The Dedicated E-Book

Vivian Stuart

• Herausgeber: Jentas Ehf
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Historical Romance
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 329

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

INTRIGUE. TENSION. LOVE AFFAIRS: In The Historical Romance series, a set of stand-alone novels, Vivian Stuart builds her compelling narratives around the dramatic lives of sea captains, nurses, surgeons, and members of the aristocracy. Stuart takes us back to the societies of the 20th century, drawing on her own experience of places across Australia, India, East Asia, and the Middle East.  Joe Gorman, son of a New York policeman and product of a West Side slum, is more serious-minded than the majority of interns at the Franklin General Hospital. To him, medicine is his life, it is all that matters to him — he is, as his colleagues jokingly tell him, dedicated. He has no time for love, even when he meets the beautiful Kay Loren, for he has set his star and modelled himself on his chief surgical resident, Tony Kulka, one-time Hungarian freedom fighter and now a refugee. But, in this exciting story set in a big American hospital, Joe learns new values. From the moment when Mickey Hanrady, member of a teen-age street gang called the Eagles, enters his life, he is caught up in the human side of his patients' problems, and is forced to reassess many of his most cherished beliefs — including those he holds on the subject of love.

Leseprobe

The Dedicated

The Dedicated

© Vivian Stuart, 1962

© eBook in English: Jentas ehf. 2022

ISBN: 978-9979-64-418-7

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

All contracts and agreements regarding the work, editing, and layout are owned by Jentas ehf.

–––

For

DINAH MEIKLE,

in gratitude for her kindness and friendship to my family and myself and in the hope that she will enjoy this story.

Chapter 1

Joe Gorman, his mask hanging limply by two of its tapes from his neck, walked into the physicians’ lounge which served Ward C (O.B.) and slumped down wearily on the nearest vacant couch. He had a cigarette between his lips, placed there from sheer force of habit after he had left his last mother with her newly delivered child, but he lay back with closed eyes, unable to summon the energy to light it.

He had been continuously on duty for the past thirty-six hours, which was the normal shift for this service, but now, because he had misguidedly promised, some time ago, to cover for one of his colleagues, he would be on call for a further three or four hours—depending on when Luke Stein could tear himself away from his party.

After that, though, Joe reflected thankfully, he would be finished with O.B. His last service assignment would be completed; the remaining two weeks of his internship at the Franklin General Hospital in downtown Manhattan would be spent in the Emergency Admitting Department, working at his chosen speciality, which was surgery. Then, if everything went according to plan, he would take up the coveted residency at this hospital which he had been promised, and the long years of striving and study, of dreaming and of losing faith would, at last, bear fruit and seem worth while.

It had been a tough grind—a whole lot tougher than he had expected it would be. He had travelled a long way from the West Side back street of his birth, Joe reminded himself wryly. There had been times, on which it wasn’t pleasant to look back, when he had been scared stiff that he wouldn’t make the grade. Working nights, as a waiter or drugstore clerk, and studying all day at medical school had taken its toll of him, he was aware. Even now, with his goal only two weeks away, it was hard to believe that he had made it.

“Delman said, ‘Well, now, Doctor, what procedure would you advise in a case like this, huh?’ So of course I told him. . . .”

“You mean he asked you. . . .”

“That’s his play, you dumb cluck! That’s the way he always acts. He sets a little trap for you, and if you’re fool enough to fall for it, he’s got you where he wants you.”

“She was a primip, see? A Puerto Rican, and she bit and scratched like a wild cat. . . .”

The others were talking. Joe, still with his eyes closed and the unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth, listened to them without consciously hearing more than the low-pitched hum of their voices. They were talking about cases, as interns always talked in such snatched moments of relaxation as this, and he thought about his own, seeing again in memory the face of the woman he had just left, when the nurse had lifted the child up to let her look at it for the first time.

“Here he is, Mother—a fine boy!” The nurse had said it automatically, but the woman’s thin, pale, sweat-streaked face had been lit suddenly by that strange radiance now familiar to him, yet never commonplace, because it couldn’t be taken for granted, couldn’t be guaranteed. Some of the mothers didn’t have it; many didn’t want their babies, others were indifferent, some too defeated to care one way or the other. It wasn’t their fault—they were poor, life was a harsh, relentless struggle for survival and often they had too many children, so that the coming of a new one was more of a disaster than an occasion for rejoicing. It was another mouth to feed.

Joe sighed. He didn’t like O.B. for this reason, but in spite of it he felt a warm glow of satisfaction as he allowed his mind to dwell again briefly on his last case. The delivery had presented its problems—a right occipito-posterior, which had called for manual rotation and the final use of forceps. Mike Delman, O.B.-C’s chief resident, had left him to handle it on his own, without attempting to interfere or offer any advice—he hadn’t even scrubbed. He had simply waited, arms folded in front of him, and watched in unbroken silence, his face devoid of expression.

Afterwards he had admitted, a trifle grudgingly, “That wasn’t bad, Gorman, not bad at all. I guess we have taught you something up here, even if it’s only been elementary stuff. It’s a pity you have to leave us so soon, isn’t it?”

Coming from Delman, this was high praise, the kind he seldom accorded to an intern. So long as nothing turned up which might cause him to spoil his record while he was covering for Luke Stein, he would be quitting O.B. in what amounted to a blaze of glory, Joe thought cynically. But the main thing was that he was quitting. The end of a long road was in sight.

“. . . It’s all right if you’re one of the white-haired boys like Joe Gorman, but if you’re not. . . .” Someone had said his own name and his recognition of it startled him into wakefulness. Or perhaps it had been the laugh which accompanied the reference to himself. He sat up. “Hey!” he demanded. “Come again, will you? What was that in aid of, anyway?”

Tom van Heuven, who was his room-mate, laid a hand on his arm. “Relax, Joe, relax . . . Steve didn’t mean anything. I guess we all thought you were asleep.”

“I am not asleep,” Joe stated firmly. He fumbled for his lighter in the pocket of his scrub suit. Finding it, he lit his cigarette and smothered a yawn, aware that his appearance—dark hair ruffled and eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep—belied his claim. He had once taken considerable pride in his powers of physical endurance, even in medical school, but his year as an intern at Franklin had strained these to their limit, and now, he found, it was enough merely to get by. Interns were always tired; he was no exception. Having to work long hours was part of the job, an essential part of the training which aimed to turn them into competent doctors, in the brief twelve months before their provisional M.D.s were registered. When a guy graduated from medical school he thought he knew all there was to know about everything, but his time as an intern taught him that he didn’t—and it taught him discipline and humility too. The residents saw to that, and you couldn’t buck the system.

He inhaled a lungful of smoke, and rose. Crossing to the coffee percolator which was always kept filled and plugged in, he poured himself a cup of the strong black brew it contained and, cup in hand, went back to his seat.

“What did you say, Steve?” he asked, with deceptive mildness. “About me, I mean?”

Steve Manson eyed him with disfavour. He was a tall, well-built young man with a bullet-shaped head, who wore his thick, tow-coloured hair in a crew-cut, which somehow served to emphasise his aggressively cultivated masculinity and his readiness to court trouble. That Steve had a chip on his shoulder Joe was aware. In their medical school days he had been one of the stars of the football team, but an injury to his spine had put him out of the game for ever and had almost put paid to his medical career into the bargain. He was newly appointed as an intern at Franklin, having lost nine or ten months as the result of his football injury, and since his arrival at the hospital had missed no opportunity to bewail his misfortunes, comparing these with the advantages enjoyed by his one-time classmates.

Normally, Joe felt a good deal of sympathy for him, but tonight he was tired of Steve Manson’s complaints, tired of being so often the butt of them. “Well?” he urged, with less mildness, ignoring Tom’s warning headshake. “Maybe you’d care to repeat what you said, Steve, so I can hear it, huh?”

“Sure I will,” Steve Manson agreed. “I said”—his tone was belligerent—”that it was all right for you. You’re Kulka’s whitehaired boy, aren’t you, Joe . . . always way up there, top of the class where he’s concerned? Why, he even takes you with him when he goes to one of those concerts of his, and now he’s asked to have you back on his service. . . as if he couldn’t do without you for a couple of weeks!”

“So?” Joe prompted dangerously.

“So everybody knows you’ll make resident here, because the great Dr Kulka will pull strings to see you do. I was wondering how you did it, that’s all, because you seem to have done the same thing with Delman too. Don’t forget, Joe, I’m new around here. I’m groping around in the dark, and no one has put me wise to the way a guy ought to set about working the same racket. I was hoping you would.”

Anger caught at Joe’s throat. He had a sudden insane desire to smash the deliberately provocative smile from Steve Manson’s lips.

“Oh, for crying out loud!” he began furiously, but Tom van Heuven waved him to silence. “I’ll tell him, Joe,” he offered. “No need for you to get riled up.” He turned to Steve, echoing his smile. “I guess maybe it didn’t occur to you that the best way to work this racket, as you’re pleased to call it, is by getting stuck into your job—by being good at it. That’s the secret, Manson, if you really want to know. It just so happens that Joe is good. And why? It’s simple . . . because he’s sweated a whole lot harder than most of us to be that way, see? Because it means something to him. While you’ve been chasing around after the student nurses and Luke Stein’s been trying to drink himself to death and I’ve been trying to get myself married, Joe’s been sweating it out here.”

“He has?” Steve sounded unconvinced. “Well, what do you know?”

“I know this much,” Tom told him quietly. “Joe hasn’t cut any corners. Going to concerts with your chief resident doesn’t mean a goddamned thing—except that you’re equally addicted to chamber music, that’s all.” There was a roar of laughter from the others, and Joe reddened. “This hospital,” his room-mate went on, undeterred by either the laughter or his own muttered protest, “with the reputation it has, can take its pick of medical staff from all over America. Naturally it chooses the best, when it comes to appointing residents, and mostly, in case you hadn’t grasped this, Doctor, it does not accept applications for residencies from its own interns, unless they’re considered outstanding . . . by the Medical Board and Dr Reisman. The last word rests with Dr Reisman, as Superintendent.”

“So this residency of yours isn’t in the bag yet?” Steve addressed his question to Joe. “In spite of the rumours?”

“It is not,” Joe returned shortly, “whatever rumours you may have heard.” He exchanged an embarrassed glance with Tom van Heuven, who grinned back at him, half amused, half penitent. Tom was his friend and, as his room-mate, his closest intimate, but until this moment he hadn’t known, hadn’t even suspected, that Tom held so high an opinion of his professional capabilities. “Hell, Tom,” he objected, “you make it sound as if I’m . . .” He broke off, lost for the right word.

“Ambitious, maybe?” Steve suggested. “A glory hunter?”

“Nope, Joe’s not ambitious.” The voice came from the corner, where Lew Donovan, hidden behind a magazine, had apparently been asleep. He got to his feet, stretching, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “An ambitious guy or a glory hunter,” he explained patiently, “is a guy who knows what he wants and is out to get it, no matter what it costs him and no matter how many other guys he has to trample on in the process. He doesn’t love what he’s doing, only what doing it can bring him, like . . . oh, like money or power or publicity. Even women, Steve! But Joe’s not like that. He——”

“He doesn’t go for women!” Steve said, in a prissy voice, and there was a guffaw of laughter.

“But they go for him,” Lew asserted, with mock envy. “Oh boy! Do they go for him!”

“How so?”

“Mainly because he doesn’t try to make them.”

“Or plays hard to get, maybe? That’s a line a whole lot of women fall for, I reckon.”

“Why don’t you try it, then, Manson?”

Exasperated with them, Joe got off his couch. “When I feel the need for psycho-analysis,” he said, “I’d prefer to have an expert work me over—not a bunch of half-trained interns still damp behind the ears. But if you really want to know the truth, I——”

“No, wait,” Lew pleaded. “I have the right description of you now, Joe. You’re not ambitious, but you’re. . . dedicated. There’s a difference.” His frown was pensive, though his tone was bantering. “A dedicated guy drives himself just like an ambitious one, because he knows what he wants, too. But he doesn’t trample on anyone. If he has to make a sacrifice, it’s himself he sacrifices every time, not the other guy. That’s why you and Tony Kulka hit it off so well—because he’s dedicated too. He’s a perfectionist and so are you. One day I guess you’ll make a pretty good team, so long as you both stay dedicated to medicine.”

“Why shouldn’t we?” Joe asked, interested now, in spite of his embarrassment at this public assessment of his character and motives.

“Oh, you will, I guess,” Lew Donovan assured him. “Unless something comes along that you find you care about more than medicine.”

“Like a woman?” Steve Manson put in.

“Perhaps. That happens.”

“I can’t wait to see it happen to Joe!”

“I’ll let you know when it does,” Joe said. He lit another cigarette, passed the crumpled pack to Lew Donovan. “Smoke, Doctor? I figure you need it, after all that mental exercise at this hour of the night!”

“Thanks, buddy. I see you carry my brand.” They both lit up and Lew continued earnestly, “Your case has always fascinated me, you know, Joe. Maybe I’ll follow it up and do a thesis on it.” He fetched himself a cup of coffee and passed a hand wearily through his untidy thatch of red hair. “Gosh, we’re slow in here tonight, aren’t we! You reckon all the Manhattan mothers are boycotting us or something? The only way I find O.B. endurable is when I’m rushed off my feet.”

“Let’s go look at the board,” Joe suggested.

“Sure. What call are you on?”

“Third. I’m covering for Lukie Stein.”

“Then you’ll be here all night, old son,” Lew told him cheerfully. “The last I saw of Lukie he was——” He broke off suddenly. “Watch your step, Joe . . . look who’s here!”

Dr Delman stood in the open doorway. He was smoking and watching their approach with scowling brows. Joe wondered for how long he had stood there, how much of their conversation he had overheard, and wasn’t left long in doubt, for the chief resident announced, with heavy sarcasm, “We have three new admissions, if any of you dedicated doctors are interested.” Tom, Lew and Steve made for the door. Joe was about to follow them, but Delman held up a hand. “Not you, Gorman. I want a word with you.”

Obediently Joe waited. Mike Delman helped himself to coffee, stifling a yawn. “You eaten yet?” he asked, without turning his head.

“Not since five-thirty. I——”

“You’re covering for Stein? Well, you can go now and”—the resident consulted his watch and he swallowed the coffee at a gulp—”I’ll come with you. Chalk it up on the board, will you, and tell Francie Douglas to page us if there’s a rush?”

“Sure.” The night head nurse wasn’t at the desk when Joe reached the nurses’ station. In her place was a student, a girl with ash-blonde hair and grey eyes, who greeted him smilingly.

“What can I do for you, Doctor?” she asked. Her voice was huskily attractive, and as he repeated Dr Delman’s instructions, Joe found himself looking at her with more than usual interest. Steve’s jibes had rankled, he realised. But hell ... he couldn’t afford to get himself emotionally involved, not even in one of the casual, uncommitted relationships that existed between interns and student nurses. He hadn’t the time, and what neither Tom nor Lew understood was that he didn’t have the money to take a girl out. They had parents, wealthy fathers who paid them an allowance, but his old man was just a traffic cop, still pounding a beat in uniform after twenty years. . . Joe’s mouth tightened. He had to manage on his forty-dollar pay cheque and that was still mortgaged to repay the outstanding balance on his medical school fees. He’d only just contrived to preserve a credit balance in his newly opened banking account, and the last time he’d been home. . . He avoided the smiling grey eyes beneath the pert student’s cap and said distantly, “Thanks, Miss—er——”

“Loren,” she supplied, “Kay Loren. If you really want to know, Dr Gorman.”

So the grapevine had already been at work, Joe thought resentfully. This girl was new, but the other nurses had put her wise about him and, as they so often did, she saw his unapproachability as a challenge instead of what it really was, a humiliating necessity. He stood there undecided, looking at her, attracted by her Nordic fairness and the gay invitation of her smile, tempted in spite of everything to try and date her. But where would it get him if he succeeded? He wasn’t a resident yet; he still had his National Medical Board oral to get through and he could still flunk out at the eleventh hour. He sighed and went to join Mike Delman in the elevator lobby, conscious of the girl’s eyes on his back as he walked away from her.

The resident flashed him a quizzical glance and led the way into an elevator. He said, his finger on the ground floor button, “Manson’s right about one thing, isn’t he? That hard to get line of yours certainly gets results!”

“How much did you hear?” Joe challenged bitterly.

“All of it, I guess—including the lecture by our budding psychiatrist, Dr Donovan. He’s got something, you know, Joe. But what he didn’t say and I’m going to is that you’re acting like a dope. All work and no play . . . you know the old adage, don’t you? You should get yourself a girl and have yourself a good time for a few weeks, once you’re registered. And you might do a whole lot worse than try your luck with Kay Loren . . . she’s a nice kid. Pretty, too. I could go for her myself, only my wife wouldn’t like it.”

Joe was silent, his smile costing him an effort. The elevator door slid open and they went into the staff cafeteria together. He thought about what the resident had said as they collected their trays and joined the queue at the steam table. Mike Delman was a decent guy, but he didn’t understand either. Joe selected a plate of stew, added vegetables, reached for a helping of apple pie, without really caring what he ate. The food at Franklin was good, plentiful and nourishing, but there wasn’t much variety. It had, however, the advantage of being free to the medical and nursing staff, and he grinned to himself suddenly, wondering what Kay Loren’s reaction would be if he invited her to dine with him in the cafeteria.

He picked up a cup of black coffee, spooned in sugar with a lavish hand and set off in search of a vacant table. Delman, who had paused for a word with one of his fellow residents, joined him a moment or so later. Behind the lenses of the horn-rimmed glasses he wore, his eyes were angry.

“They lost a mother in O.B.-A tonight,” he said, his voice clipped. “Young woman, primip, aged nineteen. . . .” He gave an outline of the case history, biting off the words as if they hurt him. To Mike Delman, a death in childbirth was a personal tragedy, even if it occurred in someone else’s department. Listening to his brief and painful account of what had happened, Joe understood his feelings and even, to a certain extent, shared his sense of failure.

There had been no lack of skill in the treatment which the young mother had received—the charge resident had called in one of the attending obstetricians as soon as he had sensed that all was not as it should be. They had all of them, specialist, resident, interns and nurses, done everything they possibly could, used every means that modern medical science offered—but it hadn’t been enough. Death had defeated them, aided, of course, by the mother herself. Her failure to attend regular prenatal clinics had been a contributing factor; when an ambulance had brought her in from the street, she had already been in a dangerously toxic state, beyond their power to save because she had come too late.

“Unmarried, of course,” Mike Delman said savagely. “I guess that’s why she missed her clinics and went on working up to the last minute. Oh, God, if only they would learn!” He attacked his salad viciously.

Joe watched him, saying nothing. After a while, the resident looked up and met his gaze sheepishly, pushing his plate away. “I wanted to talk with you, Joe, but this thing put it right out of my head.”

“What do you want to talk with me about?” Joe asked cautiously. He eyed his apple pie with distaste but finally dug an exploratory fork into it. “I’m listening.”

“Listening, maybe. But will you take some advice, if I give it to you?”

“Sure I will. If I can, that is.”

“You can.” Mike Delman took out a pack of cigarettes. He selected one himself, pushed the pack across the table in Joe’s direction and invited, “Help yourself when you’re through with that pie. There’s no rush, we’re slow tonight.”

“Thanks.” Joe went on eating, enjoying the pie after all, for he was hungry. Delman lit his cigarette and inhaled smoke, making a conscious effort to relax. He said abruptly, “I’ve had some interns through my hands, you know, since I came here and they’ve been a pretty mixed lot—good, bad and indifferent. The majority of them made out in the end, though a few shouldn’t ever have taken up medicine and I don’t know why in hell they did. You’re the first one—the first, in almost three years—that I’ve ever wanted to keep on my service, Joe. You’ve got a lot to learn about O.B., of course, still—but you could learn. You’ve got the right approach, the right instincts. It’s okay”—he smiled—”I’m not trying to talk you into an eleventh-hour change in your choice of a speciality. I know where you’re heading, I know what you want to do. But it was listening to those guys ribbing you just now that really started me off . . . that and your reaction to it.”

“My reaction!” Joe echoed. He finished his pie and took a cigarette from the opened pack.

“Yeah. You were ashamed when Lew Donovan told you that you were dedicated. Don’t be. Go down on your knees and thank your Maker because you are, Joe. The truly dedicated ones are very rare, you know. But don’t lose your sense of humour. Don’t forget you’re a man as well as a doctor and that you’ve got a life to live, a personal life, apart from medicine. A lot of guys have to work their way through college and medical school, as you did, and they all have a tough time making ends meet. But it doesn’t last for ever and you’re nearly through the worst. When you get your residency, you’ll be on a hundred and ten instead of a forty-dollar pay cheque—it’s not riches, but it’s enough. Some of us even manage to keep a wife and children on that much.”

“I don’t know how you do that,” Joe confessed.

“My wife works,” Delman told him dryly. “We don’t have any children, not yet. But that’ll come. Bad advertisement for my profession if it doesn’t, huh? Anyway, I want kids.”

“Why do you?”

“I like them . . . believe it or not, I even like babies, in spite of the number of other people’s I see. Besides, they keep you human, bring you down to earth. A doctor has to be human, Joe, he has to have his two feet on the ground. Medicine isn’t all science, a lot of it’s human understanding, being able to see the other guy’s angle—more especially if he happens to be your patient. You can’t sympathise with him or treat him successfully, if you don’t understand what makes him tick, if you don’t know, for instance, what scares him or just how much he can take . . . and he won’t trust you. Without his trust you can’t cure him, because science alone isn’t enough. And what I’ve said applies to women patients even more, and most of all to expectant mothers. But maybe you’ve found that out during your assignment to O.B.?”

“I’ve found out a lot,” Joe agreed. “Not that, though, particularly. Or at least, I don’t think so.” His brows came together in a puzzled frown. “Mike, are you trying to tell me I lack the common touch? That I fail in the correct doctor-patient relationship? Is that what Lew was getting at?”

The resident shook his head. “No, I’m not, and I don’t think Lew was, far from it. You go through all the right motions, patients like you and you can talk to them. As far as you’ve gone, you’ve done fine, Joe. But now you’re through with being an intern, you can’t stop there. You have to progress. Living like a monk, working, eating, sleeping and working some more . . . well, that’s not going to help you, once you’ve qualified and made all your grades.”

“What is, then?” Joe demanded.

“Why, like I said—living. Seeing people as human beings, not as patients or, worse still, just as cases.”

“And I can do that by going around with Miss Loren?” Joe could not keep the scepticism from sounding in his voice. He liked Mike Delman, but, despite his liking, he knew that he couldn’t confide in him. Delman would laugh his head off if he admitted to having ideas about women which the average intern didn’t have. Perhaps he was a fool, but. . . Joe smothered a sigh and picked up his coffee-cup. He had always believed, since he was a kid, that the girl he would one day love and take as his wife would be the only girl he would ever love. He was a goddamned romantic, he thought contemptuously, but the fact remained—that was what he was and he couldn’t change. He didn’t want any girl, only the girl, and, deep in his heart, he held the conviction that, when he met her eventually, he would know. . . there would be an instant recognition between them, a sort of signal they would both understand. Until then, he was prepared to wait. He was willing—no, determined—to live the life of a monk, as Delman called it, learning his job, working at it to the exclusion of everything else. And it wasn’t only his financial circumstances which made him feel that way, it was how he had planned it, how he wanted it to be. Pleasure wasn’t pleasure if you didn’t enjoy it.

Mike Delman’s eyes met his. He smiled, and the smile was the one he normally reserved for his expectant mothers in the delivery room, kindly, encouraging and full of understanding.

“You could make a start with Kay Loren,” he said. “And by that I don’t mean rushing into a hectic affair with her. Simply by talking to her, Joe. Simply by seeing her as a girl, instead of as a nurse, by acting like a normal, healthy guy of your age. Otherwise you’ll——”

“I’ll finish up as a stuffed shirt,” Joe supplied ruefully. “Sure—I get the message.”

“You’ll finish up by getting badly hurt,” Delman told him. “And that’d mess up your career worse than anything.”

Above their heads, the public address loudspeaker emitted a warning crackle. Then a disembodied voice announced that it was calling Dr Delman and Dr Gorman. They both rose.

“Well, they let us finish our meal, anyway,” the resident observed. He led the way to the elevator lobby, a hand on Joe’s shoulder.

“You may figure,” he went on, his voice low and serious, “that Tony Kulka is the ideal for you to follow. He’s dedicated, of course, like Donovan claimed, and he’s one of the finest surgeons we have at this hospital. But don’t forget, Joe, he’s ten or twelve years older than you are, and he lived his life before he ever came here—lived it in Budapest, behind the Iron Curtain and with the Hungarian freedom fighters in ‘fifty-six. You might almost say he died there, when the Russian tanks came in . . . because he doesn’t feel anything any more, does he? He just isn’t capable of it.”

The elevator came to a halt and its doors opened, decanting half a dozen white-clad figures, amongst whom, by an odd coincidence, was the man Delman was talking about. Joe opened his mouth to call out a greeting, but Tony Kulka walked past them without a word. His eyes, dark and sombre in his pale, high-boned face, held no recognition, were lit by no spark of animation as, with a murmured excuse, he walked past the two who were waiting in the lobby. It was obvious that they did not exist for him, were no more real to him than his surroundings or the chattering crowd about him, for he simply did not notice them. Whatever his thoughts, they absorbed his attention completely. And he would eat in the same way, Joe knew from past experience of him, bolting his food without tasting it or caring what it was; eating because he had to eat, in order to keep going. And then back to work, like a miser to his gold. . . .

“You see?” Mike Delman challenged, when they were in the elevator and ascending to their own floor.

“Sure,” Joe acknowledged reluctantly. “I see. But——”

“That’s how he is to most of us,” the resident said flatly. “Maybe you’re closer—you’ve worked with him, he likes you, even takes you around with him sometimes, doesn’t he? But how well do you really know him? Don’t set your course by Tony Kulka’s star yet, Joe, or try to adapt yourself too exactly to his standards . . . you’re not ready to, understand? Wait a little. One day, perhaps, some spark will touch him—something from out of his past, maybe, that’ll bring him alive. You’ll see a different Kulka then, you’ll see the real guy. And if he turns out to be a stranger to you. . . well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He was probably right, Joe decided, and found himself wondering what lay behind the facade of calm devotion to his work that Tony Kulka presented to the world. As Delman had said, he had been deeply involved in the tragic Hungarian revolt of 1956 and he had not reached America until nearly a year later, as a refugee, after a period—of which he never spoke—as a Russian prisoner. Now he worked with skill and singleness of purpose on the surgical staff at Franklin, having taken his qualifying examination, and obtained State registration, under the special terms offered to those of his nationality who were accepted as immigrants. He had a brilliant brain and a great charm of manner, when he chose to exercise it, and he was generally popular with most of his fellow residents and the interns who worked under him.

The attending staff liked him too. At first they had received him with some suspicion, since his Budapest qualifications would have entitled him to a status equal to their own, had he insisted upon it—but Tony Kulka asked for no favours. He had worked his way up to his present position and appeared perfectly content to remain what he was, although he was older than the majority of his resident colleagues and had few intimates among them. He was polite and pleasant to everyone, yet held himself aloof, a solitary man but not a lonely one, who loved his work and needed no other solace.

Even Joe, who was one of his most fervent admirers, had to admit that it wasn’t easy to get close to him. But he respected the older man for his ability, liked him for his quiet good humour and equable temper and appreciated the opportunity to work with him, aware that by doing so he was learning more than he would ever have learnt under anyone else. Some senior residents didn’t bother to explain anything to the interns; they gave orders and left the interns to find out why for themselves. But Tony Kulka would always answer questions freely and fully, and he was an excellent teacher, who made no mystery of the technical skills he practised. He set a high standard, that was all. You had to be on the ball, when you were assisting Tony in the O.R., Joe reflected. But that was the way it ought to be, the way he liked it, whatever Delman said.

As if he had read his thoughts, the chief resident grinned at him. “Think about it,” he advised.

“Why, sure, of course I will,” Joe promised. But he was given no more time for idle speculation. When they returned to O.B.-C, Dr Mike Delman became once more his chief resident, the martinet whom most of the interns feared and disliked. He glanced at the board and from it to the face of Frances Douglas, the efficient, middle-aged night head nurse. She gave him a brief report and he nodded.

“Right, Francie.” Turning to Joe, he snapped, “Well, what in hell are you waiting for, Gorman? You’re covering for Stein, aren’t you? Then jump to it, man! Take the new admission in Seven. When you’ve written her up on the board, go along to the delivery room and relieve Donovan. Miss Douglas will send you a nurse for Seven.”

Joe did as he was told. For the remainder of the night, he was kept too busy for any sort of coherent thought, too busy even to remember what Mike Delman had said to him, although it stayed in the back of his mind, a strangely painful ache which he knew would give him no peace, once his work ceased so fully to occupy him.

At five, he found Luke Stein sleeping on one of the cots in the locker room. He was snoring, lying on his back, his face, with its thin stubble of beard, flushed and beaded with perspiration. Joe hesitated, but didn’t disturb him. An hour later, Stein wakened of his own accord and came, full of apologies, to relieve him.

“Gee, I’m sorry, Joe. . . I’d no idea what the time was, honest. I did get back, but somehow . . . hell, I don’t know how it happened, but I just dropped off. You should have routed me out.”

“I tried, but you didn’t look like you’d ever wake up, so I left you.”

“Thanks, pal. I’ll do the same for you one of these days.” Stein sighed. “You’re a real pal.”

“This is my last night on O.B.,” Joe told him. “For which heaven be praised! You can call it a thank-offering, if you like—anyway, forget it. Was it a good party?”

Luke Stein smiled reminiscently. “The best, Joe, the best! Plenty of good liquor and plenty of good-looking girls. Only thing is my head feels like it was stuffed with cotton-wool right now and my legs don’t seem to be holding me up straight. But I’ll get by, so long as I don’t cross Delman’s path.” His smile widened and he added, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, “Hey, Joe, there was a little blonde girl there who . . .”

Joe listened to the account of his night’s conquest with an odd mixture of envy and compassion and then abruptly took his leave.

There was a blonde girl on the desk when he reached it, a tall, slim girl in nurse’s uniform who, despite the alarms and excursions of the night, still contrived to look fresh and alert—and undeniably attractive. She greeted him with a friendly smile. “Signing off, Dr Gorman?”

Joe captured her hand. From somewhere in the depths of his tired brain, he recalled her name. Loren, Kay Loren. . . it went with the Nordic fairness.

“Miss Loren,” he said, “I’m quitting O.B., as of now and for good.”

“You don’t sound as if you’re sorry!”

“I’m not. In fact I kind of feel that some sort of a celebration is called for . . . something really dashing, like dinner at Marco’s and a movie afterwards. Would you care to join me, the first evening you have free?”

Her eyes, more blue than grey, he now observed, met his gravely and without coquetry. They studied his face and then dropped to contemplation of their two linked hands. She did not withdraw her own. After a perceptible hesitation, she answered quietly, “I should like that fine, Dr Gorman, thank you. As it happens, I’m quitting O.B. too—I was only on relief here. My training hasn’t progressed so far that they’ll trust me with a real live baby, you see. So we can both celebrate, can’t we?”

“When?” Joe asked, conscious of a sense of mounting anticipation. “This evening?”

“If you like. I’ll be off duty.”

“Then this evening it is. I’ll call round for you, shall I? Around seven?”

“That will be fine. I’ll be waiting.” The promise was as gay and inviting as her smile, and Joe felt a new lightness in his step as he crossed to the elevator lobby. He even, just for a moment or two, forgot to feel tired.

From the door of one of the delivery rooms, Mike Delman watched him go. He said amusedly, over his shoulder, “By gosh, it worked, Francie! You certainly know how to pick ‘em, don’t you?”

“Why, of course I do, Dr Delman,” the head nurse returned tartly. “Though it seems kind of strange, doesn’t it, that with all my experience of matchmaking in this hospital, I never got around to picking the right one for myself? It’s an injustice, when you come to think about it.” She held the tiny bundle of red, indignant flesh which was the baby they had just delivered, close against her ample bosom, soothing its cries with gentle, expert hands. “There, there, my lamb, don’t take on so, you’re doing fine. And you’re a beauty, too, a real beauty! I just wish you were mine . . . and d’you know what?” She joined Dr Delman at his vantage-point by the door, and now there was no acidity in her voice, only a faint wistfulness as she added, “I reckon I’d have made a good mother, if I’d ever been given the chance.” She glanced back to the still figure on the delivery table, over which the anaesthetist and a second nurse were bending. “But she won’t. She told me, when she came in, that she didn’t want the baby. That’s what I mean by injustice.”

Stripping off his gloves, Mike Delman nodded thoughtfully.