didn’t mind. She isn’t so bad really. It’s just that she feels awkward and strange in a new place.’
‘Don’t we all?’ Sally chirped in. ‘I felt like a fish out of water until you two turned up. I’ve never been anywhere like this before. Whoever owns it must be rich, a bit different to where I live, I can tell you.’ Ally immediately started to ask her questions about her life and family, and the subject was turned. We had time only to finish unpacking our things before a girl in the heavy, ugly uniform of the VADs came to fetch us.
‘My name is Nurse Millie Smith and I’ve been sent to show you around,’ she said with a cheerful smile. ‘You will all be issued with uniforms and Matron will give you a welcoming speech at three – so you had better look sharp.’
Millie’s arrival effectively cut short all small talk. We hurried after her as she rounded up all the new recruits and led us first to a large room where we collected our kit. Then, once we had sorted ourselves out, and amidst a great deal of moaning and laughter, dressed in the unflattering clothes we’d been given, she took us on a whirlwind tour of the main building.
As we’d first thought, it had once been a beautiful private home but was now forlorn, stripped down to bare walls and very basic. The wards had been painted in dark cream and green gloss paint, though the bedrooms allocated to certain patients seemed to have more home comforts.
‘The men in the private rooms are probably going to be here for ages,’ Millie explained as she gave us a peep into one that was presently empty. ‘This belonged to a Major Robinson – he died yesterday. We’re expecting a new patient this evening.’
‘Do many of the patients die?’
Millie looked at me in silence for a moment, considering my question. ‘We get some deaths. You have to remember, these men are seriously ill or they wouldn’t be here – but most have been given life-saving treatment before they are brought to us. Our patients are here to rest and recover from the terrible ordeal they’ve suffered. Some will leave eventually – others will survive but never be well enough to go home.’
‘That’s sad,’ one of the other girls said. ‘Will they always have to stay here?’
‘Here – or another nursing home. A private one, probably, if their family can afford it. Some of the patients are officers, but we get men from the ranks as well.’
‘So I should hope,’ Ally muttered beside me. ‘Where do we work?’
‘Matron will explain,’ Millie replied. ‘I’m just here to show you where everything is so that you don’t get lost.’
We were shown the way to the operating theatre, though not allowed inside it. Millie warned us that there were strict restrictions about entering the sterile areas.
‘New recruits spend most of their time fetching and carrying on the wards, attending lectures – and of course your favourite place, the sluice room. You’ll get to know that very well, I promise you.’
Groans and laughter greeted this announcement but nobody really minded. We were here to help wherever we could. Already we were banding together, feeling a shared interest in doing our very best for the unfortunate men who had been brought to this place.
We visited the common room, where some of the patients had congregated, and had our first glimpses of the appalling injuries these men had suffered. Some had lost limbs, others had burns to their faces and hands, but these were the luckier ones who had begun to recover and we were warned that we would see much worse in the private rooms.
‘Who have you brought us now, Millie love? More lambs to the slaughter?’
A soldier in striped pyjamas with his army coat over the top came up to us on crutches. He had lost a leg from the knee down but was grinning cheerfully, apparently unconcerned by his loss. He looked all the new recruits over, his eyes coming eventually to rest on me.
‘Lovely despite that awful dress,’ he said. ‘Eyes a man could drown in. I’m Sergeant Steve Harley – what do they call you other than beautiful?’
‘Kathy,’ I replied. ‘But they don’t call me beautiful.’
‘Blind or mad,’ he quipped with a grin. ‘Want to be my partner for the bath chair race this weekend?’
‘Yes – what is it?’
Sergeant Harley chuckled. ‘Lucky girl! You get to push me right round the house faster than any of the others in the line-up – and let me tell you, I shall expect to win.’
‘I’ll do my best.’ I glanced at Millie. ‘If it’s allowed?’
‘Provided you’re not on duty,’ she said. ‘Matron frowns on such activities, of course, but the doctors are usually there to cheer us on. I shall be taking part myself.’
‘You’re on then,’ I told Sergeant Harley. ‘Provided I’m not on duty when it happens.’
‘You can get someone to switch,’ he told me. ‘Ask Millie, she knows how to get round the rules.’
‘I’ll let you know,’ I said and followed the group as they moved on.
After our visit to the common room we all had a late lunch in the canteen, which was used by both the doctors and nurses. The food wasn’t exactly like home cooking but it was just about edible and the tea was hot and strong, just like Gran made it.
‘Awful!’ Ally complained as she picked at her shepherd’s pie but Eleanor Ross cleared her plate and said it was no worse than their cook served up at home. I wasn’t sure whether she was just putting on a brave face or not.
Lunch over, we had half an hour to ourselves before being taken to Matron’s welcome talk. She was a large woman with iron-grey hair and a stern manner, and her speech was more of a lecture than a welcome. We were told that we were expected to work hard and behave ourselves, then warned not to be late on duty.
‘You will find a duty roster at the Dower House,’ she told us. ‘It is up to you to check where to report and at what time. Recruits who arrive late for duty will be reprimanded. We expect certain standards from all our nursing staff. Please make sure you keep to them.’
‘Phew – she’s a right old battleaxe,’ Ally said as we were at last released to settle in, having been told we were now free for the rest of the day. ‘I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her!’
‘No, nor me.’
Matron was strict, but I supposed she had to be. She had a lot of young women under her charge, and that couldn’t be easy at the best of times. I just hoped I wouldn’t do anything to displease her.
I was pleased to see that I was working on Saturday morning and then free until six in the evening on Sunday.
‘Oh good, that means I can push Sergeant Harley in the race. It starts at four on Sunday afternoon so that gives me plenty of time to get ready.’
‘More fool you,’ Ally retorted. ‘It’s going to be hard work. Rather you than me.’
She pulled a face but I got the idea that she was a bit miffed because I’d been picked to take part and she hadn’t.
The next few days were the most hectic of my life. We worked seven-hour shifts on the wards fetching and carrying for the nurses and patients, but we also had to take turns scrubbing endless floors. On Friday I came off duty at five feeling tired after three hours in the sluice room. I was looking forward to putting my feet up before supper but as I was about to leave the main building someone called to me.
‘Miss Cole, could I have a word please?’
I stopped and turned, staring in surprise as a doctor came sprinting up to me. For a moment I was afraid I’d done something wrong and then I saw he was smiling – and that I knew him. It was a long time since I’d seen him in the lanes and I hadn’t been sure when I heard him talking to Eleanor