Connie’s Courage Read online

  The Saturday of their outing to the music hall, Connie arrived back in their room a few minutes after the others, complaining, ‘I’ve spent all afternoon winding bandages. My fingers feel as though they’ve gone numb!

  ‘You’d better get a move on, else we’re going to be late, Josie warned her. ‘We’re all ready!

  Grumbling, Connie hurried through her own toilette, trying not to feel too envious of the smart new dress that Vera was wearing.

  ‘Can I have a spray of your gardenia scent, Vera?’

  she begged. ‘Otherwise I’ll be going out stinking of carbolic.’

  ‘You can have some of my lavender water, Connie,’ Josie offered, and Connie had to accept it with good grace, whilst wishing that she could go out scented with the more exotic gardenia fragrance.

  The four of them were in high spirits as they left the nurses’ home and set off for the bus stop, linking up together at Connie’s instigation, and laughing in the summer sunshine.

  The conductor on the bus gave them a wink and said, ‘Off to have some fun, is you, girls! By, I wish I was coming with youse!’ as he took their fares.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Josie complained. ‘I was that excited I never ate me dinner.’

  ‘Well they won’t let us in with food any more,’ Vera complained. ‘So we’ll get a glass of porter and summat to eat before we go in.’

  The bus took them right up to the music hall. Vera had suggested that they got off a few stops short of it and had a look at the shops, ‘whilst we’ve got the chance', but Mavis and Josie had both vetoed this suggestion.

  ‘Ooh, look, they’ve got George Robey as the comedian,’ Josie gasped in thrilled excitement, as they got off the bus and hurried over to look at the programmes posted outside the building.

  Clinging together to avoid being jostled by the growing crowd, the four of them peered excitedly at the billboard.

  ‘Look there, right at the top, there’s Marie Lloyd, and he’s there, too!’ Vera burst out excitedly. ‘It’s him as I was telling you all about, George Lashwood. He’s that handsome …’ She gave a deep sigh.

  ‘It says here that there’s an Ella Shields on as a male impersonator, Josie began, and then stopped to demand, ‘does that means she’s a woman pretending to be a man?

  ‘ Ere come on you girls, let someone else get a look at the billing.’

  The jocular request, made by a young man with a ready smile and twinkling blue eyes, had them falling back, blushing.

  ‘Going in, are yer?’ he asked. ‘Only I’m with a few of me pals and we could sit together, if you fancied it.’

  Immediately Connie tensed. Kieron’s desertion of her and its frightening aftermath had left her feeling very wary of the male sex. And aware, too, of her own shameful secret. She felt a fierce need to protect herself, not just from having her past discovered, but also from giving any other man the idea that he could treat her as Kieron had. This might go against the grain of her normally fun-loving, light-hearted personality, but men, in Connie’s eyes, had become a species who were not to be trusted – and certainly not allowed to take any kind of liberties!

  ‘What, let you sit with us? Not likely!’ she answered him sharply, exclaiming to the others, as he stuck his hands in his pockets and laughed before walking off, ‘Cheek!’

  ‘You’re turning into a right spoilsport, Connie!’ Vera complained. ‘It would have been a bit of fun sitting with ‘em!’

  The crowd outside the building was growing by the minute, and when Mavis suggested that they get themselves something to eat and then go inside, the other three willingly agreed. By the time the curtain went up on the first act, they were sitting cosily in their seats, waiting expectantly.

  The loud roar of approval with which the crowd greeted the first act set the tone for the whole night, and, well before the curtain had been rung down on the first half of the evening, all four girls had thrown themselves into the spirit of things.

  ‘I’m hoarse already from singing,’ Mavis complained, as the curtain swung down.

  ‘Ooh, that comedian had me laughing that much me ribs ache,’ Josie marvelled. ‘No wonder they calls him the Prime Minister of Mirth.’

  The interval gave everyone the opportunity to get up from their seats and stretch their legs, and when the four girls were entertained by an enterprising young man who came and stood in front of them, and provided an impromptu show of his own devising – complete with a song extolling their beauty – everyone around them started to clap and cheer.

  The good-natured atmosphere couldn’t help but lift your spirits, Josie announced.

  ‘It’s a pity it’s so full, otherwise we could have done a bit of dancing ourselves, up at the back,’ Vera complained.

  All four of them exchanged slightly wistful looks, but their disappointment at not being able to dance was soon forgotten, when the curtain went up on the second half of the show.

  Ella Shields came on first, dressed in her male clothes, and sang, ‘Burlington Bertie from Bow’, to catcalls and yells of encouragement and approval from the audience.

  When everyone else got to their feet to join in the final chorus, so did the four girls, singing the familiar words at the top of their voices.

  Red in the face and happy, they waited expectantly for Vera’s handsome singer to appear.

  When he did, his appearance was enough to cause an impressed silence to fall over the theatre, followed by a soft, muted sound, which was a sigh of pleasure from the whole of the female audience.

  ‘Oh, isn’t he handsome,’ Mavis whispered in awe.

  ‘Told you so,’ Vera announced smugly.

  In mutual silence, the girls focused on the stage, watching the man standing there as he took the part of a swell out on London town for the night. When his act had finished, the applause was so loud it hurt the ears.

  ‘Oh, I did enjoy this evening,’ Mavis exclaimed happily when the four of them got off the bus outside the Infirmary, and linked arms.

  Mischievously Connie started to sing a few words from one of the numbers, whereupon Vera started to mimic the dance steps performed by the chorus girls.

  Within a few seconds, the four of them had given in to their high spirits and were singing and dancing their way down the street, and enjoying the spontaneous applause of a couple of young men who stopped to watch them.

  ‘Do you think he wouldn’t have died if they hadn’t cut off his leg?’

  ‘Josie, will you please give it a rest. I’m sick of hearing about it.’

  Even Connie felt that Vera was being unsympathetic when she saw the tears filming Josie’s eyes.

  ‘It wasn’t like someone dying on the ward, Vera,’ she felt obliged to point out. ‘Josie and I were there in the operating theatre when Mr Clegg amputated the man’s leg.’

  ‘Connie, please don’t!’ Josie begged.

  There was a greenish tinge under her pale skin and Mavis, too, was looking slightly pale. Connie, on the other hand, had found that her fascination with the operating procedure had overcome any squeamishness she might have felt. And Sister had certainly moved smartly when she realised that Josie was going to faint, Connie reflected mentally.

  They were sitting in the large room which was referred to as the recreation room, and as Josie started to talk again about the awfulness of the patient’s death on the operating table, Connie glanced absently round the room. There was a piano in one corner, but, as yet, Connie had never seen anyone playing it.

  ‘This will cheer you up, Josie,’ she announced, as she got up and walked over to it, sitting down on the stool and folding back the top. On top of the keys was a notice saying, ‘This piano is not to be played without permission!’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Josie demanded.

  For a moment Connie hesitated, and then she pushed the notice behind a sheet of music and announced, ‘I’m going to play some cheerful music to drown out the sound of you going on about the amputation.’

  ‘You can play?�
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  Suddenly, not just her three friends, but also several other girls who were also in the room clustered around her, their admiring attention making Connie feel very pleased with herself.

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘My mother sent Ell… me for lessons,’ she amended quickly, breaking into the opening chords of a rousing tune, uncomfortably aware of how easily she had nearly said her sister’s name.

  The song was a popular one and, before Connie had finished playing it, virtually everyone was singing.

  ‘Play us something else,’ one of the other nurses encouraged Connie.

  ‘Yes, do,’ another begged, and Connie acceded willingly to their pleas.

  They were all of them enjoying themselves so much, an increasingly bawdy element creeping into their choice of songs, that none of them noticed at first that Sister Jenkins, who was in charge of the nurses’ home, was standing by the open door.

  Gradually the singing died out as the singers became aware of Sister’s presence but Connie, with her back to the door, had no notion of the disaster about to befall her until she turned round to find out why the singing had suddenly stopped.

  ‘It is strictly forbidden for any nurse to touch the piano without permission, as the notice on top of the piano keys would have told you.’ Sister informed Connie coldly, adding, ‘You will present yourself in my room at seven tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You’ll really be in for it now,’ Vera told Connie warningly after Sister had gone.

  ‘If Connie is to be punished, then we should all be punished,’ Mavis chipped in. ‘After all, we were singing.’

  ‘There’s no rule against singing,’ Vera pointed out smugly. ‘And anyway, none of us asked Connie to play. It isn’t our fault if she wanted to show off.’

  ‘Vera, that isn’t fair,’ Mavis protested.

  Numbly Connie listened to what they were saying. They had all been singing, but she was the one, as Vera had just pointed out, who had been playing the piano!

  Hesitantly Connie knocked on Sister Jenkins’ door, trying to swallow back her nauseous fear as she heard her call out sharply. ‘Come!’

  ‘So, Nurse Pride!’ The cold, pale blue eyes surveyed Connie dispassionately. ‘This is not the first time you have brought yourself to our attention with your bad behaviour.’

  Connie felt her heart jolt against her ribs. Ma Deakin had been right when she had told her that the hospital would be a safe haven for her, and Connie had no wish to leave it.

  Sharing a room with the others gave her the same feeling she used to have when she was with Ellie and their cousins: a feeling of warmth and happiness, and of somehow belonging. The thought that this feeling might now be taken away from her was making Connie sick with fear and panic. But being Connie, she was far too stubborn to show it.

  ‘So! Have you anything to say for yourself?’ Sister asked grimly, folding her hands together on the desk.

  Connie could only shake her head.

  Sister sighed. ‘Nurse Pride, the piano was a gift to this nurses’ home, from a very religious gentleman. And, as such, it is only used on very special occasions, and with permission! When did you learn to play?’

  It was very unusual for the class of girls who trained at the Infirmary to have such an accomplishment.

  The question caught Connie off guard, and automatically she responded truthfully, ‘My mother insisted on us having lessons.’

  ‘Indeed. Well, in future, I trust that her indulgence and my own forbearance will result in your humility and regret,’ Sister announced sternly.

  Connie held her breath. Was that it? Was she not after all going to be dismissed and sent packing?

  Sister, who had a fair idea of what Connie was thinking, reflected that if she had not already made up her mind that Connie was showing all the signs of turning out to be a first-rate nurse – and a first-rate theatre nurse, at that – then she would, indeed, have been told to go.

  The ominous rumblings of war were growing ever louder. It was unthinkable, of course, that they should go to war with Germany. But the Government had insisted that every hospital in the country had to prepare itself for that eventuality, which meant that they could not afford to turn away a probationer with any kind of promise.

  For war meant injured men. Injured men needed skilled and dedicated nursing. And more than that, many of the poor souls would need operations. Mr Clegg had made it clear that he wanted Matron to give priority to providing him with skilled operating theatre nurses. In Sister’s opinion, Probationer Pride did not realise how very fortunate she was!

  All this talk of war was extremely disturbing, and Sister Jenkins, for one, hoped that good sense would prevail and that the Germans would recognise their folly and cease their sabre-rattling forthwith!

  The other three were waiting anxiously for Connie when she got back to their room.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Are you to leave?’

  ‘I can’t answer you all at once,’ Connie complained, trying not to feel hurt that Vera should be the one to ask if she was to leave, and, moreover, that she should show so little concern at the prospect.

  ‘I am to stay,’ she told them firmly, only just beginning to believe and accept her reprieve herself.

  ‘Oh, Connie!’

  ‘Connie!

  ‘Lucky you!’

  As all three of them hugged her, Connie felt tears prick her eyes. For all that Vera complained constantly about the long hours, and the hard work, and everything else, Connie knew that, compared to the way she and Kieron had lived, her current life was a huge improvement. She got regular meals, she had equality with her peers, and she was even paid – albeit a very modest sum. But best of all was the fact that the hospital was clean; their room was clean; her clothes and her own self were clean! In fact, even the privies were spotlessly clean.

  You had to have lived somewhere like Back Court to truly value something as simple as cleanliness, Connie acknowledged.

  ‘No more getting in trouble,’ Mavis told her mock-sternly.

  ‘No more getting in trouble,’ Connie agreed, and meant it.

  She wondered if Mavis was as aware as she was herself of the fact that both of them spoke rather better than their fellow probationers? Vera teased her sometimes about what she called Connie’s ‘posh’ accent, but Connie had noticed that it wasn’t just her own mother’s insistence that all her children spoke the King’s English properly, that set her just a little bit apart from Vera and Josie. And, it was obvious that, like Connie herself, Mavis had received a far better education than the others, and had better table manners.

  Connie could still remember how shocked she had been the first time she had seen Kieron eat a meal. Kieron! What was she doing thinking about him! He and the life she had lived with him were things she wanted to forget and pretend had never existed. Just thinking about Kieron was enough to bring back all her dread and fear of Bill Connolly.

  Never did she want to return to that life, and she had been more mortally afraid than she wanted to admit to herself, never mind her friends, that, that was exactly what might happen to her.

  Only now with her future here at the Infirmary safe, could she allow herself to recognise how terrified she had been of being sent away.

  SIX

  ‘I’m sure Sister makes us do all this scrubbing just to punish us,’ Connie complained wearily to Vera, as she dropped her scrubbing brush into the bucket beside her, and wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of carbolic. ‘We’re supposed to be learning to be nurses, not scrubbing ward floors,’ she grumbled.

  ‘Cleanliness is the first law of good nursing,’ Vera mimicked, repeating Sister Jenkins’ favourite mantra.

  ‘Don’t you go making me laugh,’ Connie protested. ‘My ribs still ache from everyone practising their bandaging on me yesterday.’

  It was several months since they had first arrived at the Infirmary, and during that time the four girls had become
close friends, often spending their rare time off together.

  ‘Look out, Sister’s watching us,’ Vera muttered warningly out of the corner of her mouth.

  Diligently Connie bent over her task, grimacing as the hot, soapy water stung her raw hands.

  We might as well be skivvies in service,’ she complained to Mavis and Josie, later that evening.

  ‘I spent hours polishing the brass this morning, and then Sister came and told me to do it all again.’

  ‘You’ll never guess what!’ Vera interrupted her excitedly, as she burst into their room. ‘Remember that singer we saw at the music hall, George Lashwood, well, he’s going to be singing at the Palais dance hall, a week Saturday just for the one night!’

  ‘Saturday! My next day off isn’t until a week Wednesday,’ Connie told her in disappointment. ‘And neither is yours.’

  ‘Who needs a day? We all finish our shifts at three that day, I’ve checked, and we aren’t on again until six the next morning, so that means we could easily go into town without being missed!’

  ‘You mean the four of us should sneak out without telling anyone?’ Connie questioned frowningly.

  Mavis was already shaking her head, looking shocked, ‘Oh, Vera, how can you even suggest such a thing! We aren’t allowed to leave the hospital unless we have been given permission, you know that!’

  ‘So, who’s to know!’ Vera demanded, shrugging impatiently. ‘And anyway, what’s the harm? After skivvying away here like they make us do, I reckon we deserve a bit o’ fun? Connie’ll come, won’t you, Connie?’

  ‘Connie, don’t listen to her,’ Mavis begged.

  ‘You’ve already been in trouble twice – and if you were to get caught …’

  ‘Come on, Connie. I dare you!’ Vera challenged her.

  Connie’s heart sank. Vera was putting her in a very difficult position. Part of her wanted to refuse, but the stubborn, rebellious streak which had caused her so much trouble in the past, was whispering in her ear, and goading her not to lose face by refusing Vera’s dare!