Connie’s Courage by Annie Groves Page A

I take it you two aren’t coming with us then?’ Vera challenged Josie and Mavis.
    â€˜I daren’t.’ Josie shook her head. ‘Me auntie would never forgive me if I was to get thrown out of here, and me stepma would never let us go back.’
    â€˜And of course there’s no need to ask whether you’re coming, Miss Goody Two Shoes,’ Vera taunted Mavis.
    â€˜It’s against the rules,’ Mavis answered her firmly.
    â€˜Well, it’s you who will miss a good night out,’ Vera told her, giving an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders.
    â€˜You’ll be in very serious trouble if you get found out,’ Mavis warned, as Vera got up from the table and Connie followed her.
    â€˜No one’s going to find out!’ Vera told her dismissively. ‘And even if they do, we don’t care, do we, Connie. Sick of this place I am.’ As theyleft the room, she added to Connie, ‘It isn’t as though Sister guards the door or anything. And they can’t lock it, can they, because of the night staff?’
    Giggling together they hurried down the corridor, whilst Connie ignored the small inner voice trying to warn her that she was asking for trouble.
    â€˜I’m on one of the Nightingale Wards this afternoon, what about you?’ Josie asked, as she and Mavis caught up with them, a few moments later.
    â€˜We’re on the same,’ Connie told her, trying not to laugh as Vera pulled a mocking face behind Mavis’s back, when she answered that she was working in the operating theatre.
    As they came up from the tunnel that connected the nurses’ home to the hospital, Mavis almost bumped into a young policeman who was standing close to the tunnel entrance, holding his helmet beneath his arm.
    â€˜Steady, miss! I mean, Nurse,’ he apologised, dipping his head politely, his face red with self-conscious embarrassment. His reaction caused first Vera, and then Connie, to burst out into fresh giggles.
    â€˜Ouch, Mavis, I think he took a bit of a shine to you,’ Connie teased her good-naturedly.
    â€˜Yes, a big red shine by the looks of his face!’ Vera added, as they both went into gales of laughter.
    There was a faint tinge of colour on Mavis’s own face, but she maintained her dignity, and kept her head held high as she stepped past the unfortunate young man, leaving Vera and Connie to giggle in her wake.
    Cursing himself under his breath, Frank Lewis watched the girls walk away from him. He had only been working in the area for a few days, and his sergeant had told him that the hospital would be part of his regular beat.
    He was waiting for his sergeant now, the older man having told him that he had a bit o’ business to attend to. Frank suspected that the bit of business was probably a cup of tea and a gossip, but he knew better than to suggest as much.
    If all the nurses were as pretty as the serious-eyed brunette he had just bumped into, his hospital beat was going to be a very pleasant one indeed!
    â€˜Oh, that Sister Miller, she knew my shift was finished, but she made me go and clean the sinks before she’d let me go,’ Connie puffed, as she hurried into the bedroom and immediately began to pull off her cap and gown and start to tidy herself up.
    â€˜I told my ward sister that I’d got me monthlies,’ Vera giggled. ‘I told her I were too sick to finish me shift and that I might be sick. Mind you, I’d have loved to see the face of those miserable besoms I’vehad to run round after this week, if I had been!’ Vera continued. ‘Women’s wards, I hate em’. You don’t know how lucky you are working on men s, Connie.’
    â€˜Vera, Connie, please don’t do this,’ Mavis begged them worriedly. ‘If anyone should find out …’
    â€˜No one’s going to find out!’ Vera told her, confidently tossing her head. ‘Connie’s finished her shift, and