Nurse Kelsey Abroad by Marjorie Norrell Page A

restaurant and stopped by their table, stooping to give Dr. Lowth a message. The doctor was on his feet immediately, turning as though automatically to Ann.
    “I’m needed back at the hospital,” he said briefly. “Thank God the blood bank’s more or less well stocked. Looks like we’re going to need it,” adding with a most unexpected bitterness: “We often tend to forget we’re not at home and that it isn’t possible to radio round for extra supplies of either vaccine or a special bottle of plasma just when we need it! I’ll find time to get one of the Branslavs to fetch you. Don’t attempt the bus!” and with that he was gone, leaving them to complete the meal alone.
    “Why not the bus, for heaven’s sake?” Jane asked in semi-amusement. “I didn’t even know there were any.”
    “A few,” Ann’s tone was laconic. “Not very reliable or very comfortable, and certainly not exactly what we know as a bus, not since before the first European war, anyhow, and that was before our time! The thing is,” she said in lowered tones, “the authorities know a number of young people have been approached by the ones I mentioned to you, the arts crowd, known locally as ‘the wild ones’, about the overthrowing of authority and all it stands for. I don’t know much about it, and their way of life would certainly not suit me for very long. All the same, like Dr. Jim, I respect their right to live their lives in the way they think best, whether they believe in the sort of authority they’ve got for themselves or whether they long to rebel against it. It’s no concern of ours, and I as a foreigner in their country wouldn’t like to get myself mixed up in anything likely to cause trouble for the Embassy or for Dr. Jim. He’s doing, and has done, some wonderful work here, and it would be a dreadful loss to the community if anything were traced to the hospital and he and the staff were deported!”
    “Could they—I mean, we —be deported?” Jane asked, horrified.
    “I’m told that’s what nearly happened a year or so after Dr. Jim came here and one of the then laboratory technicians allowed himself to be talked into taking part in some minor demonstration or other. The government threatened to send all the foreigners back home and to staff the place, however inadequately, with their own people. Since then Dr. Jim’s worked hard to train people who could, in the event of such a thing ever happening again, take over the work and the running of the place, even if it were not run quite so efficiently as now. This is one of the reasons why I’ve asked you not to wind up with the wilder element of young people Kevin has made his friends. It ought to be simple enough to remember the old adage—‘when in Rome...’ ” she laughed, but although she smiled Jane felt she could not join in the laughter.
    “It seems funny to think of ourselves as the ‘foreigners’, doesn’t it?” she said soberly. “I know we are, here, but it still seems strange to even think about.”
    “I know, but it’s true. There’s one comfort, our job’s a sort of international one, isn’t it?”
    “That’s the way I always think of it,” Jane admitted soberly. “Illness is just as bad in any language, and nurses are needed the world over. I’m glad I came,” she discovered suddenly, brightening. “I know it probably sounds very smug, but it’s not meant that way. I think working here is going to be more rewarding than what I was doing, rewarding in giving a sense of satisfaction, I mean,” she explained, wondering if she sounded a prig and hoping against hope Ann would understand.
    “I don’t know exactly where you were, except general nursing,” Ann said gently, “but I do know that, although there’s a shortage of trained nurses in Britain as everywhere else, there are also excellent services available for most complaints. Geriatric homes, nursing homes, children’s hospitals, general hospitals, sanatoriums and