Silent in an Evil Time Read Online Free Page A

attended lectures, absorbing the principles that had been developed by Florence Nightingale. As a probationer, she had the responsibility of cleaning and dusting the wards. Since each ward was heated by a large fireplace, clearing the soot was an endless task.
    In theory, Edith was allowed time for meals during the day, but in a busy hospital, the reality was that nurses were lucky if they could leave their patients long enough for tea and a bun. Porridge turned up at every meal: porridge at breakfast, porridge and mincemeat at dinner, porridge and cold beef on Sundays. The one treat at the evening meal was a choice of beer or stout, and Edith didn't say no to the occasional beer.
    She had one day off every two weeks, and used the free day for doing her laundry, writing letters, and taking walks. Social life was almost nonexistent, and nurses were absolutely forbidden from associating withdoctors and other men in the hospital, except in the line of duty. If a nurse so much as sighed in the presence of a handsome surgeon, it was reason for dismissal.

    Nurses at the London Hospital worked hard to keep the wards clean, bright, and cheery. Above is Sophia Ward, named after an eighteenth-century English princess.
(The Royal London Hospital Archives)

    Partway into her second year as a probationer, Edith was assigned to three months' emergency service in the town of Maidstone, southeast of London. A terrible epidemic of typhoid fever broke out in the town during the autumn of 1897. Edith was later remembered as the nurse who brought toys to Maidstone's children.

    The location of the London Hospital, shown here in the 1890s shortly before Edith arrived to take her training, placed it among the city's poorest citizens in the East End.
(The Royal London Hospital Archives)
    For her third year, Edith was placed on the London's private nursing staff and attended patients in their homes. Back at the London full-time for her fourth and final year, Edith was appointed staff nurse in the hospital's Mellish Ward, where she had the bad luck to work under a bullying senior nurse named Lillian Gough. Edith wasn't happy to be singled out for Gough's harsh criticism, but she turned the senior nurse's treatment into one of the wry jokes she was noted for. She gave Mellish Ward a nickname: Hellish.

    But the person at the London who struck fear into the heart of every nurse was Eva Luckes. From 1880 to 1919, Luckes was employed as the hospital's Matron, the official with the responsibility of training and grading each nurse. Luckes knew her business. She gave lectures on nursing techniques. She had powerful influence with the doctors and administrators at the hospital. And she kept the probationary nurses under such close observation that she felt confident in writing long reports on every woman who passed through the hospital's system.

    The imposing woman in black is Eva Luckes, the often-feared Matron at the London Hospital. The class shown here is from 1892, four years before Edith arrived at the hospital to begin her nurse's training.
(The Royal London Hospital Archives)
    Luckes looked and behaved like a younger Queen Victoria. She was plump and bossy. She had strong opinions, particularly about her nurses, and would never listen to a view different from her own. She was often harsh in her judgments, and though it was the last thing Luckes would admit, she could be mistaken in her written assessments.
    Luckes' final report on Edith, at the end of her four years of training, put Edith in a poor light. “Cavell was not a success as a Staff Nurse,” Luckeswrote. “She was not methodical nor observant and she over-estimated her own powers. Her intentions were excellent, and she was conscientious without being quite reliable as a Nurse.” Few of the women at the London came in for generous words from their Matron, but in Edith's case, Luckes got her report spectacularly wrong. Everything about Edith's later career showed her to possess all the