‘I take it it’s urgent, George?’ She eyed the grey face above the blanket.
‘Just got ’im out, they ’ave, Sister—lorst a leg. There’ll be a copper along with details—’e’s in a bad way.’
She looked around her. Everyone was busy; a houseman was disappearing through a door carrying a child, the nurses were stretched to their limit, James and the house physician who had come to give a hand were bending over an elderly woman, who, not seriously hurt when she was admitted, had collapsed with a coronary. Someone would have to come. The ambulance men slid the stretcher on to the trolley and swung it into an empty bay and she lifted the blanket.
The patient, if he were to be saved, would need a blood transfusion before anything else. Araminta bade the ambulance men goodbye and picked up one of the small glass tubes lying ready on the dressing trolley; at least she could get a specimen of blood while she waited for a doctor. She was putting the cork back in when she was addressed from behind.
It was the senior consultant surgeon, Sir Donald Short.
‘Ah, Sister, you appear to need help.’ She had never been so thankful to hear his rather gruff voice. ‘Perhaps we could give a hand.’ He had come round the foot of the trolley and was already taking off his jacket. ‘I see you have taken some blood—good. Run along to the Path Lab and get it cross-matched—and look sharp about it.’ He lifted the blanket in his turn. ‘We must do what we can for this poor fellow.’
Araminta didn’t stop to speak. There was no need to detail the man’s injuries; she turned round to do as she had been told and found her way blocked by Sir Donald’s companion—Doctor van Sibbelt, no less. The interesting and strangely disturbing fact registered itself upon her busy mind to be dismissed immediately; there were other, more important matters on hand.
By the time she got back with the two vacoliters of blood, the two men were hard at work with artery forceps, tying off carefully as they went. Sir Donald barely glanced at her, and Doctor van Sibbelt didn’t look up at all.
‘Get that up, Sister,’ the consultant commanded. ‘Crispin, see if you can find a vein in that arm—we’ll run in the first liter as fast as we can and follow it with the second before we take him to theatre.’ He paused for only a moment. ‘Finished, Sister? Get hold of main theatre and tell them I want it ready in five minutes.’
He watched his companion slide the canulla into a limp vein. ‘Crispin, will you give the anaesthetic? It’ll relieve the pressure on the other theatres.’ He added sharply: ‘We need more blood, Sister.’
‘It’s on its way, sir,’ Araminta was unflurried, ‘and I’ll see that it goes to theatre.’
‘Good girl—let me have a pad here, then. Poor devil!’
Araminta took a blood pressure which only just registered. The face on the pillow was grey with shock; it could have belonged to an old man, although it was a mere lad lying there. She pitied him with all her warm heart but there was no time for pity; efficiency and gentleness and speed—above all, speed, came first. She could pity him later.
She sped away to telephone theatre, and saw as she went that the place was at last almost empty—there were still three or four patients waiting to be warded, and a handful of slightly injured people waiting to have stitches and anti-tetanus injections. She had a quick word with Mrs Pink and Staff Nurse Getty, then flew back to escort her patient to theatre. Sir Donald, Doctor van Sibbelt and their patient had already gone; she cleared up the mess in the bay and turned her attention to helping James. And after that there was the business of clearing up—they were quick at that, but it took time; everything had to be exactly as it was, ready for any kind of emergency once more.
The morning had gone. It was long past the nurses’ dinner time, she sent them in ones and twos for their belated meal, and when Staff got back, retired to her office, where old Betsy, the department maid, had taken a tray of coffee and sandwiches. She lingered now, to receive praise from Araminta for the useful part she had played in the morning’s work.
‘Cups o’tea,’ she declared contemptuously, ‘and collecting up the dirties—that ain’t much, Sister. Not when I seen you and the nurses covered in blood, mopping up and bandaging and giving them nasty jabs.’
She spoke with some relish, for although she was a dear old thing, devoted to Araminta, zealous in her cleaning operations round the department and with a heart of gold, she enjoyed any dramatic occasion.
‘Go on with you, Betsy,’ said Araminta. ‘You know as well as I do that hot tea is one of the quickest ways of helping someone who’s had a shock to feel normal again—why, if you hadn’t been there with your urn, we should have had twice as much work.’
She took a sip of coffee and bit into a sandwich, and Betsy, looking pleased, pushed the sugar bowl nearer. ‘That young man, ’im with the leg orf—is ’e going ter be OK?’
Araminta pushed her cap to the back of her head, allowing a good deal of her golden hair to escape untidily, she pushed that back too rather impatiently. ‘I hope so, Betsy.’
Her elderly handmaiden trotted to the door, where she paused to say: ‘Well, ’e ought ter get well with Sir Donald tackling ’im. And ’oo was that fine fellow with ’im?’
Araminta declared mendaciously that she didn’t know, for if she had said anything else Betsy would have stayed for ever, asking questions in her cockney voice; probably the selfsame questions to which Araminta herself would have liked to know the answers. She sighed and dragged a formidable pile of Casualty cards and notes towards her, and began, between bites and gulps, to enter the morning’s work into the Record Book. She had barely started when she was called away to cast an eye over an overdose which had been brought in and who Staff didn’t quite like the look of. The man was indeed in a sorry state—they worked on him under James’ patient directions and then coped with a sprained ankle, an old lady knocked down by a bus, a child scalded by a kettle of boiling water and a very old man found unconscious by the police, and he was followed by a baby who had swallowed a handful of plastic beads. There was a pause after that, long enough for them to stop for a welcome cup of tea while the two student nurses, back from tea, cleared up once more.
‘Quite a day!’ observed Araminta, ‘and I’ve got all this wretched writing to do before I can get off duty.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s time for those two to go, anyway—Nurse Carter’s on at six, isn’t she? and Male Nurse Pratt—he’s good; they both are. A pity Sylvia wasn’t here, but we should be all right now.’ She crossed her fingers hurriedly as she spoke. ‘Oh, lord, I shouldn’t have said that.’ She poured second cups. ‘Get yourself off on time, Dolly.’
‘What about you, Sister?’ Her faithful right hand looked worried.
‘Well, I must get this done before I go, and by the time I’m ready the Night people will be on; they’ve been promised for an hour earlier, you know—I should get away by seven o’clock at the latest.’ She added gloomily: ‘Let’s hope we’ll be slack for a day or two so that you can all get the off-duty you’re owed.’
Dolly got up and tidied the cups on to the tray and picked it up. ‘That would be nice, but I don’t suppose it’ll work that way, do you?’
Alone, Araminta buried herself in her papers, only lifting her head to bid good night to the nurses as they came off duty and thank them for their hard work. Mrs Pink had gone at four o’clock and Dolly went last of all, putting her head round the door to tell Araminta that the two evening nurses had reported for duty and that the Accident Room was blessedly free of patients for the moment.
‘Good,’ said Araminta absent-mindedly.