Surgeon at Arms

5

The hurricane had two self-sealing petrol tanks in the wings and another in the fuselage, directly in front of the pilot. On the August Sunday morning when a Messerschmitt 109 caught him over Dungeness he calculated, after a panicky moment wondering if he were alive at all, that he still had a fair chance of eating his dinner that night. As he jettisoned the cockpit hood a stench of petrol struck him. In a second his world was alight. He never remembered how he fell clear. His next recollection was the petrol replaced by a smell even more pungent. It reminded him of something. It was the stink of burning wool, which stuck in your nose when they cleared up after the clip back home.

He didn't remember getting clear of his parachute harness, but he must have managed it somehow because he was free when they reached him. His only worry was whether a Mae West could really keep a man afloat. The sea was dead calm, he felt no pain, no unusual sensation at all. Like everyone else, he'd been flying without goggles and gloves. It made it easier to see the enemy and to handle the controls. He watched with detached interest bits of skin and flesh come away from his hands and forearms, like fragments of roast chicken, and float in the water. A civilian lifeboat picked him up. As two men in black oilskins got him aboard he noticed their faces, and wondered what the hell they were staring at.

It was the same expression on the face of the girl looking down at him. She was in a white apron, a nurse he supposed. Pain, shock, and morphine had by then turned him from a human being to a collection of organs struggling to function together as best they could. He asked "where he was, but she didn't seem to understand. He wondered suddenly if he were in France, put in the bag by the Germans. Then she said, 'You're all right. You're in hospital. In Kent, not far from Tunbridge Wells.'

He'd heard of Tunbridge Wells. It struck him as an odd sort of place to find himself in.

He floated on a cloud of euphoria as they were obliged continually to increase his dose of morphine. He didn't know if he'd been lying there for a couple of days or a week, though it was in fact more than a month. Gradually his body seemed to grow some sort of skin against the painful world. A variety of doctors in white coats came to see him, and generally dug about with forceps and probes, most painfully. As he began to notice things again, he saw when they changed his dressings his hands were black, clawed, and wizened. They reminded him of the hands he'd once seen on the body of an aboriginal, brought into the sheep station after lying for months shrivelling in the sun of the outback. He asked for a mirror, but was told the hospital hadn't any to spare. They had been broken by a freak of blast in the bombing, they explained, and glass was in short supply.

His room was small, white-painted, and sunny, looking on to a small garden. He wondered what sort of hospital it was, and if there were any other patients. He certainly saw no sign of them. Over the next few weeks the pain began to ease and the needles became less frequent. One afternoon he noticed there was a mirror right in the room. It was over the washbasin, though they'd covered it with flowered curtain material fixed by strips of sticking-plaster. He crawled out of bed, staggered, and fell. He managed to struggle across the floor, and to tug the flowered covering aside with the point of his elbow. He wondered who he was looking at. The face in the glass was swollen, black, and running with pus. There was no nose, and the eyes stared through a pair of encrusted lids. The door opened and the young nurse came in, scolding him like a naughty child for getting out of bed.

A few mornings later the blue-uniformed sister, a stout and kindly woman, appeared at his bedside with a stranger. He was a civilian, thin, pale, weedy-looking, with a large head and eyes showing too much white.

'Bluey Jardine, isn't it?' began the visitor affably. 'The Australian? I've heard a lot about you. Sorry to make your acquaintance in these particular circumstances.'

The patient looked suspicious. Whenever anyone new appeared in the room, it seemed to mean something unpleasant was going to happen.

'My name's Trevose,' the civilian went on. 'I'm a surgeon who specializes in your sort of trouble. I suppose you know well enough you were pretty badly burnt?'

'Am I going to live?'

'Yes, of course you are. But it'll take a good deal of treatment getting you into shape. We're going to see rather a lot of each other in the immediate future, I'm afraid.' Graham took a bundle of case-notes from the sister. 'You weren't wearing goggles and gloves?'

'I don't reckon so.'

'A sadly common omission,' murmured Graham. With sterile forceps and a kidney-bowl he began picking away the dressings. Another case of 'airman's burn'. If only these chaps would keep their gloves and goggles on, he thought, they'd have at least some sort of protection in the cockpit. The first-aid station had smeared tannic acid jelly all over the raw surfaces, of course. Damnable stuff! Why couldn't the muttonheads at the top issue orders banning it? It would take weeks for him to pick the dried tannic acid crust away, before he could even think about skin-grafting. The hands were terrible. The face was a pretty bad mess too, but that didn't matter so much. A face was a decoration, but you needed hands to live.

'Right, Sister,' Graham decided. 'I'll have this one.' He turned to the man in bed. 'Would you like a change of scene? This hospital, however excellent otherwise, hasn't the facilities for the sort of surgery you need. I run a little show nearer London where we can look after you properly.'

Bluey hesitated and said, 'I reckon I'm in the hands of you quacks now, aren't I?'

'Good. I'll send a car for you tomorrow morning. Do you like ice-cream?'

'I don't mind it.'

'Vanilla or strawberry? I'm afraid there's no chocolate.'

'Vanilla will do me.' Bluey was mystified. Bits of him were burnt to cinders, and they talked about ice-cream. This doctor, whoever he was, seemed an odd bloke.

'We'll be feeding you it till you're sick,' Graham told him cheerfully. 'See you later.'

In the corridor the sister chided Graham with more severity than usual, 'But Mr Trevose! You did say you wouldn't kidnap any more patients.'

'This officer will be my last-honestly.'

'It does make life so difficult for us, you know.'

'Of course I do. But leaving Bluey here will make life very much more difficult for him. Should the powers that be object-'

'But they will object, Mr Trevose.'

Graham grinned. 'Just say I behaved in such an overbearing and arrogant manner you had no alternative but to give in. Say I threatened physical violence if you like. With my reputation they'll believe you.' He patted her amiably on the arm. 'Don't worry, Sister, I'll see there's no trouble. I'll take full responsibility. It's really quite easy. I'm one of the few people at the moment who don't have to give a twopenny damn for the grandest air-marshals, generals, admirals, or anyone.'

She hesitated. She had quite taken to Graham, who had set himself to be resolutely charming towards her. 'You do behave badly sometimes, you know,' she told him gently.

'I behave badly frequently. But it's a change doing so on someone else's behalf instead of my own.'

The following morning Bluey Jardine arrived at Smithers Botham in Graham's second-hand Morris, driven by a green-uniformed W.V.S. worker, with most of him hidden by a tartan rug. It was then October 1940, and the population had found more to worry about than whether to wear their shirt-tails outside their trousers at night. But it had been a lovely summer. The cherry trees had flowered charmingly over the little Gothic mortuary, the patients were kept awake by owls serenading to the crickets' violins, the tomatoes ripened wonderfully along the sunny walls of the main operating theatres (nourished by the unused offerings of patriotic blood-donors). It was difficult at Smithers Botham to believe the Germans might leap from the seas or the skies any moment. The litter of old iron gathered from surrounding fields to make room for growing food was put back again to frustrate enemy gliders. At the portico, the words 'Smithers Botham' were painted from the blue-and-gold notice to baffle Nazi parachutists dropping on the lawn, doubtless dressed as nuns. The chapel clock was hushed, chimes being classified with sirens, whistles, and football-rattles as the portents of varying sorts of doom. The L.D.V. crawled enthusiastically on their stomachs everywhere, carrying shotguns and threatening with much ferocity anyone moving after dark they disliked the look or sound of.

The vast main wards of Smithers Botham remained almost empty. People heard so often on the B.B.C. of 'hospitals and churches' being hit by bombing all over southern England that these seemed highly dangerous places to find yourself in (whether there was a comparable decline in churchgoing no one bothered to find out). The reluctance of these civilians to present themselves for long-awaited treatment Graham found a godsend. After Dunkirk, the annex had been alarmingly overcrowded. If he wanted to throw up more huts, he was told they were 'unavailable'-an infuriatingly handy expression of rebuff. If he wanted more beds, he knew where to look. With the amiable connivance of Mr O'Rory, the Blackfriars gynaecologist working at Smithers Botham, Graham sent Tudor Beverley and his houseman to shift some unoccupied ones from O'Rory's wards. When the traffic was interrupted angrily by Captain Pile in the middle of the lawn, Graham drove to Maiden Cross and bought camp beds in the sports' shop. Captain Pile appeared in the annex to object wrathfully, but even he could hardly evict the sleeping patients.

'It's most irregular, Mr. Trevose. You can't just increase the number of beds in the hospital like that.'

'But the men would be terribly uncomfortable on the floor,' Graham pointed out mildly.

Captain Pile went redder than ever. He was having a bad war. His command was admittedly complete over the military patients at Smithers Botham, who on his approach were expected, with the difficulty of saluting smartly from the pillow, to stiffen themselves under the sheets as though they were corpses already. But the civilian doctors from Blackfriars took no notice of him at all. It was most frustrating. The senior ones made clear that the possessors of Fellowships from the grand Royal Colleges could hardly be bossed by a mere Licentiate of the less exacting Society of Apothecaries. The younger ones defaced his signed notices, often quite obscenely, predictably named him 'The Haemorrhoid', and made up rude songs about him which they sang outside his office window. And Trevose he found more maddening than the rest put together.

'If I may say so, your wards give me a great deal of unnecessary trouble,' he continued warmly to Graham. 'You make absolutely no attempt to maintain proper discipline in this annex. Why, you're actually mixing officers with other ranks!'

'Surely this is hardly the moment to insist on the niceties of military etiquette, Captain Pile?'

'But it is _against regulations!_ What have you done with those board partitions? I had them sent specially to divide up the wards, officers one side, men the other.'

'I'm keeping them handy. They'll be essential if we get anyone from the women's Services. Though I suppose it would be all right bedding them down among the men, as long as the ladies weren't officers?'

Captain Pile decided to ignore the question. You could never be quite sure with a man like Trevose if he were being serious. 'And what about all this ice-cream? I gather you're getting it from some merchant in Maiden Cross. I must insist the practice stops forthwith. You must know it's quite out of order for anyone except the catering officer to have foodstuffs sent to the hospital?'

Burned men lose protein from the raw surface of their bodies, and Graham had discovered sadly with his own palate that the Smithers Botham diet was miserably mean in such a costly essential. The dishes consisted mostly of porridge, stew, and rice pudding, which, being boiled in the same vats, had interchangeable tastes. Though like an old-fashioned Christmas pudding they occasionally offered keepsakes, a dirty bandage, a broken tooth, once even a well-worn rubber heel. Graham supposed that none of the original inmates was expected to notice what he ate, anyway. During the hot summer he had hit on the idea of ice-cream, telling the manufacturer to cram in as many protein-rich eggs as he could find. But all this seemed too complicated to explain to Captain Pile.

'I eat it all myself,' he said. 'Incidentally, I pay for it from my own pocket.'

'But you buy churns of the stuff!'

'I happen to be particularly fond of ice-cream.'

Captain Pile looked baffled. Trevose was an eccentric, quite off his head. 'Furthermore,' Pile recalled, 'you sent six shirts to the hospital laundry last week. The maximum permitted number is three.'

'Good God,' muttered Graham.

When Bluey arrived at the annex he had no idea what might be in store for him. He had no imagination at all. It was an essential ingredient of his limitless courage. The Ministry of Information, hungry for heroes, had trumpeted him as the Australian 'ace', printing his photograph and his number of enemy kills in the newspapers. He was a rewarding subject, tall, good-looking with dark wavy hair, unmarried, a sportsman splendid at cricket, swimming, and tennis. But a hero has no more likelihood of being pleasant than lesser men. Bluey was pushful, overbearing, and vain, as malicious behind the backs of his superiors as into the faces of anyone unlucky enough to be set below him. Since puberty he had seduced as many girls as he could lay hands on, regarding them all as the fortunate recipients of his passing favour. In the air, he would risk his neck for anyone. On the ground he would lift a finger only for himself. No one in the squadron had much time for Bluey.

'Good morning, Flight-Lieutenant Jardine.' A young nurse with a mature air, holding a board with a clip of notes, approached as he stood at the ward door trying to take it all in. 'We've put you in the far end bed. That's a bit of an honour, you know. It's supposed to be quieter.'

Bluey looked round anxiously. It was certainly a change from the last hospital. The long narrow lower ward of the annex was crammed with beds, though the patients were mostly dressed and lounging about, smoking, laughing, or chatting noisily. They struck him as an odd bunch. The majority were bandaged heavily about the head, some wore slings and plaster casts, others had their hands in bulky dressings like boxing-gloves. The ward radio was at full blast. It always was at Smithers Botham, from early tea to lights out, right through the war. Graham often idly wondered how many people died to the strains of Geraldo.

'Do you want me to turn in?' Bluey asked.

'Not unless you're tired. In the annex we like to keep everyone up and about. Dr Bickley thinks it stops you getting bad chests.'

'Who's Dr Bickley?' asked Bluey warily. You never knew how many of these medical jokers were waiting to have a go at you. 'I'm under Dr Trevose.'

'Dr Bickley's the Gasman. The anaesthetist. You'll meet him later. You can smoke whenever you like, there aren't any rules. Have you got enough cigarettes? The boys'll help you light them.'

'I'm all right.' He wasn't going to feel gratitude towards anybody.

'Is there anything special you like to eat? We'll try to get it, but we can't guarantee results.'

'I'm not particular.'

'Here's Peter.' The nurse smiled. 'He'll look after you. He's the oldest inhabitant.'

The nurse left Bluey with another man in flight lieutenant's uniform, his tunic hanging from his shoulders and his sleeves pinned to the pockets. Bluey inspected him with fascination. His face was mostly hidden in crepe bandages, but a strange yellowish-pink sausage sprouted from the middle of it. This was fixed to his left wrist, held against his cheek by a plaster cast. His hands were bandaged, but his thumb was free enough to grasp a cigarette in a long holder.

'I'm Peter Thomas,' announced the apparition amiably. 'Welcome to the mausoleum. You're the Australian, aren't you? I remember seeing you in the _Daily Mirror._ If I recollect aright, you were sharing the page with Jane.'

'What do they do to you in this place?'

'Make you look like an advert for Brylcreem.'

Bluey stared round. 'How long before they let you out?'

'Well, it's inclined to be a long job, as possibly you can see for yourself. The Wizz doesn't believe in rushing things.'

'The Wizz?'

'The Wizard. Trevose. He made this elephant's trunk affair. It's a wrist pedicle. It started life as a slice of skin from my belly. The Wizz kept my wrist attached to my navel for weeks, before raising it to higher things. It's all a matter of re-establishing the blood supply before making the next move. You'll soon pick up the lingo. We become very professional here, you know. The pedicle's going to be part of my nose, incidentally.'

The two officers started walking along the line of beds.

'It's noisy,' observed Bluey. 'The place I came from, they shut me up alone in a room.'

'Life is very informal in annex D. Everyone mucks in together, all Services, all ranks. It's the Wizz's idea. Good for morale, he says. Though I rather think he does it to annoy the brass-hats. We had an admiral in here last week. He fell on his face down a ladder. Drunk, doubtless. I don't think he cared for the atmosphere much. The only gentleman enjoying privacy at the moment is a German bastard shut in the padded cell.'

As Bluey stopped short his companion gave a laugh. 'Didn't you know? This used to be a nuthouse. The change isn't always apparent. Which part of Australia do you come from?'

'Outside of Melbourne. My people own a sheep-station. I came over to join up before the war.' His near-lidless eyes stared round. 'Maybe all this means I'm on my way back again?'

'They'll notice a change in you,' said Peter Thomas crisply.

It was a remark in the spirit of annex D. The men had grown a shell of arrogance towards the world which had brought them to such straits. To be pitied was so unbearable, any eye sensed to be softening with compassion fired only an explosion of rudeness. The nurses got used to it-if they didn't, Graham had them shifted to more conventional wards. The elderly hospital padre found his attempts to 'cheer up the poor boys' so unwelcome, his Christian fortitude collapsed beneath him and he avoided the place. Even well-meaning ladies with baskets of gifts saw them accepted without a flicker of gratitude. After all, the patients felt the country owed them more for their pains than a few bars of chocolate.

'I suppose I've caught it pretty badly?' Bluey hazarded.

'Oh, I've seen worse,' Peter Thomas told him with an air of authority.

'When did they get you?'

'I was one of the earliest. I've been in here so long I'm practically one of the staff.'

'What's happening outside? Nobody's told me any news.'

'The Germans seem to be crying off. In daylight, at any rate.'

'That's funny. I thought we'd go on like that. Flying every day till the end of the war.' They stopped at Bluey's bed, the last before the partition dividing off the operating theatre. 'I was just starting to believe in my luck.'

'If you like, I'll see if I can find a newspaper,' Peter Thomas offered helpfully. 'Though the selection isn't very uplifting. There'll probably be a _Daily Press,_ which is good for at least one laugh.'

'Thanks. I reckon I've a lot to catch up.' Bluey sat on his bed and inspected his surroundings. There was no need for mirrors in annex D. He could see himself in the monstrosities all round him. He suddenly realized he was an outcast, a frightening object, something to make any man wince and any woman run away in horror. For the first time the bitterness of his humiliation swept over him. He wanted to cry in self-pity. But his lachrymal glands were burnt, and even to weep was impossible.