one, Sister.’
‘Oh, well, no matter. Come back sometime, Staff. How about Friday? I’m on duty all day.’
Theda agreed to return on Friday and tied on her cloak ready for the walk to the dining-room. As she opened the door, she was startled to come face to face with a German officer and jumped back hurriedly. But he too stepped back and gestured courteously for her to pass him, clicking his heels together as he did so in a gesture entirely foreign to her. She mumbled something incomprehensible and walked past him, taking with her an impression of light-blue eyes and dark hair, and an odour of carbolic soap and something else that was indefinable.
‘Oh, Major Koestler, do come in,’ she heard Sister say before the door closed behind him. ‘I wanted you to look at—’
Whoever it was Sister wanted the German to examine, Theda didn’t wait to discover. She hurried to the dining room where she took a plate of luke-warm Woolton pie and mashed potatoes and sat down to eat before finding that her appetite had left her.
For some reason she hadn’t thought there would be a German doctor ministering to the prisoners. But, after all, it was only logical when she thought about it. If a doctor were taken prisoner, then of course he would be useful to his own countrymen. If nothing else, he could speak their language. But was she expected to take orders from a German ? Her very soul rebelled against the idea. The first chance she got, she decided, she would see Matron and find out what the position was.
Abandoning her meatless dinner Theda went back to Block Five, breathing a sigh of relief as she heard children’s voices from the ward. This was where she ought to be, she loved working with children.
There had been an emergency admission, an eleven-year-old boy who had been playing with his friends among the abandoned pit buildings at Black Boy colliery and fallen fifteen feet from the rusty wire rope of what had been the aerial flight, the overhead transport system which, when the pit was working, had carried tubs of coal. The boy was unconscious with a possible fractured skull and broken arm.
Theda’s afternoon and evening were fully occupied, attending the houseman as he examined the boy and carrying out his instructions. The patient was laid flat and a temporary splint put on his arm until he should be judged well enough to go to the X-ray Department, which had been provided by the government along with an operating theatre in the hutted section of the hospital.
Nurse Jenkins helped Theda to tie a pillow carefully over the bedhead, just in case the boy should thrash about and catch his head on the iron bars, and then it was a case of watching and waiting and keeping the rest of the children quiet. And, of course, trying to allay the fears of the boy’s parents who hovered in the corridor as they were not allowed in the ward just yet. Sister was having her two hours off-duty so it was up to Theda to usher then into the office and talk to them.
‘I’ve told the lads till I’m sick not to play on the old aerial flight!’ the father said the moment the door was closed. ‘It’s not safe, it’s not been safe for years, I don’t know why it wasn’t cleared away years ago. All that scrap iron and they leave it. No, they’d rather take down folk’s perfectly good railings to get iron for their factories. Eeh, I don’t know how their minds work, I don’t. If they have any minds, that is.’
He stood in the middle of the room, a man of medium height but with heavy powerful shoulders as most miners had. He spoke nervously, angrily, almost as though he didn’t know how to stop once he’d started.
‘Mr Patterson,’ said Theda before he could go on, and he closed his mouth and put an awkward arm around his wife who was gazing anxiously at Theda, her lips working spasmodically.
‘He’s going to be all right, isn’t he, Nurse?’
‘We’ll known soon enough, Mr Patterson,’ she answered. ‘Mr Kent, our
‘Oh, well, no matter. Come back sometime, Staff. How about Friday? I’m on duty all day.’
Theda agreed to return on Friday and tied on her cloak ready for the walk to the dining-room. As she opened the door, she was startled to come face to face with a German officer and jumped back hurriedly. But he too stepped back and gestured courteously for her to pass him, clicking his heels together as he did so in a gesture entirely foreign to her. She mumbled something incomprehensible and walked past him, taking with her an impression of light-blue eyes and dark hair, and an odour of carbolic soap and something else that was indefinable.
‘Oh, Major Koestler, do come in,’ she heard Sister say before the door closed behind him. ‘I wanted you to look at—’
Whoever it was Sister wanted the German to examine, Theda didn’t wait to discover. She hurried to the dining room where she took a plate of luke-warm Woolton pie and mashed potatoes and sat down to eat before finding that her appetite had left her.
For some reason she hadn’t thought there would be a German doctor ministering to the prisoners. But, after all, it was only logical when she thought about it. If a doctor were taken prisoner, then of course he would be useful to his own countrymen. If nothing else, he could speak their language. But was she expected to take orders from a German ? Her very soul rebelled against the idea. The first chance she got, she decided, she would see Matron and find out what the position was.
Abandoning her meatless dinner Theda went back to Block Five, breathing a sigh of relief as she heard children’s voices from the ward. This was where she ought to be, she loved working with children.
There had been an emergency admission, an eleven-year-old boy who had been playing with his friends among the abandoned pit buildings at Black Boy colliery and fallen fifteen feet from the rusty wire rope of what had been the aerial flight, the overhead transport system which, when the pit was working, had carried tubs of coal. The boy was unconscious with a possible fractured skull and broken arm.
Theda’s afternoon and evening were fully occupied, attending the houseman as he examined the boy and carrying out his instructions. The patient was laid flat and a temporary splint put on his arm until he should be judged well enough to go to the X-ray Department, which had been provided by the government along with an operating theatre in the hutted section of the hospital.
Nurse Jenkins helped Theda to tie a pillow carefully over the bedhead, just in case the boy should thrash about and catch his head on the iron bars, and then it was a case of watching and waiting and keeping the rest of the children quiet. And, of course, trying to allay the fears of the boy’s parents who hovered in the corridor as they were not allowed in the ward just yet. Sister was having her two hours off-duty so it was up to Theda to usher then into the office and talk to them.
‘I’ve told the lads till I’m sick not to play on the old aerial flight!’ the father said the moment the door was closed. ‘It’s not safe, it’s not been safe for years, I don’t know why it wasn’t cleared away years ago. All that scrap iron and they leave it. No, they’d rather take down folk’s perfectly good railings to get iron for their factories. Eeh, I don’t know how their minds work, I don’t. If they have any minds, that is.’
He stood in the middle of the room, a man of medium height but with heavy powerful shoulders as most miners had. He spoke nervously, angrily, almost as though he didn’t know how to stop once he’d started.
‘Mr Patterson,’ said Theda before he could go on, and he closed his mouth and put an awkward arm around his wife who was gazing anxiously at Theda, her lips working spasmodically.
‘He’s going to be all right, isn’t he, Nurse?’
‘We’ll known soon enough, Mr Patterson,’ she answered. ‘Mr Kent, our
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