Mary Lawrence

Gordon is feeling very down at the moment because, although one of his hands appears to be fine, the other got a minor infection which has set back progress a little. The Maestro remained confident that the outcome would be ultimately positive though.

Gordon has been under the knife this week, having surgery on his hands. I was helping the Theatre Sister during the operation and I felt anxious throughout it. It was entirely routine though, and since it took place, Gordon has been frantic with impatience to see whether the operation has been a success. He won’t know for some time and in the meantime he is in a lot of pain and discomfort and needs regular pain-killing drugs to help him.

I went to the cinema in town the other night with Gordon, a couple of other men from the ward and two of the volunteer nurses (the two who fainted a few weeks ago, including the one who I’d seen with her knickers down not long after!) We watched the Pathe newsreel of bombers taking off and Hurricanes and Spitfires turning and wheeling in the sky. I looked across at Gordon to see how he was responding to this, worried that it might bring back painful memories, but he looked enthralled by the footage, his eyes shining brightly in rapt concentration as the frames flashed and flickered across his irises. As I was watching him, I felt a sudden pang of terror.

Henry, the pilot with the red silk scarf, has been extremely quiet since he arrived but Gordon has been doing his best to help him acclimatise to the conditions on the ward. The two men are in neighbouring beds and although Gordon can be noisy and brash these days, he has learned to speak quietly to Henry. It shouldn’t be surprising, considering that Gordon was also like that when he first arrived. They were both Hurricane pilots and the other day I stood watching from a distance while I was changing some sheets, and heard Gordon talking to Henry all about Hurricanes for a while, in his soft, lowlands Scottish accent. Then, one-by-one, he talked about all the men on the ward so that Henry would know their names and something about each of them. I felt rather proud of Gordon doing such a grand job to make the ‘new boy’ feel at home.

Ward Three can have a very intense atmosphere and this must be one of the reasons why so many romances have sprung up between nurses and patients. I caught one of the volunteer nurses (the blonde girl from Chelsea) with one of the patients yesterday in a very compromising position in one of the linen cupboards. I did not say anything but merely shut the door on his naked buttocks, pyjamas by his ankles, and her very surprised face. I don’t think that this is the time for being some sort of moral guardian; for all I know we will be invaded next week and soon after, transported to some kind of intern camp in Germany where we will be breaking rocks with hammers.