On two occasions when I visited I asked to see his legs, but he prevaricated, making different excuses each time, and I didn’t think I could force the issue. The next occasion when I called he was not at his usual table. The man who generally sat opposite him pointed to the dormitory and said, “He ain’t got up today.”
I went to the dormitory, and in the fifteenth bed on the right Mr Collett lay motionless. I looked at him for a long time from the doorway, hating myself for hating the smell, and for not wanting to approach the bed. A sort of dread had entered my heart, and I wanted to turn and run.
He moved and coughed slightly, and this set me in action. I went up to his bed, kissed him, and whispered, “It’s me. Are you all right? It’s not like you to stop in bed.”
He took my hands and kissed them, and murmured that he would be all right by and by.
I sat beside him, not talking, squeezing his hand from time to time, thinking, If he stays here, not moving, for several days he will get pneumonia, and that will be it. Pneumonia is the old man’s friend, they say. A quiet and peaceful end. I hope he goes that way in his sleep. What greater blessing can we ask at the end of life?
Then it occurred to me that, whilst he was lying in bed, it would be easy to look at his legs, so I asked him if I could. He neither agreed nor disagreed, but seemed indifferent.
I pulled the blankets away from the foot of the bed, and the stench of decaying flesh rose to greet me. A rough, fluid-sodden bandage covered each leg, and I unwound them with difficulty. I had no surgical forceps, or scissors, and had to do it with my fingers. The bandages looked as though they had not been changed for a fortnight, and were stuck to the flesh underneath. As I tried to ease them away I thought I might be hurting him, but he did not move, nor show any sign of pain or distress.
At last the wounds were fully exposed. I had to grip the iron bedstead, and call upon all my nurse’s training of discipline and self-control to avoid crying out. From the knee to the ankle there was no skin at all, just livid, suppurating flesh, oozing pus and blood. Daylight was fading fast, and the dim electric-light bulb hanging from the ceiling was no great help, but I thought I could see traces of black around the edge of the wound. I looked down at his feet. The toes looked greyish and swollen, one or two of them a darker colour than the others.
“Oh, my God, it can’t be. Oh, please, no. Not him. It’s not fair.”
There was only one way to tell. I unfastened the brooch I was wearing and dug the pin deep into the centre of the wound on each leg. He didn’t move. Then I dug it really hard into his toes. He didn’t feel a thing. There could not be the slightest doubt: gangrene.
He said, “They are feeling better today. They’ve been giving me gyp the last few weeks, but they don’t hurt now, and I guess they’re getting better.”
I had to control myself. Fortunately he could not see my face, but he was sensitive to my voice. “As long as you are comfortable, you just stay there. I’ll go and get someone to put another dressing on, because I’ve taken the bandages off. I won’t be long.”
I raised the alarm, and later the superintendent and a doctor came to the dormitory, but in the meantime I had to leave for my evening work. After I had finished my visits, I cycled back to St Mark’s and, for the last time, climbed the staircase to the Fifth Floor of Block E. Mr Collett had been transferred to Mile End Hospital.
I was relieved to hear it, and I cycled the half-mile down the road to the hospital in order to find out which ward he had been admitted to. It was too late to see him, but I was told that he was comfortable and sleeping.
Immediately after lunch the next day, I cycled up to the hospital and went straight to the ward. The ward sister told me that Mr Collett had been operated on that morning, and had not yet come round from the anaesthetic. The operation had been a mid-thigh amputation of both legs.
I was taken to the side room where he lay. The calm cleanliness and efficiency of the hospital was reassuring after the shambolic dirt of St Mark’s. Mr Collett lay on spotless white sheets, his face calm and relaxed. A nasal tube was in situ, and a nurse was sucking the mucus from his throat with an aspirator. She then counted his pulse and checked the flow rate of the blood drip that was running into his arm. She smiled at me as she turned to go. Hospital protocol and discipline had the upper hand, and Mr Collett was now a part of it.
I sat with him for a little while, but he was fast asleep, and looked quite peaceful, so I left, resolving to come back after my evening visits, by which time he might have come round from the anaesthetic and would recognise me.
It was about 7.30 p.m. when I approached the ward, and the screams assailed me long before I pushed open the door. A harassed-looking staff nurse was on duty, and as I ran towards the side ward a frightened nurse whispered: “I think he’s gone mad.”
Mr Collett was sitting bolt upright in bed, his blind eyes staring, wide with terror. He was waving his arms and screaming: “Watch out, to your left, a grenade exploding.” He screamed and ducked to escape an invisible missile flying over his head.
I ran to him, and took him in my arms. “It’s me, Jenny. Me, I’m here.”
He grabbed me with superhuman strength and pushed me down to the floor. “Get down, keep your head down. They’ll blow you to bits. A bloke over there had his head blown off a minute ago. That one over there has lost both his legs. It’s a terrible place to be. Gunfire all around. Down. GET DOWN!” He screamed with all his strength and hurled himself forward. The stumps of his legs twitched violently and he fell out of bed. He seemed impervious to the fall, and grabbed me, pulling me under the bed with him.
“Stay here. You’ll be safe here, in the shelter. I’ll keep a lookout for any other poor soul. Look out!” He screamed and looked up. “That plane, see, it’s just dropped its load of bombs, they’re coming for us. It’ll be a direct hit.” He screamed louder than ever, “KEEP DOWN!”
A doctor and two male orderlies rushed into the ward. The staff nurse had a syringe filled and ready. The orderlies crawled under the bed and held Mr Collett, who was fighting and screaming. The doctor injected a powerful anaesthetic and a few minutes later, Mr Collett rolled over onto his side, asleep, but the stumps of his legs twitched violently with involuntary nervous spasms.
We were all shaken and trembling. The two orderlies picked the old man up and put him back into bed. He looked peaceful again. The hospital staff left, but I sat by his bedside for a long time, crying quietly.
At nine thirty the night sister asked me to leave, saying he would be kept sedated all night, and telling me to ring in the morning.
Before breakfast, I rang the hospital, and was told that Mr Collett had died peacefully at 3.30 a.m.
There was no last post for the old soldier; no solemn drum roll; no final salute; no lowering of the colours. There was just a contract funeral, arranged by the hospital, leaving from a hidden area next to the morgue. A priest and one mourner followed the coffin, and we travelled in the hearse, next to the driver. I had not thought of flowers until nearly at the hospital gate, so I had bought a bunch of Michaelmas daisies from a street flower-seller. We were driven to a cemetery somewhere in North London. I don’t remember where it was. I only remember a cold, bleak November day, as we stood on either side of the open grave, the priest and I, reciting the office for the burial of the dead: “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.” The men shovelled the soil over the coffin, and I laid the purple daisies on the rich brown earth.