Nurse in the Sun Read online

  “Pierde la sangre! - esta gravemente herido -”

  “He’s bleeding? It’s a bad accident, you mean? Where? I’ll come at once -”

  “- echa sangre -”

  “I understand! Someone’s bleeding after an accident! But where?” she was shouting in her frustration. “Tell me where and I’ll come!”

  There was a clatter, and then someone else came on to the line. “Señorita Cameron? This is Felipe - the butcher has cut himself badly - we are in the kitchen, yes?”

  “I’m on my way!” and she dropped the phone and reached for her bag of equipment, and almost ran from the clinic, but still found time to lock the outer door before she left, for her concern about the safety of the drugs there was not to be forgotten even in an emergency.

  When she reached the kitchen, hurrying through the restaurant to the leather covered double doors, she found a scene of high excitement which would have done justice to a multiple car smash. Dozens of people seemed to be milling about, and she had to push her way through a knot of chattering gesticulating waiters and kitchen maids to where she guessed her patient was waiting.

  “Marchesé!” she called loudly, giving her voice all the authority she could. “Go away from here, all of you - marchesé!”

  They fell back a little, and made way for her, and she found that they had been clustered round a big wooden table on which was lying a man in a white apron worn over a white canvas suit. But his apron wasn’t entirely white; the front was splashed with an ominous crimson stain that spread right across it, and the face above was very pale, the eyes closed as the man breathed gaspingly and rapidly.

  “He’s lost a hell of a lot of blood,” she thought at once, staring at him and automatically she reached for his pulse. “He’s shocked and short of oxygen -” and she moved in closer rapidly undoing her case as she did so.

  Felipe was holding the man’s hand wrapped in a horribly red wet towel, and at once she took it from him and raised it high.

  “Like this, Felipe - hold it high - it will help stop the bleeding a little -” she looked over her shoulder at the gaping faces which had closed in on her again. “Call an ambulance, one of you - haga mandar una ambulancia - rapido, rapido! And the rest of you, go away - marchesé, do you hear me? Tell them, Felipe -”

  As Felipe spoke in sharp peremptory Spanish and one of the waiters went rushing to the telephone, she reached into the bag and pulled out a dressing and then leaned across to take the injured limb from Felipe, who relinquished his hold gratefully.

  “I give him some brandy, yes?” he asked anxiously, for the man was beginning to moan a little, rolling his head about and gasping.

  “No!” she said quickly. “Nothing. He must go to hospital fast, and they will treat him there. Brandy will make it difficult for them, and may make him worse - now, hold this - like that - well done - don’t let go -” She had put a thick pad of dressing over the wound, and had blanched a little herself as she saw it, for the man had gashed his wrist and severed a main artery and the blood was pumping out horribly fast. Unless his blood loss stopped very soon he would be dead. And even as the thought came to her she knew that he wouldn’t survive long enough to get to hospital. Something more drastic than the mere application of an emergency dressing would be needed here.

  She bit her lip, and then reached again into her bag. She had added some items of her own to it, as soon as she had investigated its contents the evening before, and now she knew where everything was. The instruments were clean, but not sterile, but the chance of infection was a great deal less worrying than the chance the man would die.

  So, moving as deliberately as she could, she took a pair of clipped artery forceps in one hand, and with the other carefully pulled back the dressing that Felipe had been holding in place.

  “For God’s sake don’t move, man -” she said crisply. “If you can’t look then close your eyes, but keep this hand still, you hear?”

  Felipe was looking very white about the mouth, but he nodded as she pulled the last of the dressing away and the blood again began to spurt, Felipe turned his head to stare steadfastly at the wall on the other side of the kitchen.

  It seemed to her that she was scrabbling with the point of her forceps for hours, and the blood slid over her own hands, making them slippery and awkward, but she swabbed away the flow and again reached for the bleeding point with her forceps. And almost praying she was right, clipped them closely and mopped with the dressing at the raw wound.

  And she had succeeded. As she mopped and no more blood came to fill the area with its terrifying crimson pool she knew she’d managed to find the severed end of the artery and clip it. Now, to find the other end and clip that, if it hadn’t retracted into the wound -

  She found it and clipped it, and then angling the forceps gently to one side to clear her view reached for a fresh dressing to clean the area properly. Now she could see it, a smallish wound, but sited so that the radial artery was cut right across.

  “He’ll be lucky not only to live but to keep his hand,” she thought, as she strapped the forceps to the arm with a strip of plaster, leaving them in place for the surgeons to deal with. “He’ll need some very skilled surgery to save this hand,” she said aloud to Felipe, who turned his head to look, and closed his eyes convulsively at the sight of the forceps. “All that blood loss, and now a limited blood supply to the area - ah, thank God -”

  Behind her the doors of the back entrance to the kitchen had swung open and men with a stretcher had come bounding in. Quickly she wrapped the wound in a triangular bandage, and then pinned it to the front of his jacket.

  “Take care with this hand - uh - be very careful -” she said to the ambulance man, but he stared at her uncomprehendingly and she bit her lip, and then moving with decision, began to help the men lift the injured man.

  “Felipe,” she said over her shoulder, “I’d better go with this man to hospital to explain what I’ve done - unless there’s someone else who - yes! Send at once for Pepe - Señor Delgado -”

  By the time the man was safely on the stretcher Pepe had come rushing to the kitchen and talking rapidly Isabel told him of the problem.

  “They must be told at the hospital of what has happened and what I’ve done - can you go? Or shall I?”

  “I go, of course! At once!” Pepe said with great importance. “What is it I must tell them?”

  “Write it down,” Isabel said, and he nodded and pulled a pen from his pocket and grabbed at the menu card one of the waiters rushed to give him when he snapped his fingers. Isabel dictated a few brief notes, warning the surgeon that the artery forceps were in position so that he did no more damage when he removed the dressing, and assuring them the man had had no drugs or stimulants at her hands. And then Pepe Delgado hurried away with the ambulance men leaving the kitchen and its staff to restore some sort of order to their afternoon.

  Isabel was about to turn and leave, but as she did so she caught sight of Felipe still standing beside the wooden table. And moved fast to reach him just in time, for his face was a sick yellowish-white and he was swaying on his feet; she caught him as his eyes turned up and he fell.

  “Hey - Carlos!” she called. “Now Felipe is not well! Help me!”

  Together they raised Felipe and made him sit down with his head between his knees, but even though he came round very rapidly, for it was just a faint, he still looked very white.

  “Poor old Felipe!” Isabel said cheerfully. “You were wonderful with that man and I’m not one whit surprised you’re feeling a bit shaky now! Reaction, that’s what it is. Come away to my clinic now. I’ll give you a little restorative of some sort and you’ll feel much better - Carlos, help me, will you?”

  Obediently Felipe went with them, with Carlos leading the way down the back stairs so that none of the guests should be offended by the sight of a pale and shaking maitre d’hôtel being led through their lounges, and as soon as Isabel had unlocked the clinic door Carlos led Felipe in, a
nd helped her settle him on the couch in her office.

  She gave him a mildly tranquillizing drug to swallow and then wrapped him in a blanket and told him firmly he was to sleep for a while, and that he would wake feeling quite well again and Felipe mumbled his thanks and gratefully closed his eyes, for he had indeed had a most unpleasant half hour, and was feeling more than a little queasy.

  While she waited for him to fall asleep Isabel tidied her emergency bag and replaced the missing instruments, privately complimenting herself for having the foresight to put them there in the first place. Artery forceps weren’t the normal equipment for such bags, but she always liked to have them available, as did most theatre trained nurses; and there was something so comforting about their sturdiness, and they had so many varied uses.

  By the time she had finished and Felipe was genuinely sleeping off his shock and the drug she had given him, it was gone five thirty, and she had time to take stock of herself. Her uniform she saw with horror, was quite appallingly blood stained and besmeared; she had had no idea she had been quite so spattered. Something would have to be done about that, fast.

  She peered in to the office to see Felipe snoring slightly, and looking rather better, and then moving quickly and quietly went out of the surgical room, intending to go up to her bedroom to change.

  There were three people sitting in the waiting room, two women in the uniform of chambermaids, and a young man in the neat dark suit of a clerk.

  “Help! I forgot to check whether anyone was here - look, I - er - entiende usted inglés?”

  “I speak a little English, señorita,” the clerkly boy said eagerly.

  “Oh, that’s grand! Now, will you explain to these ladies that I must change my uniform - there’s been an accident, but all is now all right, but I must change. I will come back in ten minutes and see to all three of you. All right? Oh, yes - and ask if one of these ladies will lend me her apron - to look better as I walk through the hotel, you understand?”

  He translated rapidly, and at once one of the chambermaids undid her voluminous apron and wrapped it round Isabel, nodding and smiling her willingness to lend it, and Isabel thanked her and hurried away to her room, fortunately seeing very few of the guests on the way, for most of them were out in the town shopping or lounging on the sunlit balconies and terraces at this time of the afternoon.

  She changed quickly, scrubbing her shoes clean too, for they also had been marked, and feeling much more presentable hurried out of her room a bare ten minutes after going into it.

  The lift wasn’t there, and though she pressed the bell several times it seemed to be delayed somewhere on another floor, and too impatient to wait for it, for she was very aware of the three patients waiting for her and of Felipe sleeping peacefully in her office, she hurried to the stairs and began the long run down.

  It was just as she was starting down the flight from the fourth to the third that it happened.

  “Hey - you - come back here! I told you four thirty, not damned near six o’clock! And why are you going down there to look for me? Were you too damned stupid even to make sure you knew the right room number?”

  Isabel looked back and up, and there, framed in a doorway that opened at the top of the staircase, was Vanda Connaught, her hands on her hips, and her eyebrows raised as she looked at her.

  “Ye Gods, I’d forgotten you!” Isabel said involuntarily. Indeed she had. From the moment of that phone call from the kitchen she had given Vanda Connaught not another moment’s consideration.

  “You did what? Are you deliberately trying to be offensive or is this your usual manner? Because either way you won’t last here another five minutes! I’ll see to that. Don’t you dare to be so insolent, young woman! Now, come here and do as you’re told, and I’ll forget about your rudeness, and about your inability to keep to a time arrangement, and I won’t complain to Señor Garcia,” and she turned to go into her room.

  “Mrs. Connaught!” Isabel stood there on the third step down, and her voice cracked like a whip. It was the same voice that had controlled many a rebellious student nurse in its time, and more than a few impudent young housemen. “I am not coming to see you. I don’t give a tuppenny damn what you say to Señor Garcia or anyone else, and as far as I’m concerned, Madam, you are an ill-mannered, spoiled, thoroughly nasty object who is not worth my wasting my time on. I’m away now to see after the health of some people who are worth ten like you tied in a bundle - two chambermaids and a clerk and a very splendid head waiter. And if you don’t like that, Mrs. Connaught, then you know what you can damned well do about it!”

  And she turned herself and went skimming away down the stairs, leaving Mrs. Connaught in the doorway of her room with her mouth open.

  Even as she dealt with her three patients, still waiting peacefully and cheerfully in the clinic, her hands were shaking with reaction, and she was glad they needed little attention that demanded a steady grip and clear mind. She was seething with anger, and not a little trepidation, for however abominable the woman was, she was still a guest at the hotel. Even if Señor Garcia hadn’t been the difficult man he clearly was the chances of her being bundled off home in disgrace were undoubtedly very high. And she didn’t want to go, of that she was certain.

  She woke Felipe at six, and sent him off back to his restaurant feeling much better and showering his gratitude and appreciation on to her. No more patients arrived to be attended to, and she tidied away the last oddments, still thinking about Vanda Connaught and the possible results of what she had said to her.

  Consuelo telephoned just before six thirty.

  “Isabel? I have a message for you - Señor Garcia has been all day at Valldemosa, and has telephoned me to tell you he will not require a dressing to his wound today, so you need not wait for him.”

  “I’d no intention of waiting for him!” Isabel said sharply. “I told him he needed daily dressings, but if he’s not concerned for his own welfare, then I don’t see why -”

  “He had a new dressing done in Valldemosa - the doctor there,” Consuelo said.

  “Oh, well, it’s up to him, I suppose! Anyway, thanks for letting me know, Consuelo. It was sweet of you -”

  “Oh, he told me to be sure to tell you!” Consuelo said a little wickedly, and then her voice changed as she said a little haltingly, “ah - Isabel - there is a little - I think I should tell you that -”

  “That Señora Connaught is waiting until Señor Garcia comes back, in order to tell him at great length about my sinfulness and demand my immediate drumming out of the hotel with my buttons pulled off, is that it?”

  “Buttons? I do not understand -” Consuelo said anxiously.

  “Och, never mind. Just a silly English saying - but am I right? About the Connaught?”

  “Ah - well, yes, Isabel. It is so. I am very sorry, but I am worried for you. She is a lady who gets often her own way, and she is much the friend of Señor Garcia, you know? and I -”

  “Ha! I’m no’ all that surprised that they’re friends!” Isabel snapped. “Just right for each other -”

  “Ah, you are naughty, Isabel! I do not explain well, so you do not understand but I try - Señora Connaught and Señor Garcia they are -”

  “I’m no’ interested, Consuelo, I promise you! Look, if he tells me to go because of her, then he does. But I had a good reason for not going to the blasted woman’s room, and if he gives me a chance to explain, then - ah, look, there’s no sense in talking about it any more! Now, don’t you worry, and thank you for telling me. You’re a very nice kind girl.”

  “I hope it is all well, Isabel,” Consuelo said mournfully. “I like you and I am sad if you go away. But maybe it is not so bad, hey? We wait and see -”

  She was in a reckless mood as she dressed for her date with Biff, and put on the rather outrageous trouser suit in a vivid Pucci print that had so shocked the Matron of the Royal when she had worn it for the annual Christmas Dance. It was admittedly rather revealing, “but very flatt
ering with it”, she thought, as she twisted and turned in front of the mirror. “I really look rather nice.”

  Biff clearly agreed. He was standing in the foyer waiting for her as she came out of the lift, and smiled a long slow approving smile as she came towards him.

  “You look the greatest!” he said. “I knew you were a real pretty girl, but boy - you’re more than that - you’re a stunner!”

  “And you’re very splendid, too,” she said gaily, and tucked one hand into the crook of his elbow to walk off towards the door and the evening air, aware of the following stares of the guests who were strolling through the foyer, and feeling that she looked as nice as any one of them, tonight.

  “I thought I’d show you the town in some style,” Biff said. “If you’ve never seen Palma before, you ought to see it for the first time in a special sort of way - so I thought, a droshky.”

  “A droshky? But they’re Russian, aren’t they?”

  “I know.” He laughed and stepping towards the edge of the pavement waved his hat towards the far side of the square opposite. “I don’t know what these are called in Spanish, but droshky sort of suits them, so that’s what I call ’em!”

  A brightly painted carriage with very high wheels, pulled by a brown horse wearing a colourfully vivid harness across his broad back, came towards them, making a delightful noise as harness jingled, and the bells on the horse’s leathers tinkled prettily. It was one of the most storybook equipages she had ever seen in actual use, and she said so delightedly.

  “Aren’t they the greatest?” Biff said. “I knew you’d like it -” and he helped her to climb up into the carriage, and then joined her and wrapped the rug about her knees before leaning over to instruct the driver.

  “We’re going to the Pueblo Espagnol” he told her, as the horse moved forward and, swaying gently the carriage creaked into movement. “It’s a sort of model village, you know? There’re copies of all the different sorts of Spanish architecture, all specially built for display - really something. There’s a place there, though, that’s the real reason we’re going. A sort of cellar - you can eat and drink, and at midnight there’s a great Flamenco show - singers and guitars and dancers - the real gypsy stuff. You’ll like it, I know you will -”