‘Politics.’ He started back-tracking immediately. ‘Of course, it’s probably useless. You can’t get anywhere in this shitting country without an Oxford or Cambridge degree.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘Easily said.’
‘Not easily said at all. I didn’t go to either.’
Prior looked surprised.
‘I got typhoid in my last year at school. We couldn’t afford Cambridge without the scholarship. No, you can certainly get on without. And things’ll be freer after the war. If only because hundreds of thousands of young men have been thrown into contact with the working classes in a way they’ve never been before. That has to have some impact.’
‘Careful, Rivers. You’re beginning to sound like a Bolshevik.’
‘I’m just trying to give you some faith in your own abilities. And by the way, I do not think you are a nasty selfish little person.’
Prior scowled ferociously, probably to hide his pleasure.
‘I’ll try to be here when Dr Eaglesham comes. Meanwhile, do you think you could try to get on with Willard?’
Rivers had just started shaving when the VAD banged on his door. She gasped something about ‘Captain Anderson’ and ‘blood’, and, dreading what he would find, Rivers hurried downstairs to Anderson’s room. He found Anderson huddled in a foetal position, in the corner by the window, teeth chattering, a dark stain spreading across the front of his pyjamas. His room-mate, Featherstone, stood by the washstand, razor in hand, looking at him with more irritation than sympathy.
‘What happened?’ Rivers asked.
‘I don’t know, he just started screaming.’
Rivers knelt beside Anderson and quickly checked that he wasn’t injured. ‘Was he asleep?’
‘No, he was waiting for the basin.’
Rivers looked at Featherstone. A thin trickle of blood was dribbling down his wet chin. Ah. Rivers stood up, and patted him on the arm. ‘Bleed elsewhere, Featherstone, there’s a good chap.’
Featherstone — not in the best of tempers — strode out of the room. Rivers went across to the basin, rinsed his flannel out, wiped the bowl, gave the slightly blood-stained towel to the VAD and held the door open for her to leave. ‘There,’ he said, looking across at Anderson. ‘All gone.’
Slowly Anderson relaxed, becoming in the process aware of the stain between his legs. Rivers fetched his dressing gown and threw it across to him. ‘You’d better wrap this round you, you’ll be chilly once the sweating’s stopped.’ He went back to the washstand. ‘Do you mind if I borrow your flannel?’
He wiped the remaining shaving soap from his face, and checked to see he hadn’t cut himself when the VAD banged on his door. That would not have been helpful. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Anderson pull the coverlet up to hide the wet patch in the bed. When Rivers next looked round, he was sitting on the bed, swinging his legs and doing his best to look casual. Rivers sat down, far enough away for Anderson not to have to worry about the smell. ‘Still as bad as that?’
‘I suppose it’s as bad as it looks.’
And this was the man who was going to return to medicine. ‘You know, we’re going to have to start talking about what you realistically want to do.’
‘We’ve been through all that.’
‘I can get you a month’s extension in October. After that —’
‘That’s all right. I can’t stay here for ever.’
Rivers hesitated. ‘Is there any sign of your wife managing to get up?’
Mrs Anderson’s visit had been much talked of, but had still not occurred.
‘No. It’s difficult with a child.’
Others managed. Rivers left Anderson to get dressed and went back to his own room to finish shaving. Now that the surge of excitement had worn off, he felt tired and unwell. Quite unfit for work, though the day would have to be got through somehow.
Willard was his first patient. He was following a regime which involved early-morning exercises in the pool, and was wheeled into the room, wet-haired and smelling of chlorine. He started at once. ‘I can’t share a room with that man.’
Rivers went on kneading Willard’s calf muscles.
‘Prior.’
‘You’re not sharing a room with him, are you? You just happen to be in the sick bay at the same time.’
‘In effect I’m sharing a room.’
‘That feels quite a bit firmer. Does it feel firmer to you?’
Willard felt his calf. ‘A bit. He wakes up screaming. It’s intolerable.’
‘No, well, I don’t suppose he likes it much either.’
Willard hesitated. ‘It’s not just that.’ He bent towards Rivers. ‘He’s one of those.’
Rivers looked and felt stunned. ‘I really don’t think he is, you know. You mustn’t take everything Prior says seriously. He likes to tease.’
‘He is. You can always tell.’
‘Press against the palm of my hand.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d consider moving him?’
‘No. And again. He’s ill, Mr Willard. He needs the sick bay. If anybody moves out, it’ll be you.’
Willard was followed by an unscheduled appointment with Featherstone, also demanding a change of room, though with more reason. Nobody could be expected to share with Anderson, he said. The nightmares and vomiting were too bad, and the loss of sleep was beginning to affect his nerves. All of this was true. Rivers listened and sympathized and promised Featherstone a change of room as soon as the September Boards had introduced some leeway into the system. At the moment the hospital was so crowded there was no hope of a room change for anybody.
Next, Lansdowne, an RAMC captain, whose long-standing claustrophobia had been uncovered by his inability to enter dugouts. A particularly testing session. Lansdowne was always demanding, though Rivers didn’t mind that, since he felt he was making progress. Then Fothersgill, Sassoon’s new room-mate, a fanatical Theosophist. He spoke throughout in mock medieval English — lots of ‘Yea verilys’ and ‘forsooths’ — as if his brief exposure to French horrors had frightened him into a sort of terminal facetiousness. He was forty-three, but with his iron-grey hair, monocle and stiff manners he seemed far older. He didn’t take long. Basically, he was suffering from being too old for the war, a complaint with which Rivers had a little more sympathy every day.
Then a meeting of the Hospital Management Committee. Fletcher, one of the two patient representatives, was a highly efficient, conscientious man whose stay in France had ended when he’d developed paranoid delusions that the quartermaster was deliberately and systematically depriving the men of food. This delusion he had now transferred to the hospital steward. The meeting went well enough until the standard of hospital catering came under discussion, and then Fletcher’s delusions came to the fore. Tempers became heated, and the meeting closed on an acrimonious note. It was an unfortunate incident, since it would certainly fuel the administration’s view that patients should take no part in the running of the hospital. Bryce, supported by Rivers, believed that patient participation was essential, even if this meant that Craiglockhart committee meetings sometimes developed a flavour all of their own.
After lunch, Rivers went along to Bryce’s room to discuss Broadbent. Broadbent had been to see his sick mother twice in recent months. Towards the end of the second visit a telegram arrived from Broadbent, saying that his mother had passed on, and asking permission to stay for the funeral. Naturally, permission had been granted. In due course Broadbent came back, wearing a black armband, and — rather less explicably — the red tabs of a staff officer. The red tabs disappeared overnight, but the black armband remained. For some days after that Broadbent sat around the patients’ common room, pink-eyed and sorrowful, being consoled by the VADs. This happy state of affairs came to a close when Mrs Broadbent arrived, demanding to know why she never heard from her son. Broadbent was now upstairs, in a locked room. It was not easy to see how a court-martial could be avoided.