Read Lorimers at War for Free Online Page B

the men who hurried from each vehicle as it came to a halt. They led her to the platform furthest from that on which the band had been playing.
    The platform was covered with stretchers, and more were still being unloaded from an ambulance train which must have arrived unobtrusively while everyone’s attention was on the departing troop train. Kate stared unbelievingly at the rows of men who lay, too weak or too shell-shocked to move, with grey faces and sunken eyes which stared unblinkingly from black sockets. She began to move amongst them, asking questions and occasionally lifting a blanket to inspect the wound it covered. Then, horrified, she ran as fast as she could to find Margaret.
    â€˜Come and see here, Aunt Margaret.’ She seized her aunt’s hand and tugged her towards the other platformwhile the rest of the family, startled, followed more slowly. For a moment the two women, both doctors, stood side by side, taking in the scene in silence. Then Kate led Margaret over to one of the wounded men with whom she had spoken a little earlier.
    â€˜Look at this,’ she said quietly to Margaret. She raised the blanket which covered his leg. He was still wearing the khaki trousers of his uniform, covered in mud, and his blood-stained puttees: only the boot had been cut away. ‘It’s five days since he was wounded. I asked him. Five days to bring him from the front line to here with only a field dressing. Just look!’
    Even in her state of horror Kate had enough tact not to describe what she had recognized. Perhaps the man had not yet realized that he would have to lose a leg. Margaret, staring at the slimy bandage and blackened, gangrenous toes, would not need to be told.
    â€˜Where are you taking them?’ Margaret asked one of the ambulance men.
    â€˜Thirty to Charing Cross Hospital,’ he said. ‘The rest’ll wait here till we find out where there’s room.’
    The rest of the party came up to join the two women and Kate repeated her indignant reaction to Lord Glanville. But Margaret gestured them to move away from the stretcher area so that they could talk without being overheard.
    â€˜The hospitals must be cleared to make room,’ she said. ‘I shall go back at once and stop admissions to my gynaecological ward. Given efficient transport, my patients can perfectly well be cared for in the country. These men need surgeons and skilled nurses, and they need them at once. All the London teaching hospitals ought to make all their beds available to these emergency cases while the crisis lasts.’
    Kate, who had only recently qualified as a doctor, had none of her aunt’s power to take decisions like this. While the members of the older generation discussed what should be done, she stood back in silence.
    Margaret had spoken with the authority of a professional woman and Lord Glanville, even more accustomed to taking decisions at a high level, was considering the situation with equal gravity. Kate knew that he had been personally responsible, fifteen years earlier, for persuading Margaret to leave her country practice and supervise the women students of the hospital of which he was a benefactor and governor. So although he had no medical experience, he was familiar with hospital administration.
    â€˜These men are surgical cases, I take it,’ he said to Margaret. ‘They’ll need operations without delay and surgical nursing for some time afterwards – and then what? A less intensive standard of nursing for what could be a considerable period while their wounds heal?’
    â€˜If they’re lucky, yes,’ said Margaret. ‘If they arrive at the operating theatre in time.’
    â€˜And during this healing period they’ll be occupying beds which may be needed by the next trainload of wounded, and the next.’
    â€˜But this can’t go on indefinitely!’ exclaimed Alexa – though like her husband she kept her voice