I did not return to the south wing until midnight. I found only Maida there for second watch, Miss Dotty having arranged the schedule of nursing hours on its old basis, thus depriving us of our temporary increased help. I thought it somewhat presumptuous of Miss Dotty, who, after all, is only superintendent of nurses and has no jurisdiction over our wing. Olma Flynn had been placed on first watch, as formerly, and on relieving her she assured me that everything was going well and though the new patient in Eighteen was a trifle restless, I had expected that, so I thought nothing of it.
Olma had locked the south door and its key hung peacefully on its customary nail. Under Maida’s understanding gaze I took the key from the nail and slipped it under an order pad on the chart desk; if anyone wanted it that night he should have to ask for it!
I hadn’t been on the floor ten minutes when Eighteen’s light went on; upon answering it I found my patient sitting bolt upright in bed, with the small light over the bed glowing brightly.
“I don’t like this bed, nurse!” he said. His rumpled gray hair gave him a rather ferocious aspect and his pajama coat was all wrinkled and twisted from flouncing around on the bed.
His words gave me rather a turn for, as far as that went, I didn’t like the bed myself. But I advanced coolly enough and began straightening the tossed sheets and blanket.
“What is the matter with it?” I asked, in my professionally comfortable voice. I was not prepared for his reply.
“It feels like a coffin,” he said, staring gloomily at his feet.
“Like a coffin!”
He glanced at me sharply.
“Like a coffin,” he repeated stubbornly. “I don’t like it.”
“Nonsense,” I said, recovering myself and reaching for a pillow. “You aren’t used to it, that’s all.”
“What do they make them so high for?” he said peevishly, peering over the edge of the bed. “If I’d fall out I’d have a long way to go.”
“You’re not going to fall out,” I reassured him. “And if they didn’t make them high we nurses would break our backs. That is the greatest lifesaver for nurses that anybody ever found. You see, if they were built at the height of ordinary beds we would have to bend away over—”
“Well, they don’t have to be so narrow,” he interrupted sulkily. “Every time I turn over I have to grab to save myself from going out.”
“Oh, it isn’t that bad, is it?” I plumped the pillows briskly, replaced them and pulled the draw sheet straight. “Now, that will be better. Try to relax and lie quiet.”
He subsided on the pillow, still muttering childishly.
It seemed close in the room, so I raised the window higher and brought him a fresh drink of water. Of course, if the window had already been up I should have lowered it; I make it a point to fuss around the room a little just to make the patient think I’m doing things for his comfort, and nine times out of ten he will drop off to sleep at once.
This was the tenth time, however, for within half an hour Eighteen’s light flickered on again. Maida answered it that time and when she came out she looked very peculiar.
“What is the matter?” I asked, meeting her in the corridor.
“It is Eighteen. He is very restless.”
“Yes, I know that he is.”
“He—” she hesitated. “He does not seem to like the room.”
Our eyes met but I tried to keep the little tremor of fright out of my voice as I replied: “He isn’t accustomed to a hospital room yet, that is all.”
“I hope so, I’m sure,” said Maida somewhat morosely and went on about her errand.
I myself am so accustomed to the hospital that is home to me that it is only once in a while that I see it as it impresses a stranger. For a singular moment or two that night I saw it with alien eyes, so to speak; the corridor was long and strange and dark with the vases of flowers along the walls making grotesque shadows against the lighted region of the chart desk at the extreme end of the wings; the hush that always surrounds a hospital, particularly at night, seemed unfamiliar and grim; the doors swung noiselessly; the little thud of our rubber-heeled shoes along the rubberized floor-runner seemed stealthy. Our hushed, low voices had a furtive note. The hospital odours of antiseptics and soap and medicines and sickness, with under it all a lurking, faint but ever-present breath of ether, came to my nostrils with the clearness of novelty. The dim red gleams of scattered signal lights, above the black voids that were doors, seemed strange, too, and weird. I caught myself staring up and down the corridor, puzzled and wondering and faintly frightened as if I were in a new and terrifying place. Then all at once, things resolved themselves into the old, familiar wing. But the feeling of uneasiness persisted.
The patient in Eighteen finally turned off his light and must have gone to sleep, for we heard nothing of him for an hour or two. We were fairly busy, with little opportunity for conversation. Along about two o’clock I found that Sonny had managed to acquire a sore throat, a hot, flushed face and icy feet. I was hurrying for camphorated oil and a hot-water bottle when Eighteen’s light shone redly above the door. I hastened to answer it.
“Nurse,” said our patient firmly, his eyes quite swollen from lack of
