had been so different when he had entered the seminary. He had met Sean Donelly there, the clever, saintly Sean who had befriended him and never minded that he was just a country boy from County Clare. He relaxed as he thought of Sean. It was good to think that he was in England too, after his year in Africa. What would Sean think of him now if he knew where his mind was going?

  Patrick got down from the trap as the pony had reached the presbytery. He took the horse from between the shafts and led it into the stable to settle it down for the night. As he worked he struggled to free his mind from the depression which had settled on him. How was he to comfort the boys in that hospital when his mind was full of doubts? He had prayed and prayed and fasted and done penance but to no effect; there was no answer to his doubts. When he faced the wounded soldiers, the devout, the ones who believed unquestioningly in God and his Holy Church, whose faith was their very lifeline at this terrible time, he felt no empathy. He was a sham, no good to them at all.

  ‘I want to get away,’ he said aloud in the dark stable lit only by a candle lamp. ‘I want to live a normal life, be like any man, marry, have children.’

  ‘Is that you, Patrick?

  He jumped and looked across to the house where Father Brown was standing in a pool of light by the back door. Had the old priest heard what he was saying? Patrick felt like a guilty schoolboy. Quickly, he closed the stable door and walked the few intervening yards to the house.

  ‘It’s me, Father,’ he said.

  ‘Come in now, and close the door,’ said Father Brown. ‘Is it not a terrible cold night to be out and about? Did I hear you talking to someone just now?’

  ‘Just the horse, Father. I was talking to Daisy, settling her down.’

  ‘Well now, come away in and we’ll have a nightcap together.’ Father Brown turned and led the way into the sitting room where a fire still burned in the grate. He sounded cheery and glad that Patrick had returned and given him someone to talk to. Not at all as though he had heard anything to disturb him, thought Patrick, glad that at least he did not have to explain anything to the old priest, not tonight. He accepted a glass of Powers whiskey and sat down in an armchair. Perhaps a chat to Father Brown about parish doings was just the thing to take his mind off his doubts. The older man chatted on and Patrick answered him, smiling and asking questions of his own, trying to keep a look of interest. He watched Father Brown’s face in the flickering light from the fire, animated as he discussed the work he loved. Just like Father Brannigan had been, at home in County Clare.

  ‘It is a noble calling, Patrick, there is none more noble than to be a priest of the Catholic Church. I hope when the time comes you will hear the call and answer it, my boy. To be privileged to serve God in such a way. And after that, to serve Ireland, to help free her from the yoke of the English,’ Father Brannigan had said to him, his voice full of emotion. Patrick remembered how his heart had swelled with pride at the idea that he could do either of those things. He smiled gently now and Father Brown looked strangely at him for he had been telling Patrick of how he had been out that very afternoon to comfort a poor mother who had lost her son in the war.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you’re tired, Patrick, of course you are, and ready for your bed.’

  ‘I am, Father,’ he admitted. He drained his glass and rose to his feet. Everything looks black in the night time, he reflected. A good night’s sleep was what he needed all right, and then tomorrow he would be more cheerful.

  ‘Hallo there, Sister. You look very busy. Would you like a hand?’

  Karen, who was on her hands and knees by the flowerbed outside Annie’s parlour window, grubbing up dead leaves and flowers with a trowel, hurriedly got to her feet and looked towards the gate which Patrick was just opening.

  ‘Father Murphy, how nice,’ she said, automatically putting a hand up to push back a stray lock of hair and smearing earth across her cheek in the process. In spite of the cold wind she felt hot and bothered and thoroughly at a disadvantage. Self-consciously she began to untie the sacking apron which she was wearing to protect her dress. ‘I didn’t expect to see you, Father.’

  ‘Oh? I thought I said I would be in the village today, Sister?’

  Patrick walked up the garden path just as Annie appeared round the corner of the cottage with a basket of eggs in her hand.

  ‘Oh, a visitor,’ she said.

  ‘It’s Father Murphy, Annie. You know, I’ve told you he visits at the hospital. Father, this is Mrs Blakey, my landlady and good friend.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Father, I’m sure,’ said Annie, holding out her hand and shaking Patrick’s enthusiastically. ‘Won’t you come in and have some tea?’

  He glanced at Karen, looking a little unsure of himself. What he had really wanted to do was invite her to go for a walk with him.

  ‘Well, I don’t know –’ he began.

  ‘Oh, come on, Father, it gives us an excuse to have a break too. I’ve new-baked scones and strawberry jam. You’ll like my scones, I’m sure. Will you take the Father into the parlour, Karen? I’ll soon put these away and put the kettle on.’

  The parlour, she thought, suppressing a smile. Annie had a nice sense of what was right and for her that meant the vicar and the doctor were shown into the parlour, along with only a few select others. The Minister of Karen’s Chapel did not rate the parlour but evidently Father Murphy, as a priest, did.

  ‘It will be warmer in the kitchen,’ suggested Karen.

  ‘No, no, the parlour, Karen,’ Annie insisted as she led the way indoors. ‘The fire is laid just to put a lucifer to.’

  The air in the parlour was distinctly chilly as Karen opened the door and went in. She shivered as she motioned Patrick to a horsehair armchair. She found the box of matches on the ornate marble mantelshelf and lit the fire, standing back to watch as smoke curled round the kindling until at last a tiny flame appeared. She lit the gas mantle on the wall to make the gloomy room look a little more cheery and then picked up the bellows and blew on the smoking fire. All the time she felt strangely shy, which was quite ridiculous, she told herself.

  ‘Karen,’ said Father Murphy, and she put the bellows down and moved over to the opposite armchair.

  ‘Yes, Father?’

  ‘Nothing. I mean … I hadn’t heard your Christian name before.’

  ‘It’s from the Bible. You know, “Job had three daughters, Jemima, Kezia and Keren-happuch”,’ said Karen, speaking quickly and nervously. She put her hands down on the edge of the chair, feeling the pricking of the horse hair on her skin. ‘My father is a lay preacher, he named his daughters after the daughters of Job. Though he changed the spelling of my name a little –a not e. Not his son though, he only has one s
on, and he’s called Joe. Joseph. We’re Methodists, you see.’

  ‘Yes, I believe you have said before,’ he said. Karen realized she had been babbling and fell silent, wishing Annie would hurry up with the tea.

  ‘The daughters of Job were beautiful too,’ the priest said softly, so softly that Karen thought she must have misheard him. She looked up and saw he was watching her steadily. Blushing, she jumped up and went to open the door for Annie whom she could hear coming down the passage from the kitchen.

  Annie brought a touch of normality into the room as she bustled about, pouring tea and handing out plates, chattering cheerfully as she did so.

  ‘Please excuse me, I won’t be a minute,’ said Karen and escaped up the stairs to her room, where she was mortified to see in her mirror that she had a streak of dirt across her cheek and that most of her hair was falling down from the pins which had secured it on top of her head. He must have been hard put to it not to laugh at the sight of me, she told herself as she rubbed furiously at her face with a flannel dipped in cold water from the jug, and redid her hair. She would have liked to have changed her dress but felt she had already been long enough away, so with a last look at her reflection she went downstairs again.

  In the tiny parlour the air was already warmer and Annie had drawn the curtains against the darkening day so the scene was quite cosy.

  ‘Come and have your tea, Karen, or it will be cold,’ she said. ‘I was just saying to Father Murphy, I don’t know how you manage to do what you do for those poor boys up at Greenfields House. I know I couldn’t do it, not in a month of Sundays, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Sister Knight is a very good nurse,’ said Father Murphy, and Annie smiled with gratified pride as though the compliment reflected on her somehow.

  ‘Just ordinary, I’m afraid,’ said Karen, sitting down and accepting the cup of tea handed to her by Annie. She looked at the priest and somehow caught his eye and held it for a moment. Something, she wasn’t sure what, passed between them, something which excluded Annie, albeit unconsciously. There was a silence for a minute or two and Annie looked at them both before putting down her cup and getting to her feet.