"Have you many beds?"
"Have they many beds?" The one question that starts up among the competing wards.
And, "I don"t want any; I"ve enough to do as it is!" is the false, cloaking answer that each Sister gives to the other.
But my Sisters are frank women; they laughed at my excitement--themselves not unstirred. It"s so long since we"ve had a convoy.
The gallants of the ward showed annoyance. New men, new interests....
They drew together and played bridge.
A little flying boy with bright eyes said in his high, piping voice to me across the ward:
"So there are soldiers coming into the ward to-night!"
I paused, struck by his accusing eyes.
"What do you mean? Soldiers...?"
"I mean men who have been to the front, nurse."
The gallants raised their eyebrows and grew uproarious.
The gallants have been saying unprofessional things to me, and I haven"t minded. The convoy will arm me against them. "Soldiers are coming into the ward."
Eight o"clock, nine o"clock.... If only one could eat something! I took a sponge-finger out of a tin, resolving to pay it back out of my tea next day, and stole round to the dark corner near the German ward to eat it. The Germans were in bed; I could see two of them. At last, freed from their uniform, the dark blue with the scarlet soup-plates, they looked--how strange!--like other men.
One was asleep. The other, I met his eyes so close; but I was in the dark, and he under the light of a lamp.
I knew what was happening down at the station two miles away; I had been on station duty so often. The rickety country station lit by one large lamp; the thirteen waiting V.A.D."s; the long wooden table loaded with mugs of every size; kettles boiling; the white clock ticking on; that frowsy booking clerk....
Then the sharp bell, the tramp of the stretcher-bearers through the station, and at last the two engines drawing gravely across the lighted doorway, and carriage windows filled with eager faces, other carriage windows with beds slung across them, a vast Red Cross, a chemist"s shop, a theatre, more windows, more faces....
The stretcher-men are lined up; the M.O. meets the M.O. with the train; the train Sisters drift in to the coffee-table.
"Here they come! Walkers first...."
The station entrance is full of men crowding in and taking the steaming mugs of tea and coffee; men on pickaback with bandaged feet; men with only a nose and one eye showing, with stumbling legs, bound arms. The station, for five minutes, is full of jokes and witticisms; then they pa.s.s out and into the waiting chars-a-bancs.
A long pause.
"Stretchers!"
The first stretchers are laid on the floor.
There I have stood so often, pouring the tea behind the table, watching that littered floor, the single gas-lamp ever revolving on its chain, turning the shadows about the room like a wheel--my mind filled with pictures, emptied of thoughts, hypnotized.
But last night, for the first time, I was in the ward. For the first time I should follow them beyond the gla.s.s door, see what became of them, how they changed from soldiers into patients....
The gallants in the ward don"t like a convoy; it uns.e.xes us.
Nine o"clock ... ten o"clock.... Another biscuit. Both Germans are asleep now.
At last a noise in the corridor, a tramp on the stairs.... Only walkers?
No, there"s a stretcher--and another...!
Now reflection ends, my feet begin to move, my hands to undo bootlaces, flick down thermometers, wash and fetch and carry.
The gallants play bridge without looking up. I am tremendously fortified against them: for one moment I fiercely condemn and then forget them.
For I am without convictions, antipathies, prejudices, reflections. I only work and watch, watch....
Our ward is divided: half of it is neat and white and orderly; the other half has khaki tumbled all over it--"Sam Brownes," boots, caps, mud, the caked mud from the "other side."
But the neat beds are empty; the occupants out talking to the new-comers, asking questions. Only the gallants play their bridge unmoved. They are on their mettle, showing off. Their turn will come some day.
Now it only remains to walk home, hungry, under a heavy moon.
The snow is running down the gutters. What a strange and penetrating smell of spring! February ... can it be yet?
The running snow is uncovering something that has been delayed. In the garden a blackbird made a sudden cry in the hedge. I did smell spring, and I"m starving....
I thought last night that a hospital ward is, above all, a serene place, in spite of pain and blood and dressings. Gravity rules it and order and a quiet procession of duties.
Last night I made beds with the eldest Sister. The eldest Sister is good company to make beds with; she is quiet unless I rouse her, and when I talk she smiles with her eyes. I like to walk slowly round the ward, stooping and rising over the white beds, flicking the sheets mechanically from the mattress, and finally turning the mattress with an ease which gives me pleasure because I am strong.
In life nothing is too small to please....
Once during the evening the eldest Sister said to me:
"I am worried about your throat. Is it no better?"
And from the pang of pleasure and grat.i.tude that went through me I have learnt the value of such remarks.
In every bed there is some one whose throat is at least more sore than mine....
Though I am not one of those fierce V.A.D."s who scoff at sore throats and look for wounds, yet I didn"t know it was so easy to give pleasure.
The strange, disarming ways of men and women!
I stood in the bunk to-night beside the youngest Sister, and she looked up suddenly with her absent stare and said, "You"re not so nice as you used to be!"
I was dumbfounded. Had I been "nice"? And now different....