Sail Upon the Land (5 page)

Sarah’s desk was at the far end of the Long Gallery, behind a screen to prevent her reading light from disturbing the sleeping officers. She was now quite used to nursing in her former family home. In another life, she and her brothers had played sliding games on the wide polished oak boards when it had been too wet to go outside. The portraits that had hung there of other people’s relations, purchased by her great-grandfather Big George Bourne, were in storage. The oak panelling had been painted in hygienic green gloss and the boards covered in washable linoleum.

The smells she remembered from her childhood, of lavender and beeswax furniture polish, wood smoke and her father William’s occasional cigar, had been replaced with carbolic and Virginia tobacco. Convalescing officers were not on the critical list and required only light nursing and supervision at night. In the day they were all up, dressed and having rehabilitation including occupational exercises. Many were limbless, but that didn’t stop them from grabbing her if she came too close, and she was used to dodging the more persistent. She knew she just had to put up with the attempted groping and be nippy on her feet, but it did make her cross. She kept it very quiet that Abbots Bourne was her family home.

Her father and mother were living in an estate house for the duration, far enough away for her visits to them not to be obvious to the other VADs. She was keen to make friends and merge into the background. It secretly gave her a lot of pleasure that the house was being put to such good use, instead of simply dwarfing the PGs and her parents. The high ceilings and enormous windows let healthy fresh air circulate, instead of seeming absurdly over-large. The park offered the officers plenty of opportunities for exercise.

The doctors, whose advances might be more welcome than the patients’ lunges, treated the VADs with strict professionalism. There was one who attracted her, Dr Reeves, but his lordly way of sweeping through the wards was off-putting. When he did his rounds, it was up to her to follow him, taking instructions, updating charts and removing dressings for his examinations. He hardly seemed to notice her except when issuing orders. Once, they had both bent down to pick up a dropped clipboard at the same time, and bumped heads when they straightened up. Her cap slipped sideways, and her long straight fair hair, which always resisted hairpins when clean, came tumbling down around her face. He had stopped, looked at her and smiled, turning away politely as she twisted it up and pinned her cap back into place.

Reading in the peace of the night shift, she was relieved that she wasn’t in London any more, where so many nights had been spent stuffing the patients under beds to protect them when the sirens went off. It might have helped them avoid flying glass, but she had doubted it would do any good if there was a direct hit, and it had been much more difficult to dodge the groping in the fevered rush. Even some of the most poorly seemed unduly stimulated by her starched bosom with its little red cross. She’d had to wear a tin hat during raids too, which had given her a headache.

She heard footsteps outside her curtain.

‘Hello? Do you need something?’ she whispered, thinking it was one of the officers. The more active convalescents were given a late pass and went to the pub.

‘Good evening, nurse. Sorry to disturb you. It’s Dr Reeves, I just need to check up on the new patient. I was a little worried about how his leg was healing, and I didn’t find the time to look in earlier.’

The doctors never came near the ward at night. But she shrugged and stood up, pulling aside the curtain to greet him properly, prepared to help in any way she could. He was just outside, in uniform, looking quite unlike his usual busy, lofty, white-coated self. She could see that he was younger than she had thought and that he had a nice smile, which she’d noticed when they bumped heads.

‘Do you need me?’ she asked.

‘Oh, no. I’ll just go down there and see him, if you don’t mind?’

Mind? None of the senior staff cared a jot what the VADs thought about anything. She was slightly flustered.

As he set off into the gloom of the enormous room, she found herself murmuring, ‘Would you like a cup of tea? There’s a drop of milk left from earlier and even some sugar.’

He stopped and turned back towards her.

‘Yes, please. If it isn’t too much trouble. But I don’t want to use up your ration.’

‘No, no trouble at all. I don’t take sugar anyway.’

She went to the sluice that had been built into an old lavatory on the landing, where a gas ring had been fitted, and put the kettle on, watching it to make sure it didn’t whistle and disturb any of the sleeping officers. There was a stir of excitement in her stomach at the thought of having tea with a doctor. Dr Reeves was by far the most attractive and eligible man on the staff. The other two doctors were a retired orthopaedic consultant, brought back to work by the war, and a tall, thin, sandy chap in his thirties, with a wife and three very small children. Of course, there were plenty of officers, but they were her patients, and though she knew other VADs went out with patients, there was an invisible wall between them and her.

She was relieved to see that there was enough of the tea ration left to make a large pot, so she wrapped it in a tea towel to keep it hot, and put it on a tray with cups, milk and sugar. Switching off the dim light, she walked back into the ward as quietly as she could. There he was, bending over her logbook and sitting in her chair. As he heard her come in, he stood up and looked down into her eyes. The effect of his gaze was unexpected. She had seen him every day on the ward, preoccupied and professional. Now he looked softer, a bit hopeful. He wasn’t handsome like Gary Cooper, but pleasing to look at, with a nose that looked as if it had been broken, thick brown hair combed back from a high square forehead, pale grey eyes and a wide, smiling mouth.

‘I’ll go and get another chair,’ he said, going off into the gloom of the ward. Putting the tea tray down, she poured and stirred. He came back and waited until she had sat down to do likewise, and she handed him his cup. Did his fingers touch the backs of hers as she passed him the saucer?

‘Miss Bourne, isn’t it?’ He spoke as quietly as he could and she needed to bend near him to hear.

‘Yes. But do call me Sarah.’ The war had brought a welcome relaxation in formality.

‘I have a confession to make. I didn’t need to see a patient. I wanted to see you.’

‘Oh.’ She clapped a hand across her mouth, staring at him. She was not used to gentle politeness. Grab first, talk afterwards was the wartime protocol of the hospitals she had worked in. Going out with the other girls during the blackout had been equally hazardous. She assumed all men had abandoned the art of courtship in the rough atmosphere of ‘I might be dead tomorrow, dear, so you must be kind to me now’. But even gentle courtship gained a sense of urgency in wartime.

He took her hand in his and she returned the pressure.

‘Do you mind if I turn off the light? It’s just if the night matron comes round, I don’t want to get you into trouble.’

Her heart sank, but then all he did was sit and hold her hand, sipping his tea as they whispered to each other about what would happen when the war was over. For her, a proper nurse’s training at St Saviour’s Hospital in London. He told her his father was a successful GP in Dorking and there had always been a plan for him to enter the practice interrupted by the war. They made a date for when she was off the night shift in a week’s time, and then he left her without even a kiss.

When she woke at dawn with her face creased by its logbook pillow, she was ashamed of dropping off, and wondered if it had all been a dream. But the next night he came to see her again.

She slipped gently down a soft hill into something like love, laughing at herself for being so susceptible. It had never happened before so she wasn’t quite sure.

Sarah stood on the quay with baby Melissa in her arms, trembling in the sea wind. Seagulls caught in the fitful sunlight overhead turned to silver as they dipped and swayed in the moving air. Melissa’s blue velvet bonnet with its white frill kept the chill from her small ears. She wore a blue wool coat that Sarah had made for her, double-breasted with a velvet collar. On her legs were fawn woollen leggings, one soft foot perkily flexed, the other twisted inwards. Her right hand clutched her mother’s lapel. She sucked her left thumb and gazed around with blue eyes. The breeze tugged at Sarah’s small gold straw hat not secured quite as firmly as she’d hoped to her short permed hair. She dared not let go of Melissa to check its moorings.

Arthur had left them to see about a porter for their luggage and now returned, waving as he glimpsed his wife and child. ‘We can board now if you like,’ he said. Their trunks had gone into the hold the night before, plastered with bright yellow ‘Not Wanted on Voyage’ labels, and filled with anything Sarah and Melissa might conceivably need for their long stay in America.

The quay was crowded, for it was RMS
Caronia
’s maiden voyage. The Southampton Municipal Band played lively airs from the musicals, and a roped-off area corralled the mayor and corporation. Sarah caught a glimpse of stout men standing in a row, heads cocked, unnatural sideways handshakes at the ready, posing for the press photographer. The quay was a carnival of joyful faces and happy laughter. Sarah felt separated from it all, hoping only that they were doing right by crossing the ocean to seek help for their baby.

The Reeves and Bourne families had said goodbye at home, not wanting a great fuss. Others were not so restrained, and each passenger seemed attended by a horde of well-wishers keen to have a look round the Green Goddess, as they were calling the
Caronia
. Arthur walked slightly ahead of Sarah, to make room for her to move with the baby and not be jostled. They approached B Gangway, one of four penetrating the hull at different levels all along its flank, and allowing the first few passengers to disappear into the ship’s decks. The great shining new hull rose up beside Sarah like a green wave punctuated by five tiers of portholes, an anchor crouched like a spider in the bows. She feared that the ship’s flank might topple and crush her and held Melissa more closely in her arms. Daunted by the taut nerves that dogged her recent transformation from woman to mother, only Arthur’s love made it all bearable. Her courage had peeled away leaving her raw. She needed her man to protect her now and yet they would have to be apart for so long while she was in America.

If she could choose, she would not be here on the quay at all but at home safely cocooned with her little Lissy Lamb. As he was a doctor, Arthur had been able to stay with her while Melissa was born. Holding her hand and kissing her forehead, he had reassured her immediately the baby was delivered.

‘She’s perfect, darling. A little girl.’ The midwife had taken her up, wrapping her in a white cotton cloth, whisking her away to have all bloody, greasy clues to her origins inside her mother’s body removed. Then she came back, washed, dressed and fit for society, to be placed in Sarah’s arms.

‘Melissa,’ said Sarah, looking at the small pink face. ‘My Lissy Lamb.’

Only later had Arthur formally diagnosed her talipes or club foot. And it was her left foot, her right was unaffected. Her Lissy Lamb’s little hoof. She had been momentarily dismayed but so in love that nothing could shake her. But she could not bear to think of that tiny foot, with its dimpled sole and miniature toes like pink broad beans, being cut to straighten it out, and begged her husband to find some alternative to surgery. He took Sarah and Melissa up to London to consult an old friend from medical school who was now a professor of orthopaedics at University College Hospital. He produced a medical journal from the US describing the work of a Spanish doctor who had taken refuge in Iowa after the Spanish Civil War. Traditional surgical methods could lead to pain and stiffness in later life. Dr Ponseti manipulated the little feet to reposition them while they were still soft and malleable, setting them in plaster to hold the new and improved position. It was all completely novel, there were no guarantees, but Arthur said the physiological argument was sound and it could be the answer.

Arthur wrote to Dr Ponseti, who had received funding and was delighted to welcome the daughter of an English doctor on to his list. It seemed vital to both of them to tackle the problem before Melissa even tried to walk.

Arthur employed a locum to look after his practice for the necessary month while he took his wife and child to America and saw for himself what was to be done. If all went according to plan, he intended to leave Sarah and Melissa with Dr Ponseti for the required four months and come home. The clinic staff had offered free accommodation, as spreading the word internationally about the Ponseti method was important and there were severe restrictions on taking currency abroad.

The family had never been away on holiday, not even on a proper honeymoon. So Arthur had taken a first class cabin on the new liner to celebrate their marriage and the birth of their long-awaited first child.

At the top of the gangplank a young purser looked at their tickets and referred them to one of a row of smiling stewardesses, who stepped forward, saying she was there to escort them to their cabin and settle them in. Sarah was struck by how much her starched linen headdress resembled what she herself had worn as a VAD during the war. She looked like Matron, only friendly. Matron, in her many manifestations throughout Sarah’s war, had always been a gorgon.

‘We’ve organised a sea cot for little miss, as ordered. Shall I take her for you?’

Melissa took one look at the stewardess’s outstretched arms and turned a wailing face into Sarah’s bosom.

‘There, darling. It’s OK. I won’t let you go, don’t worry,’ she cooed into her baby’s neck, glancing apologetically at the stewardess. They had hardly been apart since the baby was born. Sarah had no intention of employing a nanny, preferring to lose herself in the all-consuming rituals of caring for her baby. Her mother had sighed more than once in her hearing: ‘I always find women who look after their own children get rather untidy and disorganised. Boring for their husbands too.’ She hadn’t wanted to slap her mother for years but she did then.