Surgeon at Arms

Just a sergeant, or a gentleman?
    ‘There’s an exact moment in life for your first taste of wine and of love,’ the sergeant went on. ‘You’ll always remember it, and never succeed in recapturing the flavour of either.’
    ‘You know, I think I read something like that in a book,’ exclaimed Mrs Sedgewick-Smith.
    ‘Probably one of mine,’ said the sergeant, who had been desperate to make some such remark. Before the war he had written a couple of novels, which though noticed kindly by James Agate had not been noticed by his present companions at all. Mrs. Sedgewick-Smith, a three-volume-a-week woman with Boot’s, became agreeably flustered to find herself in the company of a man of letters. It also kept Bluey out of the conversation, which continued at a genteel literary level until they had finished the last pale dry crumbs of the tasteless cake. Then Bluey, resentful at his ousting from the centre of attention, demanded abruptly, ‘Where is it?’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mrs Sedgewick-Smith.
    ‘The doings. I want to go. Tea runs through me like a dose of salts.’
    ‘You mean the smallest room?’ his hostess interpreted coyly. She rose helpfully. ‘I’ll show you the way.’
    ‘I’ll need some assistance with the buttons.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Sedgewick-Smith.
    Bluey fixed Stephanie with his eye. ‘Perhaps the young lady will oblige?’
    ‘The young lady will certainly not oblige,’ snapped her mother.
    ‘Didn’t she say she was thinking of being a nurse?’ asked Bluey innocently. ‘The nurses do it for us in the annex.’
    Mrs Sedgewick-Smith looked round desperately. None of the others gave any indication of volunteering. They found the situation only something to grin about. The literary sergeant might have saved her embarrassment, but he was damned if he were going to handle Bluey’s private parts. Mrs Sedgewick-Smith drew herself up. It was too bad. Even the lunatics hadn’t offered such problems. ‘If you will come with me, I shall do all that is necessary.’
    ‘Good on you,’ said Bluey amiably. He hadn’t really expected to get away with Stephanie. Well, it might be funny watching the old bag fumbling with him. She didn’t look as if anyone had put a prick in her hand for a good many years. It was only the embarrassment he could provoke in others which made bearable his humiliation at needing such attention at all.
    ‘I’m sorry, but it’s a social disability I rather overlooked,’ Graham laughed when Mrs Sedgewick-Smith explained the predicament the next morning. ‘Those buttons are a terrible obstacle for the boys’ hands. But I really can’t think what to do, apart from sending them out in kilts.’
    Mrs Sedgewick-Smith hesitated. She wanted to edge away from the subject as soon as possible, but persevered bravely, ‘I don’t know if you would welcome a suggestion, Mr Trevose. But when my husband came home from America before the war, he was wearing a suit... equipped with a zip-fastener.’
    ‘Yes, of course.’ Graham snapped his fingers. ‘I remember seeing them there myself. It’s a sound idea. If only, of course, I can get a supply of zips.’
    It struck him that a beleaguered country could hardly be expected to continue manufacturing such metallic frivolities. There were certainly none in the shops at Maiden Cross. You probably needed as much influence to lay your hands on some zip-fasteners as to lay them on a case of Scotch or a few gallons of petrol. But he had still one friend who might be expected to perform miracles, and the provision of patients’ flies was a minor miracle indeed. Graham telephoned the Daily Press office in Fleet Street, and found himself asked up to lunch.
    Graham had a standing invitation to visit Lord Arlott, but hadn’t taken advantage of it partly because he was too busy at the annex, and partly because of a vague desire to keep his pre-war life disconnected from his new one. At seventy, Valentine Arlott continued to conduct his newspaper with undiminished energy and interference. He was a small, lively man in rimless glasses, the fiery red hair which Graham well remembered long ago turned grey, but his Australian accent was as fierce as ever, to be dimmed or intensified according to how it suited to illuminate a particular argument. The Press was continuing in the Second War its policy of the First, bringing the exploits of Lord Arlott’s countrymen repeatedly and enthusiastically to the attention of the British