She didn’t wait for an answer, but went on past Hippy, oblivious of her furious look, intent on getting to the case before Nurse Harris had a chance to do her worst.
The Accident Room was semi-circular, with screened-off bays and a vast central area to allow for the rapid manoeuvrings of trolleys and stretchers and the easy passage of the doctors and nurses. The curtains had been drawn across the furthest bay and she started towards it, her eyes searching the department as she went, to make sure that everything was in its proper place.
Nurse Harris was standing by the patient, looking important, and while doing nothing herself, issuing orders to the other two more junior nurses with her. Serena promised herself ten minutes with Nurse Harris later on, said calmly, ‘Good morning, everybody,’ and went to look at the patient—a man, young, and unconscious, presumably from the head wound visible through his blond hair. Serena took his pulse and pupil reaction and told the more senior of the two nurses to start cleaning the wound.
‘His leg,’ breathed Harris importantly, ‘it’s broken.’
Serena drew back the blanket covering the young man and saw the splints the ambulance men had put on. As she did so she asked:
‘Did Sister Hipkins tell you to ring anyone?’
‘No, Sister.’
‘Then ring Mr Thompson’—he was the RSO—‘ask him to come down here, please, and tell him it’s an RTA. Head wound, probable fracture of left leg—badly shocked, unconscious.’ And when Harris didn’t move, she added with a patience she didn’t feel, ‘Will you hurry, Nurse, and then come back to me here.’
She was cutting the outside seam of the torn trousers covering the injured leg by the time Harris got back. She was doing it very carefully because if it was properly done, the trousers could be repaired. Experience had taught her that not everyone had the money to buy new trousers, although this man looked prosperous enough; she had noted the gold wrist watch and cuff links, the silk shirt and the fine tweed of his suit, and his shoes were expensive.
‘Make out an X-ray form, Nurse,’ she told Harris, ‘and one for the Path Lab too—I daresay they’ll want to do a crossmatch. What about relatives?’
Harris looked blank, and Serena, holding back impatience, asked:
‘His address—you’ve got that? Was he conscious when they got to him?’
‘Yes, Sister. But Sister Hipkins said we weren’t to disturb him when he was brought in, and the ambulance men didn’t know, because he was only conscious for a few minutes when they reached him.’
Serena counted silently to ten, because when she was a little girl, her father had taught her to do that, so that her temper, which was, and still was, hot at times, could cool. It was a silly childish trick, but it worked. She said with no trace of ill-humour: ‘Go and make sure the trolleys are ready, Nurse, will you? Then bring in the stitch trolley.’
Later, she promised herself, she would go and see the Number Seven, Miss Stokes, and see if something could be done to get Harris off the department. Her eyes flickered to the clock. Two part-time staff nurses would be on at nine o’clock, and thank heaven for them, she thought fervently. She had the splint off now with the most junior of the nurses helping her, and turned to wish Mr Thompson a friendly good morning as he came in.
He was a thin young man with a permanently worried expression on his pleasant face, but he was good at his job. ‘I thought you might want to take a look at this head before the orthopaedic man gets here,’ explained Serena. ‘Sorry to get you down so early, Tom.’
He smiled nicely at her and set to work to examine the patient. ‘Nice-looking bloke,’ he commented as he explored the scalp wound. ‘Do we know who he is?’
‘Not yet…’
‘Unconscious when they found him?’
‘No—not all the time, and he was conscious for a very short time when he got here.’
He gave her an understanding look. ‘Hippy on last night?’
Serena nodded. ‘I’ll go through his pockets as soon as you’ve been over him.’
‘Um,’ agreed Mr Thompson. ‘Where’s this leg?’
She whisked back the blanket and pointed with a deceptively useless-looking little hand. There was a discoloured bump just above the ankle and a sizeable bruise. ‘Pott’s,’ she said succinctly. ‘Now you’re here I’ll get this shoe off.’
Mr Thompson obligingly held the leg steady while she eased it off and after he had taken a closer look said: ‘You’re right— X-ray, and we’d better see to that head too. I’ll do it now, shall I? It only needs a couple of stitches, so if everything’s ready I’ll get down to it, then Orthopaedics can take over when he’s been X-rayed.’
Serena waved a hand at the small trolley Harris had wheeled in. ‘Help yourself. Do you want a local? He might come to.’
She looked down at the man on the examination table and encountered bright blue eyes staring at her. He smiled as he spoke, but she was unable to understand a word. She smiled back at him and said to no one in particular: ‘Foreign—I wonder what he said?’
Her query was answered by the patient. ‘I will translate. I said: “What a beautiful little gipsy girl.’” His English was almost without accent. He smiled again and watched admiringly while Serena’s dark beauty became even more striking by reason of the colour which crept slowly over her cheeks. It was Mr Thompson’s chuckle, turned too late into a cough, which prompted her to say coolly, despite her discomfiture: ‘We should like your name and address, please, so that we can let your family know. Could you manage to tell us?’
He closed his eyes and for a moment she thought he had drifted off into unconsciousness again, but he opened them again.
‘Van Amstel, Zierikzee, Holland,’ he said. ‘Anyone will know…’ He turned his eyes on Mr Thompson. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘I’m a doctor, so presumably I may be told.’
Mr Thompson told him. ‘I’m going to stitch that scalp wound,’ he went on, ‘then you’ll have an X-ray. We’ll have to see about the leg too.’
‘I must stay here?’
‘I’m afraid so—for the moment at least.’
The young man looked at Serena again. ‘I find nothing to be afraid of myself,’ he said. ‘On the contrary.’ He stared at Serena, who returned his look with a bright professional smile which successfully hid her interest; he really was remarkably good-looking, and although she was a kind-hearted girl, and felt genuine sympathy for the patients who passed through her capable hands on their way to hospital beds, just for once she found herself feeling pleased that Doctor van Amstel should be forced to stay in hospital. She reflected with satisfaction that she was on excellent terms with the Surgical Floor Sister; she would be able to find out more about him. Her hands, as busy as her thoughts, passed Mr Thompson the local anaesthetic, all ready drawn up as she told one of the nurses to get the porters. ‘X-ray, Nurse, and please go with the patient. He’ll be coming back here to see the Orthopaedic side afterwards.’
She was spraying the wound with nebecutane when the patient spoke
