An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea (36 page)

Barry fished an aerogram out of his dressing gown pocket. The pregummed piece of lightweight, eggshell blue paper allowed the sender to write then fold the thing up to become its own envelope, thus saving weight. The idea, introduced in the '30s by the Iraqi postal service, had been developed by the British army into the first aerograms or “blueys” in 1941.

“Listen to this,” Barry said, his voice taking on a tinge of resentment. “‘Even though it was late October, the sea was flat calm and azure when we went out in an open tourist boat to the Chateau d'If. It's an amazing building, Barry. I can just imagine Dumas's Edmond Dantès tunnelling out of his cell. I'd love to take you here someday and then go to one of the cafés on the Canebière, the High Street of le Vieux Port, the old part of town.'”

“Sounds like she's having fun to me,” O'Reilly said.

“Yeah, well, perhaps a little too much fun,” Barry said, but whatever else he was going to say was interrupted by the kettle's piercing whistle. He rose, grabbed it, poured boiling water into a teapot, and replaced the kettle on the range top away from the heat.

“Then I got to this bit.” He read: “‘I really do want to make the most of my stay here. It's my first trip abroad and there's so much to see. The sixteenth-century fort Saint-Jean was well worth the visit. I wished I had a car because I'd love to go to Aix en Provence. I've missed the outdoor summer music festival, but there are at least five museums there and you know I'm potty about archaeology and old things. I'm told I must see Les Calanques. They're a bit east of the city, a set of mini-fjords, supposed to be very scenic. There's some palaeolithic cave art in an underwater cave in one called Morgiou and there are great spots for lunch in a place called Cassis, it means blackcurrant, and farther east in La Ciotat.'” He inhaled deeply and started to make his tea. O'Reilly would have liked a cup, but it seemed Barry was not offering. And he was scowling again.

“It certainly doesn't surprise me, Barry. Your Sue is not a girl to let the grass grow under her feet. She'd grab every opportunity to expand her horizons. Travel broadens the mind, I'm told.”

“Expand her horizons. That's one way to put it, I suppose.” Barry brought his teacup to the table, sat, ignored the tea, and laid his forearms on the tabletop. “Sorry, Fingal, would you like a cup?”

O'Reilly shook his head and hid a smile behind his hand.

“Just listen to this. ‘Then the answer to a maiden's prayer appeared in the shape of,'” Barry stopped and inhaled through his nose, “‘Jean-Claude Hamou. He's another teacher. I met him on the Chateau d'If trip. He has a Citröen
deux chevaux
…'”

“Two horsepower. France's answer to your German Volkswagen Beetle.”

“Thank you, Fingal. I'm familiar with the vehicle.” Barry had said it politely enough but when O'Reilly studied his young friend as he bent once more to the letter, O'Reilly could see the concern and frustration in the man's eyes.

“‘And he's going to take me to Les Calanques next Saturday.' That's today.” Barry's sigh was deeper than the earlier one and the fire had gone out of his voice. “‘Jean-Claude's an interesting man. A year older than me. Funny as all get out, happy to correct my French—which is improving—and very political. Very'—and that's underlined—‘socialiste.'” Barry looked up and straight into O'Reilly's eyes. “I know it's unreasonable. I know I should trust Sue implicitly, Fingal, but damn it all, I can't stop worrying. A funny young Frenchman, shared politics, exotic surroundings, bottle of wine with lunch, and
voilà
.”

O'Reilly immediately recalled his own temptation back in 1940. Alexandrine cooking, smells of the Orient, wine taken, an attractive young woman. He cleared his throat and sought for words of comfort. “I—” He frowned, wrestling with how to phrase them. “I'm sure it's all perfectly innocent and aboveboard.” At least I hope to hell it is, he thought. Barry took an awful tousling when Patricia Spence went off to Cambridge, found another man, and came back to tell Barry their romance was finished. He'd hurt main sore. O'Reilly decided to confront that probable fear of Barry's head on. “Thinking of Patricia?”

Barry nodded. “There'd be something bloody well wrong with me if I wasn't.” He pursed his lips, blew out his breath. “It couldn't happen again,” yet his voice lacked confidence, “could it?”

“I'd be extremely surprised,” O'Reilly said. “Extremely. Your Sue Nolan's a fine lass. Fine.”

“Yes, she is fine, Fingal. She's pretty and outgoing and intelligent. And I'm sure this fellow—Jean-Claude Hamou—is aware of those
fine
qualities.”

O'Reilly leaned across the table and put a hand on Barry's arm. “Sue Nolan is no starry-eyed teenager, Barry. She's a mature woman who happens to be engaged to a very sound man of my acquaintance. And she knows all about
his
fine qualities.”

“Thanks, Fingal,” Barry said, and took the first sip of his tea. “Thanks. I need to hear that. Any suggestions about what I should do?”

“Aye.
Pro tempore,
for the time being, I'd let the hare sit. Don't comment on him when you write back, but be enthusiastic about her sightseeing, her improving French. Don't sound jealous. No leading questions. And you told me she's coming home for Christmas. It'll be here in seven weeks. Try to bide patiently, talk to me or Kitty if you're fretting, and when at last you see Sue when she gets off the plane at Aldergrove, you'll know it's all right.”

Barry's smile started slowly.

O'Reilly said, “And if you weren't already going to lose a pound to me when Donal sells his pups, I'd happily wager another fiver on this: that the minute you see her you'll know you've been worried for nothing.”

Barry's smile widened.

“But I'm so sure of it, it would be daylight robbery taking another five pound from you, son, so I'm making no bets.”

Barry laughed out loud and offered a hand, which O'Reilly shook. “Thank you for listening, giving me lots to hope for. I'm pretty sure you're right, that if we'd bet I would have lost a fiver. Sue is a remarkable woman.”

“She is that. And I know she loves you,” O'Reilly said. “Soooooo, instead of taking your fiver, I'll meet you in the Duck at five thirty and let you buy me and Arthur a pint.” He rose and said, “Now I'd better get my skates on, collect Arthur, and take the shortcut over the Ballybucklebo Hills. These bird count things have to be carried out at the same time all over the lough and I don't want to mess things up for Lars. He's on the organizing committee.”

“And his brother is none other than Reverend Father Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly,” Barry said. “I don't remember who said ‘confession is good for the soul'—”

“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.