The Citadel Read Free

in the cramped, ill-lit stone floored room he examined the patient with scrupulous care. There was no doubt about it, she was ill. She complained that her head ached intolerably. Temperature, pulse, tongue, they all spoke of trouble, serious trouble. What was it? Andrew asked himself that question with a strained intensity as he went over her again. His first case. Oh, he knew that he was over-anxious! But suppose he made an error, a frightful blunder? And worse – suppose he found himself unable to make a diagnosis? He had missed nothing. Nothing. Yet he still found himself struggling towards some solution of the problem, striving to group the symptoms under the heading of some recognised disease. At last, aware that he could protract his investigation no longer, he straightened himself slowly, folding his stethoscope, fumbling for words.
    ‘Did she have a chill?’ he asked, his eyes upon the floor.
    ‘Yes, indeed,’ Williams answered eagerly. He had looked scared during the prolonged examination. ‘Three, four days ago. I made sure it was a chill, doctor.’
    Andrew nodded, attempting painfully to generate a confidence he did not feel. He muttered, ‘We’ll soon have her right. Come to the surgery in half an hour. I’ll give you a bottle of medicine.’
    He took his leave of them and with his head down, thinking desperately, he trudged back to the surgery, a ramshackle wooden erection standing at the entrance to Page’s drive. Inside, he lit the gas and began to pace backwards and forwards beside the blue and green bottles on the dusty shelves, racking his brains, groping in the darkness. There was nothing symptomatic. It must, yes, it must be a chill. But, in his heart he knew that it was not a chill. He groaned in exasperation, dismayed and angry at his own inadequacy. He was forced, unwillingly, to temporise. Professor Lamplough, when confronted by obscurity in his wards, had a neat little ticket, which he tactfully applied: PUO – pyrexia of unknown origin – it was noncommittal and exact, and it had such an admirable scientific sound!
    Unhappily, Andrew took a six ounce bottle from the recess beneath the dispensary counter and began with a frown of concentration to compound an anti-pyretic mixture. Spirits of nitre, salicylate of sodium – where the dickens was the soda sal. Oh, there it was! He tried to cheer himself by reflecting that they were all splendid, all excellent drugs, bound to get the temperature down, certain to do good. Professor Lamplough had often declared there was no drug so generally valuable as salicylate of sodium.
    He had just finished his compounding and with a mild sense of achievement was writing the label when the surgery bell went ‘ping’, the outer door swung open, and a short, powerfully thick-set red-faced man of thirty strolled in, followed by a dog. There was a silence while the black and tan mongrel squatted on its muddy haunches and the man, who wore an old velveteen suit, pit stockings and hobnail boots with a sodden oilskin cape over his shoulders, looked Andrew up and down. His voice, when it came, was politely ironic and annoyingly well-bred.
    ‘I saw a light in your window as I was passing. Thought I’d look in to welcome you. I’m Denny, assistant to the esteemed Doctor Nicholls, LSA. That, in case you haven’t met it, is the Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries, the highest qualification known to God and man.’
    Andrew stared back doubtfully. Philip Denny lit a cigarette from a crumpled paper packet, threw the match on the floor, and strolled forward insolently. He picked up the bottle of medicine, read the address, the directions, uncorked it, sniffed it, recorked it and put it down, his morose red face turning blandly complimentary.
    ‘Splendid! You’ve begun the good work already! One tablespoonful every three hours. God Almighty! It’s reassuring to meet the dear old mumbo-jummery. But, doctor, why not three times a day? Don’t you realise,