Without another word he clattered down the oak staircase and out to his Morris. The sergeant stared after him anxiously. Whatever had happened, it seemed likely to put the brigadier in one of his moods.
Graham wanted to leave the annex as soon as possible. Tudor Beverley and his staff offered to resign _en bloc,_ but Graham wouldn't hear of it. Desmond, who seemed more shocked by his father's dismissal than by his second stab at paternity, suggested he withdraw from the Blackfriars medical school-the ridicule was liable to break out afresh, he suspected inwardly. Graham told him not to be stupid. His patients suggested getting up a petition, but Graham knew that official minds couldn't be swayed by even a snowstorm of paper. Anyway, he was suddenly weary of battling with authority. He'd lost, and he wanted to leave the field, just as soon as he could tidy up his work.
Clare was wonderful. Her practical mind stood rock-like amid their sea of troubles. She decided they would move somewhere for the span of her pregnancy, perhaps up to Scotland. They could enjoy a wonderful holiday until the baby was born-Graham had no need to start work, they'd saved a bit, and she'd a little money of her own. The divorce could surely be left in the hands of the solicitors. Graham agreed with everything. He felt he wanted the child desperately. It would be an achievement, a symbol of defiance, something to show for his existence. Without a regular achievement of some sort, he doubted if he could live at all.
Then they killed Bluey.
It was stupid, unnecessary, almost criminal. A couple of years of Graham's surgery had the Australian looking more or less like a human being. Better still, his hands were mending splendidly. He had a pair of new thumbs made from chips of his hip-bone, he could light cigarettes, hold a tankard, even fondle a girl. A small operation was still needed to trim the inside of his lip. John Bickley again gave an injection, and slipped the rubber tube into his windpipe. To stop the blood from Graham's incision trickling into his patient's lungs, John packed the back of Bluey's throat with a length of oiled bandage. It was common practice, performed on the patients every operating day. Afterwards, John drew out the tube and forgot the bandage. They wheeled Bluey back to bed. The nurse who found him dusky and straining to breathe wasted away his life trying artificial respiration. John was summoned, and instantly ripped out the bandage which was suffocating him. But it was too late. Two years in hospital had so enfeebled Bluey that the survivor of a blazing Hurricane succumbed to lack of oxygen as readily as a baby.
John went back to the theatre and told Graham. The surgeon dropped his instruments, left the operation to Tudor Beverley, and strode out to sit alone in his office. John hesitated. He had better face him. At the end of the case he followed Graham to the hut, and found him in tears.
'It was a terrible mistake,' John admitted at once. 'I just don't know how it happened.'
Graham said nothing.
'I'm always so careful about the throat-packs, Graham-you know I am. I've had nightmares about leaving one in. I've been half afraid something like this might come about, ever since the unit started.'
Graham wearily moved the glass bottle containing the soldier's tattoo. 'And after all the poor devil went through,' he muttered.
'I can't begin to say how sorry I am.' Graham again made no response. 'But it's awfully difficult, you know, with two tables in the theatre. Without any proper assistants. I've told the nurses time and time again to feel for the throat-pack at the first sign of trouble afterwards. The nurse in charge of Bluey was new. She let us down.'
'If you're going to make excuses, don't shift the blame on to some poor girl who at the moment is too frightened to speak.'
'I'm not making excuses,' said John patiently. 'I'm only putting the facts.'
'Whose responsibility is it?'
John shrugged. 'Of course, mine. Ultimately, as the anaesthetist in charge of the case. I'm not denying that.'
'Of course you're making excuses,' Graham told him angrily. 'You're always making excuses, whenever you make a mess of it with a patient. If you give a perivenal injection, the vein was abnormal. If you break a needle, it was a faulty one. If your oxygen cylinder runs out, you told the orderly to change it. I only hope you'll find the coroner a more sympathetic listener.'
'I'm perfectly prepared to answer whatever the coroner feels like asking me,' John retaliated. 'I've nothing to hide.'
Graham made an impatient gesture. 'Oh, you'll come out of the inquest with your skin. Unavoidable mistake, pressure of work, patient's difficult airway. You'll continue with your job here as though nothing had happened.
'It's not fair to say that, Graham,' John told him patiently.
'It may not be, but it's the truth and you know it. Denise doesn't like me. She never has.'
'If Denise has sometimes been…well, indiscreet,' John admitted, 'she's been careful nothing could go further. Not outside the hospital. But now you're talking as if we were sworn enemies. Of course we're not. You're imagining things. Haven't we been friends, you and I, close friends, for years? Ever since the E.N.T. days? We've been through enough together, God knows. We've lost patients before.' He hesitated. 'We've even covered up for each other before. I wouldn't like to think that, however tragic, this incident meant the end of our personal relationship.'
'Be that as it may, but never in your life will you give another anaesthetic for me,' Graham told him angrily. 'At this particular moment, I doubt if that strikes you as much of a penalty. I'm down, I know it. But I won't stay down. When the war's over there'll be fifty anaesthetists in London breaking their necks chasing after my work. I'm going to make my fortune again. And this time you won't get ten per cent of it. Now please leave me in peace.'
That night, Clare woke with pain in her back. When she looked, she saw there was some vaginal bleeding. Graham telephoned Mr O'Rory. Then he carried her outside in a blanket, tucked her into the back of the Morris, and drove the ten miles to Smithers Botham. The gynaecologist was already waiting, greeting them with some mild joke about plastic surgeons working at the right end to avoid calls from their sleep. He put Clare into his ward, tipping up the foot of her bed on wooden blocks. He surrounded her with hot-water bottles, ordered an injection of morphine, prescribed doses of bromide, and added well-polished reassurance.
'Is she aborting?' asked Graham, outside the ward.
'Well, now, it's a threatened abortion,' Mr O'Rory said amiably. 'It's just eight weeks since the end of the lady's last menstrual period. So it wouldn't be an unheard-of occurrence at such a time, would it?'
'Could anything have caused it?' Graham asked anxiously. 'Mental distress, that sort of thing? You know what worry we've been having.'
'Oh, these things happen, they just happen. To tell the truth, none of us knows really why.'
'What's the chance of saving the foetus?'
'I'd say quite good. Yes, quite good. Though the lady will have to take life with queenly ease for quite a while afterwards.'
'That's nothing to bother about, nothing at all.'
'And anyway,' smiled the gynaecologist, 'the lady isn't necessarily destined to repeat the performance on a second occasion, is she? If all is lost, there's plenty more where that one came from. Eh, Graham?'
Graham began to wonder if he really liked Tim O'Rory after all.
The bleeding went on. The following day Mr O'Rory shook his head and said he feared the lady must visit his operating theatre. They gave Clare another dose of morphine and wheeled her along the cold concrete corridor. Mr O'Rory's anaesthetist administered gas and trichorethylene, they stuck her legs in the air, Mr O'Rory settled himself comfortably on a metal stool between them, and with a curette removed Graham's latest achievement for good.
Graham spent the night alone in the bungalow. Depression was no stranger at his side, but he had never known such misery before. Everything was running against him. When he told John Bickley that he wouldn't stay down he'd meant it. But for the first time he now sensed he was finished for good. He'd never recover professionally. Not when everyone could point to him as the man who was sacked in the war. The child was lost, and in such straits they'd be insane to start another. He wondered if Clare would stay with him. He had really little to offer her, and at her age she must surely expect something rewarding from life. It never occurred to Graham how much she might love him for himself. He always expected to take so much from others, he sometimes felt obliged to offer more than he possibly could.
Haileybury would not have been surprised at this mental turmoil. He knew Graham's moods well enough. He
