A Dublin Student Doctor Read Free

home.”
    “That’s all right.”
    “Off you trot.” O’Reilly noticed his bag where he’d left it on the ground. “Take my bag to the car while you’re at it. The ambulance will be fully equipped.”
    Barry paused. “How will you and Kitty get home?”
    “Kitty lives only a short walk from the hospital. I’ll get a train. Now go on. It’s time we were off.”
    O’Reilly stuck his head into the ambulance. “Everything okay, Kitty?”
    “No change.”
    “Good.” As O’Reilly walked to the front of the ambulance, the last colours of the sunset flared and died. A straggling clamour of rooks flapped untidily across the dimming horizon and Venus rose, a glittering forerunner of the myriad stars that would spangle the sky’s dark dome.
    He climbed into the passenger side and shut the cab’s door. “How’s about ye, Doc?” Alfie, the driver, asked.
    “Grand,” said O’Reilly. “The lad in the back’s a patient of mine.” And, he thought, as close to being a friend as I’ll let any of my patients be. “I think he’ll be all right.”
    “Right,” said the driver, “let’s get going.” He switched on his flashing lights, but not the siren, put the vehicle in gear, and started for Belfast.
    “Can we radio ahead?” O’Reilly asked. “Let the neurosurgery people know we’re coming?”
    “Aye, certainly, sir.” The driver lifted a microphone, depressed a button, and announced, “Ambulance despatch, ambulance despatch. This is delta alpha two sixer, over.”
    In moments O’Reilly had relayed the details to the dispatcher, who would contact the neurosurgery registrar on call. “Who is the senior neurosurgeon on call tonight?” Just in case, and the thought niggled at him, just in case that bruise at the side of Donal’s head was a sign of more ominous damage.
    “Mister Greer, sir.” The voice from the speaker was distorted.
    “Thank you, despatch. Delta alpha two sixer. Out.” O’Reilly handed the mike back. “Thank you,” he said.
    Charlie Greer. He and O’Reilly went back to 1931, and that wasn’t yesterday. He hoped Donal would have no need of Charlie’s services, but if Donal did deteriorate he couldn’t ask for a better brain surgeon.
    “How long until we get to Belfast?” O’Reilly asked.
    “About an hour and a half—and if you’ll excuse me, sir, I’d better concentrate on driving. The road’s twisty here.”
    O’Reilly said, “Pay me no heed.” He sat staring through the window as rays from the dome flashers flickered and the headlights’ beams picked out fluttering moths, the verges and hedges, and dry stone walls draped with straggling brambles. He wondered about Donal. O’Reilly knew that no amount of worrying was going to help anything. Kitty would let him know if anything changed, and if it did, Donal was well on his way to being in the hands of a bloody good neurosurgeon. Charles Edward Greer, M.D., F.R.C.S., from Ballymoney, County Antrim. A long time ago he had been a rugby-playing medical student like O’Reilly at Trinity College Dublin.
    O’Reilly had met student nurse Kitty O’Hallorhan while he and Charlie, along with their friends Bob Beresford and Donald Cromie, and a nasty piece of work called Ronald Hercules Fitzpatrick who now practiced in the Kinnegar, had been working in Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital. Back in 1934.
    He’d been twenty-five years old and had completed nearly three years of his medical studies at Trinity College Dublin.
    Dublin had been richly described by the playwright Denis Johnston as, “Strumpet city in the sunset. So old, so sick with memories.” The place had memories for O’Reilly, all right.
    Trinity College with its Library’s Long Room wherein resided the Book of Kells and the Brian Boru harp. The pubs, Davy Byrnes, the Bailey, Neary’s, and the Stag’s Head. Great broad O’Connell Street crossing Anna Livia, the Dubliners’ name for the River Liffey. The tenement districts like the Liberties, the Coombe, and