Nurse Kelsey Abroad (7 page)

After the bright lights of the inn the darkness of the street was hurtful at first, but as she stepped into the cab Jane looked up and saw the brightness of the stars set in a purple-black sky.

“They’re just the same stars that shine on Mum and
Dad,” she reflected, and felt suddenly not so far away after all, although it was all so much different from her imaginings.

The journey back to the flat seemed to take place in record time, although once, along the darkened street, they halted abruptly, and looking through the window Jane saw a group of young people, walking briskly along what seemed like a broad pavement, lanterns swinging from their hands.

They were singing and seemed in the best of spirits, and she looked at Ann in bewilderment.

“Who were they?” she asked, but already she was certain she knew.

“The young people I told you about,” Ann said quietly. “Their present campaign is for street lighting throughout the town, not just along the main thoroughfare as it is now. They’re right, of course, but they don’t see that all this sort of thing takes a great deal of money to accomplish, and that first things—exports, imports, care of the sick and so on—must come first.”

“They seemed a lively crew!” Jane smiled as the taxi turned in at the entrance to the hospital precincts and stopped at the door of the house which contained “her” flat. “There didn’t appear to be anything revolutionary about them so far as I could see.”

“I suppose not.” Ann opened the door and the head of the elderly caretaker appeared round his office window. Ann greeted him, indicated Jane with a wave of her hand, and started upstairs. “They’re not really revolutionaries at all,” she said as she unlocked the door. “They just want a better life for themselves than they’ve seen their parents have, but that,” she sighed, “is at the bottom of most revolutionary ideas
!
They’ll get it all in time, they’ve the urge to work, to save and to think of the future. I suppose the root of the matter is that, in common with most youthful ideas, there’s a strong sense of impatience.
C
ome on
,”
she urged. “The caretaker said your trunk had been delivered. It’s just inside. Do you want to unpack now or have a cuppa and go to bed?”

“Bed, please!” Jane admitted. “I’m tired. I don’t suppose there’s anything missing from my trunk?”

“Not unless you had something in it that ought not to have been there.” Ann was arranging the chair into a long bed-chair arrangement as she spoke. “All the time I’ve been here I’ve never had so much as a pin confiscated, or a letter returned to me with bits snipped out, as I understand is the custom should anyone appear to be discussing affairs of state,” she laughed at the quotation, “by letter or any other means. To reiterate
:
mind your own business, do the job you came out here to do, and do it to the best of your ability, and you won’t go far wrong. In fact I think you’ll be very happy.”

She looked at Jane consideringly for a moment, then as she turned away she asked a seemingly casual question
:

“First impressions, please!” she demanded. “Do you think you’ll be O.K., and how do you feel about Dr. Lowth, our ‘Dr. Jim’, now that you’ve met him socially if not officially as yet?”

CHAPTER 3

WHETHER it was because she was in a strange bed, sleeping in strange sur
r
oundings, or whether she was just too excited at the thought of entering a completely new phase in her nursing career, but Jane had fully expected to lie awake for hours, and then, when she finally fell asleep, she had expected to sleep heavily for several hours. As a precautionary measure she had set the alarm clock which stood beside the bed, even though Ann had protested it was quite unnecessary as she never overslept.

She had wakened, alert and bright-eyed, ready for whatever lay ahead, ten minutes or so before the alarm was due to ring. Moving cautiously in order not to rouse Ann, she slipped from bed and put the catch down on the alarm bell to prevent its ringing, then, still tiptoeing round, still moving everything with the maximum of caution, she prepared a cup of tea and some slices of thin toast.

It wouldn’t take quite so long, she realised, once she’d mastered the intricacies of the stove top, the open and shut grate before which it was necessary to hold the bread to toast. She rummaged in Ann’s small stock cupboard while the tea was brewing, and found a small pot of sweet jam, a flavour she had never previously tasted, and another small jar of some savoury paste, very close to a proprietary brand of meat essence which her mother bought at home, and which Jane was especially fond of on either supper-time or morning toast.

She completed her preparations, set the whole on the small table close to the bed-chair where Ann reclined
,
apparently having slept all too well this time, and then gently touched the other girl’s shoulder.

“Breakfast’s ready, Ann,” she said, smiling. “I’d like you to show me the way to Dr. Lowth’s office, please!”

“What time is it? My goodness!” Ann was sincerely shocked as she was instantly alert and looking at the clock. “Didn’t that thing go off?” she demanded. “I was afraid of that! It’s so seldom I’ve had to use it it’s probably given up the ghost. Normally I waken just before whatever time it’s set for, and then I switch the handle down, so it’s maybe gone wrong from lack of use or something.”

“I don’t think so.” Jane sugared her tea and passed the basin to Ann. “I must have caught your habit without even knowing it. I woke ten minutes or so before the time you’d set the alarm to go off, so I made certain you wouldn’t be disturbed and got breakfast ready. I hope you’re not one of those hearty people who like a three
-
course breakfast,” she went on anxiously. “I just didn’t know where things were kept, so I did what I could from the contents of that small cupboard. I hope it’s all right.”

“It’s fine,” Ann told her, munching her third piece of toast. “Normally I just manage one piece, and not always that if I’m a little pushed for time. There’s an excellent kitchen in the hospital itself, and a wonderful kitchen staff. Usually there’s a hot snack going around mid-morning. We take it in turns to go for it, and it doesn’t seem worth while getting a huge breakfast ready for oneself, never mind what you were told at the begin
n
ing of your training about a good breakfast being essential for the day’s work ahead.”

“I don’t like big breakfasts either,” Jane confessed. “That was one good thing about leaving the General and going to work at the Mowberry. The Matron at the General believed in the old-fashioned breakfast, cereal, hot dish, bacon or fish or sausage, and toast with marmalade. I didn’t always feel I could face it,” she admitted, “but one had to ... so one did.”

“There’s no need now, if you don’t want to,” Ann said cheerfully, slipping out of bed and poking her feet into feathered mules. “Have you found the bathroom?” she queried, trying to remember whether or not she’d explained to Jane how the senior staff nurse was privileged in having a small bathroom suite to herself. The three nurses on the next floor shared a communal one, as did the two English nurses, whose quarters were at the other end of the corridor on the floor above. Kitchen staff, ward maids and so on were housed in the top floor, and Jane had not asked nor had Ann volunteered any detailed information about them.

In a short space of time they were both ready, Jane’s trim blue and white uniform contrasting strangely with Ann’s smart travel-suit of soft green with russet trimmings, a mixture which went well with her auburn hair and deep brown eyes.

“I’m to take you to Dr. Lowth.” Ann sounded to be repeating a well-learned lesson as she ticked the items off on her fingers. “I’m to show you round the hospital, then, if everything’s running smoothly and no emergencies taking place, I’m to take you down town in daylight, show you where it’s permissible to shop for the odds and ends you’ll need from time to time, and, if I’ve time, and unknown to anyone,” she continued darkly, “I shall take you to meet Granny and Grandpa Hansvitch. Then,” she concluded dramatically, “I shall rest until it’s time for Larlez to drive me to the station. And you, I hope, will be sleeping the sleep of the just in readiness for work the following day.”

“I’ll come and see you off,” Jane volunteered, but Ann made a face of mock horror.

“Please don’t,” she said dramatically. “I hate station goodbyes, and anyway y
ou’d have to have a special per
mit to be allowed on the platform at all at that hour of the morning. A permit or a ticket, purchased at the barrier so that all would know your intended destination
!
”

“But surely
—”
Jane was beginning, when Ann
held up a restraining hand.

“You saw the care taken as to who comes into the country and for what reason,” she said briefly.
“And
I’ve warned you to mind your own business and obey their rules. Something’s been going on these last two days; I heard a rumour that there was some sort of a spy scare, and certainly Karl Brotnovitch wouldn’t have been there in person when you arrived had there not been something happening. He doesn’t usually concern himself with small fry, so be careful of him
!
He’s a strange man, fascinating but strange, and he’s greatly attracted to anyone with fair hair. I often think that’s why Kevin’s got away with so much, because he’s inclined to be fairish, but he’s a young man, not an attractive girl, and there I think is where Karl will, sooner or later, draw a line and take action if Kevin doesn’t mind his p’s and q’s!”

Jane made a mental note with regard to the remarks about Karl Brotnovitch. Unbidden there crept into her mind a mental picture of the man as he had surveyed her from the barrier on the station. He was handsome, that much she had to concede, but he would never have entered into the category, however remotely, of the men Jane would have found personally attractive. There was something too cold and analytical about his eyes, the set of his mouth, which chilled her to the marrow.

She dismissed him from her thoughts and obediently followed Ann downstairs and across the covered walk which led from the flats to the hospital buildings themselves.

She looked about her with interest. Surprisingly the place, even the grass verge, was scrupulously clean and free from litter. The flowers which bordered the drive grew in orderly prim rows like so many soldiers standing guard. The paths had obviously been scrubbed that morning, and Jane felt an unaccountable lightening of her spirits as she accepted this as an omen that at least hygiene was something the Dalasalavians had discovered, and acted upon.

She was not so cheered by the hospital itself. The wards were distances apart. She discovered the men’s and women’s surgical blocks, for example, necessitated a long walk between each, and the staff nurse’s office was somewhere in between.

The medical wards were also long distances apart, and all of them a fairish walk from Dr. Lowth’s sanctum. She commented upon this as she accompanied Ann from ward to ward, and Ann laughed.

“The Dalasalavians,” she said briefly, “have strict ideas as to proper moral codes. That’s why the male and female wards are so far apart. There is talk of children’s wards being placed between, so as to cut out some of the walking—or running, if there’s an emergency—as it is they’re way over there.” She gesticulated to another separate set of low buildings which Jane had at first sight taken to be the outpatients’ clinics.

“They’re
cut to a minimum,” Ann said, frowning. “That’s one of the tragedies out here. There isn’t enough money—or enough knowledge—to convince the authorities it would be money well spent—an investment, in fact to continue after-care when people have had either a severe illness or an operation. Dr. Jim does what he can, of course, but St. George’s hasn’t much money from home, the bulk of the running cost is borne by the Dalasalavian government. They only pay out when the results are assured. Now they’re half-way to accepting the suggestions for a physiotherapic unit to be added, but I suppose, judging on past performances, it will be at least another two years before it’s here.”

“St. George’s?” Jane questioned. “Why the name?”

“It was founded by one of the British Ambassadors, donkey’s years ago,” Ann told her. “He was appalled by the way in which people were, as it says in one of his diaries, cast on one side as soon as unfit to work sufficiently well to benefit the community as a whole, and he started the first hospital, from his own pocket, the story goes. The place has grown—and changed—considerably since those days, of course, but all the same it leaves much to be desired. The main thing to keep on going here is to remember that but for the existence of St. George’s and for the work Dr. Jim and his predecessors have done over the years, a large number of people now actively employed or leading useful lives in some way, would have been left to die or to fend for themselves as well as they could. That always made the whole effort seem well worth while so far as I was concerned.”

“I feel the same way,” Jane said sincerely. “I wanted to come,” she went on pensively, thinking of Dudley and admitting in her mind
he
had been one of the reasons why she had accepted this position, but not, she affirmed to herself, the sole reason, “because I wanted to do something really well worth while in my nursing life. This seems to be as good an ans
wer as W.H.O. would have been.”

“It is,” Ann agreed seriously, then as somewhere in the distance a clock chimed the hours, she
took Jane by the elbow. “C
ome along!” she urged, although Jane required no urging. “We’re about five minutes late in going to Dr. Jim’s office, and that isn’t a good idea, but I wanted you to look round the wards first, then when you come from his office I’ll show you the theatre and the lab. Right now here we are. Tell him I wanted to go and chat with Mrs. Petrobraun before I left and as I knew he’d be operating later I wanted to go and see her before her pre-med. See you later!” and leaving Jane a prey to sudden nerves she hurried off in the direction of the women’s medical ward.

As Ann vanished from her side Jane knocked tentatively on the door where Ann had left her. There was no distinguishing sign on its surface, merely a small brass plate at the side which gave Dr. Lowth’s name and qualifications in both medicine and surgery. She was rewarded immediately after her knock by an abrupt shout of “Come in!” and entered to find him seated behind a small, scrubbed table, piles of papers and notes on either side of him as he sat with his head propped up on his hands, staring down at a report which lay before him.

“Put it down there, please!” he said, without lifting his head.

Jane was in a quandary. Obviously she was being mistaken for someone else, and equally obviously he had forgotten she had an appointment with him, now almost five minutes late. After a moment of hesitation she cleared her throat, and instantly he looked up so that she was startled by the intent regard of his piercing glance from those widely spaced hazel eyes.

“Staff Nurse Kelsey?” He made it sound like a question, although the fact that he had clearly remembered her name and also that she was the only staff nurse there made the questioning tone out of place. “You’re late!” he said briefly, glancing at his watch. “Any other time I shouldn’t have waited, as it was,” he gesticulated towards the report he had been studying, “this required my attention and I became somewhat immersed in its contents. Have you been round the hospital?” he shot at her abruptly.

“Yes, thank you. I haven’t seen the theatre as yet, or the laboratory, but Nurse Palmer said she would take me
round when she’d chatted with Mrs. Petrobraun
...
”

“That’s where she is now?”

“Yes. At least, that’s where she said she was going, before the lady had her pre-med.”

“And you accept all you have seen?” was his next question.

“I have to, haven’t I?” A small smile played for a moment round Jane’s lips and appeared to annoy him, for immediately he frowned and said sharply
:

“If you mean by that remark that it’s impossible to run out and take the next tube or bus home, then I agree with you.”

“But I didn’t mean that!” She was horrified that he should even imagine such a thing, and yet, when it came to the actual moment of putting what she did mean into words, she could not, for a moment, think of what to say.

“What did you mean, then?” Dr. Lowth prompted mercilessly. “That you know it’s there, and if you’d known it was like this then you wouldn’t have accepted the position? Is that it?”

“
Not in the least.” Suddenly, and for no reason at all or from where, she knew not, but abruptly Jane had the words to answer him.

“I wanted to come,” she said quietly, “for two reasons. One of them,” she thought of Dudley, “was a purely personal matter and of no interest to anyone save myself. The other was that for some time I’d had the idea of using my nursing training in a wider field. I’d thought of W.H.O., of missionary work, of Oxfam, of tropical nursing—lots of things—but when this happened along it seemed so exactly right—I don’t know how better to put it than that, and now I’ve seen for myself something of your work here, I know I did the right thing in accepting.”