Surgeon at Arms

would be tragic for the buoyant comradeship of Smithers Botham to be lost without trace in the rough waters of the postwar world. The annex itself still existed, almost as busily as ever, with Tudor Beverley in charge. Graham had left, as he had promised himself, with the end of the war. His status as a Blackfriars consultant entitled him to half a dozen beds in the main wards at Smithers Botham for civilian cases, the arrangement to which Haileybury had tried to condemn him in 1942. But the time for self-sacrifice was past, Graham thought, personal and financial. One day the annex would have to close and Smithers Botham evacuated, he’d be back in the bright new wards of Blackfriars again beside the Thames— though from the permanent look of the hospital’s rubble, that day seemed as unlikely to dawn as the one of settled amity across the split face of Europe.
    Graham was naturally the club’s president. It still gave him a feeling of smugness to see himself described on the printed menu as ‘Sir Graham Trevose, K.B.E., D.Sc., F.R.C.S.’. The goodies had been delivered as Val Arlott had promised, and the doctorate of science had been conferred on him at the same time by a provincial university keen on entering into the spirit of the times. He had found himself more proud of the knighthood than he had expected. It was an emblem of something
    he sought all his life—a recognition that his work was far from trivial, but on a par with that of general surgeons majestically toiling among their sausage-chains of guts. Besides, everyone was terribly nice about it. Haileybury had called specially to congratulate him, almost with tears in his eyes. It was a well-deserved honour, he explained, not only for the surgeon and for the annex, but for the speciality of plastic surgery, to which he was himself about to return. Graham knew that Haileybury, of all his wellwishers, meant every word. He also knew the intense self-discipline which had brought the man to face him, for the first time since their meeting beside the River Itchen. He would know Graham well enough to sense the risk of a cutting rebuff. But Graham told himself the time for wounding was over, and reconciliation was in fashion.
    ‘Thank you,’ Graham said solemnly, shaking hands. ‘Thank you... Eric.’
    Haileybury swallowed. ‘It is a real pleasure to congratulate you... Graham.’
    It was the first time they had used each other’s Christian names. In a world which could address old Cramphorn as ‘Mate’, reflected Graham, such relaxations were plainly overdue.
    At the dinner, Peter Thomas proposed a toast to ‘The Wizz’. Graham replied. Shortly afterwards the patients started singing, something innocuous at first, Macnamara’s Band, moving on to Cats on the Rooftops, an enduring favourite, then the Ball of Kirriemuir. Graham knew this always ended in argument, and sometimes in fisticuffs, over such points as the Minister’s Wife Who Felt Unweel coming before The Swishing of the Pricks in the Haystacks, or the other way round. When Peter Thomas put a glass of beer on his head to play The Muffin Man, Graham thought it time to withdraw. He leant over to touch John Bickley, two places away. ‘I fancy we’re a little old for this, old man,’ he smiled. ‘Shall we see if there’s the chance of a taxi?’
    The two stood in dinner jackets and overcoats, surveying the ill-lit street from the door of the restaurant without much hope. It was bitterly cold, and snow had paralyzed the country more effectively than the Luftwaffe. There was a scarcity of coal, new shoes were on the ration, a warming tot of whisky was a luxury, and the Government had banned even greyhound racing to save electricity on the hares.
    ‘What a bloody night,’ muttered Graham. ‘I should have brought the car.’
    ‘What are you driving now?’ They had spoken little since the incident of Bluey, and since Graham had left the annex hardly met at all.
    ‘I’ve got a prewar Bentley. A peculiar beast with a fabric body, but it goes like a clock. I bought it from some spiv in the street, who wanted spot cash. God knows where the thing came from, probably stolen for all I know.’
    They found a taxi and Graham asked John back for a nightcap. He had a large flat in the Marylebone Road, convenient for his new consulting room in Wimpole Street. John found it furnished stylishly with Graham’s stored belongings. There was brandy on the sideboard, a bowl of fruit, even a box of