SEVENTEEN
Caspar Myles pushed home the last of the eight syringes of the citrated blood through the rubber tube and the glass cannula and into Sergeant Shipobottom’s median basilic vein. Behind him, Miss Pippery hovered, ready to take the transfusion kit, strip it down, and sterilize it.
‘Almost there,’ he said to the one-eyed man. ‘Feel all right so far?’
‘Aye,’ said Shipobottom, although there was a small film of sweat on his top lip. Myles was well aware that introduction of blood might well cause a temporary reaction. Watson had acted as if he were the only man to have ever heard of the blood transfusion technique.
‘Now, we’ve had news that your unit has been told they’ll stay at the rest area for a few days of petit repos. I suspect some of your chums will be in to see you.’
‘Lieutenant Metcalf already came. Bit early for my liking, but he’s a good lad.’
‘Excellent. Well, with a bit of luck, next time you’ll be looking back at him with two good eyes. OK?’
‘Aw reet, Doctor.’
‘Aw reet, Sergeant,’ Myles mimicked in reply. ‘Now, Miss Pippery here – is that right? Miss Pippery?’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
He knew her name perfectly well, but enjoyed the way her eyes flicked down to avoid his gaze when he asked it. ‘Miss Pippery will be looking after you until Dr Watson returns from his hush-hush trip to Brigade. You might feel somewhat warm, perhaps a tad breathless. Tell Miss Pippery if that is the case. We’ve put extra blood in, so your heart might need to pump a little harder. It’s like any machine given an extra load to carry. And we’ve put in someone else’s blood, so there might be a tiny reaction to that.’
Shipobottom said something in his mangled version of English that Myles couldn’t understand. Judging by Miss Pippery’s look of bafflement, it was a mystery to her, too.
‘Good man,’ he said and tapped the sergeant’s leg under the bedcovers. He removed the cannula, swabbed at the welling of blood, then put on a wad of cotton wool and a gauze covering, held in place by sticking plaster.
‘Right, Miss Pippery. I have my rounds in the men’s post-op tent. Can I leave you to . . . ?’
‘Of course, Dr Myles.’
‘You’re in charge.’
She wished Mrs Gregson were there, but she was determined not to show that. It would do her good to have a little independence. Everything she had come to – motorcycling, the suffragettes’ fundraising, nursing – she had come to through Mrs Gregson. ‘That widow woman is a bad influence,’ her bank manager father had said. ‘No good will come of it.’ Although he later grudgingly admitted to being proud of his daughter’s war work.
‘I’ll be back later, Miss Pippery.’
They watched Myles leave and, as soon as the tent flap had dropped back into place, Shipobottom repeated himself, speaking slowly to be certain he was understood. ‘Whose blood were it then?’
Miss Pippery began to collect up the detritus of the transfusion. ‘Oh, we don’t keep a record of names. Only of the blood type and date.’
‘So could be any bugger’s?’
Miss Pippery had come across this before. There would be a prejudice against having a transfusion of fluid taken from Jews or Catholics – her own persuasion – or even anyone with a vaguely German(or indeed foreign-) sounding name. She had even seen one soldier in the base hospital, on discovering that the donor had been a ‘kike’, insist they take out the half-litre of blood they had put in, as if it could be isolated once it had been swept through arteries and capillaries.
‘What are you worried about, Sergeant? It’s all good British blood, collected from our own soldiers.’
‘Aye, that’s as mebe. But when we did t’in Egypt, we was all pals. From same town. We all knew where each other had been, like. I jus’ wan’ yous t’promise me one thing.’
‘What’s that, Sergeant?’
‘’Tain’t from no Yorkshireman.’