Convoy Read Free

few temperatures. Broken windows and dust were an almost nightly occurrence; the plaster ceiling looked like a reference book picture of leprosy. Soon the real work of the day would begin: after the glass and dust had been swept up the beds would be made, breakfast served, and then sister’s rounds, matron’s rounds, and finally doctor’s rounds. And today the whole ritual would be punctuated by the cheerful cursing of the glaziers replacing the glass in the windows. But before that, the surgical dressings; in another twenty-two minutes, in fact.
    ‘Any letters to be posted?’ Clare asked the ward, and several patients answered and reached into the drawers of their lockers. Yorke held up a letter and as she took it he said, ‘It needs a stamp on it, nurse; here’s the money.’
    She took the coins and glanced at the address. ‘You’ve been writing sweet nothings to your girlfriend, Lieutenant?’ she teased.
    ‘Yes, the writing’s a bit wobbly because I can’t hold the pad steady.’
    ‘She’ll understand,’ Clare said, and Yorke knew she would, because the superscription on the envelope said: ‘Nurse C Exton.’
    Sister Scotland put the last of the eleven stitches into the white enamel kidney bowl and then dropped the forceps and narrow pointed scissors with a clatter, as if to signal that the job was done. ‘Wipe his face, Nurse,’ she said to Clare, who reached for the towel on the rack behind the locker and patted his brow, which he knew was covered with pearls of cold perspiration.
    The Sister cradled his hand gently as she wiped the scars with surgical spirit. It was bruised and bright pink with matching pairs of small purplish spots along each side of the long scars where the stitches had been. ‘The incisions and cuts have closed nicely,’ she said. ‘In six months you won’t notice anything, unless your hand gets cold. Then the scars will show up white.’
    Yorke looked at the hand, remembering when it exuded yellow and green pus; when the putrid smell made him vomit. The hand was still there and he could just move the fingers and the only discomfort was that the skin seemed too tight, as though he was wearing a thick glove which had shrunk and become a size too small. It was still hard to believe the arm was his; it was a strange, alien limb, joined to him only by pain.
    ‘An artist’s hand, eh Nurse?’
    Clare glanced up. You could never be sure with Sister Scotland.
    ‘I suppose so,’ she said warily.
    ‘Aye, and the last of his sun tan’s wearing off now.’ She flipped up the other pyjama sleeve. ‘See? The skin’s quite white. But all this–’ she pointed at the left forearm ‘–this dark brown will peel off; it’s from all the hot water. Scalded, really. It must have hurt.’
    ‘It did; I remember saying so at the time.’
    ‘Aye,’ she said, ignoring his sarcasm, ‘and I seem to remember your bad language. Now you’ve got to start the remedial exercises for the arm; otherwise it can wither and leave you with a useless hand.’
    Clare glanced at him in alarm: no one had mentioned this before.
    ‘Wither, Sister?’ He tried to keep his voice flat but no man faced with that could be a hero in pyjamas.
    ‘Don’t be alarmed, Lieutenant; the physiotherapists at Willesborough will sort it out; you’ll soon get your grip back again.’
    ‘Willesborough?’
    ‘Down in Kent; we’re opening an annexe there in a day or two. An old country house, just the place for convalescence. Plenty of draughts, no doubt; but you’ll get a good night’s sleep, which is more than can be said for up here, with all the bombing and the guns. And anyway, the surgeons need your bed.’
    Clare was staring down at his hand. Had she known about Willesborough?
    ‘And you’ll not be escaping from me either, Lieutenant,’ Sister said with an arch smile.
    ‘Are – will you be going to Willesborough, too, Sister?’
    ‘Yes, I shall be in charge of the unit. Three staff nurses, two