George. You deserve it.’
Everyone called her George; it was inevitable with a name like hers. The housemen probably didn’t know she had another name anyway, and even an occasional consultant had occasionally addressed her so; but no Sister had ever done so before. She flashed a delighted smile across the little room. It was, she realized, a very nice compliment.
She was the last in the queue outside Matron’s office—a gratifyingly long one. There was an excited and subdued hum of voices; everyone had passed; no one had let St Athel’s down. They went in one by one, and came out again in turn, looking pleased and slightly unbelieving. When it was at last her turn, Georgina knocked, entered and stood, as she had stood so many times before, in front of Matron’s desk, only this time she was bidden to take a chair.
Matron congratulated her with just the right mixture of motherliness, authority and friendliness and then asked:
‘Have you any plans, Staff Nurse?’
Georgina gave this careful thought. She hadn’t dared to plan—there was some dim idea at the back of her head that she would like to go abroad—but there was Great-Aunt Polly to think of. She said finally, ‘No, Matron.’
‘Splendid. I feel sure that when you have had a little more experience we shall be able to offer you a Sister’s post.’
Georgina so far forgot herself as to goggle. ‘Me?’ she uttered, regardless of grammar. ‘A Sister? Would I do?’ she asked ingenuously.
Matron smiled benevolently. ‘You will do very well. Think about it—I believe you have a splendid career before you.’
Georgina found herself out in the corridor again. There was no one in sight, so she felt free to execute a few skips and jumps and relieve the excitement Matron’s words had engendered. Even in these days of the nursing shortage, it was a signal honour to be offered the chance of a Sister’s post within half an hour of becoming State Registered. She paused by one of the tall narrow windows overlooking the busy street outside. Matron had said, ‘A splendid career’. It occurred to Georgina at that moment that she didn’t much care for the idea. At the back of her mind was a nebulous dream of a husband and children—an indistinct group rather like an out-of-focus family portrait hanging on some distant wall; the children indefinable in number and vague in appearance, and the man even more so, for she had no idea for whom she sought. Certainly she had not found him so far, and even if she did, she would have to wait and see if he felt the same way … Her train of thought was brought to an abrupt halt by the sound of the ambulance siren, joined within minutes by a second. Her interesting speculations were wiped from her mind as she sped along the corridor in the direction of Cas. There was still no one about, so she did the last few yards at a frank run, with the uneasy thought that nurses never ran except for fire and haemorrhage; well, there was no fire as far as she knew, but there was very probably haemorrhage. Sister was at the outer double doors, already thrown back and fastened. Georgina checked the trolleys; it was vital to have everything in a state of readiness. Minutes, even seconds, counted with someone badly injured. The ambulances, very close together, their blue flashers on, turned into the bay before the doors.
‘I’ll take the first, Staff. Take the second—Staff Nurse Gregg is off until two, so is Jones; but we’ve got Beamish, and Peck’s on at ten.’ She turned away as the first case was carried in and laid carefully on the first of the trolleys. A man, Georgina saw, before she gave her full attention to the second stretcher—another man, not a very young one either and in bad shape as far as she could see. He looked very blue.
She said, ‘Good morning, Bert—’Morning, Ginger’ to the ambulance men, then, ‘Wait a second.’ She opened the flaccid lips and felt around inside them with a gentle finger, then said comfortably, ‘Let’s have these out of the way’, and put the false teeth on the pillow. The unconscious face lost its blueness; she turned it to one side and said, ‘OK.’ And they wheeled the trolley into the second of the cubicles. ‘RTA?’ she asked.
Bert nodded. ‘Lorry and a car—the other two’s not too bad, I reckon, but these chaps—they’ve copped it. T’other went through the windscreen, this chap’s had the wheel in his chest.’
They were in the cubicle by now, and the two men were already busy easing off the man’s boots while Georgina turned on the oxygen and fixed the catheter in one pale, pinched nostril. She regulated its flow very precisely and then started to cut away the man’s clothing to reveal the bloodstained shirt beneath. The ambulance men had already slipped an emergency dressing pad beneath it—they drew small hissing breaths of sympathy as her scissors snipped through the last few inches of sodden vest and exposed the patient’s chest. Exactly in its center there was an irregular depressed wound, several inches in diameter, still bleeding freely. Georgina began to swab it gently—it was a wonder that the man was still alive. She had almost completed her task when a man’s voice said from behind her:
‘Let’s have a needle and syringe, George, and get him cross-matched for some blood—he’s going to need it. Get some ATS into him too, and let’s have the rest of his clothes off and take a look at the damage.’
The owner of the voice had come to stand beside her and was already feeling with careful fingers. Georgina, quite undisturbed by the spate of orders, handed him a syringe and needle and started to unscrew the lid of the Path Lab bottle. ‘Hallo, Ned,’ she said quietly. She liked the young Casualty Officer; he was keen on his work and clever enough at it not to pretend that he knew everything. He said now:
‘This one will need ICU—if we can patch him up sufficiently to get him there.’
They worked steadily. The ambulance men had gone after an exchange of cheerful goodbyes. They had just got the blood transfusion going, not without difficulty, when the Surgical Registrar joined them. Georgina liked him too; he was resourceful and tireless and quiet. She had often thought that he and Sister were well suited, and had several times suspected that they shared that view themselves. She hoped so. He stood between them now, looking down at the patient. ‘Intensive Care, Ned, and then theatre—there may be something we can do.’ He went on, ‘Congratulations, George. What a way to celebrate!’
She was clearing up the small place with an urgent, methodical speed. She said, ‘Thank you,’ but had no time to say more, for Ned interrupted:
‘George, you’ve passed—wonderful! We knew you would, but it’s nice to see it in writing, isn’t it?’ He laughed over at her, and she spared a moment to smile back. He really was rather a dear.
She turned away to help the porters lift the patient on to the trolley which would take him to the ICU. ‘I’ll go up with him,’ she murmured. ‘That blood will need an eye on it.’
When she got back, the other patient had been warded too, and Ned was dealing with the other two men who had been in the crash. She started to work methodically through the waiting patients.
The morning wore on. They snatched their coffee as and when they could get it; indeed, Georgina had barely tasted hers when she was called away to take a toddler to X-Ray; its young, distraught mother insisted on going too, very white-faced and passionately remorseful. She repeated over and over again, ‘Oh, if only I hadn’t left those safety pins on the table!’
Georgina was holding the small boy carefully; they hadn’t been able to discover if the pin had been closed when he had swallowed it—a large one would have stuck, but apparently this one had been very small, small enough to go down a long way before it would begin to do any damage.
‘Try not to worry,’ she said kindly. ‘Children swallow things all day and every day, you know. There’s no reason to suppose he won’t be as right as rain in a day or two. He’ll be quite safe in the children’s ward, and you can stay with him if you like.’
The young woman cast her a look of gratitude out of all proportion to her words—perhaps it was the kindness in Georgina’s voice. When they parted at X-Ray she managed a smile and Georgina found herself promising to go and see how the small boy was doing when she went off duty that evening. She hadn’t really time to do so, she reminded