Surgeon at Arms

had forced acquaintance with fellow-doctors in many outlandish specialities, but the company of professional face-lifters he felt outside the line of duty. I don’t want to see him.’
    ‘You made an appointment, sir. For two this afternoon.’
    ‘Oh? Did I?’
    ‘You’ll remember the Ministry telephoned, sir. The gentleman has just joined the Emergency Medical Service.’
    Captain Pile rummaged busily through the papers covering his broad desk, which commanded a fine view of the sweeping front drive. There was a fire flickering in the oversized marble grate and an overall glow of mahogany-and-leather Victorian comfort. It had been the office of the Smithers Botham medical superintendent, then a consultant psychiatrist in the Army, where he was, in time, to have greater influence and invoke more widespread exasperation than a good many generals.
    ‘Where is this Trevose? In the hall?’
    ‘Yes, sir. He would have come to see Annex D, sir.’
    ‘Annex D,’ observed Captain Pile somberly. ‘Very well, Corporal, I’d better have a word with him. You go back to your work.’
    Corporal Honeyman withdrew to a small adjacent office to continue reading Lilliput, which he kept in a desk drawer with his bars of chocolate. He was a willowy young man with thinning, dandruff-laden hair, glasses in circular steel frames, and a battledress which chafed his long neck. He was a sight which depressed Captain Pile deeply. Corporal Honeyman had been a clerk in an estate agent’s before joining the Army through love of his country and dislike of living with his mother. The Army found he could use a typewriter, and sent him to Smithers Botham. He felt he would have been tolerably happy there, had it not been for Captain Pile, whom he was coming to care for even less than his mother.
    Captain Pile sat reading through some documents, feeling a little wait would put his visitor in his place. His own civilian career had been sadly frustrating. An intolerance of sick humans had led him into various medical administrative jobs, an intolerance of even healthy ones had made all of them short. But in the Army he felt he was fulfilling himself, having command of all Service patients finding themselves in Smithers Botham and charge of the general running of the place. He rose, and inspected himself carefully in the giltframed mirror over the mantelpiece. Red-cheeked, dark-moustached, well built, if inclined to be stoutish for the late thirties, he felt he filled his new uniform stylishly. He placed his cap on his well-brilliantined head, took his gloves, leather-bound stick, and greatcoat, and opened the door on the hall.
    ‘Mr. Trevose?’ He found the caller slight, pale, and fortyish, with large eyes in a large head, wearing under his overcoat a double-breasted chalk-striped grey flannel suit cut with smartness—flashiness, the captain might have said. ‘I know nothing whatever about plastic surgery,’ he told Graham proudly. ‘And frankly I’m too busy to start learning such subjects now. I suppose you make women new noses and that sort of thing?’
    ‘That sort of thing,’ said Graham.
    ‘Must be very profitable.’
    They went on to the broad front steps, Captain Pile giving a quick glance up and down. There might be a soldier or two about to award him a salute. But there were no soldiers, only a schizophrenic cutting the grass. t Annex D has been empty for a while,’ he explained. It s not one of the best wards, but your other people from Blackfriars have bagged those already. I’m afraid you’ve rather missed the bus.’
    They started across the lawn.
    Captain Pile unlocked a heavy teak door in another yellow-brick wall with more broken glass on top. Graham’s spirits, already sinking under the weight of Smithers Botham’s massive ugliness, plunged further. The annex was ghastly. It looked older and bleaker than the rest of the hospital. It was as narrow as a ship, two stories high, a hundred yards long. Slates were missing from the roof, a good many windows were broken, and all of them were backed with stout iron bars. A jumble of small buildings sprouting iron stove-pipes were tacked on one end as an afterthought. The garden had for some seasons clearly been left to its own devices. Even Captain Pile looked faintly apologetic.
    Inside was dark, damp, and empty. On the bare floor were sheets of newspaper, streaming toilet rolls, a pile of black-chipped enamel mugs, and other wreckage beyond Graham’s powers of