Milly
Becomes A Nurse, 1941-1945
“Hello, Halliday, I’m Nurse Kairns.” A student nurse with the telltale navy senior belt read my name badge and greeted me in the lunch room line. It was my first day in nurses’ training at Redhill Hospital. I was frightened to be away from all that was familiar yet awed by the senior status of the nurse speaking to me. I hardly had time to acknowledge her greeting before she asked, “How are things going for you thus far?”
“This morning we had our first class,” I said.
“Bed pans, right?”
I warmed up to her immediately. “I’m sure I can handle the bedpans, but I’m a little nervous about what will follow. I passed the emergency entry on my way here and saw a man covered with blood from a large head wound. It scared me to think that some day I’ll have to admit someone in his condition.”
“You’ll have to deal with worse things than that because of this war. If I weren’t a Christian I would have quit before now.”
“I’m a Christian too!”
By this time we had been served our food and Nurse Kairns was called by some of her classmates to sit with them.
“Well, Halliday, keep your chin up. How about stopping by my room this evening? I’ve got half an hour free before going on night duty, and we can talk a little more. Room number 12.”
“Thank you. I’ll be there!” I found a table, and bowed my head in genuine gratitude for the food and for the friendly welcome. The rest of the day went easier since I had the evening to look forward to.
That night I timidly knocked on the door of room 12. Nurse Kairns opened the door with a mouth full of bobby pins. She was pinning her nursing cap onto her hair.
“Excuse me,” she mumbled through the pins as she ushered me into her room. “I must be off in 15 minutes. I have to see the head nurse before reporting for duty, but thanks for coming.”
“Thank you.”
“To put what I have to say bluntly and quickly, I believe in living the Christian life, not talking about it. “ She waited for me to react. I nodded. “A nurse started with me three years ago who continually told people that she was a Christian and that they should be too. For a long time I felt guilty that I was not bold enough to do that. Then last year she got involved with a Canadian soldier, got pregnant and ran off with him. It left a bad name for Christianity since she had been so vocal about her beliefs. I would like to suggest that we meet together every morning at five and pray together before breakfast. Things have become so chaotic with this war that we need each other’s Christian strength so we can have the wisdom to help those in need.”
“I would appreciate doing that.” I stood to leave. “I’ll be here tomorrow morning at five.”
“All the best Halliday. I’m rooting for you,” she said, and saw me to the door.
Each morning we met in her room and spent 10 minutes in prayer. This helped keep me steady through all the harried experiences of my first year of nursing. In addition to our daily classes, we performed menial jobs in the hospital. We learned to work ignoring air raid warning sirens since there were no shelters.
On one occasion I went on duty in a ward where every bed sheet was wet with urine. During an air raid, the patients involuntarily urinated in their beds from fear. At that moment, the head nurse walked through the ward with a helmet perched on the top of her nurses’ cap. She stopped in front of me as I worked on the beds.
“Nurse, if there is another air raid, run under the bed with the fattest patient. Stay there until it’s over. You’re no good to us dead.”
The possibility of an obese patient landing on me did not carry much appeal. I continued to help the patients, ignoring the air raid sirens.
Another precaution for our well being, each year we nursing students were to fill out a health form. Since my menstrual periods had stopped for a few months, I noted that on the form.
Also, at the end of the first year, all nurses had to pass a written government exam. The day before the exam I dashed into Kairn’s room at five in the morning. “Milly, you look a little pale. Are you feeling all right?”
“Not really. I haven’t been eating much, but feel heavy; and I’m exhausted. I can’t wait to get these exams over and take my holiday!” My mother and I planned to take a train trip to Aunt Ada’s for a week’s vacation.
“Maybe you should sleep a few extra minutes each morning instead of coming to my room,” she suggested.
“Oh, Kairns! Please! That’s what has kept me going! No, I’ll get past this exam, take my week off and then I’ll feel better.”
The following morning, when I entered the somber exam room, I began to feel light-headed. The room whirled once, then everything went black. The next thing I heard were doctors’ voices discussing my condition with matron, the head of the nurses. “Well, obviously, this girl is pregnant.”
“No! Not Halliday, doctor.” she remonstrated.
By this time my head was clear. “Absolutely not, doctor!” I voiced clearly.
“That’s what they all say, nurse.” He turned away coldly and indifferently.
I struggled to sit up, but since I felt faint again, I lay back down.
“Now, now Halliday, lie still and we’ll get to the bottom of this. This happens to many girls as the doctor said, although you are the last one I would have expected. If you’ve made a mistake just come clear with it.”
I started to cry. “Matron, it would have to be like Jesus and Mary if I was, because I have never known a man.”
They all left the room, and I sobbed until my pillow was wet. Since every time I tried to sit up I felt faint, I couldn’t leave my bed.
In the meantime, Matron called my mother to cancel our vacation.
To my relief, another doctor came to examine me and asked me many specific questions. He became alarmed as I answered them, and called the nurse in charge.
“This is a life threatening case. She must be operated on tomorrow morning.”
He stepped outside of the room, but I could hear his report to matron, “Sister, this young woman is likely not to be alive tomorrow. She has tumors on her ovaries. Make her comfortable, and we’ll do all we can, but I make no promises.”
Visitors and flowers arrived right away. My friend, Dr. Lenanten, heard that the original doctor in charge had falsely accused me of being pregnant. She was furious. I don’t know what she said to him, but before I was wheeled into the operating room, he came in to see me and apologized.
“It happens so often now that girls get pregnant, nurse, that I just made a mistake. I am sorry.”
Matron came in to see me. “Halliday, is there anything I can do for you, anything at all?” I remembered Kairns and her desire for a prayer time.
“I would like permission to have a Christian meeting each week somewhere in the nurses’ quarters.”
“You shall have it, Nurse. Just come through this, and you shall have it,” she said.
Reverend Rose came in and prayed for me. He reminded me of Romans 8:28, “All things,” and he repeated, “all things, work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”
“I know, Reverend Rose, and I am not afraid,” I assured him. “The only thing that bothers me is that I missed the first year exam and will have to wait a whole year to be able to take it again.”
“Ah, Milly, I know that it is difficult to understand why this happened, but God is mindful, and although we don’t understand right now, there is a purpose in it. The Bible says that God knows when the sparrows fall, and that He knows the number of hairs on our head, so be assured that He knows and cares about all of your worries and frustrations. Just give God thanks, if you can, as He said in I Thessalonians 5:18 In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. His will is perfect. ‘All things work together for good.’ Rest on His promises.”
The anesthesiologist for my operation was an acquaintance I had met the week before at a bus stop. “I owe you for that bus fare you loaned me, Halliday. Here it is. I don’t want to have to put it on your coffin.” As he placed the coins in my hand I wondered what use I’d have for them. It was ironic. If I had been going on vacation with my mother I would have found the coins useful, but my hospital gown didn’t even have pockets!
To everyone’s surprise, I survived the operation but awoke in terrible pain. “You’ve had major surgery, Halliday, and it will be a while before you’re back to yourself.”
As I lay in the recovery room I remembered all of the ‘appropriate words’ I had used to communicate with my patients. From this perspective they sounded meaningless.
With a worried frown the doctor entered my room. “There were three large growths attached to your ovaries, Halliday. The good news is that they were not malignant and we were able to remove them before they burst. The bad news is that you will probably not be able to have children.”
“That’s all right, Doctor. I don’t even plan on getting married.”
I was assigned a special nurse who read to me to divert my mind from terrible gas pain. “I have chosen The Wind in the Willows” she said, opening the book.
“The title sure is appropriate!” I volunteered. We both started to laugh, but the excruciating pain that shot through me brought tears to my eyes.
The nurse grabbed a pillow and put it over my abdomen. “Whenever you cough or laugh, it will help if you hold this over the incision.”
“That hurt so bad, I might never laugh again!”
“But to prevent pneumonia you’re going to have to cough! Take deep breaths. Fill your lungs slowly, then empty them fully as often as you think about it. With any pain, breathing is a key to relief,” she said. “It will also prevent pneumonia. From the amount of flowers and visitors you’re getting it would make a great deal of people sad if you didn’t get well. There’s a poem that says, ‘This, too, shall pass,’ just keep remembering that you’re going to get past this!”
After a couple of weeks I started to feel better. The head matron came into my room and sat next to me. “You know, nurse, I’m going to be able to use your special skills after this. You have suffered, and I will be able to put you with patients who are suffering. You will be able to understand their needs better than anyone.”
I smiled at her and thought of I Corinthians 1:4 … that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
“In a few days you will be going down to Hazelmere, to the Edith Cavell Nursing Home, where I want you to rest and recuperate,” Matron continued. “You will take the train, and in a month or so, you may return and get back to work.” She got up to leave, then turned back. “You may start up that nurses’ meeting when you get back.”
Thrilled to be alive, I waved from the train window to my friends. I was greeted at the Hazelmere train depot by a cluster of retired nurses. “Don’t walk so fast, Halliday. Take it easy. Let me do that for you, Halliday.” Every one of the retired nurses attempted to revive all of their nursing skills and focus on me, their only patient.
A month later I returned to nurse’s training and joined the first-year class again. Matron kept her promise and provided a room with a piano and songbooks. One of the new girls played the piano as we gathered on a weekly basis to hear various Christian speakers and to sing and pray.
Periodically, the nursing school sponsored a dance inviting military officers from the area. We Christians did not attend but watched in amazement from our windows at the vulgar behavior of our fellow students. During each event a knock came on the door where we were gathered.
“Ladies, Matron requests that you come down.”
“All right. Thank you.” Obediently we went down to the dance, greeted Matron, and returned to our rooms upstairs. We were not interested in fraternizing with military officers whom we did not know.
However, on one occasion a nurse came to me in the hospital corridor. “Halliday, there is a handsome young Egyptian doctor who wishes to meet you.”
“Sorry, no interest. Tell him I’m too busy,” I said as I shifted patient charts from one arm to the other.
“But he knows that you can’t be any busier than we are. Any one of us would find time! I bet if you did go with him, you would get kissed.”
“Nobody’s going to kiss me,” I assured her.
“He’s so handsome, you wouldn’t be able to resist!” She teased.
“Tell him I’ll go for a walk by the lake with him this evening, and I’ll prove to you that he won’t kiss me.”
That evening I did not feel confident. I wondered why I had fallen for the bait? I fell on my knees and prayed, “Lord, I should not have been so gullible. I’m sorry. I’m not worried that I’ll get kissed, but that it is a foolish, unnecessary errand.” Just then someone knocked on the door.
“Guest in the waiting room for you, Halliday.”
I ran downstairs and greeted a truly handsome young man.
“Thank you so much for your time, Miss Halliday,” he said, and shook my hand. “Do you need a coat?”
“No, I will be fine without one, thank you.” And we proceeded to the pathway that led to the lake.
“I am told that you are from Egypt. Would you please tell me about your country? I am interested in hearing about it.”
“Most of my country is desert, but where I live is the most beautiful spot in the world, the Nile Delta. I left four years ago to study in England, and now I am homesick for my country and my father and mother.” We sat on the grass and watched the moonlight reflect off the lake.
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” I asked.
He then described his family, his life with them and also a glimpse of the culture of Egypt. Suddenly, when I glanced at my watch, I realized that more than an hour had passed.
“Thank you so much for the lovely time, but I must return to the dorm now,” I said and got up.
“You have allowed me a visit home without having to travel there.” He looked at me gratefully. On the way to the dorm we discussed the war and our part in it.
At the entrance to the dorm he shook my hand again, and I entered the nurses’ quarters. As soon as the front door closed I was surrounded. “All right, Halliday. What was his kiss like?”
“He didn’t kiss me,” I said as I headed for my room.
“What an old fuddy-duddy. Nothing but a cold potato. Spoil sport!”
The matron realized that repeating the first year’s course work might bore me, so she kept me occupied with her special patients. At the end of the year, I took the First Year Government Exam, passed it, and proceeded to the next level.
Our nursing routine was very rigorous. From day to day we worked long hours and often double shifts.
On one occasion I was the night nurse in a women’s geriatric ward. The bombs dropped all night, shaking the buildings with their explosions. We could feel the walls being sucked in and out from the pressure of those explosions. The old people cried, screamed and begged for attention. I couldn’t keep up with the wet beds, and when morning came I determined that I would not leave the ward until every patient was dry, calm and reassured.
When the morning nurse came on duty, she reminded me, “Halliday, Florence Nightingale died years ago. You’re not to worry about these beds.”
“These dear old folk deserve a clean bed,” I insisted.
“It’ll be taken care of. Now report to your dorm. You need some sleep.”
Another night a bomb dropped on a mansion that housed Canadian soldiers. Shortly after, the hospital halls were filled with those soldiers, slashed by the slivered glass. One young man with deep cuts on his back cried like a baby. He wanted someone to give him comfort. My heart went out to him, but I couldn't respond. There were so many who urgently needed our help. We only had time for the critically wounded, requiring immediate attention, such as stopping the flow of blood. We were also carefully following the supervising doctor’s orders.
Often we were called upon to go out in the ambulances to pick up people after air raids. There was carnage everywhere. The only way we could cope emotionally was to look at a scene and plan how and what we could do to help.
Once an ambulance brought in a 50 year-old man who was found naked on the streets. He was incoherent and threateningly swung at anyone who tried to help him. A doctor ordered him to be locked in a small, rubber-padded cell. I was to give him a shot of morphine. Like a lion in a cage, he paced back and forth around the enclosure, then peered through a little glass slot at me. Four staff members held him down as I delivered the injection.
When I learned the next morning that he died of a heart attack, I was devastated. I felt responsible for his death.
Mrs. Mason called me on the telephone that evening, and I shared my feelings with her. “There was no way he deserved that. I feel so guilty. I gave the shot that killed him.”
“No, Milly dear, you were working under doctor’s orders. Your shot did not kill him. War killed him.”
I hardened myself more and more to the sights and sounds of death. On the gynecology ward we admitted three botched abortion cases every night. By the time most of the girls reached us they had nearly hemorrhaged to death. My task was to search through each bloody placenta for the dead baby and drop it into a jar of formaldehyde. All of the staff were disgusted with these abortion victims. They interrupted our critical care and attention for dying bomb victims.
One night, the doctor in charge threw her hand towel down and said in disgust, “I'm not wasting another pint of blood on any of you! You can die! There are dying soldiers on the front lines in need of this blood.”
One of these girls, Olive, came in sobbing, “Oh, nurse, I really wanted the baby, but my parents would have been furious. I thought it was the only thing I could do. I am a Christian, and maybe I have sinned the unpardonable!”
“No, Olive dear, to kill is not the unpardonable sin. When Jesus was on the cross it says in Luke 23: 34 that He forgave those who were killing Him. If you desire to be forgiven, He is waiting to do so.”
“I will ask Him,” she said, her pale face lined with pain.
Detectives and staff were determined to find the abortionist who was mutilating these girls. They asked me, “Do you think that you could get Olive to tell you who performed her abortion? Each girl is coming in with the same symptoms, but refuses to say who did it.”
“I will do my best,” I responded.
I went to her room. “Olive, you look more at peace.” I said holding a thermometer.
“Yes, I am forgiven,” she whispered.
“Olive, do you want to help others who find themselves pregnant as you did?” I asked.
“Yes, I would. I’ve been thinking about it. The woman who does the abortions threatens terrible things if we tell, but I must.”
She proceeded to describe how the girls were informed of the woman’s services, how much she charged, and the procedure she used.
Unexpectedly, that night, Olive died from the gruesome mutilation that had been inflicted upon her. But following her death, thanks to her disclosure, the abortionist was caught and jailed. The stream of dying young abortion victims stopped.
During these hectic days I met a young doctor who shared many of my interests. He came from a wealthy family and wanted to spend his life in medical research. One afternoon on the gynecology ward, he stopped me in the hallway.
“I noticed on the roster that you have tomorrow off. How about coming with me to London? I’ll take you to a symphony and to dinner afterwards.”
The symphony sounded great, not to mention dinner. We had lived on rations for so long that I had forgotten what real food tasted like. The ration book allowed everyone each month: one egg, one cup of sugar, four ounces of butter, one pound of meat, no fresh fruit, and few desserts.
Our hot drink in the morning was so weak that we could not tell the difference between tea or coffee. However, bread was not rationed, so we filled up on it.
We also had special names for some of the meals: ‘Tonsillectomy Pie’ and ‘Appendectomy Stew.’ These meals had tiny pieces of meat in them. We joked that they had come from the surgery room that morning.
Pregnant women were given slightly better rations. On the maternity ward, milk was kept in the refrigerator. One day the milk bottle was missing. A nurse confessed to drinking the milk, then nearly gagged when we told her she had drunk mother’s breast milk. Needless to say, she never drank the Maternity Ward milk again.
The invitation was so tempting, I agreed to go to London with Doctor Reese. The concert was relaxing, although I couldn’t help thinking about the needy just outside the building. At the restaurant in Soho, I was delighted to see bananas on the menu as well as other desserts. My date ordered steak for us that filled our plates. The steak was so large, I had to leave most of mine behind.
“Why didn't you wrap your steak in your napkin, and take it home?” My mother lamented, when she heard about my leaving food on my plate. “We're so desperate for meat!”
Shortly following my evening out, I was assigned the tuberculosis ward. The patients, ordered to get as much fresh air as possible when the weather permitted, were placed in chairs or beds on the patios.
Often we could see “doodle bombs”(V-1 unmanned bombs with engines), pass the hospital on their way to London. The Air Force was determined to shoot them down in the countryside before they hit the populated capitol. We could see the air fights from the hospital windows. One of my patients on ABR (Absolute Bed Rest) would jump up and down on his bed and shout excitedly, “Get him boy! Get him!” It was impossible to keep him still.
Long hours and continued stress were so tiring that whenever I returned to the dorm I fell asleep, sometimes still in uniform.
One morning, on my way to breakfast, I vividly remembered a dream during the night before. I related it to friends sitting beside me in the cafeteria.
“I was in a coffin going into church. My head was above the coffin, so I could see that the church was full. The choir was on either side of the aisle and all of you were singing as I went up to the altar!”
The entire table of nurses started to laugh. “Old Halliday is getting married!” they chanted.
"No, I'm not! How can you read that into my dream?”
“When you get married you die to your past life. Even your name changes, and you start a new life!”