A Daughter’s Choice

The first girls to arrive had sorted themselves out apart from one girl who was looking for two others to share. She looked at us uncertainly as we signed the register.

‘Will you share with me?’ she asked. ‘There is one other girl to come but she hasn’t turned up yet.’

‘Oh, she’s busy chatting to one of the doctors,’ Ally said. ‘Yes, we’ll share – won’t we, Kathy? What’s your name?’

‘Sally – Sally Baker,’ she said and looked relieved. ‘I don’t want to go in with the seniors. They are bound to be superior and look down on us, especially those who were nursing before the war. Apparently, they think we’re all useless.’

‘I suppose we are for a start,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to learn, Sally – but I agree it is better to be with other recruits. We can all cry on each other’s shoulder when Matron ticks us off.’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’ She smiled shyly. ‘I’m so nervous – are you? I’m sure I shall make lots of mistakes, and I do want to do well. I’ve got two brothers in the Army, and a … friend.’

‘We’ve all got someone out there,’ Ally said. ‘But even if we hadn’t, we would want to help. I hope they are going to let us do something useful and not just scrub floors.’

‘There will be plenty of that,’ Sally said. ‘I’ve got the key. Shall we go up now and see what the room is like?’

Ally followed her to the foot of the stairs. I glanced back and saw that Eleanor Ross had just arrived and was being told the situation. She caught up with me as I began to climb the stairs.

‘You couldn’t give me a hand with one of these cases, Kathy?’

‘Yes, of course.’ I took the case she offered; it was very heavy and I grimaced. ‘What on earth have you got in here?’

‘Clothes and books,’ she said and looked apologetic. ‘I thought it might be as well to have something to read in the evenings. It’s bound to be deadly dull. Dr O’Rourke says there’s a Military base a few miles down the road and they give a dance every month and invite us over, but apart from that there’s nothing much. Just a trip to the pub or dinner if you’re lucky, and the occasional film show over at the base again. But that’s bound to be something we’ve seen in London months ago, of course.’

‘I expect we’ll be too busy and too tired to think about anything else for a while anyway,’ I said and laughed as I saw her expression. ‘Oh, poor Eleanor. This is awful for you, isn’t it? It really wasn’t fair of your father to make you do this.’

I was surprised to see a faint flush in her cheeks.

‘Take no notice of my moaning, Kathy. I don’t mean half of what I say. I expect I shall enjoy it all once I get started – and it’s probably time I did something for someone else. Daddy says I’m spoiled and I expect he’s perfectly right.’

At the top of the stairs we paused and she thanked me for my help before we parted. ‘I can manage these now, thanks. I hope we’ll be friends?’ she said hesitantly. ‘I know your friend Ally doesn’t approve of me.’

‘Ally’s all right. She’ll change her mind when she gets to know you.’

We parted and I hurried after the others. The room was furnished with three beds, each with a small cupboard for our possessions, and a rather spotty mirror on the wall.

Ally had already bagged the bed at the far end. Sally asked me which of the other two I wanted and I told her to take her pick. She chose the middle, which left me near the door.

‘What made you lag behind with that stuck-up Ross woman?’ Ally asked with a frown. I sensed that she would rather have had me sleeping next to her and was annoyed that I had let Sally choose. ‘You should’ve let her carry her own cases.’

‘I didn’t mind. She isn’t so bad really. It’s just that she feels awkward and strange in a new place.’

‘Don’t we all?’ Sally chirped in. ‘I felt like a fish out of water until you two turned up. I’ve never been anywhere like this before. Whoever owns it must be rich, a bit different to where I live, I can tell you.’ Ally immediately started to ask her questions about her life and family, and the subject was turned. We had time only to finish unpacking our things before a girl in the heavy, ugly uniform of the VADs came to fetch us.

‘My name is Nurse Millie Smith and I’ve been sent to show you around,’ she said with a cheerful smile. ‘You will all be issued with uniforms and Matron will give you a welcoming speech at three – so you had better look sharp.’

Millie’s arrival effectively cut short all small talk. We hurried after her as she rounded up all the new recruits and led us first to a large room where we collected our kit. Then, once we had sorted ourselves out, and amidst a great deal of moaning and laughter, dressed in the unflattering clothes we’d been given, she took us on a whirlwind tour of the main building.

As we’d first thought, it had once been a beautiful private home but was now forlorn, stripped down to bare walls and very basic. The wards had been painted in dark cream and green gloss paint, though the bedrooms allocated to certain patients seemed to have more home comforts.

‘The men in the private rooms are probably going to be here for ages,’ Millie explained as she gave us a peep into one that was presently empty. ‘This belonged to a Major Robinson – he died yesterday. We’re expecting a new patient this evening.’

‘Do many of the patients die?’

Millie looked at me in silence for a moment, considering my question. ‘We get some deaths. You have to remember, these men are seriously ill or they wouldn’t be here – but most have been given life-saving treatment before they are brought to us. Our patients are here to rest and recover from the terrible ordeal they’ve suffered. Some will leave eventually – others will survive but never be well enough to go home.’

‘That’s sad,’ one of the other girls said. ‘Will they always have to stay here?’

‘Here – or another nursing home. A private one, probably, if their family can afford it. Some of the patients are officers, but we get men from the ranks as well.’

‘So I should hope,’ Ally muttered beside me. ‘Where do we work?’

‘Matron will explain,’ Millie replied. ‘I’m just here to show you where everything is so that you don’t get lost.’

We were shown the way to the operating theatre, though not allowed inside it. Millie warned us that there were strict restrictions about entering the sterile areas.

‘New recruits spend most of their time fetching and carrying on the wards, attending lectures – and of course your favourite place, the sluice room. You’ll get to know that very well, I promise you.’

Groans and laughter greeted this announcement but nobody really minded. We were here to help wherever we could. Already we were banding together, feeling a shared interest in doing our very best for the unfortunate men who had been brought to this place.

We visited the common room, where some of the patients had congregated, and had our first glimpses of the appalling injuries these men had suffered. Some had lost limbs, others had burns to their faces and hands, but these were the luckier ones who had begun to recover and we were warned that we would see much worse in the private rooms.

‘Who have you brought us now, Millie love? More lambs to the slaughter?’

A soldier in striped pyjamas with his army coat over the top came up to us on crutches. He had lost a leg from the knee down but was grinning cheerfully, apparently unconcerned by his loss. He looked all the new recruits over, his eyes coming eventually to rest on me.

‘Lovely despite that awful dress,’ he said. ‘Eyes a man could drown in. I’m Sergeant Steve Harley – what do they call you other than beautiful?’

‘Kathy,’ I replied. ‘But they don’t call me beautiful.’

‘Blind or mad,’ he quipped with a grin. ‘Want to be my partner for the bath chair race this weekend?’

‘Yes – what is it?’

Sergeant Harley chuckled. ‘Lucky girl! You get to push me right round the house faster than any of the others in the line-up – and let me tell you, I shall expect to win.’

‘I’ll do my best.’ I glanced at Millie. ‘If it’s allowed?’

‘Provided you’re not on duty,’ she said. ‘Matron frowns on such activities, of course, but the doctors are usually there to cheer us on. I shall be taking part myself.’

‘You’re on then,’ I told Sergeant Harley. ‘Provided I’m not on duty when it happens.’

‘You can get someone to switch,’ he told me. ‘Ask Millie, she knows how to get round the rules.’

‘I’ll let you know,’ I said and followed the group as they moved on.

After our visit to the common room we all had a late lunch in the canteen, which was used by both the doctors and nurses. The food wasn’t exactly like home cooking but it was just about edible and the tea was hot and strong, just like Gran made it.

‘Awful!’ Ally complained as she picked at her shepherd’s pie but Eleanor Ross cleared her plate and said it was no worse than their cook served up at home. I wasn’t sure whether she was just putting on a brave face or not.