SURGEON AT ARMS

Odd chap, Trevose. Neurotic, of course, but he supposed all medical men were to some degree. You must be, to pick such a strange occupation. As slippery as a snake, unreliable, abominably self-centred. Fond of fame, money, and women. The first two failings didn't matter much, but the last did. Women were human beings. Trevose always seemed to forget that little fact. Of course, it all changed in the last twenty years of his life. I always rather liked Trevose, Haileybury decided, even when I didn't care to admit it to myself. He livened things up. Didn't take life too solemnly. I rather wish I'd had the courage to be more like him myself.

Haileybury looked behind him. Full of Trevose's patients. It suddenly struck him these men had hardly aged. Over twenty-five years ago they had been dragged from blazing aeroplanes, shattered tanks, and ships' scalding engine rooms; now the skin collected in bits from all over their bodies had frozen on their faces in unwrinkled youth. He supposed it was some compensation for having your features ravaged by a shell-splinter at twenty, if you were immune from the ravages of time at forty-five. He searched for some more delicate examples of Trevose's reconstructive art. But all the worldly and often charming men and women who had besought Trevose at considerable discomfort and expense to make them new faces seemed disinclined to show them in public.

A fitting epitaph, Haileybury thought, dragging himself to his feet as they began.