For King and Country by Annie Wilkinson Read Free Book Online Page B

would be no food for this fellow for a long while.
    One patient back and the trolley stood ready for David Jones, the twenty-four-year-old with the fractured femur who was next to go down. Sister called her. ‘You can go with him, Wilde.
Stay with him until they’ve wheeled him into theatre, and come straight back.’
    ‘Yes, Sister.’
    The porter was already dragging Jones feet first out of the ward, and Sally ran to catch the end of the trolley, meeting as she did, a pair of big, brown, fearful eyes that put her in mind of a
calf being led off to slaughter. She put a reassuring hand on Lieutenant Jones’ arm.
    ‘Will you hold my hand, Nurse?’
    She laughed, thinking he was joking, but he wasn’t. Well, there’d be no harm in it, she supposed, and gave him her hand. The porter was doing all the pulling, and it wasn’t
difficult to keep the trolley steady with her other one.
    ‘I’m an awful coward, aren’t I? But I’m dreading it, and dreading waking up after it. I’d rather die than lose my leg. God gave me two legs, and I want to take two
to my grave.’
    She gave his hand a squeeze. ‘You’re not a coward, but there’s no infection, so I wouldn’t worry about losing your leg.’
    ‘My name’s David. I’m not a proper officer, you know. I joined as a private and worked my way up from the ranks. I’ve only been a second lieutenant a week.’
    She watched them wheel him into theatre then raced back to the ward, hoping she’d been some use to him. Everybody said you always remember the patients you admit yourself. Sally
hadn’t admitted David Jones, but she wouldn’t forget him if she lived to be a hundred.
    His bed had been rigged up with a confusing array of beam and bars and pulleys and weights resembling some medieval instrument of torture. Three hours later they lifted
Lieutenant Jones back into it complete with Rhyle’s tube in his nostril, and splint on his leg. With a worried frown Sister set about the task of attaching his leg to the weights.
‘Watch me. You might have to do the next one,’ she told Sally. ‘His leg’s in a Thomas’ splint, and the weights keep the bone pulled straight so it’ll set
properly. He’ll be able to pull himself up with that monkey bar above him – when he comes round, that is.’
    Staff Nurse Dunkley returned just as they were finishing the task, and not exactly as might have been expected. Not the slightest bit abashed, she fairly waltzed into the ward and her chin was
even further up than when she’d left. Sister’s face was a study, a mixture of deep disapproval, and absolute relief.
    ‘Staff Nurse Dunkley reporting back on duty, Sister,’ she trilled, and although she kept her face straight, Sally knew that on the inside, she was laughing.
    Half a dozen probationers squeezed into Sally’s room that night, all privy to the secret of Dunkley’s disgrace, all striking poses of outraged virtue while eager
for every salacious detail.
    ‘And her professing to be such a
lady
! I’ve seen ladies like her walking the streets.’
    ‘She’s got no shame, that is a certainty.’
    ‘What I want to know is, how did she get away with it?’
    Curran gave a delighted chuckle. ‘Sure, and you never will know, because
you’re
not girls for listening behind doors.’
    ‘And you are! Curran, you know something! Come on, spill the beans.’
    ‘Ach, you’re worse than I am; you’re nothing but a lot of old scandalmongers, so you are. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, but I’ll tell you anyway. Matron gave
Dunkley her marching orders, and sent her to pack . . .’
    ‘How can she have?’ Sally protested. ‘She came back to the ward, and worked the rest of the shift.’
    ‘She did so. And if I hadn’t had to go back to the nurses’ home to change my apron because I had it covered in sick, we’d never have known why.’
    ‘Why, then? Come on, Curran, spit it out!’ Armstrong urged.
    ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and isn’t that what I