Britannia All at Sea

His cold eyes held Britannia’s warm brown ones for a moment and then settled on a point a little above Sister Mack’s shoulder. ‘I have it on good authority that Nurse Watts wasn’t responsible for the error,’ he pointed out in a silky voice. ‘I suggest that the matter be looked into and dealt with after the round.’ He turned to Mr Hyde. ‘I’m sure you will forgive me for saying this, but I happen to have been personally involved…’

Mr Hyde, not very quick to catch on, observed gamely: ‘Oh, certainly, my dear chap. We can make do with the notes.’ His eyes suddenly lighted on Britannia. ‘You know who did it?’ he asked. And when she said ‘Yes, sir,’ he went on, ‘And of course, you don’t intend to tell me.’

She smiled at him. ‘That’s right, sir.’

He nodded. ‘I like loyalty. I daresay you can get fresh specimens, Sister?’

Sister Mack, quite subdued, muttered something or other and Britannia took the opportunity of putting the next case papers into her hands. The quicker the round got back into its old routine, the better. She looked up and found the professor’s eye on her once more and this time, because she was so relieved that he had held his tongue, and at the same time stood up for little Dora, she essayed a smile. His eyes became, if anything, even colder, his fine mouth remained in an unrelenting straight line; he didn’t like her. She removed her own smile rapidly and frowned instead.

The next patient, fortunately, was an irascible old gentleman who had a great deal to say for himself, and as the professor’s face was a new one and he looked important, he was able to air his opinion of hospitals, doctors, the nursing staff and the Health Service in general, at some length. Mr Hyde, who had heard it all before, listened with veiled impatience and said ‘Yes, yes,’ at intervals, not wishing to offend the old man who had, after all, been something important in the War Office in his heyday, but the professor heard him out with great courtesy, even giving the right answers and making suitable comments from time to time so that when at last the diatribe came to an end, the speaker added a corollary to the effect that the professor was a man of sense and might do worse than join the hospital staff. Whereupon Mr Hyde pointed out that his colleague was only paying them a brief visit on his way to Edinburgh and had work enough in his own country. ‘A distinguished member of our profession,’ he added generously.

‘A foreigner,’ remarked his patient with a touch of asperity, and then added kindly: ‘But his English is excellent.’

The professor thanked him gravely, expressed the wish that he would soon be on his feet again, and with Mr Hyde beside him, wandered on to the next bed. The round was uneventful for the next half a dozen beds; it was when they reached the young man in the corner bed as they started on the second side that interest quickened. He was a very ill young man, admitted only a few days previously, and it became apparent that this was the patient in whom the professor was interested—indeed, intended to operate upon that very afternoon. ‘Hydatid cysts,’ explained Mr Hyde to his audience, ‘diagnosed by means of Casoni’s intradermal test—the local and general reaction are very marked.’ He signed to Britannia to turn back the bed-clothes and began to examine the patient while he murmured learnedly about rupture, peritonitis and severe anaphylaxis. The professor agreed, nodding his handsome head and adding a few telling words of his own, then said at length: ‘We are unable to establish eosinophilia, but the X-rays confirm the cysts, I take it?’

Britannia, on the alert, produced the films with all the aplomb of a first-class conjuror getting a rabbit from a hat and obligingly held them up for viewing while the surgeons, this time with the registrar in attendance, peered and commented. ‘Yes, well,’ observed the professor at length, ‘should you feel that I could help in any way…’

Mr Hyde took him up smartly: ‘This afternoon?’ He turned to include Sister Mack. ‘Could that be arranged, Sister? Shall we say half past two in main theatre? He will go to ICU from theatre and I shall want a responsible nurse to look after him here.’ His eye lighted upon Britannia. ‘Staff Nurse Smith, perhaps.’

Which would mean that Britannia would have to forgo her evening off duty and, worse, Sister Mack would have to stay on and do her Staff Nurse’s work. ‘Certainly, sir,’ said Britannia, not looking at her superior. She had been going out with Doctor Ross, the Medical Registrar, and now she would have to explain. David was impatient of interference with his wishes; he had booked two seats for the latest musical and the forgoing of a pleasant evening was going to put him out—perhaps a good thing, she decided; he had become a little possessive just lately…

The round rambled on, with frequent pauses while Mr Hyde and his companion murmured, occasionally drawing Sister Mack into their discussion and asking Fred for his opinion, invariably pausing too to say a few appropriate words to the occupants of the beds. At the last bed, Britannia nodded to the ward orderly, peering at them through the glass window of the door; it would never do for the coffee tray in Sister’s office not to be there and ready. Not everyone had coffee, of course, only Sister Mack and the consultants and Fred; no one else was considered eligible. Britannia, used to Sister Mack’s little ways, despatched the houseman and the students to the kitchen for refreshment and retired to the linen cupboard where Bridget, the ward maid, would have put a tray for her. But before she went she beckoned Delia Marsh to her.

‘Before you go to coffee,’ she said without heat, ‘you will find Dora and apologise, and when you have had your coffee you will report to Sister and tell her that the error was yours, not hers. And I advise you not to do anything like that again. You’re in your third year and you should know better.’ She nodded dismissal. ‘Dora will be back from her coffee, tidying beds.’

The linen cupboard was cosily warm and the frosted glass of its narrow window shut out the grey November morning. Britannia made herself comfortable on a laundry basket and poured her coffee. Bridget was one of the many people in the hospital who liked her; the coffee was hot and milky and two biscuits had been sneaked out of Sister’s tin. Britannia munched and swallowed and thought in a vague way about Professor Luitingh van Thien; an ill-tempered man, and arrogant, she considered, then looked up in astonishment as he opened the door and walked in. And over and above that, she discovered with an almighty shock, the man she wished to marry; she had been in and out of love quite a few times, as any healthy-minded girl of twenty-four or so would, but never had she felt like this. Nevertheless, all she said in a mild voice was: ‘You should have knocked, Professor.’

The cold eyes studied hers. ‘Why?’

She said with some asperity: ‘Manners.’

His thick dark brows rose, and then: ‘But I have none,’ and he went on deliberately, ‘I am getting on for forty, unmarried, rich and something of a hermit; I need please no one.’

‘How very sad,’ observed Britannia with sincerity. ‘Did you want something?’

The lids drooped over his eyes. ‘Yes. I also wish to ask you a question. Why Britannia?’

She took a sip of her cooling coffee and stared at him over the mug’s rim. ‘My parents decided that with a name like Smith they should—should compensate me.’

He broke into such a roar of laughter that she exclaimed: ‘Oh, hush, do—if Sister hears you she’ll be in to see…’

His brows rose again. ‘Chance acquaintances over a cup of coffee?’

‘Put like that it sounds very respectable, but it wouldn’t do, you know. Visiting professors and staff nurses don’t meet in linen cupboards.’

‘You flatter yourself, Miss Smith. I cannot recall inviting you to meet me.’

She took another sip of coffee. ‘Very prickly,’ she observed, ‘but I quite see why. There’s no need for you to stay,’ she added kindly, ‘I’ve answered your question.’ He looked so surprised that she went on: ‘I’m sure that no one speaks to you like that, but it won’t harm you, you know.’

He smiled, and she wasn’t sure if she liked the smile. ‘I stand corrected, don’t I?’ He put a large square hand on the door. ‘And talking of manners, you didn’t offer me coffee, Miss Smith.’

‘You’ve just had it,’ she pointed out, and added: ‘sir.’

‘Yes. A cup of vilely brewed liquid, curdled by Sister Mack’s conversation. What an unkind woman!’ He eyed the almost empty coffee pot as he spoke and Britannia said with real sympathy:

‘The kitchen maid makes super coffee—I always have it alone on round days. I enjoyed mine.’

He opened the door. ‘Heartless girl,’ he remarked coldly, and went out.

Britannia poured herself the last of the coffee. She had forgotten to apologise for sending him out of the sluice, but her whole mind had been absorbed by her sudden uprush of feeling when he had come in so unexpectedly. She frowned, worrying that she would never have the chance to do so now—she wasn’t likely to see him again, at least not to speak to. ‘And that’s negative thinking, my girl,’ she admonished herself out loud. ‘If you want to see him again, you must work at it.’

A heartening piece of advice, which she knew quite well was quite hollow. The professor wasn’t the kind of man to be chased, even if the girl chasing him had made up her mind to marry him. She sighed; probably she would have to rely on Fate, and that lady was notoriously unpredictable. She picked up her tray and bore it back to the kitchen, then crossed the landing to Sister’s office. The door stood half open; everyone had gone, Mr Hyde, his firm and his handsome colleague. She might as well get Dora’s unfortunate little episode dealt with at once. Undeterred by Sister’s cross voice bidding her to go in, she opened the door wider and entered.

Fate at least allowed her to see him again, although the circumstances might have been more propitious; it was quite late in the afternoon when the patient returned to the ward and by then Sister Mack, never the sunniest of persons, was in a quite nasty mood. She had an evening’s work before her and instead of being refreshed by a free afternoon, she had been hard at it doing dressings, medicine rounds and writing the beginnings of the day report, while Britannia, as she put it, had been idling in theatre. Britannia hadn’t been idling at all, but she knew better than to protest. She had rushed back to the ward while the patient was in the Recovery Room and broken the news to her superior that ICU was up to its neck with a bad car crash and the patient would be coming straight back to his own bed. So she was engrossed in a variety of urgent tasks to do with the well-being of the patient when Mr Hyde and the professor arrived at the bedside. They were still in their theatre gear; shapeless white smocks and trousers; the professor, being the size he was, looking as though he might burst every seam although his dignity remained unimpaired. He barely nodded at Britannia before bending over the young man. She handed Mr Hyde the observation sheets she had been keeping, answered his questions with brief clarity, and stood silently until the two men had made their examination. Everything was just as it should be, they told her, she was to continue the treatment which had been ordered—and what, she was asked, were the arrangements for the night?

‘There will be a special on at nine o’clock, sir,’ said Britannia, and thought longingly of that hour, still some time ahead—tea, and her shoes off and her feet up…

It was disconcerting to her when the professor asked: ‘You have been off duty?’ because unless he was blind and deaf, which he wasn’t, he would have seen her and heard her during the course of the afternoon; indeed, he had stared at her in theatre so intently that she had felt twelve feet tall and outsize to boot.

She handed Mr Hyde her pen so that he could add something to his notes and said composedly: ‘No. I can make it up later in the week.’

‘No tea?’ And when she shook her head: ‘A paragon among nurses, Miss Britannia Smith. Let us hope that you will get your just reward.’ His voice was bland and the smile she didn’t like was back again. She wondered what his real smile was like and wished lovingly that he wasn’t quite so difficult. She said a little severely: ‘You have no need to turn me into a martyr, Professor. I shall do very well.’

The two surgeons went presently; the professor’s casual nod seemed positively churlish compared with Mr Hyde’s courteous thanks and genial good evening. Britannia, fiddling expertly with tubes, mused sadly on her day. Surely when one met the man of one’s dreams, it should be the happiest day of one’s life? If that were so, then hers had fallen sadly short of that.

Sister went to supper at seven o’clock, leaving a student nurse in charge of the ward with the remark that Staff Nurse Smith was there and able to cope with anything which might turn up; she was still bad-tempered at the loss of her off-duty, and the fact that Britannia couldn’t leave her patient didn’t seem to have struck her, nor did it strike her that Britannia might like her supper too, for when she returned from her meal she finished the report, gave it to the night staff when they came on, and pausing only long enough to tell Britannia that she was worn out with her day’s work, hurried off duty. The special wasn’t coming on duty for another hour; Britannia, dealing with the dozens of necessary chores for her patient, hardly noticed where that hour went. Fred had been down earlier, he came again now, expressed his satisfaction as to the patient’s condition, told Britannia with the casual concern of an old friend that her hair was coming down, and went away.

She still had no time to have done anything to her hair when she at last got off duty. Men’s Surgical was on the first floor and she wandered down the staircase to the front hall, listening vaguely to the subdued sounds around her; the faint tinkle of china as the junior night nurses collected up bedtime drinks, the sudden distant wail of some small creature up on the children’s unit above her, the creak of trolleys and the muffled to-ing and fro-ing of the night staff. She yawned hugely, gained the last stair and turned, her eyes on the ground, to go down the narrow passage which would take her to the Nurses’ Home. She was brought up short by something large and solid—Professor Luitingh van Thien.

‘Put on that cloak,’ he advised her in a no-nonsense voice. ‘We are going out.’

Britannia, aware of the intense pleasure of seeing him again, opened her mouth, closed it and then opened it again to say: ‘I can’t—my hair!’

He gave her a considered look. ‘A mess. Why do women always worry about their hair? No one is going to look at you.’

She was forced to agree silently and with regret; not that she minded about that but because he didn’t consider her worth looking at.

He had taken her hospital cape from her arm and flung it around her shoulders.

‘And you have no need to look like that; you are a handsome creature who can manage very well without elaborate hairstyles or other such nonsense.’

She was torn between pleasure at being called a handsome creature—even though it put her strongly in mind of some outsized horse—and annoyance at his casual dismissal of her appearance. ‘I don’t think I want to go out,’ she told him calmly.

‘Tea? Hot buttered toast? Sandwiches? Are you not famished?’

Her mouth watered, but: ‘I can make myself a pot of tea…’

She could have saved her breath; she was swept across the hall and out into the cold November night and walked briskly down a back lane or two and into Ned’s Café, a small, brightly lit place much frequented by the hospital staff in need of a hasty snack or cup of coffee.