taking her refreshment to the accompaniment of vivid descriptions of any number of unmentionable subjects. Now she listened with interest while the professor explained why he had found his method of performing the next operation so satisfactory—something which he did with a nice lack of boasting. She went away when she had finished her coffee and started to scrub up and was almost ready when the three men sauntered in to join her at the sinks.
‘Taking the case?’ inquired the professor idly, and when she had said that yes, she was, she added, ‘Are there any particular instruments you prefer to use, sir, or any you dislike?’
He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Very considerate of you, Sister Hastings. I like a blade and a blade holder—always. I like Macdonald’s dissector, I take a size nine glove if you have them and I prefer Hibutane solution. There is no need to bother about these today, though I should be grateful if the gloves could be changed.’
Emma said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and went into theatre. She sent Staff for the correct size and stood quietly while Cully tied her into her gown and then opened the glove drum so that she could take her own size sixes. The operation would be a long one—the removal of an oesophagus in a patient with cancer; the man was still young enough to make the operation worthwhile, severe though it was, and as it had been diagnosed in good time, there was every chance of success. She went without haste to her trolleys and began the business of counting swabs and sponges, threading needles and checking the instruments before making sure that all the complicated machinery needed was in position and that the technicians were ready. Sister Cox wasn’t in theatre; she had gone to see the orthopaedic surgeon about her feet, so that the atmosphere of the theatre was a good deal lighter than it had been, although there was no let-up in the strict routine. Emma reflected that it was nice to see Cully and Jessop so relaxed, and Jessop, by some miracle, hadn’t dropped anything at all.
The patient was wheeled in with Mr Bone at his head and propelling his anaesthetic trolley with him. He winked at Emma as the porters arranged the patient on the table and she returned the wink, for they had been friends for several years and indeed she was one of the few who knew that his wife had been in a nursing home for years and was very unlikely to come out of it—a wife whom he dearly loved. The three surgeons walked in and behind them, Peter Moore, the houseman, who was coming to watch. Peter was young and awkward, very clever and just about as clumsy as Nurse Jessop. Emma heaved a sigh as she saw him, for if Jessop didn’t do something awful, he certainly would.
She handed the sterile towels and watched while the surgeons arranged them with meticulous care and then fastened them with the towel clips she had ready. The professor asked placidly, ‘Is everything fixed, Sister?’—a question she knew covered not only the actual operation itself but the patient’s immediate aftercare as well. She said briefly, ‘Yes, sir,’ and proffered a knife.
He took it without haste. ‘Good—I take it we’re all ready,’ and made a neat incision.
The operation seemed to be going very well. The professor dissected and snipped and probed and cut again and after a long time he and Mr Soames started to stitch the end results together. They were perhaps half-way through this delicate, very fast process when Jessop, about to change the lotion in the bowl stand beside the professor, made one of her clumsy movements and lurched against him, pouring a jugful of warm saline over his legs, and for good measure, touching him with her hand. Emma prayed a wordless little prayer as she said calmly:
‘Another gown for the professor, Staff. Nurse Cully, fetch another set of bowls. Mr Moore, be good enough to stay by me in case I should need anything.’ She handed a tetra cloth to Mr Soames, and the professor, after one short, explosive sentence in his own language, stood back from the table so that Staff could take his unsterile gown. He nodded to Mr Soames before he went to scrub again and Mr Soames said, ‘Right, old chap, Will and I will carry on, shall we?’
No one else had said anything—what was there to say at such a time? Poor Jessop, quite overcome, had fled out of the theatre, and Emma had let her go, for she would be worse than useless now, and a good wholesome cry in the kitchen would restore her nerve more quickly than anything else.
Professor Teylingen came back presently and Staff with him to relieve an uneasy Mr Moore, and the operation was finished without further mishap with the men talking among themselves in a deliberate, calm manner which Emma felt sure that in the professor’s case was assumed, for she could sense his rage, well battened down under his bland exterior, and felt sure that once he had finished his work he would make no bones about unleashing it.
He did, but not immediately. The patient had gone back to the IC Unit, the theatre had been cleared and got ready for the next, luckily short case and Emma was scrubbing up once more before he appeared beside her. He wasted no time on preliminaries, but, ‘Sister, you will be good enough to see that Nurse Jessop remains out of the theatre while I am in it. I will not have my patients’ lives jeopardized by a nurse who cannot do her work properly.’ He picked up a nailbrush and gave her a cold look. ‘Perhaps I should speak to Sister Cox.’
‘Don’t you dare!’ said Emma before she could stop herself, and then remembering who he was added, ‘Sir,’ and saw his lips twitch faintly.
‘No one—I repeat, no one, Sister Hastings—tells me what I may dare to do or not to do.’
Now she had made him even more angry. Poor Jessop! ‘Listen,’ she said earnestly, quite forgetting to say sir this time, ‘don’t tell Mad M…Sister Cox. You see she’s…she didn’t want Nurse Jessop here in the first place and so she thinks she’s no good, and Jessop’s scared stiff of her. I know she’s clumsy and slow, but if she’s given a chance she’ll be a good nurse one day. Give her that chance, I’ll keep her on swab counting if you like…but if only someone would tell her she’s not a fool.’ She sighed. ‘People are so stupid,’ said Emma indignantly, and glared at him over her mask.
‘And I am included amongst these—er—stupid people?’ He sounded interested.
Her ‘Yes’ was a mumble. She had got herself into a fine mess. Probably he would request Mad Minnie to keep her out of the theatre too and that would leave only Staff to scrub…and serve him right. She began to scrub the other hand with her usual thoroughness and had the brush taken from her as he twisted her round to face him.
‘I don’t seem to be starting off on the right foot, do I?’ he asked mildly. ‘I don’t make a habit of making girls cry, you know—but the patient comes first, don’t you agree? Would it help if we were to go and find this nurse and endeavour to calm her down? You say she is going to be a good nurse—who am I to dispute your opinion?’
They found Jessop in the kitchen, squeezed behind the door with reddened eyes and a deplorable sniff. Emma said at once, ‘Ah, there you are, Jessop. I shall need you in theatre in a minute or two, so stop crying like a good girl. No one’s angry—here’s Professor Teylingen to tell you so. Now I’m going to scrub and when professor goes to scrub too go into theatre and make sure everything’s ready, will you?’
She walked away, leaving him to deal with the situation, and presently when she went into theatre, evinced no curiosity as to what he had said to Jessop, who was standing, gowned and masked, waiting for her. The operation was to be a comparatively simple one. The patient had suffered a stab wound some weeks previously, had recovered from it, and now was back in hospital with an empyema. Now he was going to have an inch or so of rib removed and a drainage tube inserted—a fairly quick operation which Jessop should manage to get through without doing anything too awful. Emma counted her swabs, signed to Jessop to tie the surgeon’s gowns, checked the contents of the Mayo’s table and handed the first of the sterile towels to Little Willy.
A quarter of an hour later she was clearing up her instruments
