The Longest Winter by Daphne Wright

Author:Daphne Wright [Wright, Daphne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

Chapter Eleven

At first Evelyn was allowed to do little more in the wards than refill hotwater bottles, brew tea and take cups to the men, and check that the new arrivals were warm. She felt frustrated. Having taken her resolution to do what had to be done despite the vileness of the wounds and the upsetting groans of pain, it was annoying to find that no resolution was needed and that the only feeling against which she had to struggle was boredom mixed with guilt that she was leaving all her household tasks to her cousins. About a week after she had started work for him, she mentioned her feelings to the Medical Officer and asked if she could not do some ‘real nursing’.

‘Miss Markham, I haven’t time to go into the innumerable reasons why you have been assigned these particular duties. I will mention only two: you are entirely untrained and have a very great deal to learn; and cold and frostbite are two of the most dangerous conditions these men have to face. They are brought here on stretchers from the temporary dressing stations through temperatures that you know perfectly well reach minus fifty degrees. It is absolutely vital that the wounded are warmed once they get here. Do you understand, or would you rather give up your work now?’

His tone and his ultimatum jolted her out of her resentment and a blush stained her pale cheeks as she whispered:

‘I am sorry, Major. I had not understood.’

He did not wait to reassure her, but stalked off, far too busy, with few drugs and fewer trained people to treat the patients in his care as they should be treated. Evelyn looked after him filled with a determination never again to complain or to fall short of his standards.

Of course she did fall short, more than once, but somewhat to her surprise the MO did not dismiss her even when she fainted the first time she was ordered to help change the dressing on a suppurating wound. Slowly she became accustomed to assisting doctors perform the vilest duties on the wards. She learned how to control the retching nausea and the dizziness that assailed her when she had to deal with the pus that drained from great wounds torn into the flesh of the men, just as she learned that when changing dressings or cleaning wounds, firm, decisive movements were both less painful and more useful than the featherlight touch she had tried to use at the beginning.

But she could not alter her feelings, and every time she had to touch one of the men she felt revolted. After a week or two she could deal with their wounds, but the smell of their bodies made her feel sick, and their hairiness disgusted her. Taking them bottles and bedpans, let alone dealing with the results, took more resolution than cleaning the beastliest, bloodiest wound, and she dreaded the day when she would first have to give one of them a blanket bath.

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