Surgeon at Arms

should take all the credit. John comes home utterly exhausted most nights. Don’t you, darling? And Tudor Beverley’s rushed off his feet. Besides, there’re plenty of others in the hospital who deserve being taken notice of. Quite as much as Graham. They haven’t his flair for publicity, that’s all. I met Babs Twelvetrees while I was buying the rations this morning, and she was dreadfully upset.’ She was the wife of Mr Alan Twelvetrees, a young Blackfriars consultant surgeon who had been invalided out of the Royal Army Medical Corps. He had expected to be treated at Smithers Bothams as a returning hero, but was disconcerted to find himself resented as an intruder who hadn’t suffered the earlier disorganization and inconveniences, to be given the worst wards, the surliest sisters, and the most awkward hours for operating.
    ‘Graham didn’t instigate the article,’ John pointed out. ‘The paper suggested it. They’re always looking for odd corners of the war to write up. It’s good for morale, I suppose, the more people read of what’s being done.’
    ‘You know perfectly well Graham would go to any lengths to get himself known,’ his wife told him briskly.
    ‘Mustn’t give a dog a bad name, my dear,’ Mr. Cramphorn told her. ‘Otherwise you can’t blame him if he bites you.’
    ‘I don’t think Graham would bite anyone, Crampers,’ she said. ‘Of course he’s utterly charming and such fun, and John and I love him. But he is so dreadfully weak. Look at those awful women who had him round their little fingers.’
    ‘What do you think I should do, Crampers?’ asked Dr Pomfrey helplessly. He asked Mr Cramphorn’s opinion on everything. He was more under his thumb than ever at the time, through the surgeon teaching him to drive, which he performed as he operated, very fast and impatient of obstacles. After Dr Pomfrey’s chauffeur had been called up the motor-car presented him with severer difficulties than the most elusive neurological diagnosis, the physician driving across lawns and flowerbeds, on the wrong side of the road, and frequently within inches of Captain Pile. ‘Perhaps you’d care to take it up with Graham?’ he suggested hopefully.
    ‘Not me,’ said Mr Cramphorn. He disliked being drawn into the animosities of others. He had enough in the hospital of his own, complaining almost daily to Captain Pile about the quality of everything from the operating equipment to the food, and appearing regularly in his office with the shepherd’s pie. ‘Why don’t you have a friendly word in his ear, John? You’re nearest to him.’
    John Bickley tried to find an excuse, but Dr Pomfrey looked at his watch and hastily switched on the wireless. The nine o’clock news brought an end to the conversation, as it did to almost every other in the country.
    John had his friendly word with Graham in the annex the following morning. His wife had insisted on it. But Graham only laughed and said, ‘Well, I half expected something like this. Who’s kicking up the fuss?’
    ‘Pomfrey, in his own sort of way.And a few of the others.’
    ‘Twelvetrees, I’ll bet?’ John said nothing. ‘Will they never learn? Things are so different now. There’s no one to benefit except the boys. It cheered them up, someone taking an interest in them, particularly a pretty girl. Though God knows I deserve some sort of encouragement. I haven’t had much since the war started.’
    ‘I know all that, of course, Graham. But you must be aware how sticky the others can be about publicity.’
    ‘I don’t give a damn.’ They were standing outside the wash-house, and Graham started towards the ward. ‘I cared little enough in peacetime what my professional brethren thought of me. Now I don’t care at all. Anyway, they’ve a nice surprise in store. As a result of the article, that American fellow’s coming down—what’s his name, always being photographed in a tin hat coming out of shelters? Hugo Kirkham. His stuff’s syndicated right across the States, and they aren’t coy over there about hushing up the doctors’ names. A nice little flutter that’ll cause when the cuttings get back here.’ Graham began to sound annoyed. ‘I’m not trying to attract attention to myself. I’m trying to attract attention to the annex, which is quite a different thing.’
    Anxious to change the conversation, John asked, ‘Are you going to have a look at that fellow with the postoperative chest? 5
    ‘Later, old man,