Stars Through the Mist. Betty Neels

‘Where’s Nurse Patterson?’

      That young lady, only half awake, crept through the door as she put the question, wished her superior a sleepy good morning and went on to say: ‘They’re mincemeat, Sister, so rumour has it, and where’s the night staff? Couldn’t they have at least started…?’

      ‘It’s not only our three,’ Deborah pointed out crisply. ‘They’ve had a busy night, the general theatre has been on the go since midnight. Get the plaster room ready, will you, Nurse, and then see to the bowls.’

      She was on the point of scrubbing up ready to start her trolleys when Mr van Doorninck walked in. She looked at him twice, because she was accustomed to seeing him either in his theatre gown and trousers, or a selection of sober, beautifully cut grey suits, and now he was in slacks and a rather elderly sweater. It made him look younger and much more approachable and it seemed to have the same effect on him as well, for he said cheerfully, ‘Hullo—sorry we had to get you up early, but I wanted you here. Do you suppose they could send up some coffee—I can tell you what I intend doing while we drink it.’ He glanced around him. ‘These three look as though they could do with a hot drink, too,’ a remark which sent Patterson scurrying to the telephone to order coffee in the consultant’s name, adding a gleeful rider that it was for five people and was to be sent up at once.

      Deborah led the way to her office, offered Mr van Doorninck a chair, which he declined, and sat down herself behind her desk. She had taken off her cap and had her theatre cap and mask in her hand, but she put these down now and rather absent-mindedly began to thrust the pins more securely into the great bundle of hair she had twisted up in such a hurry. She did it with a lack of self-consciousness of which she was unaware and when she looked up and caught his eye, she said, ‘Sorry about this—there wasn’t much time, but I’m listening.’

      ‘Three cases,’ he began. ‘The first is a young man—a boy, I should say, fractured pelvis, left and right fractured femurs, I’m afraid, and a fractured patella—fragmented, I shall have to remove the whole thing. The other two aren’t quite so bad—fractured neck of femur, compound tib and fib and a few ribs; the third one has got off comparatively lightly with a comminuted fracture of left femur and a Potts’. I think if we work the first case off, stop for a quick breakfast, and get the other two done afterwards—have you a list for Mr Squires this morning? Doesn’t he usually start at eleven o’clock?’

      Deborah nodded. ‘But it’s a short list and I’m sure he’ll agree to start half an hour later if he were asked.’

      ‘How are you placed for staff? Will you be able to cover both theatres? You’ll be running late.’

      It was Staff’s half day before her days off, but he wouldn’t know about that. Deborah said positively: ‘I can manage very well; Bob will be on at eight o’clock and both part-time staff nurses come in.’

      She made a show of consulting the off-duty book before her. She wouldn’t be able to go off duty herself, for she was to be relieved by one of the part-time staff nurses; she would have to telephone her now, and get her to come in at one o’clock instead.

      ‘When would you like to start?’ she wanted to know calmly.

      He glanced at his watch. ‘Ten minutes, if you can.’

      She got up from her chair. ‘We’ll be ready—you’ll want the Smith-Petersen nails, and shall I put out the McLaughlin pin-plate as well? And will you want to do a bone graft on the tib and fib?’

      ‘Very probably. Put out everything we’ve got, will you? I’ll pick what I want, we can’t really assess the damage until I can get the bone fragments away.’

      He followed her out of the office and they walked together down the wide corridor to the scrubbing-up room, where Peter was already at one of the basins. Deborah wished him good morning and went to her own basin to scrub—ten minutes wasn’t long and she had quite a lot to do still.

      The operation lasted for hours, and unlike other jobs, there was no question of hurrying it up; the broken bones had to be exposed, tidied up, blood vessels tied, tissue cut away and then the pieces brought together before they were joined by means of pins or wires, and only then after they had been X-rayed.

      Mr van Doorninck worked steadily and with the absorption of a man doing a difficult jigsaw puzzle, oblivious of time or anything else. Deborah, with an eye on the clock, sent a nurse down to breakfast with the whispered warning to look sharp about it; Staff went next and when Bob came on at eight o’clock and with him the other two student nurses, she breathed more freely. She still had to telephone Mrs Rudge, the part-time staff nurse, but she lived close by and with any luck she would be able to change her duty hours; she would worry about that later. She nodded to Bob to be ready with the drill, checked swabs with the junior nurse, and tidied her trolleys.

      The case was wheeled away at long last, and as the patient disappeared through one door, Mr van Doorninck and Peter started off in the opposite direction. ‘Twenty minutes?’ said Mr van Doorninck over his shoulder as he went, not waiting for her reply.

      ‘You must be joking,’ Deborah muttered crossly, and picked up a handful of instruments, to freeze into immobility as he stopped abruptly. ‘You’re right, of course—is half an hour better?’

      She said ‘Yes, sir,’ in a small meek voice and plunged into the ordered maelstrom which was the theatre. Twenty minutes later she was in her office, her theatre cap pushed to the back of her head, drinking the tea Staff had whistled up for her and wolfing down buttered toast; heaven knew when she would get her next meal…

      She certainly didn’t get it at dinnertime, for although the second case proved plain sailing, even if slow, the third presented every small complication under the sun; the femur was in fragments, anyone less sure of himself than Mr van Doorninck might have felt justified in amputating below the knee, but he, having made up his mind that he could save the limb, set to work to do so, and a long and tedious business it was, necessitating Deborah sending Mrs Rudge to the second theatre to take care of Mr Squires who had obligingly agreed to take his list there, and she had taken two of the nurses with her, a circumstance which had caused Staff Nurse Perkins to hesitate about taking her half day, but it was impossible to argue about it in theatre; she went, reluctantly.

      The operation lasted another hour. Deborah had contrived to send the nurses to their dinners, but Bob she didn’t dare to send; he was far too useful and understood the electric drills and the diathermy machine even better than she did herself—besides, she was scrubbed, and at this stage of the operation there was no question of hampering Mr van Doorninck for a single second.

      It was half past two when he finally straightened his back, thanked her politely for her services and walked away. She sent Bob to his belated dinner, and when Mrs Rudge arrived from the other theatre, went downstairs herself to cold beef and salad. There was certainly no hope of off-duty for her now. Mrs Rudge would go at four o’clock and that would leave herself and two student nurses when Bob went at five. She sighed, eating almost nothing, and presently went over to the Nurses’ Home and tidied herself in a perfunctory manner, a little horrified at the untidiness of her appearance—luckily it had all been hidden under her cap and mask.

      It had just turned four o’clock when the Accident Room telephoned to say that there was a small child coming up within minutes with a nasty compound fracture of upper arm. Deborah raced round collecting instruments, scrubbing to lay the trolley while telling the nurses, a little fearful at having to get on with it without Staff to breathe reassuringly down their necks, what to do next. All the same, they did so well that she was behind her trolley, scrubbed and threading needles when the patient was wheeled in, followed by Mr van Doorninck and Peter.

      ‘Oh,’ said Deborah, taken delightfully by surprise, ‘I didn’t know that it would be you, sir.’

      ‘I was in the building, Sister,’ he informed her, and accepted the towel clip she was holding out. ‘You have been off duty?’

      She passed him a scalpel. ‘No.’

      ‘You will be going this evening?’