A Wartime Nurse by Maggie Hope

crossed the grounds to the hutted section of the hospital. The day was overcast and a bitter cold wind blew over the tarmac as she walked so that she wrapped her cloak more tightly around her slim body, thankful for its warmth. The sentry at the gate let her in when she showed her pass and she walked down the ramp to Hut K and opened the door. A long corridor stretched before her and she paused, trying to remember the layout of the huts. The door on the left must be the patients’ toilets, on the right the bathrooms, and further along the kitchen. The last door on the left had to be Sister’s office.
    She walked towards it, her rubber-soled shoes silent on the highly polished composite floor. She knocked and went in as Sister Smith called ‘Enter’.
    ‘Oh, Staff, thanks for coming.’
    As though I had any choice in the matter, Theda thought, but she smiled. ‘Hello, Sister. Matron told me you wanted to see me.’
    ‘Yes. Sit down, Staff. It might be a good idea to have a look round before you start next week. I don’t think you’ve worked on the huts before?’
    ‘No, just the civilian side. Children mostly.’
    ‘And you don’t want to move,’ said Sister, observing Theda shrewdly.
    ‘Like everyone else, I go where I’m told,’ she answered, and Sister Smith nodded.
    ‘For the duration, anyway.’
    Theda had to suppress a smile. The expression had become common over the war years. Shops had notices stuck to their shutters, Closed for the duration , council services had been cut For the duration . It had almost become synonymous with When the Boat Comes In . Only that morning she had heard one of the children announce he was saving his sweet ration for the duration.
    ‘No, Jackie,’ she had protested. ‘What do you think the duration means?’
    ‘Everybody knows that,’ he had declared stoutly. ‘It means the big party we’ll have when we beat the Jerries.’
    He had been so nearly right that Theda hadn’t contradicted him.
    ‘You can eat your sweets now, Jackie,’ she had said instead. ‘There’ll be plenty after the war.’
    Sister rose to her feet and motioned Theda to the window set in the wall of her office, overlooking the ward. Theda went to look over her shoulder.
    The ward was long with no side wards, forty narrow beds lined up to either side. There were round black stoves at each end and some of the ambulant patients were seated round them on hard wooden chairs. In the centre of the ward was a table and other patients were sitting there, playing a card game. The beds nearest the door had men lying in them, some reading and some just lying looking at the ceiling. Theda gazed at them curiously.
    Some of the ambulant patients wore their field grey uniforms, all with the yellow or orange-coloured patch sewn on the back of the jacket denoting their prisoner status. She stared at the men nearest her.
    They were mostly young, though there was a sprinkling of middle-aged men there too. Many were wearing plaster casts on various limbs and two were in bed with legs strung up on systems of weights and pulleys. Fractured femurs, she supposed. Her gaze focussed on one boy – he was only a boy, looked to be no more than eighteen – who had his left arm in a cast and his leg in traction. His head moved restlessly on the pillow and his blond hair was dark with sweat despite the coolness of the day. Running a temperature, she thought to herself.
    ‘You see, not one with horns or a tail,’ commented Sister Smith, glancing sideways at her, and Theda flushed.
    ‘No, of course not,’ she murmured.
    Sister laughed. ‘I’m sorry, but if you could have seen your face when you came in here!’ she said. ‘Do you want to do a round of the ward? Have you time before you go back?’
    Theda consulted her wristwatch which was attached by the strap and a safety pin to the pocket of her dress. It was already twelve-thirty.
    ‘I haven’t had anything to eat yet and I have to be back on the ward by a quarter to