Betty Neels - Damsel In Green

After the first night, when there were two or three waiting for scalp wounds to be sutured, Ned suggested that she should give a hand, and after that she added stitching to her duties; of course he did the complicated cuts, but very often it was only a case of one straightforward stitch, which the patient was frequently far too drunk to notice. The crashes followed a pattern too—round about midnight and five or six in the morning, so that Georgina quite often ate her dinner at two o’clock in the morning and had to miss tea altogether, but that was something you expected if you worked on Cas, and it didn’t occur to her to grumble about it. She slept like a log during the day, and there were nights off to look forward to.

On this, the fifth night, however, she had gone on duty tired after an almost sleepless day. She smiled at the waiting patients as she passed them and went on into the office to take over from Sister, who was looking, surprisingly, quite different from usual. She gave Georgina one or two police messages in an abstracted sort of manner and told her that Ned would be on duty, and that Mr Bingham would be available at ten o’clock. There was something in the way she said this that made Georgina look at her carefully. Sister was excited, and excitement had turned her into a very pretty woman. She caught Georgina’s eye and said almost diffidently, ‘Mr Bingham and I are going out to dinner—to celebrate. I might as well tell you, Staff. We’re going to be married.’

Georgina put down her cloak and bag. ‘Sister, how wonderful! I am glad, and wish you every happiness. What a pity Mr Bingham has to be on duty—it’s his night on call, isn’t it?’

Sister got up and draped her cloak around her shoulders. ‘Well, yes, Staff, it is. But we shan’t be long—if anything big comes in, Ned can get help and send for Mr Bingham—there’s the phone number on the pad.’

She smiled dreamily, said goodnight, and slipped away. Georgina rolled up her sleeves and put on her frills, thinking about Sister and Mr Bingham. Sister would leave, of course. She went across to the cubicles and checked their contents with practiced speed, not because she didn’t trust the day staff to leave everything in a state of readiness, but because each one of them did it when they came on duty—it was a kind of unwritten rule no one forgot. This done, she began on the patients.

The benches were half cleared when she heard the ambulance. The two cubicles nearest the door were empty; she pushed back the double doors and wheeled two trolleys as near as possible to them, and found time to warn the waiting patients that they would be delayed. It was Ginger on duty. He drew up with a little rush and got out to join his mate.

‘Evening, Staff,’ he called politely. ‘Got an RTA here. Two kids and a man.’ He had opened the ambulance door and was pulling out the first stretcher. ‘Head injuries—broken legs for the little boy—man’s a walking case.’

She flew to the telephone and dialed the doctors’ quarters and waited a long minute while Ned was fetched. She said merely, ‘An RTA, Ned,’ and went to the first cubicle where the little boy was. He was still on the trolley and unconscious, and she thought that that was a good thing when she whisked back the blanket and looked at his legs. Nothing much to see, but there were already bruises showing between the splints—probably both femurs. He didn’t look too bad, and his pulse was good. The second child was a little girl, semi-conscious and bleeding from head wounds. She had long straight fair hair, hopelessly tangled and matted with blood. Georgina took her pulse too and hoped that she was right in thinking that she wasn’t badly injured. The third patient came in on his feet, looking rather white. He was holding his right hand against his chest, and said surprisingly, ‘I’m sorry to give you this trouble. The children?’

Georgina said quickly, ‘The doctor will be here in a moment—he’ll have to examine them first. Come and sit down. When we’ve seen to them and I’ve a second, I’ll get a sling for that arm of yours. It looks like a collar-bone.’

She smiled at him, her brown eyes soft with sympathy. He was about her own age or a little younger; very good-looking, with fair hair and blue eyes and a mouth that looked as though it could laugh a lot in happier circumstances. She left him sitting, and went at once to the small boy, to be joined at once by Ned. He stood looking at him while she cut away the clothes from the quiet little body, and then at a word from her, steadied each leg as she eased off the shoes and socks.

Ned explored them gently. ‘This is a job for old Sawbones—’ he meant Mr Sawbridge, the senior orthopaedic surgeon. ‘I’ll get Bill Foster down.’ Bill was his registrar. ‘Get him on the phone, George. What’s the lad’s pulse like?’

She had been taking it while he was talking. ‘A hundred and ten—strong, steady. I’ll get him on a half-hourly chart, shall I? And I suppose you’ll want skull X-rays as well as legs?’

She didn’t wait for an answer but went to the telephone for a second time to get Bill Foster, and then to send a message to the Night Super to see if she could spare the junior runner; it wasn’t very likely, and she was used to managing alone for the greater part of the night. She left Ned with the little boy and went to look at the girl. The ambulance men had stayed with her and she thanked them gratefully. ‘I’m sorry I can’t stop to make you a cup of tea, Ginger, but you’re welcome to make yourselves one—you know where everything is.’

But they thanked her and said, no, they’d go. There was sure to be some more work for them some time. They collected their blankets and said ‘Cheerio’ because it would have been silly to have said anything else when they would probably be seeing her several more times during the night. They said goodnight to the young man, however, and he wished them a good night in return and then asked them their names. They gave them awkwardly, and just as awkwardly received his quiet thanks. On the whole, not many people remembered to thank them, understandably enough, but it was nice when they did.

Georgina had taken the little girl’s pulse again. It was good, and she started to ease off her clothing. She was wearing a beautifully made topcoat; the dress beneath it was good too, but stained and torn. The child moaned softly and opened her eyes for a moment, and Georgina waited until she had lapsed into unconsciousness again before looking for injuries. There was a dull red mark on one cheek and another one on a shoulder—they would be livid bruises in a day or so. She covered her little patient with the blanket again and started to examine the small head. There were a number of cuts, none of them serious, but needing stitches. She started to swab them one by one, carefully cutting the long hair away from each small wound. The child was still unconscious when she had finished. She pulled the curtain back, hurried across to where the man sat and fastened a sling around his arm, then took an X-ray form along to Ned for him to sign. When she got back, she said, ‘Do you think you could manage to get to X-Ray? We’re a bit pushed for staff—it’s only just across the passage. I’ll fill in your name presently.’

‘The children?’ he asked again.

‘The orthopaedic surgeon will be in presently—I’m afraid the little boy has both legs broken,’ she said gently, ‘but his general condition is quite good. The little girl has a cut head—I can’t tell you anything else until the doctor has examined them.’

He stood up. ‘How kind you are,’ he said, and smiled so that she felt a small glow of pleasure. He took the form she was holding out to him, and walked away to X-Ray.