Women on the Home Front Read online

  They accidentally bumped into each other near the door. Connie heard the beginning of Eva’s mumbled apology as it choked in her throat but she didn’t look at her.

  ‘Flippin’ ’eck,’ said Betty catching up with Connie in the corridor. ‘That woman was a bit near the knuckle with her knickers and underarm stuff, wasn’t she? My mum got the tin bath out for me before I came but I was terrified that she was going to point the finger at me.’

  ‘She does it to get your attention,’ said another girl. ‘My sister did this training course a couple of years ago and she says she does it with every new group.’

  Connie grinned. ‘It certainly got our attention.’

  Betty was going through her pockets. ‘Oh, blimey,’ she groaned. ‘I’ve left my keys in my room. I’ve locked myself out. Anybody here in Room 13?’

  ‘I found him, Mummy.’

  Mandy had been tucked up in bed when she remembered that her favourite storybook was in Connie’s room. She’d left it there last night when her sister read to her. When she opened the door, she’d found Pip lying on one of Connie’s cardigans which had fallen to the floor. He looked the picture of misery.

  With a little gentle persuasion, the family got him downstairs and in his basket, but only when they took the cardigan too. He wasn’t interested in his food, although he did drink a little water before lying back down.

  ‘Looks like he’s going to pine for her like he did the last time,’ said Gwen anxiously.

  ‘He’ll get used to it,’ said Ga. ‘She’ll be back every week for her day off, won’t she?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Gwen.

  ‘What do you mean, perhaps?’ Ga challenged.

  ‘What she means is that the girl needs a life of her own, Ga,’ said Clifford.

  Olive scowled.

  Mandy knelt by the dog’s basket. ‘Don’t worry, Pip,’ she said gently. ‘Connie’s coming back.’ She stroked the dog’s head. ‘You don’t have to be lonely. I’ll be your special friend, if you like.’

  Connie sat in the nurses’ school room day after day, taking notes and trying to remember how to spell difficult names like Tincture of Guaiacum (used to test for blood in the urine), gonococcus (a bacteria which causes gonorrhoea) and encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). After lectures they got to spend an hour or two on the wards, usually doing the food trolley or the bedpan round. Some of her fellow students were a little disappointed to be doing such menial tasks but the ward sister had pre-empted any grumbling behind her back by stressing how important it was to make the patients feel warm, comfortable and safe when they were in difficult circumstances.

  ‘All nursing care is of equal importance,’ she told them.

  So Connie learned to rub the stainless steel bedpan with a cloth before putting it underneath the patient because it could be very cold on the skin. She enjoyed helping the helpless to eat and when she was asked to do the temperature round, writing the results on the chart at the foot of the patient’s bed, it made her feel like a real nurse.

  She went home for her day off and pottered around in the nurseries. Pip followed her everywhere but after a while she noticed his growing attachment to her little sister. Connie had been worried when her mother told her the dog was pining, but perhaps he was adjusting to another change in his life. She certainly hoped so. Connie was having to make some big changes herself. There was little chance of going to dances with Jane Jackson. Connie could only have two late passes a month, and half the time, she was down to work part of Saturday evenings on the wards. They met for the pictures a couple of times which had to be a poor substitute for dancing with a real live man.

  The tension at the house was sometimes palpable. Clifford and Ga couldn’t see eye to eye about where the future of the nurseries lay and most of the friction between them centred around the use of the top field. Ga wanted to grow potatoes on a much larger scale but Clifford wanted to diversify.

  ‘We haven’t got the wherewithal,’ Ga insisted. ‘Not if we have to pay that dozy girl in the shop. I don’t know why I bother to keep her on. She’s always got a face like a wet week these days.’

  ‘You know yourself the ground is poor,’ he said. ‘Potatoes don’t bring in a lot so if we sold the land for building …’

  ‘Over my dead body!’

  ‘We could build something ourselves,’ Clifford persisted. ‘A factory or a shop. That would make a lot more sense than breaking our backs over a few stupid spuds.’

  ‘So now you’re calling me stupid?’ Ga retorted.

  ‘Did I say that?’ Clifford challenged. The rows became more unreasonable as time went on and there seemed to be no middle ground.

  Connie began her nursing proper on the men’s ward. She was a little nervous when she reported for duty and the first day seemed extremely long, but she got through it without any mishap. She was working with another student nurse, thankfully not Eva.

  Every day began with prayers on the ward. Sister would read the collect for the day from the Book of Common Prayer and they would all recite the Lord’s Prayer together. Connie knew that some of the girls resented this but she found it a pleasant experience and it brought with it a sense of calm.

  Her calm on her second day on the ward was soon shattered when she heard the night sister’s report.

  ‘The doctor has asked for a urine sample from Mr Dunster.’

  Connie’s heart sank. She wanted to say, whatever you do, don’t ask me, but she knew a good nurse would never refuse to withhold treatment from her patient, no matter how obnoxious they were. She’d had a run-in with Mr Dunster when she was on the ward one day after lectures and he was nothing more than a lecherous old beast. She’d had to take a urine sample then and when she’d taken the bottle to his bed, he had pretended he wasn’t feeling up to doing it himself. She’d had a suspicion that he was up to no good because as she drew the curtains around the bed, she spotted Mr Elliot and Mr Thomson nudging each other as they sat at the patients’ table.

  In the privacy of his bedside, Mr Dunster left Connie to undo his pyjama cord and he closed his eyes as she guided his flabby member into the neck of the bottle. As soon as she touched it, she felt it stiffen. Her hand was trembling and she was starting to feel hot and embarrassed. Don’t think, she told herself. Don’t think about it. Then she felt his hand creeping around her buttock. She’d hit him away angrily, her face flaming and glared at him, tight-lipped, until he passed water. When it was done, he smiled and sighed, ‘Thank you, nurse. You’ve got a lovely touch.’

  Connie had been furious of course, but she didn’t say anything. She was convinced that if she’d made a fuss, especially on her first time on the ward, Sister would have made her life a misery, and the other men on the ward would have had a good laugh at her expense. But she simply couldn’t face the dirty basket again.

  As the day sister thanked the night sister for her report and the night staff left, Connie prayed a silent prayer. ‘Oh God, please don’t let Sister ask me to deal with Mr Dunster …’ But before her prayer was even finished, she heard Sister Brown saying, ‘After breakfast, Nurse Jefferies can do the drugs trolley with Staff Nurse Harris and Nurse Dixon, can you get the sample from Mr Dunster?’

  Connie’s heart plummeted. Alone in the sluice room she took a bottle from the shelf and put it in the autoclave. While she waited for it to sterilise, her gaze fell upon a treatment trolley some nurse had abandoned without clearing it up and an idea slowly formed in Connie’s mind.

  Sailing down the ward towards Mr Dunster’s bed, Connie prayed her second prayer that morning. ‘Oh God, please don’t let Sister see me …’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Dunster,’ she said loudly and cheerfully as she reached his bedside. ‘I’m afraid I have to ask you for another sample.’

  ‘That’s quite all right, nurse,’ he grinned.

  As she pulled the curtains around his bed, Connie was aware of the other patients watching and heard one of them whisper, ‘Lucky dog.’

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p; ‘I’m glad it was you who came to help me, nurse,’ said Mr Dunster wanly. ‘I just don’t feel up to it today and you’ve got such lovely long fingers.’ He closed his eyes and leaned against the backrest with a sigh.

  ‘That’s what I’m here for,’ said Connie, tying on a face mask.

  Someone on the other side of the curtain sniggered. Connie pulled on a pair of thick rubber gloves making sure that they snapped loudly against her wrists. Mr Dunster’s eyes flew open.

  ‘I’m afraid I owe you an apology,’ she said crisply. ‘I’m new here and the last time we did this, I didn’t know the correct procedure. I’m sorry about that.’ She whipped off the green cloth from the top of the tray to reveal a urine bottle and a large pair of flat bladed forceps. Mr Dunster’s eyes grew large.

  ‘Now I want you to relax, Mr Dunster,’ said Connie brightly. She heard another snigger from the other side of the curtain. ‘This won’t hurt … much.’

  The silence seemed to grow as she guided Mr Dunster’s member towards the bottle, careful to keep a very firm grip to avoid any accidental spill. Moments later after sailing back down the ward with the sample, her head held high, she bumped into Sister by the door of the sluice room. Her heart went into her mouth. Oh Lord, now she was in trouble …

  ‘Well done, nurse,’ said Sister Brown and it was then that Connie noticed the twinkle in her eye. ‘You’re learning. He won’t be doing that again, and while you’re doing your own sterile tray, would you clear up this trolley? I think the night staff must have forgotten it.’

  The door swung for a moment or two as she left and Connie set about clearing up the sluice room. How did Sister Brown know what she was up to? The woman must have the eyes of a hawk. One thing was for sure. Mr Dunster wouldn’t be wanting her help again, especially as she’d held the forceps for a very long time under the cold water tap before she’d used them to hold his member.

  Sally Burndell had had a letter from Terry. As soon as the letter fell on the mat, she’d recognised his writing. She’d planned to read it in her lunch break at work but she couldn’t wait. She’d opened it on the bus. After that, she didn’t remember much about the journey. The next thing she knew, she was at the terminus in Littlehampton. She’d been crying and she was as white as a sheet. The conductor had been so concerned he’d taken her to the First Aid room at the bus station.

  ‘I think she might have had some bad news,’ he told the nurse.

  Sally heard them talking but it didn’t seem important. She was still clutching Terry’s letter in which he’d told her it was all off. The conductor put her off at the bus stop where she’d originally got on. She thanked him but she still seemed to be in shock. He worried as he watched her making her way back home again.

  A couple of hours later, Mrs Burndell staggered up the garden path with her shopping.

  ‘You look well loaded,’ said her neighbour Mr Keen. He was on a stepladder and clipping the privet hedge.

  ‘Donkeys go best well loaded,’ she joked and he smiled. Her arms were nearly pulled out of their sockets and of course Sally wouldn’t be there to help her. She was working her notice at the nursery. Next week she would be starting her secretarial course and she was so proud of her. Sally was the first girl in the family to have a proper career of her own. She was a bright girl, a bit lippy at times but she had a good head on her shoulders. Sally was destined to go far and Mrs Burndell could only hope she would give herself the chance to see a bit of the world before she settled down with Terry.

  Mrs Burndell fumbled for her back door key.

  ‘It’ll be open,’ said Mr Keen. ‘Your Sally’s home.’

  Mrs Burndell frowned, puzzled. She put down her bags and opened the back door. It was difficult bringing in the bags and keeping the door open at the same time. The door slammed and Mrs Burndell stumbled over something on the floor. As she looked down, all the colour drained from her face. Sally was crumpled up on the floor.

  ‘Sally?’ There was no response at all. Mrs Burndell fell to her knees and held her daughter’s wrist. Thank God, there was a reedy pulse. She had to get help, but what had happened? Opening the back door again, Mrs Burndell screamed out, ‘Mr Keen, Mr Keen help me! Get a doctor. My Sally’s been taken bad.’ She turned back into her kitchen and tried to make sense of what she was looking at. The washing pulley was in bits on the floor. Sally must have been hanging the washing and it all fell down. She pushed the bits of wood out of the way and glanced up at the huge hole in the ceiling. Mrs Burndell turned her daughter slowly and that was when she saw the rope around her neck.

  Nine

  Connie was on top of the world. By the time the last vestige of double summer time had been eradicated by the clocks going back the final hour in the middle of November, she had realised that she had truly found her vocation. There was a strong feeling of camaraderie between the student nurses. They supported each other when things went wrong and applauded each other when some milestone of achievement had been met. At first she and Eva avoided each other but things finally came to a head on their first night duty together and ironically, thanks to two dead men, the girls finally became friends.

  Mr Ockley still hadn’t been taken to the mortuary when Mr Steppings passed away. Sister Brown rang the porter’s office only to be told that no one was available for at least another hour. There was a bit of a flap on somewhere.

  ‘Nurse Dixon,’ she said as Connie came by the night sister’s desk with a full bedpan, ‘when you’ve finished that, I want you and Nurse O’Hara to take Mr Ockley and Mr Steppings to the morgue. We’ll be starting the morning round soon and I can’t have the patients waking up to two dead bodies on the ward.’

  Connie chewed her bottom lip anxiously.

  ‘Yes, I know it’s not very pleasant walking across the grounds in the dark,’ said Sister completely misunderstanding Connie’s hesitation, ‘but if there are two of you, you can look after each other.’

  Eva didn’t look too thrilled when Connie told her. They put the two men on the trolley, one in the box underneath and the other on the top covered with a sheet. It was a tidy walk to the morgue and there wasn’t time to do two trips.

  They worked in silence until they got to the lift. As Connie pulled the trolley in, she bumped it and an arm slipped from under the sheet and bopped Eva on the bottom. The shock made her cry out and for a second Connie wondered if she’d be accused of doing it on purpose, but Eva clutched at her chest and said breathily, ‘He scared me half to death.’

  ‘I guess it was his last chance to touch a pretty girl,’ Connie grinned and the atmosphere between them lightened.

  The lift went down and shuddered to a halt. They opened the doors and walked along the corridor through the swing doors and out into the night. They were glad of their cloaks because the mortuary was at the other end of the hospital grounds. It was very cold. There was a light breeze and the moon was full. Even though she was with Eva, Connie felt nervous and a bit spooked up.

  When they got to the morgue, there was only one porter in the office, having a tea break. He wasn’t very pleased to see them, throwing his sandwich back into his lunch box and scraping his chair in annoyance as he stood up.

  ‘No peace for the wicked,’ he grumbled. ‘We haven’t stopped all bloody night and even when I gets five minutes to meself, you comes down.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Eva, ‘but Sister wants them out of the way before the rounds start.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to help me,’ he said grudgingly. ‘I can’t put him to bed on me own.’

  He walked ahead of them, switching on the light. It was the first time Connie had ever been into a morgue. Inside it was almost as cold as out of doors. They laid Mr Steppings on the only free slab (someone else lay on the other one) and covered him again with the sheet. The porter turned to go. ‘There’s another one in the box,’ said Connie matter-of-factly.

  ‘You what?’ the porter demanded.

  ‘We’ve got two bodies,’ said Eva. ‘Mr
Ockley is underneath, in the box.’

  ‘But we ain’t got no more room,’ the porter said.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to put him somewhere,’ said Eva, her hand on her hip. ‘We can’t take him back.’

  The porter made a great show of his irritation and went back into the office to get a clipboard and another trolley. Together they checked the paperwork and laid Mr Ockley on the top of the porter’s trolley and covered him with another sheet. ‘Turn out the light when you goes,’ said the porter going back to his sandwiches.

  Connie flicked the switch and the two of them were just turning to go when Mr Ockley let out a long sigh. Connie froze.

  ‘You all right?’ said Eva.

  Connie put her hand to her throat. ‘Is he still breathing?’

  Eva shook her head. ‘It’s only trapped air coming out of his lungs,’ she said.

  Connie put the light back on and stared at the sheet.

  ‘You’ve gone deathly white.’ Eva went back to the trolley and pulled back the sheet. ‘Check for yourself, Connie, or you’ll always wonder.’

  Connie went back and looked at the old man. There was no doubt. Mr Ockley was definitely gone. Already rigor mortis was setting in. She looked up at Eva.

  ‘Okay?’

  Connie nodded and pulled her cloak around her. On the way back to the lift, she glanced across at Eva. ‘Exhausting, isn’t it?’ Eva turned and gave her a quizzical look. ‘All this not speaking to each other, it’s exhausting.’

  Eva nodded. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘I really liked you that day in London,’ Connie went on.

  ‘And I you,’ said Eva. ‘It was good fun.’