A Nurse's Duty (16 page)

The doctor and Karen took less than a second to spring into action but they were closely followed by the priest who had evidently summed up the situation and moved in to help. Karen and Doctor Clarke each took one side of Nick Harvey and pulled him off the other patient. He struggled all the while but somehow they managed, with Father Murphy’s help, to get him back into his own bed. Karen murmured soothingly all the while, hardly knowing what she was saying. At last they had him there, sitting on the edge, quiet for the moment and unsure of himself. Blinking rapidly, he looked from one to the other of them making no effort to lie down or fight to get away again.

Karen looked for the VAD to help her get him comfortably back under the bed clothes but Nurse Jennings was standing well out of range of Nick Harvey, wringing her hands, shocked to the core by his violence.

‘Come along now, old chap,’ Father Murphy said softly, his voice calm and reassuring. He bent over Nick and put a hand on his shoulder ‘I’ll help you into bed, shall I? No one’s going to send you back, you know. You’ll make yourself worse if you don’t get some rest.’

Karen looked up at him. She had almost forgotten the Father’s presence. He appeared so calm and understanding, she thought to herself, almost as though this was an everyday experience for him. Nick Harvey looked at him too, staring at the pleasant handsome face above the clerical collar.

The private relaxed visibly, his shoulders sagging, and allowed himself to be tucked up in bed once more – only to spring up again as he heard Doctor Clarke speak. ‘The sedative, Sister.’

Grabbing the bottle which Karen had put down in the melee, Nick Harvey raised it in self-protection. But the priest stood his ground, talking softly and persuasively, and Karen slipped away to fill the hypodermic syringe with a bromide.

‘No!’

He had seen the syringe and tried to rise, dropping the bottle as he did so. But he was caught on either side by the two men, who forced him back on the bed and tried to hold him steady.

‘I’ll hold his legs. You lie on top of him, Father. Then we should be able to hold him still long enough for Sister to administer the sedative. Quickly now, Sister, in the thigh.’

Father Murphy did not hesitate but it took all his strength to hold down the patient without hurting him, even though the doctor was hanging on to his legs. Karen’s cap came off in the process but the combined expertise of the doctor and nurse told and eventually she was able to administer the drug. After a few minutes, his eyelids drooped and cautiously they all relaxed, breathing sighs of relief.

Mentally, Karen scolded herself for not putting the bottle well out of the boy’s range in the first place. That only showed how ready she was for her night off. Ruefully, she picked up her cap and smiled at the men, chuckling as she saw the priest’s hair over his eyes and Doctor Clarke’s tie all askew.

‘You two look as dishevelled as I must be,’ she said as they moved away from the bed. ‘How about a cup of tea? Nurse
Jennings
will see to it.’ The young VAD certainly looked as though she could do with something to take her mind off what had happened. Karen regarded her critically.

‘By the way, what happened to your senior nurse? I thought I asked you to get her?’

Karen spoke to the nurse but it was Doctor Clarke who answered.

‘Oh, we were closer than the annexe, Sister. We brought Nurse Jennings back with us. I thought it best,’ he said smoothly, giving the young girl a sympathetic glance. ‘But I will have a cup of tea. I’ll have to wait around a while in any case, just to make sure he is really out for the rest of the night. Ten minutes or so at least.’

Nurse Jennings blushed and scuttled off to the kitchen. Karen sighed. That one would never make a nurse, no matter how hard she tried, but in this war it was difficult to get the right sort of girl. Most of the trained staff were in France or working in the big hospitals. And with the present flow of casualties, few women were turned away.

She led the way to the desk in the hall which served as her office. There were two comfortable chairs beside it and the men sat down as they waited for their tea while Karen took her place at the desk.

It was Nurse Ellis, the senior nurse from Ward 1, who returned with the tea tray.

‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ she apologized. Evidently she had been briefed by Nurse Jennings concerning the trouble in the ward. ‘Private Harvey was asleep when I went to supper.’

‘Not your fault, Nurse,’ Karen replied, and she smiled gratefully as she put the tray down on the desk and slipped quickly into the ward to check on the patients. She was a solid, dependable type and Karen felt that with her back in the ward she could relax for a few minutes before doing her rounds again. She picked up the teapot and poured the tea.

‘Biscuit?’ Smiling at Father Murphy, she offered the plate of biscuits. If this was going to be one of those nights she might as well make the most of the break, she felt. As he took the tea her attention was caught by his hands. They were strong-looking and well cared for, with oval nails cut short and straight. They reminded her of a surgeon’s hands, she reflected as she sipped her tea.

Doctor Clarke began a conversation with Father Murphy and Karen turned to the neglected day report. Why on earth she was thinking so much about the priest she didn’t know, it wouldn’t be long before she had to write the night report for Matron, she thought wryly. Just as well to read the day report first. The old house creaked a little and the occasional snore or grunt came from the wards, but apart from that there was only the murmur of voices from the priest and Doctor Clarke. Perhaps it was going to be a quiet night after all.

‘Well, I’m going to get some sleep while I can,’ said the doctor finally. Standing up, he drained his cup and went out. Father Murphy sat on a while, taking his time over the tea. Karen finished reading the report and sat back for a moment or two.

‘What is it, Sister?’

Karen started, realizing she had been staring at him. Hurriedly she got to her feet, feeling flustered.

‘Oh, nothing. I’m sorry if I seemed to be staring – I’m tired, I think. It’s a good thing it’s my night off tomorrow. I must get on with my rounds now.’

He also rose to his feet. ‘Your night off, is it? You’ll be going up to London, perhaps, are you?’

‘Oh, no. I’ll just be pottering about, helping Annie my landlady, maybe taking a walk if it’s a fine day.’

He looked thoughtful. ‘I will be visiting in the village tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll see you.’

Karen nodded, thinking he was only being polite. ‘Well, goodnight, Father Murphy.’

She went into Ward 1 to check with Nurse Ellis, who was sitting in the pool of light by the centre desk.

‘Everything quiet, Sister,’ the nurse reported. Private Harvey was sleeping, looking even younger than when he was awake.

‘With a bit of hick everything should be quiet until “lights on” at five o’clock,’ said Karen.

‘Yes, Sister.’

Karen left the ward, noticing that the priest had gone from the hall, presumably home to bed. Well, she thought, she still had to check the smaller wards upstairs before getting on with the office work.

Upstairs it was quiet too. The nurses were folding gauze and lint squares and packing them in steel drums, ready for the steam sterilizer. They worked in the dim light of a lamp placed at the end of the ward where they were least likely to disturb the patients but could still keep an eye on them.

‘Good work,’ Karen whispered. ‘Don’t bother coming round with me, not when you’re busy.’ Sometimes there was so little time for this work that the supply of dressings and swabs needed during the day could run out. She went silently round, pausing at each bed, noting one patient, Private O’Donnel, who was restless in his drugged sleep, muttering to himself and moving his bandaged head from side to side. She watched him for a moment but he showed no signs of waking properly so she went on her way down to the desk in the hall.

The whole house was quiet as the dawn light began to filter in through the high windows. Karen hardly noticed as she worked busily on, writing her report and checking the early-morning treatment sheets.

When at last she could relax, it was Father Murphy’s face which came into her mind. She couldn’t think why she found him so intriguing, she was no longer interested in men and certainly
not
in a priest, be he never so attractive. But he was attractive … too attractive altogether for her peace of mind. There, she’d finally admitted it to herself.

She wondered what his Christian name was as she gathered her notes together and placed the tidy piles in their folders. But the day was almost here, she had other things to think about. She could hear voices coming from the wards, the deep tones of the soldiers mingling with the lighter ones of the nurses. Getting to her feet, she smoothed her apron and straightened her cap. It was time for her to help with the difficult dressings, not to indulge in romantic fantasies.

Chapter Nine

PATRICK DROVE AWAY
from Greenfields Hospital filled with a sense of utter inadequacy. The bitter words of Private O’Donnel went round and round in his head, questions he had answered with platitudes and statements he had been unable to refute convincingly. The pony clopped his way along the country lane, the reins slack as he relived the scene as he’d sat by the soldier’s bed only an hour ago.

‘Don’t talk to me about God, Father,’ the soldier had protested. ‘I’ve heard enough, so I have.’ He sat up in bed with his back straight as a poker and his bandaged eyes staring straight ahead sightlessly, his lips compressed into a thin, hard line.

‘Don’t be saying that,’ said Patrick. ‘You know you will be sorry for it when you feel better and go home to Ireland. Just now you feel low because of what’s happened. But you must hold on to your faith for God in his mercy –’

‘Mercy? God’s mercy, is it, Father? And where was his mercy when my mate was blown up in front of me? Blown to bits with not a decent piece of him to bury even? Not that we have time to bury any of the poor devils. No, it’s over the top we have to go, climb over the bodies, be they dead or dying, over the top into –’

‘Hush now, hush, my son, this does you no good,’ said Patrick. He got out of his chair and took the soldier’s hands in his, trying to instill some calm into the boy. Private O’Donnel’s voice was rising hysterically and his head began to move from side to side in agitated, jerky movements, but as Patrick held on to his hand he collapsed back on to his pillows and was quiet. After a moment, Patrick tried again.

‘God –’

Private O’Donnel interrupted savagely. ‘There is no God,’ he stated.

Patrick marshalled his thoughts.

‘You’re overwrought, my son. You must hang on to your faith, you are saying things you don’t mean. What will your poor mother think? You will break her heart.’

Private O’Donnel smiled without mirth. ‘My mother is dead, Father. She died of a fever after we were evicted from our home. I was four years old. Now, Father, where do you think your God was when that happened?’

But Patrick had no ready answer – at least, not one which did not sound like yet another platitude. Nurse Ellis came and gave the soldier a sleeping draught and as he fell into a troubled sleep, Patrick crept away.

As he drove home he felt restless, unsettled in himself. He almost went into the church but changed his mind and headed off down the road in the direction of a patch of woodland. The wind blew coldly off the Essex marshes but he hardly felt it. His thoughts were melancholy. He was homesick, not so much for Ireland as it was now but for the Ireland of his childhood. He felt isolated somehow, cut off from his own kind in spite of the presence of so many Irish soldiers in the convalescent hospital.

Or maybe it was because of them, he admitted to himself. Especially the very young ones, some of them barely eighteen, the boys who looked up at him from their narrow beds with such trusting eyes despite their experiences in the trenches. They reminded him of himself as a young boy, full of hope for the future. Of the first time he had dared to think that he himself might be a priest, if he worked hard enough and prayed hard enough.

The day Father Brannigan had said to him, ‘Do you ever think of becoming a priest, Patrick?’

Himself a priest? Oh, he remembered well the wonder of it.
The
revelation it had been to him to think that he could do it. He could, he could. To be a priest and bend over the Host and say, ‘
Hoc est Corpus Meum
’, This is My Body. Patrick sighed, deliberately breaking off that particular memory. It had been a long hard road since that day and perhaps he would have fallen by the wayside were it not for his mother; she had been so filled with ambition for him he thought it would have killed her if he had failed.

How ecstatic she had been when he had won the scholarship and gone to the school run by the Brothers. He remembered only the contempt and hatred he had had to face there. How his bowels would turn liquid when he had to enter the classroom presided over by Brother Jamieson so that he had to race for the lavatories in the yard, the water closets which should have been so much cleaner than the earth closet at home on the farm but smelled so much worse, so that he often vomited as well and was even later getting to the classroom. And how Brother Jamieson would run the leather strap across his own palm once or twice with an anticipatory gleam in his eye and the other boys would titter nervously.

‘Hold out your hand,’ Brother Jamieson would say, and it was a point of honour not to flinch or pull back even though your palm stung and burned with a fire which surely must be as hot as the flames of Hell.

Patrick rubbed the palm of his right hand with the thumb of his left, feeling the heat of that old pain despite the cold of the December day. Then he put the hand up to the side of his face, feeling the blow which had so often followed the leathering.

‘Impertinent boy!’ Brother Jamieson would hiss, his light blue eyes half closed in menace. ‘What do you mean by looking at me like that?’ And the blow would knock Patrick off his feet so that he fell against the legs of the desk, his head flung back to crack against the hard wood. And when he could stand he would stumble
to
his seat, not looking at his classmates in case he should catch a gleam of sympathy and break down crying.