For King and Country by Annie Wilkinson Read Free Book Online

them all, then began the night nurse’s summary. ‘The young
captain in the side ward next to my office has died. Kidney failure. The doctor’s signed the death certificate and the night nurse has performed the last offices . . .’
    ‘What are the “last offices”?’ whispered the girl next to Sally.
    ‘She’s laid him out,’ Sally murmured.
    ‘Oh.’
    Sister Davies paused and gave Sally a hard stare. ‘When you’ve finished, Nurse.’
    Sally flushed, and Sister continued. ‘We’re waiting for the porter to take his remains to the mortuary, then you can strip the bed and swab the mattress and the bedstead with
carbolic. There are six patients for theatre. The list starts at ten o’clock, and Lieutenant Maxfield’s going first. He’s had a bad night, his temperature’s still up and his
pulse is quite rapid, so he’ll be on four-hourly observations when he gets back . . .’
    Sister gave the report on all the other patients, and then fixed the probationers with an unsmiling stare. ‘We’re going to be busy with the theatre patients, but I expect all the
routine work to be done to time. As soon as you finish one job, you go into the treatment room and look at the book and do the next thing that hasn’t got a tick in today’s column. You
tick things off as you do them. If you get stuck, you ask me, or Staff Nurse. So no need to stand idle in the kitchen or the sluice, or gossiping with the patients. Off you go, then. Get a move
on.’
    They filed out of the office double quick.
    Sally took the junior probationer assigned to help her make the beds to the laundry room to stack the trolley with clean linen. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked
    ‘Crump, Nurse. Margery Crump.’
    Sally carefully initiated Crump into the mysteries of hospital bedmaking as they went along. No flapping of the sheets to raise bacteria-carrying dust, all corners properly mitred, and all
pillows turned with their openings away from the ward doors to give the beds a neat appearance when viewed from Matron’s vantage point, when she arrived to do her round. The probationer was a
good pupil and after the first empty bed the next couple were done quickly and efficiently. Then came Sally’s chance to show her how to make a bed with the patient still in it.
    ‘All right, Nurse, this is Captain Smith. He’s had his appendix out. People usually feel very sick after the anaesthetic, so that’s the reason for the Rhyle’s tube,
passed down their noses, you know. And if they’re not vomiting, they can have half an ounce of water down it, and if they keep that down, they can have a bit more later on, and then more the
next time, if they’re still keeping it down. Captain Smith’s only just had his Rhyle’s tube taken out. He might get a slice of toast soon, if he’s lucky.’ She smiled
at the Captain, amazed to discover how much she herself had learned.
    They were moving on to the next patient when the porter, a taciturn Belgian refugee of about forty, came rattling down the ward with the theatre trolley for Lieutenant Maxfield. Dunkley helped
to stretcher him onto it and picked up his notes, ready to accompany him. ‘You know how to make the bed, Nurse Wilde. Bedding turned up and into the middle so that we can lift it easily when
we bring him back on the stretcher.’
    Sally nodded, and looked towards the trolley. She would have wished Maxfield good luck, but he’d turned his face away.
    First into the sitting room that lunchtime, Sally heard a frantic fluttering. A tiny bird had flown in under the sash, and was battering itself against the windowpane. She went
to catch it but it fluttered away and found refuge behind a pile of books. Drat it; the cat had got in as well and was creeping towards the shelf, stalking the poor wild thing. The cat leaped up to
the shelf, and began to claw at the space behind the books.
    ‘No!’ Sally was beside her in half a dozen strides. She swiftly put the cat down, then drew out