An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War (48 page)

“I knew your dad, Sue,” Tom said, “but he was only on
Warspite
for a few months and we weren't close. What's he up to now?”

“Back running the farm near Broughshane. We'll have to have you and Mrs. Laverty over for dinner,” Sue said.

“We'd love to come,” Tom said, “now we're back from Australia and getting used to being home again.”

Carol said, “We came back from Australia on the
Canberra—
”

“Built here in Belfast,” Sue said.

“So was the
Titanic,
” Barry said, and everybody laughed. Ulsterfolk were noted for their black humour.

“—and I'll bet you much more quickly than you did from Egypt in wartime, Fingal.”

“
Canberra
makes nearly thirty knots,” Tom said.

“So did our cruisers at Calabria,” Fingal said, for a second seeing the flash and flame as
Warspite
's shell hit the Italian battlewagon
Giulio Cesare
.

“They did,” Tom said, “but they weren't able to keep that up for long. We got from Australia to the U.K. in twenty-four days nonstop.”

“I think,” said Sue, “that's pretty impressive, but I reckon these new jet airliners will put the liners out of business soon.”

“Kitty and I are going to be taking flights from Belfast airport to Heathrow and on to Barcelona next month, but we'll be flying with British European Airways on a turboprop Vickers Viscount,” O'Reilly said.

“And Jenny and I will look after the shop,” Barry said. “You two have a good time.”

“We will,” said O'Reilly, catching Kitty's eye. “We're going to stroll down the Ramblas, eat
boquerones
and
gueldes
in a seaside restaurant called
El Crajeco Loco
, The Crazy Crab, and see an old friend of Kitty's who lives near there.”

“We are,” she said, “and I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't seen her for thirty years.”

“And it'll take no time to get there by air,” said O'Reilly, not wishing to go into details about Kitty's old friend. “I wish there'd been an airline from Egypt to back home in 1940. It took my troopship in convoy more than two months just to go from Port Said through the Canal, and on to Liverpool.”

“And if we don't order soon,” Barry said, “it'll take nearly as long to get our dinner. They're busy tonight.” He looked directly at O'Reilly. “And my principal can get a tad tetchy if we don't feed him regularly.”

“Less of your lip, Laverty,” O'Reilly said with a grin, and along with the others began to read his menu. He made his choice, took a pull on his pint, and let his thoughts roam. It certainly had been an interesting voyage home, his three months in Portsmouth were well spent learning more of the trade of a seagoing doctor in wartime. And Deirdre. Soft, lovely Deirdre. He sighed. One day that whole story must be told, but, his tummy rumbled again, not tonight. He was in good company, grand surroundings—and although he could eat a horse, the Chateaubriand on the menu looked more appetising, done medium rare with corn on the cob and chips.

Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly looked round at Kitty and his friends, the two new ones, and a reunion of sorts with two old ones. Next month he had a full-scale reunion to look forward to with his old classmates of 1931–36 from the School of Physic at Trinity College Dublin.

He puffed his pipe, took another pull on his pint, and grinned to himself. Tonight he was as content a man as any man could be.

 

A
FTERWORD

by Mrs. Maureen “Kinky” Auchinleck, until lately Kincaid, née O'Hanlon

Welcome back, and now it's not to my kitchen at Number One, Main Street, but to my cosy parlour in my own home. Archie's out with his son, Rory, who's all better now from that tropical disease, so, and I'm doing what I promised I'd do for Doctor O'Reilly. Here are five more of my recipes.

I'm starting with one for marmalade because you'll need it to make both my marmalade pudding and my very easy boiled fruitcake.

I did miss marmalade so during the war, but we had the rationing here in Ulster just like they did in Britain. You could only have so much sugar, tea, jam, biscuits, and a whole host of other things and you did need a coupon book to get them. And you couldn't get oranges for love nor money and I did always make my own marmalade. Doctor O'Reilly wants his Frank Cooper's, but och, shouldn't he have one or two little weaknesses?

And some of the stuff you'd to make do with in wartime? Powdered eggs that tasted like yellow sawdust and that awful tinned corned beef that came from some country in South America. And I'll say no more about Spam, so.

It was a very good thing that Ballybucklebo was in the country. Sure couldn't I always get fresh vegetables and eggs and chickens for Doctor Flanagan? I've put a recipe in here for chicken breasts that I hope you'll try.

And there's one thing that will surprise you. I never thought a good Cork woman would be making one of those curries, but himself learned about one from some foreign troops in Egypt. He persuaded me to try making it after he came back here when the war was over. It came as a surprise, but I found it tasty and you'll never believe what's in it. Corned beef out of a can, so. Still as my ma, God rest her, used to say, “You'll never know if a strange thing's any good unless you do try it,” and do you know? She was right.

So here you are, five more recipes. I do hope you enjoy them all.

O
RANGE
M
ARMALADE

900 g / 2 lbs Seville oranges

1 lemon

2¼ L / 4 pints water

1.8 kg / 4 lbs sugar

A knob of butter

8 x 250 mL preserving jars and a large, heavy-bottomed preserving pan (not aluminum)

A muslin or cheesecloth jelly bag

Cut the oranges and lemon in half and squeeze the juice into the pan with the water.

Put any pips and pith from the orange halves into the jelly bag and set aside for the moment in a small dish. Cut the oranges into thin shreds and add any pith that comes away to the jelly bag. (The pips and pith contain pectin, which helps the jam to set.)

Add the cut oranges to the water, tie up the jelly bag, and add to the water-and-orange mixture.

Simmer gently, uncovered, for about two hours until the orange peel has softened. Remove the jelly bag and squeeze it into the pan, leaving the pips behind in the bag.

Now add the sugar gradually, stirring as you go, until the sugar has dissolved. If you add a knob of butter at this stage it will stop the marmalade foaming. Now bring it to the boil and cook for about fifteen minutes. If you have a sugar thermometer, the temperature should read 220ºF. This is the setting point for jams. Or you can test for setting by dropping a small blob on a cold plate, letting it cool, and seeing if the jam will wrinkle when you push it with your finger. If it does not, then just boil for a little longer and try again.

Heat the washed jars in a hot oven to sterilise them, and leave the marmalade to cool before pouring it into the hot jars. Letting the marmalade cool allows the fruit to be more evenly distributed throughout the jar and not remain at the top. Put covers on as soon as you can handle the jars without burning yourself.

V
ERY
E
ASY
B
OILED
F
RUITCAKE

450 g / 1 lb. dried fruit (raisins, sultanas, etc.)

225 g / 8 oz. sugar

240 mL / ½ pint of warm tea

1 egg

2 tablespoons marmalade

220 g / 8 oz. plain flour

220 g / 8 oz. wheatmeal flour

4 level teaspoons baking powder

Put fruit, sugar, and tea in a bowl and leave to soak overnight.

Next day prepare two 1 lb. baking tins by greasing and flouring them. Turn the oven to 325ºF / 160ºC.

Stir the egg and marmalade into the fruit mixture, then the flour and baking powder, and divide the mixture between the two tins. Bake in the oven for 1½ hours, until well risen. Test by pressing gently with a finger. If cooked, the cake should spring back and have begun to shrink from the sides of the tin. Cool on a wire rack and serve sliced with butter.

These keep well in an airtight tin for up to four weeks, or they would if Aggie Arbuthnot did not have such an acute sense of smell and know when I had just baked them. Still it's nice to sit down and have a good yarn and a cup of tea with friends, so.

M
ARMALADE
P
UDDING

250 g / 9 oz. butter or good-quality margarine

75 g / 2½ oz. fine white sugar

75 g / 2½ oz. brown sugar

150 g / 5 oz. marmalade

225 g / 8 oz. plain flour

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

4 eggs

juice and rind from one orange

Preheat the oven to 180ºC / 350ºF and butter an ovenproof dish about 10" × 10".

Cream the butter and sugar and beat in the marmalade. Add the dry ingredients and the eggs followed by half the orange juice and grated rind. (Save a little to glaze the pudding top when cooked). Put the mixture into the buttered dish and smooth the top.

Bake in the oven until top is light brown and pudding has risen. This takes about 40 minutes but keep a careful eye on it.

When the pudding is ready brush the top with the remaining juice mixture and serve with custard or cream.

I
RISH
C
OUNTRY
C
HICKEN
B
REASTS

4 chicken breasts

30 g / 1 oz. butter

1 cup white bread crumbs

5 tablespoons /
¹
/
₃
cup white wine

juice of half a lemon

240 mL /1 cup cream

3 egg yolks

75 g / 2½ oz. grated cheddar cheese

salt and pepper

Salt the chicken breasts and cook them in butter in a skillet or fry pan over a medium heat until just lightly coloured on both sides. This takes about 20 minutes. Put them, arranged side by side, in a greased, ovenproof dish. In the butter remaining in the pan cook the bread crumbs until they are golden but not too brown. Set to one side and deglaze the pan with the white wine and the lemon juice until it has reduced to about half its volume. Leave in the pan until you are ready to use it.

Now beat the cream, egg yolks, cheese, and seasonings. Add the cheese and the deglazing liquid from the pan and pour over the chicken breasts and finish by sprinkling the crumbs over the top.

Bake at 400ºF / 200ºC for about 25 minutes until the top is brown and the egg mixture is firm.

Serve with new potatoes and green peas or beans.

C
ORNED
B
EEF
C
URRY

1 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil

1 onion

2 carrots, chopped small

1 potato or small turnip, cubed

4 garlic cloves, crushed

1 piece of fresh ginger, grated (size about 1")

1 red chili, chopped, with seeds removed

½ small green chili, chopped, with seeds removed

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon garam masala

freshly milled black pepper

500 mL vegetable stock

1 400 mL tin chopped tomatoes

½ cup raisins

1 can Fray Bentos corned beef

1 cup pineapple

1 small bunch fresh coriander, chopped (about 2 tablespoonfuls)

½ cup / 4 oz. sour cream

Heat the oil in a large pan. Gently sweat the prepared vegetables in the hot oil for five minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, chilis, and spices, then the stock, tomatoes, and raisins. Cook for about 20 minutes and add the cubed corned beef, pineapple, and chopped fresh coriander. Cook through to heat the corned beef and finish by stirring in the sour cream.

Serve with cooked rice.

 

A
UTHOR'S
N
OTE

This is book nine in the series, which started with
An Irish Country Doctor,
a work set in Ulster in the 1960s. In book six, a
Dublin Student Doctor,
I began to tell the story of Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly, one of the central characters, as a young man while still following his current adventures as an established GP. Two storylines move back and forth over thirty years between the quiet village of Ballybucklebo in the 1960s and the bustle of Dublin in the 1930s. I had hoped in that work to take him from medical school to the end of the Second World War. However, I ran out of space shortly after young Doctor O'Reilly qualified from Trinity College Dublin in 1936.

Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor,
the eighth book in the series, once more moved between the '30s and '60s. That structure was chosen because readers had taken Ballybucklebo to heart and wanted to follow the goings-on there. They were also adamant that they needed to find out what further befell Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly as a young man. Once again, I was only able to pursue his earlier adventures as a GP for one year after his qualification.

Many, many readers wanted to know about O'Reilly's first marriage in 1940 to Nurse Deirdre Mawhinney and about his war service on a remarkable British battleship, HMS
Warspite
. Naturally, the ongoing developments in the Ballybucklebo of the 1960s needed to be followed as well, so here you have
An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War,
following the time-jumping form of its predecessors. I hope you have enjoyed it.

Like its forebears it needs a little explaining. This note aims to do four things: tell you about my interest in
Warspite,
thank people for their enormous help in developing that story, apologise for an omission from the tale, and make you all a solemn promise.