Island Hospital (3 page)

Helpless laughter stirred the two girls.

Clare regained her composure first. “Goodnight, Sheila, and never put your trust in a red-headed man.”

Sheila went slowly to her room, her mind a whirling picture of a red-headed man who could rouse her to admiration and whip her into anger, and yet the picture was somehow marred by the small figure of a green-eyed girl who stood watching with her hands in her pockets.

CHAPTER
TWO

S
heila opened her eyes slowly and it was several minutes before she took in her surroundings. She had drawn back the curtains from her picture window the night before and already the sun was laying a broad path of brightness across her floor.

She leaped out of bed and padded across to the window in her bare feet. She caught her breath as the glory of the early morning unfolded in front of her eyes. The tall mountains across the straits were still dimly outlined, but the rising sun had caught their peaks and a growing patch of sunlight was moving slowly down their slopes. The water in the harbor below was as smooth as silk.

Sheila’s eyes surveyed the bay. It was empty. There was no sign of the bustling boats that had hummed lie angry wasps around the
Queen of the Isles
yesterday. Even the wharf was empty of life, its small shed locked, and only a stock of oil drums awaiting delivery and some lengths of timber white and new in the morning sun were there to show that the steamer had called.

Reluctantly, she left the window and began to dress. She had forgotten to ask Clare the night before what time breakfast would be. Sheila glanced at her clock: seven-thirty. Eight o’clock would be a good enough guess. She could hear no sounds from the direction of Clare’s room. Of course she could be up already, or perhaps she had never been to bed. Sheila began to smile to herself. What sort of mood would their red-headed surgeon be in today? She had seen him in anger, in smiles, in exasperation, and downright charming, and she had remembered the gentleness with which he had attended to the big logger’s injury.

Sheila slipped her starched cuffs over her slim hands and adjusted the hang of her apron. Over 6000 miles of travel had left a few creases in her uniform that only laundering would remove. Walking across to the full-length mirror she surveyed herself dispassionately and had to admit that the navy blue of her frock, offset by the crisp white of apron, collar and cuffs, did things for her. Even if the organdie folds of her Sister’s cap fell a bit too softly for her liking, she knew that it suited her better than the little bit of frippery that perched on Clare’s black curls.

There was a knock on the door and Clare came in. Her green eyes surveyed Sheila from head to toe. “My, but don’t we look English this morning!”

Sheila was a little taken aback. “But Matron’s letter said own uniform,” she said hesitantly.

Clare gave her a swift smile and then giggled softy. “You could be right, but ‘own uniform’ gives a girl lots of scope.” She smoothed the folds of her own simply
cut sharkskin uniform with a gesture that indicated how it clung and yet emphasized every curve of her body.

Sheila looked a bit doubtfully at her own. “I see what you mean, but it’s all I’ve brought.”

Clare’s small face was even friendly. “Don’t let it worry you, honey. You’ll give tone to the place and make the patients feel this is a real hospital. Come on, breakfast is served, madam.”

Sheila picked up her cape from force of habit and followed Clare into the dining room. Two untidy places showed that they were not the first.

Clare’s eyebrows went up. “H’mm, it looks as if our surgeon and our matron had breakfast together.” A wicked glint appeared in her eyes. “I wonder if they spoke.”

Sheila sat down a trifle uncertainly. Memories of yesterday’s clash between surgeon and matron made her begin to wonder what sort of frying pan her new job was landing her in.

Clare ate her breakfast in silence, her green eyes remote, and her thoughts far away.

Sheila was hungry and did justice to Mary’s cooking. Eggs and bacon, freshly made toast and steaming hot coffee served with tinned cream made her feel fit to cope with anything the day might bring.

Clare was finished first. “See you later. Matron’s office is the first on the right past the operating room. All right?”

She was gone before Sheila could frame an answer.

“More coffee, Miss?” Mary asked.

Sheila glanced at her watch. “Yes, please, Mary. My name is Sister Griffiths.”

Mary looked puzzled as she surveyed Sheila’s uniform curiously. She shook her head. “Can’t be Sister
... your dress not black, and your veil is white. Sister Anne at the mission is not like you.”

Sheila laughed. “Nurses in England can be Sisters once they have enough experience,” she explained. “Don’t nurses ever get called Sister over here?”

Mary shook her head again. “Only nuns can be Sisters here. I don’t know other kind ... only holy women.”

Sheila gave up her attempts to explain. “How can you tell a senior nurse like Miss Boothby from someone who is just beginning?”

Mary smiled. “That’s easy done. Senior nurses wear all white always ... juniors wear colors always ... can be color like yours,” she said doubtfully, “but you say you are a senior nurse.” She pointed to the clock. “Matron say I’m to take you when you finish breakfast.”

Sheila gulped down the last of her coffee and stood up. “All right, Mary. I’m ready.”

As they passed the operating room. Sheila could hear the chink of instruments through the closed door.

“Is Doctor Greenwood operating?” she asked curiously.

Mary shook her head. “Doctor Greenwood has gone away in hospital boat. Maybe Miss Boothby is getting the instruments ready.” She shrugged her shoulders.

She stopped outside a door marked
Matron.
“If Matron not here, sit in office until she comes. She told me to bring you here.” The girl slid silently away.

Sheila felt as if she were on the mat waiting to be told off. She knocked tentatively.

“Come in.” Joyce Painter looked up from her desk in smiling appreciation of the very English picture that her new junior Sister made. A shadow crossed her face and the smile faded from her eyes. “Sit down, Sister. You bring back too many memories.” She became silent and made no explanation.

“What do you think of Doctor Greenwood?” she asked abruptly.

Sheila was too dumbfounded to think of a reply at first. “He’s very different from our English surgeons,” she offered timidly. She realized how feeble that sounded and continued bravely. “He’s very gentle and ...” she could think of nothing else to say and plunged blindly: “
...
he’s got very red hair and an awful temper.” As the words fell on her own ears, Sheila blushed furiously. She had never meant to say that.

Joyce Painter looked at her sharply. “Have you discovered that already, too? What happened?”

Sheila decided she was in such deep water anyway that she might as well go in over her head. “He seems to think English nurses are too ladylike to be of much use,” she confessed ruefully.

“Really,” Joyce Painter said slowly.

A small clue clicked into place in Sheila’s mind. Her new matron, regardless of the overlay to other accents, could only be an Englishwoman. No colonial could ever achieve the wealth of meaning for that small word.

The matron was speaking again. “That young man will have to prove his own usefulness first,” she said dryly. “Now you will want to know what your job is. First, let me warn you that the Harbor Hospital bears little resemblance to one of your English hospitals, apart from the fact that both cater to the needs of the sick. One day we may have two or three patients, and another we may be putting up camp cots to accommodate the overflow. Off-duty varies according to the needs of the hospital. I’m afraid you will find no working to rule here. You and Miss Boothby are the only fully trained nurses. That’s the penalty one pays for
trying to run a hospital in out-of-the-way places. I try to provide extra help from part
-
timers when it’s required, and I have an older woman who does most of the routine work at night. So...
”
she paused and glanced keenly at Sheila, “it means that one of the three of us has to be on call.”

Sheila hid her surprise rather unsuccessfully. Her preconceived ideas of what matrons did had received a shock.

“Yes, Matron. I understand,” she said quietly.

Joyce Painter nodded. “Good. At the moment, Miss Boothby is getting ready for an emergency case. Doctor Greenwood has gone to bring the patient in. Perhaps you would be kind enough to carry on with the routine work. There is no one ill enough to need much in the way of nursing, and the three mothers who are here look after their own babies. If any out-patients turn up while we are busy, would you make a note in the Out-Patient’s Book of names, complaints and any medicines you give out. Mary will show you where the Dispensary is, and the key is always kept in my top right-hand drawer. All right?”

Sheila assented and went out and closed the door feeling that she had said “yes” too soon. The operating room door was open.

Clare looked up at her footsteps and came toward her. “All right?”

Sheila began to be sure that “all right” must be the operative phrase for the Harbor Hospital. “I suppose so,” she said doubtfully. “I’ve just got the new-girl-at-school feeling very badly.”

Clare laughed. “You’ll go down easily, honey. It’s the know-it-alls that jar. You’ll find everything in the big ward at the end of the corridor. If you can’t find anything or get stuck, the patients will tell you what to do.” She picked up her tray of instruments. “Wish me luck. Doctor Greenwood will be operating and I haven’t the faintest idea what sutures he likes.”

Sheila glanced at her in surprise. Surely the First Officer had said they had worked together in Vancouver? “But I thought...”

A glow appeared in those green eyes, but there was no warmth in it. “We worked together, but not surgically,” Clare completed the sentence and turned away, but not before Sheila had a glimpse of her
face
...
it was cold and set and the color had gone out of her skin, leaving it strangely lustrous like marble.

Sheila went slowly down the corridor to begin a day where everything was backward. The patients told her their troubles, their medicines and their treatments. They were a little shy of her at first.

“It’s your fancy get-up,” one of them explained. “Only matrons and such-like wear anything like over here. You say all Sisters, as you call them, wear them. Imagine that! I don’t care for those little frills.”

Sheila had taken off her cuffs, rolled up her sleeves, and put on her frills ready for a day’s work. She smiled at the woman. “They keep my sleeves from falling down.”

The woman nodded. “I can see that. Don’t you find all those clothes awfully hot? That white thing Miss Boothby wears is more sensible to my way of thinking ... easy to wash, easy to iron, and easy on the eyes.”

The other women laughed. “We could do with something like that for men’s shirts. Pity it’d be too cold for them ... they’d be sure to grumble.”

The first woman spoke again. “What do we call you?”

Sheila answered without thinking. “Why, Sister, of course.”

The woman looked a bit doubtful. “We will, if you like. But I don’t know how the men will take it.”

Sheila stared at her in surprise. “But what’s the matter with calling me Sister?”

The women laughed. “Because if a man calls a girl sister, it means that he’s being fresh.”

Sheila began to feel that she needed a dictionary. English was their common tongue yet she couldn’t understand a word of it. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

The women looked at one another. “It’s just a way of being familiar,” they explained. “Take a tip from us and be plain Miss.”

Sheila laughed helplessly. This must all be part of her new topsy-turvy world. “All right, call me Miss Griffiths. I’ll get used to it in time. At home only non-nursing staff are called, as you put
it, plain Miss.” She looked around the neat and tidy ward. “You had better tell me what needs doing. Miss Boothby told me to ask.”

They gathered around her, all friends now. “Susan, that’s Mrs. Brown, takes the medicines around if you’ll pour the
doses
...
it’s all on the medicine cards. Me, that’s Mrs. Allen, baths my baby first as I’m the
quickest
...
it’s my third so I’m more used to it. Then Jenny baths hers while I keep her straight on all the little tricks of the trade.”

Sheila looked at the youngest woman. “Jenny what?” She queried softly.

“Just Jenny,” said Mrs. Allen firmly.

Sheila saw the unringed finger on Jenny’s left hand and said no more. An urgent peal of a bell saved her from any awkwardness.

“That’s Out-Patients,” Mrs. Allen announced. “You’d better show her what’s what, Susan, while I get on with my baby.”

Sheila followed in the wake of Mrs. Brown, feeling very much like a tall sailing ship in tow by a very sturdy tug. They opened the door between them.

There was a very young and very frantic mother on the doorstep grasping a very fat baby who was purple in the face.

“It’s got stuck! Quick, he’s choking!” she gasped, and shoved the infant at Sheila.

Sheila, feeling very much on exhibition, turned the baby upside down, thumped him on the back and hooked her little finger down his throat. She stared at the bone in horror.

“He’s cutting his teeth,” the mother said defensively.

The baby, now that he could breathe, had turned red and, roaring with anger, was trying to grab back his bone.

“Better tie a tape on it, and then you can get it back easier,” Mrs. Brown observed placidly; seeing that her services were not required. “I’ll just get back to the ward.”

Sheila sank into the nearest chair. The baby was taken by surprise at the sudden movement and stopped his howls. His hand reached out and tugged at Sheila’s cap, and an uncertain smile hovered on his face. “He seems none the worse for it,” she told the mother. “Better give him soft foods for today. His throat may be a little sore.”

She was about to let them go when she remembered the book. She picked up the big register and opened it. Feeling that she was being watched, she looked up, and met Alan Greenwood’s brown eyes.

“What’s cooking?” he queried. “Anything for me?” He glanced around the little group.

Sheila found herself stiffening. “No, not this time. The baby was choking on a bone, which I’ve removed ... no obvious laceration.”

Alan smiled in amusement at her matter-of-fact statement. “So you’ve been making yourself useful, eh?” He watched annoyance creep into her face. “Carry on the good work. I have one perforated gastric ulcer to deal with. Be seeing you.”

Sheila stared after him, her resentment fading as she saw its uselessness.

The woman watched her face. “He’s easy on the eyes if you like red hair.” She stroked her baby's head as it leaned sleepily against Sheila’s shoulder. “I must say it’s nice to know there’s a doctor here again. Gives a body a feeling of security.” She looked at Sheila again. “Not that you nurses aren’t good and all that, but you’re not doctors, are you?”

She didn’t seem to expect any answer, so She
il
a made none. She filled in the details in the big book while the mother took over her baby.

“That’s all, Mrs. Etter. Let us know if you have any more trouble with his throat. I think you got him here just in time.”

The woman smiled her thanks. “I ran all the way.” She pointed down the trail that disappeared in tall timber. “We’re at the logging camp on the other side.”

Sheila was interested. “You mean you follow your husband to the logging camps? I thought they were purely male affairs.”