Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor Read Online Free Page A

there was, it would be classified as a compound fracture with a risk of infection, and that could lead to amputation. “They’ve sent for an ambulance,” he said. “You’ll need an X-ray and it’ll have to be set.” And, he thought, the surgeon can examine the break properly once John-Joe is under anaesthesia. Right up Donald Cromie’s street, Fingal thought. His friend had taken a distinction in orthopaedic surgery in their final examinations.
    “Just my feckin’ luck,” John-Joe Finnegan said. “I landed a job at Guinness’s at Saint James’s Gate. I’m a cooper by trade and they make about one t’ousand five hundred barrels a day—barrels just like the big bugger that has me destroyed. I got the bike today from a fellah on City Quay and I was takin’ it for a spin because I was goin’ to use it to get to my work next week. Fat bloody chance now. Dey’ll not keep the position until I’m back on me feet and dere’s no shortage of coopers lookin’ for places. I’ve been out of work for eighteen months, I finally get a feckin’ job, and now this? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it’d make a grown man weep. And me new bike’s fecked too.”
    Fingal already understood how high the rate of unemployment was among the men of the tenements, particularly after the stock market crash of 1929, and how precious a job could be, particularly to a man like John-Joe Finnegan. By doing an apprenticeship for several years and learning a trade, he had made every endeavour to give himself and his family a chance. “I hear you, Mister Finnegan,” Fingal said, feeling bloody useless. He tried to remind himself that he was only a doctor, not someone who could solve all of the world’s injustice—but it was bloody unfair.
    John-Joe propped himself up on one elbow. “Would youse do me a favour, Doc?”
    “If I can.” Fingal wondered what it might be.
    “In me jacket pocket.” He inclined his head. “There’s a packet of Woodbine.”
    He found the ten-for-fourpence cigarettes, put one between John-Joe’s lips, and used the Ronson Fingal’s parents had given him as a twenty-sixth birthday present to light the fag.
    “Lord Jasus,” John-Joe said as he inhaled deeply, then blew out a cloud of smoke, “but there’s a great comfort in the oul’ weeds.” He took another puff. “Where’ll they take me to, Doc?”
    “I’m not sure. Maybe Baggot Street Hospital,” Fingal said, and thought with pleasure about a certain Nurse Kitty O’Hallorhan who worked there. “Or Sir Patrick Dun’s. It’s pretty close, on Grand Canal Street.” Fingal and his friends had spent most of the last two years walking its wards learning their trade. Great years.
    He saw the crowd part and two ambulance men approaching.
    Fingal stood. “I’m Doctor O’Reilly,” he said. “I’ve examined the patient. He has no injuries except for what is probably a Pott’s fracture of his left ankle. He’ll need it splinted and you’ll have to take him to…?”
    “Dun’s, sir,” the taller of the two said, turning away. “We’ll see about splints and getting him on a stretcher.”
    Fingal was pleased. He bent to John-Joe. “You will be going to Dun’s.”
    “And who’ll let my missus know? She’ll be going spare when I don’t come home.”
    “I’ll ask.” For a moment, Fingal thought of volunteering, but on foot the Coombe was a fair stretch and he still hadn’t finished his interview for a job with the … “different” was the word that came to mind, the different Doctor Corrigan. Nor did Fingal relish having to break the news to Mrs. Finnegan that John-Joe’s prospects for a job were now nil.
    The big policeman bent over John-Joe. “Where do you live?”
    “Ten, High Street. The front parlour.”
    So, Fingal thought, John-Joe lived in a tenement, but in one of the better sets of rooms, if it could be called that.
    “Scuse us.” The ambulance men had come back. They set a canvas stretcher on the cobbles. “We have to