An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War
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Authors: Patrick Taylor
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To Dorothy
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CKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Irish Country series would not have been written and published without the unstinting assistance of a large number of people, most of whom have been with me, guiding and supporting from the very start. They are:
In North America
Simon Hally, Carolyn Bateman, Tom Doherty, Paul Stevens, Irene Gallo, Gregory Manchess, Patty Garcia, Alexis Saarela, and Christina Macdonald, all of whom have contributed enormously to the literary and technical aspects of bringing the work from rough draft to bookshelf.
Natalia Aponte, my agent.
Don Klancha, Joe Meir, and Mike Tadman, who keep me right in contractual matters. Without the help of the University of British Columbia Medical Library staff, much of the technical details of medicine in the thirties and forties would have been inaccurate.
In the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom
Rosie and Jessica Buckman, my foreign rights agents.
The Librarians of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and The Rotunda Hospital Dublin and her staff.
For This Work Only
My friends and colleagues who contributed special expertise in the writing of this work are highlighted in my author's note.
To you all, Surgeon Commander Fingal O'Reilly MB., DSC., and I tender our most heartfelt gratitude and thanks.
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C
ONTENTS
2. If You Have Tears, Prepare to Shed Them Now
4. Only the First Step That Is Difficult
5. Cry “Havoc!” and Let Slip the Dogs of War
6. Come Cheer Up My Lads, 'tis to Glory We Steer
12. Emptied Some Dull Opiate ⦠and Lethewards Had Sunk
13. Plan the Future by the Past
14. I Must Go Down to the Sea Again to the Lonely Sea â¦
15. The History of Class Struggle
19. He Smelleth the Battle Afar
22. Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware)
24. A Stranger in a Strange Land
26. They Would Ask Him to Dinner
27. Would Not Give His Judgment Rashly
28. Temptations Both in Wine and Women
30. Merely Innocent Flirtation â¦
31. Remembered Kisses After Death
32. The Voice of a Great Thunder
33. Requireth Further Comfort or Counsel
34. Tread in the Bus on My Toes
35. The Rockets' Red Glare, the Bombs Bursting in Air
36. Dear Nurse of Arts ⦠and Noble Births
41. The Bomber Will Always Get Through
42. Laughter and the Love of Friends
1
A Rose by Any Other Name
Someone was ringing the front doorbell of Number One, Main Street, and insistently at that. Doctor Fingal Flaherty O'Reilly was eating a solitary lunch of cold roast ham, hard-boiled eggs, and salad while his partner, Doctor Barry Laverty, was out on an emergency home visit. “Coming,” O'Reilly roared, put down his knife and fork and, grabbing his sports jacket from the back of a chair, headed for the front hall. His housekeeper, Kinky Kincaid, usually answered the door but today she was preparing for her wedding the following day.
The noon sun brightened the afternoon, but even its late-April radiance could add little lustre to the full vestments of Mister Robinson, the Presbyterian minister, who stood at the doorway wringing his hands. His rusty black robes, O'Reilly thought, made the man look like a dishevelled crow. “Yes, Your Reverence? What's up?”
“Doctor, can you come across to the church at once? Please?”
“Somebody sick?” O'Reilly asked, shrugging into his jacket. “I'll get my bag.” He turned, but was forestalled by the minister grabbing an arm.
“Nobody's sick, but the war of the roses is breaking out in my church. There's a row and a ructions, and I don't know what to do. Please come. If anybody in Ballybucklebo can stop it, it's you.” He turned, trotted down the short gravelled drive, and was forced by a lorry heading from Bangor to Belfast to wait for O'Reilly to catch up. As soon as there was a gap in the traffic, the minister hurried across the road to the church with O'Reilly trailing behind.
“What row?” O'Reilly asked, catching his breath as they passed under the lych-gate.
“Maggie Houston and Flo Bishop.”
“Who? Maggie and Flo?” O'Reilly frowned as they passed into the shadow of the old yews in the graveyard. “But they're old friends, for Gâ” Better not say “God's sake.” His frown deepened. “I think,” he said, stopping in his tracks, “you'd better explain before we go in.”
Mister Robinson sighed. “The ladies of the Women's Guild take it in turns on a weekly rota to look after decorating the church for services and ceremonies. Maggie Houston's on the duty this week. Because we all know Kinky's fondness for wildflowers, Maggie's got them by the great grossâ”
“For the wedding tomorrow.”
“Correct, but Flo Bishop, being matron of honour, even though it's not her turn to do the flowers, has assumed responsibility for decorating the church with hothouse roses because she says Kinky deserves the very best. She's formed a subcommittee with Aggie Arbuthnot and Cissie Sloan. Maggie whipped up support from Jeannie Jingles and Alice Moloney and⦔
“And you have two regiments going at it hammer and tongs? The wildflower fusiliers and the red-rose rifles, right?”
“Right. Mrs. Bishop and her gang have commandeered the communion table and choir area and Maggie and their friends have placed themselves strategicallyâ”
“Say no more.” O'Reilly, while being sympathetic to the minister's dilemma, was having great difficulty controlling an enormous grin. “Lead on, Macduff,” he said. “This is something I've got to see.”
“Thank you, Doctor. They won't listen to me. But you'll make them see sense.”
O'Reilly followed the minister until they reached the nave, where the perfume of flowers was overpowering even the dust of two hundred years that usually haunted the old building.
On Maggie's side, heaps of freshly plucked wildflowers were piled on the front pew. Roses on the opposite side of the aisle formed Flo Bishop's ammunition dump.
The two groups, led by their respective champions, stood facing each other at the top of the nave.
“You'll do no such thing, Maggie MacCorkleâ”
“It's Mrs. Houston to you, Mrs. Bishop.”
Both women stood facing each other, arms akimbo, eyes afire, leaning forward, chins jutting. Flo's teeth were clenched and there she had Maggie Houston née MacCorkle at a disadvantage. The older woman wasn't wearing her false ones, and clenched gums were less than threatening.
Lord, O'Reilly thought, harking back to his boxing days,
And in the blue corner at one hundred and eighty pounds â¦
“Ladies,” he said. “Ladies, whatever seems to be the trouble?”
He could make no sense of all the women's voices speaking at once, but made a shrewd guess about what was being said.
“All right, all right,” he said, “now settle down.
Settle down
.” He waited as Flo smoothed her dress as a just-pecked mallard duck would waggle her tail feathers.
Maggie adjusted her hat. It had a single wilted bluebell in its brim.
“Can we not sort this out like the civilised people we are?” he said.
Flo glowered at Maggie. Maggie folded her arms across her chest. Their supporters closed ranks behind their principals.
“All right,” said O'Reilly, “let me see if I can get this straight. Maggie.
Maggie
?”
“Yes, Doctor O'Reilly.”
“You and your friends love Kinky and you want her day to be perfect, don't you?”
“We do, so we do,
but,
” Maggie turned her frowning face sideways to Flo Bishop, “thon Floâ”
O'Reilly cut her off. “Flo, you and Aggie and Cissie feel the same way but think you know a better way to make Kinky's wedding day shine?”
Flo glowered and said, “Me and the ladies do love Kinky and she told me that on the night Archie proposed he give her red roses and
that's
whyâ”
