RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30056, 14 February 1963, Page 20

RANDOM REMINDER

R. R. OMNIBUS: (5)

WOMEN IN WHITE

The fierce light above the table in the operating theatre beat down, white and hot, on the group of white-gowned figures bent over the man stretched out there. He seemed to be resisting their efforts to examine him, something about him being ticklish. The senior surgeon looked up, and at the iift of his right eyebrow the anaesthetist brought his knuckle-duster down with merciful accuracy on the 'patient’s skull. The senior surgeon turned aside and asked wearily—it was his thirtieth that day—for a knife. The tall blond nurse waiting in the background came forward quickly and handed it to him. He tested its edge speculatively with a practised thumb, then turned back to the task at hand. But the nurse did not watch him. She had eyes only for young Doctor Killdear, whose strong, sensitive face was all concentration as he got to work on the bellows which might keep the patient breathing for a while. Three hours later they stood back, shaking regretful heads. Another one, the nurse thought bitterly. But it didn t matter so much, as long as they didn’t blame Dr. Killdear. She had tried to help him,

once, but if ever there was a dedicated doctor, it was he. He had sjmply shrugged her off. Shrugged her off, she thought bitterly. He had been doing that for weeks now. And he didn’t even know. He didn’t even know she was there, watching him. waiting for a word, a smile, any acknowledgment that he wag aware of her. She had helped him with his stitching, one day: his eyesight had never been really good, and she had threaded the thing for him. but he did not even notice she was there—just taken it from her, in his usual, abstracted way. Dr. Paul would have been more considerate. Time and again, she had tried to catch his eye, to attract his attention. But he was always on the run—an anaesthetic in operating room A. at the double into operating room B to massage a heart, then off again for a quick run round the wards before getting back to A for that tricky colesystectomy. There was one occasion on which she had deliberately dropped a tray of test tubes in the corridor as he strode along it, with that distant, dedicated look in his eye. But he had merely aside the mess.

and her, with an iniSitient foot A few days ter she had actually been bold enough to clutch at his sleeve as he passed, but it was to no avail: he had heard the siren screaming as the ambulance swung away from the hospital and he had simply run after it She knew that when he was a small boy he had had a similar passion for fire-engines.

The tall, blonde nurse walked away from the theatre, despondently. It seemed she had no hope. It was useless. He just wasn’t aware of her. But then she saw'him, doming towards her from the emergency ward. He looked handsome still, but very, very tired. It was not every intern who had to spend the day doing ten men's work, as well as forever correcting the errors of the medical superintendent She sighed, but as he approached, she was all resolve. She fell at his feet, apparently in a " dead faint. He cradled her head with a strong right arm, . and held her up. He ’ smiled, as she opened ■ her eyes. And he spoke. ; Just two words, but they < were heavenly music to ‘ her. “Hullo, Mom,” he f said. TOMORROW: GREYFRIARS. IMX