Chapter Five
Dr Henning never woke with a start, and I wondered if he ever really slept.
When there were surgeries, Matron would find a sister or a nurse to assist (dragged from her bed and reluctant) or she would step in.
On these days the ward was all movement and noise, with the to-and-fro of men going in and out of surgery, the sounds as they awoke and realised what was missing; the orderlies bearing stretchers and removing waste; the surgeon; a sister or trained nurse; a chaplain, occasionally, if one was available.
(So many Germans died without prayers, though Dr Henning tried to fill the gap. He thought it mattered.)
They were all the same, those days. Dr Henning would do his doctoring and I would nurse and our paths would barely cross.
Occasionally, I would stand at the trough in the storeroom and listen to the sounds on the other side of the wall.
If the German-speaking surgeon was in there, I would hear them talking like colleagues and imagine all the normal exchanges: questions and answers of a professional sort, smiles and nods.
I don’t know if that is what transpired – I still found the language harsh and the German-speaking surgeon may have been demanding or reprimanding – but I remembered the pat on the back that first day.
Other surgeons came less often. None spoke German and the English they used with Dr Henning was efficient or aggressive. One was friendly but Dr Henning offered him little – he would answer but never ask, like a shy child, I thought at the time. Like a prisoner, I think now.
‘Are you married?’ the friendly surgeon asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And children?’
I couldn’t hear the response.
On days when there were no surgeries, there would sometimes be no sister. I would get a handover when I came on the ward at seven and be left to fend for myself until Dr Henning was delivered a few hours later. I would take receipt of him, like a parcel.
It was always awkward. The prisoner would arrive, I would nod my assent and the Redcap would release his arm.
The prisoner would go to the storeroom and a minute later Dr Henning would come out onto the ward.
I noted the details. A white coat, a stethoscope, a gold watch – a doctor like any other.
A flop of hair the colour of oatmeal, a gold chain just visible around his neck, a gold ring on his right finger – a man with a wife.
Clogs – a German. Blue trousers – a prisoner, after all.
And what of me? Did Dr Henning note the details, did he write them down?
Not then. Of that I’m sure.
It was a surgery day. There’d been a push and the Allies had made some ground.
A trench of Germans had been captured. Most were well enough and had been sent to the prisoners’ camp, but there were sufficient injuries to fill all the spare beds on the German ward.
The worst were an abdomen, a lung, a face.
We had tried to kill them but they didn’t die, so now we try to save them.
How insane, I wrote. Others had also been brought; I forget how many because I recorded them as seven toes, three feet, and two above knee. Amputations. Body parts, not men.
The German-speaking surgeon had gone for scones in the medical officers’ mess. He’d left the toes and feet for Dr Henning. Matron assisted.
When it was done, she made tea. She took three china cups from the shelf near the desk and poured it weak. She passed me one cup and nodded towards the storeroom.
‘For the Hun,’ she said.
He was sitting on the chair in the clean corner.
The back of his head rested on a pile of folded sheets and his eyes were closed, his neck exposed.
I could slit it, I thought. His hands were in his lap, pink from scrubbing.
He’d removed his operating gown and was now PG29.
I wonder if he knows how vulnerable he is?
I wrote later in the journal. On the end of the gold chain around his neck there is a gold cross. Maybe he thinks it will protect him.
I cleared my throat.
He opened his eyes. Not another muscle seemed to move and I sensed his fear. It passed quickly and he rose from the chair.
‘Tea, Dr Henning.’ I held it out. The china cup on a china saucer. ‘I hope you like it weak.’
He said nothing, but he took hold of the saucer, making an effort not to touch my fingers with his and succeeding.
Though there was something, that phantom touch of my own making.
Then the china began to tinkle and I saw a tremor in his hand.
He steadied the cup with his other and sat back down in the chair.
‘You’re welcome, of course,’ I said.
He ignored me.
‘You’re wasting your time.’ Matron was writing patient notes and didn’t bother to look up.
‘I don’t know what you’re referring to.’
‘He is not inclined to conversation.’
‘Have you tried?’
‘I am not inclined to conversation.’
‘What’s the harm?’
She looked up. ‘What kind of conversation do you think he would like to have with you, Nurse Taylor?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. We could talk about the weather. The recent deluge, the stinking humidity, all the rotting feet.’
‘Fascinating. Anything else?’
But I could not think of anything.
She sighed, and a long morning in the surgery showed on her face. ‘He is useful, nurse. A resource we might not otherwise have. Please don’t distract him with conversations about the weather.’
It was easier said than done. The German ward was less convivial than other wards.
There was less banter with patients and fewer staff to gossip with.
If the sister on duty saw herself more as a prison guard than a nurse, then my shift would be long and dreary.
Dr Henning might not have cared for my conversation but he had become a nut to crack and I found myself looking forward to the shifts we shared, to the moments of possibility when a professional interaction might turn into something more.
I would have been happy to talk about the weather.
It was a few days before we shared another shift. Dr Henning had been delivered and the relief I’d felt was already turning to frustration. He barely spoke to me and never looked me in the eye.
There was an instruction to help him with a boy whose wound was not healing.
It might have come from the sister or it might have come from him.
I didn’t write it down and it doesn’t really matter, but I remember standing beside him, holding a dish with forceps and tweezers, scissors and dressings, suture needles and thread.
For a long time he required none of it and I watched as he debrided the wound.
He was bent to his task and his fringe fell forward so I could not see his face.
I wanted to push the hair back and the thought of doing it made my skin prickle.
I was suddenly hot, unsettlingly so, and the air in the ward felt thick.
The kidney dish I was holding clashed to the floor and I thought that I might follow.
Perhaps he did too. He looked up from the boy to me. He put down his scalpel and put out his hand.
‘Nurse!’ That sister was quick with her reprimands. He withdrew his hand.
I crouched to gather the mess and he leaned down to help. He reached for the forceps that had slid under the bed.
‘Don’t,’ I said, too harshly. I needed him away.
He put the forceps in the dish and left me to gather the rest.
I laid my palms flat on the bare wooden floor and felt the heat become tepid and the prickle become dull.
I missed them as soon as they were gone and scanned my body for some other sensation that might recall them.
I felt an unevenness beneath my hand, a sliver of wood.
I moved to cover it with the fatty pad below my little finger.
I took a deep breath and drove the sliver in.