Never While the Grass Grows. Betty Neels

murmured something or other and looked about her. It was a pity that she seemed to have exchanged Sister Moody for another of her kind, but that wouldn’t really matter, probably once they were at sea, they would see little of each other than during sleeping hours. ‘Will you tell me which drawer I may have and where I can hang my things?’ she asked them both, but it was Mary who answered and showed her where they were. ‘And here’s the shower,’ she opened a door and displayed the compact little place. ‘If you like to unpack first, I expect Joan will explain duties and so on.’

      They were all on duty each morning and took it in turns to be on duty in the afternoons, and provided there was nothing much to do, two of them would be free in the evenings. As for shore leave—well, that depended very much on the doctor. ‘It’s no good you expecting to go ashore each time we call somewhere,’ Joan explained sharply. ‘There’s a rota and we take turns. I arrange it and he OKs it—I’m afraid you’ll just have to accept what’s offered. And of course if anything crops up, you’ll probably have to do without your time off.’

      She eyed Octavia’s case. ‘I hope you haven’t brought too much with you—you’ll be lucky if you get a chance to wear evening clothes more than a couple of times. We usually sunbathe in the afternoons when we’re free, but you can do what you like; use the library or do some shopping or swim.’ She added with a nasty little edge to her voice: ‘Just remember you’re not a passenger, that’s all.’

      Octavia gave her a cool glance. ‘Oh, I won’t do that. Do I fetch my uniform?’

      ‘It’ll be brought here. You’d better unpack. Mary and I are going down to the hospital, so come down there when you’re ready and I’ll show you round.’

      Left to herself, Octavia put away her things, thankful that she hadn’t brought a great deal with her, for there wasn’t all that much space left for her. Mary, she reflected, would be pleasant enough, but she didn’t think she was going to like Joan Wise. She seemed jealous of her authority, which was a bit silly, seeing that they were all three trained nurses, and Octavia suspected that if anyone was going short of their off duty it wouldn’t be Sister Wise.

      It didn’t take her long to tidy away her wardrobe and presently she left the cabin, went back through the door and into the foyer, and studied the ship’s plan on one of the walls. Sister Wise hadn’t told her where the hospital was, but it couldn’t be all that hard to find. It took a few moments to decide which was the front and which the back of the ship, and to discover that the staircases were numbered; it was just a question of finding the right staircase nearest the hospital, which was several decks below her.

      She did rather well, meeting no one at all and taking careful note of where she was going. The hospital was clearly marked, with a waiting room for patients beside it. Octavia opened its door and went in, agreeably surprised to find that it looked very like St Maud’s on a very small scale. She could hear voices coming from a half-opened door at the end of the passage, but she paused to peep in the doors on either side of her. The doctor’s surgery on her right, and very nice too, beautifully fitted up and elegant to boot; the other door revealed a four-bedded ward and beyond it, another bigger ward. She closed the door and poked her pretty head round the next door—the duty room, much better than the office they had on Casualty at Maud’s. She had reached the half-open door by now and pushed it wide. This was the theatre, small but otherwise the prototype of any hospital theatre, with a small anaesthetic room next to it and the scrub room leading from it. She was taken round it at leisure, giving her time to discover where everything was and ask all the questions she wanted to. They were in the anaesthetic room when a young man in slacks and a sweater joined them, to be introduced as Colin White, the junior doctor.

      He shook Octavia’s hand and beamed at her. ‘I say, this is jolly,’ he told her. ‘I had no idea…’ He stopped and went a little red in the face, then went on; ‘I hear this is your first trip, so I hope you enjoy it. It’s my sixth and Mary has been at it for several months, and Joan here is an old hand, aren’t you, Joan?’

      Sister Wise’s eyes flashed, but she smiled thinly. ‘Oh, a very old hand,’ she repeated. ‘Now run along, there’s a good man, I’ve got to show Nurse Lock everything this afternoon; there won’t be much time after today.’

      He went reluctantly, stopped to ask Octavia if he might show her round the ship later on and when she said yes, beamed more widely than ever.

      They were on the point of leaving the hospital when Mary whispered: ‘Oh, here’s the boss.’

      Octavia had turned back to read a notice she hadn’t seen, but she looked round, curious to see if the senior doctor was as nice as Colin White appeared to be. He did indeed look nice, and very handsome—even more so than when she had seen him for the first time in Casualty. He advanced to meet them, in no hurry at all, looking faintly annoyed about something and when he saw her, frowning fiercely. Octavia, a forthright girl, ignored the frown.

      ‘Well,’ she exclaimed cheerfully, ‘fancy meeting you again! Of course, now I think about it, you just had to be a doctor.’