Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [69]
During their three-month training they had had to learn by heart how to set up seventy-two different trays and trolleys in their individual specific order.
‘First she asked me to make up a tray for passing the flatus tube, then a trolley for a patient’s bath, then she asked me to bandage the left eye. I’m never going to pass.’
They only had fifteen minutes in which to do the practical side of their exams and every part was timed to ensure that they could complete the set tasks in the allotted time.
‘I was so nervous by the time I did the bandaging that I nearly dropped the bandage, and I’m sure I took longer than I should have done,’ Jennifer chimed in, her Yorkshire accent even stronger than normal with nerves.
They were all in the dining room, letting off steam and commiserating with one another after the ordeal. Of the girls who had started out at the same time as Grace, three had dropped out within the first week and another three at the end of the first month.
She just knew she wouldn’t pass, Grace decided. She had done so many things wrong. The other girls were all saying the same thing as they exchanged stories and comforted one another.
‘I know how a condemned man must feel now when he eats his last meal,’ Iris announced theatrically, tucking into her lunch. Most of the girls, including Grace, were too on edge to want to eat, even though their set were all sitting down together at the table.
Jennifer shuddered as she looked down at Iris’s plate of rissoles and cabbage.
‘I don’t know how you can eat anything, Iris, never mind Cook’s rissoles. I swear she puts in the gristly bits on purpose.’
Grace felt slightly sick in a way that had nothing to do with their lunch menu. Her heart was thudding with nervous anxiety.
‘How’s that good-looking ambulance driver that’s taken such a fancy to you, Grace?’ Lillian asked teasingly.
Grace had learned how to stop herself from blushing whenever Teddy’s name was mentioned. They weren’t exactly an item, but Teddy did seem to manage to be ‘around’ rather a lot, teasing her and complimenting her and making it plain that he enjoyed her company.
‘I’m sure I don’t know now what you mean,’ Grace responded with dignity, and then started to giggle as she admitted, ‘He’s asked me out to see a matinée tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Well, you tell him there’s to be no sitting in the back row and no trying to persuade you to give him the kiss of life neither,’ Doreen joked.
This time Grace did blush. Whilst it was true that things hadn’t got anywhere near as far as that between them, there was no denying that she had wondered what it would be like to be kissed by Teddy and she had decided that she would rather like to find out, she admitted.
They had been told that with Christmas only a week away, and the phoney war, as it was now referred to in the papers, making it seem as though they weren’t really at war at all – despite the sandbags, blackout, ARP wardens and other paraphernalia of civil defence – those who passed their exams would be allowed a week off to be with their families before their on-the-ward training began. But of course she wasn’t going to pass, Grace reminded herself woefully, not with the mess she had made of that eye bandage.
‘Home Sister’s just come in,’ Hannah hissed warningly.
They all looked towards the door where Home Sister was standing, her hands folded in front of her whilst she surveyed the dining room.
A sharp clap of her hands brought instant silence to the room, and then automatically the trainees pushed back their chairs and stood up facing the doorway. If there was one thing they had all learned, Grace reflected, it was that it was wise to accord immediate obedience to any of Sister’s commands.
‘I shall call out your names in alphabetical order and when you hear your name you will present yourself without delay to Matron MacDonald in my office.’
Grace felt as though her legs had turned to jelly and her stomach to liquid dread. At least she wasn’t too far down the alphabet. She dreaded to think what state