An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea (54 page)

“Call the switchboard. They'll page me.”

“If we do offer you the job, it'll be the usual three months' notice of termination by either side?”

“I was going to ask about that, but three months is fine, and I hope it won't be invoked by either side.”

“When could you start?”

“I know Jenny would like to get away as soon as possible, so Monday, January the second would be fine,” she said. “I'm seeing the new year in with Mum and Dad and my big brother and his wife at the family home in Rasharkin.”

No havering. Quick, clean decision. Good. “I'll phone you after lunch.”

“I appreciate that.”

“That's settled,” he said.

“There is one thing,” she said. “Charlie Whitfield knew I was coming down. He asked me to tell you that your patient Lorna Kearney was delivered on Friday. The baby had a bit of jaundice, but is doing well. You'll get a letter with all the details. They are expecting to discharge mother and baby on Thursday, so he asks could you make a home visit next Friday? Check up on it?”

O'Reilly didn't like the “it,” but understood that hospital specialists, even trainees, grew to be impersonal about their patients. “It'll be a pleasure,” he said. “She's Barry's patient so we'll probably drop in together.”

Nonie smiled. “Her husband visited her and the baby the next day. Brought Lorna flowers and the wee one a New Testament.”

“We're early readers in County Down,” O'Reilly said, and they both laughed.

The aroma of coffee and freshly baked orange cake preceded Kinky into the dining room. She set cups before the doctors, and the sliced cake.

“Kinky, Doctor Stevenson may be joining us,” O'Reilly said.

“And you'll be as welcome as spring flowers if you do, so,” Kinky said, beaming and pouring coffee. “And do you take milk or sugar?”

“Milk, please.”

Kinky handed over the cup. “It's hot, and please help yourself to a slice of cake. Now I must run.”

“You were right about Mrs. Auchinleck's baking, Fingal. Delicious.”

“I warned you,” he said. “Now enjoy it.” He snaffled a second piece of cake as the two lapsed into a comfortable silence and he tried to picture Doctor Nonie Stevenson around the Number One dining table.

Well trained? Yes. Sense of humour? Yes. Makes quick decisions? Yes. Approves of rose murals and Labrador dogs? Definitely yes. Hmmm. Doesn't like night call? Gets Bolshie when tired? Barry not overly enthusiastic? Not so good. They'd need to discuss her, but as O'Reilly contemplated another half piece of Kinky's orange sponge, the balance tipped in Nonie Stevenson's favour.

*   *   *

“So. What do you reckon, Barry?” O'Reilly asked from where he sat at the head of the dining table. Surgery was over. “I think she's well trained. Could be a bit thorny.”

“I did notice her ‘And I'll have questions of my own.'”

“Well, she's honest. Can we work with her? She'd been on call last night and she seemed fine.” O'Reilly had already decided he could.

Barry frowned. “I never saw it when we were students, but she had a bit of a reputation of being difficult to get along with, particularly when it came to swapping on-call nights, and you know how important that is for us if something personal comes up.”

“Why didn't you say so sooner?”

“Didn't want to give a dog a bad name before you'd had a chance to make your own impressions. And honestly, with four of us, even if she doesn't want to change a night, one of the other two will.”

O'Reilly frowned. “We have the three-month clause.” He pursed his lips. “Right,” he said. “Let's give her a try, shall we? She can start in January.”

“Okay by me,” Barry said, “and Jenny will be pleased. I'll miss her.”

“Me too.” O'Reilly rose. “I'll call Nonie right now.” He laughed. “And don't let my lunch get cold. I've to phone the switchboard at RMH and you know how long that can take.” He was still chuckling as he dialled the number.

*   *   *

“Thank you, Thompson. Please tell Cook we'll dine in half an hour.” Now that Thompson had served drinks, the marquis dismissed his valet/butler, a man who had been with O'Reilly on
Warspite
before taking service here. “Is everyone's drink all right?”

There was a chorus of assent from the other four people, Kitty, O'Reilly, Lars, and Myrna Ferguson, née MacNeill, the marquis's widowed sister, all sitting in high wing-backed armchairs around a log fire. One of his lordship's Irish setters lay in front of the grate. Above the mantel hung a portrait of a much younger Captain Lord John MacNeill, smart in his Irish Guards uniform, standing beside his late wife, Lady Laura. It was a decent portrait but it didn't capture the striking woman O'Reilly remembered meeting before a Boxing Day fox hunt just before the war. She'd been gracious and full of life and the marquis had been gutted when she died.

Two adjoining walls were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stuffed with shelf upon shelf of tomes. Each sat behind a moveable ladder with wheels on a rail above.

“Those are dangerous-looking spears,” Kitty said, inclining her head to a display hung on another wall.

“The spears are called assegais and those clubs beside them knobkerries. In African tribal warfare, the assegais were probably the equivalent of the longbow at Crecy and Agincourt. They and that zebra hide shield have hung above that desk,” the marquis said, “since great-grandFather fought in the Zulu war of 1879 at Ishandlwana. He brought the weapons back as souvenirs. Regrettably he neglected to bring back his right hand.”

Kitty shuddered visibly. “Bloodthirsty lot, the Zulus,” she said.

“Can hardly blame them,” Lars said. “Victoria's empire was pinching their lands.”

“A bit like bloody Harold Wilson's Labour Government is trying to pinch ours,” Myrna said.

“And that's why I'm so grateful to you, Lars, for coming here to advise us,” the marquis said. “I do hope you will be able to sort things out.”

“I'll do my very best, my lord,” Lars said.

“Please, it's John,” the marquis said. “We don't stand on ceremony here. Isn't that right, Fingal?”

“It is indeed,” O'Reilly said, marvelling as always at the peer's innate ability to put folks at their ease.

“And,” the marquis said, indicating neat piles of files and ledgers on his desk, “my sister's been getting things ready for you.”

“I have,” Myrna said, pointing to the desktop. “Books, accounts. Mister Simon O'Hally, the family solicitor, will be joining us tomorrow afternoon, Mister O'Reilly.”

Lars used an index finger to stroke one side of his slim moustache. “Please,” he said, “it's Lars, and may I—”

“Good gracious, yes. Myrna, please.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Good,” she said, and favoured him with the kind of smile O'Reilly had last seen on her face the day she'd taken a right and left of woodcock.

Lars seemed to be on the verge of blushing. O'Reilly's big brother had never been comfortable with women, not since he'd been jilted by a judge's daughter on a Christmas Eve back in Dublin.

“And I must say I'm fully confident,” she said, “you will succeed in sorting things out for John and help us hang on to the grouse moor and the shooting on the estate.”

“Myrna's a crack shot,” O'Reilly said. “Lars used to shoot, but he's with the RSPB now. Does a lot of conservation.”

“I don't have much time for that,” Myrna said, “at least not for the idiotic folk that get all bitter and twisted about us shooting preserved game birds. The stocks are never allowed to dwindle. The species aren't at risk. The same people don't flinch from eating a steak. Do you know there's even talk about a movement to ban fox hunting? It'll be our shooting and fishing next, mark my words.”

“I believe,” Kitty said gently, “you've had a couple of tragedies in the field.”

“Well, yes, I have,” Myrna said. “Lost my husband of twenty years in a hunting accident seven years ago. Bust my own femur jumping last year.”

“I'm very sorry to hear that, Myrna,” Lars said.

She shrugged. “Thank you. I'm over it all now, and life must go on. Foxes must be controlled. The Celts were hunting them before the Romans arrived in Britain. And the MacNeills have supported the hunt since before the United Irishmen rose in 1798.” She made a guttural noise in her throat and shook her head several times. “There's too many bally self-important busybodies around these days trying to tell other folks what to do.”

She paused but was warming to her thesis when Lars spoke. He frowned and stiffened his shoulders. While he could be quite loquacious with those close to him, he tended to be shy with strangers. “I don't mean to contradict you, Mrs. Ferguson”—the return to formality was not lost on Fingal—“but many species do need our help.” He was emphatic in stressing the “do.”

“Until the war, the wild pale-bellied brent geese population on Strangford was being decimated, almost driven to extinction. They represent the only members of the species on the planet. Our efforts are bringing them back. The nene, the Hawaiian goose, was only saved by the efforts of Peter Scott, Scott of the Antarctic's son, and his people at Slimbridge. I'm sorry, but conservation is needed.”

Myrna said, “I can perhaps agree there, but keep your hands off our grouse and pheasants, I—”

Thompson appeared, coughed discreetly, and said, “Dinner will be served in ten minutes, my lord.”

“Thank you. Everyone drink up,” the marquis said, “and we'll head through to the dining room.”

Kitty glanced at O'Reilly and he noticed a nearly imperceptible shake of her head. He'd been a fool to mention Lars's conservation work. He'd forgotten how outspoken Myrna could be. “Tell me, Myrna,” Kitty said, “how are things at Queen's these days?”

Good lass, Fingal thought.

Not giving her a chance to answer, Kitty went on, “Myrna is actually Doctor Ferguson, Lars. She has a D.Sc. in physical chemistry and is a reader, one step down from a professor, at Queens.”

“I'm impressed,” said Lars. “Do you know Professor Henbest?”

“He's organic chemistry,” she said, “so only slightly.” She hesitated. “And,” Myrna said with an impish grin, “such a learnèd woman should have better manners than to get up on her high horse with a guest on a matter which might well be of great interest to her but is trivial in the great scheme of things. Lars, I apologise; indeed I apologise to the company.”

Lars did blush now and stumbled over saying, “Doctor Ferg—Myrna—I—there is absolutely no apology necessary. None at all. You are perfectly entitled to your beliefs, and to express them.”

“Thank you,” she said. “And I think if you can argue your case so clearly when it comes to John's estate taxes, we are going to be in very good hands.”

“I agree, Myrna,” said the marquis, “but he's going to start that tomorrow. Dinner first. Let's go along, shall we? I think Cook has a treat for us.” He rose.

O'Reilly's stomach rumbled as he rose, offered Kitty his arm, and followed.

From behind he heard Myrna. “Now. Fingal has told me that you are an authority on orchids, Lars. You must tell me all about them.”

 

44

Come Not Between the Dragon and His Wrath

Eight a.m. March 28 1941 At sea, somewhere near Crete. The cruiser HMS
Orion
has reported contact with the Italian fleet to the north.

Fingal put down his pen and sat back in his chair. This tiny cabin on the main deck was now a familiar place again, and keeping a record of the war was once again a routine. He knew there was every prospect of a naval battle today, and it would be a battle between two full fleets, with their flagships—Cunningham's
Warspite
and Admiral Iachino's
Vittorio Veneto—
fully engaged. Fingal hoped he would be able to master the anticipatory fear he now was feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. He'd lived through battles before; he would again. He looked at the picture of Deirdre by his bed, glad she was far away and had no idea what might be about to happen.

The first moves had been made yesterday when intelligence reported an Italian fleet at sea commanded by Iachino on the brand-new, thirty-knot battleship.

Admiral A. B. Cunningham, A.B.C. to his men, had gone ashore in Alex, ostensibly to play golf and stay overnight, a fact that would be duly noted by the Japanese consul. Since the signing of the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan last September, it had become an open secret that the man provided intelligence about ship movements to his country's European allies. Based on his report, the Italians would assume the British ships would be staying in harbour, because Cunningham always accompanied
Warspite
when she sailed.

But Cunningham, true to his name, had slipped back on board after dark, and the battleship had led the fleet from Alexandria last night, March 27th, in the late hours. The plan was a good one, but on her way out the great ship had sucked mud into her condensers. Fleet Engineer Officer Captain B. J. H. Wilkinson and his engine room artificers and stokers had worked frantically four decks below where Fingal sat to make the repairs. But all last night and until noon today, she still could manage only twenty knots. The two other battleships, HMS
Valiant
and HMS
Barham,
and the aircraft carrier HMS
Formidable,
and their escorting vessels all had to conform to
Warspite
's slower pace. Yet speed was of the essence if an interception with the Italians was to be made.

Today, March 28th, four six-inch gun cruisers—three British and one Australian—commanded by Admiral Pridham-Wippell, along with their destroyers, had sailed from Greek waters and were south of Crete near the island of Gavdos. Here they had sighted the Italian vanguard to the north.