War Nurse (9 page)

Slept badly again last night. I dread getting up in the morning now. Each time I push open the ward doors I have to screw up all my courage. Some of the things I’ve seen these last days are too awful even to write in my diary. I haven’t been able to talk to
anyone
about it. This morning, lying in bed, I felt worse still. I wanted to run away – leave it all behind. I wanted my life to go back to how it was before this awful war began. I just couldn’t cope any more.

I could hear Jean thrashing around in bed, as though she couldn’t sleep either.

I got up to open the blackout shutters and poked my head outside. I could see the sea shimmering in the early morning sun. When I turned round Jean was sitting up, rubbing her eyes. She gave me a smile, but I was sure she felt as bad as I did. I was about to say something when she said, “Good morning, Kitty”, climbed out of bed and quickly and efficiently pulled out her nurse’s uniform. I watched as deftly she made up a fresh cap. I got dressed, too, and hunted for my cap. I found it, lying on a box. I looked at it. I’d worn it for a few days but it would do for another one.

“Kitty, that cap’s looking a bit sad. Let me make up another one for you.” Jean pinned a fresh white cap on my hair. She handed me her mirror and I peered at it. The face that stared back at me wasn’t the sad, drained face I’d expected to see. It looked tired but competent too under the crisply starched white cap. A nurse’s face. Suddenly I felt a whole lot better.

Today was just another day for us VADs. I smiled at Jean – a really warm smile this time and we went downstairs together. Once I’d thought she was a cold fish. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

At about five o’clock this afternoon, Sister came up to me. She looked harassed.

“Ah, Nurse Langley,” she said briskly. “Theatre’s just rung and told me they need extra help. Would you go down there, please.”

“What – me?” I gulped, looking round wildly for Jean. Surely Sister didn’t mean me. I’ve had precious little Theatre training.

“Yes, you,” said Sister briskly. “Run along now.”

Jean was just entering the ward as I left. I threw her an anguished glance.

“What’s up?” she whispered.

“I’ve got to go to Theatre!” I told her.

“Good luck!” she whispered.

In a bit of a daze I made my way down to the operating-theatre suite. All down the corridor were men, lying there on stretchers. Some of them looked in a pretty bad way. I tried not to look at their faces. One of them might soon be lying on the operating table in front of me.

Heart thudding in my chest, I marched into the “scrubbing-up” room. I leaned over the sink and began to scrub my hands and arms up to my elbows. I wondered what they’d ask me to do. I was feeling terribly nervous and there was a sick feeling in my tummy.

Theatre Sister told me to get dressed quickly. I got into a theatre gown, and tied a cap on my head, making sure that every hair was tucked securely under it. Then I put on a mask and rubber gloves. My hands were trembling, and I saw Sister look at them.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “The last girl they sent us fainted.”

I swallowed. I wished she hadn’t said that. Holding my hands clasped in front of me, as we always do after we’ve washed our hands, so that I wouldn’t touch anything that wasn’t sterile, I followed her into Theatre.

My job was a simple one – to fetch and carry for the team. I stood by the wall and waited as the long minutes ticked by. I looked anywhere (and everywhere) but at the patient. There was Theatre Sister, standing next to the surgeon. There was another gowned figure nearby – the anaesthetist. My eyes wandered round the room, resting in turn on a lotion bowl in a tall stand, on an instrument table where the surgeon’s instruments lay – I tried not to shudder as I looked at them – and then there were dressing trolleys, and a bucket where the dirty swabs were dropped. Every so often I saw the surgeon turn to Sister and ask her to pass him something – a swab or an instrument like a scalpel or probe to examine the wound. I tried not to listen as he bent over the patient. I tried to concentrate on something else – anything but what was happening to our patient. I mustn’t faint, I told myself. I mustn’t let the team down.

“We need sterile dressing towels, Nurse,” a voice interrupted my thoughts. I shot off, heart thudding in my chest, to fetch them. And then suddenly it was all over and our patient was being wheeled out of Theatre. My job now – to rinse out the bloody dressing towels. Then finally it was
my
turn to wash. I looked down at myself. Rivulets of blood were dripping down my front. I really nearly did faint then.

We’re less busy in Theatre now as most of our ship casualties have been evacuated to hospitals inland. I’d expected to be sent back to Surgical, but I’ve stayed on here. I thought Jean would be envious that I’m working in Theatre, but she says not.

Anyway, I spend most of my time merely washing stuff in the sluice room. On a busy day, bucket after bucket of dirty towels is dumped at my feet. After they’ve been rinsed in cold water in the sluice – this helps to get the blood out – there are all the instruments to clean. First they have to be scrubbed and cleaned with metal polish, and only then are they sterilized. Theatre clothing needs to be sterilized too – this goes into the autoclave.

But today, I
was
asked to go into Theatre again. I was awfully pleased. I stood there for about an hour – and then all I had to do was hand the surgeon a towel!

Our Theatre was crowded this morning. The surgeon was trying out a new technique and the room was full of excited doctors. When I wasn’t busy I stopped by to watch too.

One of the surgeons is very nice. He’s quite friendly – a bit like nice Lieutenant Venables. When he’s not too busy, he even tells me what he’s doing. In Theatre, we’re like a little family, and I actually miss it when I go off duty.

“You’re joking!” Bunty said, shuddering when I told her. We were walking down to the tennis courts together, rackets swinging in our hands.

“There’s lots of cleaning too, of course,” I said. “That’s mostly what I do. I’m not always needed in the operating theatre itself. Sometimes I wish I was back on the wards. I do miss the patients.”

“At least your ones can’t answer back,” said Bunty, grinning.

“Bunty!” exclaimed Molly.

I laughed and lobbed a ball high into the air. “I was back in the operating theatre today,” I told her.

“Don’t tell me,” said Molly shuddering, scurrying down to the far end of the court where Marjorie was waiting. “It was an amputation, I’ll bet. I don’t want to know.”

“It was very interesting,” I said, seriously. “The surgeon. . .” I stopped and lunged in vain for the ball, which was soaring high over my head.

“You’re putting me off,” Bunty said crossly, serving another ball wide of the court. It bounced at Molly’s feet. Molly just stood there, looking at it. Even across the court I could see that her face looked odd. It was really green.

Early this morning Theatre Sister asked me to help her lay out the instruments for the first operation on the surgeon’s list. I muddled through somehow.

“You’ll soon learn,” Sister said, smiling, as I ran off and came back with the wrong instrument – again. I can’t think how she manages to remember it all.

After we’d finished the day’s operations, she gave me a book to study. “This will help you,” she said. “Study it well.” I took the book from her. I must have looked awfully anxious, for she laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll check that we have all the right instruments before we go into Theatre.”

Feel very flattered that she thinks I’m worth training. On Sunday morning – Sundays are usually quiet as we don’t often have any operations – she’s going to give me a proper lesson.

Giles has won his pilot’s wings! I had a letter from him today in which he told me all about it. He’s a fully-fledged fighter pilot with Fighter Command’s “11 Group” now. Apparently that’s the group that covers south-east England. There are several groups, he told me – each covering a different part of Britain. He’ll be flying Spitfires, and he sounds jolly proud. Tomorrow he’s going to join his squadron – and is longing to get a shot at the enemy. What is it about men? They spend all their time fighting, and then
we
have to patch them up!

Everyone here has been very buoyed up by the Prime Minster’s speech. It seems he thinks that the Germans should have attacked us straightaway when the British and French armies weren’t ready for them. Now, he believes, the situation’s changed – our armies are much stronger now. I hope he’s right.

This evening a call was put through from Father. I was thrilled! I haven’t spoken to him since Boxing Day. He sounded guarded when I asked him what he thought about the Prime Minister’s speech, but I’m going to try not to let his caution worry me.

The Germans have overrun Denmark and now they’ve invaded Norway. Norway is a neutral country – not on one side or the other in the conflict. But the Germans don’t seem to care about that. It seems incredible but in only two days all the main Norwegian ports have been captured by the Germans.

The whole of Europe is being dragged into this terrible war. Too depressed to write any more.

Just as I’m learning to set the instrument table, I’ve been shifted back to the Surgical ward. Typical!

Today a plane crashed near the hospital. It was so close that all the glass rattled in the window panes. It was very hot in the ward and I’d just gone over to the windows to open one of them when I saw a long tail of black smoke vanish somewhere behind the trees and then suddenly there was a huge explosion. I felt very scared – and a bit sick. How could anyone survive that crash?

For what seemed like an age there was complete silence – then suddenly there was a dash for the windows. From his bed Private Jones swore blind that it was a Jerry plane. Over in his bed Corporal Lister was sceptical. “You couldn’t even see the thing,” he said. The Private said he just knew, but I could see that his eyes were twinkling. After that there was a lot of argy-bargying back and forth. Some of the men sided with Lister, others with Jones. In the midst of all this, Sister came in to do her round, looking as calm as if nothing had happened.

“What’s going on in here?” she asked.

“Nothing, Sister. Sorry, Sister.” And off they shuffled, looking sheepish.

Funnily enough, Private Jones was right – it was a Jerry plane. I know because the pilot was brought into the ward just before I went off duty this evening. He’s our first prisoner of war. He was very quiet, and seemed rather frightened, and I found myself feeling sorry for him. It must be awful to be shot down in an enemy country and find yourself in a hospital ward surrounded by the very people you’re fighting.

None of the aircrew have been brought in, so we think they must have bought it. None of us know what that plane was doing here either.

Later on I had another thought. That plane could so easily have hit the hospital. There’s a big red cross painted on the roof so that the enemy will know that we’re a hospital and won’t target us. But how will
that
protect us if a plane crashes on top of us, or a bomb misses its target and lands on us instead? I feel very scared when I think about that.

The men don’t seem to mind sharing their ward with a German prisoner of war.

“Johannes’s all right. . . He’s just another poor lad – fighting for his country like the rest of us,” one of them told me. I think they feel sorry for him – he’s broken both his legs. And he’ll be sent off to prisoner-of-war camp as soon as he’s recovered.

Johannes seems a bit bewildered by us. He told me that he broke his legs in the fall and when he came round he saw a man pointing a gun at him. “I told him not to shoot. I said I wasn’t armed,” he said. Then, he said, a woman came out of the house near where he’d landed, a cup of hot, sweet tea in her hand. “She said it was for me.” He shook his head. “I do not understand you English,” he said.

I wish I knew what was happening across the Channel. News does reach us in the hospital, but sometimes it’s hard to know
what
to believe – the rumours flying round the hospital or the news on the wireless. There’ve been a lot of angry mutters about how the government is handling the campaign in Norway. Our troops were sent out to help Norway in April – but they were ill-equipped and unprepared for the task they had to do apparently. No match for the Germans or the snow. I am
so
relieved that Peter isn’t out there.

Jerry’s invaded the Low Countries! We’re all so shocked – everyone’s walking around in a daze. First their airfields, railways and arms depots were bombarded from the air. Then the enemy’s tanks rolled across the Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg borders without warning. German planes are raining bombs down on their cities. Our Allied armies have been taken completely by surprise.

I’m writing this very late, but I had to get this down. Mr Chamberlain, our Prime Minister, has resigned! People haven’t been at all happy about the way he’s been running the War. Another minister, Mr Winston Churchill, is now our Prime Minister. At nine o’clock this evening we all crowded round the wireless in the VADs’ mess to hear Mr Chamberlain’s resignation broadcast to the nation. Mr Churchill went to the palace at 6 o’clock this evening to see the King, who’s asked him to form a new government. There was a real sense of relief in the room.

“We’ll be all right now,” I heard someone say after we’d turned off the wireless. Oh, I pray they’re right. There’s something about Mr Churchill that makes us feel safe. He won’t take any nonsense from Jerry, I feel sure, but is there anything anyone can do to help us now?