Free Death in a Scarlet Coat by David Dickinson

scarcely left her post by the doctor’s bedside all through the evening. One visitor had called to see him quite late but he had departed in rather a cross mood, saying that he couldn’t get any sense out of the doctor at all and would come back the following afternoon. In vain didMrs Baines suggest that the morning was the best, if not the only time the doctor might be lucid. The visitor had other appointments in the morning.
    The doctor drifted off to sleep, shortly after eleven o’clock. He might, in Mrs Baines’ limited knowledge, be in a coma; she couldn’t be sure. What she did know was that there was very little anybody could do for Theodore Miller in his present state. She could make him comfortable and keep him warm and clean until the end. And she didn’t think the end was very far off now. She resolved to ring the other doctor, as the older citizens always referred to the upstart newcomer Dr Campbell, at seven o’clock in the morning.
    She had lost count of the number of these vigils she had kept now, Bertha Baines, vigils with members of her own family, four of whom she had watched over into the next world, vigils with people who had employed her, she now realized, so they would not leave this world alone, terrible vigils with sick children whose parents had asked her to help out and found they were too busy with their other children or too exhausted to keep watch on their little ones as they slipped away, vigils with friends and neighbours who sent for Bertha because she was known to be good at that sort of thing.
    She supposed watching over people as they died had become as much a part of her now as her other work as a nurse or a housekeeper. Just before midnight she went upstairs to sit with the doctor, fortified by an enormous pot of tea clad in three separate tea cosies, and a plate of biscuits. The doctor was always fond of a biscuit when he was well. Mrs Baines looked at him carefully as she began her vigil. She wiped the beads of sweat from his brow. He seemed comfortable with his blankets and his pillows. His breathing was regular but shallow. His hands wandered about over the bedclothes every now and then and Bertha seized one and held it in her own. The doctor looked content. Howoften had she looked in on these scenes. How often had she thought the patient was secure in their hold on life only for them to slip away a moment later. Truly, she had thought on many occasions with the terminally ill, it must be as hard to die sometimes as it is to stay alive.
    Shortly before three o’clock in the morning, when her reservoir of tea was almost exhausted, she thought Dr Miller had stopped breathing, he seemed so still. Leaning forward she realized that his breath, though fainter than before, was still going. Just before dawn she plumped up his pillows once more, mopped his brow, tiptoed downstairs and came back with her Book of Common Prayer . She had checked years before with the vicar, who assured her it was perfectly all right to read the Lord’s Prayer and the Catechism and the Collect of the Day aloud to her patients. ‘Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name …’ She held one of the doctor’s hands as she spoke the prayer. There was a very slight rustling in the bed as if Dr Miller might be on the verge of waking up, but it came to nothing.
    ‘Fulfil now, o Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants as may be most expedient for them: granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth and in the world to come life everlasting.’
    Looking at him, the deathly pallor, the deep wrinkles on his face and on the backs of his hands, Mrs Baines thought the doctor was much closer to life everlasting than he was to knowledge of God’s truth.
    At seven she tiptoed downstairs to telephone Dr Campbell. He said he would be over straight away. They always come quicker for their own, Mrs Baines said to herself crossly, remembering a nine-hour wait by the bedside of a dying child before the