Free Connie’s Courage by Annie Groves Page B

she would, indeed, have been told to go.
    The ominous rumblings of war were growing ever louder. It was unthinkable, of course, that they should go to war with Germany. But the Government had insisted that every hospital in the country had to prepare itself for that eventuality, which meant that they could not afford to turn away a probationer with any kind of promise.
    For war meant injured men. Injured men needed skilled and dedicated nursing. And more than that, many of the poor souls would need operations. Mr Clegg had made it clear that he wanted Matron togive priority to providing him with skilled operating theatre nurses. In Sister’s opinion, Probationer Pride did not realise how very fortunate she was!
    All this talk of war was extremely disturbing, and Sister Jenkins, for one, hoped that good sense would prevail and that the Germans would recognise their folly and cease their sabre-rattling forthwith!
    The other three were waiting anxiously for Connie when she got back to their room.
    â€˜What happened?’
    â€˜What did she say?’
    â€˜Are you to leave?’
    â€˜I can’t answer you all at once,’ Connie complained, trying not to feel hurt that Vera should be the one to ask if she was to leave, and, moreover, that she should show so little concern at the prospect.
    â€˜I am to stay,’ she told them firmly, only just beginning to believe and accept her reprieve herself.
    â€˜Oh, Connie!’
    â€˜Connie!
    â€˜Lucky you!’
    As all three of them hugged her, Connie felt tears prick her eyes. For all that Vera complained constantly about the long hours, and the hard work, and everything else, Connie knew that, compared to the way she and Kieron had lived, her current life was a huge improvement. She got regular meals, she had equality with her peers, and she was even paid – albeit a very modest sum. But best of allwas the fact that the hospital was clean; their room was clean; her clothes and her own self were clean! In fact, even the privies were spotlessly clean.
    You had to have lived somewhere like Back Court to truly value something as simple as cleanliness, Connie acknowledged.
    â€˜No more getting in trouble,’ Mavis told her mock-sternly.
    â€˜No more getting in trouble,’ Connie agreed, and meant it.
    She wondered if Mavis was as aware as she was herself of the fact that both of them spoke rather better than their fellow probationers? Vera teased her sometimes about what she called Connie’s ‘posh’ accent, but Connie had noticed that it wasn’t just her own mother’s insistence that all her children spoke the King’s English properly, that set her just a little bit apart from Vera and Josie. And, it was obvious that, like Connie herself, Mavis had received a far better education than the others, and had better table manners.
    Connie could still remember how shocked she had been the first time she had seen Kieron eat a meal. Kieron! What was she doing thinking about him! He and the life she had lived with him were things she wanted to forget and pretend had never existed. Just thinking about Kieron was enough to bring back all her dread and fear of Bill Connolly.
    Never did she want to return to that life, and she had been more mortally afraid than she wanted toadmit to herself, never mind her friends, that, that was exactly what might happen to her.
    Only now with her future here at the Infirmary safe, could she allow herself to recognise how terrified she had been of being sent away.

SIX
    â€˜I’m sure Sister makes us do all this scrubbing just to punish us,’ Connie complained wearily to Vera, as she dropped her scrubbing brush into the bucket beside her, and wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of carbolic. ‘We’re supposed to be learning to be nurses, not scrubbing ward floors,’ she grumbled.
    â€˜Cleanliness is the first law of good nursing,’ Vera mimicked, repeating Sister Jenkins’