The Night Calls Read Free Page B

over to whisper in my ear, ‘This is purgatory.’
    ‘Far worse,’ I said quite loudly, for I knew Macfarlane would never be distracted by noise from the floor. ‘We have to pay for our torment.’ Stark agreed with this equally loudly and started to outline his hopes for the forthcoming medical society ball.
    All of us were perfectly confident nothing would stop Macfarlane’s flow, but on this day we were wrong. As he doddered up and down, murmuring his compounds, there was a sudden cry of excitement from behind us, followed by a screaming noise. I turned quickly and at first all I could see was the main door of the hall being flung open. Anything seemed a great relief from the tedium of the lecture hall and heads craned round.
    Suddenly, to our general amazement, a dozen panic-stricken sheep raced into the room, frightened and bleating. The hall was flat rather than raked, with movable desks, so within a few seconds there was complete and utter chaos. People were jumping to their feet, scaring the animals further, desks and test tubes went flying. The sheep darted about the place like white billowy waves in the sea of dark jackets. Now I saw the students who herded them, a gang of young bloods I had observed often enough before, led by a wild, somewhat rebellious, scion of Scots nobility called Crawford.
    To one side of me a chair went over and glass sprayed up from a broken beaker. Some people ran for the door, others tried with difficulty to hold their ground and discover the purpose of this latest madness. The whole place was in uproar, though as yet none of us could understand the purpose. Crawford dashed past me, his eyes dark and fiery, his jet-black hair falling over his forehead, screaming incoherent abuse. His eyes were fixed on the front of the hall. And now at last I saw why. His mob were heading straight for the women.
    In that year the controversy about admitting women to medicine was reaching its height. Passions had been roused to a frenzy, and any women who braved our classes endured the grossest behaviour. During the worst disturbances, they had been spat upon and called prostitutes and Jezebels. There had also been cases of assault.
    Partly as a result, many staff refused to teach them though, to his credit, Macfarlane was not one of these and nor was Bell. Among the students, Crawford had a reputation as one of the women’s fiercest opponents and often led the mob against them. Indeed he seemed to have all the prejudice and bile of a religious zealot.
    ‘See, we have more students here for you.’ He was shouting at the women now. ‘If you insist on attending, we may as well make doctors out of mutton.’
    His followers roared approval as they poured in behind him, no doubt seeing the whole thing as a splendid opportunity to indulge in insults and other abuse of a kind they would normally have kept to themselves. Fortunately several students, including my friends, took the opposite view, for we believed there was no serious reason to keep the women out. I was strongly of this belief and would love to ascribe this to my enlightened nature but, if I am being honest, I ought to admit there was another factor too. Our ‘lodger’ Dr Waller regularly expressed fierce opposition to the women in medical school, and this may well have spurred me to their defence as strongly as anything else.
    But on the occasion I am describing, it is hard to see how any civilised person could possibly have sided with Crawford. The women before us looked terrified as he herded the sheep right at them, screaming incoherent biblical abuse.
    In her hurry to get out, one girl tripped and Stark ran to help her up before a sheep trampled on her. ‘Mothers of whores, the abomination of the earth,’ Crawford screamed down at her as she backed away in terror. Another of his group, a pale Englishman with a little blonde moustache, had a more comprehensible cry. ‘Go away and find yourselves husbands!’ This was taken up by