Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [140]
They had agreed that it would only complicate things if they were to meet one another’s families, mothers being the way they were. Her own mother had asked after Teddy as Grace was leaving, and she had told her truthfully that they were still just very good friends and that was the way they intended to stay.
When she walked into the hospital the only thought in her head had been to go to her room to catch up on some studying and then go to bed, but somehow or other she found herself making her way to the ward.
Staff Nurse Reid raised her eyebrows at the sight of her out of uniform and on her day off.
‘I just thought I’d look in and see how Seb is,’ Grace told her self-consciously, feeling obliged to explain when Staff started to frown, ‘I know him, you see. Well, that is to say, his cousin is married to mine.’
Staff Nurse Reid studied her thoughtfully but her frown had gone.
‘Sister normally expects nurses to tell us of any connection they have with patients on her ward when they’re first admitted.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Grace penitently, ‘only with us only being related through marriage, and me having met him only the once, I wasn’t sure.’
‘Well, try to remember another time, Campion.’ Staff was already turning away and Grace still hadn’t found out how Seb actually was.
‘Is he any better?’ she asked.
‘His temperature hasn’t risen any higher, but when Mr Leonard came to look at his wound this afternoon he felt that it was looking a little bit worse.’
Her frown was back and Grace guessed that Staff Nurse Reid shared the surgeon’s concern. Grace had already noticed how the best kind of nurses seemed to develop with experience a sixth sense about their patients that went beyond the material evidence of temperature charts and the like.
TWENTY-ONE
Staff had been right: Seb was worse. So much worse, in fact, that Mr Leonard had ordered that he was to be moved into one of the private side wards. The same one in which the young sailor had died.
Remembering that now, Grace felt her heart contract as she looked down at him. His morphine had been increased to give him some relief from his pain, and although he was asleep, his body twitched violently on the bed with the onset of the withdrawal symptoms that came when the drug needed readministering.
He was talking in his drugged sleep, but not in English, Grace recognised, and not only in one language either, but the only word she could understand was the name he kept on saying.
‘Marie.’
Whoever this Marie was, she was obviously on his mind, Grace acknowledged as she straightened his bed.
Sister came in, her uniform rustling with starch. It was almost unheard of for her to do something as mundane as take a patient’s temperature but that was exactly what she did now, informing Grace, ‘I want you to check this patient’s temperature every half an hour, Nurse, and report any changes to me.’
She then folded back the bedclothes and looked briefly at Seb’s shoulder. Grace knew that she was looking for any telltale signs that he was suffering from blood poisoning from his wound. She had just looked herself, her heart thudding with relief when she had not seen the red line that would have meant the infection had entered his bloodstream.
‘In addition you are to prepare and apply a fresh kaolin poultice to his wound every hour starting from now.’
Grace nodded. She knew that the kaolin clay, which had to be heated in a container placed in a pan of boiling water and then smeared on a sterile bandage before being placed as hot as possible against the infected wound, should draw any infected matter to the surface of the wound.
Mr Leonard had prescribed regular doses of M and B 693 for his patient, sulphanilamide being the only drug that had any effect against septicaemia.
Of course, Grace still had her normal ward duties to perform as well