The next few weeks were an endless humiliation. In a world where every move had to be made at the double I could not keep up. I tried to scuttle like the other nurses, but I could not scuttle fast enough and if I broke into a run a passing voice would sharply pull me up. Often I hesitated through ignorance and uncertainty, only to bear the brunt of the anger of a harassed staff nurse or head probationer. For the first week Sister Allsop only spoke to me once; as I rushed past her with three stacked bed pans I stumbled, and the contents slopped dangerously through the hollow handles and splashed my apron. Spotless starched skirts drew to one side and I heard a carrying voice ask Staff, ‘Who is that filthy probationer?’
‘Girvan, Sister.’
I threw myself and my stinking burdens into the foul sink room, tears of shame filling my eyes.
All day I felt soiled as I sweated in the ill-ventilated sink room; on the ward I had to move so quickly that I was perpetually damp at neck and armpit and groin. And the sickly scent of disinfectant overlaying the all-prevailing smell of urine, faeces, vomit, and pus filled my nostrils.
My mind was never free of my fears for Gerald and for Guy; I searched the post every day until at last a letter arrived from Gerald. I scanned the scribbled lines with a fast-beating heart; he had obviously written it in a great hurry and he said little, only that he was well and the enemy were on the run. I raised the flimsy paper to my lips then tucked it down inside my camisole where his ring hung from a fine gold chain.
Every day, in the snatched minutes when we were sent back to clean our rooms, we bent tensely over the newspaper, and read yet more familiar names in the casualty lists – the names of men we had dined with, danced with, laughed with – and who would dine and dance and laugh no more. Paris had been saved, but the price had been a high one, and was daily growing higher. Even Juno’s hand trembled as she opened the paper each morning.
On the 2nd of October I leant over her shoulder and saw the headline: ‘Heir to Peerage Among the Killed’ – and the words: ‘Grenadier Guards’ below. I began to gasp and cry until Juno shook me roughly. ‘Pull yourself together, Hellie – it’s not Guy, it’s not Guy.’ I sobbed helplessly but Juno slapped my hand, hard. ‘Show a bit of backbone, Helena, for goodness’ sake. Come on, we’re due back on the wards.’ I stumbled out of the room after her.
All through October the Roll of Honour lengthened, but by the time the paper reported heavy casualties among the Grenadiers, Guy was already back in London – wounded, but not seriously. A bullet had gone through his arm but missed the bone, and he was well enough to be sitting up when I went hurrying round to see him at King Edward VII’s Hospital for Officers in Grosvenor Crescent. Guy looked at me in astonishment as I came rushing in. ‘Good God, Hellie, what a fright you are in that rig.’ I was suddenly conscious of the peculiarity of my bonnet and cloak but then my brother grinned. ‘Still, I suppose I’m not much to write home about at the moment, either.’ He held out his good arm and I clung to him, weeping, while he patted my shoulder.
A week later, when I arrived for my visit I saw that his face was alight with joy. ‘Congratulate me, Hellie – Eileen’s agreed to have me!’
I felt a sharp stab of pure jealousy, but I managed to smile and stumble through the correct words as the sleek, glossy creature uncoiled herself from the armchair and extended a beautifully manicured white hand. She arched her eyebrows as her fingers touched the rough skin of my disinfectant-scoured palm and drawled, ‘Goodness, Helena – you are taking the war seriously – ruining your hands and dressing up in that, er – quaint outfit. I do hope dear Muirkirk doesn’t expect me to sacrifice myself like that – I just couldn’t bear to look such a sight.’ Her mouth curved towards Guy, and for a moment my handsome brother looked just like a codfish on a slab.
He muttered, ‘Good God no, Eileen – you’re far too beautiful for that.’ She drew in a deep breath of smoke, exhaled it very slowly, then removed the cigarette from between her scarlet lips, bent down, and brushed his cheek with her mouth. But as her head moved up Guy’s hand shot out and seized her wrist and pulled her down once more. He was breathing heavily, his eyes intent on hers.
She stayed quite still for a moment, then drew back a little. ‘Really, Guy, whatever will your little sister think?’ Guy’s glance flicked in my direction, then to the door. I stood up as calmly as I could and muttered, ‘I – I must go, I’m due back on duty shortly.’
Eileen smiled her cat-like taunting smile. ‘Leaving so soon? Don’t get too earnest my dear – it’s a terrible bore.’ She blew an exquisitely formed kiss in my direction and my cheek muscles tightened into a rictus as I smiled back, and left.
At the end of six weeks on Allsop Ward I had learnt to use a thermometer, chart temperatures, make beds, wash helpless patients and, fighting my revulsion, give an enema. But I was slow and clumsy: I dropped bowls and chipped their enamel; I threw away urine specimens that should have been preserved; I broke things – like the two china sputum mugs which oozed their foul slime over the clean floor. I spilt milk on the sheets when I fed patients, my fomentations were soggy and painful and my linseed poultices coagulated into sticky, useless lumps. I was a failure, I knew I was a failure – but like a broken-winded cab horse I still staggered grimly on.
One day Juno told me her sister was getting married. ‘Dick’s got five days’ leave before he goes to France, so it’s a special licence for him and Julia tomorrow.’ As she spoke I felt a wave of envy wash over me – if only Gerald had not had to go so quickly, I might have been his wife by now. Then I touched the small hard shape of the Prescott betrothal ring and reproached myself; Gerald was a soldier, a regular officer – naturally he had gone to war at once and as his betrothed I must accept this.
Early in November we heard of the destruction of Lord Hugh Grosvenor’s C Squadron of Life Guards at Zandvoorde Ridge; the order to retire had not reached him, so he had fought on to the death with all his men. My heart turned to ice as I thought of my love. Every night, sick with fatigue, I knelt beside my narrow bed in my small room and prayed for Gerald’s safety. Often I dropped into a stupefied sleep in the middle of my prayers and woke later, stiff and dazed, still huddled against the hard edge of the bedstead.
He wrote in November that the Composites had been disbanded and so he was now back with his own regiment. His letter was a letter from a man in the midst of a great adventure. It was clear that he was happy, and totally absorbed in the task on hand; never had he seemed so far away from me as he did now. He was fighting for his King and country while I – I struggled uselessly with squalor and grime in the slums of London. He had praised me for what I was doing, but it was obvious that he had no real idea of what hospital nursing involved. As I battled to cleanse an incontinent senile old woman I prayed fervently that he would never find out.
The twins wrote cheerfully from their training camp: their only fear seemed to be that the war would be over before they could join in; and the occasional postcard which arrived from Conan showed that for him too war was the greatest of games. Only Guy was not happy; he had wanted Eileen to marry him as soon as he came out of hospital but she had made a string of excuses and finally announced that she was not ready to lose her figure yet – London was just too exciting at present. Guy looked hurt and miserable as he told me, then he repeated, ‘She’s the only girl for me, Hellie – the only girl in the world.’ I hated svelte, selfish Eileen – how gladly would I have married Gerald if he had been in London now.
Towards the end of November I was moved to a men’s medical ward. At first I shrank from having to handle male bodies so intimately, but there was no time for such delicacy at the East London. And then there were the delirious cases; with their vacant staring eyes and senseless incoherent mutterings – I had to nerve myself to go near them.
One of the beds had its warning bowl of disinfectant, and neat stack of marked crockery at its foot, but this case was not one of typhoid. Staff took me on one side and told me what Number Six was suffering from and my skin crawled, but his bed had to be made and his needs attended to, just like the others. ‘Remember, Girvan, even if you only just touch his bed, wash your hands in disinfectant at once.’ I remembered, and my hands became red and chapped with constant washing. How I loathed the East London.