Dead in the Dog

He had already been to Casualty near the front of the hospital and checked that there had been no new customers since Alec Watson had left at six o’clock. The next instruction was to check with the Duty Sergeant in the RSM’s office that the sentries were in place at the main gate and that the internal gate between the hospital and garrison compound was locked. He had to check with Night Sister in the Matron’s Office, then visit each ward and speak to the nurse or orderly in charge to make sure that all was well. If there were any patients on the DIL or SIL, they had to be visited and their status recorded.

Finally, the OMO had to go to the armoury – known to all as the ‘arms kote’ – at the back of the compound and check on the security. Before his first OMO duty, Alf Morris had impressed on him that the CO was particularly strict about this and any cock-up would call down the colonel’s wrath upon him. Only after doing this could he go to bed, prepared to be hauled out at any time if anything untoward occurred. This was usually someone being brought in as an emergency to Casualty – or if there was a sudden crisis over one of the patients.

Tom hauled himself out of his chair and took his hat and belt from the table, before ambling out into the still night air. The damp, scented warmth reminded him of the inside of an orchid house in one of Newcastle’s parks, which he had visited with his parents many years ago – and again he had one of his periodic attacks of unreality, momentarily refusing to believe that he was on the other side of the world, within sight of hundreds of miles of impenetrable jungle, swarming with oriental terrorists who, given the chance, would be delighted to kill him.

As he walked down the road towards the end of the main corridor, the hospital compound looked ethereal in the dim light from the lamps spaced around the perimeter fence and under the roof of the corridor, around each of which flitted swarms of moths and other insects. The brightest spot was down towards the Other Ranks barrack rooms, where a badminton court was illuminated by a battery of fluorescent tubes. Ahead of him in the distance was the closed gate into the main garrison compound, its lights silhouetting a row of coconut palms that ran down inside the dividing fence. On this side of the gate to the right of the road, was the QA Officers’ Mess, as silent as his own quarters on this dance night at The Dog.

Tom turned into the open corridor and walked down its length without seeing a soul, a contrast with the daytime, when it was a bustling thoroughfare. At the front of the hospital, he turned right and went to the small office belonging to the RSM, where the night Duty Sergeant camped out. Tonight it was Staff Sergeant Crosby, a pharmacist from Essex, who occupied the building opposite the laboratory. He was a neat, dapper young man with spectacles, a seven-year Regular with ‘two to go’, working for some extra qualification that would set him up well in civilian life. Tom found him busily writing in an exercise book, copying from a large Pharmacopoeia propped open in front of him.

‘Plenty of time to study, doc!’ he announced cheerfully. ‘And plenty of experience out here, though I doubt I’ll have to dispense many antimalarials when I get back to Epping Forest.’