An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea by Patrick Taylor
“Aye, right enough. Ill. Anyroad,” and he took no care to speak softly now, “we’re just waiting for the news to travel, maybe up til Belfast and some rich people, like the ones who live on the Malone Road or Cherryvalley.”
“Have you any notion how to get the word further afield?” O’Reilly asked, but was going to have to wait for an answer because a hush had fallen over the entire pub.
O’Reilly looked over at the doorway, where Lenny Brown stood holding his son Colin’s hand. “Willie, I know youngsters aren’t allowed in pubs,” Lenny said, “but this here’s very special, so it is, and all the people we want til thank is in here.”
“Sure isn’t Colin eighteen?” Willie said with a huge wink. “And isn’t Constable Mulligan over in Newtownards the day? No problem. Come on on in.”
Lenny moved to the bar, lifted Colin so he could stand there, albeit stooped over because the wooden-beamed ceiling was so low. As usual, one knee sock was crumpled round one ankle.
“Now, gentlemen, and Donal Donnelly, who hardly qualifies.”
Prolonged laughter in which Donal joined. Ballybucklebo folks were masters of the gentle art of slagging, trading good-natured insults with no malice intended.
“Away off and chase yourself. Sure it takes one to know one, you know, Lenny, seeing as how you’re not qualified yourself,” Donal said, returning the insult with interest, to more laughter.
“Nice one, Donal,” Lenny said, then waved an envelope over his head. “Everybody. This here come in this morning’s post.” He paused for dramatic effect, then said, “Wait til youse hear this. Wait til youse hear this. My wee Colin’s passed his Eleven Plus. He—”
Lenny got no farther. The room erupted in applause, a couple of whistles, several cries of “Dead on.”
Colin waved his clasped hands over his head like a victorious prizefighter.
Lenny waited until a semblance of silence returned. “I want til thank Miss Sue Nolan, who’s not here.”
O’Reilly glanced at Barry, who was nodding, a melancholy smile on this face. “I’ll tell her in my next letter. She’ll be thrilled.”
“Thank you for that, and with Doctor O’Reilly and Alan Hewitt, who got me to see the light that letting him sit it was the best thing to do for my dead brill wee son.”
O’Reilly felt a constriction in his throat. Other people’s success, particularly children’s, always affected him.
“And Councillor Bishop. I had a wee private word with him this morning to let him know. He knows why I’m saying thanks til him and I think some of youse maybe do too, but he asked me for not til make a fuss about it, so he did. Anyroad, on behalf of my son,” Lenny lifted Colin down from the bar, “thank youse all.”
Once more the Duck sounded like Belfast’s Hippodrome after a headliner had finished their act.
O’Reilly rose. “This should call for Champagne,” he said, “but—”
Willie interrupted. “We don’t keep any of those fancy French fizzes here, sir.”
“And that’s all to the good,” O’Reilly said, “for I’m not made of money, but I’d like to buy you a drink, Lenny, and can Colin have a lemonade or an orange crush?”
“I’ll take a pint, please, Doctor,” Lenny said.
“Maybe,” Willie said as he started to put a pint on, “Colin would like one of those American Coca-Colas? I’ve a few in the fridge.”
“Wheeker,” said Colin. “Sticking out a mile.”
O’Reilly rose and made his way to the bar. He was aware that Bertie Bishop was at his shoulder. “Lenny,” O’Reilly said, “I’d like to shake your and Colin’s hands. It’s a great day for you two and Connie, Colin’s mammy.” He shook with Lennie, but before taking Colin’s hand he palmed a half crown. “Congratulations, son,” O’Reilly said, winked, shook, and felt the coin vanish.
“Thanks very much, Doctor,” Colin said.
“Now,” said O’Reilly, “you’re going to grammar school. You make sure you work hard and make us all proud.”
Before Colin could answer, Bertie Bishop had edged past O’Reilly. “Congratulations, Colin,” he said. “I want you to have this.” He proffered a ten-shilling note.
Colin’s eyes widened at the money, four times the amount O’Reilly had just given him. “All for me?”
“Every penny.”
“My God,” Colin said. “I’m getting rich, so I am. Thank you very, very much, Mister Bishop.”
Willie said from behind the bar, “Your pint, Lenny, and your Coke, Colin.”
“You enjoy your drinks,” Bertie Bishop said. He turned to O’Reilly. “Doctor, I wasn’t eavesdropping nor nothing, but I overheard something Donal said and I’ve a wee notion I might be able to help.”
O’Reilly’s mouth opened. How much had he heard? O’Reilly studied Bertie’s face, but there seemed nothing there but genuine interest. Since the man’s illness there had been a sea change in the most miserable gobshite in the village and townland. Maybe, O’Reilly thought, Ebenezer Scrooge hadn’t needed three ghosts to make him change his ways. A serious illness could have done the trick. “Push your table up fornenst ours,” O’Reilly said.
When the seating arrangements had been made, Bertie said, “Donal, it’s none of my business and if you want to tell me to take a hike that’s all right, but I heard you saying you want rich people in Belfast to know about them there new dogs that’s coming. I think I can help.”
O’Reilly watched as emotional warfare broke out on Donal’s face, judging by his changing expressions: a frown for initial disbelief, a pulling up of one side of his mouth suggesting puzzlement, the lifting of his duncher and scratching of his carroty mop meaning he was wrestling with the dilemma of whether or not to trust a man who not long ago had tried to cheat Donal and his friends out of their shares in a racehorse. Finally, after replacement of the cloth cap, there came a beaming smile, which must mean that greed had triumphed over prudence. “Fire away, sir. I’m all ears, so I am.” Donal exchanged a look with Dapper.
“Right,” said Bertie. “You want to get the word about your Woolamarroo quacker—”
“Excuse me, sir. It’s quokka.”
“I stand corrected. Quokka.”
Watching Donal, of all people, correcting another’s pronunciation required O’Reilly to call on all of his self-control to stop himself guffawing.
“Me and Mister Ramsey here’s”—the stranger bowed his head—“in the chamber of commerce up in town. They’ll be having our Christmas dinner party on December the seventeenth. Mister Ramsey’s having me and Flo as his guests. Would you consider bringing a couple of the pups to the predinner cocktails?”
“Why?” Donal asked.
“Ernie could put the word out beforehand about these amazing dogs, couldn’t you?”
“Aye, certainly,” Ernie said.
“How much a pup?” Bertie asked.
Donal never hesitated. “Twenty pounds, sir. Them’s pedigree dogs and I have the papers til prove it, so I do.”
Bertie whistled.
“I know twenty quid sounds like a lot,” Donal said, and continued with great solemnity, “but you only get what you pay for.”
“Right enough.” Bertie clapped Donal on the shoulder and said, “Twenty quid’s pocket money to the likes of folks that run Mackie’s Foundry, Harland and Wolff’s. It’ll be a wee doddle getting them til pay up.”
Donal looked sideways at Dapper, who nodded once and said, “If you say so, sir.”
“I do say so, Dapper Frew,” said Bertie, showing some of his former feistiness. He turned back to Donal. “Now, you’re the dogs’ owner so I’ll bring you and a couple of pups to the party. Right, Ernie?”
“Right,” Ernie said, “and I’ll get you on as a special agenda item before the dinner, during the cocktails.”
Bertie said, “You get that pretty wife of yours to tie some red ribbons round the wee doggies’ necks. They’ll fit right into the festivities.”
Donal scratched his head.
“I’ll run you up, Donal,” O’Reilly said quickly, “and home again.” And if I can’t finagle my way in to watch Donal pull off the con trick, then my name’s not Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly.
“That would be dead on, Doctor,” Donal said.
“Fine by me,” Bertie said. “Sounds like you’ve got valuable property there.” Bertie clearly believed every word Donal and his friend Dapper were saying.
O’Reilly shook his head. If there was a Nobel Prize for con artistry Donal and Dapper would both be going to Stockholm very soon.
“Do you know, Mister Bishop, Mister Ramsey, I’m your man on this.” He leant over and shook hands with each in turn.
“I’ll bet,” said Bertie, “they’ll all be sold in no time flat.”
“And speaking of bets…” O’Reilly said, and he looked at Barry, who, with a wry grin on his face, was shaking his head in early admission of almost certain defeat.
32
Engage Himself Openly and Publicly
It was Sunday noon, when an Englishman’s place, after morning service in Fareham’s 105-year-old Holy Trinity Anglican Church, was in the pub for a predinner pint. With Tony leading the way, Fingal stepped into the inviting semidarkness of the Whitehorse Inn, a pleasant country hostelry on the banks of the Wallington River that had long served as Tony’s local when he was home on leave. The war had not curtailed the Sunday ritual and the place was buzzing. The womenfolk, Marge, Deirdre, and Pip, had gone home to prepare the midday Sunday meal. Marge had collected up everyone’s meat coupons and had miraculously, Fingal suspected with the connivance of the local butcher, managed to secure a beef roast, which she planned to serve with Yorkshire puddings and parsnips, brussels sprouts and potatoes from her Victory garden.
But before lunch, a pint, and Fingal savoured the thought of both on this precious weekend away from Haslar.
Conversation rose and fell in the public bar and the air was blue with tobacco smoke. Two men were throwing darts with a single-mindedness of purpose, oblivious to the din around them. Fingal could imagine King Henry VIII decreeing that all his archers should play the game every Sunday after mass to hone their aiming skills. At a table nearby, two farm labourers in traditional smocks were playing cribbage.
“What’ll you have, Fingal?”
“Pint of bitter, please.”
“Coming right up.” Tony went to the bar and stood beside a bald-headed, florid-faced gentleman of about sixty in hacking jacket, tweed plus-fours, woollen stockings, and heavy brogues. He sported a drooping moustache and could have served as a model for David Low’s Colonel Blimp.
Fingal smiled at the mental picture, imagined the man prefacing his every utterance with “Gad, sir,” just like the cartoon character. He fished out his pipe and lit up while he waited for Tony, now engaged in conversation by another regular.
As he let himself sink into the comforting atmosphere of the pub, it was almost possible to imagine himself back in Ireland, that this rare weekend off duty was routine and that he was just a country doctor mulling over his week: the satisfaction of knowing his anaesthetic skills were ever improving; his gratitude to Angus Mahaddie, who’d been a brick, happily coconspiring to get Henson back on his gunnery course. The sulpha had worked, the stumps had healed, and Angus’s recommendation that Henson be passed fit for duty had been accepted, with Fraser none the wiser. Alf Henson was now back on Whale Island and expected to be finished with his course by mid-December.
But he was not in Ireland and he was not a country doctor but a lieutenant-commander, due to return to Warspite in little more than a month from today, December the first.
“Here you are.” Tony set a dimpled pint glass on the tabletop, plopped down beside Fingal, and raised his glass. “Absent friends.” The navy’s Sunday toast.
“Absent friends,” he replied.
“So,” said Tony jovially, “good news from the Med the past few weeks. The planes of HMS Illustrious sinking that ruddy great Italian battleship Dulio and damaging two more of their battlewagons. Still, I don’t know how long people here at home can hang on…”
They were both silent, sipping their beer. Fingal knew they were probably both thinking of how Southampton had been bombed a week ago and there were rumours that the flashes and sweeping searchlight beams he’d been able to see in last night’s northern sky had been the town being raided again—and at only twenty miles away it had been too bloody close to Alverstoke.
In mid-November, the German Luftwaffe had hit Coventry and destroyed much of that city and its fourteenth-century Gothic cathedral. Britain was still taking it, but the price was getting higher. Rumour had it that the Germans had been guided by some secret radio blind-aiming device.
Tony took a long pull on his beer and shook his head. “Sorry, Fingal, I didn’t mean to bring up the war.” Then he laughed. “As if it’s not on everyone’s mind. Even here in this little country pub. It’s just that I’m thinking of someone,” he said quietly. “An absent friend. His parents are Irish like you.”
“Any chance I might know them?”
“No, they came from Tipperary, but he was born here, in Fareham. I’ve known him all my life. Captain Edward Fegen, RN.”
Fingal shook his head, sipped his warm, weak beer, and waited for Tony to continue.
“He was captain of an armed merchant cruiser, HMS Jervis Bay. She was the sole escort of convoy HX 84 from Halifax to Liverpool.” He looked at the tabletop.
“That’s your usual run, isn’t it?”
“There but for the grace of God,” Tony said, and looked up. “Poor old Teddy ran into the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer on the fifth of November.”
When Fingal and Deirdre had been enjoying the quiet of the New Forest, Fingal thought, British sailors had been dying in the icy North Atlantic. He shuddered.
“By all accounts he charged the Nazis head on. His six-inch pop guns against the Germans’ eleven-inchers. Fought them for three hours and gave the convoy the chance to scatter. Jervis Bay was sunk and Teddy was killed.” He stopped abruptly and took a swallow of his pint. “But all but five of the thirty-seven ships in the convoy survived.”
“Brave men,” Fingal said.
“Very brave,” Tony said. “And I’m telling you this for a reason, Fingal.”
“Go on.”
Tony set his glass on the table. He reddened. “Um, you’ll keep this in strictest confidence, of course?”
“Naturally.”
Tony leant closer to Fingal before saying, “I’ve been in love with Pip for donkey’s years…”
Fingal waited. Irishmen could be reticent about discussing personal matters, but Englishmen? Stiff upper lip and all that? The silence between them widened. “Tony,” he was eventually forced to say, “I’m your friend, a fellow officer, and I’m also a physician. What are you trying to tell me?”
“I-I can see how happy you and Deirdre are.”
“We are that,” Fingal said with a grin, and took a pull on his pint.
Tony held his hands up, palms out, shrugged, and said, “I can’t bring myself to ask Pip to marry me. Simply can’t do it.” His gaze fixed on Fingal’s eyes. “It could be my turn on any of the convoys to have to do what Teddy—Captain Fegen—did. See what I mean? It wouldn’t be fair to her, leaving her a widow.” He sighed. “But it’s bloody awful knowing we’ll have to wait until the war’s over.”
Fingal took a deep breath. He hadn’t the slightest doubt that if faced with overwhelming odds, Lieutenant Commander Tony Wilcoxson would indeed do his duty, regardless of the cost, and that it was his love for Pip, rather than a lack of it, that was holding him back from proposing. “At one time it looked as if Deirdre and I couldn’t get married. When I told her, she said something very sensible. She said, ‘We don’t need a ceremony.’” He could smell the freshly cut hay lying in
Tony smiled and nodded. “Gosh,” he said, “I hadn’t thought about it quite like that. I thought I was doing the honourable thing. For Pip’s sake. But do you think she probably already feels married to me? I realize now that’s just how I feel about her.”
“Yes, I think she probably does. And if you are killed, if I’m killed—I’m back on active service in January—both Pip and Deirdre will grieve and mourn, and not having had a ceremony in your case won’t make the pain any easier for Pip to bear. And you’ll have missed a very great deal, believe me.”
“So you think—do you think I should pop the question?”
Fingal shook his head. “It’s not what I think. It’s what you think that matters.”
Tony’s grin was vast. He finished his pint, stood, and went to the bar, where he had a few words with the publican.
To Fingal’s immense delight, the Colonel Blimp type’s voice could be heard over the general hubbub. “Gad, sir, if it was up to me I’d—” Whatever he’d do was drowned out, but Fingal was still chuckling when Tony returned and set a small glass of Scotch whisky in front of Fingal before seating himself. Fingal took the last swallow of his pint.
“Just a little something to seal the deal, so to speak, and say thank you. We’ll finish these up,” Tony said, “head home for dinner. Then if after the meal I might borrow your Austin for a short while? I’ll take Pip for a drive. I really ought to speak to her father. Tell him I can support his daughter and all that kind of thing. I already know I have no trouble getting permission from the navy. In fact, the whole thing’s been a standing joke between me and my CO ever since he met Pip. He’s a good egg.”
“Good man-ma-da,” said Fingal, laughed, and raised his glass. “Shall we drink to the future Mrs. Wilcoxson Junior?”
“I believe,” said Tony, “that would be a splendid idea. Positively splendid.”