A Wartime Nurse (24 page)

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Authors: Maggie Hope

Tags: #Nurses, #World War; 1939-1945, #Sagas, #War & Military, #Fiction

BOOK: A Wartime Nurse
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‘Mrs Wearmouth, Mrs Wearmouth – are you in?’
‘Who the heck’s that?’ Bea asked Theda, getting up to switch off the wireless. ‘They might have waited another ten minutes anyroad, just till we heard the end.’
Theda opened the door to find Mrs Patterson standing there, wringing her hands. ‘Whatever is it?’ she asked.
‘By, lass, I’m glad to find you in,’ said the little woman, stepping into the kitchen. ‘It’s my lad, Peter, that’s what it is. He’s come out of the bedroom window on to the roof of the pantry and fell to the yard. What he thought he was going, I cannot fathom. I tell you, his dad’ll kill him when he gets in from the pit. Anyroad, he’s all shook up and his arm looks funny an’ all. And he’s bleeding all over the place. Can you come, lass? You were the only one I could think of to ask.’
‘Have you sent for the doctor?’ Theda was pulling on her coat as she spoke.
‘Aye, but he’s out somewhere, the maid said. I don’t know what to do!’
‘Have you got a first-aid kit?’
‘No, just a bottle of iodine and a bandage. I thought I’d better not—’
‘Here, lass, take ours.’
Bea opened the door of the press and handed her the cardboard box with the kit Matt had bought cheap from the St John’s Ambulance Brigade.
‘Don’t worry, our Theda will see to the lad,’ she assured Mrs Patterson, a note of pride in her voice.
‘Eeh, thanks, love. Thanks for coming.’ The woman was practically running down the yard and along the end of the rows to her own house and Theda found herself running after her, her own tiredness forgotten.
Her former patient Peter was sitting in his pyjamas, his arm held out in front of him with blood welling from a deep cut in the wrist. His pyjamas were covered with blood and he had a towel on his lap saturated with it. At least it didn’t seem to be arterial blood, thought Theda, though she was shocked at the amount the child had lost.
‘What have you been doing now, Peter?’ she asked as she took a dressing from her box and put it over the wound, applying as much pressure as she dared considering the strange angle of the arm.
‘I was playing at getting out of the house in case there was an air raid,’ Peter said, his voice small and squeaky and very young. ‘Billy Potts said he could do it in three minutes flat and I wanted to beat him.’
Theda sighed. She’d have to have a word with Billy Potts or perhaps his mother. The main thing was to get him to a doctor as soon as possible, she thought. Seeing a copy of
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lying on the table, she took it and bandaged it round the arm. It was thick enough to use as a temporary splint.
‘Have you somebody can go down to the club?’ she asked.
‘I can go,’ said Mrs Patterson, but the boy, who had been sitting pale-faced but dry-eyed, suddenly burst into tears.
‘No, Mam, don’t go off again – I want you to stay here,’ he wailed, clutching his arm to his chest even as Theda tried to fit a sling round it.
‘Sit with him,’ she said. ‘I’ll go.’
‘If you’re sure?’ the older woman replied. She put an arm round her boy and wiped his nose with a rag she took out of her apron pocket. ‘Whisht now, pet,’ she said. ‘You’ll need all your tears for when your dad comes in, mind.’
‘I’m not going back to that hospital,’ he sobbed.
‘Aye, well, you should have thought of that a bit earlier, shouldn’t you?’ said his mother. ‘By, you’ll have me white-haired a fore I’m forty, you will that.’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ said Theda.
She had her flashlight in her pocket so took the path across the fields from the end of the rows. But when she got to the club the first-aid class was just about over.
‘Dr Oliver was called out, lass,’ advised the steward. ‘Your Chuck’s here though, will I get him to give you a hand?’ But Chuck was already coming out. He soon grasped the situation.
‘The baker’s van’s stood outside the store,’ he said. ‘I’ll knock him up, he just lives up Winton Village. He’ll take the bairn in to the hospital, I’m sure. I cannot think of anybody else with a car working round here.’
‘There’s a car stood outside the gaffer’s house,’ volunteered one of the men who had followed him out and were now standing round Theda curiously.
‘Right then, that’ll do. Get away back, our Theda. The lad might be needing you.’
He was very capable, thought Theda as she hurried back up the road. No wonder he was trying to better himself; the bosses would be crazy to refuse him.
Chuck strode away and up the lane and Theda went back up the fields to the colliery rows. Peter was lying down on the sofa now, his eyes closed with lashes fanned out on his pale cheeks. She explained what was happening to Mrs Patterson while she checked the dressing on the boy’s arm.
‘Eeh, I’ll have to leave a note for my man coming in from work. His dinner’s in the oven already, anyroad . . .’ Mrs Patterson bustled about, finding a pencil and paper and putting on her hat and coat. ‘I don’t know what he’s going to say,’ she sighed once again.
Her mind busy with Peter, somehow Theda hadn’t given any thought to the fact that the car outside the manager’s house would be Ken’s. But suddenly there he was, bending over Peter, looking at his arm.
‘Came out of the window, eh? Did you think you could fly?’
‘No, of course not,’ the boy said. ‘I just fell, that’s all.’
‘Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to go in to Lady Eden’s cottage hospital. It’ll have to be X-rayed.’
‘It won’t be for long, Peter,’ Theda said. ‘You’ll be all right.’ The boy nodded. He seemed to have got over his moment of panic.
‘Are you coming in with us to the hospital,’ Ken asked her. ‘You did a good job, by the way.’
‘No, I’ll not come in. Mrs Patterson will go, though. I’m staying at home tonight.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘About next weekend—’ Theda glanced anxiously at Mrs Patterson but she either hadn’t heard or attached no significance to what Ken was saying. All the same if she had, Theda thought angrily as she closed the door. The key was on a string inside and she pulled it up through the letterbox and turned it in the lock before putting it back. He just didn’t care about her reputation at all, she thought miserably. He should know what mining villages could be like for gossip. But Ken had settled the boy and his mother in the car and walked back up the yard to Theda.
‘Don’t look so anxious, love,’ he said. ‘Come with me on Saturday and I promise you everything will be all right.’
What does he mean? she asked herself as she walked back to West Row. Was he going to ask her to marry him? Was that why he wanted her to meet his family? Or did he just mean the weekend would go well?
Anyroad, she told herself as she let herself back into the house, I’m not sure I want to be married. It’s far too soon after Alan’s being killed. And she wanted to take more qualifications, wanted to be a midwife, perhaps go on the district, be of some use to her own folk. She could look after herself, she didn’t need Ken, of course she didn’t.
‘How’s the lad, pet?’
Theda loosened her coat and took off her scarf and gloves before she answered her mother. She was cold and tired and dispirited. 1945 hadn’t got off to a good start, she thought. Though it had been so wonderful on New Year’s Eve. So . . . so . . .
‘Theda? How’s the bairn, I’m asking you?’
‘Fine, Mam. Peter’s fine. Well, not exactly; he has a fractured wrist, I think, and a nasty gash on his forearm. But he’s gone to the hospital now. He’ll probably spend the night at least on the ward.’
‘I’m beginning to think that lad’s accident-prone. By, he’ll be one to watch. I wouldn’t like the bringing up of him, I would not.’ Bea shook her head. ‘Go on, get to bed. I’ve put the oven shelf in so it’ll be nice and warm.’
Chapter Twenty
It was like an early-spring day with the sunshine warming the inside of the car as Ken and Theda travelled over to Marsden. The wind outside was biting enough, but in the car it was a little cocoon of comfort with the worn leather seats fitting round them beautifully. Theda sat back in hers, enjoying the luxury of it.
‘Not a bad old car, is it?’ asked Ken.
She laughed. ‘Any car is a good car for me after travelling on the buses, especially since the beginning of the war. Do you know what it’s like on a utility bus, packed to the roof with people?’
‘Yes, I do know, I’ve done it in my time. I’m lucky having the car, though, and being able to get the extra petrol because I’m a doctor, I admit is an advantage. But it is nice, isn’t it? Am I supposed to be filled with guilt every time I use it for pleasure and not work?’
‘No, of course not. I appreciate it anyway. And young Peter would have been in trouble if you hadn’t had the car with you last week.’
‘Hmm. Scamp that he is! He might have broken his neck. I thought he had learned his lesson after last time. Have you seen him since he came out?’
‘Yes. He seems fine. I gather he comes in very handy as a casualty when the lads play war games. With his pot an’ all.’
They were rolling down into the valley of the Browney, a small stream that ran into the Wear, and the countryside was laid out before them, hedges bare and dusty in the sunlight, fields brown and ploughed. Nothing was to be seen of the coming spring on the trees that clothed the riverbank and stretched away on the horizon but as they passed a small farm there was a gleam of early snowdrops along the front of a stone wall and the lime-washed farmhouse gleamed white.
Theda sighed. ‘By, I love this road into Durham,’ she said. ‘I used to travel along it a lot when I was training in Newcastle.’
‘I trained in Newcastle too,’ said Ken. ‘But after the war I would like to work in Sunderland. I’m a home bird really; it will be nice and handy for Marsden.’
It was the first time he had volunteered anything about his personal life, Theda reflected. She glanced at him. He looked relaxed and rested. Had he once been a dare-devil like Peter Patterson? She was filled with curiosity about him, wished she knew him better. She wanted to know everything about his childhood, about his ambitions. But at least he was taking her to meet his family.
‘I would have thought there would be more scope for you at Newcastle,’ she ventured. ‘If you want to be a top surgeon, isn’t it better to belong to a teaching hospital? It’s not very far from Marsden after all.’
Ken frowned suddenly. ‘No, I don’t want to go back there.’
There was a silence in the car. Theda was left with the feeling that she had said something wrong, butted into something that was none of her business. But what?
‘Why not?’ she pressed him.
‘I just don’t, that’s all.’
The sun went behind a cloud just then and the temperature in the car rapidly went down. She folded her arms across her chest and stared out of the window as they travelled through Durham and out on to the Sunderland road. A spatter of rain hit the windscreen and Ken switched on the wipers. She watched as the blade went from side to side with the water running down beneath, almost hypnotised by it. She shivered and rubbed her hands together.
‘Cold?’
He reached into the back seat without taking his eyes from the road and handed her a rug which she wrapped round her knees. And the moment of coldness melted away as the rain stopped and he smiled down at her. ‘Soon be there.’
The sun had come out again and the enclosed farmyard was quite warm as they stepped out of the car. Hens picked away between the cobbles and a black and white border collie barked furiously at them until it recognised Ken and wagged its tail.
‘Hello, Sam.’ Ken bent down and scratched the dog’s ears as the back door opened and Walt stood there.
‘It’s you, is it?’ he said. ‘I might have known you would smell the tea.’ He glanced curiously at Theda. ‘Brought us a visitor, have you?’
‘My brother Walter, Theda. Walter, Staff Nurse Theda Wearmouth.’ It was the briefest of introductions as he ushered her into the low-beamed farmhouse kitchen. The family were sitting round about drinking their mid-morning cup of tea and Theda was suddenly conscious that her stomach was beginning to rumble in response to the smell of freshly baked scones and farm butter, something she hadn’t smelled in a long time. She’d had no breakfast, she remembered – had been too keyed up to eat.
The room seemed full of people but she was used to that at home and after Ken’s introductions soon sorted out grandmother and uncle and the frail-looking woman sitting by the fire as being Ken’s mother. And she couldn’t help noticing the way they all looked at each other significantly when she came in. It was Grandmother Meg who came forward with a welcoming smile and shook her hand and found her a seat before pouring her a cup of tea and putting a plate with a scone oozing butter into her hand.
‘I’m pleased to meet you, pet. You come from Bishop, do you?’
‘Winton Colliery.’
‘Oh, yes. I don’t remember any Wearmouths there, though?’
‘Well, my family came from Wheatley Hill in the thirties. My father was out of work and got a job at Chilton. The only free house belonging to the owner was at Winton.’

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