Come the Hour Read Online Free Page A

shook the water from his hands and reached for a sterile towel. ‘No good anticipating the worst,’ he said. ‘We must hope for the best.’
    They moved into the operating theatre, slid their arms into the sterile gowns held out by the nurses and snapped on rubber gloves. The patient was already on the table, the anaesthetist at his head. They spread the sterile towels. Dan incised into the abdomen and the peritoneum. There was no putrid smell of infection; they had got it in time. ‘I think it’s retrocaecal,’ he said. He carefully moved aside the bowel.The appendix was lying behind the bowel, the red, infected tip almost glowing. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said. ‘It’s definitely inflamed.’ He removed it, careful not to release any pus into the abdomen, and closed up. Infection was the killer. It had taken so many lives in the war. ‘I wish we had something,’ he said, ’something to kill the damn bugs. The sulphonamides don’t stop everything.’
    They worked through the morning, and then changed into their suits and white coats and drank a cup of coffee.
    Dan sensed that Bob was going to ask him more about the war. He was reluctant to talk about it, to drag it out of the protective covering he had managed to spread over it. The thought of a million civilian casualties, woman and children, appalled him. They could never cope. The hospitals would be overwhelmed in Britain, let alone the care needed for the troops. He knew too much. He knew what a million casualties looked like.
    ‘How old are your kids?’ Bob said.
    ‘They’re twins. They’re eighteen next week.’
    ‘Oh.’ Bob’s silence was expressive. Then he said, ‘You’ve got a boy, haven’t you?’
    ‘Yes,’ Dan said shortly. ‘He’s going up to Cambridge this year.’
    ‘Perhaps he’d get an exemption,’ Bob said, ‘until he’s got his degree. They did that in the last war, didn’t they?’
    ‘I believe so,’ Dan said. ‘At first, anyway.’ Bob was speaking as if war were inevitable. He didn’t want to talk about it any more and changed the subject. ‘Good thing we did the laparotomy and caught that peptic ulcer. It wasn’t far from perforating.’
     
    The family assembled for dinner in the dining room. The french doors were open on to the garden and the faint summer scents filled the room. Mrs Parks brought in the roast chicken and the dishes of vegetables, and Dan carved.
    ‘Get your books all right?’ he asked.
    Tessa nodded. ‘Yes, some of them, but there are rows and rows of enormous tomes. How on earth do you get it all into your head?’
    Dan smiled. ‘I don’t know, but it seems to happen. Hard work probably has something to do with it.’ He handed round the plates.
    ‘I had a letter from Kurt today,’ Charlie said. ‘He’s invited me to stay with his family in Berlin for a week or so.’
    There was a silence. Amy and Dan glanced at each other, Amy startled and worried. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’
    ‘Why?’ Charlie said. ‘Nothing much is happening, just talk, and it’s not as if you don’t know Kurt.’
    ‘It isn’t Kurt,’ Amy said. ‘He seemed to be a very nice boy, but you know as well as I do that things are very dangerous just now. We don’t know what’s going to happen.’ She turned to Dan. ‘Don’t you think so?’
    Dan nodded. ‘It’s not the best time to be travelling in Europe. What else does Kurt say?’
    ‘Only that his parents would like to repay us for having him for those half-term holidays. You can read the letter if you like. People are still going to Germany on holiday, aren’t they? Nobody seems to be that worried.’
    ‘Can I come?’ Tessa said.
    Her father shook his head. ‘Absolutely not.’
    ‘Why?’ she said, grinning. ‘Is Kurt a Nazi, Charlie? Does he wear a swastika and stick his arm up and say Heil Hitler ? Did he come here to spy on us?’
    ‘He came to school for a year to improve his English,’