Doctor On The Job (16 page)

Pip’s speech was met with a sound new to the orator’s ears. A raspberry. He looked down. It originated from Harold Sapworth.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Pip asked, pained.

‘Stow it, mate. We’ve heard all that before.’

‘I was only asking you to carry on with the strike. I thought the burden of my words pretty clear.’

‘The strike’s off, mate.’

Pip gazed unbelievingly. ‘I gave no orders to that effect.’

Harold sucked the tip of his thumb. ‘Nothing to do with you, mate. You’re nothing to do with us either, mate.’

‘But I’m your friend,’ Pip protested hotly.

‘We got a closed shop here at St Swithin’s. You ain’t a union member any longer. So you’d better hop it double quick, afore we take what you might call appropriate action, that is, putting the old boot in.’

‘How dare you,’ said Pip, turning pink.

‘And what’s all this here, then?’ Harold Sapworth produced some closely written sheets of paper from the pocket of his own coat. ‘What I found in that geezer Grout’s desk, when he sent me up to collect the dartboard this morning. Your writing, ain’t it?’ he asked Pip threateningly. ‘Scheme for making a hundred of your mates down here redundant.’

‘Some shop steward,’ snorted Alfred Dimchurch.

‘Bleeding scab, rather,’ Harold Sapworth agreed.

To a fanfare of hostile noises, Pip said furiously to Harold Sapworth, taking off his brown coat, ‘I’ve a damn good mind to thump you one.’

‘Wouldn’t if I was you, mate. You’re well outnumbered. Even forgetting our President, who may be a bit past handing out a bunch of fives. Don’t want to end up in the hospital, do you? Wouldn’t have a very comfortable stay there, either, if you asks me.’

Pip threw his coat savagely to the concrete floor. ‘I’m damned if I’m giving in without a fight, you uneducated Judas.’

Then it happened again. Faith slipped her hand in his. He stopped.

‘Pip, love,’ she said quietly. ‘It is far, far wiser to fight another day. By then, you see, nobody may be feeling like it.’

‘My dear Josephine,’ said the dean of St Swithin’s to his wife, as he relaxed in the bow-windowed parlour of his house in Lazar Row just after six o’clock that evening. ‘This definitely calls for a celebration. Fetch some sherry. Reach deep into my shoe cupboard upstairs for a bottle of the very old
cuvée
Butler. That really was an excellent year.’

He lay stretched in his deep armchair, humming and beating his fingertips together delightedly. There was a flash outside, a crash of thunder and the rain began to hose down. The break in the splendid week’s weather had arrived as foreseen by the morning’s paper. It caused the dean only to break out reedily from
The Mikado
, ‘“The threatened cloud has passed away, And brightly shines the dawning day.”’ He had always fancied himself at amateur theatricals.

As Josephine returned with the dusty bottle and three glasses, he continued cheerfully, ‘St Swithin’s can breathe again. The country can breathe again. We are all back to square one. Exactly where we were sitting comfortably before that adolescent agitator ran amok. The trouble I’ve been put to! The worry I’ve suffered! At last we can get on with our proper work of being doctors, not industrial conciliators. Who’s the third glass for?’ he asked sharply.

‘Faith, of course. She’ll be in soon. She phoned to say she’s home for the weekend.’

‘I don’t know how Faith dare show her face in the house.’

‘Lionel, you really can’t talk like that about your own daughter. You should anyway be in a magnanimous mood all round. That’s what Winston Churchill advised any victor.’

The faint scowl which had congealed on the dean’s brow evaporated. ‘Yes, I agree. I’m simply relieved that the horrible nightmare is over. I’d no idea that Dimchurch was one of Lancelot’s golfing partners. Lancelot certainly does keep strange company. I suppose it’s understandable, nobody else in any civilized golf club would play with him. By the way, Lancelot’s gone commercial.’

‘I don’t think I entirely follow,’ Josephine said, pouring out two glasses of sherry.

‘You heard the telephone just now? It was from Lord Hopcroft. The man who owns those outrageously expensive hotels. He charged me extra for coffee, if I remember. Quite outrageous. I always understood coffee to be an integral part of a gentleman’s dinner –’

‘Lord Hopcroft,’ she interrupted. ‘What did he say, dear?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s full of some idea about starting a luxurious private hospital in a converted hotel. He wants a medical council to take charge, on which Lancelot has already agreed to serve – naturally, the emoluments being somewhat hefty.’

His wife looked puzzled. ‘Then why did you refuse, dear?’

The dean tapped his nose. ‘I can be crafty. A place like that will never attract the same custom as the genuine article. By that I mean the Bertram Bunn Wing of St Swithin’s Hospital, which I am now confidently going to enlarge and stick up the prices. The union will never dare risk making a fool of itself again for years and years. Old Dimchurch will wangle in some compliant shop steward, and we doctors can get away with murder. Good evening, Faith,’ he added, as his daughter entered, looking solemn. ‘Have some sherry. Its the
cuvée
Butler, which is to my mind superior even to the
cuvée
Heathcoat Amory, though that’s a year with many interesting little features.’

‘Daddy, I want you to reinstate Pip in the medical school.’

The dean jumped in his chair, accompanied by a roll of thunder. ‘That snotty-nosed Stalin? That lecherous Lenin? Not, as his friend Mr Sapworth would say, on my bleeding nelly.’

‘Daddy, you must try and be cerebral about this,’ she advised.

‘Pip’s an awfully good student really, terribly intelligent and by nature enormously hardworking. He promised me to slave at his books, and he’s sure to sail through the exam in December. Particularly if there aren’t any one-eyed patients.’

The dean’s hand quivered, holding out his empty glass to Josephine for a refill. ‘Chipps himself put you up to this, didn’t he? You are unhappily completely and disastrously in his power. Though what a girl like you can see in that hirsute Hitler, I can’t imagine.’

‘No, Daddy. I am asking only from my sense of fairness. Pip no longer means anything to me.’

‘Kindly pull the other one, with the bells on.’

‘Honestly. We’ve split up. For a while, at any rate. We decided this afternoon that our personalities are too powerful for each other. They seem to set off a chain reaction, like the atomic bomb.’

‘I don’t know what they set off last Monday night,’ he told her severely, sipping his sherry.

‘Last Monday night nothing happened.’

The dean gave a laugh, sounding like a stepped-on terrier. ‘When a young man shacks up with a young woman, even if the shack in question happens to be a geriatric unit –’

‘But poor Pip.’ She paused. ‘He was too ham-fisted. Besides, there wasn’t much room.’

The dean grunted.

‘A St Swithin’s student and his evening’s dancing companion,’ murmured the dean’s wife gently, ‘
have
been known to sleep the rest of the night in the same bed perfectly innocently.’

‘I was simply too drunk,’ commented the dean. ‘I mean… But what about Tuesday night? Not to mention Wednesday, Thursday and Friday?’ he demanded.

‘We were far too busy, organizing his porters’ scheme and then the strike.’

The dean gave a snort.

There was another crash of thunder. ‘Oh, very well, very well. I know I can believe my own daughter. Thank God, I brought you up with a proper sense of values. Tell him to report to the wards on Monday and keep entirely out of my sight until Christmas.’

‘Thank you, Daddy.’ Faith clasped her hands together, eyes sparkling. ‘I knew you’d have no victimization.’

‘I do wish you wouldn’t use those awful trade union phrases. I hope that you will now take life seriously again, and do your proper duty to the world you live in.’

‘You always taught me to do my duty, Daddy, without fear or favour.’

‘I know there is plenty of good in you, Faith,’ he added, holding out his empty glass again. ‘After all, you are my daughter.’

‘And mine,’ said Josephine, filling it up.

‘You can’t have seen much of the destitute men this terrible week?’

‘I had to give that job up, Daddy. It was only fair. But I’ve got a surprise. On Friday, Mr Clapper took me on as a social worker in St Swithin’s itself.’

‘But how absolutely splendid. Quite delightful. You and I, working upon the sick in the same hospital. Have some more sherry. How on earth did you manage it, without any influence from me?’

‘I wanted to stand beholden to no man, Daddy. Not even to you.’

‘Stout girl. Be independent. That’s what I like to hear. Besides, it would have been no end of trouble, greasing up that awful buffoon Clapper.’

‘I had to join ACHE, of course.’

The scowl reconstituted itself briefly on the dean’s brow. ‘Couldn’t be helped, I suppose. Part of modern life.’

‘I’m late home this evening, because of a meeting electing the new shop steward.’

‘That little runt Harold Sapworth, I take it?’

‘No, Daddy. Me. It was unanimous.’

The dean’s glass smashed on the floor.

‘As you always taught me, Daddy, I shall pursue my duties without obligation to, or intimidation from, anyone. At nine on Monday morning I’d like to see you in the Bertie Bunn, please. I want to put to you the union’s new rules for restrictions on private patients. You may find it a somewhat painful operation, Daddy, but one which I am afraid you must submit to.’

There was a roll of thunder. ‘Josephine,’ said the dean. ‘Drink.’

‘More sherry, dear?’

‘No. Brandy. Right at the back of my shoe cupboard there’s a bottle of the
cuvée
Churchill. It’s pre-war, my father bought it in 1940 to see us through the blitz. We hear enough about the Dunkirk spirit. Now I’m going to consume it. Fetch me a large tumbler.’

(in order of first publication)

These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

(in order of first publication)

(in order of first publication)

Published by House of Stratus

The Captain’s Table When William Ebbs is taken from a creaking cargo boat and made Captain of a luxury liner, he quickly discovers that the sea holds many perils…probably the most perilous being the first night dinner, closely followed by the dangers of finding a woman in his room. Then there is the embarrassing presence of the shipping company’s largest shareholder, a passenger over board and blackmail. The Captain’s Table is a tale of nautical misadventure and mayhem packed with rib-tickling humour. ‘An original humorist with a sly wit and a quick eye for the ridiculous’ – Queen

Doctor and Son Recovering from the realisation that his honeymoon was not quite as he had anticipated, Simon Sparrow can at least look forward to a life of tranquillity and order as a respectable homeowner with a new wife. But that was before his old friend Dr Grimsdyke took to using their home as a place of refuge from his various misdemeanours…and especially from the incident with the actress which demanded immediate asylum. Surely one such houseguest was enough without the appearance of Simon’s godfather, the eminent Sir Lancelot Spratt. Chaos and mayhem in the Sparrow household can mean only one thing – more comic tales from Richard Gordon’s hilarious doctor series. ‘Further unflaggingly funny addition to Simon Sparrow’s medical saga’ – Daily Telegraph

Doctor at Large Dr Richard Gordon’s first job after qualifying takes him to St Swithan’s where he is enrolled as Junior Casualty House Surgeon. However, some rather unfortunate incidents with Mr Justice Hopwood, as well as one of his patients inexplicably coughing up nuts and bolts, mean that promotion passes him by – and goes instead to Bingham, his odious rival. After a series of disastrous interviews, Gordon cuts his losses and visits a medical employment agency. To his disappointment, all the best jobs have already been snapped up, but he could always turn to general practice…

Doctor at Sea Richard Gordon’s life was moving rapidly towards middle-aged lethargy – or so he felt. Employed as an assistant in general practice – the medical equivalent of a poor curate – and having been ‘persuaded’ that marriage is as much an obligation for a young doctor as celibacy for a priest, Richard sees the rest of his life stretching before him. Losing his nerve, and desperately in need of an antidote, he instead signs on with the Fathom Steamboat Company. What follows is a hilarious tale of nautical diseases and assorted misadventures at sea. Yet he also becomes embroiled in a mystery – what is in the Captain’s stomach remedy? And more to the point, what on earth happened to the previous doctor? ‘Sheer unadulterated fun’ – Star

Doctor in Clover Now Dr Grimsdyke is qualified he finds practising medicine rather less congenial than he anticipated. But the ever-selfless Grimsdyke resolves to put the desires of others (and in particular his rather career-minded cousin) before his own, and settle down and make the best of it. Finding the right job, however, is not always that easy. Porterhampton is suddenly rife with difficulties – as is being a waiter, as is being a writer. And writing obituaries is just plain depressing. Doctor in Clover finds the hapless Grimsdyke in a hilarious romp through misadventures, mishaps and total disasters.

Doctor in Love In this hilarious romantic comedy, Richard Gordon awakes one morning with a headache. It takes him a while to realise he is ill – after all he is a doctor! Dr Pennyworth diagnoses jaundice and prescribes a spell in hospital. But amongst the bedpans and injections on Honesty ward, Richard falls in love – with his very own Florence Nightingale. However he soon learns that he has a rival for her affections, and unwilling to lose his love to the pachyderm Dr Hinyman, Richard sets out to impress… More medical mayhem from the hilarious Richard Gordon.

Doctor in the House Richard Gordon’s acceptance into St Swithan’s medical school came as no surprise to anyone, least of all him – after all, he had been to public school, played first XV rugby, and his father was, let’s face it, ‘a St Swithan’s man’. Surely he was set for life. It was rather a shock then to discover that, once there, he would actually have to work, and quite hard. Fortunately for Richard Gordon, life proved not to be all dissection and textbooks after all… This hilarious hospital comedy is perfect reading for anyone who’s ever wondered exactly what medical students get up to in their training. Just don’t read it on your way to the doctor’s! ‘Uproarious, extremely iconoclastic’ – Evening News ‘A delightful book’ – Sunday Times

Doctor in the Nest Sir Lancelot Sprat, surgeon and patriot, is finding that his faith in the British National Health Service is taking a bit of a battering – especially when the ceiling of his operating theatre collapses. It had already been a bad day…a call from Nairobi, a disagreement with Miss MacNish over the breakfast haddock, and a visit from Sir Lionel… Sir Lancelot’s single-handed battle to save St Sepulchre’s Hospital from closure creates a hilarious tale, complicated by two ex-students and three ladies only too willing to satisfy a widower’s sexual desires.

Doctor in the Nude Mrs Samantha Dougal is against it. Nudity that is. In a Soho strip-club, the Dean of St Swithan’s Hospital feigns indifference. Mrs Dougal’s husband, however, is totally in favour – and has just moved in with the Dean, who just happens to be his brother-in-law. The jokes positively spill from this elegantly written and languorously witty tale that includes Sir Lancelot, the Queen, a totally impractical new building, and the voluptuous young daughter of the trendy hospital chaplain. ‘The jokes spill forth fresh and funny… Not a book to read on a train: it’s impossible to keep a straight face’ – Sunday Telegraph