Bernard Knight - Dead in the Dog

Now he sat in the gloom with her hand in his and a leaden feeling in his chest, as he felt her interest in him melting like snow in the sun. Until that bastard from Gunong Besar had decided to become predatory, life had been wonderful — now it was ashes in his mouth. As he felt the unfamiliar burn of hatred glowing inside him, he knew he must think of some way to sabotage this passing infatuation with that arrogant sod, even if it meant some really drastic action.

Tom Howden missed the dance at The Dog the following Friday evening, as he was doing his first session as Orderly Medical Officer. He should have gone on the rota earlier, but the others thoughtfully gave him a few days to settle down. The OMO spell of duty ran from nine in the morning to the same time next day, though unless there was some emergency, there was little to be done during the daytime, as the regular staff coped with any problems. He spent the day in his laboratory, where he now had had a full week to get the hang of the routine.

After being nothing more than a junior to consultants and registrars on Tyneside, he revelled in his new-found independence. None of the other doctors here knew anything about laboratory practice and he was left to carry on more or less as he wished. True, there were set procedures laid out by the Deputy Assistant Director of Pathology down in BMH Alexandra in Singapore, but that was four hundred miles away and the DADP was said to come up to inspect only once in a blue moon. Tom’s real bosses were his four technicians, who knew the business backwards and tactfully allowed their captain to think he was in charge, while they carried on blithely as they had done for the last month, since his predecessor had gone RHE.

There was Sergeant Derek Oates, a smart young Regular soldier with a clipped military moustache, who was a well-qualified medical laboratory technician. The other Brit was Lance Corporal Lewis Cropper, another Regular who had been a full corporal, but had been busted back to private when in Germany and had only recently climbed back to one-stripe. He was an engaging, but rather dodgy character, decided Tom — the type of Cockney from whom you would never buy a used car! He was thin and scraggy, with a lock of mousy hair that fell over his forehead and a uniform that fitted him even worse than most of his comrades. However, he was an excellent worker and prepared the best microscope sections of tissue that Tom had ever seen.

The other two technicians were locally enlisted Malayan Other Ranks — ‘MORs’, as they were known, both having been trained by the Army in the FARELF lab down in Singapore. It was a close little family and after this first week, Tom was perfectly happy and enjoyed every minute of his working day. He had a small room off the main laboratory, with a desk and a good microscope, a shelf of books and an oscillating fan — what more could a man want, he asked himself! The window looked out towards the main corridor, so he could watch the comings and goings of the whole hospital — within a few days, he could recognize every QA by their ankles without having to look up at the face under the crisp white headdress.

It was also an early-warning system in case the CO took a fancy to call, other than on the official weekly inspection of the whole hospital, which O’Neill did at ten o’clock every Tuesday morning. Then there was much cleaning and polishing to be done before the procession arrived, protocol demanding that each member entered in strict pecking order. First the RSM would clump in to call the staff to attention, his gleaming nailed boots rattling on the concrete floor. The technicians would stand rigidly alongside their benches, as behind the RSM came the Commanding Officer, stick under arm, followed by Doris Hawkins, the QA matron, blinking benignly at everyone. The Quartermaster was next, an ageing captain with a bulbous nose and a dyspeptic mouth. Though he had a strong Liverpudlian accent, he rejoiced in the name of Robert Burns. Alf Morris, the Administrative Officer, brought up the rear, carrying a clipboard, ready to note down any commands, complaints or pearls of wisdom that might fall from the colonel’s lips.

The pathologist was more fortunate than some other sections of the hospital, as the inspection of the laboratory was relatively perfunctory. Tom wondered if this was because O’Neill, who had been a public health specialist, knew absolutely nothing about pathology — or whether he was afraid of catching something nasty if he rubbed his fingers on the furniture and fittings to look for dirt. The first inspection lasted about two minutes, with a rapid perambulation around the central bench and a quick look into Tom’s office and the little histology lab where Cropper cut his sections and made the tea. With a few grunts and throat-clearings, the CO ended by demanding to know if Tom had any problems. Then with a curt nod, O’Neill left the new pathologist to breathe a sigh of relief as he saw the cavalcade leave and march into the dispensary opposite to persecute the staff sergeant who ran the pharmacy.

This was now the routine of his new life and he enjoyed every minute of it, with just an occasional pang of homesickness for faraway Tyneside.

The past week had been enlivened by Christmas, treating Tom to another bizarre experience, seeing hospital staff in tropical kit going around with red Santa Claus caps — and in the children’s part of the Families Ward, even a few with cotton-wool whiskers. In the sweltering heat, wards were hung with paper chains and cardboard reindeers. Carols and Christmas pop songs blared out from record players in the barrack rooms and messes. Tom volunteered to help with the decorations in Lynette’s ward and even joined the carol singers who paraded the corridor on Christmas Eve, belting out ‘Good King Wenceslas’ in competition with the cicadas and bullfrogs.

A few days after New Year was celebrated, the OMO rota again brought Tom on Friday duty. After dinner that evening, Tom sat in the deserted Mess, quite glad of some peace following a busy day. Almost all the others had gone to The Dog, though Peter Bright had left a note to say that he was in the NAAFI library in the garrison, in case there were any major surgical emergencies that couldn’t be handled by Eddie Rosen. As well as the OMO, there was always a rota for a surgeon and anaesthetist, which meant that like the Orderly Officer, they had to remain sober for the night. There was another ‘gasman’ apart from David Meredith, a Regular captain who lived in married quarters and rarely came to the Mess.

The pathologist lolled in one of the easy chairs, reading yesterday’s Straits Times , which carried all the British sports news on its back pages, making home seem less far away. As he relaxed, Number One brought him a pint glass of Frazer and Neave’s grapefruit soda, a satisfying drink for those temporarily on the wagon. He lay back contentedly to catch up with the recent fortunes of Newcastle United.

When he finally put the paper aside, Tom just sat quietly, listening to the endless chirrup of the crickets outside the open doors and the gentle whirr of the fans overhead. The strangeness of being dumped halfway across the world within a few weeks of leaving a cold, wet England was beginning to fade, though he still had fits of unreality about the whole business. He had rarely before been more than fifty miles from his native Tyneside. During the worst blitzes of the war, his parents had evacuated him to an aunt’s farm in rural Northumberland, but apart from rugby trips and some childhood holidays to Scarborough or Whitby, he had been very much a home bird. Even as a medical student in Newcastle, he had stayed in Gateshead, living in the semi-detached with his parents and younger brother. His father was a draughtsman in the huge Swan Hunter shipyard across the Tyne in Wallsend and Mum was a dedicated housewife.