Chapter Two
Two
The door of the German ward closed behind me and I regretted sending Iso on her way.
It is like any other ward, I counselled myself, though I did not move forward.
It smelled, more of bodies than disinfectant, and I guessed the laundry bag was full of the night’s spoils.
Bare light bulbs hung along the spine of the hut, but only a few were illuminated.
Their arcs of yellow light did not quite meet, leaving shadows at regular intervals.
Daylight would fix that, I thought. It would seep through the windows and reveal more of the rough wooden floor and the stains that no amount of scrubbing had been able to clean.
I knew what those stains were and looked up.
I peered beyond the arcs of light to the desk near the other end of the ward. It was empty.
Be early, I’d been told by the sister who’d interviewed me.
Sister Clare was pretty, petite and cheerful. ‘You were recommended for the position,’ she said.
‘Recommended?’
‘A euphemism, really.’
‘For what?’
‘There have been complaints.’
‘Let me guess, Sister Morgan – not enough starch in my collar.’
She laughed. ‘More or less.’
‘Really?’
Sister Clare rifled through some papers and recited, ‘Her uniform is poorly laundered.’
‘And that recommends me?’
‘No.’ She rifled through the papers again, stopping to read from one, then another, then another.
The handwriting, I noticed, was all the same.
‘She is too independent; she does not wait for instruction; she is wont to argue; her hair is barely contained; she wears rouge and occasionally lipstick, against regulation.’
Sister Clare looked up, enquiringly.
‘It’s all true,’ I said.
She was more amused than I expected.
‘Independence is an excellent thing in the right circumstances,’ she said, ‘and we all wear a little rouge on occasion. This place has a way of draining you of colour.’
‘I don’t think she wears rouge,’ I said.
‘Who?’
I nodded at the pile of papers. ‘Your informer, Sister Morgan.’
Sister Clare closed the file and folded her hands on top. ‘No, I don’t think she does.’ There was a pause as she considered me. ‘There are others.’
‘Complaints?’
‘Let’s just say reports. Sometimes it’s a matter of perspective.’
I waited.
‘You’ve moved around a bit since you arrived,’ she said.
‘All those reports, I suspect.’
Sister Clare opened the file again and read, ‘Medical, surgical, infectious diseases.’
‘The syphilis ward,’ I laughed. ‘If they were issued condoms instead of a bible—’
She interrupted, ‘Your views on this have been noted. Whatever the reason for your varied placements, it has resulted in a breadth of experience uncommon for a VAD and, as a consequence, Matron Livingstone believes you will be a good fit for the German ward. It is a general ward, takes all-comers.’
‘Matron Livingstone?’
She registered my concern and was again amused. ‘Oh yes. All staff for the German ward need to be approved by the matron, especially the VADs.’
‘She doesn’t work on the German ward, surely?’ Since arriving at étaples I had managed to avoid the matron. ‘She’d be too busy.’
‘Far too busy,’ said Sister Clare.
I relaxed and let my reservations about nursing Germans fall away. I focused instead on the idea of spending time with Sister Clare – pretty, petite and cheerful. ‘And do you think I’ll be a good fit?’ I asked.
‘I do, as a matter of fact. I think you’ll be a perfect fit. We will start you on the day shift. If it works out, you’ll be put on a rotating roster.’
‘If it works out?’
‘If you prove yourself capable.’
‘Of what?’
‘Whatever is required.’ She smiled, then checked her diary. ‘Two weeks today, first of August. Be early, there’s a lot to explain.’
So I’d come early, but there was no sign of Sister Clare, no sign of anyone, though the beds were full. Of Germans. Prisoners. The enemy, every one.
I kept close to the door, one hand behind me pressed against its surface, ready to push it open and escape.
How often had I done that in the past? How often had I scanned a room and made a judgement, every fibre of my body alert?
I counted thirty beds, fifteen each side, two with privacy screens, four with frames and pulleys to support shattered femurs.
It was similar to other wards at 24 General, though a mix of medical and surgical – the sick and the broken.
More than enough work for a sister and one VAD, I’d been told.
Far more, I thought. There were two stoves, one on the left and one on the right, offset to spread the heat that would be sorely needed when the winter came.
I wondered if I’d still be there. At the end of the ward, on my left, was the storeroom, and I already knew what it would contain.
Note the detail, I thought, my hand still on the door behind me, my imagination full of propaganda. The Hun is at the gate, it rang, A crazed and driven foe. Note the detail, I thought again. The detail sometimes helped.
There would be shelves of linen, pyjamas, surgical gowns and caps, aprons.
There would be bowls, kidney dishes, tweezers and the like; there would be bedpans and urinals, hot water bottles, cups, straws.
There would be boxes of supplies (gauze, wool dressings, bandages, gloves) and a drugs cupboard (morphia, strychnia, ether, chloroform).
There would be glycerine, iodine and Dakin’s solution.
There would be a small steam steriliser, a primus stove, a kettle and a tray with a few teacups.
There would be a laundry bag (full, obviously), metal bins with tight-fitting lids for all manner of waste (also full, no doubt, and I wondered when the orderlies would arrive or if I was expected to do that work too).
There would be a trough with cold running water, the shelf above with disinfectant and soap (Sunlight and carbolic).
There would be hand cream. I hoped there would be hand cream.
Was the storeroom door open or closed? From that angle and so far away, I couldn’t tell.
The nurses’ station was on the right, just beyond the row of beds and comfortingly close to the second stove.
In its dormancy, the stove was being used as a plinth for a vase of flowers.
Iso would have made quick work of them – pencilled stems grown limp at the top and curving under the weight of mauve crayon.
Even from where I stood I could see it was lavender.
It had been planted all around the camp, for morale, but also to keep the sandy soil from blowing through the wards.
It was easy to grow and, unlike young men, hard to kill.
Behind the stove with the flowers, and the desk which remained empty, the detail was low and hidden.
I imagined a locked cabinet, some shelving, a trolley half filled for the morning round, maybe a comfortable chair in the far right corner for when things were quiet.
That made me laugh; things were so rarely quiet.
At the far end of the ward was another door. A small surgery, I’d been told, where German limbs were amputated and German bowels resected and German hearts massaged until they restarted, or not. You might be asked to assist, I was told. Would you have the stomach for that?
It won’t be the first time, I’d said. Which wasn’t an answer.
The details helped and my pulse slowed. I became aware of movement and sound; bodies are noisy things, and the ward reminded me of all the old theatres I’d worked in – their creaking boards and hissing gaslight.
The gurgle and cough of water pipes and heaters.
I cast an eye over the beds and a few eyes looked back, but most did not.
No one jumped up to hold a knife to my throat.
The shadows on the ward were lightening and the men were waking; they were murmuring and moaning.
Like birds, dawn roused them. I looked more closely.
In their pyjamas and bandages they might have been English or Canadian or Australian.
They were harmless, and I felt foolish. Even so, when a doctor emerged from the storeroom it was a relief to know I was not alone.
I found I could move. I let go of the door and stepped forward.
The doctor was looking down, doing up the buttons of his white coat. When he looked up and saw me, he hesitated, then looked away. Typical, I thought.
I watched him walk to one of the beds on my left where a pale boy lay among pale sheets.
He put a hand to the boy’s forehead then cupped the boy’s cheek.
If he’d leaned in and kissed the boy’s forehead, I would not have been surprised.
But he didn’t lean in and I realised that his fingers were resting against the soft skin just below the boy’s jaw.
The place where life comes closest to the surface, where its pulse is most easily felt.
‘Nurse Taylor.’ A woman’s voice from the doorway behind me.
I turned, expecting to see Sister Clare. But it was Matron Livingstone with a large box in her arms.
We’d never spoken directly, but she was a formidable presence in 24 General.
Everyone knew who she was and hoped she knew little of them.
Now she stood just a few feet from me and I was impressed by her size – my height, a little taller perhaps, and broader.
Statuesque, without a doubt. I had an urge to step back, which was rare, and I resisted.
She noticed and raised an eyebrow, amused.
‘Matron Livingstone, I presume.’ I hadn’t meant to say it, of course – who in their right mind would? I fixed my face so regret wouldn’t show.
We stood for a second while she considered her options. She decided to laugh.
‘They all think it, but no one has had the guts to say it, until now.’ She looked down at the box in her arms, then back up at me. ‘I was told you had initiative, Nurse Taylor.’