Surgeon at Arms

as he had been himself at the same age. ‘Come, Desmond,’ he added more kindly. ‘Try and adjust yourself. Clare won’t be more to you than a stepmother in name. She’ll be terribly tactful. I promise you that. You’ll come to like her tremendously.’
    Desmond hesitated, and said, ‘I think I prefer to make up my own mind about people, Dad.’
    Graham called for the bill. Desmond really could be terribly difficult when he wanted. Just like Maria.
    Everyone at Smithers Botham seemed to know about the baby from its conception. Graham had confided in John Bickley, and he supposed Denise had spread the news with enthusiasm. Crampers had grunted something at him—congratulatory, Graham hoped. Even Captain Pile had made the point of repeating that no woman whatever was permitted to give birth within the hospital’s glass-topped walls. Graham didn’t care about the notoriety. He rather enjoyed it. He told himself more forcibly every day he was delighted with their child. A young life, something to perpetuate himself right to the end of the century, was an anodyne for any painfully intruding ideas about death and extinction. He could have no possible reservations about it whatever, he decided. And it would be wonderful for Clare. He treated her with the greatest tenderness, physical and mental. As for the effect on the mother-to-be of her circumstances in general, and her standing in the eyes of everybody at Smithers Botham in particular, it never crossed his mind to enquire.
    All this happened in the busy fortnight following the Sunday when they rang the church bells. Then he had a letter from the Ministry terminating his contract at the annex.
     

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
    ‘I WANT TO SEE Brigadier Haileybury,’ said Graham to the sergeant in the hall. ‘My name’s Trevose. I’m a surgeon. The brigadier knows me well.’
    ‘Have you an appointment, sir?’
    ‘No. But I’m aware that he’s in the building and I don’t intend to leave until he gives me an interview.’
    The sergeant looked uneasy. The wild-eyed civilian seemed an unlikely crony of the austere brigadier. ‘If you’ll wait here, sir, I can but pass on your message.’
    ‘Please do.’
    He left Graham alone in the hall, which like the inside of all requisitioned houses had bare walls and floor, was furnished with trestle-tables and fire-extinguishers, and had the decorations badly knocked about. Haileybury now held sway in a country mansion fronting the River Itchen south of Winchester, in preparation for the ‘Second Front’, Graham supposed, whenever that might be established. Within a minute the sergeant came clattering down the oak staircase, announcing that the brigadier would be delighted to receive his visitor at once.
    The office upstairs was large, warm, and bright, overlooking the river, where in season Haileybury amused himself fishing for trout. There was a neat, busy-looking desk, filing cabinets, maps and charts on the wall. A lieutenant with twined-serpent R.A.M.C. badges, who hovered in attendance, was gently waved from the presence.
    Haileybury extended his large red hand. ‘An unexpected pleasure, Trevose.’
    ‘Is it so unexpected?’
    The brigadier pursed his lips. ‘Won’t you sit down?’ Graham took a small hard chair and began, ‘Haileybury, do you know the one thing the powers-that-be in this war could do with me? They couldn’t court-martial me. They couldn’t put me in jail. They couldn’t even tell me off. The only way they could save themselves the nuisance of my existence was to sack me. They have.’ Haileybury put his finger-tips together and blew on them, rather noisily.
    ‘You’re perfectly aware of that, of course,’ Graham added accusingly.
    ‘It has come to my ears.’
    ‘Why did you do it? Why did you throw me out?’ Haileybury looked shocked. ‘I?’
    ‘I’ve a certain right to know, you must admit.’
    ‘But, my dear fellow, I couldn’t possibly be responsible for your dismissal. That would be a civilian matter, quite outside my province.’
    ‘In all the years we’ve been squabbling, Haileybury, you’ve invariably done two things that I often enough have not. Told the truth and been honest.’
    There was a silence. ‘I see,’ said Haileybury.
    He got up, crossed silently to a filing cabinet, and still without speaking removed a folder.
    ‘Your suspicions are correct, Trevose, I must agree,’ he admitted, sitting down. ‘Though only partly correct. I certainly made