Ruined City (8 page)

Warren nodded, his conscience more painful than his abdomen. 'I might be able to pay it off quicker than that,' he said. 'If I can, I will.'

She smiled again. 'That's very nice of you. It's not that we want to press you when you're out of a job, but the hospital does need every penny it can get. The poorer a town gets the more it needs its hospital, and of course, the harder it is to make ends meet.'

He was interested, having had to 'do with hospitals from time to time — generally when they were
in extremis.
'What's the subscription list like?'

'Terrible. When I came here first Barlows were going. Twopence a week per man and three thousand men — that mad? twelve hundred pounds a year from Barlows alone. And then there were the rolling-mills, and the little firms -they all had weekly contributions to the hospital. But all that's gone now. And of course the patients can't pay much, either.' She smiled. 'That's why we have to get it back out of them when they get into work again. But in the meantime, you sec, the hospital has to do without the money.'

'I see that,' said Warren. 'Are there endowments?'

'Very few.'

He wrinkled his brows. 'What are you using for money then?'

'We get along. Lady Swarland is our sheet anchor; she helps us out each year with a subscription to put us on our feet again. I'm afraid it's a great drain on her, but she keeps oh. Year after year.'

'Lady Swarland,' said Warren. 'Isn't her son Lord Cheriton?'

'Yes — he's in the Army, I think. But he lives down in London — we never see him up here.'

She left him, and went down to the little office that she occupied beside the Secretary. She went into the Secretary's office; Mr Williams was checking invoices at his desk.

'I've seen that man Warren, in the surgical,' she said.

'Can he pay?'

'Not a halfpenny. He's a derk, out of a job and walking south.'

The little man clicked his tongue in consternation.

'Hasn't he got any money?'

'If he had, I'd have got it. I asked the sister what he had when he came in. He's only got a little silver.'

'What sort of a man is he?'

'A very good type. He's a payer all right — when he gets in work. But there's no saying when that will be.'

'Aye,' said the Secretary. He stood staring out of the window into the yard, short and rubicund. 'I suppose the men will get in work again — some day.'

'I wouldn't bank on that,' said Miss MacMahon.

Next day a consultation was held upon the riveter in the next bed to Warren. A screen was put around the bed while it was in progress; presently the screen was removed and the doctors and nurses went away. The riveter leaned over towards Warren.

'Eh, mon,' he said. They say I'm to have an operation the morn.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Warren.

' Tis the Lord's will, and we must say naething against it.'

'What's the operation f or?'

Tor the colic I was telling you about. A something ulcer, they was calling it just now. But I don't know.'

He lay back upon his pillows, inert and listless.

'Duodenal ulcer,' said the nurse in response to Warren's enquiry, when she brought him his milk food for lunch. 'Doctor Miller's doing it tomorrow.'

That afternoon the riveter's wife came to sit with him, a woman as tall and gaunt as Petersen himself, dressed in a faded black costume, with straggling grey hair and with appalling shoes. She brought with her a present of a sixpenny packet of cigarettes; the man in the-bed smoked one gravely and in perfect silence. The woman stayed with him for about an hour until they told her it was time to go; so far as Warren could detect they exchanged no words at all after the preliminary brief greetings. She came, and sat with him, and went away.

Perhaps, thought Warren, there was nothing to be said.

Next morning there was the bustle of preparation about the riveter in the next bed. They took him to the theatre about half-past ten; an hour later he was back again with the screen drawn close around the bed.

Warren did not see him again. That the case was critical was evident from the attention of the doctors and the nurses. In the middle of the night Warren was roused by What was evidently a consultation of some sort; from behind the screen he heard a laboured breathing that was new to him. All the next day the sound of breathing grew in loudness with a rasping quality, as if the man were gasping for his breath.

'Pneumonia,' said the nurse. 'He's very ill.'

That night the riveter died.

'What did he the of?
'
Warren asked his nurse. 'How did he come to get pneumonia from an ulcerated stomach?'

She shook her head. 'It just happens. When you're weak enough you can get anything, you know.'

She brought around the packet of cigarettes, from which only one was taken. 'His wife said I was to give these away. Would you like one?'

Warren lay and smoked in meditative silence. He found that he had a great deal to think about.

Three days later, two more patients died on the same day. One was a man of forty-five or so with peritonitis, the other a boy of seventeen who had had an operation on his neck and jaw for some strange bone disease. To Warren, totally unused to hospital routine, there was no apparent reason for the deaths — the men went for operation, and then just died.

The Almoner came down the ward next day distributing her papers and books. He stopped her by his bed. 'Have you got time to stop a minute? I want to know a bit more about this hospital.'

'Why — yes. For a very few minutes.'

She sat down by his bed.

He fixed her with his eyes, cold and purposeful; he was becoming very much himself again. 'I don't want to ask anything that you can't answer, or that you ought not to tell me. But there's something wrong here, and I'd like to know what it is.'

'Something wrong?'

'All these deaths.'

She was silent. He went on, 'I've been here ten days now. In that time four people have died in this ward, out of the nineteen beds — all after operations. I suppose there may have been eight or nine operations in that time, counting my own. The way I see it, that's about fifty per cent of deaths. Surely that's not right?'

'I think your figures are a little high. I should have said forty per cent, myself.'

'You mean, that when one has an operation here it's little better than an even chance if one gets through?'

She hesitated. 'I suppose that's what it comes to.'

He was silent for a minute. Then he smiled at her. 'I don't want you to think I'm prying into what isn't my business. After all, I seem to be getting over mine all right, and I suppose that's all that matters to me. But I'd like to understand the reason for these casualties.'

He paused
.
'So far as I can see, the nursing here is good — very good indeed. I've nothing to complain about. I can't judge of the surgery, of course. But he seems to have done a good job on me, and I've seen no bloomers on that side. And yet there's this high percentage of deaths. It's unusual, isn't it?'

'Yes. But you know why it happens as well as I do.'

'I promise you I don't.'

In turn, she gave him a coldly, appraising look. 'How long have you been out of work, Mr Warren?'

He met her eyes. 'About six months,' he said steadily. 'You must remember that I only know conditions in America, and American hospitals. I've only been in this country for a fortnight.'

She softened. 'I forgot.' She glanced at him queerly. 'You've come from the New World, and you don't know anything about your own country. Funny.'

'What do you mean?'

She answered his question with another. 'What did you think of your country when you came back to it again? What did you think of Sharples?'

'I've never seen Sharples,'

'But how did you get here?'

'I got picked up on the road when I was ill, and brought along here on a motorlorry.'

She got up from the bed. 'You've got a lot to learn about this country, Mr Warren,' she said coldly. 'You'd have done better to have stayed in America. In this country a man on public assistance gets about five shillings a week for his food — not much, unless he's economical. After five years of that you can't expect him to stand operations very well. I should have thought that was obvious, even in America.'

She swept away, and left Warren to his own reflections.

Five shillings a week for food — it didn't seem very much. The riveter had told him that his weekly income from the public assistance committee was thirty-one and six, out of which nine and threepence went for rent. That left twenty-two and threepence for everything else, for four people. If you deducted something for fuel — he did not know how much — and for clothing, it looked as if five shillings was an overstatement.

How much food could you get for five shillings? Like most men, Warren was lamentably ignorant of the price of food. Eggs, he thought, were twopence each; if you lived exclusively on eggs that would be four and a half eggs a day for five shillings a week. You wouldn't get fat on that. There were probably cheaper foods than eggs — bread and stuff. However, there was not much nourishment in those.

And there was no contingency at all to cater for bad management, or ignorance.

The reason for the listlessness of the patients became clear to him. This was the result of unemployment for five years, of living at a gradually decreasing standard of nourishment. Gradually decreasing, because all families would have some capital, something that could be sold from time to time throughout the early period, to add to the family income. There would be things to be picked up, too, at first, firewood from the deserted shipyard, loose coal from me idle slag heaps — trifles unconsidered in the time of general prosperity. Gradually, as time went on, the town would become swept bare, till at last there would be nothing to supplement the weekly dole.

And mat, it seemed, meant undernourishment. You did not the when you were drawing public assistance money, but you certainly did not remain alive.

Unlike most hospitals, Warren thought, there was no wireless laid on to the beds. That evening after tea, however, Miss MacMahon appeared with an electric portable, set it on a table at the end of the ward, and plugged it to a concert of 'old favourites'. The effect upon the ward was magical. Men who had lain inert all day turned their heads and raised themselves on one elbow; the ward woke up. The Almoner strolled over to Warren's bed.

'Good thing, that,' he said. 'Gives them an interest.'

She nodded. 'I wish we could have it laid on properly, with headphones at the beds. Having it like this means you can only have it when there's nobody very ill in the ward.' She smiled at him wryly. 'And as you've pointed out, that isn't very often.'

He said, 'I'm sorry if I spoke out of turn this morning.'

'I was unnecessarily rude,' she said. 'Forget it.'

The ward was thoroughly awake. The men were humming the familiar tunes, singing in low, discordant tones, beating rhythmically with one hand on the counterpane. Warren lay and watched them for a time.

'How much does it cost to put in wireless to the beds?' he asked. 'I should have thought it would have paid.'

'It would pay in results,' she said. 'But there just isn't the money in this town for things like that. We ought to have done it five years ago, when things were good. It costs about five hundred pounds, or a bit more. We got a quotation once.'

The concert was drawing to a close before the News. 'And now,' said the announcer, 'before we finish up we've just got time for one old favourite that we all know.' And the orchestra struck up the opening bars of 'Land of Hope and Glory'.

Warren smiled, a little cynically. The girl saw it, and was angry with him.

The music rose and swelled through the ward, lifting the spirits of the men with its derided appeal. Warren, watching, smiling, had the smile wiped off his face, there was nothing here to laugh about. The music rose and swelled through the ward, and now the men were singing from their beds, singing and meaning every word of it.

'Land of Hope and Glory

Mother of the Free — How shall we extol thee

Who were born of thee? . . .'

'Five shillings a week,' thought Warren
.
'My God!'

The music rose, lifted the spirits of -the men, held them for a time, and died into silence before the first News. For a moment there was stillness in the ward, then someone moved, and the spell was broken.

Warren turned to the girl. 'Land of Hope and Glory,' he said bitterly
.
'I suppose that's Sharples on the dole
.
'

She eyed him for a moment. 'You're poking fun at us, Mr Warren,' she said coldly. 'That isn't very nice. We've done our best for you.'

He shook his head. 'I wasn't poking any fun.'

'What did you mean, then?'

'I was wondering what made them sing that thing like that,' he said. 'I suppose they understand the words.' She flushed angrily and was about to speak, but he stopped her. ' "Land of Hope and Glory",' he said quietly. 'The land that gives them five bob a week to live on — and forgets. There's no Glory for them in this land, and very little Hope. And yet they sing that thing like that.'