An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea

  “Actually it’s ‘Open confession is—’”

  Barry raised his hand. “And I don’t care. I only know I feel better. Thanks, Fingal. Now go and count your dicky-birds. I’m going to fry myself some bacon and eggs.”

  28

  Better a Finger Off

  “Eighty-nine, eighty-eight, eighty-suh … suh…” Leading Seaman Alf Henson’s counting backward from one hundred faded. The 5 percent thiopentone solution that Fingal had injected intravenously was doing its magic.

  “Eyelash reflex?” Fingal asked the leading SBA who stood at the patient’s head.

  “Gone, sir.”

  “Good.” Gentle stroking of the eyelashes no longer led to blinking. That meant Alf Henson was in the second stage of Guedel’s four stages of anaesthesia. Fingal injected half as much again as the initial dose of the barbiturate, removed the needle, dressed the puncture wound over the arm vein, and went to the head of the table. The cellar operating theatre with its bright lights and familiar smells of disinfectant and anaesthetic agents had become Fingal’s second home.

  Captain Angus Mahaddie no longer stood at Fingal’s shoulder. Fingal was allowed to work independently and he was no longer terrified that his lack of skill might kill the patient. He could concentrate on giving the best possible anaesthetic while learning as much as he could to take back to Warspite.

  Fingal picked up the battery-operated Magill laryngoscope with its six-inch-long cylindrical handle, straight blade, and flange on one side set at right angles to the handle’s top. It and the rubber endotracheal tube he was about to insert into Henson’s windpipe had been designed by a fellow Ulsterman, Doctor Ivan Magill, from Larne. With now-practised skill, Fingal pulled Henson’s chin upward and forward, inserting the blade to pull the tongue out of the way. He had no difficulty seeing the man’s vocal cords in the illumination provided by a tiny light bulb. The tube slipped in easily and he used a syringe to blow air into a much narrower tube that led to a balloon now tucked beneath the vocal cords. When inflated, this balloon anchored the apparatus in place.

  It was the work of moments to attach the tube to the hoses from the Boyle’s machine and begin delivering the 10 percent nitrous oxide oxygen mixture. Soon Fingal was satisfied that the patient had reached the third plane of Stage III anaesthesia.

  Surgeon Commander Fraser strode to the table. “You again, O’Reilly? How much longer are you going to be at Haslar?”

  “You can go ahead, sir, and until January.”

  “Can’t come soon enough.” Fraser grunted and sat on the stool that Angus had said seven weeks ago had been there since 1910.

  Fingal wished for a moment that he was back on Warspite, with the marvellously collegial atmosphere of working with Richard Wilcoxson and his crew. But if George Fraser’s rudeness was the price he had to pay for these months with Deirdre, he would pay it gladly.

  An SBA had already prepared the operative field. An arm-board covered in a sterile towel was clamped to the side of the table, and Henson’s arm, hand palm up, with the dressing removed and doused in antiseptic, lay on the board. A leather strap above the tourniquet steadied the limb. Fraser sat on one side, the scrubbed SBA on the other.

  “Take off the tourniquet,” Fraser said to a circulating SBA who had not scrubbed and was there to carry out nonsterile requirements.

  Again Fingal smelled blood as the digital arteries began to spurt. He paid attention to his patient’s respiration and the state of his pupils. Everything seemed fine.

  As he worked, he heard the single-word commands from surgeon to the assistant. “Clamp.” An artery forceps would be handed to him to be applied to one bleeding vessel and then another until all the damaged parts of the fingers nearest the hand would sprout a forest of stainless steel forceps and bleeding would be controlled. The surgeon would deftly tie off each artery and vein in turn with a catgut ligature.

  “Cut.” The SBA cut the final ligature close to the knot and removed the forceps. “Right,” Fraser said. “It’s dry. Wash it with saline, then let’s have a look.”

  Fingal bent forward to see and was promptly reprimanded.

  “Get your blasted head out of my light, O’Reilly.”

  Fingal stifled his rage but knew that under his mask the tip of his nose was turning white. He checked Henson’s signs. Still fine.

  “Scissors.”

  Fingal heard a snip and a clunk. Fraser had removed the shattered end of the middle finger, which hit the bottom of a bucket placed beside the table to receive such body parts as fingers, arms, and legs. How little value we really have, he thought, made of pieces to be tossed aside like offal in a butcher’s shop.

  Henson tried to move. The stimulus of the amputation had penetrated the anaesthesia, and his body was responding reflexively. It was unlikely, though, that he was consciously experiencing pain. Fingal added a small quantity of ether to the mix and Henson lay still.

  “Bone nibbler.”

  Fraser’s demands were made in a bored, disinterested tone. This must be routine work for the surgeon, Fingal mused, clearly not a sufficient test for his keen eye and quick, talented scalpel. Without compassion for his patient, the man could only relate to the level of challenge that presented itself on the table. A series of harsh clicks told Fingal the surgeon was now using a steel instrument that had an end like a parrot’s beak to cut chunks off the fingers’ smashed bones, or phalanges. By shortening them, he created flaps from the overlying skin, which would be sewn together to cover the bone.

  “Rasp.” The ensuing harsh grating noise was Fraser filing the ends smooth.

  “Scissors.”

  Now he was trimming the skin flaps …

  “Forceps. Sutures.”

  … and sewing the flaps shut. Once again the command “Cut,” rang out—and again as the knot of each stitch was tied and trimmed.

  The senior surgeon would be finished very soon and eager to move on, so Fingal cut off the ether and reduced the flow of nitrous oxide.

  “Right. Dress that,” Fraser said, and stood, pulling off his gloves. “See to the postoperative analgesia, O’Reilly.” Not Henson’s analgesia, not the patient’s analgesia, simply see to it.

  “Sir. And will we give him sulphonamide?” If the wounds became infected, Henson would risk losing his hand, and that would certainly be the end of his naval career.

  “Waste of scarce resources,” Fraser said. “There’s a war on, remember? Those stumps’ll heal perfectly and the man will be back doing a useful shore job in no time.” He turned his back to Fingal and said to the SBA who had not scrubbed, “Untie my gown. I’ve things to do.”

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  Fraser didn’t bother to face Fingal. “Yes, O’Reilly?”

  “I know this man. We served together on Warspite. He really wants to have a career in gunnery. So, in your professional opinion, sir, he won’t have enough residual function in his left hand to be able to serve afloat again? Ever?” All Fingal could think of was the way Fraser had shown no interest in getting plastic surgery for Flip Dennison, the burned pilot.

  “That, Lieutenant-Commander—”

  Fingal heard the sarcastic inflection.

  “—is precisely what I mean. I do not have an opinion on the matter other than professional. Take my advice. Do not become personally involved with your patients. It will cloud your ability to make decisions. And do not try to interfere with mine.”

  Fingal clenched his teeth. He knew that any reply he might want to make—about how he believed every patient was a human being with feelings and needs—would call down the wrath of God from Fraser. Fingal busied himself shutting off the nitrous oxide and turning up the flow of oxygen as Alf Henson began to stir and mumble. Removing the tube gently from Henson’s windpipe and holding a mask delivering oxygen gave Fingal a chance to calm down and then start to think about what, if anything, he could do for Alf Henson’s future.

  * * *

  “I’m home, pet,” Fingal called as he
closed the door of the Alverstoke flat and hung his duffle, cap, and gas mask on a hook in the hall.

  The little radio he’d bought was on, and he could hear Tex Beneke of the Glenn Miller Orchestra’s amazing saxophone solo in “In the Mood” as Fingal headed for the living room.

  “Darling.” Deirdre stood up from her chair with a start, and the magazine she’d been reading slid to the floor. He recognized the colourful cover of Woman’s Own as she picked it up and set it on the chair’s wide arm. She must have beaten him home some time ago. She was bathed, her hair combed and shiny, and she wore just a trace of makeup and the perfume he liked. Her Land Army kit had been replaced with a knee-length dress and cardigan. It had become her routine to greet him as if ready for an evening out. She came to his arms and they kissed. “How was your day?” she asked. “But before you answer, sit down. You look tired.”

  As he planted himself in an armchair opposite hers, he saw the flower arrangement she’d made yesterday and put on the windowsill: sprigs of white heather and purple lilac berries, bright against the dark blackout curtains. She’d said with a laugh, “Just because everything in here’s navy issue and the curtains are dull there’s no need for the room to be gloomy.” And he’d loved her for her woman’s touch.

  She sat now, crossed her legs, and leant forward, clearly giving him her undivided attention.

  He’d already decided there was no point troubling her with his continuing friction with Commander Fraser, but was willing to say, “Do you remember Alf Henson?”

  “The leading seaman who’s doing so well on his gunnery course?”

  He nodded and said, “I’m afraid he’s not anymore. He hurt himself today loading a gun.”

  “I’m so sorry.” And she was. Deirdre never mouthed platitudes. “He seemed such a nice man and his girlfriend was fun. Will he be all right?”

  “He’s lost most of one finger and the tip of another on his left hand…”

  She inhaled deeply, hunching her shoulders. “Ooooh, Fingal. That must have hurt dreadfully.”

  “It did, but that’s not what I’m worried about. You saw on Saturday how excited he was about his progress. Gunnery’s his life, but it’s possible he may get sent to a shore job.”

  “Would that be so terrible? I mean, it would certainly be safer for him.”

  “Yes, it would. But it would be awful for Henson. He joined up before the war, planning to make the navy his career. I’ve seen him on Warspite. He eats and breathes guns and gunnery. And he’s good at what he does. If he’d wanted a desk job,” Fingal said bitterly, getting up and heading to the small Welsh dresser they used as a bar, “he’d have selected the accountant branch. But Alf Henson is a gunner pure and simple.”

  She took a deep breath. “But why would anybody want to specialise in weapons that kill people?”

  Fingal laughed, the sound harsh to his ear, as he poured himself a whiskey. He motioned at the bottle to her and she shook her head. “Nobody would need to if the world was full of pacifists, but it’s not. At the battles of Narvik and Calabria, I don’t mind telling you it was a great comfort to me to know we have a very skilled gunnery department on Warspite.” He remained standing where he was.

  She smiled. “If it’s protecting you, darling, I’m comforted too. Come and sit down.”

  He returned to his chair and took a sip of his drink. “And there’s something else. I know between the wars it was fashionable for the upper classes to decry the warrior, but men from backgrounds like Henson’s still have a very simple but deeply felt patriotism. Serving your country in one of the armed forces is an honourable career, and the only difference between a soldier’s rifle and one of Henson’s six-inch weapons is the size.

  “Behind his guns he’s fighting Hitler, defending not so much the world or England as his own little bit of Yorkshire. Winston Churchill has done wonders for the country with his radio speeches urging us all to fight, each in our own way.”

  “‘We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be,’” murmured Deirdre. “And Henson’s way is on a battleship, manning one of her guns. I do see that, darling.”

  Fingal looked down and then back up, meeting her eyes. “You do see, don’t you? And before one of the eight great guns can even be fired, it takes a whole crew of more than a thousand men to keep the ship working. When a shell from Warspite kills an enemy, it’s as much my responsibility as the gunners’.”

  “But you don’t like it.”

  “Like it? No, I don’t like it. I hate it. I despise it, but I understand the need. I don’t think Henson’s a murderous psychopath any more than the young man who joined a volunteer air squadron before the war so he could learn to fly and now has to fight for his life against German airmen. I salute Henson and I want to do everything I can to help him achieve his dream—not just for the war, but for a career doing what he loves after the war is won.”

  Deirdre leaned forward and took his free hand in both of hers. “I know I’d rather have you ashore, and I’ll bet Henson’s girlfriend would too, but I do understand. He’s got to follow his star. Is there anything you can do to help him?”

  Fingal shook his head. “I’m much too junior and I’m not keen to get into another confrontation with Surgeon Commander Fraser. I did try today, but Fraser’s already talking about recommending a shore posting for Henson. He didn’t want to hear anything I had to say.”

  She cocked her head. “So there’s nothing you can do?”

  “I have to be patient,” he said, “perhaps try to reason with Fraser some more, but he’s my senior officer. I’m not sure. You’re too far away,” he said softly. “Come here.”

  She crossed the floor between them and lowered herself into his lap. “My poor Fingal. All the woes of the world on one pair of shoulders. Can I do anything?”

  He smiled up at her, kissed her, and said, “Just listen to me when I moulder on, and love me, pet.”

  “I do love you, Fingal. So very much.” She frowned, sniffed and said, “Oh Lord,” then scrambled out of his lap and bolted for the kitchen.

  Fingal sniffed too and chuckled. Something was definitely not right.

  He heard “Oh blow,” and an oven door slam. The smell got worse. Fingal smiled. Deirdre had not been joking when she’d told him she was a rotten cook. Nobody’s completely perfect, he thought, but apart from that one flaw, as far as he was concerned, she was in every other way.

  She reappeared, shaking her head. “Darling, I’m so sorry. I was so thrilled. I managed to get half a pound of sausages at the Fareham butcher on my lunch break. I think Marge put the word in on my behalf because they’re usually kept for locals. I know how much you love sausages. I found a marvellous recipe for sausage and sultana casserole in Woman’s Own and I was going to surprise you with a treat. But I think I got the oven heat too high and I completely forgot about it when you walked in, and now it’s ruined. Everything’s all shrivelled up. I’m sorry.” She sighed and said, “Will beans on toast do?”

  He stood up, grabbed her and kissed her, then, gathering her securely in his arms, began slowly waltzing her around the tiny living room. “Do you remember Al Bowlly?”

  “The band leader?”

  “It just struck me that one of his songs really summed up your culinary efforts. Listen.” He sang,

  You may not be an angel, ’Cause angels are so few,

  But until the day that one comes along, I’ll string along with you.

  She laughed. Deep. Throaty. Then said, “Eeejit. You always make me laugh.”

  “And you,” he said, “always cheer me up. Seeing how you’re all dressed up, I’m taking you to the Anglesey Hotel. I’d not mind a pint with my dinner. Now, get your hat and coat.”

  29

  Count the Number

  “I’m sorry, sir, but the limit in Greyabbey’s thirty miles an hour and you was going like a bat out of hell, so you was. I was doing near sixty just for til catch you.” The sergeant, a man in the familiar bottle-gree
n uniform of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was rather tall around. “Can I see your driver’s licence, please?”

  O’Reilly tried wrestling his wallet out of his hip pocket but it wouldn’t come. “I’ll have to get out, officer,” he said through the open window. Hellfire and brimstone, O’Reilly thought as he hauled his own not-inconsiderable bulk out of the driver’s seat, onto the road, and tugged his wallet free. Here he was, on the fringe of Greyabbey, being stopped by not so much the long arm of the law as the rotundity of the high road regulations. “Here you are.” He proffered the maroon document.

  The sergeant read it and looked into O’Reilly’s face. “Doctor O’Reilly? Excuse me, sir, but would you be related to thon solicitor from Portaferry that grows orchids? It’s a common enough name in these parts, but you have the look of him, so you do. Portaferry’s part of my manor. I see him sometimes when I’m over there.”

  “He’s my older brother. He’s in charge of part of today’s bird count and I’m going to make him horribly late.”

  “The bird count. Aye, I know about that, sir.”

  “These things have to be done at the same time all over, and I’m afraid I was rushing to get there on time,” said O’Reilly. “He’s giving the briefing at Davy McMasters’s pub at Lisbane.”

  “Boys-a-boys,” the officer said, “small world.” He pushed his cap to the back of his head and frowned. “I owe Mister Lars a favour, so I do. He done a great job for me in a fight with my gobshite of a brother over our da’s will. So I tell you what,” he returned O’Reilly’s licence, “just you follow me, sir. We’ll need to slow down going through Kirkubbin, but…” He grinned and returned to his car.

  Lights flashing, siren brassily nee-nawing, the police car shot off like a rocket. O’Reilly followed, often clinging to the steering wheel as the big Rover became airborne from time to time before landing on its springs with juddering crashes.

  All the while Arthur, who must, when the car leaped, be experiencing zero gravity, kept up an excited litany of yips, wuffs, and yodels.