For King and Country (5 page)

Funny she could think of it now and not have her appetite ruined. She stopped chewing, and took a sip of water. ‘Poor feller though, she gave him some gyp. It’s the first time
I’ve ever heard a man scream, and she didn’t show him much sympathy. He’s a decorated officer but by, she made his eye water.’

It was an understatement. By the time Staff had finished with his face, sweat and tears were running off the Lieutenant’s unshaven cheeks until Sally had seen his ear fill with them. She
had pitied him to her soul, but pity wasn’t a scrap of good to anybody; she could see that now. She was in nursing for better, for worse, and she’d have to get over her
squeamishness.

‘I’m going to be just like her,’ she announced. ‘I’m going to dedicate my life to looking after the patients, and I shall think it a privilege.’

‘I hope you won’t be like her,’ said Armstrong, picking up her plate to join them at their table. ‘Dunkley’s as hard as the hobs of hell. When I was on
women’s surgical she came to relieve once when we were short-handed, and I was with her when she did a dressing on a sixteen-year-old who’d had a breast abscess lanced. She jabbed that
ribbon gauze into the cavity with the sinus forceps until we nearly had to scrape the poor little thing off the ceiling. It made my toes curl, and I asked her afterwards what she thought she was
doing. “Serves her right,” she said. “Unmarried mothers!” – and I thought, you bloody bitch. She reported me for insubordination into the bargain.’

‘Armstrong!’ Sally exclaimed, ‘I’ve never heard you swear before.’

‘I don’t, usually. Dunkley might be an efficient nurse, but she’s not a very humane one. She’s here to find a husband, and not much else, so I’ve heard,’ said
Armstrong. ‘She’s got her hooks into Dr Campbell, by all accounts. They’ve been seen out together, anyway.’

‘Ah, so that’s it,’ Sally murmured. She’d had a feeling Dunkley hadn’t liked him joking with her about her sprint to the sluice.

‘I’ll tell you something funny about him, though,’ Armstrong grinned, lowering her voice and leaning confidentially towards them. ‘We had this old body on the ward at
about the same time. A notorious old . . . well, she’d made her living down on the Quayside, and she must have been sixty if she was a day, and in the last stages of syphilis. Well past being
infectious.’

‘Ugh!’ said Sally, with a shudder.

‘But you know from the lectures what havoc it wreaks with the body; we’ve all been well warned about that since the start of the war. Anyway, she had general paralysis of the insane
as well as everything else – mad as a hatter, like they are when they get to that stage, all sense of decency gone. I used to hate bathing her, she’d ask us to do all sorts of filthy
things with her, and she loved it if she could embarrass us. Oh my word, a repulsive old woman! She tried to drag every man that came into the ward into bed with her, acting as if she was still
seventeen and a raving beauty. Anyway, you know what Dr Campbell’s like, fancies himself no end, and he was always giving the good-looking nurses the glad eye. Never gave me a second glance,
of course, and you can see why . . .’

‘Sure, and I can’t see anything of the sort. There’s nothing wrong with you!’ protested Curran.

‘Let’s face it, Curran, I’m plain and poor, and not up to Dr Campbell’s exacting standards by a long stretch. Still, I am human, and he was always so off-hand with me, I
began to feel a bit annoyed. So when Sister was at supper one evening and he was taking the chance to show off to a couple of lovely young probationers in the office along with another houseman,
and just me and my ugly mug left on the ward to do all the work while they had their cosy little gathering, I don’t know what got into me, but I thought, “I’ll take him down a
peg.” So I walked into the office, with my face absolutely straight, and I looked him in the eye, and quite serious, I said: “Oh, Dr Campbell, you’ve got a big admirer on the
ward, and she says she’ll die if you don’t go and give her a kiss before you leave!” You ought to have seen him,’ Armstrong laughed. ‘Swelling with conceit, absolutely
thrilled to bits with himself! So they’re all looking at me, and he bats his eyes and simpers a bit and he says: “Well! Who is it?” “Rosie Ramsden!” I said, and I
couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. I wish you could have seen his face! If looks could kill I’d be stone dead, but the rest of them were like me – howling!’

‘You’ve made an enemy there, then, Armstrong,’ Sally said, when the laugh was over.

Armstrong was thoughtful for a moment. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s not that bad. He’s vain, and he likes women, but he’s not vindictive. In fact, he’s treated
me with a bit more respect since then. I don’t envy Dunkley, though. She’ll have her work cut out trying to make
him
forsake all others. She’d better keep him on a very
short lead.’

‘I pity her if Matron finds out, as well,’ said Curran. ‘Sure, and she’ll be down the drive with her suitcases. I don’t blame her, though. What woman wouldn’t
get her hooks into him, given half a chance, and who wants a man nobody else wants?’ She looked at Sally. ‘You’re wasted on the officers’ ward, so you are; you’ve got
no enterprise at all. I only came to nursing to get a good catch, and what do they do but keep me skivvying on women’s wards. They must have read my mind.’

‘Aye, I suppose they did,’ Sally said. ‘They probably had an idea that if they put you on the officers’ ward you’d flirt with them all, and then they’d have
to kick you out for being
morally doubtful’

‘Nature takes no notice of morality,’ said Armstrong. ‘I read that in a book somewhere, so that means it’s true.’

‘Ach, there’s not much Nature here; sure and we’re nothing but a lot of old nuns. Come on,’ Curran jogged her elbow. ‘Let’s get back to the cloister; see if
we can get a cup of tea before it’s time for the lecture.’

Oh, for pity’s sake, the twice-weekly lecture. Another hour taken up. They’d have no time to relax at all before it was time for bed. Sally stuffed another forkful of food into her
mouth, imagining what her mother would say to see a daughter of hers eating like a wolf. Never mind, she just had time to finish the meal, grab a cup of tea and fling herself into the deep feather
cushions of one of the settees in the probationers’ sitting room, and tuck her aching legs under her for a few blessed minutes until Home Sister came to usher them all into the lecture.

‘It was in the last years of the last century that pathologists began co-operating with clinicians to detect microbes of diphtheria and tubercle bacillus in the throats
and sputum of living patients,’ the pathologist began, ‘rather than waiting until they were dead to carry out our investigations, as we had before, ha, ha, ha!’

Ha, ha, ha. He really was hilarious. Sally stifled a yawn, and was rewarded with a sharp jab in the ribs from Curran’s elbow.

‘. . . and that’s how departments of clinical pathology came into being. Then the war came, and laboratory work proved itself of some use in the treatment of wounds and the
prevention of sickness . . .’

It was all very fascinating, and Sally heard enough of what he said to get much of the lecture down in the sort of automatic writing that the mediums were good at. Details of bacteriology, the
sowing of culture media with discharges from wounds, the cutting and staining of sections of tumours and tissue – all slid across the surface of her numb brain, ran down her arm and through
her pencil almost of their own accord.

Why do they always give us these lectures when we’re half asleep, she wondered, heaving herself up what seemed endless flights of stairs to her room. Roused a little by the exertion, she
scanned her notes before putting away her notebook and undressing for bed. What bliss it was to lie down and close her eyes. She tried to go over the lecture in her mind, to fix it in her memory.
It was no use. Her thoughts would wander off the subject.

They wandered to the conversation in the dining room, when she’d told the others that Dunkley hadn’t shown the lieutenant much sympathy. Truth was, she’d shown him none.
She’d seen the task, and had been oblivious to the man and his distress. At the memory of that distress, that awful panting and moaning, and the eye that in its agony kept darting into hers,
Sally’s heart contracted. A DCM and Bar might be proof of a man’s courage, but courage didn’t make anyone immune to torture.

That Dunkley, though. The only man she’d been aware of was Dr Campbell, and the patient might as well have been a block of wood for all the notice she took. Still, she’d got the job
done, and that was what mattered, after all.

But was it
all
that mattered? High moral standards were all well and good, but judging other people like she judged the girl with the breast abscess wasn’t right, and neither was
taking it out on her. Sally went through Florence Nightingale’s demands in her mind. A nurse must be sober, honest, truthful, trustworthy, punctual, quiet and orderly, clean and neat. That
was all. But surely, something was lacking from the list. Nurses should be kind. And it would be so much the better, she thought, with a wry smile, if they had no sense of smell.

The image of that soldier’s wound was the last thing in her mind before her thoughts became disjointed, her eyelids drooped, and she fell asleep, with the festering stench of that
putrefying face pervading her dreams.

The night nurse disappeared into the office to give Sister Davies the report, leaving Lieutenant Maxfield’s washing bowl on his table. There was a flush on his cheek, and
he seemed to be asleep. Sally put a gentle hand on his good shoulder to awaken him. In an instant he roused, wide-eyed, like someone surfacing from a nightmare.

Still voiceless, he mouthed: ‘Who am I?’ and his uncovered eye held all the fear she’d seen the day before.

‘Why, you’re Lieutenant Maxfield.’

He looked unconvinced, so she took down his chart, to check the name and make certain she had it right. He nodded slightly when she showed it him, and winced as he relaxed against the pillows.
Sally pulled open his locker drawer, found soap and flannel, retrieved his hospital towel from the back of the locker, placed it across the bed, then wet and soaped the flannel. ‘I just have
to help you to get washed. Did you sleep all right?’

He replied with a little one-sided shrug, then pointed to his throat and mouthed the word ‘Gone.’

‘Gone? Do you mean your voice? Do you mean you’ve lost your voice?’

He nodded. Sally wiped the uninjured side of his face with the flannel, and towelled it dry. ‘You’ve got a bit of bristle. Shall I ask the barber to come and shave you?’

He put a protective hand to his moustache, and gave a little shake of his head. She washed and dried his good hand, and put his things away in his locker. ‘I suppose you remember
you’re going to theatre this morning? It means you won’t get any breakfast. Still, you won’t have to starve for long. You’re first on the list.’

He answered with another shrug. Afraid that the horror she’d shown yesterday at the sight of his wound had upset him, Sally hesitated for a moment before lifting the bowl, wondering
whether she should say a few words to try to make amends, but his eye was closed again, shutting her off.

Who knew what these men had lived through, she wondered as she carried the dirty water to the sluice. Her brothers said the papers didn’t tell a tenth of it. Most of the men coming back
from the Front were a bit peculiar, and some of them out of their minds altogether, fit for nothing but mental asylums. It was best to take no notice and just carry on as normal.

Night nurse was leaving the ward, looking dead tired, and Sister Davies was standing at the office door, beckoning impatiently to her. Sally sped up the ward and was last to sidle into the
office, to stand beside another, more junior probationer.

‘Nurse Wilde’s here, finally, so with her permission, I can give the report.’ Sister looked sternly round them all, then began the night nurse’s summary. ‘The young
captain in the side ward next to my office has died. Kidney failure. The doctor’s signed the death certificate and the night nurse has performed the last offices . . .’

‘What are the “last offices”?’ whispered the girl next to Sally.

‘She’s laid him out,’ Sally murmured.

‘Oh.’

Sister Davies paused and gave Sally a hard stare. ‘When you’ve finished, Nurse.’

Sally flushed, and Sister continued. ‘We’re waiting for the porter to take his remains to the mortuary, then you can strip the bed and swab the mattress and the bedstead with
carbolic. There are six patients for theatre. The list starts at ten o’clock, and Lieutenant Maxfield’s going first. He’s had a bad night, his temperature’s still up and his
pulse is quite rapid, so he’ll be on four-hourly observations when he gets back . . .’

Sister gave the report on all the other patients, and then fixed the probationers with an unsmiling stare. ‘We’re going to be busy with the theatre patients, but I expect all the
routine work to be done to time. As soon as you finish one job, you go into the treatment room and look at the book and do the next thing that hasn’t got a tick in today’s column. You
tick things off as you do them. If you get stuck, you ask me, or Staff Nurse. So no need to stand idle in the kitchen or the sluice, or gossiping with the patients. Off you go, then. Get a move
on.’

They filed out of the office double quick.

Sally took the junior probationer assigned to help her make the beds to the laundry room to stack the trolley with clean linen. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked

‘Crump, Nurse. Margery Crump.’

Sally carefully initiated Crump into the mysteries of hospital bedmaking as they went along. No flapping of the sheets to raise bacteria-carrying dust, all corners properly mitred, and all
pillows turned with their openings away from the ward doors to give the beds a neat appearance when viewed from Matron’s vantage point, when she arrived to do her round. The probationer was a
good pupil and after the first empty bed the next couple were done quickly and efficiently. Then came Sally’s chance to show her how to make a bed with the patient still in it.