Read Online Green for Danger by Christianna Brand - Free Book Online Page A

with wide red rubber bands, which gave a somewhat unattractive, snout-like effect. “They look as though they were slaughtering a pig,” thought Esther, revolted.
    Major Moon, bending over the body, suddenly straightened himself. “There it is! See it? It was an ulcer, all right.… Just give me a little swab, Sister, will you? Want to have a look, nurse? Wait a moment while I swab. There! You’ll never see a prettier example of a duodenal ulcer than that!” Woods peered over his shoulder into the wound. Esther shuddered.
    Woody came over and stood beside her, glancing into the anæsthetic-room en route. “Your old boy’s all right; lying quite dopey and quiet. Didn’t you want to see the ulcer?”
    â€œNo, I can’t take it to-day. It’s the heat in here.”
    â€œWon’t be long now. You’d better wait outside while they’re doing Higgins; he won’t be very interesting anyway.” She clumped off in her big, white rubber boots. Sister Bates broke open little glass phials and threaded up needles with gut. Eden fished out a bluish-pink coil of intestine, holding it clamped to the stomach while Moon cut and stitched. They packed it all into the belly at last and tucked it neatly away. “Won’t be long now, Barney. Retract please, Eden. Harder if you can …”
    It was over. Major Moon threw the last of the forceps on to the tray and stood looking down at the patient, peeling off his gloves, with an expression of calm satisfaction in his faded blue eyes. All gone off nicely; no strain or fuss; and as pretty an ulcer as he had ever seen. He went out to the washroom, followed by Eden. “I thought it wasn’t a diverticulum.… Crossley seemed to think from the X-ray that it might have been a diverticulum …” Sister Bates and Woods bound up the yellow abdomen with its rough, red, five-inch wound all puckered together with stitches and metal clips, tossed aside the rubber sheet and pulled down the blankets, leaving the mouth and nostrils free to the air. Barney tidied up his trolley, got to his feet and stretched himself and went out to the washrooms. Woods scurried about the theatre clearing away swabs and dressings, placing a new basin of saline for the surgeon’s hands, staggering across the room with a fresh cylinder of gas clasped like a large, black baby in her arms; tidying away the used tubes and scraps of gauze from the anæsthetist’s trolley and placing a fresh airway tube in an enamel bowl. Esther went out to the anæsthetic-room and wheeled Higgins into the theatre; they lifted him on to the table, and slid away the metal poles of the stretcher, leaving the canvas under him, ready for lifting him off again. He stared about him with frightened and clouded eyes.
    Barney came over to him and took his hand, speaking to him gently and soothingly. “You’re going to be quite O.K., old man. I’ll just put a mask over your nose and you’ll breathe in and out quietly and you’ll soon be fast asleep, and when you wake up you’ll be in your bed and it’ll all be over.…”
    Higgins turned his head on the pillow. “Nurse! Nurse!”
    â€œYes,” said Esther. “I’m here. I’m with you.”
    â€œI’m going to be all right, nurse, aren’t I?”
    â€œYes, you’ll be fine, Higgins, honestly. It’s only quite a little operation, hardly anything at all.”
    â€œWhat are they going to do to me?” he said piteously, his eyes roving round the theatre, shying away from the instruments laid out in readiness.
    Barney had a fad about using the anæsthetic-room. He preferred to start the anæsthetic with the patient already on the table; but he acknowledged the extra fear and distress involved and he now explained, kindly and gently: “It’s really only a very small thing, Higgins; hardly an operation at all. You’ve broken