The Flying Nurse (1960s Medical Romance Book 3)

by Sheila Burns

  She slept badly, perhaps she had expected this, and she woke feeling hideously anxious, for she had remembered Dot Simpson, a fellow student nurse, who had been killed on a flight to Egypt. She wished that she had not thought of this, but suddenly it had come back to her, and now she could not escape it. If there had been the slightest possibility of backing out, she would have done it, but Mother was not standing for that. She had got her own way and determined to keep it so.

  ‘It’s for such a short time, darling, a mere weekend, and after all, what can happen in a weekend? Bring Cam back with you just to cheer me. Bring him back to me.’

  ‘I’ll do what I feel to be right.’

  ‘Yes, but don’t be too bossy about it.’

  After a moment Mandy said, ‘Now what about your ankle?’ And with some surprise, ‘The swelling’s gone down a lot, and it looks doing fine to me.’

  She should not have said that, for Mother began to cry, and said that it hurt her quite terribly, and nobody realized what she was suffering, and with such tremendous courage.

  ‘I’ll go now,’ said Mandy, and left.

  The car took her at speed, for perhaps old Holmes knew how worried she was, and was doing his best to help her. She had known him since she was a child, and he had surreptitiously sneaked bull’s-eyes for her, her craze at the time. Well, anyway I’ve started, she thought.

  She had the curious feeling that she was not herself but somebody else whom she did not quite know. They came into London, the roads very full because of the hour in the morning, and when they turned into the Cromwell Road the place was jammed. The nearer that she got to the terminal the less Mandy liked it, and the navy silk frock with the cream coat did not make up for what she was suffering.

  ‘Goodbye, Miss, and good luck,’ said old Holmes.

  ‘You may never see me again.’

  ‘Don’t talk so silly, Miss. You’ll be back all right, having had the time of your life. I envies you,’ and off he went.

  Mandy entered the building and knew that already she hated it. Even if she was being silly she could not stem that tide. She would have given anything if this had been Victoria Station or Paddington, for they had a certain amount of security. This, she felt, was highly dangerous. Apparently the powers-that-be got you here early enough, when she learnt how long it would be before the coach would be ready to take them down to the airport, but for now there was nothing to do. She waited, growing more and more uneasy, for her imagination was running away with her. She thought of the hospital and of Richard, with longing. He would be going the rounds at this very hour, and she almost wished that she was back on duty in the May Baker Ward, with that smug Sister in charge who never missed a mistake, and was always ready to find fault.

  Mandy went over to the bookstall to buy a magazine from a string of vividly-coloured glossies. Somehow there was not a single one which interested her. She got the idea that the moment of departure would never come, and when it did she simply would not be able to bear it. Imagination was taking her a long way, too far maybe, and it hurt.

  The queue formed for the coach and she slipped towards it. As she turned from the bookstall she was aware of eyes watching her. That was when she saw the young man in the immaculate suit standing by the bookstall and watching her. The suit was of shantung, the tie soft brown satin spotted with orange, and this man had the vividly dark eyes of a southerner in Europe. Sicilian, she thought, Maltese perhaps, but he certainly comes from a country where they never see blue eyes.

  She was ashamed to flush so easily, revealing the fact that she had noticed him. She dabbed at a moist brow and moved on towards the door with the queue. It was crazy to be so silly, and anyway this was a lot better than travelling to Cherbourg and being so sick all day.

  The crowd were happy-go-lucky, they did not even seem to care. They trailed through the open door, and into the waiting coach which stood at the back of the building. She thought again of those vivacious dark eyes, and that she was being absurd. Why had he noticed her so closely? Was there anything that he was asking himself about her?

  As she got into the waiting bus, she knew that he was here, too. He had got in behind her, and she saw without actually looking; he was in one of the back seats, and he was well aware of where she was sitting, watching her all the time. This man was probably coming to Malta, too. Again she knew that she coloured up.

  The coach bowled out into the crowded Cromwell Road, and on towards southern London. There was the business trail of cars coming in, the stops where you did not expect them, then the clustering shops changed to houses. Somehow she was glad when those at pavement level changed to smaller suburban houses with little gardens. It was the first sight of trees.

  Suddenly the huge yawning gap of the aerodrome itself appeared on the left, and although she had seen it many times before, somehow it seemed to Mandy that it had never looked to be so enormous. Again there came that silly scared feeling. The coach turned into the big gates of the airport, with that superfluity of offices and buildings surrounding her, and she had the absurd feeling of ‘abandon hope all ye who enter here’. She had got it badly. Yet when she caught the first sight of the flat green and the tarmac ahead of her, she pulled herself together.

  Big planes came and went with the automatic habit of trains in Paddington or Victoria, if it came to that. And, she reminded herself, even the honest-to-God train could run into a buffer, in spite of the fact that she thought they were so safe. Nobody but herself in the coach would have given a second thought to anything going wrong, and maybe all her anxiety was increased because she was at the tail end of three years’ very hard work, for an exam which had seemed to bother her a great deal more than it bothered others.

  She was tired out.

  She was one of those absurd girls who took trouble heavily, and perhaps magnified it, which is always a silly thing to do. She remembered a Tutor Sister telling her, ‘Share the troubles of others, but never let them become your own. In this work it is so easy to sacrifice self and this is not a wise thing to do!’

  This was exactly what she had been doing.

  The coach stopped dead.

  She had no luggage troubles, she realized, and this was something for which she should be thankful. Everyone got out one after the other, and automatically trailed inside the building, and on up the stairs to a room, where apparently they waited until they learnt that the plane was prepared to accept them.

  Mandy went to the big glass windows which looked out on the flat expanse of green, and she saw the clumsy-looking planes coming and going. They looked like giant grasshoppers, she thought, quite hideous. They came and went so easily, and with such regularity that she ought to have been comforted by them, but at the same time, she wasn’t. I’ve just worked myself up, she thought.

  That was when again she became aware of those dark eyes still watching her. The man she had seen at the terminal was standing near her, and she was convinced that he must be from Malta, by the look of him. Also she recognized a good suit when she saw one; she liked his tie. She would not have been surprised if he had spoken to her, but he did nothing of the sort. Then ‒ true woman ‒ she was annoyed with him.

  That was when the big door at the far end opened, and the air hostess told them the plane was waiting for them. She was superb. She had got not a hair wrong, nor a button wearing loose. She might have been an expensive doll which you bought in a shop and not a real girl at all. You could not imagine her pandering to her mother, or going to Malta if she did not want to do it.

  The crowd surged forward.

  They went downstairs on to the plateau itself, and began walking in small groups to where the big plane rested, looking more like a big grasshopper than ever.

  Mandy felt to be sick, terribly unsure of herself, and the apprehension was enormous. She tried to walk briskly as others did, trying to give the outward impression of being completely at ease and controlled, but these were the last things that she was feeling. Of course she
should have been firmer with her mother, and should never have come. The words ‘Flying Nurse’ seemed to echo through her head with a fascination of their own, and she felt her pace slackening. She was one of the last few to come to the foot of the gangway, and she went up slowly to the stewardess waiting at the top, another doll of a girl.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, brightly.

  ‘Good morning.’

  Mandy peered inside the plane itself, and now she knew that there was no going back. She was surprised to find that inside it was much larger than she had thought it could be. She had expected it to be cramped, that she would feel she could not breathe, and only wished to escape; instead it was comfortable, and she slipped into the first seat that she saw. They stood in pairs on either side of a central gangway, and she sank down. She wanted to get this journey done, and quickly. That was when she heard a man’s voice, a deep voice, too, with a tender tone to it, and the slight accent of a foreigner.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said before she had looked up.

  When she did look, she saw instantly that it was the young man in the beautifully-cut suit, the man with the very dark eyes who had watched her. His olive skin was swarthy and there was a shadow where he had shaved, something which had attracted her in men. But his eyes were the loveliest feature in his face, deeply dark, and strangely quiet. They were irresistible eyes which commanded her.

  She was half sorry that he did not say more, but sat down calmly in the seat which was alongside her own. He arranged his brief-case that he had been carrying and read out of a notebook from it. It was absurd to feel a pang that he should have approached with such amiable politeness, and then no more. It had been the casual introduction, and then he took this book out and apparently never gave her a second thought. She knew that he had the power to attract her, something one feels about someone else, something one bows to, and acknowledges, even if one longs to run away from it.

  This was when the plane began moving slowly along the runway, making a heavy noise which was almost unbearable. Somehow Mandy had never thought of the actual engine being noisy; she had imagined it would be a muted sound, much like a railway engine, certainly no more, but now it was hideous and she felt herself shuddering with it.

  ‘He’s only trying her out,’ said the man beside her, and she knew that he must have been watching her, and had realized her dismay.

  Mandy lost her shyness, she turned sharply to him. ‘So you knew how I felt?’

  ‘I knew that this was your first flight, yes.’

  ‘And you realized that I was absurdly nervous?’

  ‘Not absurdly. Most people are nervous the first time that they fly, but not so nervous after that. This noise stops. He isn’t starting off, so don’t be too worried; he is testing his engine. He’ll stop, then start later, and when he goes, quite probably you won’t even know that he is going.’

  Mandy almost laughed at the idea. ‘I don’t believe that for a moment,’ she said.

  ‘Yet it is the truth. You are going out to Malta?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll find it is a very lovely island, but maybe I am biased, for it is my own country.’

  She nodded. ‘My stepfather has been taken ill out there, and as my mother could not come herself ‒ she sprained her ankle ‒ she sent me along.’

  ‘I see.’ Casually he mentioned the strada where Cam was actually staying. There is something a little uncanny about this man, she thought, and wondered if he could read thoughts. Inside her she felt a warning to be cautious, yet the other half of her knew that she wanted to know more.

  ‘My mother has got the wind up, for she rather fears the ability of the doctors in Malta.’

  He looked at her in surprise. ‘She need have no fear. We have some very fine doctors living there. I would trust them before I turned to an English doctor! I know that.’

  ‘I am sure they are very good.’

  His eyes were searching her still, she had the idea that they could see into her heart, and read the things which perhaps she would never have told him. It was an uncanny feeling, yet the man himself drew her to him. She liked him. ‘Well?’ she said, half laughingly, and it seemed absurd that she could bring herself to laugh in a plane. ‘Have you summed me up?’

  ‘Sorry, was I being rude? I do apologize if I was. You are a nurse?’

  ‘Either you have second sight, or you make some most awfully good guesses.’

  ‘I make good guesses. Maybe my island teaches me that. There is a lot more behind the island than you would think. It is very old; nobody really knows how old. It is very great, and nobody ever yet has found how great. You’ll love it.’

  ‘I have only the weekend to see it in, and if my stepfather is really very ill, I don’t suppose I will be able to leave him.’

  ‘It would be a crime to come to my island and see nothing of it,’ he commented.

  The air hostess came down the gangway and he ordered some tea. Mandy had never thought how very welcome the cup of tea would be; she was settling down to flying, hardly aware that she was in the air at all, far happier than she would ever have thought to be possible, yet grateful for the tea when it came.

  ‘I drink China tea myself; you may hate that,’ he said.

  ‘On the contrary, I’d adore it. One never gets anything like it in hospital.’

  They were high up. He had been so right when he had said that she would not know when they actually left the earth behind them, for she hadn’t known. The noise was dulled, it was hardly there, certainly no more than in a car. The plane kept stationary, she would have thought, though common sense told her that all the time it was progressing, and fast.

  ‘What is that down there?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘The English Channel.’

  ‘But we have only just started.’

  He smiled at that, and all the time the fleecy silver-shot clouds passed the windows. ‘That is so, of course, but I warn you that we move fast when in the air.’

  ‘It certainly looks like it.’

  There was the shadow of France against the sea. It can’t be true, she thought; none of this is true.

  They talked over China tea and attractive biscuits. This young man had found that it worried her, he had the art of finding out things about a person, and she recognized this facility of his. He told her that his father had died when he was a child. Later his mother had remarried, not happily; he knew what stepfathers could be. Then she had died.

  ‘And you live in the island?’

  ‘I do, indeed.’

  ‘You like it?’

  ‘No, I don’t like it, I love it. To me it is the most alluring and romantic place in all the world. I adore it.’

  There was a pause, then she said in a shy almost hesitating voice, ‘I ‒ I know I shall love it, too. It sounds to be the most beautiful place in all the world.’

  His name was Luis Vella; unusual she told herself. He was extremely dark, and she liked dark men, always had done.

  ‘I have never talked to anyone so interesting before,’ she said.

  ‘I have never talked to so sweet a nurse before,’ he confessed.

  They touched down at Marseilles. She saw the Mediterranean vivid against the horizon, a hot city of rectangular houses with the Alpes Maritimes behind her. There was no time to go shopping which she would have loved to do, for passengers had to stay. She got out and walked about a little, admiring the beautiful flowers in the window boxes of the receiving rooms. She did not think that she had ever seen such brilliantly coloured cinerarias, or such massive yellow-eyed daisies. It was hot too; the little silk dress which her mother had given her was exactly right for it, and she put aside the cream coat. Luis watched her.

  ‘It’s hotter in Malta,’ he said.

  ‘Lovely! It is years since I have felt so beautifully warm, because I feel the cold.’

  ‘You should live in Malta,’ he told her, and laughed. ‘Anyway,
with income tax at a shilling in the pound, and sunshine, it helps.’ Then with a sudden affection, ‘You’re going to love my island.’

  ‘In three days I shan’t have too much time to lose my heart to it,’ she said.

  ‘But you’ll love it the same.’

  Then it was time to get back into the waiting plane. It seemed a shame to her to be in a new and, oh, so lovely world.

  Chapter Three

  Luis saw her through the Customs. There seemed to be no demur at all. She had stepped out of the plane on to the tarmac and the heat rose up to meet her, for it was indeed much hotter than Marseilles had been.

  They walked to the reception hall, and she was aware of flowers everywhere, and wondered how they kept them alive in this heat. She had the sense of being very young, of being totally unaccustomed to travel, and therefore confused by it. Of being half afraid. The big car was waiting for them, and the chauffeur sprang out. He helped both of them into the back, and Luis gave him the address of Cam’s flat. Only when they had gone a little way did she suddenly realize that she had never given him the actual address, though he had given it to his man.

  ‘How did you know?’ she asked.

  ‘You told me.’

  ‘I don’t remember telling you.’

  ‘I should not worry. I just knew, and we will go straight there, hoping to find your stepfather very much better.’

  They turned away from the aerodrome into the island itself. It was flatter than she had thought it would be; all the houses were rectangular, of white stone, and they glittered like some strange jewels in the sun. Suddenly she saw the flamboyance of bougainvillea in a crimson cloak flung over an old wall. Of tubs of Agapanthus, the lilies-of-the-Nile, of tiger lilies, too, and smelt the poignant scent of a honeysuckle in profusion and of an orange tree in blossom and fruit at one and the same time.