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Lesley hesitated. Dr. Queristri was registrar for Dr. Brown's unit. "Is there no chance of contacting Dr. Dayborough? I thought he might be at the party."

Mrs. Frazer was silent, reluctant to commit herself. "If you care to come over, Doctor," she said at last.

When Lesley reached the staff residency the party was in full swing. She could hear the blare of the record player. The building vibrated with music and dancing. Mrs. Frazer was waiting discreetly inside the main door. "He's not in any of the common rooms, Doctor. I've looked." She led Lesley quickly into the vestibule of Dayborough's suite. There was no reply to their repeated knockings.

The housekeeper shrugged and looked questioningly at Lesley. "You'd be better with the duty physician, I'm thinking."

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Quietly the housekeeper re-locked the corridor door behind them.

Outside the glass door leading to the lounge Lesley hesitated again. The record player was almost drowned here by the babble of conversation. In a quiet corner of the dining-room Dr. Queristri was playing chess with Dr. Hugh Campbell.

She was sorely tempted to approach the Indian doctor, but Sir Charles's mandate still held - no seniors but our own. She couldn't quite make up her mind.

"There's no chance that Dr. McLaughlan would be in his room?"

"Afraid not. He's gone off for the weekend. Took bags with him. Said he wouldn't be back till Monday morning at the earliest. You'd be better with the duty physician."

"I'm not supposed to have him." She was sorely tempted. If only there were some way she could have him without anyone else knowing about it! But the Night Super's report, for a start, would show if Dr. Queristri had been in her ward. She could hardly ask the nursing staff to join her in duplicity. Perhaps if she tried she could cope with this emergency on her own. Then no one need ever know that Harry Dayborough hadn't been there when she called. Another part of her brain reminded her that the patient's condition was serious. She had no right to take any decisions without consultation.

She became aware of the housekeeper's kindly, waiting look. "You're right, Mrs. Frazer. I'll ask Dr. Queristri." It was a patient's life that was at stake. She mustn't take risks where that was concerned, just because an internal ruling had broken down.

She pushed open the door to the dining-room. She was poised to speak when the french windows on the far wall were thrust open and Sandy Williams burst into the room.

"Can you come at once, sir? Mrs. Davidson's had a massive haematemesis."

The Registrar didn't even notice-Lesley in the doorway as he followed his own resident out across the western courtyard on the short cut to their ward.

She fell back a step. The decision had been taken out of her hands.

"Anything I can do?" Hugh Campbell was carefully fixing the chessmen into their portable leather wallet.

"No, thanks, Hugh. I was looking for a senior."

"I thought I saw your Harry D. not so long ago. He was dancing with Kate Ritchie. Mind you, he'd been knocking it back a bit."

"Strictly speaking, of course, he's not on duty." She wasn't quite sure why she rushed to defend him. "You know the score, Hugh. We've looked everywhere for him. Not a sign. If he turns up, would you tell him I need him in Ward Two?"

"Sure thing. I'll tell him. It's quite a night." He nodded in the direction of the noise. "Something like this always happens when we throw a party. Even Sandy's having to work overtime" tonight."

She walked quickly towards the medical block. On the way past she knocked on Dr. McLaughlan's door. Just to make sure she hammered also on Dayborough's. She thought she heard a movement, but although she called his name there was no reply.

Almost as an afterthought, when she reached the duty room, she telephoned Ward Three to see if Jim was there. But he too, it seemed, had not yet returned from the city.

Reluctantly she replaced the receiver. This was the situation they'd foreseen might happen. They'd discussed it often enough. Trouble was they'd never been able to formulate a plan for dealing with it.

Still far from certain what she should do, she went back into the ward to have another look at her patient.

The coma had deepened. Miss Twill's tenuous hold on life was weaker. If anything was to be done, it would have to be soon. Lesley turned at the approach of the nurse. The test paper which Jane Duncan held in her hand was negative. As a double check she had boiled some of the specimen with Benedict's solution. Its bright blue colour was unclouded by sugar.

"Is your senior back yet, Nurse?"

Jane Duncan's face fell. "She's at first supper, Doctor. I'm still on my own."

"It doesn't matter." Lesley squeezed the girl's arm. "We've been on our own before." She grinned. "We make a formidable team!"

The youngster's face flushed with pride that the doctor had remembered Mrs. Brent and the paracentesis. "What things will you need?" she asked eagerly.

"The largest syringe you can find - and some ampoules of sterile sugar solution. We haven't much time. Be as quick as you can."

As she waited with her hand on the threadlike pulse Lesley knew that at last she had made up her mind. Time was running out for Miss Twill. This was the moment of truth. There was no one and nothing to fall back on now - only those five taut years of work. She began to roll up her sleeves.

She took the syringe from Jane Duncan's hand. Slowly and with deliberation she inserted the needle into the only vein she could find - a thin blue streak on the back of her patient's hand.

What seemed like an eternity later she knew that her diagnosis was correct. The coma lightened. From being almost inaudible, the breathing became stertorous. Muscles which had been dormant began to stir. Jane Duncan wasn't in time to stop it happening. The arm which had previously lain inert thrashed out, and the syringe came unstuck. The vein wall had been thin. It was now collapsed. Only a welling bruise showed Lesley where her needle had been.

Whatever she did now would be that much more difficult.

Miss Twill was making deep guttural noises in the back of her throat. At this rate the whole ward would soon be awake.

Try as she would, Lesley could not get the needle into another vein. Even a cut-down seemed out of the question. Fluid in the tissues was masking all veins. One last possibility remained.

"Bring a stomach tube, Nurse. Warm water, a jug, and a funnel -" She forced herself to speak slowly and clearly - "and as much ordinary sugar as you can lay your hands on. If we can't get it directly into the bloodstream, perhaps we'll have better luck with the stomach."

Now that she knew her diagnosis was correct, all thought of failure was out of the question. It was simply a matter of getting the stuff in.

"Will you try to hold her steady, Nurse, while I get the tube down?" She must focus all her attention on getting this thin rubber tube past the opening to the windpipe.

A jerk of the head and Jane Duncan was almost weeping. "I'm sorry, Doctor. She was too quick for me that time." She'd relaxed for only a second. A gagging sound, a sudden movement, and the tube was ripped free by their still unconscious patient.

Lesley stretched her cramped back. "You're doing fine, Nurse." She willed her voice to steady the girl. "This time we'll do it. Dissolve the sugar in the jug of warm water."

She redoubled her efforts and the tube slipped into place. With one hand securing it, and her eyes riveted on the patient, she reached gingerly behind her to the locker. Her fingers closed on the handle of the jug.

Following closely the weaving movements of the head which all of Jane Duncan's efforts couldn't quite prevent, Lesley began slowly to pour the solution of sugar into the neck of the funnel. They waited. Nothing happened.

The jug was empty. As much had landed on the bedclothes as had reached Miss Twill's stomach, but enough should have got through to bring the expected improvement. Where had she gone wrong? Surely she couldn't have made a mistake.

Silently she reviewed the steps she had taken to reach her decision. It had to be insulin, otherwise the coma would not have lightened when she got the sugar into the vein.

From the depths of memory she dredged her scant professional store for all she'd ever heard on the subject of insulin coma. Sugar was the answer. Why wasn't it getting through? Something was obviously holding up absorption.

"We'll wash out the stomach and try again." There was no time to ponder that she was asking a lot from a probationer on her first spell of night duty. "Warm water - lots of it. Not too hot. We'll have to risk it straight from the tap."

She selected a rubber tube of slightly wider bore and set about substituting it for the one already in position.

Some time later they were both awash with fluid. Pint after pint had been poured in and recovered. She had lost all sense of time and place. There was only this funnel, the jug, and the thrashing patient.

Surely the stomach was clear by now?

"Here goes. Keep hold of the head. We'll try the sugar again."

She had a flash of awareness - a kid with her cap askew, face flushed, hair all over the place, holding on for dear life, and then she was at it again, pouring the rough and ready solution into the funnel at the end of the tube.

There was no sound now in the ward but that of their gagging, restless patient. Gradually even this subsided. Lesley had one brief moment of panic. This thing Wasn't going to work after all. And then it was over. She'd read of it, and heard of it, but nothing had prepared her for what happened now.

Miss Twill shot suddenly upright. She blinked her eyes. She looked at the doctor as though she'd no business to be there, and a deep, croaking voice asked, "Where am I?"

Outside Lesley could hear a car door being slammed. At the far end of the ward a woman whimpered in her sleep. A puff of night air came in with the senior nurse.

Screened from the ward by the pleated white screens, Lesley Leigh and Jane Duncan stood with their miracle.

"Oh, Doctor, it was worth all the bedpans for a moment like this!"

Lesley nodded without speaking. What she felt was mirrored in the nurse's eyes. It never crossed her mind to wonder what she would say in the morning to the Chief.

"Who saw your patient, Miss Leigh?" Sir Charles was at his most formal this morning.

"I did."

"I presume you called a senior." He looked up from the case sheet he was holding.

There was silence. The day nurse fidgeted, then froze rigid under Sister's baleful glance.

"Well, Doctor? I asked you a question." He studied the name on the record in his hand. "Who else saw Miss Twill?"

"No one eke, sir."

"I see." He closed the notes and turned to the patient. "Well now, Miss Twill - and what happened to you last night?" His tone brightened.

The patient looked at him doubtfully as though she were about to cry. "My brother always gave me the injections," she croaked. "Since he died I haven't seemed to be able to get them right."

"Now, now." He patted her arm. "There's no need to upset yourself. Doctor Leigh will work something out for you before you leave. It's very important, you know, not to forget to eat after you've given yourself the insulin. But there's nothing for you to worry about meantime - it's our worry now." He smiled reassuringly, then added as an afterthought, "I'm sorry to hear about your brother."

He finished dictating his findings to Lesley and passed on to the next bed. The ward round continued and she thought that the awkward moment had passed. But when they finally reached the staff room and the nursing staff had left them, he broached the subject again.

"I'm still waiting for your explanation, Doctor." He stood looking out of the window.

Lesley said nothing. The silence grew. She felt more and more like a schoolgirl up before the Head.

"I'm waiting, Doctor." He turned towards her.

Lesley looked up, but couldn't quite meet his eyes. What could she say? A bit of her ached to defend herself. ("There was no one but me. What else could I do?") But the words wouldn't come. How could she tell him that his registrar wasn't there, especially when there was just a hint of suspicion that Dayborough had been in his room all the time. She caught the steely look in the grey eyes, but although she longed desperately to escape his disapproval she knew instinctively that this wasn't the way out for her.

Her shoulders rose and fell in a despairing sort of shrug.

"So you have nothing to say to me?" He looked disappointed. "Then I must assume that you thought yourself capable of dealing with the emergency."

She swallowed hard. Her heart was pounding in her throat. ("Arrogant as well, Miss Leigh?" she caught another echo from the past.)

"The fact that you did cope satisfactorily on this occasion is beside the point. Your instructions were quite specific, I think," and when she nodded - "Every unconscious patient has the right to be seen on arrival by a senior physician. You're not sitting examinations now, you know. There are no medals here for coming up with the right answers." His tone was even, but there was no mistaking the censure in his words. "Two months qualified and you think you know it all. I gave you credit for a greater sense of judgment than this." It was almost as though her silence goaded him on to spare her nothing.

"It wasn't like that." There was pleading in her voice.

"In future you will call a consultant - Dr. Dayborough or Dr. McLaughlan, whichever is on duty for the unit. The possibility may not have struck you," he turned back in the act of picking up his pen, "but next time you could be wrong. Quite apart from the risk to the patient, many young doctors have had their careers ruined for less. I should hate to see you in the witness box facing a cynical prosecuting counsel." His scorn poured over her, threatening to overwhelm her. "So we'll have no more high drama, if you please. Is that quite clear?"

Lesley nodded, unable to speak.

"I don't want to arrive some day and find the Procurator Fiscal's been called in to investigate some tragedy, just because you've taken the law into your own hands."