DOCTOR AT LARGE

'Have,' he snapped. 'Isn't.'

He turned on his heel and disappeared.

Bingham said eagerly a few days later, 'The Prof. was talking about you this morning, old man.'

'Oh, yes?'

'I'd nipped into the theatre to have a dekko at him doing an adrenalectomy, and he asked if I knew what school you went to. I told him I couldn't say off-hand. Then he made a most surprising remark, old chap-he thought it was probably one of those progressive ones, where the kids learn all about self-expression and bash the teachers over the head with rulers but are never taught to read or write. I suppose you didn't really go to a place like that, did you?'

'As a matter of fact I did. We never learnt to read, write, do arithmetic, play cricket, or swap marbles, but at least we were brought up not to go around kissing the backsides of people we wanted to get jobs from.'

Bingham stiffened. 'I might say that's an extremely offensive remark, old chap.'

'I might say that I meant it to be. Old chap.'

My ambition to be a surgeon now burned low. But it was not extinguished until the week before my casualty job was to end.

Bingham and I lived on the top floor of the Resident Medical Staff Quarters at St Swithin's, a tall, gloomy building containing a couple of dozen bleak bed-sitters and a dining-room enlivened by a battered piano and a picture of Sir William Osler gazing at us chidingly down his sad moustaches. On the table was a collecting-box in which anyone talking shop at supper had to drop half a crown; this was labelled FUND FOR THE BLIND, and underneath in smaller letters _And What a Blind!_ Every six months, when half the house surgeons left, this box was broached. As the Professor's retiring house surgeon had also passed his Fellowship, found a new job, and become engaged on the same day, he asked me to take his night duty for him. I was delighted, because it showed I was capable of accepting higher surgical responsibilities. Also, it made Bingham furious.

There was usually a trickle of emergency cases entering St Swithin's during the night, but that evening I was disappointed to find that the admission-room inside the gate was quiet. About midnight I went to sleep, leaving Hamilton Bailey's _Emergency Surgery_ beside my bed and my trousers hopefully receptive on the chair. I dreamed that I was in casualty, operating with a soup spoon on Bingham's double hernias without an anaesthetic, and I woke with a start to the porter's knock.

'What is it?' In a second I was scrambling out of bed, switching on the light, and jumping into my shoes. 'What's the time?'

''Arf past three.. Case of intermittent abdominal pain. Getting worse over last three days. Mostly subumbilical.'

'Really? Does the patient look very ill?'

'Nah. Came in a taxi.'

I immediately felt sorry: it looked as though I would not have the chance of assisting at an emergency operation. The porter stood picking his teeth while I pulled a sweater over my pyjamas. 'Gall-stone colic I reckon it is,' he said.

I made my way downstairs, through the cold, empty, black halls of the out-patients' department. It was a bitter night outside, with sleet falling heavily and freezing immediately on the pavement. There was no one in sight except a porter sweeping in the distance in the thin light of a lonely bulb. I suddenly felt that I was the only doctor in the world.

I found the patient sitting under a blanket on an examination couch. He was a thin, neat-looking man in a blue suit and a white collar, with a small moustache, carefully-brushed hair, and horn-rimmed spectacles. He looked worried, but unfortunately not like an immediate candidate for the operating table.

'Well now, what's the matter?' I began, as briskly as possible.

'I'm extremely sorry to have troubled you, Doctor. Extremely sorry indeed.' He spoke quietly, with a faint Cockney accent. 'I have took you away from your no doubt well-earned repose. I apologize, Doctor, and ask your forgiveness for that which I have done.'

'That's quite all right. It's what I'm here for.'

'I said to myself as I came in, 'The doctor is now, no doubt, reclining in the arms of Morpheus. He is sleeping the sleep of-''

'What's the matter with you, please?' I interrupted.

He suddenly clutched his abdomen with both hands and groaned.

'Abdominal pain?' I said, flicking the pages of my surgical text-book through my mind. 'Colicky, no doubt? Any relation to food?'

He relaxed, looked round, and whispered, 'Are we alone, Doctor?'

'Alone? I assure you, professional confidences will not be divulged.'

'You're the Professor's house surgeon, ain't you, Doctor?' I nodded. 'Well, Doctor, it's like this here. The Professor operated on me six months ago-partial gastrectomy, up in Faith Ward. All was well, Doctor, until three days ago. Then I began to have pains.' He groaned as another spasm caught him. 'Something shocking, Doctor. Tonight, after a bite of supper, I coughed and found something hard in my throat.' He glanced over his shoulder again and whispered, 'It was a nut, Doctor.'

'You mean you'd been eating nuts?'

'No, no, Doctor. I mean a metal nut. Then five minutes later I produced a screw. And after that two more nuts and a bit of spring. I've been bringing up bits of old iron all night, Doctor. So I thought I'd better come along here.'

'But dash it, man! That's almost impossible. Are you sure?'

'Look, Doctor,' he said proudly. From his pocket he pulled a screwed-up piece of the _Evening News,_ which held several bright nuts and bolts and a small coiled spring. We looked at them solemnly. Our eyes lifted and met. I licked my lips.

'They could have come from a surgical retractor,' I murmured.

He nodded. 'That's what I thought, Doctor,' he went on in a low voice. 'I know, see. Used to be in the R.A.M.C. Come to think of it, after my operation I heard a sort of rumour something might be missing.'

'Let me have a look at your stomach,' I said.

There was a gastrectomy scar, about six months old.

'Umm,' I said. I scratched my head. I looked up and down the room. There was no one in sight. Even Bingham would have been welcome.

'This might be serious,' I suggested.

'That's why I came in, Doctor,' he continued calmly. 'Mind, I'm not one of them people that makes trouble with law courts and that. But if anything happened…Well, I've got a lot of relatives, Doctor.'

'Quite,' I covered him with the blanket and began to walk round the couch slowly. The hospital rules were clear: all serious cases at night were to be referred immediately to a consultant. And if the Professor had somehow managed to leave a spring-loaded retractor inside an abdomen, he certainly would want to know of it before anyone else.

'I think we'll hang on for a bit,' I said. 'By eight o'clock I can get your notes from the registry and organize proper X-rays-'

He grabbed his stomach violently. 'Something else, Doctor,' he cried. 'Coming up!'

The Professor had a Wimbledon number, and after ringing a long time the telephone was answered by a cross female voice.

'Yes?'

'Could I speak to the Professor, please?'

'Who's there?'

'St Swithin's.'

'Oh dear, oh dear! Don't you ever leave the poor man in peace? Ar-thur!'

When the Professor reached the telephone, which seemed to be several minutes' walk from his bed, I began, 'I'm terribly sorry to bother you, sir. This is the house surgeon-'

'Rogers?'

'Er-no, not Rogers, sir. Gordon.'

I heard him draw his breath. 'Where's Rogers?'