She was wanted in Matron’s office. She left the ward, white but with her shoulders back and her head up, braced for what was to come. Sally never expected to see her again. A couple of hours later Sally helped the porter lift a lieutenant with a belly wound back into bed. They removed the poles from the stretcher and, careful of his wound, Sally gently eased him onto one side, and then the other, to push and pull the canvass out from under him. ‘All right, Lieutenant? You’re back in the ward, safe and sound,’ she told him. He opened a groggy, bloodshot eye and lifted his hand to his nose, to finger the Rhyle’s tube. There would be no food for this fellow for a long while. One patient back and the trolley stood ready for David Jones, the twenty-four-year-old with the fractured femur who was next to go down. Sister called her. ‘You can go with him, Wilde. Stay with him until they’ve wheeled him into theatre, and come straight back.’ ‘Yes, Sister.’ The porter was already dragging Jones feet first out of the ward, and Sally ran to catch the end of the trolley, meeting as she did, a pair of big, brown, fearful eyes that put her in mind of a calf being led off to slaughter.
