The Nightingale Girls

CHAPTER Twenty-Four



BLAKE, THE MALE Orthopaedic ward, was as cavernous as a cathedral, with high, echoing ceilings and tall windows on either side. A strong smell of disinfectant hung in the air.

Beds lined the walls, about thirty in total, stretching the length of the ward. Nurses darted to and fro, some in the striped uniforms of students, one or two in the royal blue of staff nurses. Dora wondered if she would ever be that efficient or confident. She certainly didn’t feel like it at that moment.

Down the centre of the ward were various cupboards, trolleys and pieces of equipment, with Sister’s desk at the far end.

‘What do we do?’ she whispered to Katie.

‘Go and say hello, I suppose. Oh, God, there’s Bridget. Don’t catch her eye, whatever you do.’

Dora’s legs felt like jelly as she walked down the length of the ward, her stout shoes squeaking on the highly polished linoleum. Katie followed behind, nose stuck in the air, staring straight ahead of her.

Dora could feel the men’s eyes following them speculatively.

‘Aye-aye, a couple of new ones. This should be fun,’ she heard one of them say to another. ‘What do you think?’

‘The dark one’s pretty. I like ’em with a bit of meat on their bones.’

‘Not sure about the ginger one, though. She looks as if she’d put up too much of a fight!’

Sister Blake sat behind her desk in the centre of the ward, surveying her domain. She was the first ward sister Dora had ever met apart from the sisters who had marked her PTS practical. She had heard so many stories about how fierce they could be and how they regularly made nurses’ lives a misery, but Sister Blake looked nice enough.

‘Don’t look so terrified, Nurses. I’m not going to beat you with a stick. Unless you don’t come up to my standards, that is, in which case I might.’ Sister Blake was small and slim with lively brown eyes that sparkled with fun. Dark hair curled out from under her cap, which was fastened with a bow under her pointed chin. ‘That was a joke, by the way,’ she said to Katie, who looked pale enough to faint.

‘Yes, Sister.’ Katie bobbed a small curtsey, which seemed to amuse Sister Blake.

‘Since this is your first day on the wards, you’ll need to know who you’ll be working with. My name is Frances Wallace, but you must always refer to me as Sister or Sister Blake. Then there are two staff nurses on this ward, O’Hara and Martin. Although I don’t suppose I need to tell you that, do I?’ Her brown eyes twinkled as she looked at Katie. who kept her gaze on the floor, too terrified to meet her eye.

‘The staff nurses are the sister’s second-in-command. They are in charge when I am not here, so you must take orders from them.’ Dora heard Katie’s faint groan. ‘Below the staff nurses are the students. These range from seniors, who are in their last year of training, down to pros like yourselves. We have another student starting today. Her name is Pritchard and she is in the set above yours, as I’m sure she will make clear to you.’ Sister smiled. ‘We all have our own duties to do, but our main concern is the welfare of our patients. So please don’t wait to be asked. If you see a patient who needs help or a job that needs to be done, tell me or one of the staff nurses immediately. Now, are there any questions?’

She looked from one to the other of them. Dora and Katie exchanged sidelong looks and both shook their heads.

‘Goodness, I’ve never seen students so quiet,’ Sister Blake commented. ‘I suppose your first time on the ward can be rather daunting.’

You’re telling me, Dora thought. She hardly dared look round at all the beds. For the first time it struck her these were real people, and she was supposed to care for them.

‘Remember, no one is expecting you to know everything,’ Sister Blake went on. ‘If you have a problem, or you need to know something, please ask. We are here to help you become the best nurses you can be, and you can’t do that unless you learn.’

‘She seems nice,’ Dora said, as she and Katie headed back down the ward to the sluice with their work lists for the day. As Katie had predicted, their chores mainly consisted of washing bedpans and cleaning lavatories.

‘Don’t let appearances fool you,’ Katie replied wisely. ‘Bridget reckons she can be as snappy as the rest of them if things aren’t done her way. Ah, here we are.’ She pushed open the door to the sluice. ‘Welcome to our new home for the next three months. Fat lot we’ll learn in here, washing bedpans!’

The sluice room was freezing. February had brought grey skies and frost, and the wind whistled through the open grating that covered the high window. Pritchard, the other pro, was already at the sink, rinsing out a bedpan under the tap. She was gangly, with buck teeth and spectacles.

‘Thank God you’re here.’ She thrust the bedpan at Dora. ‘You can take over with these while I go and finish the round.’

‘What are we supposed to do with them?’

‘Empty them down that sink, of course, and then wash them out. And be sure you do it properly,’ she added bossily. ‘I’ll be back to take the clean ones out again in a minute.’

‘Listen to her! I bet she was doing all the dirty jobs herself until we came along,’ Katie said, as they unfastened their cuffs and rolled up their sleeves. ‘Now she thinks we’re her slaves.’

‘I reckon we’re everyone’s slaves.’ Dora finished washing the bedpan and turned to face the others piled up beside the door. ‘I suppose we’d better get on with this lot,’ she said dubiously.

Sister Parker had told them all about cleaning and sterilising, but she hadn’t prepared them for how awful the job would be.

‘Jesus, the smell!’ Katie pinched her nose. ‘I think I’m going to be sick!’

‘Just hold your breath.’ Bracing herself, Dora grabbed the first bedpan and swung it at arm’s length towards the big hole in the middle of the sink.

‘I’m going to close my eyes too.’ Katie picked up a bedpan and aimed it towards the sink.

‘Watch it!’ Dora jumped out of the way just in time. ‘Do you think you could keep your eyes open? That nearly went over my shoes.’

‘You two! Stop chattering.’ Staff Nurse O’Hara stood in the doorway, her arms folded. She looked like Katie, with her dark hair, round blue eyes and plump figure. But her frown was all her own. ‘You’re not in PTS now, you know. This is not the place for gossiping.’

‘Oh, go and boil your head!’ Katie muttered as her sister bustled off.

But no one had told Glenda Pritchard it wasn’t the place for gossiping. Speaking in a rushed, excitable whisper, just low enough to escape the staff nurses’ sharp ears, she kept up a constant stream of chatter to Dora and Katie as she rushed in and out with the bedpans.

‘I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I found out I was coming here. Everyone says Male Orthopaedics is the best ward. I’ve heard it’s full of handsome young men with sports injuries, all laid up with nothing to do but flirt with the nurses.’ She blushed. ‘It’s a bit different from Gynae, I can tell you. Oh, poor you, having to wash all those bedpans! I’m so glad I don’t have to do it any more. What do you think of Sister? She’s lovely, isn’t she? So much nicer than Sister Wren on Gynae. She was utterly spiteful. You’re meant to warm those bedpans under the hot tap, by the way . . .’

Dora allowed Glenda’s voice to wash over her as she got on with washing the bedpans. Her arms were pimpled with cold, and she had to grit her teeth together to stop them from chattering.

After the bedpan round, she and Katie were sent to scrub out the bathrooms and clean the patients’ lockers. Then they had to pull the beds into the middle of the ward to clean behind them.

‘I thought they had a ward maid to do the cleaning?’ she whispered to Katie.

‘They do, but the nurses still have to do a proper clean at least once a week,’ Katie replied, clattering her mop into the galvanised bucket, which earned her a sharp look from her sister Bridget.

‘Do you have to make so much noise? You’re disturbing the patients,’ she warned.

‘Look at her. Thinks she’s the Rose of Tralee.’ Katie pulled a face. ‘I wish she’d skid on this wet floor. That would give me a laugh! Is it lunchtime yet? I’m starving, and I think my back’s going to break.’

Dora was used to hard work, so the cleaning didn’t bother her. And the patients were so friendly, it made her job a lot easier. Most of them were recumbent on iron frames, or encased in plaster. Many had nothing more serious than a sports injury, while others had congenital deformities. Denied even the chance of sitting up and looking around them, they were dependent on the nurses for entertainment. They chatted to Dora as she went about her work.

Sister Blake seemed pleased with her. ‘You’re doing a good job, Doyle,’ she complimented her. ‘As you’ve probably gathered, most of the patients on this ward get rather bored and starved of excitement. They welcome a friendly face and a bit of chat. It’s a very important part of nursing, keeping their spirits up. But just be careful, some of the younger ones can get cheeky sometimes,’ she warned.

Dora didn’t understand what she meant until later that afternoon. She was carrying a pile of fresh linen from the cupboard when Mr Hubbard, a young man with a dislocated shoulder, called her over.

‘Can you spare a minute, Nurse?’ he asked.

Dora glanced around. There were no other nurses in sight.

‘Shall I fetch someone?’ she asked.

‘No, you’ll do. Could you take a look at something for me? Only I’m a bit worried.’

Dora looked around again. Sister Blake and Staff Nurse O’Hara were behind the screens with another patient. Staff Nurse Martin was in the kitchen. Even Glenda Pritchard and Katie were nowhere to be seen.

She remembered what Sister Blake had said about them all working together to help the patients. Taking a deep breath, she walked over to his bed, feeling very important in her uniform.

‘What is it you wanted me to look at?’ she asked, in her best bedside manner voice.

‘This!’ Mr Hubbard threw back the covers. He’d unfastened his pyjama bottoms to expose himself. ‘I think you should give it a close examination, Nurse.’

Dora took one look at the naked white appendage hanging there limply and jumped back in panic, sending his water jug flying. Laughter exploded all around her, ringing around the ward. Everyone was in on the joke.

‘What’s going on?’ Sister Blake appeared from behind the screens. ‘Nurse, explain yourself!’

‘I . . . I . . .’

‘Sorry, Sister, it was my fault,’ Mr Hubbard grinned, whipping the sheet back to cover himself. ‘The other lads put me up to it. We were just having a bit of a laugh with the new nurse, that’s all.’

‘Really, Mr Hubbard, that is hardly a gentlemanly thing to do to a young student on her first day!’ Sister Blake eyed him sternly. ‘Doyle is very shaken, as you can see.’

‘Sorry, Nurse.’ Mr Hubbard didn’t look at all sorry. It was all he could do to stop himself smiling. ‘It was just a joke. No harm done.’

Sister Blake turned to Dora. ‘Are you all right, Nurse?’ Dora nodded, still shaken. ‘Go and get a cloth and get this mess cleaned up. Really, Mr Hubbard, anyone would think we had nothing better to do!’

Dora rushed off to the sluice, a chorus of laughter still ringing in her ears.

She stood at the sink, trying to calm herself down. It was a joke, she told herself over and over again. Just a joke.

‘Have you got that cloth yet?’ Staff Nurse O’Hara appeared in the doorway. ‘For heaven’s sake, Doyle, don’t look so terrified. They were only having a laugh. And they’ll probably do it again, too, if they get a reaction like that out of you. You’ve got to toughen up, or you won’t last five minutes on this ward.’

Only having a laugh? Dora thought as she wrung out a cloth. Maybe it was just a bit of fun for anyone else. But for her, it brought back too many horrible memories ever to be funny.