Operation Nassau Read Free

were going back on the same plane to Nassau - he was only here for twenty-four hours. And there wasn’t a thing wrong this morning.’ He looked at the television screen by the door and added. ‘Damn. We’ve lost the last plane.’
    I only half heard him because the airport doctor had arrived with two nurses and I was busy. We got the man on the stretcher and watched him being carried away. The doctor, effusive in his thanks, shook his head at last and said, ‘Why the hell should he eat a crab sandwich?’ and the American, who was still standing beside us, said, ‘His wife made them and he forgot to have them last night. He didn’t want to disappoint Lady Edgecombe.’
    Edgecombe. I began dimly to remember. A former minor ambassador, I rather fancied. Retired and living on one of the Bahamian out-islands. Living on a generous pension, perhaps, and devoted to gracious living, Lady Edgecombe and crab.
    It was nothing to do with me, and I was pleased that it wasn’t my case.
    On the other hand, public health is a doctor’s concern, and the man would be returning to Nassau. I laid in my bag, before I left, a small specimen bottle marked Edgecombe, Kennedy Airport, and the date.
    It was a minor precaution. I saw no reason to mention the fact. I was more concerned, as I remember, with the nuisance of having lost the last plane back to Nassau that day.
    It did not occur to me, as I left the airport and made my way to the hotel in which B.O.A.C., with their customary propriety, were paying my expenses overnight, that I had just taken the most significant step of my life.
     
    Since I am not what a patient of mine once seriously referred to as a ‘night person’, and had no desire to see a homosexual play, a rave musical or a small intimate niterie, I watched the news headlines on television, and retired at 9.30.
    At 10.15 p.m. the airport doctor rang, a courtesy call, to inform me that Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe had received the necessary treatment, was quite out of danger, and was now resting comfortably in hospital. I thanked him, and went back to sleep.
    At 11 p.m. the telephone rang again, and an unknown American voice said, ‘Is this Dr MacRannoch?’
    ‘It is,” I said. Night interruptions are part of a doctor’s life, which is why I go to bed early. ‘Who is speaking?’
    ‘Dr Douglas MacRannoch?’ The voice was muted and over-familiar in manner, reminding me of a chocolate commercial to which I am not at all partial.
    ‘Speaking. Who is calling?’
    ‘Dr MacRannoch,’ the voice said again lovingly. I can use no other word. ‘Today you saved a man’s life. Just don’t do it again, will you? Just don’t do it again.’ And there was a tap followed by the pneumatic-drill noise of a broken connection, which I believe to be a serious insult to the inner ear. I therefore quickly put the phone down.
     
    At that moment, someone banged on my door.
    I sat still. The Trueman is a respectable business hotel just off Times Square with perhaps twenty-five storeys of bedrooms, mostly occupied by travellers who mind their own business and seldom stay more than one night. The staff are adequate but quite uninvolved, their main concern being to make the beds if possible by 8 a.m. each morning. At night, the guest may do as he pleases.
    One of the guests, it seemed, was pleased to knock on my door in a city where I knew no one. On the other hand, the telephone was by my side, and I had put the chain on the door, receiving my customary electric shock as I did so. Since both the ringing of my telephone and my voice had undoubtedly also been heard, I filled my lungs and said, ‘Yes? Who is it?’ just as the knock was repeated. At the same time I lifted and opened my medical bag, which stood on the chair by my bed, and began to locate and fill a standard plastic syringe with 10 c.c. of a seven-per-cent solution of pentothal sodium.
    The knocking stopped. ‘Dr MacRannoch? I beg your pardon,” said another American voice