She decided to shelve everything till after her holiday, which despite the pleading of her mother for her to go home, she was spending again at the convent on the Hagley Road.
‘What about Paul?’ Lois asked.
‘What about him?’ Carmel said. ‘When his exams are over he can come and see me. I have my own room there and far more chance of privacy than here in the nurses’ home. I haven’t even had a chance of telling him my feelings have changed so drastically and I will need privacy then.’
Lois could see the sense of that and so could Paul when she told him of her plans. But really all his energies were centred on his finals.
At last, by early July, the dreaded exams were over and Carmel and Paul were making up a foursome with Chris and Lois the following night to celebrate that fact. Carmel was feeling very happy that evening as she was returning from benediction. It was just turning dusk and she was glad that she would be back in the hospital before the dark had really set in, when she heard a distinct groan coming from an alleyway to her right.
She stopped, her senses alerted, and listened as she peered into the gloom of the entry. The low moan came again. Tentatively, Carmel went towards the black hole. Attacks on individuals in the city centre had been getting frequent of late and had made everyone nervous. Carmel did wonder if this was some sort of trick to lure her into an unlit place. Her senses were on high alert as she moved cautiously, feeling the walls with her shaking fingers, expecting any moment to feel hands grabbing at her, pulling her further in.
Scared though she was, she knew even if she hadn’t trained as a nurse, she couldn’t walk past a person groaning in pain as if it was no business of hers.
Anyway, she told herself wryly, if anyone was to attack me in the hope of rich pickings, they would be on a losing wicket because I haven’t a penny piece on me.
All thoughts of it all being some sort of trick fled a few moments later, however, when Carmel’s shuffling feet came in contact with something on the ground. She could see virtually nothing, just a vague mound, and she was suddenly so scared the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She kneeled and put her hands out hesitantly and felt clothing, like a jacket. She wished to God she had some sort of light for she knew there was a person lying there too injured to move. More confidently now, she ran her hands expertly over the prone and twisted form, checking for any kind of injury. She could find nothing obvious until she came to the person’s head, where her fingers located a gaping sticky wound with blood still seeping from it. Gently, she laid two fingers against the neck and felt the pulse. She pursed her lips at the irregularity of it.
She knew the man needed help and fast, and yet she hesitated to leave him. Maybe there was someone still in the church? She ran to the edge of the entry and was greatly relieved to see Father Donahue in the church doorway. ‘Oh, Father,’ she cried.
‘What is it, my dear?’ the priest said, hurrying towards Carmel, taking in her agitated state first and then seeing her fingers covered in blood. ‘What has happened?’
‘There is an injured man in the entry, Father,’ Carmel said pointing. ‘At least from his clothes and haircut, I take it he is a man. I heard him groaning, that’s what alerted me, but now he seems to have lapsed into unconsciousness. He is bleeding profusely from a head wound and his pulse rate is erratic. He needs treatment, and as quickly as possible, but I would hate to leave him.’
‘I will alert them at the hospital, never fear,’ the priest said. ‘But shouldn’t we try to bring the poor unfortunate person more into the light?’
‘We should not move him, Father,’ Carmel said. ‘Tell them to bring torches, flashlights, anything, but hurry, Father. I will stay with him till someone comes.’
It was easier this time to go into the entry. When she got to the man, she felt the floor around him and the pool of blood, and she knew she had to stanch the wound. Glad there was none to see her, she pulled her dress and underslip over her head and ripped the slip into strips to pack and bind the wound before replacing her dress.
When the doctors came in with the stretcher and flashlights they found Carmel kneeling in the puddle of blood herself, as she had lifted the man’s head slightly on to her knees so that she could stanch the flow more effectively.
‘Good work, Nurse Duffy,’ one of the senior doctors said to her. ‘Now if you let us in we will see what is the matter with the poor fellow.’
‘Certainly, Doctor,’ Carmel said, easing the man’s head from her so that she could get up. One of the doctors played the flashlight on to the injured man’s face and when Carmel saw who it was, she staggered and would have fallen if the doctor hadn’t caught her arm.
‘You’ve stiffened up sitting there so long,’ he said, not understanding.
But Carmel saw that the man whose head she had cradled in her lap was none other than Paul Connolly, whose face had been battered so badly he looked more dead than alive.
‘Christ Almighty,’ she heard the doctor exclaim behind her. ‘It’s young Connolly.’
There were a thousand questions burning in her brain. What was Paul doing there? What had happened him? How badly hurt was he?
‘It’s Paul,’ she told the priest, still waiting at the entrance with the orderlies who had brought the stretcher. ‘I am going to go down to the hospital with them. I need to see if he’s going to be all right.’
The priest saw Carmel’s bleak eyes filled with worry and he said, ‘I’ll come with you.’ Carmel just nodded and knew she would be glad of the man by her side.
‘They’ll not likely be able to tell you anything for some time,’ one of the orderlies said. ‘And you really need to get cleaned up.’
Carmel looked down at herself. Blood covered her dress from the waist, though there were also some splashes on the bodice, and her legs and hands were coated with it. But none of this mattered. The only thing that did was that the man she had just realised she loved above all others was desperately ill. She said, ‘I will wash my hands but the rest can wait. Knowing that Dr Connolly is going to be all right is the only thing that counts.’
Many saw the state of Carmel as she went into the hospital that evening flanked by the priest. Then the young doctor was carried in on a stretcher and everyone was agog with curiosity.
Father Donahue sought out the staff nurse on duty and informed her of events. ‘Carmel tells me Dr Connolly has a cousin here in the hospital,’ he went on to say, ‘a probationer called Lois Baker.’
‘Yes, I was aware of that,’ the staff nurse said. ‘I will see that she is informed, as well as Dr Connolly’s parents.’
Minutes later, Lois scurried down the corridor. She hadn’t been told of Carmel’s involvement and when she saw her sitting there beside the priest, she was surprised, but as she drew closer and saw the bedraggled and bloodstained state of her, she became alarmed.
‘What is it? What’s happened to you?’ she cried.
‘Nothing,’ Carmel told her. ‘This isn’t my blood, it’s Paul’s.’
‘Paul’s?’
‘What have you been told?’
‘That Paul has had some kind of accident.’
Carmel hesitated and then said, ‘He has a head injury that was bleeding quite badly. I don’t know if he was injured anywhere else, it was too dark to see.’
‘Why? Where was this?’
‘I found him in an entry off