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Non-Combatants and Others

<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> <h3>HOSPITAL</h3> <h4>1</h4> About a week later, Alix and Nonie Maclure went to see Basil Doye in hospital. 'Hate hospitals, don't you?' Nonie remarked, as they entered its precincts. 'I've a sister V.A.D.ing here—Peggy, you know her, she's having a three-months' course—but I've not been to see her yet. I can't remember her ward; it's a men's surgical, I think. We'll go and find her afterwards. I don't think she'll be able to stick her three months, because of her feet. They swell up so; they make the nurses stand all the time, you know, even when they're doing needlework and things. She says half the nurses in the hospital have foot and leg diseases. Silly, isn't it? The V.A.D.'s could sit down sometimes, but they don't like to when the regulars mayn't. They're unpopular enough as it is. Peggy asked the staff-nurse in her ward why all the nurses didn't combine and ask to have the standing-rule altered, but she only said you can't get hospital rules altered, they are like that. Nurses must be idiots....' They crossed the court that led to the wing with the officers' wards. It was dotted with medical students. 'Rabbits,' Nonie considered them. 'All that are left of them, I suppose. Peggy says they're mostly rather rotters. They have a great time with the nurses. One of them tried to have a great time with Peggy the other day, but she wasn't having any.... The Royal Family wing we want, don't we? Darwin, Lister.... No, that must be men of science. I suppose that's ours, up those stairs.' It was one of those hospitals in which the wards are named after persons socially or intellectually eminent. In the wing Nonie and Alix wanted the wards were entitled Victoria, Albert Edward, Alexandra, Princess Mary, George, and so forth. One, named doubtless in happier international times, was even called Wilhelm. Out of Wilhelm, as they passed its glass door, came four figures, white-clad from head to foot, wheeling a stretcher on which lay a round-faced little girl of sixteen, trying to smile. 'Going down to the theatre,' Nonie whispered. 'Rather shuddery, isn't it?' <h4>2</h4> They entered Albert Edward, which was a small ward of twelve beds, used just now for officers. It smelt of iodoform. Several of the beds had visitors round them. Some of the patients were in wheeled chairs, smoking. One, in bed, was singing, unintelligibly, in a high, shrill voice. At the table by the centre window two nurses stood, a probationer and a V.A.D., making swabs and talking. They looked tired, and were very young. The other two nurses, the staff-nurse and the super, were talking to two of the patients. They had learnt not to look so tired. Also perhaps the pleasant excitement of being in Albert Edward bore them up. The staff-nurse said, 'Mr. Doye? That's his bed over there—nine. He's up in a chair this afternoon. He's in pretty bad pain most of the time. They may have to amputate, but the doctor hopes to manage without.' Alix and Nonie went across the ward to nine, where Mr. Doye, in a brown dressing-gown, sat in a wheeled chair, smoking a cigarette and talking to the super, who was rather nice-looking and had auburn hair. In the next bed lay the singer, with fixed blue eyes and flushed cheeks and a capeline bandage round his head, carolling German songs in a high, monotonous voice. 'Quite delirious, poor thing,' the super explained to the visitors. 'His nerves are all to bits. He was a prisoner, till he got exchanged. And would you believe it, they'd never taken the shrapnel out of his head; he went under operation for it here last week.' She moved away, whispering first to Nonie behind the patient's back, 'He has to be kept pretty quiet, please; the pain gets bad on and off.' 'Hullo,' said Basil Doye, smiling at them. 'This is great.' He had a soft, rather quick way of speaking; to-day he was huskier than usual, perhaps because he was ill. He was long and slim; he had used, in pre-war days, to lounge and slouch, but possibly did that no more. Anyhow to-day he merely lay limply in a chair, so they could not judge. His long pale face and flexible mouth and dark eyebrows were always moving and changing; so were his rather bright eyes, that kept shading and glinting from green to hazel. His forehead and rumpled hair were damp just now, either from the heat or from some other cause. His bandaged right hand was raised in a sling. 'You do look an old wreck,' said Nonie frankly. 'What did you go and do it for? A silly way of getting wounded, I call it, playing ball with bombs.' 'Rotten, wasn't it? But it would have played ball with me if I hadn't. It was bound to go off in a moment, you see, and I naturally tried to house it with the foe first; one often can. My mistake, I know. These little things will happen.... I say, you're the first people I've seen from the shop. How's it going? Who are the good people this year?' They began to tell him. He listened, fidgeting, with restless eyes. 'Have a smoke?' he broke in. 'No, I suppose you mustn't here. Sorry; didn't mean to interrupt....' They were talking about the exhibition in Grafton Street. 'I must get round there,' he said, 'when I'm not so tied by the leg.' 'How long will they keep you here, d'you imagine?' 'Haven't an earthly. They may be depriving me of a finger or two in a few days. Or not. They don't seem to know their own minds about it.' 'Good Lord!' murmured Nonie, taken aback. 'I say, don't let them. You—you'd miss them so.' <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'Halli, hallo, halli, hallo! Bei uns geht's immer so!' </div> </div> shrilled number eight. Doye moved impatiently. 'He ought to be taken away, poor beggar.... I loathe hospitals. People who are ill oughtn't to be with other people in the same miserable condition; it's too depressing. One wants the undamaged, as an antidote. That's why visitors are so jolly.' His restless eyes glanced at Nonie's dark, glowing brilliance in her yellow frock, and at Alix, pale and cool and thin in green. 'Above all,' he added, 'one wants sanity and normalness and cheeriness, not people with their nerves in rags, like that poor chap.' Eight broke out again, half singing, half humming some students' chorus— <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'Tra la la, in die Nacht Quartier!' </div> </div> The auburn-haired nurse came and stood by him for a moment, quieting him. 'Come now, come now, you must be quiet, you know.' 'Rather a pleasant person, that nurse,' said Doye when she had gone. 'Jolly hair, hasn't she?... Alix,' he added, 'do you know, you don't look up to much. Is it overwork, or merely the air of London in June?' 'It's the air of hospitals, I expect,' Nonie answered for her. 'She turned white directly we got into the ward.' 'Beastly places,' Basil agreed. Alix began to talk, rather fast. She told stories of the other people at the art school; Nonie joined in, and they made Basil laugh. He talked too, also fast. His unhurt hand drummed on the arm of his chair; his forehead grew damper, his eyes shifted about under his black brows. He talked nonsense, absurdly; they all did. They all laughed, but Basil laughed most; he laughed too much. He said it was a horrible bore out there; funny, of course, in parts, but for the most part irredeemably tedious. And no reason to think it would ever end, except by both sides just getting too tired of it to go on.... Idiotic business, chucking bombs over into trenches full of chaps you had no grudge against and who wished you no ill ... and they chucking bombs at you, much more idiotic still. The whole thing hopelessly silly.... 'Heil'ge Nacht, Heil'ge Nacht,' trilled Eight, with a nightmare of Christmas on him. 'Oh, damn,' muttered Basil, and got scarlet and then white. The staff-nurse came to them. She was not auburn-haired, but efficient and good-looking and dark, with a clear, sharp voice. 'I think your visitors had better go now, Mr. Doye.' She made signs to them that he was in pain, which they knew before. They went; he joked as he said good-bye, and they joked back. As they left the ward, Eight's wild voice rose, in a sad air they knew: <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'Mein Bi-er und Wei-ein ist fri-isch und klar; Mein Töchterlein liegt auf der To-otenbahr....' </div> </div> 'Come now, come now,' admonished Staff. <h4>3</h4> On the stairs they met a tall woman with a long pale face and black hair, and eyes full of green light. She stopped and said to Alix, 'How do you do? Basil told me you were going to see him to-day, so I left you a little time. He mustn't have too many at once. He has a lot of pain, for so slight a thing.... I shall be glad when I can get him away for a change.' Her eyes, looking at Alix's pale face, were kind and friendly. She liked Alix, who was Basil's friend and had stayed with them last summer in the country. She thought her clever and attractive, if selfish. She hurried on through the glass door into Albert Edward. 'Mrs. Doye, isn't it?' said Nonie. 'Must have been just like him twenty years ago.... I say, how sickening, isn't it, people getting smashed up like that. Poor old Basil. All on edge, I thought, didn't you? What rot he talked.... I say, if he loses those fingers it will be all U. P. with his career.... I don't expect he will.' She shot a glance at Alix, whom she suspected of feeling faint. 'Let's come and find Peggy. I haven't an earthly where her ward is. It's called after some man of science.' But there are so many of these, and all so much alike. 'If it was painters,' said Nonie presently, 'I might have remembered. Who are the men of science?' 'Darwin,' suggested Alix intelligently. 'Galileo. Sir Isaac Newton. Sir Oliver Lodge. Lots more.' 'Well, let's try this passage.' They tried it. It led them on and on. It looked wrong, but might be right, in such a strange world as a hospital, where anything may be right or wrong and you never know till you try. They saw at last ahead of them a closed door—not a glass door but a baize one. From behind it screaming came, wild, shrill, desperate, as if some one was being hurt to death. 'O Lord!' said Nonie, 'it's the theatre. Look, it's written on the door. Come away quick. There must be an operation on.' Beyond the door there was a shuffling and scuffling; it was pushed open, and two figures muffled in white, like the stretcher-women, dragged out a Red Cross girl in a faint. 'Fetch her some water,' said one. 'Idiot, why didn't she come out before she went off? These Red Cross girls—All right, she 's coming round.... I say, you know, you mustn't do that again. People are supposed to come out of the theatre before they faint, not after. It's an awful crime.... Is it your first operation? Well, it was silly of them to send you down to such a bad one. I expect the screaming upset you. She didn't feel anything, you know.... Here, drink this. You're all right now, aren't you? I must get back. You'd better go up to your ward and ask your Sister if you can lie down for a bit.' Alix and Nonie had retreated down the passage. 'What a place,' Alix was muttering savagely. 'Oh, what a place.' They came out on a different staircase; fleeing down it they were in a corridor, long and unhappy and full of hurrying housesurgeons and nurses and patients' friends (for it was visiting-hour). <h4>4</h4> 'Huxley,' said Nonie suddenly. 'That's the creature's name.... I say,' she accosted a fat little nurse with strings, 'where's Huxley, please?' Huxley was far away. They reached it through many labyrinthine and sad ways. Through the glass door they saw a keen-faced doctor going from bed to bed with an attendant group of satellites—medical students, who laughed at intervals because he was witty, either about the case in hand or about some other amusing cases this one recalled to his memory, or at the foolish answers elicited from some student in response to questions. They were a cheery set, and this doctor was a wit. Every few minutes he washed his hands. The wardsister companioned him round, and by the window stood four nurses at attention—the staff-nurse, the probationer, and two V.A.D.'s with red crosses on their aprons. It was a men's surgical ward. It was long and light, and had twenty-one beds, and Cot. Cot was in the middle of the ward. He was three, and had peritonitis of the stomach, and he sat up on his pillow and wept, and wailed at intervals, 'Want to do 'ome. Want to do 'ome.' 'You're not the only one, sonny,' number three told him bitterly. 'We all want that.' Twenty-one sad faces apathetically testified to his truthfulness. Twenty-one weary sick men, whose rest had been broken at dawn because the night-nurses had to wash them all before they went off duty, and that meant beginning at 3.30 or 4, stared with sad, hollow eyes, and wanted to go 'ome. The doctor washed his hands for the last time and went, his satellites after him. The probationer respectfully opened the door for them. Nonie and Alix stood back out of the way as they passed, then Nonie's Peggy, who had seen them long since, came and fetched them in. 'I am glad to see you,' she said. Nonie said, 'You look dead, my child,' and she returned, 'Oh, it's only the standing. We're all in the same box. She,' she indicated the probationer, 'fainted this morning. And the staff-nurse has the most awful varicose veins. I believe most nurses get them sooner or later. They ought to be let to sit down when they get a chance, for sewing and things, but hospital rules are made of wood and iron. The other Red Crosser and I do sometimes sit, when Sister's out of the ward, but it's rather bad form really, when the regulars mayn't. Funny places, hospitals.... I've been getting into rows this morning for not polishing the brights bright enough. Staff told me they had quite upset Sister. Sister's very easily upset, unfortunately. Staff's a jolly good sort, though.... But look here, you must go. It's time for tea-trays; I shall have to be busy. I'll come round to-night after I'm off, Nonie—if I can get so far. You've got to go now; Staff's looking at us.' They went. Staff called wearily to Peggy, 'Go and help Nurse Baker with trays, will you, dear. And you might take Daddy Thirteen's basin away. He's done being sick for now, I dare say, and he's going to drop it on to the floor in a moment.' Peggy hurried, but was too late. These things will happen sometimes.... <h4>5</h4> 'Hate hospitals, don't you?' said Nonie, as she had said when they entered. They were going out at the gates now. 'I suppose they have to be, though.' 'Suppose so,' Alix agreed listlessly. Then with an effort she threw the hospital off. 'That's over, anyhow. I shan't go again. Let's come and do something awfully different now.' They did. <h4>6</h4> When Alix got back to Violette, she was met in the little linoleumed hall by distress and pity, and Mrs. Frampton preparing to break something to her, with a kind, timid arm round her shoulders. 'Dearie, there was a telegram.... You were out, so we opened it.... Now you must be ever so brave.' 'No,' said Alix, rigid and leaning on her stick and whitely staring from narrowed eyes. 'No....' 'Oh, darling child, it's sad news.... I don't know how to tell you.... Dear, you must be brave....' 'Oh, do get on,' muttered Alix, rude and sick. 'Dearie,' Mrs. Frampton was crying into her handkerchief. 'Poor Paul ... your dear little brother ... dreadfully, badly wounded....' 'Dead,' Alix stated flatly, pulling away and leaning against the wall. Violette was hot and smelt of food. Florence stumbled up the kitchen stairs with supper. From a long way off Mrs. Frampton sobbed, 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.... It's the Almighty's will.... The poor dear boy has died doing his duty and serving his country ... a noble end, dearie ... not a wasted life....' 'Not a wasted....' Alix said it after her mechanically, as if it was a foreign language. 'He died a noble death,' said Mrs. Frampton, 'serving his country in her need.' Alix was staring at her with blue eyes suddenly dark and distended. The horror rose and loomed over her, like a great wave towering, just going to break. 'But—but—but—' she stammered, and put out her hands, keeping it off—'But he hadn't lived yet....' Then the wave broke, like a storm crashing on a ship at sea. 'It's a lie,' she screamed. 'Give me the telegram.... It's made up; it's a damnable lie. The War Office always tells them: every one knows it does....' They gave it her, pitifully. She read it three times, and it always said the same thing. She looked up for some way of escape from it, but found none, only Violette, hot and smelling of supper, and Mrs. Frampton crying, and Kate with working face, and Evie sympathetic and moved in the background, and Florence compassionate with the supper tray, and a stuffed squirrel in a glass case on the hall table. Alix shivered and shook as she stood, with passion and sickness and loss. 'But—but—' she began to stammer again, helplessly, like a bewildered child—'But he hadn't lived yet....' Kate said gently, 'He has begun to live now, dear, for ever and ever.' 'World without end, amen,' added Mrs. Frampton, mopping her eyes. Alix looked past them, at the stuffed squirrel. 'It's just some silly lie of course,' she said, indifferent and quiet, but still shaking. 'It will be taken back to-morrow.... I shall go to bed now.' When Kate brought her up some supper on a tray, she found her lying on the floor, having abandoned the lie theory, having abandoned all theories and all words, except only, again and again, 'Paul ... Paul ... Paul....' <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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