old Mijnheer Prins back into his bed, looked up as the party proceeded down the ward, her firm little chin dropping with utter surprise, remembering just in time to uphold the tottering Mijnheer Prins before his old legs gave out, while a nice warm feeling crept around her insides. Rather like seeing a comfy chair by a bright fire on a cold day, she thought confusedly, or finding the right path when you thought you were lost.
Mr van der Brons came unhurriedly down the ward, his head bent to catch whatever it was his colleague was saying, but he glanced up and smiled very faintly at her as the entourage swept past. She didn’t smile back at him; it might not do. She beamed at her patient instead as she heaved him carefully between the sheets.
Mr van der Brons, back in his consulting-room on the ground floor of the hospital, made no effort to do any work but sat deep in thought until it was time for him to go to his own operating theatre and deal with a particularly nasty case of burns needing skin grafts. Scrubbing presently with his registrar at the next basin, he remarked casually, ‘I saw that man on Medical this morning; we had better fit him in next week. He’s well enough, I think. I see the English nurse is working there…’
‘Yes—van Kamp was talking about that the other day, so one of the housemen told me. Everyone knows how shabbily he has behaved and it is a shame; she’s a nice girl too and has never uttered a word against him. More than he deserves. He should keep to his own sort. I’m told he needles her when he’s on the ward.’
Mr van der Brons, standing obediently while a nurse fastened his gown about his vast frame, merely grunted.
Two days later, Charity was told that she had been posted to the burns unit. ‘You’re a lucky girl,’ observed the Hoofdzuster, who was sorry to see her go. ‘Mr van der Brons is highly thought of. The burns unit is quite a large one and always very busy. I hope you will be happy there, Zuster Pearson.’
Charity had absolutely no doubt about that; she was free of Cor and with a chance of forgetting him and working for a man she had instantly liked.
CHAPTER TWO
THE burns unit was modern, built on to the original hospital, equipped with the most up-to-date beds, operating theatres and recovery-rooms. It could house twenty patients and was always full for hospitals from the surrounding countryside sent their patients there to be treated and, later, to have skin grafts. Charity, presenting herself for duty on a Monday morning, marvelled at the wealth of apparatus as she found her way to Sister’s office. Hoofdzuster Kingsma was sitting at her desk, a splendid figure of a young woman with regular features, very blue eyes and pale hair. She looked up as Charity tapped on the door and went in and said pleasantly in heavily accented English, ‘Ah, the new member of our team. It is nice to meet you, Zuster Pearson. Sit, please, and I will tell you of our unit and your duties and then we will go together and see all of it.’
So Charity sat and listened carefully; she wouldn’t be able to remember it all at once but she stored the information away, especially the last bit of her companion’s briefing. ‘You will expect, you understand, to work hard,’ she observed cheerfully. ‘The professor will have only the best; he does not look at the clock and he would not expect any of us to do so either. If we are off duty and he is still working, then we stay on duty. You understand? He is a hard taskmaster but he is also a very good man and most kind.’
Charity nodded her tidy head under its little white cap. She wondered who the professor might be. Perhaps Mr van der Brons was his registrar. She would have to find out…
She found out within seconds of the thought. Mr van der Brons came into the office and Zuster Kingsma rustled to her feet and said, ‘Goeden morgen, Professor.’ Charity, on her feet as well, murmured, ‘Good morning,’ with suitable politeness.
Quite wasted on him, for he clapped Hoofdzuster Kingsma on the shoulder with a friendly, ‘Dag, Els,’ and asked Charity if she was pleased to be working on the burns unit. ‘Hard, very hard work, Charity,’ he added ‘but I dare say you will enjoy it.’
‘I am just about to take Zuster Pearson round the department,’ said Hoofdzuster Kingsma, ‘but perhaps you wish to see a patient?’
The pair of them switched to speaking in Dutch then, which gave Charity time to look at him properly, something she had never quite achieved. She had, she remembered been too upset about Cor…
He was older than she had first thought, nearer forty than thirty, and undeniably good-looking… He turned his head suddenly and gave her a kind smile; his eyes were very blue, even more so than Hoofdzuster’s, half hidden under heavy lids. He said in English, ‘Sister will report on you in a week’s time. If you are not happy with us, don’t be afraid to say so, but I see no reason why you shouldn’t settle in nicely.’
He nodded in an absent-minded way and went off, leaving Hoofdzuster Kingsma to guide her round the department. It took quite a time, what with being introduced to the other nurses—and there was no lack of staff—and meeting the patients. There was a small ward for children, all four cots occupied; three of them had been scalded. ‘Hot coffee,’ explained Sister, ‘boiling water from the cooking-stove, and this one climbed into a bath—her mother had filled it with scalding water and gone to answer the telephone—and this one…’ she paused by a little boy of seven or eight years ‘…is to have a skin graft. He was here for four months last year; now the professor is going to repair the damage. His back is a mass of scar tissue—he will need several grafts over the next few years.’
She led the way to a large airy room where four women sat in comfortable chairs, knitting and sewing. ‘All for grafts,’ said Sister. ‘Do you know anything about grafting?’
‘Not very much, Sister. There’s the Thiersch method, isn’t there? Small pieces of skin bound on to the raw area? And Reverdin’s method—I’ve not seen that one—strips of skin taken from an arm or a thigh…’
‘That is right, we see both those here, and also the professor works a great deal with pedicles—he has had some splendid results.’
There was a men’s ward with six beds and another ward with women patients and two six-wards, both occupied. There was a splendidly equipped intensive care unit too. Charity followed the Hoofdzuster back to her office, reflecting that while she was on duty she was unlikely to have a moment in which to allow her thoughts to wander, and when she did get off duty she would probably be too tired to do more than climb into her bed. She found that she welcomed the thought; she would have no chance to mope over Cor and since the burns unit was in a separate wing of the hospital she wasn’t likely to meet him either.
She sat down in front of Hoofdzuster Kingsma’s desk and paid strict attention to what she was saying. ‘Now, as for the patients who come to us with burns, there is much to be done for them, and on admission the professor or his registrar will be present. There is shock and much pain and loss of fluid, of that you will already know—yes? And its treatment? Good. Morphia is given intravenously—the professor himself orders exactly what he wishes done.’
Charity spent the next few days getting to know her way around. She saw little or nothing of Mr van der Brons for the simple reason that she worked only on the wards where patients were either waiting for skin grafts or were being treated for comparatively minor burns. True, he came on to these wards, but most of his day was spent in Theatre or doing the dressings of his most badly injured patients, for these he liked to attend to himself.
It was at the end of her first week, with the prospect of a free day ahead of her, that she came face to face with him on her way off duty. He stood in front of her with the air of a man who had all day at his disposal. ‘Ah,
