The Liverpool Nightingales, page 3
No, definitely Nancy would never have stopped to help some foul-smelling tramp reeking of drink. And even Alice Sampson – following close behind Nancy with her tentative step, slightly out of breath as always and her face pale that morning – even Alice did not dare stop.
Nor Edwina Pacey, running late as usual, hurtling after the group with her face flushed and her cap askew. Not even Edwina could stop, even though she was the most likely candidate within the group to freely offer assistance to any mortal soul.
Not one of the young nurses dared to stop and risk being late for the ward. Not after Louisa, a well-meaning girl but with no common sense or real purpose in life, had been dismissed by the superintendent in front of the whole group last week for lateness and slovenly behaviour.
In fact, all of the nurses were well into their work on the wards before anyone came close to helping the man on the steps. And in the end it was the superintendent of the training school herself, Miss Mary Merryweather, who attended him. She was, as always, later than the probationers. She’d been checking that they had left their dormitories in the correct order and then she had gone back to the dining room for extra eggs and a slice of ham.
Seeing the man on the steps was no surprise to Miss Merryweather. Since the building had opened they had regularly found sick, abandoned and even dead people on the doorstep. She felt at his forehead with the back of her hand: he was burning up, he definitely had a fever, and she could smell suppuration. He must have some festering wound, she thought. Then he opened his eyes and started talking some nonsense about going into battle and seeing Miss Nightingale. Despite the resident smell of drink on the man, it was easy for the superintendent to tell that the man was delirious from fever and he would need urgent treatment if they were going to save him. Miss Merryweather needed two orderlies with a stretcher to transfer the man to the hospital and she knew exactly where they would be at this time of day. So, leaving the man on the steps, she walked swiftly to the hospital and a quiet corridor tucked away behind the kitchen.
As Miss Merryweather stood at the top of that corridor she could see a cloud of tobacco smoke emerging from a recessed area behind a store cupboard and she knew that she was right.
‘Mr Delaney,’ she shouted, and heard immediately the sound of scuffling and muttering from the recessed area and then the man in question clearing his throat.
‘Yes, Miss Merryweather,’ said a red-faced man, stepping into view, slightly out of breath and wiping drops of tea from his stubbly chin with the back of his hand.
‘Ah, there you are, Mr Delaney,’ said Miss Merryweather, making out that she had no idea where the two men were stationed. ‘I need you to find your colleague, Mr Walker, and proceed at once to the steps of the Nurses’ Home. We have another patient who has been left there for medical attention. He has a fever and he looks quite poorly. I need you to remove him from there as soon as possible and bring him to the Male Surgical ward. I believe they had a number of deaths overnight so there should be a bed.’
‘Yes, miss,’ said Michael Delaney, trying to smile but feeling very badly done by. They had only just finished moving the bodies of the deceased out of the wards, they were desperate for a drink, but now there would be no time to finish their tea or their smoke. He knew that Miss Merryweather had the exact measure of everything that went on in the hospital and that she would stand and wait until she saw him and Stephen Walker heading down the corridor with the stretcher. There was no way round it and he knew that they might as well get moving straight away.
‘Right then, Stephen,’ said Michael, as always taking the lead. ‘Let’s get the blighter loaded up and in that bed as quick as we can, then we can get back to the kitchen for another brew.’
Stephen nodded. He never said much, he simply moved carefully in the direction that he was pointed. They had an easy working relationship: Michael was in charge and Stephen did as he was told.
‘Don’t like the look of this one,’ said Michael, at the head of the stretcher. ‘He’s not going to make it through the night.’
‘He might do all right,’ said Stephen at the foot, ‘I’ve seen ’em worse than this.’
‘Aye, but this man’s got a lot of liquor inside him. I don’t mean just from one night, I mean from years and years of drinking. He’s pickled in it. If he survives the day then they’ll have a hell of a time with ’im on the ward when he comes off the liquor. A hell of a time. He’ll be shaking and rattling that bed for days to come, you mark my words. It’ll be terrible for them new nurses, those young probationers, it will indeed,’ he said, starting to laugh. ‘All new on the ward this week, some of ’em look like they’ve never even nursed a sick kitten, never mind a nasty, full-grown man full of liquor.’
The patient was delivered directly to the Male Surgical ward where there was, thank goodness, still a free bed. The wards were so packed out that they filled instantly. By rights this man should have gone to the medical ward, but there wasn’t even one bed on there that morning. Michael saw that the sheets hadn’t been changed after they’d removed the previous occupant. He knew they should have summoned a nurse and made sure the bed was clean, but he was desperate for his cup of tea and this fella they’d picked up from the steps was filthy dirty from the streets anyway, so he had to let it go this time. There was something that they could do, however, to hide their tracks, a tip that he’d picked up years ago. When they had the man on the bed they rolled him about a bit on the bedding to transfer on to it some more of his own grime. Who would know?
Before they could pick up the stretcher and leave, however, Sister called down the ward and the two men stood stock-still, looking at each other, their eyes wide. Sister Law was a fearsome woman. Michael always referred to her as ‘the one that must be obeyed’.
‘Mr Delaney,’ she shouted, ‘wait RIGHT there.’
Michael stood as if in a trance for a few seconds and then he pasted a smile on his face and turned to face the woman as she strode down the ward towards them with her starched cap fastened in a tight bow beneath her ample chin.
‘Yes, Sister,’ he said, managing to maintain the smile as Stephen stood frozen behind him with his head bowed and his jacket hanging loose around his thin frame.
‘Right, you two,’ said Sister, slightly out of breath as she stood before Michael. ‘We need you both at the top end of the ward. We have another patient who needs to be moved: another mortal soul who has passed away, I’m afraid.’
Stephen couldn’t help but let out a huge sigh of relief. Sister switched her gaze straight to him and scowled.
‘Good that the poor man is out of his suffering,’ said Michael instantly, crossing himself.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Sister, twisting back to face Michael with a suspicious glare.
Then looking past him she said, ‘Miss Merryweather has already spoken to me about this patient – has he been able to give you his name?’
‘No, Sister, not yet. He’s not making any sense at present,’ said Michael, already starting to move up the ward before Sister Law got any closer to the sheets on the bed. ‘Get the stretcher, Stephen. We’ll move the deceased straight away, Sister, straight away.’
2
‘The time is come when women must do something more than the domestic hearth.’
Florence Nightingale
‘What is your name?’ asked Maud when she saw the boy’s eyes begin to flutter open.
She had been sitting by his bed now for some time on the Male Surgical ward of Liverpool Royal Infirmary. Miss Fairchild had given her the full day off again so that she could go back and check on the boy. Maud had accompanied him to the hospital the previous day, when he had been in so much shock, and it had got so late by the time they’d been given a bed that she had only been able to make sure that he had a blanket to cover him before she needed to head back to the big house. And so here she was again, out on a mission for Miss Fairchild. The place was packed with patients and there was a horrible smell, but she hadn’t minded waiting there by his bed, watching over him. He was her priority.
The nurses kept passing by the bottom of the bed and glancing at them, sometimes smiling, often walking by fast on their way to rescue some poor soul who was falling out of bed or staggering down the ward or screaming out in pain. Maud could see how some of the young nurses in their new uniforms were flushed in the face and seemed uncertain, and she could hear how the older woman in the grey uniform and starched cap tied in a tight bow under her chin kept scowling down the ward and shouting at them. She needs to give them a chance, thought Maud. This place is so busy and clearly they are new to the job. There seem to be about three of them who look brand new.
One of them was in constant attendance at the bedside of the new patient next to them. Maud had seen the men with the stretcher bring him in, slide him on to the bed and roll him about a bit on the sheets. She’d been keeping an eye on the poor man whilst she waited for the boy to be seen. The man had seemed sleepy at first but now he was shouting and rolling around, agitated and trying to get up. His legs were bad and they couldn’t hold him so the nurses kept coming to him and wrestling him back down, then tucking the blanket in around him firmly, well under the mattress in an attempt to keep him safe. But in no time at all, he was off again. There was no rest for the nurses. No rest for anyone.
Looking down to the boy, who seemed to have gone back to sleep or whatever state he had lapsed into, Maud couldn’t help but worry about his injury and feel an ache in her chest when she thought about how he had been forced to climb chimneys. His face and his hair – and the rest of him, in fact – were completely black with soot. And the sticky blackness of soot was the blackest of black that can be imagined, especially against the white sheet of a hospital bed.
Maud had held the boy whilst one of the nurses put some kind of sling on his arm, the light-grey cloth of it now drawing attention to the injured part of his body. She still bore the marks of the soot on her skirt from where she had held on to him. She had tried dusting it off but it just smeared more. She would have to wait till she got back to the house; Miss Fairchild would know what to do about the stain.
Then she had an idea. Maybe if she started cleaning the boy up it would be good for him and it would help stop the soot rubbing off on the sheets and any other person who came into contact with him. She kept trying to catch the attention of one of the nurses as they hurried by the bottom of the bed, to ask for a bowl of water and a cloth, but as soon as she saw one coming and opened her mouth to speak, they were gone.
Now the man in the next bed was at it again, shouting out, something about wanting to see Miss Nightingale. Maud wondered at first if the famous lady had actually come to work at the Infirmary in Liverpool but soon realized that the man was delirious. She felt disappointed. She would have liked to be able to go back and tell Miss Fairchild that she had met the Lady with the Lamp. She wondered if the man had met Florence Nightingale at some time in his life. Given the huge scar and the chunk of flesh missing from the leg that he kept thrusting in her direction, maybe he had been a soldier in the Crimean War.
The man sat up again, with renewed energy this time, and Maud could see that he was trying to scrabble out of bed. She leapt up from her seat and quickly went round to steady him as he sat swaying on the edge of the bed. She held on to his arm and managed to balance him, but then he swore at her and tried to wrench his arm free, so she held on to him and as they struggled she noticed that he had an unusual tattoo on his forearm. It looked like a black swan, and it was ripped through by a vicious-looking scar. The poor man, she thought, he must have been through some terrible battle. Then he growled at her and pushed himself up from the bed and she couldn’t stop him. He was standing up and lurching sideways. She was determined to hold on to him but frantically looking around for one of the nurses. She could smell the liquor on his breath and his eyes were burning with some kind of fury. She could also feel how strong he was, despite his crippled leg. She stood, just holding him, until one of the red-faced young nurses came to her side.
‘Thank you,’ said the nurse, a bit breathless. ‘As you can see we are very hard-pressed today and this one just won’t stay in bed.’
Maud helped the young nurse, who had a very pleasing manner, load the man back on to the bed and then, before the nurse could disappear, she took her opportunity. ‘Please can you tell me where to get a bowl of water and a cloth so I can give my boy a wash?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said the nurse, already on the move. ‘Go into the sluice room, there, that one,’ she said, pointing to a door as she moved off down the ward.
Maud checked that the boy was still sleeping and the man in the next bed was settled before she made her way over. She found some tin bowls and a stack of cloths and, grabbing one of each, she ladled some water into the bowl from a large bucket that sat on the ground. As she went back out through the door she almost knocked into Sister, who instantly scowled at her.
‘What are you doing?’ she said. ‘You are not a nurse … what are you doing in our sluice?’
‘It’s just that one of the nurses …’ No, thought Maud, I’m not going to get that young woman into any trouble. ‘It’s just that I wanted to help and I needed some water to start washing the boy that I’ve brought in.’
‘You needed some water,’ Sister almost shouted. ‘Do you realize that those tin bowls and cloths are for the use of the nurses, and the nurses alone?’
‘No, I didn’t know,’ said Maud, standing her ground and meeting the woman’s gaze.
The woman, who was quite short, pulled her shoulders up towards her ears and pushed out her chest before speaking again. ‘I am Ward Sister. All people going in and out of the sluice are answerable to me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Maud. ‘I can see that you are very busy on the ward today. Please can I help by using this bowl and this cloth out of your sluice to wash the boy who I am staying with until one of your doctors is free to attend to him?’
Sister’s face went bright red and she started to splutter a reply.
‘Thank you,’ said Maud, turning and making her way back down the ward to her patient.
Maud daren’t look back but as she walked she heard a crash from the top of the ward and then Sister’s voice shouting, ‘Nurse, nurse, go to that patient immediately. Go on, go on, before he knocks something else over … oh, for goodness’ sake, let me deal with it.’
Feeling safe again by the boy’s bed, Maud put the tin bowl on the floor and soaked the piece of cloth in the water. She was so gentle at first with the cloth on his face that no soot was coming off. Then gradually she used a bit more pressure but she was still very careful, treating the boy as if he was the most precious thing in the world. She had never spent much time looking at her own face – she usually just gave it a quick swill with water and a wipe with a towel at the beginning and end of each day – so paying attention to all the different contours of a face was quite a new experience for Maud. She liked the line of the brow and the sweep of the boy’s cheekbone. She kept going but in the end the cloth was black, the water was black, the boy’s face was still black and there didn’t seem to be much to choose between them. But Maud kept on, not wanting to risk a trip back to the sluice for clean water just yet.
Suddenly the boy’s eyes popped open. They were so blue, pale blue that again Maud almost gasped at their colour against the black of his skin.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Just lie still … you will be all right.’
The boy tried to sit up and grimaced with the pain from his arm.
‘You’ve hurt your arm and now you are in hospital,’ said Maud soothingly.
The boy looked at her with dread, as if he had just woken from some nightmare. She saw him try to sit up again and she wanted to help him but she could feel him pulling away from her.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you,’ she said gently, but then he was looking around the ward frantically and when she put her arm around him to offer some comfort she could feel him tense, sitting separate and erect in the bed in a position that was clearly uncomfortable for his injured arm.
She let him look around the ward for as long as he needed so that he could see where he was and try to make sense of things. When he looks at me again, she thought, that’s when I’ll try to speak to him.
When she eventually saw his shoulders start to relax just a little and he tried to shift himself into a more comfortable position, she spoke, reminding him of what had happened.
The boy looked at her again, for longer this time, and then he, too, spoke, his voice tiny against the background noise of the ward with men shouting out and people clattering up and down.
‘Is Mr … is Mr Greer coming for me?’
‘No,’ said Maud firmly. ‘He is not coming. Miss Fairchild has made sure of that.’
She carefully placed a hand on his forearm and he looked at her again. She smiled gently at him, her slow smile. He didn’t smile back but she could tell that her words had given him some comfort and she knew that he was starting to trust her a little.
‘Now let’s try to get you a bit more comfortable,’ she said. ‘See if you can slide down in the bed a bit and try to lie on your back. We’ll prop the arm at that side …’
The boy cried out with pain as she started to wedge his arm with a blanket. Maud drew in a sharp breath and almost felt the pain herself. ‘Ouch,’ she said. ‘Sorry about that.’
