Surgeon at Arms

can’t eat it.’
    ‘No, but it helps. There’ll be a lot of goodies and gongs going after the war, Graham. I don’t see why you should be passed by. I take it you’d be agreeable if I put you in for something?’
    Graham gave a faint smile. ‘Haven’t I been too gay a dog to be given an official collar?’
    ‘The war’s altered a lot of that. After all, if you’re brave enough to win the V.C. nobody gives a damn how many women you’ve screwed.’
    ‘It’s certainly an attractive proposition—’ He broke off, listening ‘No, it’s only a motor-bike somewhere. Those doodle-bugs are damn scaring. I thought that one in church was going to blow the lot of us up, corpse and all.’
    ‘Don’t worry. Duncan Sandys says we’ve got them licked. Only about one in five get through now.’
    ‘When’s the war going to be over?’
    ‘Against the Germans, by Christmas.Against the Japs, in a couple of years. Against the Russians, God knows.’
    With this deep and disquieting observation, Val Arlott shook hands, entered his chauffeur-driven car, and made off.
    Graham felt he needed a drink.
    The other mourners were cramming themselves with some agitation into three or four taxis parked off the lane. His son was standing alone, looking awkward by the lych gate. ‘I expect you could do with a stiff one, Desmond, couldn’t you?’
    ‘Yes, it wouldn’t come amiss.’
    ‘We’ll try our luck in the pub.’
    They walked a quarter-mile down the lane in silence. The funeral had already been displaced from Graham’s mind by his talk with Val. Some sort of ‘gong’. What sort? They could hardly hand the O.B.E., like some zealous food official. A K.B.E. would make him Sir Graham, which would sound very pretty. But he doubted if even Val could push him into the pure light of official favour. The bigwigs in.the medical profession would certainly have a say in it, and they had always mistrusted him. Someone would be resentful he won his fight over the sacking, and eager to express it practically. And Haileybury would be against him. No, not Haileybury, Graham decided, after a moment’s thought. Haileybury was far too stupidly righteous to take the chance of such easy revenge. Anyway, he didn’t care. He had never let official honours flicker among the varied ambitions which had burned inside him. He knew medical knights enough, and he thought most of them horribly dreary.
    They pushed open the door of the little saloon bar, to hear a loud voice declaring, ‘But of course you must have some whisky. Come along, be a good fellow, look out a bottle from under the counter. Don’t you understand? I’ve just been to a funeral?’
    Graham hesitated, but it was too late to withdraw. He had never liked Maria’s brother. The man had laughed at him as her suitor, paining young Graham with the discovery that in ‘society’ medical people were seen with the eye of fifty years previously, when the healer was admitted only via the tradesmen’s entrance—though Graham had acted afterwards on this brutal realization, most profitably. He was also rather afraid of Charles Cazalay. He had the unscrupulousness of his father, if not the intelligence which made the most of it. He had tried to damage Graham once, and wouldn’t hesitate to try again if it suited him.
    ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ Lord Cazalay continued to the landlord, half-chaffing and half-hectoring. ‘You should, you know. I’m Lord Cazalay. I used to live in the house. Before your day. I remember the fellow who kept this place, man called Greensmith. Greensmith
    would have found something for me, I don’t mind telling you. Now run along and see what you can do.’ Overcome either by the materialization of the local legend or the solemnity of his errand, the landlard departed anxiously to search his cellar. Graham approached and said, ‘It must be twenty years since we met.’
    ‘Graham, I’m delighted to see you again,’ Lord Cazalay greeted him affably. ‘I’m sorry it should be on such a sad occasion.’
    Graham introduced his son. ‘You can’t have set eyes on Desmond since he was a baby.’
    Lord Cazalay briskly brushed his moustache and remarked, ‘He’s grown into fine lad, As you know, I decided to make my home for some years in France.’ He lowered his voice respectfully. ‘It was very distressing about Maria, Graham. I know how you must feel. Her life was such a waste, shut out of the world so long. It was always a comfort to me that