‘So who is he then, and why is he writing to you?’
‘He’s a driver on the underground, and he’s helping me to learn the names of all the different stations on each of the lines, so that I don’t get confused when people ask for tickets. Ever so kind and nice he is.’
‘So you are sweet on him then?’ Dulcie pounced.
‘No.’ Agnes could imagine how embarrassed Ted would be if he thought that someone as dull as her was getting ideas into her head that had no right being there.
Listening to their exchange, Tilly could see that Agnes was getting upset and couldn’t help wishing that Dulcie would stop teasing her.
‘Learn all the stations? Oh heavens, Agnes, I don’t think I could do that!’ Tilly exclaimed. Dulcie’s behaviour was making her feel uncomfortable. She admired the older girl but at the same time she felt protective of Agnes and didn’t like to see Dulcie making fun of her.
Giving Tilly a grateful look, Agnes explained, ‘Ted’s been teaching me this tune so that I can sing them ’cos that’s how his dad taught him to remember the stations. We have a cup of tea together every day just before he clocks on. He does the late shift.’
‘Well, you’d better not let Tilly’s mother know that you’re being so familiar with a man, otherwise you’ll be out on your ear, ’cos she doesn’t approve of her lodgers having gentlemen friends, does she, Tilly?’ Dulcie demanded, determined to have her pound of flesh.
‘Oh, no. It’s nothing like that,’ Agnes protested, looking even more distressed and anxious.
‘Dulcie’s just teasing you, Agnes,’ Tilly tried to calm her, insisting to the other girl, ‘Aren’t you, Dulcie?’
Dulcie gave a dismissive shrug, tossing the folded pages over to Agnes and laughing as she failed to catch them and had to scrabble on the floor for them.
‘If you say so.’ It irked her that Tilly had taken Agnes’s side. They were just a couple of know-nothing kids, the pair of them, who’d end up being ‘best friends’ and sticking to one another like glue. She’d left all that kind of thing behind her when she’d left school. In this life it was everyone for themselves, and them that put themselves first did best. Not that she’d actually had a best friend at school, she was forced to admit. But then that had been because the other girls had been jealous of her, and them that had palled up with her had only done so because they were soppy over her brother. Besides, once you started palling up with other girls they started wanting to know every bit of your business, and then they started threatening to tell on you if they didn’t like what you were doing. No, the last thing she needed was a best friend.
Chapter Seven
‘Six weeks we’ve been at war with Germany now, and I’m getting that tired of not being able to sleep properly at night for waiting for Hitler to bomb us that it would almost be a relief if he did.’
Automatically Sally nodded her head in agreement with the views expressed by the other nurse seated beside her in the canteen whilst they ate their lunch, but the reality was that for once her mind was not on the war. Her heart thudded against her ribs. She’d only come to London and Barts to get away from Liverpool, and until today, if anyone had suggested that she had become attached to Barts and would be unhappy at the thought of leaving, she would have told them soundly that they were wrong.
Now, though, to her own surprise she was forced to admit that she had developed a love for the old place. But it looked as though she was going to be asked to leave.
Just before she’d come for lunch, Theatre Sister had told her that Matron wanted to see her as soon as she’d eaten.
Of course, she hadn’t said why, and Sally was far better trained than to ask. She’d searched her mind and her conscience and so far had not been able to come up with anything she’d done wrong that merited a summons from Matron, and she was glad that Sister had waited until they’d finished work for the morning before telling her. Not that they’d had any serious ops this morning, just a girl who’d come out of the pictures in the blackout and fallen over a sandbag, breaking her ankle, which had had to be properly set, and a young, newly enlisted soldier who’d been fooling around with a friend and ended up with a bullet in his arm.
All she could think was that there’d been a change of plan and that her services were no longer needed, with most of the hospital being evacuated. She knew that she would be able to get another job – somewhere – but she’d just begun to settle in at Barts and at number 13.
There was no point in delaying things. She couldn’t finish her meal she was so apprehensive. Getting up, she made her way first to the nearest ladies’ where she stared anxiously at her reflection in the mirror, checking to make sure that her nurse’s tall hat was on exactly as it should be, with no wisps of hair escaping, before removing her cuffs from her rolled up sleeves and then unrolling them. She’d removed her apron before leaving the ward and now, trying to calm the nervous butterflies swarming in her tummy, she left the ladies’ and headed for Matron’s office.
Her hesitant knock was answered immediately by a firm, ‘Come.’
Sally went in. Officially Matron was now based with the evacuated Barts in the country, but she still made regular visits to London, and Sally, who greatly admired her, found that despite her nervousness there was something reassuring about the sight of her familiar figure.
‘Ah, Nurse Johnson. Good. I dare say you’re finding our ways here at Barts are different from those in your previous hospital, and I hope that you feel that you are benefiting from your time here.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ was the only thing that Sally dared allow herself to say. Had someone complained that because she wasn’t Barts trained her standards were not as high as they should be? Naturally her loyalty to her own training hospital in Liverpool had her mentally up in arms at the thought of it, or of her being found wanting, but of course she could not say so. All nurses, and no doubt matrons too, felt the kind of loyalty for the hospital in which they had trained as members of a family did towards that family. They might criticise and even occasionally find fault, but outsiders certainly must not.
‘Your employment here is, of course, only for one year.’
Sally’s heart began to sink. This was it. Matron was going to tell her that her services were no longer required. Well, at least she hadn’t done something so heinous that she was going to be called to order for it.
Matron was looking down at some notes on a piece of paper in front of her.
‘Although most of the hospital has been evacuated, that does not mean that we don’t have to maintain our traditional Barts high standards here. If London is bombed, then this hospital will be one of those at the forefront of dealing with the injured.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Sally’s muscles were beginning to ache from standing up so straight, but she dare not relax her pose, even had her training allowed her to do so.
‘You have been on duty in the operating theatre whilst our consultant plastic surgeon, Sir Harold Gillies, has operated.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Sally agreed.
‘Sir Harold has extremely high standards and is very particular about the nurses who work in his operating theatre. He has made a point of informing me that he thought that you, Nurse Johnson, are a first-rate theatre nurse.’
Matron had summoned her here to her office to praise her. Sally felt so dizzy with relief and disbelief that she was quite light-headed.
‘Of course, it is my role as Matron to decide which of my nurses should be recommended for further training and responsibility, and mine alone. However, in this instance . . .’ Matron paused and looked directly at Sally. ‘The evacuation has created a lack of senior nursing staff. What I have in mind, Nurse, is to promote you to the position of theatre staff nurse, with a view – with further training