The Liverpool Nightingales, page 19
‘This is a bit harder than treating a human person,’ she said, starting to feel a bit flustered. ‘You can’t really talk to a dog and explain things, can you? And I do need to have a feel at the paw if I can.’
‘It’s all right, Rita, it’s all right,’ said Harry. ‘Just let the nurse have a look at it. She knows what she’s doin’ and she might be able to help. Now you keep still and just let her feel. She will be gentle …’ Then he nodded to Maud and quietly said, ‘Now just tell her what you’re goin’ to do and have another go.’
That’s exactly what she did and, remarkably, it worked. It was like he’d hypnotized the creature or something. Maud was gentle and now she was able to feel the length of the dog’s paw.
‘Well, I can’t feel anything obviously broken or out of shape,’ she said, remembering what Alfred’s arm had looked like, ‘so that’s promising.’ Harry and the dog both looked at her hopefully.
‘But the leg is definitely swollen. Can you see here, and compare it to the other?’ Maud was aware of the closeness of Harry as their heads moved together to look at the paw. She could smell that special smell that he had again – what was that; was it in his hair? – and it was a good job that she was kneeling down because she was sure that her legs were starting to feel a bit weak.
‘It could just be a sprain,’ she said, taking a deep breath to try to control the racing of her heart. She’d started to feel a bit dizzy too.
This is ridiculous, she said to herself, trying to get herself in order.
‘Right, I have a piece of lint and a bandage,’ she said, gently letting go of the dog’s paw and rooting in her pocket. ‘What I’m going to do is wrap the lint round the whole lower leg, just below the knee. Is that what you call it on dogs, the knee?’
Harry nodded and she could hear his breath coming fast.
‘Now, could you hold her fast? She will probably find this painful but we need to be firm. All right?’
‘All right,’ said Harry, looking very serious indeed.
Maud was able to apply the lint around the leg with no more than a small yelp from the dog, but when she took the bandage and started to fix it firmly the creature yelped and howled like they were killing her and Harry had to use all of his muscle to hold her still.
‘That’s it, that’s it,’ said Maud, bandaging fast as if her life depended on it and then expertly ripping down the ends of the bandage and tying it securely around the leg.
‘There,’ she said, sitting back on her heels, her face flushed and her breath coming quickly.
Harry was still holding the dog but she had stopped yelping and trying to struggle free. He was talking quietly to her and they both seemed to be in some kind of trance. Maud stood up from her work and continued to watch them.
‘Do you want to see if she can put the paw down?’ she said at last when they didn’t move.
‘Oh right, yes,’ said Harry, gently lowering the paw to the ground and then holding his breath.
Maud was holding her breath too, expecting at any moment to hear that piercing howl of pain again, but the dog seemed comfortable. Maud looked at Harry with her eyebrows raised and they exchanged a ‘so far so good’ smile.
‘Now, carefully,’ said Maud, ‘let’s see if she can stand.’
Maud could see Harry hold his breath again as he stood back a bit and called to the dog, who was sitting quite comfortably, ‘Come on then, Rita, come on.’
The dog stood and yelped. Maud thought, here we go again. But it was just one yelp and then when Harry tried her with a few steps she was limping and her ears were still flat back against the sides of her head, but at least she could walk.
‘It seems to be helping,’ he said, turning to Maud with a triumphant smile, ‘don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ said Maud, completely amazed, ‘it does.’ She was so pleased that she had been able to help the animal. She looked at Harry and they both smiled again, and then she realized that they were standing just outside the grounds of the Infirmary and she was still wearing her uniform so she cleared her throat and said, ‘Now just go easy with her and make sure she gets some rest. If the bandage starts to loosen, you saw how I applied it, just put it back on the same way.’
‘Or I could bring her back to you,’ he said, starting to get a bit of a twinkle back in his eye.
‘No,’ said Maud, ‘you will be quite capable of putting it back on yourself.’ Then she straightened her uniform skirt and prepared to leave.
‘Thanks, Maud,’ he said, very genuine. ‘I will find some way to pay you back for sure. In fact, do you want to come to the fight tonight? We’ll be in that small park as usual, just down the road from here …’
But Maud was already shaking her head. ‘No, no, I can’t,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t. I just couldn’t stand by and watch people set out to hurt each other. It’s just too, too brutal.’
‘I suppose you’re right there,’ he said, ‘but if you change your mind, you know where I am.’
Maud smiled and then looked down at the ground. It was time to get going.
‘Thanks again,’ Harry said, stooping down to pick up the dog. ‘I’m not letting her walk just yet. I’m not risking anything. I can’t stand to hear her in pain. She can go and stay at Stella’s place.’
‘Good idea,’ said Maud, watching him settle the dog in his arms and then set off walking. She stood and watched him go, the dog looking back at her over the shoulder of his dark-green jacket. Then she thought, come on, Maud, snap out of it. Even if you were looking for a man – and you are definitely not looking for a man – he is absolutely the wrong type for you. Then she looked at him again as he carried the dog, and she smiled before turning in the opposite direction and heading back to the Nurses’ Home.
13
‘Ward management is only made possible by kindness and sympathy.’
Florence Nightingale
‘Have you heard about Nancy?’ said Eddy.
‘No,’ said Maud, anxious to be off and wishing that she hadn’t agreed to wait for Eddy so that they could walk to the ward and arrive for their first morning on Female Surgical together.
‘She’s been given Female Medical and she’s furious. They’ve all got apoplexy on there, and that’s just the staff from working with Sister Fox. She’s even worse than Sister Law. And what with all those patients with bad chests coughing up buckets of phlegm all day long, it isn’t a good placement for anybody, let alone Miss Nancy Prancy,’ said Eddy, clearly relishing the news.
Maud glanced at Eddy, for once just wanting her to speed up a bit, and she definitely wanted to straighten up the nurse’s cap that sat squashed and askew on her head. She was only half listening, and even though there was no love lost between her and Nancy, she still always hoped for the best for everyone. She was glad that Nancy was away from Alice, and for Maud that’s what really mattered.
‘Well, we’ll have to do our time on there as well in due course,’ she said. ‘Our turn will come.’
‘Hadn’t thought about that,’ said Eddy, ‘but she’s got it first,’ and she was almost rubbing her hands together with glee.
They arrived on the ward with moments to spare and Maud made a silent promise to herself that she would tell Eddy that it was best for them to make their own way to the ward in future. She just found all that rushing too stressful first thing in the morning.
Ward routine was much the same on all of the wards so Maud felt instantly at home, as she knew that she would on a ward full of women. The whole sound and smell of the ward was different. It felt cleaner and lighter in some way, even though the shape and layout was exactly the same. Sister Pritchard was nice too. She was tall, thin and very softly spoken, the complete opposite of Sister Law on Male Surgical, although over the weeks Maud had to admit that she had started to warm to Sister Law in a strange way. But Sister Pritchard felt like the right sort from the start, and Eddy had told her that nobody had a bad word to say about her.
They weren’t far into the morning’s work when Maud found out that the same two orderlies, Michael and Stephen, whom she had become familiar with on the male ward, served this one as well. They came running through the door with a young woman screaming in pain and clutching her abdomen. Sister Pritchard was straight there and she called Maud and Eddy over to observe how they dealt with an admission on Female Surgical.
‘They say she’s been like this for about three hours,’ said Michael, at the head of the stretcher. ‘It doesn’t look good.’
Sister gave him a sharp glance as if to say ‘let me be the judge of that’, but Maud could see that she was also looking a little perplexed by the new admission, especially when every time she tried to ask the woman anything she just screamed her head off.
‘Bring those screens from over there, please, you two,’ said Sister.
‘They never had these on the men’s ward,’ said Eddy as they picked up the folded wooden screens and brought them to the bed.
‘Now put them one at each side,’ said Sister, ‘just to give us some privacy.’
Maud and Eddy did as they were told and then squeezed in at the opposite side of the bed to Sister.
‘Now,’ said Sister to the patient, ‘I need you to try to be calm.’ The woman screamed again but not quite as loud. ‘I need you to try to tell me what has been happening today. Tell me where the pain is.’
‘It’s all ’ere,’ said the woman, ‘and it comes and goes,’ clutching again at her belly as a new wave of pain hit her.
Maud saw a glint of recognition on Sister’s face as she let the woman ride out the pain before she spoke again. ‘Have you been losing any blood from down below?’ she said before the pain came back again.
‘I ’ave, but I thought it was just me monthly courses coming, but there’s been much more than usual and I ’aven’t seen anything for months and months.’
‘Could you be with child?’ said Sister.
‘No, no,’ screamed the woman as another wave of pain hit her. ‘It can’t be that, it can’t be.’
‘Can I just have a little feel at your belly, please?’ said Sister, and the woman nodded, tears starting to stream down her face.
Sister Pritchard pulled up the woman’s nightgown, which was all that she was wearing, having been carried in straight from her bed that morning. Then she placed the flat of her hand on the woman’s abdomen and had a feel around. The woman was soon screaming with pain again and whilst that was happening Sister kept her hand resting there until the pain had gone. The poor woman seemed to be in a constant ebb and flow of pain. Maud felt so sorry for her.
Then Sister removed her hand and leant down to the woman, taking her hand. ‘I think you are with child,’ she said quietly.
‘No, no, I can’t be,’ said the woman but Sister persisted.
‘You are with child,’ she said. ‘You might be about five or six months gone and the baby is coming early. That is what’s happening: you are in labour.’
The woman started to cry quite loudly.
‘I am sorry,’ said Sister. ‘Truly I am sorry, but there is nothing we can do to stop the baby from coming and it is far too soon for it to be born. I am so sorry.’
‘I didn’t even know about it,’ sobbed the woman. ‘I told ’im we shouldn’t do it but he kept saying, “Don’t you worry, Lil, we’ll be married in spring. What does it matter?” And now look at— Aaargh!’ she screamed out. The pain was getting stronger and to Maud, who was standing tense by the bed, completely caught up in what was happening, it seemed like she could feel it too. Her heart was beating fast and she was hoping that they would be taking the woman to theatre so that she could have some chloroform, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of that. She glanced at Eddy, who stood transfixed, her eyes wide.
Then the woman gave another scream and her face changed in some way. Sister pulled down the sheet and glanced between the woman’s legs.
‘The baby is coming now, Lil,’ she said. ‘You will feel like you need to push. Just push, push as hard as you can.’
Maud saw Eddy grab hold of the woman’s hand and she heard her tell the woman to squeeze her hand as hard as she needed to. Then Lil pushed and pushed as some kind of dark mass started to emerge and then she stopped pushing. When Maud looked down at the bed, there lay a tiny baby. It was the saddest thing that Maud had ever seen: ugly and yet beautiful all at the same time. It had all its arms and legs and a tiny face, and then, to her horror, it started to open its little mouth and it gave some kind of gasp. It was trying to breathe. Maud felt the sorrow of the world inside her as she gazed at that poor scrap of life that didn’t stand any chance of survival. She had never seen anything so awful. When she looked at Eddy she could see that tears were streaming down her face and she reached out and took her friend’s hand.
Sister Pritchard took off her apron and folded it neatly and then she picked up that tiny scrap of life and laid it on the clean cloth. There was still a thin, twisty cord attached to the baby’s belly so she took a pair of scissors out of her pocket and cut through it, so that it was free.
Wrapping the baby very carefully in her clean apron, Sister Pritchard went up to the head of the bed and stood holding the bundle. ‘Here is your baby,’ she said gently. ‘It’s a girl, but she is too small and has been born far too soon so she wasn’t able to breathe. All we can do for her now is to hold her and pay our respects.’
The new mother started to cry and then she held her arms out for the tiny bundle that Sister gently gave to her.
Then Sister went back to the other end of the bed and said, ‘When you feel you need to push again, just do that, will you? The afterbirth still needs to come and it’s important for you that we get it all out.’
Lil nodded, tears streaming down her face. Maud fished in her pocket and handed her a handkerchief, and then she gave her spare handkerchief to Eddy, who was still crying at the bedside. As the two nurse probationers stood and watched they saw the woman touch the face of the tiny baby and then she loosened the apron that Sister had wrapped her in and looked at the baby’s body. Maud was fascinated by the tiny fingers and toes that it had, all absolutely perfect. Then the woman looked at them both and said, ‘She is so lovely.’
‘She is,’ said Maud and Eddy together, both transfixed by the tiny bundle that the woman held close to her heart.
‘That’s it, push the afterbirth, that’s good,’ said Sister, paying full attention to what was going on down at the other end. Then Maud saw her scrutinize what had been delivered. When she saw her looking, Sister said quietly, ‘It is very important to check that everything comes away. Afterbirth left behind can cause a fever and make the mother very sick or worse. We are hoping that this woman will be able to go on and have other children.’
Maud understood instantly and nodded her head.
Satisfied that all was in order, Sister Pritchard then straightened up from the bed and said, ‘Right, Nurse Linklater. Please can you get me a bowl from the sluice?’
Maud was gone in an instant, relieved to be away from the bed behind the screen for a few minutes. Grabbing one of the bowls she headed back down the ward, slipping behind the screen to find Eddy was now kneeling by the bedside and holding the woman’s hand as she sat cradling the baby in the crook of one arm. She’s good at this kind of thing, thought Maud as she placed the bowl on the bed for Sister to put the afterbirth in. Sister stood for a moment longer by the side of the bed and then she gestured for Maud to leave and Eddy to continue doing whatever it was that seemed to come absolutely naturally to her.
‘We’ll leave you now,’ said Sister Pritchard quietly, gazing with sadness at the mother. ‘Everything has come away. You will be all right, though I’m so sorry about your baby. Nurse Pacey will stay with you for as long as you need.’
When they stepped out from behind the screen, Sister headed up the ward and Maud was about to follow her when she heard the sound of a woman sniffing. It was the woman in the next bed, at the other side of the screen, and she had tears streaming down her face.
‘I’m sorry, Nurse,’ said the woman. ‘I’ll pull meself together; I’ll be all right.’
‘Please, please don’t worry,’ said Maud, guessing the woman’s tears were about what had just happened at the other side of the screen.
‘You carry on with your work, Nurse. You keep going. I know how busy you are.’
‘No, no,’ said Maud, ‘that’s all right, honestly. Sister told us to take as much time down here as we needed. Tell me what it is. Please tell me.’
‘No, no, I’m just being a sentimental old woman. I will be fine.’
But Maud persisted, crouching down by the side of her bed and gently putting a hand on her arm.
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘You can tell me.’
The woman looked at her with such sorrow that Maud felt a pain go right through her body. She knew that sorrow like that must have taken a whole lifetime to grow.
‘It’s just that, what happened just now to that young lass behind that screen … it happened to me over fifty years ago when I was first married. I lost one as well.’ Then she started to cry again and her chest sounded tight, like she was holding on to something deep inside.
Maud took hold of the woman’s hand and continued to crouch by the bed.
‘And, do you know what, I never forgot that little baby. Even though I went on to ’ave six more, I never forgot that little one. And when it happened to me, the woman who was with me, she just bundled it up and took it away. She didn’t even let me look at it. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.’
The woman cried harder then, really letting her feelings come out.
Maud squeezed her hand a bit tighter, not knowing what to say, but needing to show that she felt something for her and understood that she was still grieving. Even though it had happened such a long time ago, for her it was still fresh.
‘This is the first time that I’ve ever been able to tell anybody what ’appened to me, apart from me mother, and she said best not to speak of it. “Least said, soonest mended,” she told me. I never could tell my husband. He was working away at the time and he never even knew that there’d been a baby. I kept all of it to meself for all of these years. I’m glad I’ve told you now, though, Nurse. It’s made me feel a bit lighter in some way. I might be dying now. I’ve got this big lump in me belly: I think it’s a cancer. The doctor hasn’t said but I can tell that he’s thinkin’ the same and he’s askin’ if I’ve got anyone at home to look after me. I will probably be dying soon …’
