Read The Rainbow and the Rose for Free Online

time,’ I said. ‘You’d better think what they will say if you refuse to go, and then he dies.’
    He stood there biting his lip.
    ‘We’re all in a bit of a jam over this,’ I said. ‘You, most of all, perhaps. We’d better go through the motions of doing the best we can.’
    ‘There’s another way to look at it,’ the sergeant said. ‘Iknow the chance is that you won’t be able to save him, everything against you as it is. But you might save him. He might recover. Just think of what the papers would say then.’
    He stood irresolute. ‘I’ll add a bit to that,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you a good break with the Press. I’ll tell them you insisted on going to do what you could, at the risk of your own life.’
    He looked up at me. ‘You’d tell them that? Even if he dies?’
    ‘I will,’ I said. ‘Especially if he dies.’
    He still hesitated. ‘All my other patients …’ he said. ‘There’s no telling when I could get back from the Lewis River.’
    The sergeant asked, ‘You got anything urgent? Babies coming down, or anything of that?’
    ‘Not exactly … But I can’t just run out and leave the practice.’
    ‘The district nurse is here,’ the sergeant said. ‘And there’s plenty of doctors in Devonport, come out in an emergency.’
    ‘I suppose so. If I went I’d have to take an awful lot of things with me. Some of them in bottles – liquids. They’d all get broken, wouldn’t they?’
    ‘We’ll just have to do our best,’ I said. ‘That’s all we can do. Pack them with a lot of padding in an old suitcase, and see what we can do.’
    He stood there silent, and I guessed that he was trying to think up a few more objections. It was time to cut him short. ‘Well, that’s all fixed, then,’ I said positively. ‘I think you’ve made the right decision. Look, I’m going out to the aerodrome now to look over the machine. I’ll be back in the police station at half-past eight, to hear what Hobart has to say. You’d better meet us there then. There’s not much time to lose, because this clear weather isn’t going to last. Have all your stuff down at the police station at half past eight, and we’ll make a quick getaway while thesun shines. That’s in fifty minutes’ time.’ I moved towards the door, and the sergeant followed me. ‘See you then.’
    In the car on our way out to the aerodrome, I asked the sergeant, ‘He does do surgery?’
    ‘Well, yes,’ he replied. ‘He hasn’t done much since he’s been here, because there’s not been much to do. All the motor accidents, they go to Devonport. We haven’t got a hospital here, you see. Derek Hepworth, he fell off a roof about six months ago and broke his leg, and the doctor set that all right. He’s a Bachelor of Surgery.’
    ‘Has he done any operations since he came here? An appendicitis, or anything like that?’
    He shook his head. ‘Not that I know about. Anything like that would go to Devonport.’
    I was worried. ‘Look, Sergeant,’ I said. He turned to me. ‘Look, stop the car a minute. Just park here.’ And when he had done so, I said, ‘What do you really think about all this, yourself?’
    ‘I don’t like it,’ he said flatly. ‘I don’t think he wants to do a fractured skull – at the Lewis River or anywhere else.’
    ‘I don’t think he does,’ I said. ‘This is his first practice, isn’t it?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    I bit my lip. ‘He must have done a fractured skull or two, in hospital.’
    ‘Aye,’ said the sergeant. ‘But that’s different to doing it upon the kitchen table at the Lewis River.’
    ‘Is there any other doctor we could get? Anyone more experienced?’
    ‘We’d have to try in Devonport,’ he said. ‘Dr Simpson – he might be the most likely. He’s a good surgeon, and he’s not so old. He still goes ski-ing. But whether he could drop everything and come away at five minutes’ notice – that I wouldn’t know. He does a lot of surgery. He might have