Doors banged along another corridor somewhere and a doctor was being summoned. Kate was overwhelmed by the constant activity and wondered, for a moment, what she had agreed to.
One man, lying on a bed near the door, called out as they entered, ‘Here we are then, another angel for us lads.’
‘Now, Sergeant, just you behave yourself,’ one of the nurses replied. ‘Don’t you mind him,’ she said, addressing Kate, ‘he’s getting so much better that he’ll be off our hands soon. Hello Clara, you’ve brought us another volunteer, I see.’
Clara was greeted by nurses and patients by name. Kate’s eyes swept over the entire room and she could see that, although this particular group of men were very talkative, there were many who were too sick and injured to respond. One, whose thin body looked no bigger than a child’s, groaned with everyoutgoing breath and his head was so bandaged that she couldn’t see his face.
Kate turned back towards the nurse, her expression silently questioning what had happened to him.
‘Gassed and bullet wound to the head,’ the nurse whispered. ‘I’m afraid the surgeons had to remove one eye. He’s lucky to be here.’
Kate’s realization of what she had volunteered for hit her. She expected that nursing the wounded would mean seeing injuries but she had not considered that some of those injuries might be so shocking to see, so life changing. She took in the rest of the ward. One soldier at the far end was calling out with such urgency for help that Kate looked around her to see if anyone was going to him. There was both pain and panic in his voice. A nurse pushed past them saying, ‘Excuse me,’ and rushed off, calling for assistance from the other nurses.
Clara said to Kate that they should let the nurses get on with their work and took her to find the matron. Before Clara knocked on Matron’s door, Kate asked if the soldier who called for help would be all right.
‘Some injuries are so bad, Kate, that the men don’t survive. It’s the sad reality of what we do here. Are you sure you want to do this?’
Kate thought of Philip and how she would want someone to be looking after him should he be lying in some hospital somewhere, a kind face and a helping hand to speed his recovery. She thought of Archie, heading back to the front, and Fred. These men she did not know, these soldiers, deserved looking after too.
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said.
Clara knocked, and a voice asked them to enter. The two women greeted one another and Clara introduced Kate.
‘Good afternoon, Kate. Please sit down,’ Matron said. ‘I’m always pleased to meet another of Clara’s young women. We are particularly in need of extra help now, as we’ve just taken in another shipload of men. We’ve hardly enough beds for them all.’
Matron explained to Kate that she’d be given her duties each time she reported for duty by the ward sister and that there would be a certain amount of ‘using her own good sense’ when something needed doing.
‘Oh, Kate is the most able person I know at taking the initiative,’ Clara said.
‘Well good, that’s what I like to hear,’ Matron replied. ‘Now there are a few things I should mention about confidentiality. These are not normal circumstances, Kate, and we cannot have visitors on the wards. It’s too distressing for all concerned. We get servicemen from all over and if local men were allowed visitors then the others would suffer and we believe they’ve suffered enough, as I’m sure you’ll agree.’ Kate did agree.
‘Now, Clara will introduce you to Sister,’ Matron said. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
Sister Mathews welcomed Kate and then immediately passed the task of showing Kate the routines of the ward to an experienced volunteer called Jane. Jane introduced her to the clean linen cupboard and the dirty linen baskets, where to find the mop and bucket, the kitchens and the cupboard where the cleaning materials were kept. She showed her how to make up a bed according to Sister’s strict requirements and where the collection of books and magazines were kept.
‘Some of the men like to be read to, if you ever have the time,’ Jane said. ‘Main thing you need to know though is where to find the urine bottles and the bedpans.’ She opened a tall cupboard door to reveal the rows of them. ‘Right, next things next, thisis the slops room. We spend a lot of our time in here,’ Jane explained.
As soon as they returned to the main ward, Kate got her first call. ‘Here’s your chance,’ Jane grinned. ‘No time like the present, Kate! Sergeant Carter needs a bedpan and it looks like he needs it in a hurry.’
Kate fetched the pan and Jane helped her to assist the sergeant whose injuries made it difficult for him to raise his lower body. She waited, turning her face away and, when he had finished, removed the pan. Covering it with a cloth, she took the waste to the toilet area and disposed of it, unable to stop herself from wanting to retch.
As she came out of the slops room, where she’d cleaned and disinfected the pan, one of the doctors swept passed her. At the bed by the window, one of the nurses was calling for assistance. She was leaning over a patient and pressing down on his chest, beating out a rhythm. The doctor shouted for screens and Jane hurried across to Kate.
‘Come on, Kate, help me,’ Jane called, snapping Kate out of her shocked stillness.
‘Will he be all right?’ Kate asked.
Jane shrugged. ‘Happens all the time in here,’ she replied. ‘Some of them survive and some don’t. You’ll get used to it.’
Kate wasn’t sure of that but she knew that she must expect more and probably worse. The thought wasn’t even cold in her head, when a cry of anguish snapped her out of it.
She turned to see one of the men slumped across the edge of his bed, contorted in pain. She went to him and could see that one leg was twisted under him. She needed to move him and called for Jane to help her get him on his back.
As they pulled back the covers and tried to right him, Kate noticed that his leg wound was bleeding out and had soaked his bandages.
‘What on earth were you trying to do, Samuel?’ Jane asked.
He managed to reply, his face creased and pinched with the effort. ‘Needed to use the toilet,’ he said.
