Dead in the Dog

Sid Hooper was a burly, impassive man, with a row of medal ribbons on his tunic, half-hidden by the creased white coat he wore as his badge of office. He gave the weary impression of having seen it all before and that none of these bloody shirkers outside were going to put one over either on him or his doctor.

‘The usual bunch of lead-swinging layabouts today, doc,’ he announced. ‘One of ’em might possibly have something wrong with him.’

Tom took off his hat and dropped it on to the table, before sitting down.

‘Wheel them in, corporal. Let’s make it quick, I’ve got a lot to do this morning.’

The corporal went to the door and after some more screaming from the MP outside, a man charged in, his nailed boots clattering on the floor at the tempo of a double-quick march. With a final crunch, he stopped in front of the table and stared fixedly at the wall beyond Tom’s head. Hooper came across with a tattered document in his hand.

‘Gunner Andrews, sir. Crime sheet as long as your arm. Sunburn.’

The man was dressed like most of the prisoners, wearing only green shorts above heavy boots and socks. The upper half of his body was bright red from the sun, as most of the men were sent out on working parties to cut grass or clear monsoon drains around the large garrison enclave.

‘S’me back, sir,’ was his only complaint and within seconds, the sickbay sergeant had slapped the paperwork before Tom, on which was already written the word ‘calamine lotion’, obtained a signature and harried the patient out through the door to wait for his treatment after the doctor had left. As he went, Tom saw that the blistered skin across his shoulders was peeling off in strips, but he was given no time to make any other examination.

The rest of the sick parade went in a similar fashion. For sunburn they had calamine, for foot rot they had anti-fungal powder or were ‘excused boots’ in favour of plimsolls for a few days. For alleged stomach ache they had magnesia, for headaches they had aspirin and for the ‘runs’ they were prescribed kaolin-and-morph mixture. All this was decided by Hooper and only if the medical officer suspected something more sinister were they examined more closely. Any really suspect conditions meant that they would have to be sent over to Casualty in BMH, a procedure which raised frowns from the prison staff, as it meant finding them an escort and disrupting the iron regime of the Military Corrective Establishment.

This morning, there was nothing to suggest any mortal conditions amongst the supplicants, most of whom used the sick parade to wangle an hour off grass cutting. Even the man with the bent back seemed to recover when screamed at loudly enough by the MP corporal.

As he walked back to the hospital, Tom wondered whether he had really needed five years in medical school for the sort of practice in which he now seemed to be involved. Even the prospect of a post-mortem seemed more attractive than signing chits for calamine lotion and ‘excuse boots’.

Back in his office, he spent what was left of the morning in checking the positive blood films for malaria and looking at the bacterial cultures which had grown overnight in the incubator. Sergeant Oates was equally as proficient at recognizing them and diplomatically speeded the process by gentle remarks such as ‘I think this one is Staph aureus, sir, don’t you?’ The malarial films had already been screened by Aziz, who only sent in the positive ones for the officer to check. In fact, the MOR had already confidently written the type of parasite on the form and Tom found later that he was never to catch Aziz out in all the time they were at BMH.

After another infusion of sweet tea, he sat signing report forms and waiting for the phone to ring, heralding the arrival of the autopsy delegation. At eleven thirty, the guardroom rang and he went down to the front of the hospital where he found Steven Blackwell and Inspector Tan waiting in Alf Morris’s office with Diane Robertson.

She wore a black skirt, perhaps as a concession to mourning, topped by a white silk blouse, but otherwise looked her usual glamorous self.

‘You’re the new pathologist – it’s Captain Howden, isn’t it?’ she said brightly. ‘I’ve seen you in The Dog once or twice.’

Tom mumbled something about being sorry to have to meet in these sad circumstances, but Diane appeared unfazed by the fact that he was shortly going to dissect her husband.

‘The Army police chaps will be along by twelve,’ volunteered Blackwell, intending to cover up any awkwardness in the situation.

‘So shall we get this over with first?’

As they left the office, Tom whispered quickly to the Admin Officer.

‘Alf, is the colonel coming to this?’

Morris shook his head. ‘Not as far as I know, though you never can tell with him. He’s told me to make sure everything is laid on. As a former public health wallah, I don’t think he’s too keen on dead bodies.’