An Empty Death (24 page)
Authors: Laura Wilson
‘Of course,’ said Sister Radford. ‘But,’ she took down the chart that was hanging on the wall, ‘before I do, you’d better write up the patient.’
‘Heavens!’ Dacre produced his pen again. ‘I’d quite forgotten. Just give me a couple of minutes.’
Sister Radford looked slightly puzzled, and remained where she was.
‘I shan’t be long,’ said Dacre, firmly, praying that she’d leave. This was the moment he’d been most worried about. He’d taken every chance he could to study patients’ charts, but the problem was that most doctors’ handwriting was illegible, and half of what they put was in Latin. He wanted to look at the other charts hanging on the cubicle wall for inspiration, but he could hardly do that with her watching.
‘But—’ began the sister, and then - bang on cue, thank God - a nurse stuck her head round the screen. ‘Please, Sister, Dr Ransome says can you come? There’s a—’
Dacre lost the rest of it as Sister Radford, with a final, quizzical glance at him, hurried off with the nurse. He took a deep breath and leant forward to consult the completed charts. It looked like gibberish to him, with plus signs sprinkled here and there, a few numerals and what appeared to be fractions. The signature at the bottom looked as if it might possibly be ‘Ransome’, but if he hadn’t heard the name mentioned, he wouldn’t even have been able to guess at it. What the hell, he thought. He’d come this far, hadn’t he? Nearly all doctors had unreadable writing, and he would be no exception. He scribbled a couple of lines across the chart, added two plus signs (if that rash didn’t merit a plus, he couldn’t imagine what would), then signed his name, indecipherably, at the bottom. Hanging the chart back on the wall, he decided it looked quite as genuine as its fellows - and surely Sister Radford wouldn’t have any reason to refer to it? After all, Miss Kendall had been discharged.
He peered out of the cubicle and saw that Sister Radford was on her way back to him, pausing to issue instructions to various nurses en route. He went across to meet her. ‘All done,’ he said. ‘Do remember, Sister’ - cheeky smile - ‘I’m the new boy here, so I’m throwing myself on your mercy.’
‘Oh, Dr Dacre!’ Sister Radford looked very taken with this notion. ‘You’ll find it all quite simple really, you know.’
‘Well, you mustn’t be surprised if I ask lots of questions. I’ve always found that it’s never a good idea to make assumptions about anything.’
He’d spent most of the afternoon being shown around by Sister Radford, and had succeeded, by four o’clock, when they shared a pot of tea, in reducing her to a giggly state of adoration. She had introduced him to the head matron and to the elderly Dr Ransome, head of the Casualty Department, a fat little man who blinked owlishly behind thick-rimmed spectacles and was clearly delighted to see him. After this, he’d gone back upstairs and spent the remains of the day closeted first with Professor Haycraft’s secretary, Miss Potter (who, with doe eyes and an apologetic manner, had nothing of the termagant about her) and then in the Administrative Department, where his appointment was made official.
After a final handshake from the professor, he’d gone home to ready himself for his first day’s work. That evening, alone in his room with a single, celebratory bottle of beer, he’d decided on a system.
He’d try, as far as possible, to ensure that any patients whose symptoms seemed complicated would be seen by Dr Ransome. Anyone who looked as if they needed to be admitted could - provided he made a tentative stab at diagnosis - be taken care of in the wards and, if in doubt, he’d get a second opinion from Dr Ransome. As the junior doctor, he could not be expected to have seen everything, and besides, the older man would be flattered by such deference. The most important thing with patients, he thought, was to be confident. Indecision, which Dr Ransome would - if correctly presented - take as thoughtfulness and conscientiousness coupled with a slight lack of confidence, would be interpreted by a layman as weakness, so it must not be allowed to show. The fact that a doctor paid attention and cared, he’d decided, was more important than the actual cure. A little more practice with the old stethoscope, and he’d be laughing.
Lastly, he’d decided to establish the private hidey-hole where he could consult his crib and, if need be, compose himself. This was what he was doing now, having just successfully diagnosed a case of appendicitis. He leafed through the dictionary in search of the term ‘testicular torsion’. Dr Ransome, before being called away to another emergency, had directed his attention to a patient he thought might be suffering from it, but, beyond thinking that it sounded horrible, he had absolutely no idea what it was. The sight of the poor man writhing on the bed, his face glistening with sweat and twisted in agony, had sent him fleeing for his textbook, according to which he could expect to see swelling, and pain so bad it could send you dizzy and make you spew . . .
He wasn’t much looking forward to inspecting the bloke’s balls, but he felt it could be managed. After all, such extremes aside, the people he saw were starting to resemble not human beings, but anatomical sets. He was learning more every day, and studying at night. Quite a lot of medicine, he had discovered, was as much a matter of common sense as of specialist knowledge. Sister Radford worshipped him, he’d noticed adoring looks cast in his direction by several of the nurses, the patients trusted him to look after them, and now, some of the things he was writing on the charts were actually making sense. He’d have a quick smoke - Wemyss had introduced him to a local tobacconist who favoured doctors above all other customers, so he was well supplied - then return to the fray. All in all, he thought, the securing of Fay aside, things were shaping up very nicely: he was valued, respected, and growing more competent by the day.
Twenty-Seven
T
he following day, Dacre dawdled his way towards the Men’s Surgical Ward, where he’d been summoned by one of the house surgeons. He was sweating in anticipation, afraid that there was something he’d failed to spot, or a vital procedure left undone . . . But, he told himself firmly, medicos always stuck together, didn’t they? After all, Dr Reynolds’s blunders had been covered up, and surely, being so busy, anyone could make a mistake, couldn’t they? He racked his brains, trying to remember all the patients he’d seen in the last forty-eight hours. Reduced, as they now were, to the relevant portions of their anatomy, he could not recall any of their faces. He took a deep breath and pushed open the door of the ward. Nurses moved briskly amongst beds into which men of various ages were tightly tucked. The exception to this was a young man who had a basket to take the weight of the sheets and blankets off his lower half, and it was beside this bed that the house surgeon, Mr Hambling, was waiting. With a sinking heart, Dacre recognised the patient as Doherty, the suspected testicular torsion. The memory of the swollen scarlet scrotum that seemed almost to pulsate in front of his eyes made him feel sick. He directed a queasy smile at Mr Hambling, but it wasn’t returned. ‘Dr Dacre?’
he following day, Dacre dawdled his way towards the Men’s Surgical Ward, where he’d been summoned by one of the house surgeons. He was sweating in anticipation, afraid that there was something he’d failed to spot, or a vital procedure left undone . . . But, he told himself firmly, medicos always stuck together, didn’t they? After all, Dr Reynolds’s blunders had been covered up, and surely, being so busy, anyone could make a mistake, couldn’t they? He racked his brains, trying to remember all the patients he’d seen in the last forty-eight hours. Reduced, as they now were, to the relevant portions of their anatomy, he could not recall any of their faces. He took a deep breath and pushed open the door of the ward. Nurses moved briskly amongst beds into which men of various ages were tightly tucked. The exception to this was a young man who had a basket to take the weight of the sheets and blankets off his lower half, and it was beside this bed that the house surgeon, Mr Hambling, was waiting. With a sinking heart, Dacre recognised the patient as Doherty, the suspected testicular torsion. The memory of the swollen scarlet scrotum that seemed almost to pulsate in front of his eyes made him feel sick. He directed a queasy smile at Mr Hambling, but it wasn’t returned. ‘Dr Dacre?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come with me.’
Dacre followed him outside.
‘I’ve just performed an orchidectomy on that man.’
Dacre’s mind raced. Orchid—Oh, Christ. That meant he’d chopped Doherty’s balls off. ‘What . . . ?’
‘You should have told us it was an emergency.’
‘But I thought - I mean - these cases are always emergencies, aren’t they?’
‘I know that,’ snapped Hambling, ‘but you are supposed to let us know, so that we can prepare.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dacre, humbly. ‘He was Dr Ransome’s patient originally, but he was called away, and . . . well, to be honest I wasn’t sure, initially, if it wasn’t simply an infection. But I thought I ought to send him up and not wait for Dr Ransome, just in case.’
‘What were the symptoms?’
‘Pain, swelling, vomiting, fever . . .’
‘I see. Well, the testicle was quite dead. I had to remove it.’
Feeling faint, Dacre leant against the wall of the corridor. At least, he thought, the bloke had only lost one.
‘Gangrene, man,’ said Hambling, impatiently, taking Dacre’s expression to be one of incomprehension.
‘Yes,’ said Dacre, feeling as if he might throw up at any moment. ‘Of course.’
‘I tied the other one to the scrotal wall, so there won’t be any repetition.’
Dacre’s head was swimming. Feeling actual pain between his legs, he closed his eyes. To his surprise, he felt Hambling’s hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s all right, old chap,’ he said, in a softer voice. ‘Not seen one of those before, eh?’
Dacre shook his head.
‘Bit of a shock, I expect.’ Hambling chuckled. ‘The old wedding tackle . . . Not very pleasant. And quite unusual in a man of his age - it’s normally boys. Still, no hard feelings, eh? As long as the procedures are followed in future . . .’
Dacre gulped. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Sorry. New here. Feel rather . . . deep end, and all that.’
‘Of course. Quite understand. Not to worry. Leave you to pull yourself together.’ Clapping him on the shoulder, Hambling returned to the ward.
Dacre stood quite still. Gangrene. The man might have died, and, if he had, the responsibility would have been his. The image of Doherty’s agonised face swam before his eyes. He blinked hard. Stop it, he told himself. All doctors must feel this at some time or other. He must be detached. There was no room for squeamishness, and certainly not for emotion. That was something he’d managed to hold at bay for years - to yield to it now would be to ruin everything.
Quivering, he levered himself away from the wall, and was just about to return to Casualty - with a calming smoke in his bolt-hole on the way - when someone cannoned straight into him and he heard the clatter of something metal hitting the floor. Perhaps because he wasn’t entirely steady on his feet, he slumped back against the wall, wincing as his shoulders hit the tiles.
‘I’m so sorry, Doctor,’ said a sweet, anxious voice.
Looking up, Dacre felt his heart skip a beat. It was his girl, glowing before him as if wreathed in light. Close to, she was even more lovely than he’d thought when he first saw her by the bomb-site. Could he pick them or could he pick them? She was perfect. Now, her beautiful eyes had an expression of grave concern. ‘Are you . . . all right?’ she asked. ‘You look awfully white.’
‘Yes . . .’ Oh, he’d been right! Fay Marchant was as kind and thoughtful as he’d imagined. And well-spoken - her voice was as lovely as the rest of her. There was no doubt: she was the one. Here, now, the one. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, in a robust, cheery voice. ‘It’ll pass off.’
‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ Fay said, ‘but don’t you think you should sit down until it does?’
‘No, no.’ Dacre straightened up with a brave smile. ‘It’s nothing. I’ll be fine. Did you drop something?’
‘Yes.’ He admired Fay’s bottom as she bent down and picked up a tray and a syringe. ‘Oh, dear. Now it’ll have to be sterilised again. And there should be some phials too, somewhere. I hope they’re not broken.’
Dacre looked down at the floorboards. ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said. ‘What was in them?’
‘Morphine. We’ve got some terrible burns cases.’
‘Well, they must be here somewhere. I expect they’ve just rolled a bit.’ As he said this, Dacre spotted, out of the corner of his eye, something glinting beside the skirting board a few feet away. Fay, who was looking in the centre of the corridor, hadn’t seen it. On impulse, he said, ‘You look on that side,’ and pointed her in the opposite direction. ‘I’ll see if there’s anything down here.’
She did as she was told and Dacre bent down to inspect the edges of the wooden boards. There he found two of the small glass bottles intact, and one smashed. Slipping the whole phials into his pocket, he picked up the small amount of broken glass and, turning to Fay, who was still scanning the floor on the other side of the corridor, said, ‘I’m afraid they’ve gone for a burton. At least, this one has. I think the other two might have gone down here.’ Kneeling down, he indicated a narrow gap between the wood and the wall.
Looking dismayed, Fay came over to inspect. ‘Sister’s going to kill me.’
‘Surely not,’ said Dacre. ‘Anyone can have an accident. Don’t I know it?’ he added, ruefully, and got a doubtful smile in return.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Marchant.’
‘I meant your Christian name.’
‘Ohh . . .’ She gave a little laugh. ‘One gets so used . . . It’s Fay.’
‘Are you working on Men’s Surgical?’
She nodded.
‘James Dacre.’ He held out his hand.
Fay’s eyes widened. ‘Ooh,’ she said, coquettishly. ‘I’ve heard about you.’
Flirting already! She knew she was his girl. This was going to be a piece of cake - if she’d heard anything about his being married, he’d soon be able to turn that to his advantage . . . He’d give her the sob story, and she’d feel anger towards his faithless wife and pity him. ‘Thank you for being a ministering angel.’
‘I’m not! I mean, I ran into you.’
‘But you ministered afterwards. Or rather, you tried.’
Fay laughed. ‘Hardly!’
‘Would you like to do a spot of ministering later on?’
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