Dr Finlay's Casebook (23 page)

Finlay sat where he was for a long time; then, with his head ringing dizzily, he picked himself up. Inside him everything was black and bitter as gall.

He burned at the memory of Cha’s insolence, raged at his own hopeless inadequacy. He was young, strong, thirsting to batter Cha’s ugly face, and yet – he groaned in a perfect
agony of humiliation.

As he went to the sink and bathed his face, he set himself doggedly to puzzle the matter out. Cha could box, so much was obvious, while he couldn’t box at all. He had never thought about
it even, never come up against a situation like this. And then, like a lamb, he had walked straight into that devilish punch of Cha’s.

Cha! How he hated him – the insolent swine! Something had to be done about it – something must be done about it. He couldn’t lie down under an insult like that.

To this effect he swore a tremendous oath – after which he felt better.

Then he finished drying his face and, knitting his brows, he sat down at the desk to think.

The result of that profound self-communion was to bring together Finlay and Sergeant A. P. Galt.

Archie Galt was ‘at the barracks’. Indeed, the worthy sergeant had been at the barracks, without appearing to grow one hour older, as long as most folks could remember.

A tall ramrod of man with a dried-up face, waxed moustache, tight trousers, and the chest of a prize pigeon, Archie Galt combined the duties of recruiting sergeant and Drill Instructor to the
Volunteers.

Fitness was his fetish; he had muscles all over his body, muscles which stood out like billiard balls in the most unexpected places at the word of command.

And he had medals – medals for wrestling, for fencing, for boxing; indeed, rumour had it that in his day Archie had been runner-up in the army heavies.

Whether or not rumour lied is no matter; the fact remained that Archie certainly could box.

That first afternoon in the big, draughty drill hall he hit Finlay hard and plenty – not, mind you, as Cha had hit him, but calm, judicial blows which jolted and rattled and shook and
searched everywhere, beautifully tempered blows, any one of which – had the worthy sergeant chosen to let go – would have stretched out Finlay in undignified oblivion.

And at the end of it, Galt pulled off his enormous gloves sadly.

‘It’s nae guid, sir,’ he observed broadly – for Africa, India, and the whole Sudan had not conquered Archie’s Doric. ‘Ye’d better stick to your
doctoring. Ye havena the first idea about handlin’ yerself.’

‘I can learn,’ panted Finlay. The sweat streamed down his face; the last punch but one had taken him in the bread-basket and left him gasping. ‘I must learn. I’ve got a
reason—’

‘Umph!’ returned Archie, doubtfully twirling the waxed moustache.

‘It’s my first lesson,’ Finlay doggedly persisted, gulping in the air. ‘I’ll stick in. I’ll try hard. I’ll come every day.’

The shadow of a grin broke over Archie’s impassive face, and vanished instantly.

‘Ye’re no’ feared,’ he said noncommittally. ‘And that’s aye something.’

So the campaign began.

Finlay stopped the stroll he usually took of an evening to the Lea Brae. Instead, he came to the Drill Hall, entering quietly by the back way after dark and slipping quickly into a sweater and
shorts.

Then he set to with the sergeant, learning the mysteries of the straight left, the cross, the counter, the hook, learning to feint, to use his feet, his head – learning everything the
sergeant could teach him.

He took some awful hammerings. The more he learned the harder Archie hit him. He found how soft he was – he – Finlay – who had always prided himself upon his rude health.

He went into terrific training. He rose early, took a run and a cold bath before breakfast. Without a pang he cut out Janet’s delicious pastry from his diet.

Deliberately, wickedly, he set out to make himself hard as nails.

Cameron, of course, sniffed something in the air. His eye, penetrating and caustic, often lingered upon Finlay when he passed a dish at table or came down in the morning with a slight thickening
of his ear. But, though once or twice he nearly smiled, he said nothing. Cameron had the gift of silence.

By the end of one month Finlay was boxing well; by the end of three his improvement was really extraordinary. At the end of May he came on with a rush and, one night, having gone six fast
three-minute rounds with Archie, he finished up with a terrific wallop to the jaw which rocked the sergeant to his heels.

‘That’s enough to be going on wi’,’ said Archie decisively, as he peeled off his gloves. ‘I’m not taking no hammerin’ from a laddie half my
age.’

‘What are you blethering about?’ Finlay demanded, in wonder, with his gloves on his hips.

Archie took a slug at the water bottle, and professionally squirted it from the corner of his mouth. Then he allowed himself the pleasure of a smile.

‘I mean just this, sir. I’ve taught ye all I can.’ He grinned broadly. ‘It’s high time ye found somebody your own age to hit.’

‘Am I any good, then?’

‘Good! Man, ye’re damned good! This last couple of weeks ye’ve come on like a house on fire. But I aye said ye had the makings of a bonny fechter.’

He paused, then, with a sudden curiosity, went on—

‘Now that we’re as guid as I can make ye, maybe ye’d be telling me something. What was that reason ye spoke about, if it’s not too big a question?’

Finlay stood silent for a minute, then he told Archie about Cha. And again that slow grin broke over the sergeant’s rugged face.

‘Bell,’ he declared. ‘I ken him well – the bull-necked rowdy. He’s a slugger if ever there was one. But you’ve got the measure of him now. Ye’ll teach
him a lesson he’s long been needin’.’

‘D’you honestly think so, Archie?’

‘Man, I’m sure on it. I’m not sayin’ but what it’ll be a bonny fecht. But as I’m a sodjer I wouldna like to be in Cha Bell’s shoes by the time
ye’ve done wi’ him.’

Finlay went home that night with determination in his eye. During those weeks of preparation he had somehow managed to keep the matter out of his mind, but now he knew himself to be fit and
ready for the fray, all his black rage against Cha boiled up afresh.

The memory of the scene of the surgery stung him more bitterly. The recollection of the rare occasions when he had subsequently encountered Cha, of Cha’s impudent stare crossing his own
studiously detached gaze, of the shout of derisive laughter following him down the street, these burst on him with new violence and goaded him beyond the limit of his endurance.

As he strode up the drive of Arden House he thought wickedly: ‘I’ll make him pay. I’ll take it out of him. Not another day will I wait. I’ve suffered long enough. Now
I’m going to get my own back.’

In this mood he entered the hall, and there, oddly enough, on the slate which was hung specifically for this purpose, he found a call written up for Mrs Bell at the little house in Quay
Side.

Odd, in a way, but not unusual, for Mrs Bell was something of a hypochondriac, and once a month or thereabouts Finlay was obliged to call and reassure her on the origin of some vague pain or
indeterminate symptom.

It suited him down to the ground. He would visit the old woman tomorrow – which was Saturday – prescribe for her, and blandly leave word that Cha was to fetch the medicine from the
surgery in the afternoon.

The same circumstances, the same time, the same place – but oh, how different the result! Finlay set his jaw hard. ‘I’ll give him medicine,’ he thought viciously,
‘I’ll give him a dose he won’t forget.’

The next day came, and Finlay made straight for No. 3 Quay Side the moment he was through his morning consultations. It was a lopsided, single-gabled, old-fashioned bit of a house perched right
on the river front behind the Elephant and Castle, and it protruded slightly in the rambling row as if the pressure of its neighbours had squeezed it out of shape.

Mrs Bell met him at the door, her fat, round face pulled into an anxious frown.

‘Oh, doctor, doctor,’ she protested. ‘It was last night I wanted ye to come and not this mornin’. What way did ye not come when I sent down word? I’ve been worried
fair sick the livelong night.’

‘Don’t you worry now, Mrs Bell,’ he reassured her. ‘We’ll soon put you to rights.’

‘But it’s no’ me,’ she wailed. ‘It’s no’ me at all. It’s Cha!’

Cha. Finlay stared at her with an altered face; then, very thoughtfully, he followed her up the narrow wooden stairs into a little uncarpeted attic room.

There, propped up in a chipped truckle bed, garbed in a not very clean day shirt and the famous muffler, with a sporting newspaper on one side and a packet of Woodbines on the other, was
Cha.

He greeted Finlay derisively.

‘What do you want? The rag and bottle man doesn’t call till Tuesday.’

‘Be quiet Cha, now do!’ pleaded Mrs Bell. ‘And show the doctor your arm.’ Turning to Finlay – ‘It was a scratch he got at his work, doctor, the back end of
last week. But it started to heal, and, oh, dearlie me, it’s come up something fearful.’

‘My arm’s fine,’ Cha declared rudely. ‘I’m not wantin’ ony make-down doctor to look at it.’

‘Oh, Cha! Oh, Cha!’ groaned Mrs Bell. ‘Will ye not mind that terrible tongue of yours!’

Finlay stood with a stiff face trying to control his temper. At last, in a difficult voice, he said:

‘Suppose you show me the arm.’

‘Aw, what the hell!’ protested Cha. But from beneath the patchwork counterpane he produced the arm, heavily, as though it were made of lead.

Finlay took one look at it, then his eyes widened in surprise. An enormous swelling stretched from wrist to elbow, an angry boggy tumefaction – of the diagnosis there was not the slightest
doubt. Cha had acute sellulitis of the arm.

Making his attitude detached, completely professional, Finlay set about his examination. He took Cha’s temperature – Cha’s remark as he stuck the thermometer rakishly in his
mouth being:

‘Whit do you take me for – an ostrich?’

But for all Cha’s pretence of coolness his temperature registered 103.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

‘Have you any headache?’

‘Naw,’ Cha lied. ‘And don’t think you’ll present me with one.’

There was a pause; then Finlay looked at Mrs. Bell.

‘I shall have to give him a whiff of chloroform and open up the arm,’ he declared impassively.

‘Not on your life,’ said Cha. ‘There’s no chloroform for me. If you’re going to butcher me at a’, ye can butcher me without it.’

‘But the pain—’

‘Aw! What the hell!’ Cha interposed scornfully. ‘Ye know fine ye’re wantin’ to hurt me. Go ahead and see if you can make me squeal. Now’s the chance to get a
little of your own back.’

The blood rushed to Finlay’s face.

‘That’s a lie and you know it. But just you wait. I’ll get you better. Then I’ll teach you a lesson that you won’t forget.’

He swung round abruptly, and, opening his bag, began to prepare his instruments. Cha’s answer was to whistle: ‘The Bluebells of Scotland’ with satiric variations.

Cha didn’t go on whistling, of course – though, no doubt, he would have liked to.

It was a nasty business opening the mass of inflammation without an anaesthetic.

His stocky figure went quite rigid, and his face a dirty grey, as Finlay made two swift, deep incisions, then started to probe for pus.

There was very little pus, a bad sign – merely some dark serous fluid which oozed from the drainage cuts, though Finlay looked at it with almost painful care before he packed the wound
with iodoform gauze.

When it was finished, Cha drew a stump of cigarette from behind his ear, lit up, and hardily regarded his bandaged arm. ‘You’ve made a bonny hash of it, right enough!’ he
exclaimed critically. ‘But what else could we expect?’

Then, with the cigarette in his hand, he promptly fainted.

He came to, of course, but he was far from being right. That afternoon when Finlay called again he found him in the grip of a raging septicaemia. The infection had spread into the blood stream.
Cha was delirious; his temperature 105, his pulse 140; he was dangerously ill. Mrs. Bell resolutely opposed his removal to hospital.

‘Cha wouldn’t have it! Cha wouldn’t have it!’ she kept on repeating, wringing her hands. ‘He’s a guid son to me for all his wildness. I winna go against him
now he’s badly.’

So the whole responsibility of the case fell on Finlay.

For a whole week he battled for Cha’s life. He loathed Cha – yet he felt that he must save him. He came three times a day to the house in Quay Side, religiously dressing the arm
himself; he sent specially to Stirrock’s in Glasgow for some new anti-toxin; he even went into Paxton’s in the High Street, and ordered the nourishment which kept Cha alive.

Not a labour of love, you may be sure; for lack of a better phrase you might call it a labour of hate.

At last, after a horrible week, Cha had his crisis on the eighth day. As he sat late into the night beside Cha’s bed, Finlay saw positively that Cha would recover. Indeed, towards midnight
Cha stirred and opened his sunken eyes, which, out of his gaunt, unshaven face, fastened themselves on Finlay. He looked and looked, then, moving his pale lips, he sneered:

‘Ye see – I’m getting better in spite of ye.’

Then he went off to sleep. During his convalescence Cha was even worse. The stronger he got the more outrageous he became.

‘Thought ye’d take my arm off so ye’d have the beating of me!’ or ‘Ye’d have finished me, I suppose, if ye’d had the guts to do it!’

Not that Finlay stood it stoically. Oh dear no! With Cha out of danger, he dropped his professional dignity and thoroughly let himself go, Hammer and tongs they went at it, slanging each other
unmercifully, the young riveter and the young doctor, until Mrs Bell would thrust her hands upon her ears and run in terror from the room.

Finally, when Cha was up and ready to depart for a month at the Ardbeg Home, Finlay took him pointedly aside:

‘Your treatment’s finished now. You’re better. You’re going down to get braced up at the seaside. Well, when you’re back again and thoroughly fit, come and see me
at the surgery. I’m going to give you the hiding of your life.’