Surgeon at Arms

had announced FAMOUS SURGEON DEAD, and middle-aged men in crowded trains heard the echo of Churchill’s funeral drums. Sir Graham Trevose was part of the legend. And if young pilots in Spitfires and Hurricanes had shot out of the sky only half the enemy aeroplanes they thought they did, the legend could shine when required as brightly as ever. It seemed about the only thing the country had got out of the war.
    ‘Do you think,’ the young man continued, ‘that Sir Graham deserved his distinction as “The Wizard” of plastic surgery?’
    ‘I don’t know. How could I know?’ Haileybury started edging away. ‘Wasn’t the term invented by you people in Fleet Street?’
    ‘I understand you had certain differences with Sir Graham?’
    ‘I was never aware of any,’ Haileybury muttered.
    ‘Do you think it is morally wrong, using surgery to construct new noses and such things for people who can afford it?’
    Haileybury sniffed. ‘I have never given the matter any thought.’
    ‘Perhaps, Sir Eric, you have a comment on Sir Graham’s great work in the war—’
    But Haileybury had escaped into the sanctuary of a holy place, like a medieval criminal.
    The church was crowded and warm and smelt of damp overcoats, reminding Haileybury of the outpatients’ clinic. He was shown to a pew at the front. He decided his arthritis put even a perfunctory kneel on the hassock out of the question. At least the service would be short and businesslike. Services for dead doctors generally were. Medical men live in far too close intimacy with death to regard its arrival as other than an unexpected stroke of treachery. And at his age, Haileybury reflected, such functions became occasions less of pain than foreboding. He adjusted his glasses and reached for the folded sheet of printed paper set before him. Experience told him they would have O God, Our Help In Ages Past. He found he was right. He felt pleased with his little guess, it brightened his morning considerably.
    He folded his arms and stared along the pews. The widow, of course. Rum sort of business, really all over and done with now. Her son. The first son, now an academic, he believed. He’d forgotten what line. These days they made professors in all sorts of peculiar little subjects. Woman doubtless his wife. Been trouble there in the past, too, he seemed to remember. Trust the Trevose family to make fools of themselves when a female came into it. Other man the nephew, Alec. Always seeing him on the television. Looked damned prosperous. Needed a haircut. The other people around him were elderly men of washed-out military appearance, and of course the surgical big wigs. The biggest wig was giving the address. Wouldn’t say anything about Trevose, really, of course. At least, Haileybury reflected, he sincerely hoped not.
    Odd chap, Trevose. Neurotic, of course, but he supposed all medical men were to some degree. You must be, to pick such a strange occupation. As slippery as a snake, unreliable, abominably self-centred. Fond of fame, money, and women. The first two failings didn’t matter much, but the last did. Women were human beings. Trevose always seemed to forget that little fact. Of course, it all changed in the last twenty years of his life. I always rather liked Trevose, Haileybury decided, even when I didn’t care to admit it to myself. He livened things up. Didn’t take life too solemnly. I rather wish I’d had the courage to be more like him myself.
    Haileybury looked behind him. Full of Trevose’s patients. It suddenly struck him these men had hardly aged. Over twenty-five years ago they had been dragged from blazing aeroplanes, shattered tanks, and ships’ scalding engine rooms; now the skin collected in bits from all over their bodies had frozen on their faces in unwrinkled youth. He supposed it was some compensation for having your features ravaged by a shell-splinter at twenty, if you were immune from the ravages of time at forty-five. He searched for some more delicate examples of Trevose’s reconstructive art. But all the worldly and often charming men and women who had besought Trevose at considerable discomfort and expense to make them new faces seemed disinclined to show them in public.
    A fitting epitaph, Haileybury thought, dragging himself to his feet as they began.