Free Surgeon at Arms by Richard Gordon

Jardine and some others.’ Graham nodded slowly. That’s encouraging, he thought, Bluey’s getting enough function in his hands to wield a paint brush. ‘Then I can only apologize most sincerely to both of you and Mrs Sedgewick-Smith.’
    ‘You realize they’d been drinking?’
    ‘Had they? I don’t mind that. I even encourage it,’ Graham explained mildly. ‘It’s a matter of pride to my anaesthetist if they feel capable of taking a few drinks after his attentions.’ Seeing the captain’s irritated expression he continued, ‘You see, I want these men to live a normal life. Or as normal as they can manage. I want them to think of an operation as something as casual as a visit to the dentist, not the upheaval of a lifetime.’
    ‘That’s all very well,’ the captain told him testily, ‘but you have to maintain discipline—’
    ‘I’ll talk to them,’ said Graham firmly. ‘I promise. Isn’t that enough? It won’t happen again.’
    ‘No, that is not enough, Mr Trevose. You cannot simply take the affair into your own hands. It is my duty to see that appropriate action is taken.’
    ‘Listen, Captain,’ said Graham briskly, ‘I alone am responsible for these patients. Neither you nor the Army nor anyone else has the first idea how to cope with them. Will you kindly understand that?’
    His patience suddenly broke and he felt angry. In peacetime he had been a somebody, the friend of rich and influential men, a doctor with a name almost as familiar to the general public as Lord Horder’s. Now he was being lectured by some hack in a uniform which passed as a substitute for intelligence.
    ‘Can’t you see? These men aren’t invalids.’ Graham’s outstretched arm indicated the ward, where the patients were lying in bed reading the Sunday papers, trying hard to give the impression they weren’t listening. Bluey himself was asleep at the end, snoring loudly. ‘Underneath their wounds and scars they’re full of life, fit and lusty. They were youngsters with charm and sex-appeal, and what happened? In a few seconds they were turned into objects of horror. Then they were locked up in this converted madhouse. And that’s not to be their fate for a week, or a month, or even a year. When the war’s over and everyone’s back in their comfortable little slots these patients of mine will still be coming up for another graft, another pedicle, another operation of some sort. How are they going to face that miserable prospect if they can’t run wild now and then?’
    Captain Pile tried to say something, but Graham went on, ‘Do you know what happened in the last war? When I first heard of plastic surgery I was a patient myself in a sanatorium. There was a plastic unit billeted in half the wards. Every afternoon, under King’s Regulations, the men had to be marched by an N.C.O. round the countryside for exercise. You can imagine the effect.
    People weren’t so well educated then, were more superstitious. You’d have thought an army of ghouls was advancing on them. They locked their doors, covered their windows, and hid their children. So the Army confined the poor fellows to hospital, with nothing to look at but each other—an inspired piece of morale-building. I don’t want any of that nonsense in this war. There’s one thing my patients ask from the world, and only one. To be treated as normal individuals. Oh, I know it’s difficult, they’re freaks. But the effort isn’t much to ask.’
    ‘I think Mr Trevose is perfectly right,’ announced Mrs Sedgewick-Smith.
    Captain Pile spun round. The unexpected desertion of his ally appalled him. Trevose was a difficult customer at the best of times, and that morning he needed all the support he could muster. She stood tugging the hem of her tweed jacket and staring at Graham with large grey eyes. She must have been quite a good-looking girl, Graham thought. Even now, I could do her face a power of good.
    ‘After all,’ continued Mrs Sedgewick-Smith