'Or perhaps it's just a form of selfishness on my part?' Graham philosophized. 'I like to think of you as worthwhile memorials to my surgery. I've reached a depressing age. I'm beginning to realize I'm at the whim of any passing disease. "Death hath ten thousand several doors for men to take their exits"-a sobering reminder from Webster. But what am I complaining for?' he apologized. 'You've been near enough to getting yourself killed.'
'Yes, and I was terrified. I've vomited in the cockpit. Once, though I kept pretty quiet about it, I accomplished what you would refer to as "defaecation".'
'You'd no hopes of the life hereafter?'
'I preferred to wait and see.'
'I expect you're right. I had a brother once, a medical missionary. He at least departed this life in a spirit of glowing optimism. Do you want some cigarettes?' Graham felt suddenly the conversation was becoming too self-revealing. But now he never had a chance to reveal anything of himself to anybody. 'They're called Sweet Caporals-Canadian, it seems.' He had given up smoking, mainly through the tediousness of queueing, but scrounged what he could for his patients. 'Do you want another book?' He tossed a paperback on his desk, alongside the unfamiliar white packet. In peacetime, he hardly got through a book a year. Now he spent most evenings in his room at The Oak reading. There was nothing like a world war to simplify your life. 'It's _Decline and Fall,_ by Evelyn Waugh. Very funny. How's Bluey getting on?' he added.
'Somewhat restless.'
Graham lit the cigarette in Peter's holder. That was bad news. Bluey had to stand at least another dozen operations, and needed all the patience he could muster.
'Though his morale has improved considerably,' Peter added, 'since getting his hands on a supply of rum. God knows where from. He keeps it in his locker, which I presume is strictly against regulations.'
'The annex houses enough trouble without regulations,' Graham said briefly. He looked at his watch. 'Very well, Peter, off you go on leave. Now there should be a female waiting for me. I don't know what she's like-young, old, fat, thin, as ugly as sin or a goddess. She wants to take over as ward sister, God help her.'
Peter looked surprised. 'The Dragon's going?'
'Yes, Sister James has decided to join the Q.A.S and nurse the Army. You can hardly blame her. After the annex she'll find even a pitched battle a rest cure. As the Blackfriars matron has broken off diplomatic relations with me through the disgraceful behaviour of my patients,' he told Peter with a grin, 'I am obliged to find most of my own staff. This one's been recommended by a surgeon I know in a children's hospital. Just about the right background for handling you lot, I'd imagine. Send her in, will you?'
The prospective sister struck Graham as resembling a Botticelli virgin with disastrous dress-sense. She was slight, fair, and transparent-looking, wearing lisle stockings, stout laced black shoes, and a suit of green and very hairy tweed. She had no hat, her hair was in the usual page-boy bob. Big eyes, Graham noticed, a pretty mouth, if rather over-large. No trace of make-up, but a good skin. He decided she didn't look nearly tough enough.
'It's Miss Mills, isn't it?' he asked, as she sat with hands crossed demurely in her lap. 'I'm afraid all I know about you is confined to a telephone conversation with Mr Cavill, and the line was terrible.'
'Yes. Clare Mills. I'm Mr Cavill's staff nurse.'
She had a soft voice, speaking with great deliberation. Graham noticed she had a trick of emphasizing her last syllables. Probably nervousness, he suspected.
'How old are you?'
'Twenty-three.'
How the nursing profession thrusts responsibility on its daughters! Graham reflected. Before the war, they had to be twenty-one and of unspotted character before being allowed to handle the Blackfriars sick at all. But perhaps women were built for it. After all, there was no responsibility like motherhood, and that was liable to catch a girl unawares anytime.
'I'd better make plain from the start that the work here isn't hard, Miss Mills. It's exhausting. I'm an impossible taskmaster. I'm demanding, boorish, and usually most ungrateful. I don't expect loyalty. I expect devotion. I tolerate incompetence badly, and fools not at all. It's a mystery how I manage to keep any assistants in the place. And the patients are much worse than I am. Life can be hell for nursing staff in the annex. Though, to be fair, most of them seem to find it an enjoyable hell.' Graham smiled at her. 'Would you like to end our interview here and now?'
'I should very much like the post, Mr Trevose.'
'Why?'
She hesitated. 'I've always wanted to work on a plastic surgery unit.'
'A strange ambition.'
She paused again, and went on shyly, 'You once operated on a friend of mine, Mr Trevose. She was a girl-seventeen at the time. She had a deformed lip. Her name was Susan Wright.'
