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Controlling the flow so as not to release the pressure too quickly, Lesley filled and emptied the large jug twice.

"Well, that wasn't too bad now, was it?" She dismantled the tube and withdrew the needle.

"All over, Doctor?" Mrs. Brent was surprised. "More like my old self now." She gently explored her now lax abdominal wall. "Tom will get a surprise when he comes in tonight. Touch of the old warpaint - a dash of lipstick and powder. Soon be my old self again, eh, Doctor?"

"Sure thing." It was taking Lesley all her time to conceal her own glee.

"Doctor…"

Lesley turned in the doorway.

"Thank you for being so nice to me. I was more worried about that than I pretended to be."

"I know," said Lesley gently. ("That makes two of us," she thought.) "Snuggle down and have a wee snooze. Perhaps Nurse will rustle up a cup of tea for both of us now."

("I was more worried than I pretended to be too.") There might be the devil himself to pay when Sister found out she'd done it without warning her. Sufficient unto the day. She'd been right to tackle it alone. For the patient's sake as well as her own it was essential today to avoid anything that undermined her own confidence. For the moment she was completely happy. She walked into the duty room on the crest of a wave.

Already it had been a roller-coaster of a day. It was to be hoped they wouldn't all be like this one. She sank into the chair and let out a deep breath. So far so good. She had met her first hurdle and taken it in her stride.

Twenty minutes later she had begun the round with her blood tray, pleased at her returning dexterity with the syringe. She was just about to set up her first blood sedimentation tube when Nurse Duncan called her to the duty room telephone. She had no thought of trouble as she picked up the receiver.

"What the blazes do you think you're playing at?" Harry Dayborough's voice crackled over the wires. "Am I to be kept hanging around here all day?"

"I don't understand," Lesley faltered. "Is something wrong?"

"Wrong? I'll say something's wrong. You're not at St. Kentigern's now, you know. You can't float around here playing doctors. Just occasionally you're expected to do some work."

"But I am working," Lesley protested.

"You were due at Outpatients at half past one. It's now almost three o'clock," he roared.

"Outpatients?" She was baffled. "But when - ? I mean Sir Charles clearly stated I was to do these blood estimations this afternoon."

"When you do your work for Professor Moncrieff, madam, is no concern of mine. While you're in this hospital you'll obey its rules. Residents attend Outpatients with the Registrar of their own unit."

"But if I work from now till bedtime," stammered Lesley, "I'll just about cope with everything I was told to do for tomorrow morning."

"When I tell you to get over here, you'd better jump to it." His voice was almost incoherent with rage. "I give you five minutes!" The phone was slammed down.

Lesley sat shaken for a moment. She felt physically sick. Slowly she fumbled the receiver back on to its hook. All the earlier exhilaration drained away from her, and for the first time she felt the stirrings of real doubt. Of what use were all her efforts going to be if the man on the other end of this line had already determined that she shouldn't succeed?

"You're making altogether too much of it." Jim refused to
take Harry Dayborough's ill-will for granted. "After all, you did give him a black eye, or something of the sort, this morning. You could hardly expect him to be all over you by this afternoon."

"Who told you about that?" It was Lesley's turn to be incredulous. They had just dined and were sitting over coffee in the residents' sitting-room.

"You can't keep a thing like that secret. The grapevine's more efficient than any system of hidden microphones."

"Then no doubt you've also heard about this afternoon. He deliberately set out to make me look small in front of nurses and patients. 'Give us the benefit of your vast experience, Doctor.' Even the people sitting out in the corridor couldn't fail to hear him."

"If they did, they were probably heart-sorry for the nice lady doctor - especially if they were treated to that sad little woebegone face you're wearing now."

"Oh, Jim, stop ribbing!"

"Who's ribbing? The trouble with you is that you're tired. You're letting things get out of perspective. There's nothing unusual about a registrar taking the mickey out of residents. It's been their favourite pastime since Adam was a lad. What you need is cheering up. Good job we're going to a party tonight."

"That's another thing," Lesley grimaced. "I've got on the wrong side of the staff nurse, too. She politely told me I was not invited."

"How one person could cross so many people in one day beats me," Sandy Williams tut-tutted from the corner couch. "It's not as if Uncle Sandy hadn't tried to warn you. I told you the laws of the jungle applied. Residents are the staff nurses' special preserve."

"That's right." Pete Morrison joined in. "My motto is keep them guessing. That way you're guaranteed early morning tea in bed and you never have to lift a syringe for yourself."

"Not that I could have gone anyway," said Lesley. "It'll take me all evening to get those bloods done."

"What you need is a break." Jim rose lazily from his arm
chair. "Come on, let's have a spin in the old jalopy." He gave her shoulders a quick hug. "Tell you what, you can try her out if you like."

"What self-sacrifice!" Lesley made an effort to smile back at him. "And her the apple of your eye!"

"Here, you can have the other key." He disengaged it from the key-ring at his waist. "Any time things get too much for you, just leave the empty space in the car park and I'll know." He tossed it into her lap. "Anything that's mine is yours anyway," he grinned.

They left the staff lounge arm in arm.

Sandy Williams sighed. "Nice work if you can get it!"

"Oh, I don't know," drawled Pete. "Strikes me he won't be getting
his
morning tea in bed. No night nurse is going to brave that courtyard at some unearthly hour for a fellow who's already so obviously and obliviously hooked."

By
next morning Carol Bell was in a better frame of mind. Last night's dance had done much to restore her morale. She'd even begun to get over her chagrin at the arrival of Dr. Lesley Leigh. Jim Graham had been quite the most attractive resident there. He'd arrived fairly late, flushed and a little windblown, but it had not escaped the notice of the others that he'd danced more than once with her. Of course, he'd danced twice with Murphy, but that was to be expected. Murphy was his own staff nurse and no houseman ever forgot that with impunity. No, there was no doubt about it - he'd singled her out for special attention. Perhaps, after all, something could be salvaged from the next six months. He was the unit's co-resident. He would be in and but of their ward when Lesley Leigh was off duty. Things didn't look so bad this morning.

In front of the mirror in the linen cupboard she removed a hair-grip, forced it open with her teeth, and carefully reinserted it to hold her cap in position. One thing she would say for Lesley Leigh, she hadn't been so patronising as some of these spotty boy residents often turned out to be. On reflection, perhaps she could afford to humour her. No sense in getting on her wrong side for nothing. You never knew with women doctors. They could make trouble, especially if they hit it off with Sister.

She sent the probationer nurse to distribute the temperature charts while she herself began to place the case histories at the foot of each bed in readiness for the house doctor's arrival.

Lesley was immediately aware of the difference when she stepped into the ward at eight-thirty. Remembering yesterday's chilly reception, only her eagerness to see how Mrs. Brent was progressing had made her brave the early morning embargo again.

"She's had a very good night, Doctor. In fact, she's agitating already about when can she go home." Staff Nurse Bell was being frankly co-operative. "I've put round the case sheets myself. Is there anything else that you need, Doctor Leigh?" The climate had certainly changed overnight.

Even Sister was sweetness and light this morning. "I see Mrs. Brent's a lot flatter today." She greeted Lesley with a certain pursing of the lips and a queer old-fashioned smile, as though she knew perfectly well why the house doctor had chosen yesterday afternoon to relieve the abdominal distension. "Ay, well, she's had a much better night for it." She contented herself with an amused indulgent smile.

Lesley began to breathe freely again. She took her sphygmomanometer from the cupboard and set out to record the morning blood pressures. She didn't exactly feel at her best this morning. The lack of sleep had seen to that. By dint of working in the test-room till midnight she'd managed to scrape through everything. All the case sheets were up to date. Every red and white cell count had been entered. Even the blood sedimentation rates were done. There was still the test meal on Mrs. Maconachie, but Sir Charles hadn't said that it need be ready for today. By the time she had finished there had been a crick in her neck and a nagging little ache at the base of her left shoulder-blade, but all the tasks were accounted for. That was the main thing. Except for that twenty-minute break with Jim, she'd been on duty solidly for fifteen incident-packed hours. Not bad for the first day's work.

Caught up in her own thoughts, she didn't notice Dr. Ian McLaughlan come into the ward. It was Miss Robertson, the asthmatic in the end bed, who whispered that the sub- chief was waiting to begin his ward round. "How silly of me," she thought as she walked quickly towards him. "I should have guessed that McLaughlan would take the women's ward today." Of course, he would alternate ward rounds with the Chief. In spite of the prospect of fewer chores she was surprised to find she was disappointed.

The morning passed in a pleasant haze. It was difficult to say quite where the difference lay. The sub-chief was helpful and certainly not so demanding. But it had something to do with Sister's attitude. She was much less formal with Dr. Ian McLaughlan. This communicated itself to patients and staff. As a consequence everyone was much less on edge. After yesterday's marathon, today looked like being a rest cure.

When the junior came to say that coffee was served in the staff room, Lesley was surprised to find it was noon. Sir Charles had already left the courtyard when she showed the sub-chief to his car. The day, inexplicably, had gone rather flat.

Carol Bell called out to her as she walked back past the ward kitchen.

"If I were you, Doctor, I'd go out this afternoon." The staff nurse halted in the act of spooning potatoes. "Visiting hour's from three to four and we have to close the ward for bedpans at least half an hour before that. I just thought I'd mention it." She went on handing plates to the maids who were ferrying them back and forth from the ward. "If you hang about here you'll be pestered by relatives. You can't get on with your work anyway. Most of the others usually go out."

"Thanks for the tip. I could do with some fresh air - still a bit muzzy from last night's stint." Lesley went on into the ward to take the hourly sample now due on Mrs. Maconachie's test meal. After lunch she would take the car up on to the moor. Jim was at Outpatients. He'd be sure to say yes.

She stopped the MG at the Flush, the junction of the roads from Fenham Village and Snykes. A farmer in his field obligingly halted the tractor to consider her query.

"The old packhorse road? Not sure if it'll take a car, lady - not just now, anyway. Haven't been up it myself since I was a boy. That way it goes over the hill past the Big Dam. This way -" He looked away to the east. "I never stopped to wonder where it does go from here. I reckon you lose track of it over by Wilson's farm." He scratched his head. "But you'll not be getting that thing past the turn at the top, I'm thinking." He ran his eye over Jim's MG. "They've made a right mess, I shouldn't wonder, putting up their monstrosity." He looked with distaste at the metal pylon now reared against the skyline. "Crazy place to put a road in the first place," he grumbled.

Lesley thanked him and turned the car for the track.

"Give us a shout if you get stuck," he called after her.

The old path looked little more than a cart track except that its base was of cobble overgrown at the edges with weeds and rushes. From the crest of the first hill she saw that it was just as the farmer had said it would be. Down in the valley it was bog and marshland. Better to leave the MG at the top. She didn't relish digging Jim's treasure out of the mud. She would go the rest of the way on foot.

Between her and the next hill a burn coursed its way across her path. Picking her way carefully through reeds, she was soon on upland again.

At the Big Dam trout fishers were tangling their casts in the wind. One of them nodded to her as she passed. The old road seemed to part the waters of the man-made loch. It flanked her on both sides as she made her way across. After that it was uphill again. She thought she knew where she was by now. That looked like her wood away there on the right. Steadily she climbed towards it.

Up here in the desolate moorland air the cares of her new life fell away from her. It was easy to forget Dayborough and the pressures of the present and to feel only one's continuity with the past. Eyes screwed up against the afternoon sunlight, she could imagine fleeing forms of Covenanters stumbling about on this deserted hillside.

A cloud crossed the sun and the figures on the other side of the valley were no longer fugitives but a farmer and his boy: the cry of the peewit no longer a prearranged signal. And no feat of the imagination could invest with mystery the dapple- grey Clydesdale who now left his wayside grazing to wander placidly across her path.

Here was the hill - and the wood. She put her foot in the familiar niche and climbed over the drystone dyke.

All around her larks rose. Never could she recall having heard so many sing. It had always been the place for daydreaming. She began to go back, to remember things.