Nightingales at War (15 page)

EVERY MORNING ON
the Male Acute ward was the same. Sister Holmes would come on duty at eight o’clock and carry out her inspection, with Nurse Riley at her side and Jennifer and Daisy Bushell bringing up the rear.

At the end of each bed, Sister would stop and greet each patient with the same words.

‘Good morning. How are we feeling today?’

To which the patient would dutifully reply, ‘Very well, thank you, Sister,’ or sometimes, ‘Not too bad, thank you.’ They all knew better than to complain.

Sometimes Sister would fire a question at Nurse Riley about what kind of night a patient had spent, or what they’d eaten for breakfast, or something to do with their bowels. And Nurse Riley would always have an answer for her, without even consulting the patient’s notes. Jennifer had no idea how she did it. She must have a magical memory, she decided.

By the time they had finished touring the ward, the porter would have brought up the morning post, and Sister Holmes would hand it out. The soldiers always received their letters gratefully, and there was much laughter and chatter around the ward, and a few sniffed back tears as they read their messages from home and opened their gifts.

This August morning there was one letter left in Sister’s hand when she’d finished going round the ward.

‘This is for Mr Chandler.’ She handed it to Jennifer. ‘Take it to him, if you please, Caldwell.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

Delivering Mr Chandler’s post and cleaning his room were tasks Jennifer had been given ever since that day she had watched Nurse Riley change the airman’s dressings. It wasn’t exactly the special nursing she’d hoped for, but it was a gesture at least. And it gave her the chance to pass the time of day with him.

Not that anyone else envied her the job.

‘Rather you than me,’ Daisy Bushell whispered as she made her way down to Philip Chandler’s room. Daisy still couldn’t bring herself to look at him, especially now his dressings had been removed.

As far as Jennifer was concerned, Mr Chandler was looking a great deal better. She had grown used to seeing his swollen, misshapen face, covered in shiny pink skin, and what was left of his blurred, blunt features. Only his eyes were swathed in dressings as his sight still hadn’t returned.

But his other senses more than made up for it. As usual, his head turned towards Jennifer as she entered the room. ‘Ah, Evening in Paris.’ He breathed in and then let out a sigh of satisfaction.

‘Shh, don’t let on. I’ve already had a telling-off from Sister about wearing perfume. Besides,’ she added, ‘I do have a name, you know.’

‘Would you rather I called you Caldwell?’ He imitated Sister Holmes’s stern tone.

‘I suppose not.’

‘So is this a social visit?’ he asked.

‘As a matter of fact, Sister sent me,’ Jennifer said. ‘You have a letter and I’m to read it to you.’

‘A letter, eh? I suppose it’s another one from my mother. Honestly, I’m sure she does nothing but write letters all day.’

Jennifer smiled. Eileen Chandler was certainly prolific with her pen. Scarcely a day went by without another letter arriving for her ‘darling Phil’. After reading all their news aloud to him, Jennifer almost felt as if she knew the family. She had actually started to look forward to finding out about Mrs Chandler’s latest spat with her fellow members of the WVS, and how Philip’s younger sister had got on in her tennis tournament.

‘Not this time.’ Jennifer studied the rounded handwriting on the blue envelope. ‘It looks like Laura’s handwriting.’

Laura Turnbull was Philip Chandler’s girlfriend in the WAAF. She wrote less than his mother, once a week if he was lucky. Her letters were less chatty too, although Philip said it was because they had to be careful not to give away too much information.

‘For all we know, you could be a fifth columnist, Miss Caldwell!’ he’d said.

Jennifer pulled a chair to his bedside, sat down and opened the envelope. The notepaper inside was tissue-thin so more pages could be packed in. But in this case there was only a single sheet.

A chill of foreboding brushed over Jennifer’s skin as she started to read.

‘“Dearest Phil . . . This is a very difficult letter, and one I never imagined I should write . . .”’ She stopped, realising what was to come.

‘Go on,’ Philip said.

Jennifer hesitated. ‘Perhaps I should get Sister or one of the other nurses to read this?’

‘Just read it, for God’s sake!’

Jennifer cleared her throat and read on. It was a beautifully written letter, full of sorrow, begging for forgiveness and understanding. Laura had done her best to cope, she said, but finally she realised she couldn’t. Things had changed so much, his accident had altered their lives for ever, and she wasn’t strong enough, brave enough, to face what must be faced.

Jennifer glanced at Philip. He lay back against the pillows, as still as a statue.

‘Go on,’ he said gruffly.

‘I can’t,’ she said, putting down the letter. ‘It doesn’t seem right.’ She felt like an eavesdropper, listening in on a lovers’ conversation.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘I want to hear what she has to say.’

He listened impassively, but Jennifer could feel her own anger rising with every word. She had never heard such self-pitying nonsense in her life. How dare the girl say
their
lives had altered for ever? It was poor Philip whose life had been destroyed, not Laura’s. And just when he needed her most, she had deserted him. She hadn’t even bothered to visit him, to find out for herself whether she could cope or not.

By the end of the letter, Jennifer was thoroughly disgusted by the coward who signed herself, ‘Your friend for ever, Laura’.

Philip Chandler was quiet for a moment. Then he said, ‘Well, that’s that, then.’

He sounded so forlorn, Jennifer’s heart went out to him.

‘It doesn’t have to be,’ she urged. ‘I could help you write back to her, if you like?’

‘And say what?’

‘I don’t know . . .’ She tried to think. ‘Perhaps if she came to see you, you could talk to her?’

‘I don’t want her to come here. I don’t want her to see me like this.’

‘But if she loves you—’

‘I don’t want her to see me!’ he repeated. ‘Can’t you understand that? It’s better this way, for all of us. I’d rather she ditched me now than stayed with me out of pity.’

‘Why do you think she’d only stay out of pity?’

‘What other reason could there be? I’m not the man she fell in love with, am I? Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life hearing the tremor in her voice, feeling her shrinking away every time I try to hold her hand?’

‘The way you look shouldn’t matter, not if she loves you.’

‘You’ve been reading too many fairy stories! This isn’t
Beauty and the Beast
. I won’t be transformed by love into a handsome prince. Oh, perhaps in time a clever surgeon might be able to do something for me, but they’ll never be able to turn me back into the man I was. Better that Laura remembers me that way, than as the deformed freak I am now.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Jennifer cried. ‘You’re not a freak.’

‘Aren’t I?’ He turned on her. ‘You think I don’t know the other nurses are repelled by me? Just because I can’t see them, doesn’t mean I don’t hear what they say. They can’t stand to look at me.’

‘I’m not repelled by you,’ Jennifer said quietly.

‘But you wouldn’t walk down the street with me, would you? You wouldn’t hold my hand while everyone stared and pointed?’

Jennifer was silent. He was right, she realised with shame. And if she saw him in the street she probably would be repelled by him too.

‘You see?’ Philip said bitterly. ‘You can’t blame Laura for feeling the way she does, and neither can I.’

‘You’re not a freak,’ Jennifer insisted quietly.

‘Aren’t I?’ She heard the angry challenge in his voice. ‘Then prove it.’

‘How?’

‘Kiss me.’

She stared at him in horrified silence. ‘I – I can’t—’

‘Of course you can’t.’ His voice was bitter. ‘For all your fine words, when it comes down to it, you’re just the same—’

He didn’t finish his sentence. Before she could change her mind, Jennifer lunged forward and planted her lips on his mouth. For a split second she felt him go rigid with shock, then his instincts seemed to take over and he responded, the tension leaving him.

‘What on earth is going on?’ Jennifer pulled away sharply at the sound of Sister Holmes’s voice. She stood in the doorway, arms folded, bristling with outrage. ‘Caldwell! Explain yourself!’

Jennifer opened her mouth to speak, but Philip got in before her. ‘It wasn’t her fault, Sister. It was mine. I asked her to kiss me.’

Sister ignored him, her furious gaze still fixed on Jennifer. ‘My office,’ she hissed. ‘At once!’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Cissy said.

‘Nor can I,’ Jennifer admitted with a grin. ‘Honestly, Cis, I thought I was out on my ear for sure!’

Cissy shook her head. ‘You must be the only girl in the Nightingale who could be caught kissing a patient and end up with a promotion!’

‘I know!’ Jennifer laughed. ‘I’m still trying to take it in.’

She’d been convinced she was for the high jump when Sister Holmes marched her into her office. But instead of dismissing her, Sister had offered her the chance of taking responsibility for the ward on night duty.

It was the last thing Jennifer had been expecting.

‘Perhaps she thinks you can’t get into any trouble when everyone’s asleep?’ Cissy suggested.

‘She doesn’t know me then, does she?’ Jennifer said. ‘I’m going to have a party in the kitchen every night, and invite all the medical students.’

‘I wish I could come,’ Cissy sighed enviously. ‘Honestly, Jen, talk about falling on your feet. But won’t you miss your nights out?’

Jennifer shook her head. ‘Not if it means I’ll have my days free. And Johnny does a lot of his business in the evenings so it works out better . . .’ She stopped talking, seeing her friend’s sceptical look. Her boyfriend was still a sore point between them, and one they usually avoided. ‘Anyway, working nights suits me fine,’ said Jennifer. ‘Especially if it means I don’t have Sister breathing down my neck!’

‘That’s true,’ Cissy agreed. ‘And I suppose we can still go to matinees at the pictures on my days off, can’t we?’

‘’Course we can.’ Jennifer tucked her arm inside Cissy’s. ‘And you never know, you might be able to sneak into one of my late-night parties!’

Cissy laughed. ‘Trust you to find a way to make mischief!’

‘That’s me!’ Jennifer winked. ‘Mischief’s my middle name.’

But even though she didn’t say so to Cissy, inside Jennifer was quietly proud that Sister Holmes had trusted her with so much extra responsibility. Not that she’d ever admit it – she didn’t want Cissy to think she was turning into a goody two shoes like Eve Ainsley!

‘I still can’t believe you actually kissed him, though,’ Cissy marvelled, her nose wrinkling. ‘What was it like? Was it really awful?’

Jennifer absently put her fingers to her lips, where she could still feel the imprint of Philip Chandler’s mouth on hers. The kiss had taken both of them by surprise, in different ways.

‘Funnily enough,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t awful at all.’

EVE’S HANDS WERE
shaking so much she could barely hold the hypodermic syringe. As she pointed it upwards and plunged the piston to expel the air, the needle bobbed before her eyes, making it hard to read the figures on the barrel.

‘That’s it,’ Sister Dawson’s voice was quietly encouraging at her shoulder. ‘Now you’ve got the right amount of fluid in the syringe, what do you do next?’

‘Select a fleshy part of the arm or leg that is free from veins, purify it with a swab, then pinch a portion of it and introduce the needle into the lower part of the raised portion,’ Eve recited from memory.

‘Go on, then,’ Sister Dawson said.

Eve pinched, aimed the needle, and taking a deep breath, plunged it in. She quickly injected the dose, then pulled out the needle. But it wasn’t until she was pressing a swab over the wound that she realised her mistake.

‘I forgot to let go of the pinched portion before I injected,’ she groaned.

She braced herself for a reprimand, but Sister Dawson just smiled kindly and said, ‘At least you know what you did wrong. That means you’ll remember it next time.’

‘If there is a next time.’ Eve gazed despairingly at her patient. She dreaded to think what would have happened if it had been a real person and not just a poor cushion.

‘Of course there’ll be a next time,’ Sister Dawson said. ‘You mustn’t give up, Ainsley. Remember what I told you. You have the makings of an excellent nurse.’

Except I’m never going to be one, am I? Eve thought.

She still wasn’t officially training, but Sister Dawson hadn’t given up on her. Over the three weeks since their conversation, she had slowly been giving Eve more and more responsibility, as well as demonstrating different techniques and allowing her to practise in any spare moments she had.

Eve appreciated Sister Dawson’s interest, but Cissy didn’t.

‘She’s never offered to show
me
how to do anything,’ she grumbled.

‘Perhaps she would, if you asked her?’ Eve suggested.

‘No, thanks!’ Cissy pulled a face. ‘It’s bad enough doing everything we have to do, without taking on more work. And you needn’t think you’re getting out of the dirty jobs, just because Sister’s got you giving injections and the like,’ she warned. ‘You’re not a real nurse, you know!’

‘I know that,’ Eve said quietly.

‘Just so long as you remember it,’ Cissy said. ‘And just so you don’t start getting too much above yourself, you can take that rubbish down to the stoke hole.’ She nodded towards the sack of soiled dressings leaning drunkenly against the back door.

‘Why hasn’t the porter been to collect it?’ Eve asked.

‘I don’t know, do I? Perhaps that coward Stanton’s dodging work as well as everything else these days.’

Eve felt a pang of guilt, but she stayed silent. It wasn’t her business, she told herself. And it certainly wasn’t her job to stick up for Oliver.

She went down to the basement. It was a warren of passageways, dark and low-ceilinged, opening out every now and then into a large storeroom lined with shelves. Eve’s heart was racing as she hauled the sack down the steps and into the tunnel, reeking of damp and decay. It was worse than the cellar back at the shop.

In the heart of it lay the stoke hole, a vast furnace that looked like a portal to hell. Eve hurled the sack with all her might into its fiery mouth, then turned and blundered back into the darkness, anxious to find her way to the stairs as quickly as she could.

She was still groping her way along the dark passageway when a deep-throated groan from somewhere in the shadows stopped her in her tracks.

It was her imagination, playing tricks on her again, she told herself, just as it had when she’d heard the ghost of her great-grandfather’s apprentice shuffling in the dark of the shop cellar.

She hurried on, then she heard the groan again.

‘Hello?’ she called out in the darkness, her throat so parched with fear that barely any sound emerged. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Over here.’ She didn’t know whether to be relieved or not when the voice called back.

‘Hello?’ She took a cautious step forward, craning her neck towards the sound. There was another groan, more human this time. The sound of someone in pain.

Forgetting her fear, Eve followed the twisting passage-way and found Oliver Stanton sprawled on his back on the stone floor of one of the storerooms.

Eve threw herself down next to him. ‘What happened?’

Oliver struggled to sit up, then collapsed back again with another groan of pain. In the dim light, his mouth glistened black with blood. ‘My back . . . it hurts to move.’

‘Lean on me.’ She draped his arm around her shoulders and slowly hauled him to his feet. ‘I’d better get you to Casualty . . .’

‘No!’ Once upright he seemed to regain some of his strength. He pulled away from her, releasing himself from her arm. ‘I’m all right. I was just – winded, that’s all.’

‘All the same, you need to let the doctor examine you.’

‘I told you, I’m fine,’ he snapped.

‘You don’t look it.’ Eve peered at him. ‘That’s a nasty cut on your lip. You should get it cleaned up.’

‘I’ll have a wash in the Porters’ Lodge.’

‘It might need stitches. It could get infected if you leave it.’

He sighed. ‘All right, if you insist. But I don’t want any fuss,’ he warned. ‘And I’m not sitting in the waiting room.’

Fortunately, Dr McKay was alone in his consulting room. ‘Good Lord, what happened to you?’ he asked when he saw Oliver.

‘I – smacked myself with a broom handle.’ Oliver glanced at Eve, as if daring her to contradict him. She said nothing.

‘Sounds rather painful.’ Dr McKay tipped Oliver’s head back to inspect the damage. ‘Looks it, too. You’ll need a couple of sutures in that lip, I’m afraid.’ He turned to Eve. ‘Can you clean him up for me?’

Dr McKay was summoned to give a second opinion on one of Dr Jameson’s patients, leaving them alone. Oliver succumbed to Eve’s ministrations in silence, only flinching the first time she touched the antiseptic swab to his cut lip.

‘Why did you lie to Dr McKay?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he replied through clenched teeth.

‘You didn’t smack yourself with a broom. Someone hit you, didn’t they?’ He didn’t reply. ‘Who was it? One of the porters? I bet it was that George Geoffries. I’ve seen the way he looks at you—’

‘Does it matter?’ Oliver cut her off.

She dipped another swab in the antiseptic and dabbed at his mouth. The blood had started to congeal, but his lips had swollen badly. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t lose any teeth,’ she commented.

Oliver made a small grunting sound from the back of his throat. It sounded like a pained laugh.

‘He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it,’ Eve said.

Oliver sent her a pitying look. ‘Who’s going to punish a man for hitting a conchie? Most people would give him a pat on the back. Like your friend Cissy, for instance.’

He was right, Eve thought. Cissy would think it was all a great joke.

‘Anyway, I can’t blame people for resenting me,’ Oliver went on. ‘They’ve all got loved ones fighting, and they’re worried about them.’

‘That doesn’t make it right to go around hitting people!’

‘Maybe not. But to understand all is to forgive all.
Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner
, as the French would say.’

‘So you’re just going to turn the other cheek?’

‘That’s what my father would advise.’

That doesn’t make it right either, Eve thought. ‘So why aren’t you fighting?’ she asked.

‘I don’t believe in killing my fellow man,’ he said simply.

‘Don’t you think it’s right that we should stop Hitler?’

‘Of course. I think he’s a tyrant, but that doesn’t mean I want to take the lives of hundreds and thousands of innocent Germans. They’re not my enemy.’

Eve frowned, considering his words.

‘You’ve gone very quiet,’ he said. ‘I daresay you think I’m a poor sort, not going off to do my bit for my country?’

‘It’s none of my business.’

‘That’s not what your friend Cissy would say. She’d be furious if she could see you now, tending to my wounds.’

‘You’re a patient. It’s my job.’ Eve paused for a moment. ‘You should stand up for yourself,’ she said.

‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ Oliver said quietly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You let Cissy bully you.’

‘I don’t! Cissy and I get on well together.’

‘So long as you’re doing everything you’re told.’

Colour scalded Eve’s cheeks. She wanted to deny it, but she knew it was true.

The door swung open and Dr McKay came back in. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said breezily. ‘Now, where were we?’

‘I’ve just finished, Doctor.’ Eve stepped back for Dr McKay to examine the wound.

‘Jolly good. Let’s see about getting you stitched up, shall we?’

Dr McKay was quick and skilful, and finished the job in a matter of minutes. ‘There,’ he said. ‘With any luck you shouldn’t have too much of a scar. Just be more careful about getting into a fight with brooms in future. Or anyone else, for that matter,’ he added.

He knew, Eve thought, seeing the doctor’s thoughtful look. Oliver’s lie hadn’t fooled him either.

Outside, in the passageway, Oliver said, ‘We’d better leave separately. Don’t want your friend seeing us together, do we? She might not approve.’

Eve was about to argue, then gave up. He was right, she thought. But how could she ever explain to him that she was used to doing as everyone wanted because it was safer for her that way? Oliver was so courageous, standing up for his beliefs, he would never have understood.