She met a number of the Dutch Sisters at supper; they all spoke English in varying degrees of fluency and she found herself with more invitations to do this, that and the other than she could ever hope to have time for, so that she went back to Mr Boekerchek quite cheered up; even if she wouldn’t have much time to go out, at least the other girls were friendly.
She set about the routine of getting her patient ready for the night and when the night nurse, one Willa Groene, arrived, a sturdy fair-haired girl of about her own age, she relinquished him to her with a relief which, though concealed, was none the less real. It had been a long day—and a surprising one, she reminded herself as she was on the verge of sleep.
Mr Boekerchek wasn’t in a good humour when she reached his room the next morning. His surly “What’s good about it?” in answer to her own greeting told her all she needed to know. His surliness, she had no doubt, hid a nasty attack of nerves; that terrible last-minute rebellion against a fate which had decreed that the only way out was to trust the surgeon. She had encountered it a hundred times: it passed swiftly but she had learned to help it on its way. She began the task of doing just that. There was quite a lot to do before they went to theatre; and she began, with cheerful calm, to do the numerous little jobs which would lead finally to his premed, talking unhurriedly for most of the time, pretending not to notice his silence, and after a while her patience was rewarded; he asked about her room in the Nurses’ Home and was she being well treated?
“Like a queen,” she assured him, and led the conversation cunningly away from hospital. She had succeeded in making him laugh, telling him about the professor’s Lamborghini and her father’s opinion of those who travelled in such splendid cars, when she realized that there was a third person in the room—the professor, filling the doorway with his bulk and looking as though he had been there for some time. He had.
“Your father’s stricture makes me feel every year of my age,” he remarked good-humouredly as he advanced to the bedside. “My only excuse for driving a Lamborghini is that I was given one when I was twenty-one, and twenty years later I haven’t found a car I like better.”
“What about a Chrysler?” asked his patient, quite diverted from his own troubles.
“A good car—but I think that I am now getting too old to change.” He stared at the wall, thinking his own thoughts. “Perhaps—if I were to marry—the Lamborghini is hardly a family car.” His manner changed and he began at once to talk to Mr Boekerchek, to such good effect that that gentleman remained cheerful until the moment he closed his eyes in the peaceful half-sleep induced by the injection Charity had given him.
The theatre, when they reached it, reminded her forcibly of quite another sort of theatre; there was the audience, peering down through the glass above their heads, and the instruments, while not the musical variety, tinkled musically as they were laid out in their proper places. Charity, who had remained with her patient in the anaesthetic room, his hand comfortably fast in hers, took up her position by the anaesthetist and watched Mr Boekerchek’s unconscious form being arranged with due care upon the operating table. This done to Theatre Sister’s satisfaction, a kind of hush fell upon the group of people arranged in a kind of tableau in the centre of the theatre.
Into this hush came Professor van Tijlen, dwarfing everyone present, his mask pulled up over his splendid nose so that only his eyes were visible. He paused by the table, greeted Theatre Sister, said a few words to his registrar, murmured briefly to his houseman, hovering nervously, stared hard at Charity—a stare which she returned in full measure—and turned his attention to his patient.
Charity watched him make a neat paramedian incision and then, stage by stage, demonstrate his actions to his audience. It was a pity that she couldn’t understand a word he said, but she was kept so busy that it didn’t really matter; blood sugar samples had to be taken every fifteen minutes, blood pressures had to be read, and the anaesthetist kept her on her toes with his requirements. But she managed, all the same, to see something of what was going on. The professor was a good surgeon, with no pernickety ways; he was relaxed too, even though his concentration was absolute. There was a little sigh of satisfaction as he found and removed the adenoma which had been the cause of Mr Boekerchek’s illness; he spent some time searching for any more which might be there, with no success—presumably everything was as it should be; he began on his careful needlework and presently, when that was finished, stood back to allow the other two men to finish off the suturing. He left the theatre as the anaesthetist slid a fine tube down Mr Boekerchek’s nostril while Theatre Sister attended to the dressing, and Charity, kept busy with odd jobs, didn’t see him go. For so large a man he moved in a very self-effacing manner.
He turned up again, just as silently, half an hour later, when having got her patient into bed under his space blanket, checked the infusions of blood, dextrose saline and another, special solution, all located in various limbs and all running at a different rate; made sure that the cannula for the taking of blood samples was correctly fixed, and made certain that the blood pressure was being properly monitored, Charity was taking Mr Boekerchek’s pulse.
Beyond giving her a laconic hullo, the professor had nothing to say to her, but bent at once over his patient. It was only when he had satisfied himself that everything was just as it should be that he straightened his long back and came to take the charts from the desk. “You are familiar with the nursing care?” He looked at her, smiling a little. “Am I insulting you? I don’t mean to, but if there is anything you are not quite certain about I shall be glad to help you.”
Very handsomely put, she had to admit. “Thank you—I’m fine at the moment, but I’ll not hesitate to let you or Mr Van Dungen know if I’m worried.”
He nodded. “One of us will be available for the next twenty-four hours. Start aspirating in an hour and a half, if you please, and give water as ordered as soon as the patient is conscious. You will have help as and when you require it, but I must emphasise that you are in charge of the case and are responsible to me and no one else. You understand?”
There was a lot to do during the next few hours, but by the end of that time Charity had the satisfaction of seeing her patient sitting up against his pillows, the blanket discarded, nicely doped and doing exactly as he ought. She had been warned to send a message to the professor when Mrs Boekerchek arrived that evening; he arrived as she entered the room, her face held rigid in a smile which threatened to crack at any moment.
The professor glanced at Charity. “Go and get a cup of coffee,” he told her. “I shall be here for ten minutes or so—stay in the duty room.”
She went thankfully; she had been relieved for fifteen minutes for a hasty meal on a tray in the office, but now she longed for a cup of tea, but coffee it was and better than nothing.
She sat in the austere little room, her shoes kicked off, her cap pushed to the back of her head. There were still several hours to go before she could go off duty, but that didn’t matter; Mr Boekerchek was out of his particular wood provided nothing happened to hinder him. She swallowed a second cup of coffee, straightened her cap, shoved her feet back into their shoes and went back along the corridor.
The professor was ready to leave, taking Mrs Boekerchek with him. She had been crying, for her husband was in no state to warn her not to. The tears started again as she saw Charity, whom she kissed soundly. “I’ll never be able to thank you—you two beautiful people,” she said with a gratitude which wrung Charity’s kind heart, and was borne away by the professor, who, without a word to Charity, closed the door quietly as they went.
He opened it a minute later to say: “I should be obliged if you would come on duty at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. You will be relieved later in the day, but I prefer you to be here while Mr Boekerchek is ill. Naturally any time you have owing to you will be made up.” He turned to go again. “Thank you for your assistance today, Sister Dawson.” His goodnight was an afterthought as he closed the door once more.
He certainly had no intention of sparing her, but she fancied that he didn’t spare himself either where his patients, important or otherwise, were concerned. She dismissed