The Final Touch. Betty Neels

the stove, which was now beginning to blaze fiercely. Very soon the whole place would be in flames and already the smoke was beginning to choke her. She hardly noticed the pain as she slapped out the flames on the child’s clothing; even through her thick gloves she felt the sting of fire. She picked the child up, laid it gently in the cot and went to the window and took a deep breath. This time her screams for help were heard; kindly people from the surrounding houses came running into the street and moments later feet pounded up the stairs and two young men came blundering through the smoke.

       Charity wasted no time in talk; she thrust the child into a pair of arms, snatched the baby from the cot and gave it to his companion. ‘Quick,’ she shouted at them, quite forgetting that she wasn’t speaking their language, ‘get out…’

       It was a situation where words were unnecessary; they disappeared down the stairs and she tumbled down after them, her teeth chattering with fright. Outside a small crowd had gathered. ‘Ambulance,’ said Charity, and then began desperate attempts at Dutch. ‘Ziekenwagen,’ she said urgently. ‘Doctor, Ziekenhuis,’ and, stumped for the words, ‘Fire Brigade.’ While she shouted all this she was taking a look at the children. The baby was a nasty bluish white but untouched by the fire. Charity gave it to a competent motherly-looking woman standing by. It was alive but it would need urgent treatment. As for the toddler, a little girl, she was severely burned but mercifully unconscious. Someone spoke to her but she couldn’t understand a word, all she could do was repeat ‘Ziekenhuis’ loudly and then, hopefully, ’Politie.’

       They arrived just as she was repeating another despairing cry for speedy help. A small car with two thickset, reassuringly calm policemen inside. Everyone spoke at once, but, calmly, Charity, terrified that the children would die unless they were helped quickly, cut through the din.

       ‘The hospital,’ she bawled at them, ‘and do be quick, for heaven’s sake.’

       ‘English?’ asked one of the policemen. ‘The ambulance comes, also the fire engine…’ As he spoke the ambulance arrived and, hard on its heels, the fire engine. The house was well alight by now but Charity could think only of the small creatures being loaded carefully into the ambulance. It drove away quickly and one of the policemen went around telling everyone in the small crowd to move along please—in Dutch, of course, but there was no mistaking it. She stood, rather at a loss, feeling a bit sick from the smoke and her fright and was rather surprised when the two men who had carried the children to safety, and had been talking to the policemen, came and shook her hand. The Dutch, she discovered, liked to shake hands a lot. She smiled and winced as hers were gripped and the scorched flesh under her gloves throbbed. Nothing much, she told herself, just the backs of her hands—not even her fingers—as one of the policemen came over to her.

       ‘You will tell me, please, how this happened?’

       It was a relief that he spoke English and understood it too. She gave him a businesslike account. ‘And these two young men were so quick,’ she finished. ‘I hope that someone thanks them.’

       ‘They will be thanked, miss. And you? You are OK? You were also quick. I wish for your name, please. You are a tourist?’

       ‘No, I work here…’ She told him of her job at the hospital. ‘It’s my day off.’

       ‘You wish to go there now?’ He smiled in a fatherly fashion. ‘You are dirty from the smoke and your coat is a little burnt.’

       It seemed the sensible thing to do. ‘Well, yes, I expect I’d better.’

       Then he said, ‘We will take you. It is possible that we shall wish to see you—perhaps tomorrow? At the hospital?’

       She nodded. ‘I work in the burns unit…’

       They ushered her with clumsy care into the car as though she might fall apart at any moment, and they had good reason; her face was chalk-white, covered in greasy, sooty smoke, her coat was peppered by small burn marks where hot sparks had fallen upon it, and her hands were shaking so much that she had clutched them together, aware that they were painful but unable to do anything about it.

       There was still a good deal of confusion; the firemen were getting the fire under control, the small crowd had rearranged itself, melting away when told to move on and then edging forward again.

       ‘The parents?’ asked Charity. ‘Where are they?’

       One of the constables spoke soothingly. ‘They will be found, miss—we have information from the neighbours.’

       ‘And the two men? Were they burnt?’

       ‘No, no—just the smoke and that not much. They go also to the hospital.’ He turned in his seat to smile at her. ‘All is well, miss.’

       She nodded, struggling with the urge to burst into tears, and minutes later they were at the hospital.

       ‘Eerstehulp—we take you there…’

       ‘Oh, please, no, If you would stop here I can go to the nurses’ home…’

       ‘There is someone to attend to you?’

       ‘Yes, oh, yes. Thank you both so very much. I’ll be here if you want me, tomorrow.’

       The fatherly constable got out of the car and walked with her to the entrance, where he opened the door for her, patted her reassuringly on the back with a great hand like a ham, and waited until she had skimmed across the hall and disappeared down the corridor.

       In the car again he said, ‘We had better go and see how the little ones are.’ When they had driven the short distance to the other department of the hospital, he spoke briefly on the car phone and then got out with his companion.

       The baby had been borne away to the resuscitation room, and Professor van der Brons, called from his ward round, was bending over the toddler, not pausing in his careful examination when he was told that the police were there.

       He questioned them closely without pausing in his work. ‘She pulled the oil stove over,’ he observed, ‘poor little one. She is severely burned; did you get her out?’

       The fatherly constable explained. ‘This English girl was passing, went inside and put out the flames—two boys heard her screams and went to help her…’

       ‘An English girl? Was she injured?’

       ‘She said not, though her clothes were ruined. We took her back to the nurses’ home a few minutes ago…’

       The professor was gently lifting shreds of the child’s clothing away from the burns with fine forceps. ‘Zuster here will give you all the details you will want; we must get this child to the burns unit without delay.’

       The toddler remained unconscious so that he could work on the small thin body without hindrance. They were very severe burns and even if she recovered the scars would be deep; she would need to come back time after time for skin grafts. He continued his painstaking work while his registrar attended to the plasma drip, making an occasional remark from time to time, his face calm and unworried, not allowing his thoughts to stray for one moment from the desperately ill child. At length he straightened up. ‘Good, let us get her up to Theatre. Get this cleaned up and dressed before she rouses. We will keep her sedated but I want her specialled for the next forty-eight hours.’ He glanced at his registrar. ‘See to that, will you, Wim?’

       He turned away while a nurse took his gown. ‘Get another plasma up before we start, please. I’ll want the theatre in fifteen minutes.’

       He walked away, taking the phone from inside his pocket as he did so. By the time he reached the nurses’ home, the warden was waiting for him.

       He greeted her in his usual calm way. ‘Zuster Charity Pearson—she has just returned here; she has been involved in a fire in the Jordaan. If you will come with me? She works on the burns unit and I wish to make sure that she is unhurt, Zuster Hengstma.’

       The warden was a homely body, rather stout and inclined to gossip, but she was a motherly soul.