May assented eagerly. That sounded much more interesting than washing bedpans.
Apart from a lecture from Staff Nurse on the stupidity of trying to wash greasy knives and forks before the cups and glasses – ‘Any one would think you’d never washed up in your life before, Winton!’ – May managed to get through the next our without mishap, and to present herself to Sister as commanded. Sister ushered her into the ward entrance, away from the nearest beds, but where she could still see the whole ward.
‘Now, Nurse Winton, this is a surgical ward, which means that all our patients have had, or are about to have, an operation, and as a result they are left with open wounds. You will need much more experience before you are able to deal with these wounds yourself, but I make a practice of taking all my new probationers on a dressing round with me, so that they understand the condition of the patients. You will make beds with more care when you have seen what lies under the bandages,’ she added grimly. ‘Left to itself the body tissues have the power to heal cleanly, but if germs invade, then the wound does not heal, it suppurates.’ May raised her eyebrows in a question. ‘The flesh around the wound rots, Nurse, and there is pus. It is our to flight a battle against the invasion of germs, so we clean and disinfect constantly – that has been the purpose of your work in the sluice today, Nurse Winton.’ May nodded in dawning comprehension. ‘But everything we use for dressing the wound itself must be better than that, it must be sterilized – boiled – to kill the germs. My hands are not sterile, so I will use instruments which are; and your hands are not sterile either, remember that, Nurse Winton; however much you scrub them, your hands are dangerous.’
May jumped, and gave an involuntary glance down at her hands, reddened by the day’s work but looking quite innocuous to the naked eye.
‘Unfortunately,’ Sister continued, ‘we rarely succeed in banishing all germs, and so the wound becomes septic, or poisoned. Now you will know that rotten meat has a disagreeable odour – so does rotting flesh, Nurse Winton, and you cannot open a window on a living patient, so you will have to endure the stench.’ Sister paused, and looked enquiringly at May.
‘I will try to do so, Sister.’
Sister Simeon’s tone hardened. ‘You will not try to do so, you will do so, and you will do it with a smile on your face. Do you understand?’ she rapped out the question.
May gulped. ‘Yes Sister,’ her voice squeaked.
Sister Simeon’s tone softened a fraction. ‘Remember, if you were lying there feeling wretched with a stinking wound you would not want to see a nurse wrinkling up her nose and looking disgusted. Now come with me.’
May, by now heartily wishing that she had found out rather more about nursing before she had plunged into this new and now frightening world, duly followed.
Sister’s hands worked swiftly and surely as she assembled her dressing trolley, explaining clearly and concisely the purpose of every object. May stood nodding like a puppet doll, repeating her ‘Yes Sisters’ every time Sister Simeon’s voice rose in interrogation. As Sellers had said this morning, Sister was a good teacher; but May began to wish for a less enthusiastic superior who would have let her lurk in the sluice for the evening – even those dreadful bandages would have been preferable, at least you didn’t have to smile at them.
All too soon they were rattling up the ward, and at the bedside of the first victim.
‘Screens, Nurse – no, not like that, another two inches to the right – a screen is a screen, Nurse Winton.’ May understood then, and positioned them more carefully.
‘Good evening, Mr Hawkins. I have come to do your dressing myself this evening, and Nurse Winton is assisting me.’
The man in the bed whispered a response. May, already aware of a pervasive and unpleasant scent smiled weakly at his hands, which were calloused and grey. Sister twitched back the bedclothes and began to undo the bandage round his middle.
‘Hold that receiver just there, Nurse Winton, where I can reach it easily – come nearer.’
As the bandage came away green streaks began to appear, and the smell grew stronger. Wielding her forceps Sister dumped the sodden mass into the bowl right under May’s nose. She felt her smile become a rictus as she gripped the enamel rim, remembering Sister’s final warning words before they had started up the ward: ‘Don’t forget, a poisoned wound is a danger to you, Nurse. Never touch septic dressings with your hands if you can possibly avoid it.’ She felt her skin crawl. Sister deposited the last sodden piece of gauze, said, ‘Brace yourself, Mr Hawkins, this will hurt,’ and with a deft flick of the wrist pulled out a wriggling red worm. May swayed, but Sister Simeon’s brisk voice steadied her. ‘This is the drainage tube, Nurse Winton. The other receiver, please.’ May dumped one bowl down with a clatter and picked up the other to take its disgusting cargo.
Sister paused, her face a mask of concentration. Then she said, ‘I think your wound looks a little healthier today, Mr Hawkins, but I’m afraid I shall have to get more of the poison out. Mr Hawkins has had a damaged kidney removed, Nurse Winton. Now, hold that dish near the wound.’ The wound was actually a largish hole in the man’s side, and Sister proceeded to place both hands on his stomach and flank and squeeze firmly; a thin stream of green pus oozed out. May stared in horror, and felt the bile rise in her throat; but just before she gagged she heard a slight mewling sound. She turned her head and looked fully at the man on the bed. The veins on his forehead stood out, and his jaw was clenched; his eyes were staring straight at her – and there was a desperate question in them. A flood of pity and comprehension washed over May: the stench faded into the background, she looked directly into the pain-wracked eyes and spoke in a firm and cheerful voice.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Hawkins, it’s nearly over now – not much longer, you’ve been very brave,’ and she felt her face blossom into a smile as easily and naturally as breathing. The thin lips quivered in response, and then, thankfully, Sister Simeon’s assured voice rang out.
‘The worst’s over, Mr Hawkins, you can relax now,’ and incredibly the man did relax, while Sister’s nimble lingers repacked the wound with a clean rubber tube and yards of gauze, cottonwool and lint. Sister explained her actions clearly, but May was hardly listening: her legs were trembling and her forehead damp with sweat. Once the binder was fastened into position with a large safety-pin Sister straightened up.
‘Move the screens back, Nurse.’ May did so, hoping that Sister could not see that her hands were shaking uncontrollably. ‘Now take the trolley back into the sluice, I’ll be along in a few minutes to tell you what to do next.’
May managed to get the trolley out of the ward and into the sluice, then she leapt for the sink and was thoroughly sick. A slight breeze had sprung up and cooled her flushed face as she sagged weakly against the draining board. She had coped, but it had been a close-run thing and she felt no exultation in the victory. Then she heard Sister’s brisk footsteps in the corridor, and reached for the carbolic.
An hour later she had been initiated into the mysteries of the steriliser and had helped Sister with four more dressings, none as bad as the first. She decided that Sister Simeon was an exponent of Lady Clarence’s philosophy: always tackle the worst task first, then what comes after is, if not easy, at least bearable. As she helped Sister settle each patient down after their dressing, and saw the relief, even contentment, on their faces as they lay back on their pillows she began to feel a sense of satisfaction at her share in their tending. The last man, an elderly Scot far from home, murmured, ‘Ah, you’re a guid wee lassie, and a bonny one,’ and made May blush with pleasure.
At ten minutes to eight the lights were shaded, all the nurses grouped themselves around the centre table and got down on their knees on the hard floor, to hear Sister read prayers. May glanced through her lashes at the silent ward, the patients lying still in their beds, their serious faces turned towards the small group of women kneeling under the dimmed light. Sister’s voice was as fresh and clear as it had been
at seven o’clock that morning, and as May scrambled to her feet, legs stiff and aching, she felt a profound admiration for this formidable woman. While the nurses stood to attention Sister, lamp in hand, made her round of the calm ward, speaking quietly to each patient in turn.
Then Sellers took May into the kitchen and instructed her on the art of making custards and jellies for the next day, but May was slow and clumsy, and Sellers did most of the work.
‘I expect you’re tired, Winton. The first day is pure hell, I’ll never forget it.’
‘Nor will I,’ May agreed fervently.
At nine o’clock the two night nurses arrived, each with a basket on her arm, and while Staff Nurse reported on the patients Sister dismissed the day staff one by one. When she finally came to May she looked her up and down then said, ‘You have a lot to learn, Nurse Winton.’
May bent her head as she murmured, ‘Yes, Sister.’
‘Still, at least you don’t repeat your mistakes. You’ve done well enough for the first day, I suppose.’
To May this qualified approval seemed like an accolade; she set her shoulders further back and said a firm, ‘Thank you, Sister, good night,’ before marching out of the ward with head held high.
Chapter Twelve
For May, the next two months were a flurry of activity. Learning new skills and absorbing new ideas took all her energies. Her experience was a mixture of discoveries, mistakes, humiliations and the occasional hard-won triumph.
A week after their arrival the six new probationers attended their first lecture. May listened with rapt attention to the consultant surgeon’s tales of staphylococci and streptococci; she wrestled with the concepts of asepsis and antisepsis, and slowly assembled the assorted pieces of the jigsaw until they formed the pattern of Sister Simeon’s deft hands as she prepared the dressings trolley and cleansed the patients’ wounds.
The following day May stepped eagerly onto the ward, determined to put her newfound knowledge to the test – and was banished to the sluice and the bedpans. But as she mechanically scrubbed she repeated to herself the words she had learnt: tetanus, erysipelas, cellulitis; and, less euphonious, gangrene – mysteriously both dry and wet. However Staff Nurse rapidly brought her down to earth again by seizing her bedpans, squinting down the handles with a practised eye and instantly rejecting two: ‘Really, Winton, have you no sense of pride in your work?’ May forced her attention back into more mundane channels.
The following week she managed to achieve minor notoriety in the hospital by burning a whole panful of boiled eggs, and was forced to sit at the dining table with cheeks on fire while the story went the rounds of her fellow nurses – ‘How can anyone burn boiled eggs?’ ‘Don’t ask me, ask Winton, she knows how,’ and there were squeals of delighted laughter until Home Sister half-rose ominously from her chair and the merriment subsided into whispered giggles. Yet this embarrassment was less upsetting than the carefully emphatic assurances of the eggs’ owners that they had not really felt like one today, anyway. The next morning, having discovered from Maudie the whereabouts of a reliable dairy, May rushed out in her two hours off-duty and bought replacements, carrying them carefully back together with a lame tale of an anonymous lady donor who just happened to have had a surplus of eggs. But she could see that the men had guessed the truth and were uncomfortable at the idea of her spending her meagre salary on them, so in the end she wondered whether it would have been better to accept their generous understanding and simply swallow her own feelings of guilt. Sister Simeon, who was clearly aware of the existence of the Frears fortune, let May flounder on with her explanations to the patients, and seemed to derive a sardonic amusement from her discomfiture.
Yet there were compensations in the continuous back-breaking round: she had learnt to make a bed so that the undersheet was satin-smooth and there were exactly ten squares of the checked bedspread hanging from the foot – ‘Not, nine, Nurse Winton, not eleven, but ten!’ And she was at last allowed to wash a bedridden patient single-handed. Anxiously muttering to herself a litany composed of: ‘Hot water, bowls, soap, screens, two pieces of flannel, don’t forget to close the windows,’ she had approached the elderly patient with what she hoped was a fair imitation of professional confidence. So intense had been her concentration on doing everything in the right order that the embarrassment of washing a naked male had completely passed her by. When she had finished, the tired, lined face had smiled at her, murmuring, ‘Thanks, Nurse. I feel really freshened up,’ and he had settled back on his pillows and dropped off to sleep. May felt ten feet tall as she almost waltzed back to the sluice with her bowls of dirty water – only to be met with: ‘You must speed up, Nurse Winton, you’ve taken far too long,’ as she passed Sister’s desk. Then Sister Simeon had smiled at her crestfallen face and added, ‘But otherwise you managed very well, and I was pleased to see that you took the trouble to warm the towel as well as the change of clothing.’ May sang tunelessly to herself as she attacked the mackintoshes that morning.
Then the new pros had discovered the little recess in the corridor of the Nurses’ Home fitted out with two gas rings, a kettle and saucepan. Using the sturdy white earthenware cups and saucers which they bought in Chrisp Street market, they made drinks after supper and took them into each other’s rooms and capped each other’s tales of the day’s disasters. May thought Alice Rydal too ready to whine her complaints, but Ellen’s odd mixture of ingenuousness and self-mockery made them all laugh, while they were alternately impressed and shocked by Ada Farrar’s trenchant criticisms of public institutions in general and St Katharine’s Hospital in particular.
As they shared stories of aching backs and sore feet and tired legs May realised that she was lucky; after the first few days she rarely reached the point of exhaustion. Some of their duties were boring and repetitive, but they did not drain her physical strength as seemed to be the case with Alice Rydal, Minnie Emms and tiny Flossy Allen; while Ellen, and even Ada, sometimes came off duty with white faces and dark rings round their eyes. Also, the enforced punctuality and petty restrictions of life in the Nurses’ Home sat more easily on her shoulders; after years of having every move monitored by Lady Clarence it could only be to her advantage that now the attentions of Home Sister and her three acolytes were dispersed among a crowd of probationers. Even her step-mother’s homilies, bitterly resented at the time, could be viewed philosophically as useful preparation for the relentless barrage of criticism delivered by Sisters and Staff Nurses.
* * *
One Tuesday evening in late November, May and Ellen discovered to their mutual pleasure that they had both been granted a half-day off the following afternoon; even Ada’s reminder that they would have to be back for an evening lecture failed to damp their anticipation, and they made plans for a rapid exit immediately after dinner.
The next day was dull and rather cold, with a blustery wind which whipped grit into their faces as they came off-duty, but May and Ellen were undaunted – it was their holiday and they were determined to enjoy it. They wasted no time on changing but simply threw on cloaks and bonnets and headed for the front door. Home Sister emerged from her lair nearby, looked them over and barked, ‘Where are your umbrellas, Nurses? The weather is inclement.’
Ellen hesitated but May retorted firmly, ‘It will not rain on our half-day, Sister,’ and took Ellen’s arm to steer her past.
‘Remember you must return by six o’clock for Dr Colson’s lecture.’ Home Sister fired her parting shot as they crossed the threshold.
Ellen sighed. ‘They always get the last word, don’t they?’
May was bracing. ‘Never mind. just think, one day it will be our turn!’
Ellen’s face was doubtful. ‘I’m not sure I can see myself as ever being a Sister, May. I don’t much like the idea of bossing other people around.’
As they raced for the main gate May had to admit to herself that she longed to move up the ladder and be able to tell other people what to do; even being Pro
Four would be an improvement on her present lowly position. Obviously Ellen had a much nicer nature than she had.
Once outside they realised they had given no thought as to where they were going to go, but as they skidded to a halt, uncertain, May saw a tram coming, heading westwards. Calling to Ellen to follow she dodged a cursing van driver and in seconds they were both scrambling aboard.
‘Upstairs, May, we’ll see more.’
May hesitated, then seized her skirts and climbed up – after all, Lady Clarence was not around to notice.
‘All the way, please,’ Ellen told the conductor. Then, as they paid their fares, ‘By the way, where do you go?’
‘Terminus is Aldgate – ’Eart of the Empire!’ The man winked and passed on.
‘Oh May, let’s go to the Houses of Parliament – I know they’re not in session, but there’s bound to be someone around. My father’s said so much about this government – and I would love to see if all the Lords really do have cloven hooves and forked tails! – Not your father, of course,’ she added hastily.
‘My father doesn’t sit in the Lords, his is only a courtesy title,’ May said. ‘And Uncle Bertie’s far too lazy to go very often.’
‘Well, never mind, we’ll just stand outside and gawp, like a pair of country cousins – and I’ll send my father a postcard to show we’ve been.’
They jumped off at Aldgate Pump and went in search of further directions. After a confused stream of instructions they decided on a horse bus and stepped onto the platform and clambered up the stairs. After the swift, smooth roar of the electric tram it seemed quite old-fashioned to watch the driver cracking his whip or skilfully checking his horses with a touch on the reins, as they sat high up in the front seat, glad of the strong ribbons on their bonnets in the gusting wind.
A change of buses found them outside Blackfriars Station, where they selected another tram and whirred down the broad, tree-lined sweep of the Victoria Embankment. They were so engrossed in looking about them that they nearly missed their stop, and barely had time to leap off before the tram turned sharp left and clanked across Westminster Bridge.
Mayfair Rebel Page 11
