Free A Wartime Nurse by Maggie Hope

were anything other than British. Which was strange, she mused as she walked down the ramp between the wards to the dining-room, for there had been plenty of reminders, what with the difficulties with the language and the exuberant behaviour of the few Italians, whose favourite game appeared to be to flirt with the junior nurses, calling out outrageous remarks to make them blush. She was pleased that most of them were convalescent; they would soon be on their way back to the main camp at Weardale.
    The young boy she had noticed on her first visit to the ward was still poorly. He was first on her long list when she set out round the ward with her dressing trolley, accompanied by a Red Cross nurse, a pretty nineteen-year-old with rosy cheeks and green eyes. Nurse Cullen, she introduced herself as, and pushed a lock of bright auburn hair back under her cap before Matron came round and saw it dangling on her collar.
    ‘I haven’t seen you before,’ said Theda as they turned down the sheet from the boy’s arm and shoulder.
    ‘No, I only came last month,’ Nurse Cullen admitted, and Theda’s spirits sank.
    ‘Can you take off the bandage while I scrub up?’ she said, and backed out of the screens. As she took up the scrubbing brush at the sink at the end of the ward, she thought, well, she would see what sort of a nurse the girl was going to make soon enough. By the end of this dressing round in fact.
    Surprisingly good, she had to admit later. Nurse Cullen had gentle hands, safe and sure, causing the minimum of discomfort to the patients as she worked and seeming to know just what Theda wanted her to do.
    The young soldier, Johann his name was, according to the chart on the end of the bed, was cause for concern. He had an inflamed wound on his shoulder which Theda guessed was probably causing his pyrexia and as she cleaned it with Eusol and packed it with sterile gauze she could feel that his skin was hot and febrile and hear him muttering constantly and incomprehensibly.
    The dressing round was hardly over and Theda was washing her hands when the main doors opened and into the ward came Major Collins, favouring his left leg a little, Theda noticed, even as her heart sank as she saw the German doctor at his side. Sister was on her break, she remembered, still had ten minutes to go. The doctors were early.
    Major Collins halted at the door of the office and looked up the ward directly at Theda. She finished drying her hands and went to meet him.
    ‘Morning, Doctor. Sister isn’t back from her break,’ she said, acknowledging Major Koestler with a brief nod.
    ‘No matter, Staff, I have something I want to do in the office. Will you take the round with Major Koestler this morning?’
    No! was Theda’s instinctive reaction. For a moment she thought she had shouted it out loud but it resounded only in her mind. She tried to control her expression, not let it show on her face, but something must have done.
    ‘You will do the round with Major Koestler,’ said the Englishman, and this time it was an order.
    ‘Yes, sir,’ said Theda.

Chapter Seven
    Theda walked across to Block Five during her dinner break. She had the latest copy of Film Fun for the children in the side ward and wasn’t feeling very hungry anyway, the last hour on the ward having taken away her appetite. In any case, she felt like a chat with Laura Jenkins if the ward wasn’t too busy.
    Major Collins had made her feel like a naughty child, she thought rebelliously. Surely it was natural to feel some resentment toward the German doctor? After almost five years of war, and Alan and everything? Oh, he had said nothing, he hadn’t needed to: it was his tone of voice when he spoke to her; it was the steely look in his eyes when he looked at her.
    ‘Perhaps you would find it easier if you called me Doctor?’ Major Koestler had suggested, looking at her keenly. Obviously he was well aware of the tension in the atmosphere and what had caused it.
    ‘If you