Surgeon at Arms

striped shirt was open to display his thin chest—he suffered from asthma, an awkward complaint, liable to grip him in moments of emotion, sexual or otherwise. Alec often put down the asthma to some obscure psychological effect of having been delivered by his own father, the medical missionary, in the Malayan jungle several hundred miles from alternative professional attention. It was the first of many uncomfortable things which seemed to happen to him.
    While his cousin Desmond had gone to a splendid public school, he had attended an odd establishment for the education of the sons of other missionaries, to be reared in a strong atmosphere of piety, chastisement, and carbolic soap. Even the cost of his education was being met by his Uncle Graham (or his cousin, Desmond, however you looked at it), though his bills were thankfully met by anonymous lawyers. He had started the telescoped medical course at Cambridge when the war was a year old. It wasn’t much fun, he reflected, with no one to talk to except potential doctors, engineers, and clergymen, all three professions being thought essential by the Government to ensure eventual victory. But he had seen Cambridge as it should be seen, with King’s Chapel shining in the pure moonlight like an iceberg, Great Court at Trinity a mystery of stones and shadows, Clare College running lightless to the river as a silver screen, the alleys returned to their rightful medieval blackness. It was Cambridge as Newton and Milton had seen it. His tutor was an ancient cleric in a purple stock encrusted with the memorials to countless college soups, who wore both gown and airraid warden’s helmet during alerts, taking seriously his responsibility for the physical as well as the moral safety of his pupils. The science dons had mostly disappeared to concoct new devilment for the enemy. On the whole, Alec thought the University rather superior about the war. It had lived through plenty before with fitting scientific detachment. The church clock still stood at ten to three, and for most of the time honey was off the ration.
    That sunny afternoon by the sea he was still officially studying clinical medicine at Smithers Botham, where he had occupied almost a dozen lodgings in the surrounding countryside. However agreeable his hosts, however tasty the Woolton pie, however hot the officially permitted few inches of bathwater, Alec was always convinced of being happier at the next stop. It was a strange restlessness which applied to his hobbies, his friends, his enthusiasm for the various subjects he studied, and his views of life in general. He had finally asked his uncle Graham to get him into the Emergency Squad. He felt he got on rather well with his uncle Graham. Physically they were much alike, Alec supposed when the family genes had been shuffled at their separate conceptions, they had drawn much the same hand.
    The Emergency Squad at Smithers Botham occupied a low two-storey block which in peacetime had housed the better-class lunatic, who could afford to pay for his own incarceration. It was comfortable enough, it saved paying rent, and you could always risk smuggling in a girl. The Squad’s existence was at last justified on D-Day, when they were abruptly dispatched by lorry across the face of signpostless England to the converted hotel at Southsea, which they found in charge of a Polish civilian doctor who was unable to speak much English, and who seemed uncertain if they were a party of top-flight specialists from London or the men come to mend the boiler. No one knew what cases the hospital was created to take, because none ever appeared. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about them. Their only contact with authority was Brigadier Haileybury, who one afternoon had arrived unheralded to inspect them. ‘I believe I know you, don’t I?’ he had asked Desmond.
    ‘Yes, sir. We met once before the war. In my father’s place in London. My name’s Trevose.’
    Haileybury nodded. ‘Your father is certainly making a name for himself.’
    ‘Deservedly, I hope, sir?’
    ‘Of that I have no doubt. I hope you inherit a share of his remarkable talents, young man. You could look forward to a brilliant career.’
    The brigadier disappeared. They all noticed he had a wonderfully pretty A.T.S. driver.
    Alec slid the pathology textbook from his nose, aware that someone was approaching up the slope. It was Desmond, dressed in a grey flannel suit. His cousin sat down silently beside him,