A Diary Without Dates Part 8

To be a Sister is to have a nationality.

As there are Icelanders urbane, witty, lazy ... and yet they are all Icelanders ... so there are cold, uproarious, observant, subservient, slangy, sympathetic, indifferent, and Scotch Sisters, and yet....

Sister said of a patient to-day, "He was a funny man."

A funny man is a man who is a dark horse: who is neither friendly nor antagonistic; who is witty; who is preoccupied; who is whimsical or erratic--funny qualities, unsafe qualities.

No Sister could like a funny man.

In our ward there are three sorts of men: "Nothing much," "nice boys,"

and Mr. Wicks.

The last looms even to the mind of the Sister as a Biblical figure, a pillar of salt, a witness to G.o.d's wrath.

The Sister is a past-mistress of such phrases as "Indeed!" "That is a matter of opinion," "We shall see..." "It is possible."

I have discovered a new and (for me) charming game which I play with my Sister. It is the game of telling the truth about the contents of my mind when asked.

Yesterday Sister was trying to get some coal out of the coal-bin with a shovel that turned round and round on its handle; she was unsuccessful.

I said, "Let me, Sister!"

She said, "Why?"

And I: "Because I think I can do it better."

"Why should you think that?"

"Because all human beings do," I said, and, luckily, she smiled.

She was was.h.i.+ng her caps out in a bowl in the afternoon when I came on.

"Good afternoon, Sister," I said. "Ironing?"

"I am obviously only was.h.i.+ng as yet," she said.

"It's because I think so quickly, Sister," I said; "I knew you would iron next."

I dined with Irene last night after the hospital.

I refused to believe what she told me about the last bus pa.s.sing at half-past nine, and so at a quarter to ten I stood outside "The Green Lamp" and waited.

Ten minutes pa.s.sed and no bus.

With me were two women waiting too--one holding a baby; the other, younger, smarter, dangling a purse.

At last I communicated my growing fears: "I believe the last has gone...."

We fixed our six eyes on the far corner of the road, waiting for the yellow lights to round it, but only the gas-lamps stood firm in their perspective.

"Oh my, Elsie!" said the woman with the baby, "you can't never walk up to the cross-roads in the dark alone!"

"I wouldn't make the attempt, not for anything!" replied the younger one firmly.

Without waiting for more I stepped into the middle of the road and started on my walk home; the very next sentence would have suggested that Elsie and I should walk together.

She wouldn't "make the attempt...." Her words trailed through my mind, conjuring up some adventure, some act of bravery and daring.

The road was the high road, the channel of tarmac and pavements that she probably walked along every day; and now it was the selfsame high road, the same flagstones, hedges, railings, but with the cloak of night upon them.

It wasn't man she feared; even in the dark I knew she wasn't that kind.

She would be awfully capable--with man. No, it was the darkness, the spooky jungle of darkness: she feared the trees would move....

"I wouldn't make the attempt, not for anything"; and the other woman had quite agreed with her.

I knew where I was by the smells and the sounds on the road--the smell of the lines of picketed horses behind the railings, the sharp and sudden stamp of the sick ones in the wooden stables, and, later on, the glitter of water in the horse-troughs.

I thought: "I am not afraid.... Is it because I am more educated, or have less imagination?"

"Halt! Who goes there?"

"Friend," I said, thrilling tremendously.

He approached me and said something which I couldn't make anything of.

Presently I disentangled, "You should never dread the baynit, miss."

"But I'm not dreading," I said, annoyed, "I ... I love it."

He said he was cold, and added: "I bin wounded. If you come to that lamp you can see me stripe."

We went to the lamp. "It's them buses," he complained, "they won't stop when I halt 'em."

"But why do you want to stop them? They can't poison the horse-troughs."

"It's me duty," he said. "There's one comin'."

A bus, coming the opposite way, bore down upon us with an unwieldy rush and roar--the last bus, in a hurry to get to bed.

"You'll see," he said pessimistically.

"'Alt! 'Alt, there!" The bus, with three soldiers hanging on the step, rushed past us, and seemed to slow a little. The sentry ran a few paces towards it, crying "'Alt!" But it gathered speed and boomed on again, buzzing away between the gas-lamps. He returned to me sadly.

"I don't believe they can hear," I said, and gave him some chocolates and went on.

As I pa.s.sed the hospital gates it seemed there was a faint, a very faint, sweet smell of chloroform....