I nodded heartily, as I was anxious to please everyone.
‘Now, young feller,’ he went on more briskly, ‘I’ve got some questions to ask you.’
I folded my hands submissively and braced myself mentally.
‘Have you been to a public school?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you play rugby football or association?’
‘Rugby.’
‘Do you think you can afford to pay the fees?’
‘Yes.’
He grunted, and without a word withdrew. Left alone, I diverted my apprehensive mind by running my eye carefully over the line of black-and-white deans, studying each one in turn. After ten minutes or so the old man returned and led me in to see the living holder of the office.
Dr Loftus was a short, fat, genial man with wispy white hair like pulled-out cotton wool. He was sitting at an old-fashioned roll-topped desk that was stacked untidily with folders, copies of medical journals, letters, and reference books. On top of these he had thrown a Homburg hat, a pair of yellow gloves, and his stethoscope. He was obviously in a hurry.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, old man,’ he said cheerily, ‘I was held up at a post-mortem. Have a seat.’
I sat down on a hard leather chair beside the desk.
‘Now,’ the Dean began. ‘Have you been to a public school?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your people can afford the fees and that sort of thing?’
‘I believe so.’
‘You play rugby, I suppose?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The Dean began to look interested.
‘What position?’ he asked.
‘Wing three-quarter.’
He drew a pad of paper towards him and pencilled fifteen dots on it in rugby formation.
‘Threequarter…’ he murmured to himself. ‘How old are you?’ he asked sharply.
‘Almost eighteen, sir.’
‘Umm. First fifteen at school?’
‘Oh yes, sir.’
The Dean traced lines through his dots, crossed others out, and rustled through a sheaf of typewritten papers beside him. He jerked back in his chair and inspected me closely all over.
‘You’re rather thin, aren’t you,’ he announced. ‘I suppose you’ve got the speed?’
‘I’ve got cups for the hundred,’ I told him eagerly.
‘Well, you may shape well. Lucky you’re a three. The hospital’s full of forwards,’ he added in disgust.
He frowned at his paper pad for a few seconds. His face suddenly lightened, and I saw he had come to a decision: my hands gripped the arms of the chair as I waited to receive it. Rising, he shook me briskly by the hand and told me he had pleasure in admitting me to St Swithin’s.
I wondered for some time afterwards how he had been able to discover from these questions that I had the attributes of a successful doctor, but I later found out that even this brief interview was superfluous, as the Dean always took the advice of his old secretary and told applicants this man disliked the look of that there were no vacancies.
The medical school of St Swithin’s hospital was an offshoot of the main buildings and had its own entrance on the main road. It was a tall, gloomy structure that held three floors of laboratories, an anatomical dissection room, a lecture theatre that was clothed in perpetual dusk, and the smelliest lavatories in the district.
The school had been built by the richest brewer in London, who was happily knocked over by a hansom outside the hospital gates one slippery winter’s morning in 1875. He was restored to health and normal locomotion in the wards, and to show his gratitude he purchased his peerage the following year by founding the school. The place was now far too old, dark, and small for the requirements of the students, but as the hospital could see little prospect of the accident being repeated it was impossible to tear it down.
At the beginning of October thirty new students collected there for a lecture of welcome and introduction by the Dean. Carrying a new and shiny loose-leaf folder under my arm, I walked up the stone steps for the first time and into the dingy, small entrance hall. The brewer’s name was carved in stone over the doorway to indicate the hospital’s enduring gratitude, and was reflected in green and gold across the face of the King George public house opposite. Below his chiselled title were the serpents entwined round the winged staff, the doctors’ universal trademark, and below that Hippocrates’ discouraging aphorism ‘The Art is Long.’
The hall, which was painted in yellow and green, contained a small kiosk bearing the word ‘Enquiries’ in which a porter had firmly shut himself by pulling down the glass window, turning his back on it, and reading the
Daily Mirror
with undistractable attention. There was a short row of clothes-hooks as heavy as an orchard in August, and a long notice board thickly covered by overlapping sheets of paper.
I glanced at the board as I passed, feeling some faint obligation to do so. The notices were an untidy jumble of typewritten official instructions about lectures, examinations, and so forth, and scraps of paper torn from notebooks scrawled with students’ writing. These indicated the pathetic undercurrents of medical school life as much as the agony column of
The Times
reflects those below the existence of the middle class. The first to catch my eye was in green ink, and said angrily ‘Will the
gentleman
(underlined four times heavily) who took my umbrella from the physiology lab last Thursday bring it back? How can I afford a new one?’ Next to it was a faded invitation for two students to make up a party to dissect an abdomen in Edinburgh during the vacation, adding temptingly ‘Digs and abdomen fixed up. Good pubs.’ There were lists of text-books for sale, triumphantly set up by men who had passed their examinations and therefore had no necessity to learn anything else; several small earnest printed appeals for support of the local Student Christian Association; and a number of unfulfilled wants, from a disarticulated foot to a cheap motor-bike.
A hand on the wall pointed upwards ‘To the Lecture Theatre.’ The way was by a thin iron spiral staircase that ended in darkness. I mounted it, and found myself against a dull brown door attached to a spring that creaked violently as it opened.
The door led to the back of a steep tier of narrow wooden benches rising from the lecturer’s desk like a football stand. Behind the desk were three large blackboards screwed to the walls, which were otherwise panelled with stained perpendicular planks. The roof was lost in a criss-cross of thin iron girders through which half a dozen electric globes were suspended to supplement the thin light that filtered through the windows under the eaves.
I sat down shyly at the extreme end of the last row of benches. Most of the new students had already arrived, and had scattered themselves here and there in the tier of seats. A few seemed to know one another and were conversing softly among themselves. The rest were isolated and silent and looked blankly at the blackboards ahead of them, like a congregation in church waiting for the service.
We were as variegated as a bunch of conscripts. Most of the students were my own age, but in the row immediately below me a middle-aged bald-headed man was scribbling some private notes with a pencil in an exercise book; every now and then he jumped, looked round him anxiously, and fidgeted like a schoolgirl. The only other occupant of my row was a pale youth with untidy ginger hair who appeared to be about fifteen, and was reading
The Origin of Species
with alarming concentration.
The clock on the wall above the lecturer’s desk reached twenty past ten: the Dean was late again. We later found that this was a common occurrence as he emphasized his complete superiority over the students in his appointments by being scrupulously unpunctual. I was still staring expectantly at the blackboards when the door behind me groaned and another student entered.
‘I say, do you mind if I squeeze in?’ the newcomer asked. ‘I hate being far from the exit.’
I shifted along the hard bench hastily. The new man seemed so much at ease in his surroundings it appeared he was senior to the rest of the waiting class. He was certainly more distinctive in his appearance. He was a tall, good-looking young man with thick black hair and a small moustache. He wore a long brown hacking jacket, narrow corduroy trousers, a green shirt, and a yellow silk square instead of a tie. He set down on the floor beside him a polished black walking stick, and taking a monocle from his breast pocket surveyed his companions through it with blatant disgust.
‘Good God,’ he said.
He then opened a copy of
The Times
and began reading it.
The abashed silence in the room was maintained for another ten minutes, broken only by my new neighbour noisily turning over the pages. At ten thirty, half an hour late, a small door behind the desk opened and the Dean bounced in. He was all smiles and geniality. He stood for a moment and beamed at the class like a bishop inspecting his confirmation candidates.
The Dean was not only late but in a tearing hurry. He briefly welcomed us to St Swithin’s, made a few remarks about its history and traditions, rapidly ran through the ethics of the medical profession, and explained that in future we would be bound by professional secrecy, and forbidden to make love to our patients’ wives, do abortions, or walk on the grass in the hospital courtyard. He flung a few final remarks of encouragement at his listeners and shot off. His address had lasted seventeen minutes, and the only acknowledgment that the student next to me had made of his presence was folding his paper twice over and reading it under cover of the man in front.
‘Oh, he’s finished, has he?’ said the man with the paper, as the scuffling of students getting to their feet disturbed him. He peered at the clock through his monocle. ‘H’m,’ he remarked. ‘He’s cut three minutes off his best time so far. Did he leave out that bit about the hospital traditions?’
‘No,’ I told him. ‘He seemed to have quite a lot to say about them.’
The student raised his free eyebrow. ‘Did he now? Then he’s speeding up his delivery. Next year I bet the old boy gets it down to fifteen minutes dead.’
I was very afraid of this superior and critical young man, but I could not help asking a question.
‘You’ve heard the lecture before?’ I said hesitantly. ‘I mean, you haven’t just arrived in the hospital like the rest of us?’
‘This makes the fourth time I’ve heard old Lofty say his little piece,’ he replied, smiling faintly. ‘Wouldn’t have come today, except that I got the dates mixed. I was expecting an anatomy lecture.’
The rest of the class was filing past us through the door and clattering down the iron stairs. We rose and joined the end of the line.
‘You must be a very senior student,’ I said respectfully.
‘Not a bit of it, old boy.’ My companion absently flicked a crumpled piece of paper to one side with his stick. ‘I’m not a minute senior to you and the end of the year will probably find me back here again.’
‘But surely,’ I said from behind him as we descended the stairs, ‘if you have four years’ study to your credit…’
He laughed.
‘Ah, the ingenuousness of youth! Four years’ study, or at least four years’ spasmodic attendance at the medical school, is of no significance. Exams, my dear old boy, exams,’ he explained forcibly. ‘You’ll find they control your progress through hospital like the signals on a railway line – you can’t go on to the next section if they’re against you. I’ve come down in my anatomy four times now,’ he added cheerfully.
I condoled with him over this quadruple misfortune.
‘Don’t sympathize, old boy. I appreciate it, but it’s wasted. All my failures were achieved with careful forethought. As a matter of fact, it’s much more difficult to fail an examination skilfully than to pass the damn thing. To give that impression of once again just having been unfortunate in the choice of the questions, you know… Come along and have a beer. The King George will be open.’
We crossed the road and the experienced examinee thrust open the door of the saloon bar with his cane. I had meanwhile decided the medical course was a far more complicated affair than I had imagined.
The King George was one of those dark, cosy, pokey little pubs that, like brewers’ drays and paralytic drunks, seem to be disappearing from the London drinking scene. The small saloon bar was heavy with dark wood and thick mirrors splashed with gilt
fleurs de lis
. The dingy white ceiling was gathered into plaster rosettes, the lamps sprouted out of the walls on curly metal stems, and in the corner a pale palm drooped over a large brass pot.
The influence of the hospital on the King George was noticeable immediately. Between the mirrors the walls were covered with framed photographs of past rugby and cricket teams, from which there stared down defiantly several hundred young gentlemen who were now respectable and ageing practitioners all over the country. Above the bar, in a glass case like a stuffed pike, was the rugby ball with which the fifteen had once won the hospitals’ cup for the third year running. Next to it there hung a large, old-fashioned brass fireman’s helmet. Behind the beer taps a fat old man in an apron, waistcoat, and grey trilby hat stared gloomily across the empty bar.
‘Good morning, Padre,’ my guide called cheerily.
The old man gave a smile of welcome and stretched his hand over the counter.
‘Good morning, sir!’ he exclaimed. ‘Well! This is a treat to see you here again! Back for the new session is it, sir?’
‘Every autumn, Padre, I return faithfully to my studies. Allow me to introduce a new student – what’s your name, old boy?’
‘Gordon – Richard Gordon.’
‘Mr Gordon, Padre. My name’s Grimsdyke, by the way,’ he explained.
The landlord shook hands heartily.
‘And very pleased to meet you, sir!’ he said warmly. ‘I expect we’ll be seeing some more of you in the next five or six years, eh? What’s it to be, gentlemen?’
‘Bitter for me,’ said Grimsdyke, settling himself on a wooden stool. ‘Will you take the same?’
I nodded.
‘I should explain,’ Grimsdyke continued, as the landlord filled the glasses, ‘that this gentleman behind the bar is really called Albert something or other, I believe…’
‘Mullins, sir.’
‘Mullins, yes. But no one in Swithin’s would have the faintest idea who you were talking about. For the memory of living man he has been known as the Padre…how many years have you been dishing out the booze here, Padre?’
‘Thirty-five, sir, just on.’
‘There you are! He remembers the present senior physicians when they were students themselves – and a pretty rowdy crowd, by all accounts. There was the incident of Loftus introducing a carthorse into the Matron’s bedroom…’
The Padre chuckled loudly.
‘That was a real night, sir! Nothing like it happens any more, worse luck.’
‘Well look at the beer you sell now,’ said Grimsdyke reproachfully. ‘Anyhow,’ he went on to me, ‘this pub is now as indispensable a part of the hospital as the main operating theatre.’
‘But why the Padre?’ I asked cautiously.
‘Oh, it’s a custom started by the housemen. One can say in front of patients “I’m popping out to Chapel at six this evening” without causing alarm, whereas a poor view might be taken by the old dears if they got the idea their doctors drank. Besides, the old boy has a not unclerical function. He’s a sort of father confessor, Dutch uncle, and Dr Barnardo to the boys sometimes – you’ll find out about it before you’ve been here much longer.’
I nodded acknowledgment for the information. For a minute we drank our beer in silence.
‘There’s just another thing,’ I began.
‘Speak on, my dear old boy. I am always too glad to give what help I can to new students. After all, I have been one myself now five times.’
I pointed silently at the shiny brass helmet.
‘Ah, yes, the sacred helm of St Swithin’s, by God! Feared and coveted in every medical school in London. You must learn about that before you go any further. How it got there, no one knows. It’s been the property of the rugger club for longer than even the Padre can remember, so I suppose one of the boys must have lifted it on a Saturday night years ago. Anyway, it has now become a totem, a fetish, a fiery cross. For the big matches against Guy’s or Mary’s and so on the helmet is laid on the touchline for luck and inspiration. Afterwards it is filled with beer and emptied by all members of the team in turn.’
‘It would hold a lot of beer,’ I observed nervously.
‘It does. However, on the occasion of qualification, engagement, birthday, marriage, or death of rich relatives, the thing is taken down and the man stood a helmet of beer by his friends. Are you engaged or married?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Good Lord, no!’ I said. I was shocked. ‘I’ve only just left school.’
‘Well…anyhow, it’s quite a point with me at the moment. But to return to our helmet. Often the gentlemen of lesser institutions attempt to steal it – we had quite a tussle with a gang of roughs from Bart’s last season. Once last year some fellows from Tommy’s got it as far as the River, but we won it back from them on Westminster Bridge. By Jove, that was an evening!’ He smiled at the memory. ‘One of the chaps got a fractured mandible. Will you have another beer?’