“BART’S.”

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 26, 30 June 1906, Page 49

“BART’S.”

BIGHTS, SOVNDS, AND SCENES.

By

Harold Blind.

“Wait a moment while I fetch Bister!” The staff nurse takes the printed slip admitting me to our most ancient hospital, founded by Rahere eight centuries ago. The ward stretc-hes before me. It is rather gloomy as the grey afternoon draws to a close, but bright Howers and dark green plants catch the eye. A cheery kitchen shows through a door to the right, and a glimpse of more flowers in the front ward to the left. Chequer curtained beds, with a cot or two between them, line th walls under the tall windows. Patients are awake in unwonted attitudes; others are sleeping, their still haggard faces chiselled abruptly on the low pillows. At the far end of the ward—darkening as the cloud masses darken to a coming squall—a big, heavy man is sitting up resting his elbows on specially fitted side pieces and holding his liead, a bulging shape of bandages. A generous fire in the spacious porcelained hearth casts gleamings on the parquet floor, and above each bed the little brass rails of the bottle brackets faintly flicker. Dressings are being cut at a glass topped table, and the steady snipping of scissors, is the only sound. The air has an elusive, indefinable smell. "I think. Twenty, you had better go to bed.” I have become a mere number and a case. . . . Towards tea-time, four o’clock, lowvoiced conversations start among the inmates, who kindly greet the new-comer. Twenty-one, still holding his battered head, stiffly nods a recognition. For him a fight had ended in a severed jugular, a partly paralysed mouth, a cut dptie nerve, and possibly loss of sight. All this had been done with a sweep of a broken tumbler in the hand of his oldest friend. In our red-cuffed, grey jackets we spread white cloths on our bedside lockers. The helpless do this feebly, lying flat; for them it is an effort to raise the hinged flaps. Toast and eggs for some; for others bread and milk; for one poor fellow, lying very white and still, nothing. ... Evening prayers are read by the gracious Sister. . . . The Fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us all evermore. Amen!” She rises from her knees, blows out the tiny blue candles beside the tiny brass crucifix, “Good-night, everybody!” “Good-nighf, Sister!” Here and there curtains are drawn with the swish of wire rings on iron. The door opens and the night nurses come in, slipping off their cloaks as they take over whispered instructions from the day nurses, who will go to lectures or choir practice after thirteen hours’ work in the ward. Men turn over, sigh, and go to sleep, or stare at the shadow-blotched ceiling. Hashed to the foot of a bed a large wooden cross eases a fractured limb with pulleyed cords. The probationer unhooks the temperature eharts. The staff nurse comes and Twenty-one sits up straighter. “How are you, Twenty?”

and she deftly extracts information about the new ease, his mode of life, and many seemingly irrelevant things. “How’s the head to-night, Daddy?” and she bends down elose to Twenty-one to hear his muttered words, "It’s jumpin’, Nurse; an’ I feels a bit siek agen.” For an instant her hand rests on the hairy paw that grips the sidepiece of the bed. She stoops to a cot near by. “Well, Ernest, how are you to-night?” and I hear a kiss. Poor little Ernest, he will soon be home again.

“Sixteen,” home for the first time after twenty years’ tea planting in Assam. Went to the “Theatre” yesterday, and is now to be “dressed.” The screened night lamp is put beside him. Nurse works with deliberate swiftness. “Sixteen’s” knees make a ravined mountain of the coverlet ami he rocks his head from side to side. His teeth show white under his moustache, and his wet forehead shines in the brilliant circle of lamplight that thrdxvs head and shoulders, white pillow and sheet, and the gleaming glass and steel beside him into strong relief against the deeply-sha-dowed ward. I hear a little sobbing moan, not loud, but regular. A keen faced dresser silently comes in. Nurse whispers to him, pouring something out of a bottle into a measure; she Illis it with water and pours it into a dish. The persistent moaning stops, and the pungent smell of iodoform fills the ward. The dresser, shirt sleeves rolled high, hands held before him, walks briskly to his “ease.” Hands reach unerringly past the edge of the tall screen and select flashing instruments. A sharp cry and an “All right!” The dresser’s clean-cut profile emerges, critically examining a slender, glancing tube jelose to the lamp—-he passes it under his nostrils. I hear gently running water; the click and tinkle of steel anti glass on china: the sttek of syringes; and nurse empties something dull, “plash,” into a basin. “Now! Keep still!” Fingers pick up a drainage tube from a lotion bath. “Oh. oh. oh, oh-o-o-oh! My God! My God!” “All rightt It’s done now! It’s all right.” Nurse takes a pad of violet cotton-wOol from, a white dish and says something inaudible. I can hear “Sixteen” breathing. ... St. Paul’s strikes. “Eight—Nine— Ten—Eleven ” The lamp-screen has been moved, and for an. instant the light dazzles me. Two impassive men in white jackets wheel in a stretcher covered with vivid red blankets. The night sister, cap-a-pie in blue, and the two nurses complete the group round “Eighteen’s” bed. The stolid bearers lift him quickly on to the stretcher. Sister’s hand is : oh hrs shoulder, and, as they strap the scarlet blankets round him, he. speaks to the nurses with a laugh. Their low, responsive mirth brings a lump into my throat. Those two men in white never move a muscle, but slowly wheel their burden down the ward, while sister’s white and slender fingers rest on the shrouded shoulder. “What was that. Nurse?”' “Never mind. “What was it? What was it?” “An emergency —it is life or death. Now you must go to sleep again.” “Nurse!” “Yes, Twenty?” “What is he?” “An engineer; a Scotchman.” “Does he know that he may never wake up?” “Yes. Go to sleep!” ...

The sky was salmon pink behin 1 the chimney pots. From brftikfast t. le at six—till lunch—at uiue— lire want is dusted, eleaned, and polished. “Twenty-one’s” head was not "lumpin’ so much,” and "That there night nurse is a dear, good, sweet little girl, '-he never left me that first night, and she done more for me— more nor what a mother would. I reckon I owes my life to the ’Ouse Surgeon and 'er. . . . God bless ’em! That first night they turns up my eyes, an’ I sez to myself—‘Now I’m going!’ I thought of my four ilittle ’mis, and the missus expectin’ every hour. And if I lose my sight? ... It makes a coward of a man —a .coward! I dunno what ’e done it for. . Known ’ini twenty year! ... I've a bay in the army, in Ireland. I've told ’em not to let ’im know.”

The door opened, and a red-trousered, blue and gold hussar jingled into the ward. He tip-toed away from the bed. “Shall I wake him, Nurse?” “Yes. You mustn’t stay' long,” and she touched the great banc! outside the sheet. “Twenty-one” stared and stared at the brilliant, figure .by his side “Father!” “Good Lord, it’s Jack!” . , I pretended to read the paper while the bullet-headed horse dealer cried silently into his son’s handkerchief. . . . For an hour and a half “Nine,” aetat, seven, had lain under chlorform whilst one of our greatest surgeons plied saw, and knife, and probe. Sister permitted me. a eonvalesce.it, to sit with her while watching the paperwhite face, so small under its bandages, as sensibility returns. Beneath the softly lifted lids the dilated pupils glisten with never a quiver when touched. Slowly the wan face flushes, the loose limbs toss convulsively as the unconscious mite retches and retches again, while Sister gently forces the clenched jaw open. “Sister, his mother has called!” says the nurse. “Tell her he hasn’t come round yet, but is doing well. She may come again later.” And Sister parts the little white teeth once more. . . .

“Dive me a little sip of water!” “But it’ll make you ill again, old chap!” “Oh, Twenty, do ask Sister, I am so firsty!” “Don’t go. I likes you to hold my head! Oh, my froat’s hurting me so!” I hold his straining head. “Just one little drop of water; I am, oil, so firsty.” The dry tongue runs over the dry lips, and he drinks greedily. “Tank you ever so. Nurse!” Sister stands beside. "Poor little chap,” she says, and the love and tenderness that rang in those three words will be a vised passport to the feet of the All Compassionate.