“Good diagnosis,” Richard said, and Fingal could see the dark blood flowing from the burrhole. That patient now had an excellent chance of recovery.
Barker took the bucket with the shattered leg to a corner and deposited the contents in a large galvanised tub. Fingal bundled up his instruments in a towel and took them to a sink where he started to wash them. He was barely aware of the bustle around him, of tables being cleaned, stretchers coming and going.
“I’ll finish off and pop them in the sterilizer,” Barker said. “Your next one is arriving. He’s been shot in the guts.”
Bullet wounds to the bowel were not like a case of straightforward appendicitis. Fingal was trembling as he approached the table where a fair-haired young man was being strapped down. A plasma bottle suspended above his head was dripping into an arm vein and a narrow rubber tube for sucking out stomach contents disappeared up one nostril.
“Mutti. Mutti. Fur Die liebe Gottes. Mutti.” He was moaning and trying to twist free from his bonds.
A German prisoner of war calling for his mother, for the love of God. It brought a prickling to Fingal’s eyes. The wounded man couldn’t have been more than twenty. He was a frightened child, but his mummy couldn’t kiss a perforated bowel better. It wasn’t clear that Surgeon Lieutenant O’Reilly could make it heal either.
“Bitte, wasser. Wasser zu trinken. Bitte.”
A drink of water was the worst thing to give such a patient.
“Come on, Fritz,” the SBA said, putting the mask in place. “Couple of deep breaths like a good Kraut.” He dropped ether on the gauze and said to Fingal, “I don’t think much of the master race. ’Cepting they talk funny, they’re not much different from us, are they, sir?”
Fingal nodded and thought, “If you prick us do we not bleed?” The pity was that none of this carnage should have been necessary in a so-called civilised world. God damn Adolf Hitler and his megalomaniacal crew, the Goerings, the von Ribbentrops, the Goebbels, and the rest.
Fingal went to scrub and met Richard, who had finished his first case. “What have you got, Fingal?”
“Man with a bullet in the bowels.”
“Can be a bit tricky. Call me if you’re worried and I’ll look over your shoulder and talk you through it, but remember it’s quite easy really…”
Easy for you to say, but thanks for the offer of help, Fingal thought.
“Fish out the small bowel, run it through your fingers like you would a bicycle inner tube looking for punctures. Any you find, sew shut in two layers. Large bowel. Same thing. I don’t think you need worry about damage to the great vessels. If they’d been torn, he’d not have made it here. But if anything else like a kidney or the spleen’s been hit, there’ll be a fair bit of blood so you’ll have to search for the source, fix it or take it out…”
Fingal shuddered. He’d be asking Richard for help if such were the case.
“When you’ve got everything repaired or removed, wash out the belly cavity with saline, dump some sulpha in. If you find the bullet take it out, but if not just leave it. Once he’s got over this operation and we’ve got him to facilities where they have time to do X-rays and the like it can be removed then…”
Another reminder of how everything under battle conditions had to be done in a rush, Fingal thought.
“Then bring a loop of bowel at a level closer to the stomach than the highest perforation out through the abdominal wound and shove a glass rod between the loop and the belly wall. Sew up the bullet wound and your incision. Incise the loop so the contents can leak into a bag. That’ll rest the gut and give the inner gut wounds a chance to heal until he’s better.”
We hope, Fingal thought.
Richard shook water off his hands and said, “Good luck. Yell if you’re stuck.”
“Thank you, Richard.” I’ll need all the luck I can get, Fingal thought, and stared at the PMO’s departing shoulders. That’s where the man carries the medical woes of the whole damn fleet. Thank God he’s here.
Fingal did have good luck. By the end of the arduous procedure, the young German had been patched up satisfactorily and the bullet removed.
And so it went case after case; bodies on and off the table, groaning men being anaesthetised, yelling men awakening. The Germans weren’t the only ones begging for their mummies. Blood had flowed in rivers—thank the Lord for plasma. He must have stitched enough to have, under different circumstances, woven a Persian rug, and used enough dressing to stuff a mattress.
Fingal knuckled his eyes. It was as if the entire sandy beach at Ballyholme had crept under his eyelids. He put a hand in the small of his back, which was knotted from bending and felt like all the eight forwards of the Welsh rugby team had trampled on it. “Wake him up and bring the next one.” He’d finished another amputation, this time of a foot only. It was an abhorrent procedure, he thought, turning a healthy young man into a cripple, but it was better than letting him die. At least Fingal was becoming more skilled in removing limbs.
* * *
“Begging your pardon, sir, but Commander Wilcoxson says we’ve dealt with the most urgent cases. It’s ten to three in the morning,” Barker said.
“Is it, by God?”
“Yes, sir, and the boss’s sent for sandwiches and hot cocoa. We’ve all to take a breather. And don’t worry about these instruments. I’ll see to them.”
“Thank you, Barker.” Fingal stripped off his gloves and gown and went to sit at his desk. His war diary lay where he’d left it after making his last entry about coming into Westfjord at noon. Not now, he thought, but later, later he’d try to record his feelings for what he’d been doing for—he did a quick calculation—the last nine hours. Pity, revulsion, anger were there, and so was pride. An enormous pride in the medical branch of HMS Warspite and their complete dedication. And what about Fingal O’Reilly, who had always tried to think of his patients as individual human beings, not bullet wounds or amputations? Was he becoming hardened? Inured? He shook his head. He didn’t know, and while he’d never burden her with all his worries, at that moment Fingal wished Deirdre were here so he could tell her about his fear, and be comforted. He’d write it all down later so when next they were together, he’d be able to remember, at least tell her some of it. She was a nurse. She’d understand.
Someone knocked on the door and Fingal saw a mess steward appear and hand Barker a steaming tray. “Here you are, mate, K-eye and dorks.”
Which translated meant cocoa and sandwiches.
“Ta very much,” Barker said. As he neared Richard, the SBA paused while the PMO tipped something from a bottle into each mug.
Barker offered the tray to Fingal, who gratefully accepted the first grub he’d had since noon yesterday. Tonight the tinned Uruguayan salted beef would taste very good, and the cocoa? He sipped and looked up to see Richard Wilcoxson, smiling with his mouth and eyes, their crinkling for a moment smoothing the deep bags beneath.
“Ah,” said Richard, “I keep a little something for moments like this. The malt whisky will give us all a boost, because we’re not done by a long chalk.” He plumped down on a chair beside Fingal. “Once we’re finished, we’ll go and take a look at our recent handiwork and what else needs to be sorted out.”
And it will be, Fingal thought, until the last man-jack is seen to or Richard and I drop in our tracks. Or at least until I drop in mine. Richard Wilcoxson, twice my age, seems to be an indestructible man of steel like that new American comic book hero, Superman.
* * *
After they’d left the medical distribution centre, Fingal and Richard had to climb up one deck to get to the mess decks, which were serving as temporary sick bays for the two hundred casualties aboard. They’d gone only halfway when the turbines roared into life and the great ship was once again steaming ahead, presumably out to sea. Fingal glanced at his watch: three A.M. Three hours into the new day, April 14, 1940.
“I reckon,” Richard said, “that the admiral’s worried about air attack
or U-boats in the fjord. I’ll bet we’re bound for the Norwegian Sea.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Fingal said as he stepped over a coaming and through the hatch leading to the seamen’s mess. He stopped in his tracks. Rows of hammocks all swinging in unison were slung overhead above ranks of mess tables. In the hammocks off-watch sailors snored, mumbled in their sleep, and farted.
Amidships, the trunking of A and B turrets ran from sole to deckhead. At the for’ard end on both sides of the A cylinder, men sat at mess tables tucking into the same sort of meal that Fingal had just finished. Farther aft and closer to where he stood, the sole and the tabletops had been pressed into service as beds, where the wounded lay, the healthy crew members stepping round and over the victims.
“The sooner we can get back into our proper sick bay, the happier I’ll be,” said Richard. “At least get the worst cases into proper cots.” He looked round. “Right,” he said, “the pre-op cases still waiting are to port with our SBA. I’ll go and have a word with him. See what’s yet in store.” He yawned mightily. “Then I’ll phone up to the bridge, find out what’s going on.” He stifled another yawn and that set Fingal off.
“The post-ops are to starboard. Take a quick shufti at them. See they’re as all right as can be expected.”
“Right,” Fingal said, and began his work. The nearest case, lying under a blanket on a mess table, was the young German with the perforated bowel. Fingal quickly checked the man’s pulse and breathing, then made sure the plasma was running freely. Lifted the blanket. The dressing was clean and there was no blood staining. He consulted a chart where the SBA had recorded the same signs and the blood pressure. The patient seemed to be holding his own.
The young man opened two blue eyes and stared at Fingal through morphine-constricted pupils. “Danke schön, Herr Doktor. Danke.”
“Bitte. Denken sich nichts dabei,” Fingal said. “Thank you” and “think nothing of it” were the only German he knew, and he smiled at the notion that in this circumstance, it was all he needed to know. It was all that was important. Between now and the young man’s leaving the ship, Fingal vowed to find out his name. He moved on to the above-knee amputee.
Finally Fingal had finished his rounds. Apparently so had Richard, because he was walking toward Fingal.
“Everything under control?” Richard asked when they met.
“So far they’re all doing reasonably well,” Fingal said.
“Good,” said Richard, “but I’m afraid there are going to be three burials at sea in the morning, and we’re not going to get much rest I’d reckon until at least noon, another nine hours or so. How are you bearing up?”
“I’m fine, Richard. And much the better for knowing that the post-ops are all doing well.”
“Good man. Now, come on. Back to the salt mines.”
Together they walked along the passages and down the companionway.
“On a brighter note,” Richard said, “we’re going to get more of a respite. I spoke with Captain Crutchley. While the War Office and the Admiralty work out what to do about the German occupation of Norway in general and those still in Narvik in particular, Warspite will remain on patrol out here. And as soon as possible we’ll rendezvous with the hospital ship Franconia and transfer the walking wounded. Then, in another twelve days, we’ll offload the cot cases to HMS Isle of Jersey.”
He opened the door to the temporary operating theatre, where Fingal immediately saw that both tables had patients on them and that the SBAs were at their posts.
“Time to scrub again,” Richard said. “No rest for the wicked.” He looked Fingal straight in the eye. “I’m proud of you, Fingal. You’ve probably been feeling pretty terrified for most of the night, but you haven’t shown it. You’ve kept your nerve and you’ve been doing a bloody fine job.”
Fingal blushed. “Thank you, sir.”
“But look here, it’s just not right expecting someone, anyone, only half trained, to do what you did tonight. And one day you’re going to have to start giving anaesthetics for more complicated cases too. So, that training course?”
Fingal stopped scrubbing his nails, hardly daring to hope.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you before this Narvik campaign, but I had a letter in Greenock. We’ve got a place for you on a course at Haslar Hospital, starting in the autumn.”
“That’s wonderful, Richard. Thank you.” Fingal, tired as he was, felt as if all his birthdays had come on the same day.
“Might be a bit tricky getting you there, though.” Richard shook the surplus water from his hands. “The scuttlebutt is that Warspite’s going back to the Med soon.”
“I see,” Fingal said, feeling his heart sink. He too turned from the wash basin. “I’ll just have to be patient,” he said, “and speaking of patients, right now there’s more work to be done.”
22
Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware)
“Thanks for coming over on a Saturday, Kinky,” Kitty said as O’Reilly ushered the Corkwoman into the upstairs lounge. “It’s much appreciated.” Kitty patted the armchair beside the one in which she was sitting. “Now, have a seat, Mrs. Auchinleck, and tell me all your news.”
“Thank you, Kitty, dear,” Kinky said as she settled herself comfortably in the upstairs lounge. “And I’ll say again, it’s no bother at all. Sure isn’t Archie taking Rory to the British Legion for a pint or two and a few games of darts and snooker tonight?” She hesitated before saying, “At least Archie will have a pint, bless him, but poor old Rory.” She sighed. “Lemonade for him.”
“We can’t blame the fever doctors for telling Rory he’d have to stay off the grog for a year. That kala-azar has affected his liver,” Kitty said.
Kinky nodded, but managed a smile. “At least he’s completely cured, and he passed his medical board this week so he can stay on in the army. We’re all tickled pink for him, so.”
“So are we,” O’Reilly said, thinking how natural it seemed to include Kitty in his reply. He loved the “we-ness” of it.
“I’ll leave you two to have a blether,” O’Reilly said. “I’ve got a f—” He bit back the adjective that came to mind. “—a form to finish filling in. I’ll join you later.” He only had until Monday to get the blasted thing to the ministry and because he’d let procrastination be the thief of time, it would have to be completed today or tomorrow. He started to leave, but hesitated when he heard Kitty ask, “Is that a new book you have there, Kinky?” New books always intrigued him.
“It’s for me to read when you all go out.” Her eyes twinkled and her dimples appeared when she said, “It’s by an American woman, Jacqueline Susann. It’s called Valley of the Dolls—and it does be a bit racy, so.”
O’Reilly’s head jerked back when she winked at him. Kinky reading racy books? Yet why the hell not? He recovered his composure and said, “I hear it’s selling like hotcakes.”
“Oh, it’s a real corker, all right,” Kinky said with a laugh. “The mess some people make of their lives is not to be believed. You know,” she said conspiratorially, “it’s said it’s based on the writer’s own experiences in Hollywood.”
“Must make life in Ballybucklebo look a little dull,” said O’Reilly.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, sir.”
“I hear you, Kinky. Nor me neither. Now excuse me, ladies. Won’t be long.” He trotted downstairs. Jenny had said she’d be happy to take call once in a while, particularly on weekends, but this Saturday she had an unbreakable family commitment and so it had fallen to him.
O’Reilly didn’t mind. After all those years of single-handed practice, only having to be on call every third weekend was pure luxury, but he had wanted to take Kitty, Barry, and Sue to the Culloden for dinner this evening. The young fellah was out sailing with the light of his life this afternoon. And there was no reason why they all still couldn’t enjoy dinner, but of course the perennial problem would then arise. He glanced at the phone as he passed it on his w
ay to the surgery where the unspeakable form lurked on his desk. With no one in the house who would take urgent calls?
Good old Kinky, he thought, you could always count on her. Who else?
The form lay right where he had left it. Muttering imprecations he sat down at his desk. Where was I?
O’Reilly chewed the end of a Bic ballpoint and stared at the June 1966 version of a form that as principal of the practice he had to complete on a bimonthly basis to satisfy some faceless bureaucrat in the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “Roasting over a slow fire and being basted with boiling lead while his toenails are pulled out one at a time would be too good for whoever designed this blasted instrument of the devil,” O’Reilly said aloud, and wondered, not for the first time, if there was any way he could delegate the work to Barry, who should be getting here soon.
“Hellfire, brimstone, and damnation,” he growled. “I did not spend five years at medical school and thirty years building up a successful practice to become a glorified clerk in a counting house.” He read the instructions aloud, “‘Take the total in column A and add to the subtotal in column C which is derived from the lesser of the two figures on lines B12 and E14 overleaf unless E14 has been deleted from this form.’” Balderdash. It’s like one of those games: “Think of a number, divide it by three, add the first digit from the day after your birthday, and subtract nine, and that’s your weight in stones to the nearest stone.” Damn it all. Why not just ask me in plain English?
He felt a dull ache starting behind his eyes and yet his irritation with the form in question had reminded him of a moment of naval administration and the memory brought a smile. Once a document he’d signed had been returned with the instructions, “This document was not for your eyes. You should not have signed it. Kindly ink out your signature—and initial your inking.”