Richard Gordon - DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE

'Me? Oh, well, I don't do anything…that is, well, you know…' He gave an embarrassed giggle. 'I do child imitations.'

'Good for you. Child imitations it shall be. Evans, my dear old boy, you shall be general understudy, stage manager, wardrobe mistress, and ale carrier. You haven't got one of those lilting Welsh voices, I suppose?'

'My voice is only any good when diluted with forty thousand others at Twickenham.'

'Oh well, Harris will have to sing, I suppose. It's unavoidable. That seems to have settled the casting difficulties.'

'What about you? What are you going to do?' I asked him.

'I, shall write, produce, and compиre the piece, as well as reciting a short poem of my own composition in honour of St. Swithin's. I think it should go over very well. I suppose nobody has any objections to that?'

We shook our heads submissively.

'Good. Now what we want is a title. It must be short, snappy, brilliantly funny, and with a medical flavour the patients can understand. Any suggestions?'

The seven of us thought for a few minutes in silence.

'How about "Laughing Gas"?' I suggested.

Grimsdyke shook his head. 'Too trite.'

'"Babies in the Ward"?' said Benskin eagerly. 'Or "The Ninety-niners"?'

'They were both used last year.'

'I've got it!' Harris jumped up from behind the piano.

'"Enema for the Skylark"! How's that?'

'Horrible.'

We thought again. Grimsdyke suddenly snapped his fingers. 'Just the thing!' he announced. 'The very thing! What's wrong with "Jest Trouble"?'

His cast looked at him blankly.

'"Jest trouble," you see,' he explained. 'Pun on "Chest Trouble." All the patients know what that means. Get it? Exactly the right touch, I think. Now let's get on and write a script.'

The production was born with-in relation to its small size and immaturity-intense labour pains. As the cast had to continue their routine hospital work the producer found it difficult to assemble them on one spot at the same time; and when they did arrive, each one insisted on rewriting the script as he went along. I drooped over the piano trying hard to transform the melody of 'Onward Christian Soldiers' into a suitable accompaniment for a cautionary duet Benskin and Grimsdyke insisted on singing, beginning:

_'If the ill that troubles you is a-tendency to lues,_

_And you're positive your Wasserman is too.'_

And ending:

_'My poor little baby, he's deaf and he's dumb,_

_My poor little baby's insane:_

_He's nasty big blisters all over his tum,_

_What a shame, what a shame, what a shame!'_

When the King George closed we moved to the deserted students' common room; when we were hoarse and exhausted we flopped to sleep on the springless sofas. We rehearsed grimly all the next day. Late on Christmas Eve Grimsdyke rubbed his hands and announced: 'This would bring a smile to the lips of a chronic melancholic.'

The patients saw plenty of Christmas Day. They were woken up by the night nurses at five a.m. as usual, given a bowl of cold water, and wished a Merry Christmas. After breakfast the nurses took off their uniform caps and put on funny hats, and shifted into hidden side-wards any patients who seemed likely to spoil the fun by inconsiderately passing away. Sister Virtue was particularly successful in the role of Valkyrie: her long experience of diseases and doctors enabled her to spot a declining case several days before the medical staff. She had only to fix her glare on an apparently convalescent patient and give her bleak opinion that 'He won't do, sir,' and the houseman confidently made arrangements for the post-mortem.

When I arrived on the ward in the middle of the morning I found a wonderful end-of-term spirit abroad. People were allowed to do things they felt forbidden even to contemplate at any other time in the year. Smoking was permitted all day, not only in the regulation hour after meals, the radio was turned on before noon, and, as if this wasn't enough, the patients were issued with a bottle of beer apiece.

Sister was visiting each of the beds distributing presents from the tree, and two up-patients, dressing-gowned old gentlemen with a brace of alarming blood pressures, were dancing the highland fling in nurses' caps and aprons. Three or four of the students were steadfastly pursuing nurses with sprigs of mistletoe: the chase was not exacting.

As I entered the ward a giggling nurse ran out of the sluice-room followed by Tony Benskin, who had a look of intense eagerness on his face.

'That's enough, Mr. Benskin!' she cried. 'You've had enough!'

Benskin pulled up as he caught sight of me.

'I thought you said you were coming early to test urine,' I remarked.

'One meets one's friends,' he explained simply. 'One must be social. After all, it's Christmas. Come in the sluice-room. I've got a bottle.'

I followed him in.

'And I thought you were scared of nurses.'

'Delightful creatures,' said Benskin, beaming. 'So refreshingly sex-starved.'

I noticed the gin bottle he had invited me to.

'Good God, Tony,' I said. 'Have you got through all that so early in the day?'

'It's Christmas, old boy.'

'Tony, you're sloshed already.'

'What of it? There's plenty more gin in the instrument cupboard. Grimsdyke hid it there yesterday. After all, it's Christmas. Have a drink.'

'All right. I suppose it's my party as much as yours.'

The gin in the instrument cupboard was finished by midday, when Dr. Lionel Loftus appeared with his wife, and his two ugly daughters that were produced every Christmas-time like the decorations but without success. He got a hilarious reception.

'Here's the old Dean!' cried Benskin, leaping up on a bed. 'Three cheers for the Dean, boys! Three cheers for old Lofty! Three cheers for the jolly old Dean!'

The Dean stood, all smiles, in the doorway, while three cheers were given and the ward broke into 'For He's a jolly Good Fellow.' He kissed Sister under the mistletoe, presented his housemen with a bottle of sherry, and shook hands with the patients. His own part in the programme was fairly simple: all he had to do was put on a chef's hat and carve the turkey in the middle of the ward. He was not good at carving and the last patients had a cold meal, which was the disadvantage of eating Christmas dinner on the medical side of the hospital. The surgeons were naturally more skilful, and Sir Lancelot Spratt had been known to slit a bird to ribbons in a couple of minutes.

During dinner Grimsdyke appeared. I was sitting on a bed with my arm round a nurse. Both of us were blowing squeakers.

'Hello, old boy,' Grimsdyke said in a worried tone. 'Merry Christmas and all that sort of thing. How are you feeling?'

'Fine! Have a drink.'

'All the boys are pretty high, I suppose?'

'Of course. Benskin's as stiff as a plank.'

'Oh God! I hope he'll be all right to go on this afternoon.'

I put my squeaker down contritely.

'I'd clean forgotten about that! Perhaps we'd better go and see how he is.'

'Where's he got to?' Grimsdyke asked nervously.

The nurse told him. 'I saw him going into the sluice-room. He said he felt tired and wanted a rest.'

Benskin was resting when we found him. He was lying on the stone floor with his head against the base of the sink.

'Wake up! Wake up!' Grimsdyke commanded, with an anxious note in his voice. 'The show, man! We're due to start in half an hour!'

Benskin grunted.

'Oh Lord!' Grimsdyke said in despair. 'We'll never get him on the stage…Tony! Benskin! Pull yourself together!'

Benskin opened his eyes fleetingly.

'Merry Christmas,' he muttered.

'Why not try an ice-pack on his head?' I suggested.

'Or an intravenous injection of vitamin C? It's supposed to oxidize the alcohol.'