Surgeon at Arms

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. I shan’t even be here to inconvenience you. You and Denise can go on putting out poisonous gossip about me, as much as you care. That probably helped to get me sacked, if you looked into it.’
    ‘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