I shall be so glad to go home, she thought for the very first time. Oh, yes, I shall be glad to go back to my home!

Part 6

1

Sister Langtry came into the sisters’ sitting room about four the next afternoon feeling more like herself, and looking forward to a cup of tea. There were five sisters scattered in two groups about the room, and Sister Dawkin on her own, sitting in one chair with her feet propped up on another, her head nodding toward her ample chest in a series of jerks which culminated in one large enough to startle her into waking. Eyes about to close again, she saw who was standing in the doorway, waved and beckoned.

As Sister Langtry walked across to join her friend a strong wave of dizziness provoked a sudden panic; she wasn’t sleeping and she wasn’t eating properly, and if she wasn’t careful she would become ill. Contact with the men of X and their problems had educated her sufficiently to understand that her present symptoms were escapist, a means whereby to manufacture an end demanding her removal from ward X without the humiliation of having to request Matron for a transfer. Therefore pride dictated that she sleep and eat. Tonight she would take a Nembutal, something she had not done since the day of the incident in the dayroom.

‘Sit down, love, you look knocked up,’ said Sister Dawkin, tugging at a chair without getting up herself.

‘You must be pretty knocked up yourself to snatch forty winks in here,’ said Sister Langtry, seating herself.

‘I had to stay on the ward last night, that’s all,’ said Sister Dawkin, disposing her feet in a new position. ‘We must look like Abbott and Costello to the rest of the room, me like the wreck of the Hesperus and you like a poster to recruit army nurses. That tomfool of a woman, even daring to suggest there was any ulterior motive! As if you’d ever stoop to anything vulgar or underhand!’

Sister Langtry winced, wishing that Matron had had the good sense to hold her tongue. But the stupid woman had blabbed to her best friend, who had blabbed to her best friend, and so on, and so on. The whole nursing staff (which meant the MOs as well) knew that Sister Langtry—of all people!—had kept a soldier in her quarters all night. And of course the place was buzzing about the hara-kiri suicide; it was no use hoping such drama would not be talked about. Though luckily her own reputation was so good that few indeed believed there was anything more in her conduct with the solider than an urgent and understandable desire to keep him out of harm’s way. If they only knew, thought Sister Langtry, feeling the eyes on her from the two other tenanted tables, if they only knew what my real troubles are! Inversion, murder, rejection. Though murder has gone, thank God. I don’t have to worry about that one.

The kind fading eyes that forthrightness saved from being commonplace were looking at her shrewdly; Sister Langtry sighed and moved a little, but did not say anything.

Sister Dawkin tried another gambit. ‘As of next week, me dear, it’s back to dear old Aussie and Civvy Street,’ she said.

Sister Langtry’s cup just missed making contact with its saucer, and slopped tea all over the table. ‘Oh, bother! Now look what I’ve done!’ she exclaimed, reaching into her basket for a handkerchief.

‘Are you sorry, Honour?’ Sister Dawkin demanded.

‘Just taken by surprise,’ Sister Langtry said, mopping up tea with her handkerchief and wringing it out into her cup. ‘When did you hear, Sally?’

‘Matey told me herself a few minutes ago. Came sweeping into D ward like a battleship in full sail and let it drop with her mouth all pursed up as if she’d been eating alum for a week. She’s devastated, of course. She’ll have to go back to that poky little convalescent home she ran before the war. None of the big hospitals or even the district hospitals would touch her with a barge pole. It beats me how she ever got so high up in the army.’

‘It beats me too,’ said Sister Langtry, spreading her handkerchief out to dry on a comer of the table, then dispensing more tea into a fresh cup and saucer. ‘And you’re right, none of the decent hospitals would touch her with a barge pole. Somehow she always reminds me of a night-shift forewoman in a big food factory. Still, if the army will keep her on she might remain in the army. She’d be better off. Better pension when she retires, too, and she can’t be all that far off retirement.’

‘Hah! If the army keeps her it will be better luck than she deserves.’ Sister Dawkin reached for the teapot and replenished her own cup. ‘Well, I know I’m going to be sorry to go home,’ she said abruptly. ‘I hate this place, I’ve hated every place the army has sent me, but I’ve loved the work, and God, how I’ve loved the freedom!’

‘Yes, freedom is the right word, isn’t it? That’s what I’ve loved too… Do you remember that time in New Guinea when there was no one else fit to operate but you and me? I’ll never forget that as long as I live.’

‘We did all right, too, didn’t we?’ Sister Dawkin smiled, swelling visibly with pride. ‘Patched those boys up as if we’d got our FRCSs, and the boss recommended us for decoration. Ah! I’ll never wear any ribbon with more pride than my MBE.’

‘I am sorry it’s over,’ said Sister Langtry. ‘I’m going to loathe Civvy Street. Bedpan alley again, women patients again. Bitch bitch, moan moan… It would be just my luck to land on gynae or obstets. Men are so easy!’

‘Aren’t they? Catch women patients lending you a hand if the staff situation’s desperate! They’d rather be dead. When women hit a hospital they expect to be waited on hand and foot. But men pop on their halos and do their best to convince you that their wives never treated them the way nurses do.’

‘What are you going to down Civvy Street, Sally?’

‘Oh, have a bit of a holiday first, I suppose,’ said Sister Dawkin unenthusiastically. ‘Look up a few friends, that sort of thing. Then back to North Shore. I did my general at Royal Newcastle and my midder at Crown Street, but I’ve spent most of my nursing career at North Shore, so it’s more or less home by now. Matron ought to be glad to see me if no one else is. As a matter of fact, I’m in line for a deputy matronship, and that’s about the only thing I am looking forward to.’

‘My matron will be glad to see me, too,’ said Sister Langtry thoughtfully.

‘P.A., right?’ asked Sister Dawkin, using the universal nursing slang for the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

‘P.A. it is.’

‘Never fancied a hospital quite that big myself.’

‘Actually, though, I’m not sure I want to go back to P.A.,’ Sister Langtry remarked. ‘I’m toying with the idea of going to Callan Park.’

Since Callan Park was a mental hospital, Sister Dawkin sat up very straight and subjected Sister Langtry to a hard stare. ‘Seriously, Honour?’

‘Deadly earnest.’

‘There’s no status to mental nursing! I don’t even think there’s a certificate to collect. I mean you must know that mental nurses are regarded as the dregs.’

‘I’ve got my general certificate and my midder, so I can always go back to proper nursing. But after X, I’d like to try a mental hospital.’