Across the Wide Zambezi: A Doctor's Life in Africa (29 page)

I met him in his local one Sunday
afternoon on my way home from Salisbury. Dr Sadd sounded as unhappy as his name
in Enkeldoorn. He complained about what he called 'young Rhodesian lay-outs'.
Moreover, most of the whites in the town were Boer farmers, who reminded him
every other day about who started the 'bloody concentration camps', which was
pretty hard on an Aussie. (My younger readers must not imagine his persecutors
were referring to the Germans.)

He invited me to his house for supper.
About four o' clock, we went to his place in separate cars. We sat down in the
sitting-room with more beers. His wife strode in. Without a glance at me, she
started in on her husband in an abrasive Australian voice. 'Where have you been
till this time, you drunken bum? As if I didn't know! You told me this morning
you were going to the bank. Mrs Oosterhuizen tells me the banks don't open in
this country on a Sunday, you lying bastard! If you want your lunch, you can
scrabble for it, 'cos it's in the bin.'

There must have been some conversation
of a more general nature in the course of the afternoon, because I was
introduced to the lady and their two young sons, before, under another assault
from his more sober half, Dr Sadd slid out of his chair and into the arms of
Morpheus. The visit ended with me taking the wife and the boys back to the
hotel for supper.

A few days later, I got a call from Mrs
Sadd at the hospital. 'Tell me, Warren. Is there such a thing as an alternator
in a motorcar?'

'I've never heard of it,' I answered,
truthfully. The internal combustion engine has always been a closed book to me.

'I thought as much. That lying bastard
told me I couldn't use the car this morning 'cos the alternator needs fixing.
Just wait till the bum gets home for his lunch!'

I picture the little man, innocent for
once, coming home to this welcome: 'Warren says there's no such thing as an
alternator in a bloody motorcar!'

Dr Sadd was not long for this world, let
alone the service. After his dismissal, his wife left him and returned to
Australia with the boys. He went into private practice in a small town near
Salisbury but, not surprisingly, did not prosper. Soon after, I heard that he
had crashed his car in South Africa and killed himself.

After a year at Umvuma I saw the post of
medical superintendent at Sinoia advertised. This was another general hospital
like Marandellas but larger. I was beginning to feel the limitations of the
little backwater of Umvuma, not least in the direction of marital prospects.
The Scottish sisters from Marandellas had called on me on their way to
Bulawayo, sat outside the Falcon and declared they would go mad in a week in
this place. I had my work to keep me occupied but I was human too. So, with
'the cries of unsatisfied love', I applied and was accepted for Sinoia.

     There were three or four doctors
there, including a consultant physician. It was a busy hospital and emergencies
came thick and fast. I thought I was doing fairly well, when an old doctor
(then a part-timer) drew me aside one day and told me he thought I needed more
surgical training. What is more, he had written to the secretary for health (
in
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe this means the permanent secretary
)
expressing
the same opinion. This was a shock and a blow to my pride, as surgery was my
strongest suit and my leading interest.

     The secretary came down, had a chat
with my colleagues and another one with me. In the event, I agreed to go back
to school again at Umtali, the main hospital of the eastern province of
Manicaland; incidentally taking two steps down the promotional ladder to simple
GMO again. As I was not a married man, that was the least of my
disappointments.

     Umtali was a hospital the size of
Gwelo and had three specialists. Henry, the surgeon, was a South African of
French extraction with the stern, dark looks of a South American dictator and
an authoritarian manner to match, best described by one sister (white, of
course) as, 'God has entered the ward!' Ian, the superintendent, was an
orthopaedic surgeon, a tall, dour Scot, who was 'not one to suffer fools
gladly', as they say: which I have always regarded as an ominous expression.
Ivor, the physician, was a Rhodesian, like David Taylor; and that was all they
had in common. Ivor was a tall, dark man of Welsh extraction and excitable
temperament, who would throw the notes across the ward at the slightest
provocation - with or without the clip-boards. He had a saving sense of humour
- at least, he laughed as heartily at my jokes as he cursed my shortcomings.

     At Gwelo, I had worked exclusively
with ladies and gentlemen: at Umtali, I was to get the abrasive treatment.
Which was the more efficacious, I have never been able to decide.

And at Umtali, I met up again with Jimmy
Lennon, the schoolmaster from Liverpool. He had now moved from Brown's Hotel to
digs. I asked him to share house with me, and he gladly accepted. We were to
have a happy year together, the period of my tutelage at Umtali.           Jimmy
had had a sad life. He first came to Rhodesia during the war, under the Empire
Air Training Scheme, based at Gwelo, and met and married a Rhodesian girl. He
took her home to England with him, found a teaching post in a Liverpool suburb
and a house in Wirral, 'over the water', not a very convenient arrangement. He
returned home on his first day, after a long journey by bus and train, to find
his Rhodesian wife, now deprived of servants, sitting weeping in the dark, and
no supper ready. They struggled on for as long as they could before Jimmy
decided his wife was a little tropical flower, plucked from its native soil and
unlikely to flourish in the unkinder latitudes of Mersey. He found a post in
Rhodesia and took her home again, Kathleen (though, in fact, her name was
Rosemary).

     They had three children, but the
marriage still did not prosper. Jimmy went home on leave to England alone and
on his return found that his wife had left him, taking the children, and gone
off with a communist: adding insult to injury as far as Jimmy, a devout
Catholic, was concerned. Moreover, through some sort of influence, she had got
him transferred to Wankie, the remotest and hottest part of the country, in the
hottest month, October  - the 'suicide month'. (This part of the story seems to
require further explanation.) For Jimmy, it was the lowest point in his life:
he told me how he cried himself to sleep at night and wished he would never
wake again. Or rather one of the lowest points. The second came just before he
joined me at Umtali, when his two daughters were killed in a car crash.

     He would get to Salisbury when he
could to see his children. His wife seems to have got her hands on his money
for he was very poor. He told me how he would hitch a lift down to Bulawayo in
the guard's van (300 miles), and the same to Salisbury (another 300 miles), and
back, over a week-end. Finally, his wife divorced him - a position Jimmy, for
religious reasons, never recognised, despite the advice of more 'advanced'
priests of his church to the contrary. To complete his desolation, the
communist was expelled from the country, and took Jimmy's family with him.

I was introduced early to Henry's style
after an operation one night. Their teaching method there was not very good.
Henry and Ian did all the operations, even the minor ones: the GMOs gave the
anaesthetic and learned what they could by watching the masters. This was still
useful to me: I had had my hands on already and could learn much by watching;
but it was no good for tiros, and to do them justice, before I left, they were
beginning to change it for more practical methods.

     I had prepared a case of ruptured
ectopic for Henry - or thought I had. I had needled the abdomen and got blood.
Thinking to kill two birds with one stone, I sent this blood to the lab for the
usual business, including matching stored blood for transfusion. When Henry
arrived, I gave the anaesthetic and watched him as best I could while still
watching the patient.

     After the op, in the changing room,
instead of changing, Henry sat sombrely in a chair. I was about to change when
he stopped me with a question.

     'What was the trouble about that
woman's blood tonight?' he asked in the tone of a Victorian headmaster on ‘your
record this term’.

     'I don't understand.'

     'That I can well imagine.'

     He paused, then continued: 'How did
you obtain the blood you sent for grouping and cross-matching?'

     'I sent the paracentesis specimen.'

     'And did you expect that specimen
to clot?'

     I wasn't sure, so said nothing.
Besides, I have always considered the Socratic method unneccesarily
patronising.

     'Of course, it wouldn't bloody
clot!' shouted Henry, unable to contain his natural choler any longer in the
cold judicial manner which did not suit him. 'And how was the man going to
group and cross-match the blood if the specimen didn't clot?'

     What he meant was, the technician
had to test both cells and serum, which would only separate in a clotted
specimen. The blood I sent had already clotted in the abdomen, and was simply a
kind of soup, which would never settle out. This, Henry could have explained in
two sentences, as above. But that was not his style: his style was the
rhetorical style.

     'First prrinciples man!' he
bellowed, rolling his 'r's' like a Dutchman, which he was not, although he came
from the Orange Free State. By now he was pacing up and down like Hitler on one
of those days his generals used to hate. 'I'm talking about first prrinciples!
Not your bloody
Brritish Medical Journal
wrritten by intellectual twits
and show-offs, trrying to get ahead in the rrat-rrace!' (I agreed with him
about the
British Medical Journal,
or rather, for practical value,
preferred the more basic publication,
Tropical Doctor;
but this did not
seem the occasion for discussing the various merits of the medical press.) 'I'm
talking about the things you were supposed to learn as a medical student!'

     Well, that covered a multitude of
forgotten lessons, and I was not going to learn them from Henry that night. I
had to sit down and work them out next day, which I suppose is one way of
teaching.

Next, I got it from Ian. Admittedly, a
shameful case on my part. A young soldier came to outpatients who had lost his
nerve about military operations - the bush war was spreading further, and had
now reached all the eastern districts. I had no idea how to deal with this
case. I knew nothing of Moran's theories of the 'anatomy of courage', as
indicated before, though his book was obtainable then. I had heard of cases of
airmen involved in crashes, who were sent straight up again,
before
they
lost their nerve. This was, of course, inapplicable in the present case, which
I would have seen if I had given the matter more thought. But on the spur of
the moment, I told him about this method and suggested he try and carry on.

     Fortunately for the lad (if not for
me), the case reached Ian's ears: most things did. He sent a message for me to
await him in his office. When he came in, he berated me at the top of his
voice. At least, he told me what I should have done: namely, put the poor
fellow off duty on tranquillisers; for which I was grateful, if not for the way
he said it. I felt like asking him if this was his usual way of addressing his
colleagues - the short answer to that was 'yes', as far as the GMOs were
concerned, and I later learned I had shared the dubious honour with his own
son-in-law; but I lacked the necessary confidence and missed the opportunity.

     At least I was not lacking in cold
courage, and decided to have it out with Henry, who had given me the rough
treatment more than once. I arranged a meeting with him.

     'Yes, Warren,' he smiled, as soon
as we were alone. 'What can I do for you?' He could be charming when he wanted:
he was unfailingly charming with women, and I have to say he was kindness
itself to children.

     'Mr Denard,' I began, falteringly.
'I am afraid that you bully me sometimes.'

     He said it was entirely
unintentional, and asked me to give an example.

     'Well, the first time was the case
of that ectopic, when I sent the paracentesis specimen to the lab. I thought
the way you spoke to me then was not very friendly.'

     'Please understand, old chap,' he
pleaded. 'I do not claim to be a gynaecologist.'

     This was pure flannel, and Henry
knew it. A brilliant career in politics awaited him any time he chose to take
it up.

     There was more pleasantry of a
similar sort, and the meeting ended on a friendly note - as they say in
Belfast.

     Two days later, he was as bad as
ever again.

     I have already mentioned Ivor's
discus-throwing performances. I was rapidly becoming the whipping boy of the
hospital.

     I can joke about it now, but at the
time it caused me some distress, and I even lost sleep over it. Jimmy was most
indignant, being a fiery Irish type himself, and was all for having a word with
Ian about it, who was a personal friend of his, but I restrained him. He did
not know Henry, but took the opportunity to observe him at a wedding reception.
He came to some Celtic intuitive conclusion, and assured me: 'You’ll get
nowhere with that man, Warren. He’s made of concrete.’

     Of course, it would have been
better to catch them on the wing, so to speak, in the middle of their rages,
with a sharp protest; but I lacked the confidence.

      In time they softened towards me.
As men get to know one another, mutual confidence grows, and I am glad to say
it did in this case. Before my time was up, I was enjoying good relations with
them, which endured after I left.

     Moreover, I was not guiltless of
these crimes myself. I bullied the nurses, especially the Africans, whose
cultural respect for authority impeded them from protesting. (Henry, of all
people, reproved me for never saying 'please' and 'thank-you' to them; and I
can’t say he wasn't justified.) This is the cowardice of the bully, who always
senses the soft target - and leaves the other kind alone. This was true of my
tormentors, and it was true of me. Once I bullied a sister, a Zulu girl of
delicate beauty, as sensitive as a gazelle. She burst out in tearful protest at
the end of the ward round. I led her outside and apologised profusely,
promising her (and myself, inwardly) it would never happen again. I hope I kept
my promise.

Jimmy was a great champion of the
Africans, and, indeed, the poor the world over. He was much troubled by some
statistic that most of the wealth of Britain was owned by ten thousand people,
but admitted the strength of my argument that the important thing was that
nobody should go without.

     We took a holiday at Kariba over
Christmas. At breakfast one day, Jimmy was dilating on the miserable wages of
the African waiters. He called one over.

     'How much do they pay you at this
place, my friend?'

     'Sah?'

     'How much money do you get every
month?
Malini?
'

     'Thirty dollars, sah.'

     'And how many children do you
have?'

     'Five, sah.'

     'Listen to that, Warren! How do
they expect a man to support a wife and five children on thirty dollars a month?'