impossibility of either of them ever doing well enough to become ward sisters. Fierce pain caught at Sally’s chest. Once Morag and her parents would have been the first people she would have wanted to share her news and her excitement with, knowing how well all three of them, but especially her friend, would understand what it meant to her.
‘If you wish to accept the post of staff nurse I shall require you to change from temporary to permanent staff here, Nurse. Do you wish to do that?’
‘Yes, ma’am, please. And . . . and thank you, ma’am.’
A small smile touched Matron’s mouth. ‘It is a great deal of responsibility that this hospital will be placing in you and, more importantly, so will its patients, but I have every confidence that you are capable of carrying that responsibility, Nurse, and carrying it as befits a Barts nurse. Thank you, Nurse. You may go. You will be informed of when you are to take up your new duties in due course.’
Not even once she was outside in the corridor did Sally dare to lean against the wall and give way to her own shaken exultation. She was going to be a staff nurse. And maybe ultimately a ward sister. She could hardly believe how wrong she had been about the cause of her summons to Matron’s office. And it was all thanks to Sir Harold Gillies, whose handiwork she had now had the opportunity to admire on several occasions as she watched him work on surgery in children born with cleft palates.
Sally knew that there were nurses who openly admitted that theatre work was not for them, but she truly loved it. Staff Nurse Johnson – how proud her mother would have been to learn of her success. Sally’s happiness was replaced by the familiar tight ball of mingled anger and pain that thinking of her mother, and the manner in which her former best friend had usurped her mother’s role, caused. She could never forgive Morag for what she had done. Her father’s loneliness she could understand but not her friend’s taking advantage of it.
She looked at her watch. Officially she should have been off duty from midday as she was due to start working nights from tomorrow, but of course Matron’s summons had meant that she had not been able to leave, and now that she was here she might as well look in on the ward where the patients operated on this morning would be recovering.
She was within sight of its doors when a young doctor, whom Sally recognised as being a would-be surgeon, came through them at speed, his white coat flying, his stethoscope dangling round his neck, one of the files he was holding escaping from his grasp and falling to the floor, dislodging its contents.
Sally bent to pick them up just as the doctor did the same.
‘It’s Nurse Johnson, isn’t it?’ he surprised her by saying. ‘I recognised you from the operation on that cleft palate patient last week. I was in the gallery watching Sir Harold operate.’
‘You’re from New Zealand, like Sir Harold?’ she guessed, recognising his accent.
He beamed her a warm smile. ‘Yes. My father is in general practice there. He trained here at Barts himself. I’m George Laidlaw.’
‘Sally Johnson.’
He was an attractive-looking, open-faced young man, with brown curly hair, blue eyes and a warm smile. Sally guessed that he was around her own age and he reminded her of a large gangling puppy, eager to make friends.
He was looking at her in a way that told Sally that he found her attractive. Normally this would have put her off him as the last thing she wanted was to get involved with a young man. She wasn’t looking for romance, and not just because there was a war on. Her heart was still bruised from her quarrel with Callum over his sister’s marriage to her father. However, there was something so hopeful and pleading about the look in George Laidlaw’s eyes that Sally found her defences melting a little.
She returned his smile, surprised to discover how easy it was and how pleasant to bask in the warmth of such easy and unaffected male appreciation.
‘Look, you can tell me if I’m out of order, and you’re either not interested or already hooked up, but I’d really like to take you out one evening. Just for a getting-to-know-one-another drink.’ When Sally hesitated, he added coaxingly, ‘I’ve seen how kind you are to the patients. How about taking pity on a poor lonesome and far-from-home Kiwi?’
‘It’s my duty to be kind to our patients,’ Sally pointed out mock severely, before adding truthfully, ‘Besides, I’m just about to start on nights.’
Even so, she couldn’t help remembering the fun she and Morag had had when they had first palled up as trainee nurses, especially at the Grafton Ballroom, where they had never been short of eager partners. Those days had been filled with so much youthful happiness. Barts and London were her life now and it was up to her what she made of that life. She rather liked George Laidlaw. He had a nice smile.
‘Well, it doesn’t have to be now,’ he was persisting. ‘Any night will do. I mean, I can fit in with you.’
He was flatteringly keen. Perhaps it would do her good to say ‘yes’. Her mother would definitely have thought so, Sally recognised with a small pang. Even so, in time-honoured female tradition she felt duty bound to test him.
‘If Sir Harold’s taken you under his wing, I’m surprised you’ve got time to take nurses out.’
‘Not nurses. Just one nurse – you,’ he responded simply, the look he was giving her making the colour rise up to turn Sally’s cheeks a soft pink. ‘And you’re right about Sir Harold, he does keep us busy. It’s a privilege to watch him operate. His protégé, Archie McIndoe, is working over here as well.’
‘Yes, I know.’
It was obvious to her that both Sir Harold Gillies and Archie McIndoe were much admired by the young doctor. George himself confirmed this to her when, unable to keep the admiration out of his voice, he told her, ‘During the World War, when Sir Harold first got the British Government’s permission to set up a plastic surgery unit, he used to send out labels with the ambulances going over to France so that potential patients could be sent back to him as quickly as possible. He did the most wonderful things for some of those chaps. I dare say if this war gets going he and Archie will be doing a lot more.’
‘Yes, I suppose they will,’ Sally agreed, with a smile.
‘So you’ll come then? Out for a drink with me? When we’re both free?’
He was persistent, Sally had to give him that.
‘Maybe.’
The answer seemed to please him because he gave her another beaming smile as they both stood up and went their separate ways.
Sally was still smiling when she eventually made her way out of the hospital and into the October sunshine, and not just because of the praise Matron had given her.
The newspaper vendors along Holborn Viaduct selling the early evening editions of the papers, were crying out, ‘British Expeditionary Force in France. Read all about it.’
Sally paused and glanced at the headlines. All young men of over twenty were now being called up, and everywhere one looked one could see men in uniform, the sound of their marching feet a warning, drumming in the war that so far had remained safely distanced from British shores. But for how much longer?
Sally hugged her uniform cloak tightly around herself. The leaves on London’s trees were already turning and soon they would fall. Please God that a similar fate would not befall the country’s fighting men.
Dulcie eyed the smart luxurious luggage on show on the luggage department’s floor: trunks and cases of every kind, hurriedly being bought by those wealthy enough to afford them, as they made plans either to leave the country themselves or to send their children away to somewhere like Canada for their own safety.
Dulcie was particularly attracted to a cream leather vanity case, bound with tan straps. Its lid was open to show off its interior, with its mirror, silver-topped glass jars and silver-backed hair-brushes. It was placed on top of a series of different sized matching trunks. She was sure she’d seen a similar