An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War (14 page)

“I'm making the incision,” Richard said.

The patient twitched and held his breath. Fingal saw the man's eyes start to move.

“Needs to be deeper, Fingal,” Richard said. “Belly's rigid as a rock. I need more muscle relaxation.”

“Right.” Fingal, who had himself jumped when the patient did, dropped more ether on the gauze. But how much was enough and how much was too much? He waited. The respiratory rate stabilised, the eyes stopped moving.

“That's better. Off we go.”

Fingal was too busy keeping watch over ERA Stewart—it helped Fingal to think of the patient by name, not simply as “the patient”—to be able to pay much attention to how the surgery was progressing. He was able to guess from the exchange between surgeon and assistant.

“Clip that skin bleeder.”

“Got it.”

“Hold up the peritoneum so I can cut it. Thanks.” They had nearly entered the abdominal cavity.

Concurrent with Stewart's eyes starting to move came, “Damn it, Fingal, take him down some more. He's all tensed up again. Put more ether on the gauze.” Richard's voice softened. “You're doing fine, lad.”

Fingal could understand the surgeon's irritation, and was grateful for the advice and support. It was well nigh impossible to operate if the abdominal muscles were rigid. He dropped ether onto the gauze.

“Better. Lord, would you look at that?”

Fingal peered along the table to where Paddy was holding up the appendix prior to Richard ligating its base and cutting it free. The normally pink, wormlike structure was a horrible bluey-green, infected, and gangrenous. “Better an empty house than a bad tenant,” Fingal said, feeling less stressed now that the critical part of the operation had been completed and all that remained was to close the incision. Perhaps he could start letting the anaesthetic wear off?

Not quite. As Richard reached the stage where he was starting to sew up the skin, Stewart began to moan and try to thrash. Fingal was glad of the leather restraining straps. “Hang on, please,” he said, dropping more ether, then, “okay, carry on.” He lifted the right upper eyelid. Christ, the pupil was dilated and the breathing was becoming shallow. Fingal ripped the mask away. The lips had a blue tinge. Cyanosis. He'd overdosed the man, who now desperately needed oxygen. “Quick, Barker. Bring over the Boyle's machine. Turn on the oxygen.”

“Everything all right, Fingal?” Richard asked. “I'm putting in the last stitch now.”

“He's gone a bit deep,” Fingal said. A bit? He was damn nearly dead.

“Here, sir.” Barker had shoved over the trolley with flow meters and gas cylinders. He offered Fingal a rubber mask connected to the machine by two corrugated rubber hoses. “I've got the oxygen on full blast.” There was no flippancy now.

“Thank you.” Fingal clapped the mask over Stewart's nose and mouth. Thank you? Fingal could have kissed the Cockney. God bless him. Fingal hadn't a clue which knurled wheel controlled the flow of oxygen.

“Finished,” Richard said. “You can wake him up now.”

And because the man's pupils were now normal sized, his respiration slow and deep and regular, Fingal knew it was true, he could let Stewart wake up, but he nearly wouldn't have been able to. The Duke of Wellington's remark about Waterloo being “A damn near-run thing” certainly had applied today.

Already Richard Wilcoxson had stripped off his gloves. “Undo my strings, Barker, there's a good lad.” He shrugged off the gown. “You happy enough with him, Fingal?”

Stewart's eyes were rolling and he moved his head from side to side. His breathing was regular and his pulse was—a hundred. “He should be all right now,” Fingal said, handing the mask back to Barker, “but he may throw up so please keep an eye on him.”

“I will, sir.”

“Good,” Richard said. “All right, Paddy, you and Barker know what to do. Take him along to the isolation ward. Make sure he does wake up all right. Keep him on his side in case he vomits. Give him a quarter of a grain of morphine and repeat the dose six hourly.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Paddy O'Rourke said. “And Doctor O'Reilly?”

“Yes, Paddy?”

“Well done, sir.”

“Thank you.” Fingal knew he shouldn't feel gratified. Damn it all, he'd nearly killed ERA Stewart, but there was a satisfaction to having given his first-ever anaesthetic for an open abdominal operation and having got away with it.

“Come on, then,” said Richard to Fingal, heading for the changing room, “we'll get changed and head for the mess.” The door to the operating room closed behind them.

“Bit hairy, was it, gassing the victim?” Wilcoxson asked.

“Honestly? It was bloody terrifying,” Fingal said, stripping off his surgical shirt.

“I know and I'm sorry. None of us knows much about anaesthetics, I'm afraid. But look, if you're interested I may be able to change that.” He dropped his slightly bloody white trousers round his ankles. “They've set up a training scheme for military doctors in Oxford. I hear it's very well subscribed. I'd like one of my medical staff to be absolutely up to date with the latest in anaesthetic techniques.”

“I didn't know about the unit in Oxford,” Fingal said.

“Mmm. And the navy's going to do the same at Haslar.”

“The hospital at Gosport near Portsmouth?” Fingal struggled into his uniform pants.

“Right. How'd you feel about going on a course there?”

“Me?” Fingal's mind was spinning. “For how long?”

Richard knotted his tie. “Dunno. Could be two or three months if we added your learning a bit about the treatment of battle trauma.”

“I'd love it, but why me? I'm the new boy?”

“Because I'm expecting Davy Jones to be promoted out of
Warspite
soon. He's earned it and I'll be sorry to see him go. But if I start working on the skipper about this right now, he can arrange for you to stay here with me when you're fully trained. In any fleet action, battleships act as hospital ships. We'll need the best-trained personnel. And,” he added, “it won't hold up your promotion.”

“I see.” Fingal's mind raced. Three months would be long enough to get married if he could get Deirdre over from Belfast. He continued dressing. “I have a little surgical experience already, Richard. I did one year of gynaecology training, but I'd like it very much to be better qualified all round.”

“Good. I'll see what I can do. Mind you, it might not be for a year or so. These things take time.” He shrugged into his jacket and glanced at his watch as he picked it from a nearby shelf. “And there are more pressing things at the moment. Like that pink gin you owe me.”

Fingal put on his jacket. He'd only been parted from her for two days, but what had he said in the Midland Hotel? “I'll write.” He'd get his first letter off to her as soon as he'd eaten. He missed her and wanted to write, but the travelling and the work had yet to give him much of an opportunity to put pen to paper.

“We'll take one more quick look at the patient, then we might even be able to get a bite.” Richard strapped on his watch.

Fingal's stomach gave its imitation of one of the bubbling mud pots of New Zealand. “I hope so,” he said, “I truly do.”

*   *   *

Fingal sat at the table in his cabin, staring at a blank sheet of writing paper. How to begin? Every piece of mail, even the officers', was opened and censored lest information of use to the enemy's military intelligence would slip out. The slogan “Loose Lips Sink Ships” was everywhere throughout the navy. He couldn't even tell her where he was. Next time he was home he'd be sure to have worked out a code for them along the lines of, “Give my love to Aunt Jessy,” who did not exist, to mean that
Warspite
would be crossing the Atlantic. “Can you get Ma a birthday present from me?”
Warspite
in the Med. And he'd certainly not want the censoring officer reading any intimate thoughts. Perish the thought.

But for this one? He started,

My dearest darling, I've got to where I was going. My boss is a gentleman and I think I'm going to enjoy working here. I gave an anaesthetic this evening and he says in perhaps a year I may get a chance to go on a course in England for three months so I can become a better anaesthetist and I hug the thought as I think of hugging you, I think we could get married then. I am missing you so dreadfully already and …

He hesitated, knowing how much more he wanted to say, then got up, rummaged in his suitcase, and brought out her photo. He stared at it, whispered, “God, I do love you so much, Deirdre,” and turned back to his writing of the first of what would become a torrent of letters.

13

Plan the Future by the Past

“My turn to be late, Fingal, Charlie. Sorry,” Sir Donald Cromie said as he entered the booth in the Crown Liquor Saloon on Great Victoria Street. “Shove over, Fingal.”

O'Reilly slid along the cubicle's horseshoe-shaped black leather benches. He brought his half-finished pint with him. “It's good to see you, Cromie,” he said. None of the three practising physician friends would ever ask for an explanation of tardiness. It often unavoidably went with the job.

“Fit and well you're looking,” said Charlie Greer. “And you've a pint in the stable. Fingal set up the first round. I'm sure Knockers recognised you as soon as you—”

“One pint of Mister Arthur Guinness's elixir of life, Sir Donald,” said the barman, Knox Ritchie, known to one and all as “Knockers.” “I'd just finished pouring this one for a fellah I've never seen in here before when I seen you come in. The young lad can wait a wee minute, no sweat.”

Typical, O'Reilly thought. All good Irish pubs looked after their regulars first, and as far as he was concerned, rightly so.

“Thank you, Knockers,” Cromie said. “I should let you get back to your customers, but how's the back?”

Six months ago when they'd met in here, Knockers had wrenched his back manoeuvering a full keg of Guinness.

“Och, it gives me the odd twinge, but a couple of them Panadol you give me, sir, and I can thole it rightly, so I can. Nice of you til ask.”

“You'd expect an orthopaedic surgeon to be interested in bones,” O'Reilly said absently.

“It's still nice of Sir Donald to ask, sir.” Knockers made to leave, but before going said, “Just buzz if youse need anything.”

“When we do, it'll be for three more pints,” Charlie said. “My shout.”

“Right, Mister Greer.” Knockers left.

“Your job to ring, Fingal,” Cromie said. “You're nearest the bell push.”

The ceramic-and-brass bell push was mounted in one of the vertical posts supporting dark wooden panels inset at their tops with small stained-glass windows. Several other booths were occupied. A snatch of an unusually loud conversation came from the one next door.

“See them Americans? See them? They put an unmanned spaceship called
Surveyor
on the moon yesterday, so they did.”

“Bully for them. Do you think it is green cheese?”

“Nah. Probably acres of dust and a wheen of boulders like my mother-in-law's front garden in Lisburn.” The speaker cleared his throat. “Do you think they'll make Landing on the Moon Day, June the third, a holiday from now on? Like their Groundhog Day in February?”

“They might. Them Americans, they're powerful ones for holidays, so they are. I hear tell they celebrate Saint Patrick's Day with parades and green beer and all.”

“Green beer? Away on.” The scorn in the man's voice was palpable. “I tell you, never mind green beer, roll on the Twelfth Fortnight here. That's a
real
holiday, so it is.”

Traditionally most places of work in Ulster, particularly the two big industries, shipbuilding and linen, closed for the two weeks surrounding the Twelfth of July, when the victory of the Protestant King William over the Catholic King James on that day in 1690 was celebrated with parades and bonfires. Over in Scotland, the city of Glasgow and the Clyde shipyards ground to a virtual standstill at the same time, and many Scots holidayed in Ulster.

“Did you hear that about the Twelfth?” Cromie asked.

Both O'Reilly and Charlie nodded.

“Last year I'd a patient I'd to tell he'd only got two weeks to live.”

“Och dear,” O'Reilly said. “I hate to hear that kind of thing.”

Cromie took a pull on his pint. “Actually he took it rather well. Do you know what he asked me?”

“No.” O'Reilly was intrigued, and it wasn't until Cromie continued that Fingal realised he and Charlie were having their legs pulled.

“‘Two weeks? Boys-a-dear, that's desperate, so it is,'” said Cromie, assuming a Belfast working-man's accent. “‘Look. It's December now, so if it's all right with you, sir—could you please make them the Twelfth Fortnight next year.'”

“Eejit,” O'Reilly said, but his and Charlie's laughter rose to mingle with the hum of conversation from other booths and the men standing at the bar below an etched-glass pane announcing
Bonders of Old High Class Whiskies and Direct Importers of Sandeman's Port.

“All right, all right,” said Charlie. “Enough codding about.” He produced a file. “Here's where we're at in the reunion planning. It's pretty well put to bed.”

O'Reilly and Cromie leant forward.

“We agreed last time that we'd hold the affair on the weekend of September twenty-third,” Charlie said.

O'Reilly, whose job it had been to arrange accommodation, said, “And I've got a tentative block booking for those dates at the Shelbourne Hotel on Saint Stephen's Green.” He paused. “And you may be interested to know that it was built by putting together three adjoining townhouses, by Martin Burke in 1824. Alois Hitler, the Füher's half brother, once worked in the place, and the Irish Constitution was drafted there in 1922.”