Doctors Wear Scarlet

by Raven, Simon

  “In the air over Greek territory, Inspector. Which makes it no business of yours.”

  “They’re going to get rid of him, Mr Seymour. Send him home. It’ll likely be my business soon enough.”

  “After all of which, perhaps you can at last tell me what is in the air?”

  “I’ll try, sir. But it would be better – far better – if you’d fill in a bit more about Mr Fountain first. Put the flesh on the bones, as I said. Tell me about him when he was your study fag, when he was at Cambridge with you. What you know of his service in your old regiment. All that.”

  “I still think that first I’ve a right to know–”

  “This is important, sir, and it is serious, and I must ask you to accept my judgement. Please do as I request,” said Tyrrel leaning forward with urgency and looking straight into my eyes with what I can only call authority. “Please, Mr Seymour. If you want to help your friend.”

  So then I capitulated finally and utterly. I fetched two fresh drinks and told Inspector Tyrrel all I knew about Richard Fountain, just as I have set it down below.

  II

  Richard Fountain arrived at Charterhouse in the Autumn of 1943, at the beginning of my last year there. He was at that time a well built, clean spoken and slightly arrogant small boy – with more than a suggestion of self-satisfaction and priggishness in his demeanour. He had come to us as a Scholar (he had achieved, I think, the third place in his year’s list), but also with a reputation as a fine games player and as a boy of “sound” character. Now, it is not a good thing when boys of thirteen are praised for their characters; it usually means that they are either pushing or hypocritical or, more probably, both; and when such moral excellence is accompanied by athletic tastes and the whole is crowned by intellectual ability, then one is well advised to approach the child with wariness or not at all.

  Certainly, the brains, games, character formula seemed at first to make Richard unapproachable, thick skinned and self-sufficient. In his case, too, as in the case of all young boys who are good examinees, there was a very pertinent question to be asked: how far is this boy just an efficient parrot, learning his grammar with diligence and potting 100% in the syntax paper? Or how far does he in fact possess originality, curiosity, intellectual courage? If the answer was in his favour, his stiff bearing and proud formality did nothing to help us discover this; and for some time, for this reason and others, he was regarded with reserve and without sympathy. After all, we had seen the type so often, the stern-faced little delator who slipped along to the Housemaster’s study to report that all was not well with the “tone” of the House (somebody having used a four-letter word in his hearing), the blue-eyed but frowning teacher’s darling who got full marks for Latin composition and then led the under-sixteen eleven to victory that very afternoon. Intolerant, interfering, self-righteous boys, who won early positions of authority for themselves, brought nothing but trouble on their more easy-going contemporaries, and ended up as Heads of Houses, lashing themselves into frenzies and nagging their subjects silly over petty discoveries of “slackness” or of “smut”. Tiresome and prurient busy-bodies, who eventually won minor scholarships to obscure colleges (there are always a few closed scholarships reserved for boys of “character”) and were then mercifully never heard of again in the world – would have been as though they had never existed, indeed, had they not left squads of pestiferous imitators behind them, who took the baleful torch from their mentors as these left the race and continued to illumine the corridors and cubicles with the same sulphurous rays of disapproval, recrimination and guilt. Oh, yes; we knew all about boys of this type – the type to which Richard Fountain so clearly seemed to belong.

  Small wonder then that the more equable and good-humoured among us did not look on Richard with much favour for a time. But after he had been at Charterhouse for about two months, it began to become apparent that he had, after all, several qualities of an unexpected and pleasing nature. True, he was impeccably correct and punctual, severe in manner and quietly contemptuous in aspect; but then again his contempt seemed to be turned, not so much on lax morals or human fallibility, as on the sheer waste, stupidity and muddle so common in gregarious life of this kind. He may have been rather pleased with himself, but he was not, it turned out, a delator or a “sneak”. The only time, in fact, that he had been known to approach Authority at all was to tell it to its face that some minor arrangement which concerned himself and the other new boys was ill conceived, unnecessary and burdensome; and Authority had been so taken aback that it had conceded Richard’s point out of sheer shock and withdrawn the offending edict. This and other incidents unmistakably argued his integrity and, indeed, his courage: a favourable impression which was only increased when his form mates reported that he did not “grub” for the extra marks which he might have been expected, as a Scholar, to obtain, but simply set himself with modest efficiency to fulfil allotted tasks, to do adequate work which was completed without frills and presented without comment. He was always, it was said, ready to help others in a crisis over exercises or preparation. Not that he could be said to unbend: it was just that he was prepared, if his advice was sought, to give cool and swift assistance. And to cap all this, there was his performance as a footballer: this had come fully up to the expectations aroused by the reports from his private school, and it seemed that he was one of the most promising players the school had had for several years; but here again, he matched achievement with good sense; and so far from being prideful in the matter, he quietly gave it to be understood that he held team games as being of little importance in the scheme of things and considerably overrated even as a pastime.

  In fact, his modesty and good sense began to be so generally applauded that I now became almost as suspicious on this account as I had formerly been for entirely opposite reasons. All this “efficiency,” “coolness,” “diffidence” – they could only be, I thought, the careful products of some really inordinate form of pride reinforced by some truly monstrous degree of self-control. It was too good to be true: it just wasn’t natural: no boy of thirteen had a right, if he was natural, to be so unexceptionably moderate and unassuming. And then, whatever anyone might say, there was no real abatement, if one took a general view, in the self-satisfaction and priggishness so evident at his arrival: “modest” about his football he might be, but there was still something behind his eyes which let one know that he thought Richard Fountain a pretty adequate creation. So all in all, I was for reserving judgement (I had not, at this stage, yet chosen him to be my study fag); until one day something happened which, if it did not precisely settle things in his favour, ensured that he must henceforth be the object of the closest possible attention.

  I myself was not present when the incident in question took place. But I heard a number of eyewitness accounts at the time – which were confirmed, years later, by Richard himself. So you can take what follows as being tolerably exact.

  Know, then, that there was in our House at this time a loutish and pustular boy called Westerby. Opinionated but near-cretinous, loud-mouthed and pea-brained, overgrown, over-bearing and over-sexed, Westerby was now starting his fourth year at the school. Still in some remote and unbelievably inferior form, he was the soundest candidate for superannuation that ever I heard of. But this, you must remember, was during the war; and the war-time policy, discreetly urged on Head Masters by the Heads of Services, was that boys, however stupid, who were “potential officer material” should by hook or by crook be kept at school till the age of seventeen and a half, in the hope that they might learn something and because, if they were superannuated at an earlier stage, there were technical difficulties in getting them commissioned with all the speed thought necessary. Now, I should have thought Westerby would have been better placed as a convict than as an officer; but in those days “public schoolboy” automatically meant “potential officer,” no matter how degraded the creature might be, and so Westerby was allowed to stay, and his sixteen year old
presence was suffered by the harassed little master of the lower fourth (who was supposed to be teaching rather backward boys of fourteen), and there he was, the brute, eating enough for two and taking up the room of three. But just because of his size and his seniority in years, some minor place in the official hierarchy of our House had to be found for him: so that Westerby was declared “Head of Longroom”, which, as its name implies, was simply a long room inhabited by all boys too junior to have studies, in which category, though he was a Scholar, Richard was inevitably to be found during his first year.

  Now, among all the other miserable little boys who sat in Longroom and were governed by the ineffable Westerby was a Jew called Stein – a sweet-natured and sensitive boy who, however, by some unfortunate biological irony, had an exterior every bit as loutish as Westerby’s and, despite his mental delicacy, an ungovernable passion for eating. And indeed, poor child, he needed to eat with a frame that size – a frame, I should add, the bulk of which was in no way balanced by its strength: for Stein was only fourteen, so that, unlike Westerby, he had not had time for his muscles to match his growth. Physically, he was a shambling, inflated, utterly frail and uncoordinated creature, with, as I say, this monstrous but necessary lust for food – yet in other respects as kind, intelligent and finely tuned an individual as one could wish to meet. It will not surprise you, then, to hear that Westerby hated Stein. He hated him because of his intellectual ability, his courteous but clumsy manners; because his physique was a parody of Westerby’s own; and because he was a Jew. Nor could it be said that Stein was popular in other quarters. I have neither time nor inclination to discuss the attitude shown towards Jews, during the war, by well to do little boys; in some schools it may have been better, in others it was no doubt worse: but at Charterhouse it was, at any rate among the younger boys, uncharitable. A Jew was a Jew. Was in this case the unfortunate Stein. So that when Westerby baited or bullied Stein, the performance was received, if not with approbation, at any rate without protest. Westerby was a lout and much disliked; but then Stein was a Jew. No one was going to risk trouble with Westerby by sticking out his neck on behalf of Stein.

  Well, one day towards the end of Richard’s first quarter (which was what we called a term) Stein got hold of some sausages from God knows where, and started grilling them over the Longroom fire and wolfing them up like a besieged man. In the middle of this (not very pleasing) exhibition, in came Westerby.

  “Ah,” he said, “snorkers. Do as you would be done by, Stein.”

  (Lest you should think that this quotation shows a trace of wit, I should say that it was the common formula for begging food or sweets off another boy.)

  At this Stein, being something of a realist, gave Westerby two well grilled sausages and started to cook another one. This he was just about to eat when Westerby, who had guzzled up his two like the hog he was, snatched it away from him.

  “That won’t do, Stein,” Westerby said. “Anyway, these are pork sausages. Jews can’t eat pork.”

  Stein made some ineffectual scrabbling movement to get his sausage back; but Westerby drew back out of reach and, as he went, scooped up the pile of still uncooked sausages which were warming up ready in the grate.

  “I’m confiscating these,” Westerby said. “My conscience will not allow me to watch a Jew eat pork.”

  He walked jauntily away towards the grandiose desk, markedly separate from the rest, which custom allowed the Head of Longroom. As for poor Stein, his eyes blinked behind his thick, uncomely spectacles, his cheeks went very red, and two large and deplorable tears came dribbling down on either side of his nose.

  “Give me back my thauthages, Wethterby.” Stein, of course, had to have a lisp.

  “I’ve told you, Jew. You can’t eat pork.”

  “Give me back my thauth–”

  “YES,” said another voice from behind Westerby. “Give Stein back his sausages.”

  So Westerby turned round, and there was Richard Fountain, fists clenched and face quivering with anger; a well built boy for his age but seemingly half the size of Westerby; Athenian versus Barbarian, lithe wrestler against hired tough.

  “And who do you think you’re talking to?” said Westerby: “new bug.”

  “That has nothing to do with it. Just give Stein back his property.”

  “You just mind your own business.”

  “All right.”

  And then Richard jabbed Westerby very hard in the pit of the stomach with his left fist and, as Westerby started to double up, caught his head from behind with his right hand. Jerking it down as hard as he could, he raised his left knee with a vicious crack into Westerby’s face. After which, as Westerby slowly began to lift his head again, Richard, stepping one pace back and making a wedge of his right palm, swung it backhanded straight into the elder boy’s throat just below the jaw. Westerby flopped on to the ground: Richard picked up the remnants of the sausages, gave them to the gaping Stein amid the complete silence of the other onlookers, walked straight out of the room, and never, as far as I know, referred to the incident again until I asked him about it years later at Cambridge.

  But of course everyone in our House heard about it within the hour. Nothing official was ever done – what could be done? For the future, Westerby was a little more mannerly, Stein a little less oppressed, and Richard, as I say, remained totally unaltered. As for myself, hot with admiration and curiosity, I chose him there and then to be the study fag to which I was newly entitled. I say “curiosity”, because that in the end was the chief emotion the incident aroused in me when I heard of it. To my mind, the really interesting thing was not that Richard had shown moral and physical courage of a high order, but that he should somehow have known, or at any rate have devised for the occasion, such peculiarly devastating and unpleasant methods of hand to hand fighting. It was not that he was unjustified in using such methods: Westerby was twice as strong as he and had deserved, in this instance, absolutely everything he got. On the other hand, however, such questionable forms of attack as the knee to the face or the backhanded wedge blow sorted very ill with what was known of Richard’s character. Had he simply squared up to Westerby in Queensberry fashion, like Tom Brown against Flashman, or even shown some slight knowledge of Judo, I should not have been surprised: but as it was, he had demonstrated some back-alley tricks of the nastiest possible kind. Here, plainly, was an indication of some entirely alien yet possibly vital element in his personality: here was one more tantalising inconsistency in a character, at first sight dull and conventional, but which was rapidly coming to present a riddle of the highest quality. Just what was it that made Richard Fountain tick? One might well ask.

  For certainly I got no nearer an answer during the remainder of that year. There were no more dramatic incidents, no more overt hints of mysterious attributes. But even so, I found him increasingly fascinating. Why, I wonder? He performed the small menial tasks I set him unselfconsciously and with dignity – nothing peculiar here. He continued to put out a rather self-righteous, a consciously noli me tangere air about him, while at the same time maintaining his unspectacular efficiency in the classroom and accepting with modesty the praise he won for his performances on the football field – and later, during the summer, as a cricketer. But I already knew about this aspect of his life, so there was nothing of novelty here. In his relationships with others he was quiet, reliable and unaffectionate. Towards myself he was courteous, respectful and more or less friendly; but friendly only in the most superficial way, showing no desire to give or take, to enquire about my life or to reveal his own. It is possible, of course, that he just found me rather boring at that time. Or was very shy. Or was simply too busy for confidences. But whatever the case might have been, only two things are certain – and those contradictory. Firstly, my own growing and almost obsessive suspicion that here was a being, not only outstandingly talented, but, in some fashion, marred by a gigantic yet undetectable flaw, deformed by some hideous twist of the spirit. And second
ly, the fact that this suspicion was based on no concrete reason whatever. Outwardly Richard remained just an able and rather pompous little boy, straight-eyed and clean-minded, conventional in utterance and unexceptionable in manner – if a good deal too stiff-necked to be immediately pleasing. To go beyond this was to proceed entirely in the dark: to search for mysteries was to hunt alone and without a scent. It was all a matter of feeling, of intuition on my part. Evidence, save possibly for the brief and savage bout with Westerby, there was absolutely none.

  And since, to be candid, intuition has never been my strong point, and since Richard’s career now seemed to proceed in an entirely normal fashion, I began to think, towards the end of my last quarter, that perhaps I had been wrong after all, that probably there was nothing there other than what purported to be there – a healthy, intelligent, reserved child of the kind which always did well at schools. During my last month this feeling became steadily stronger; and when I finally tipped Richard and said goodbye to him, I found myself reflecting that here was just another monitor parting from just another study fag – nothing more and nothing less – neither of whom would have either desire or reason ever to meet again… And so I went to the war. During my four years odd in the Army, I heard of Richard from time to time: but everything I heard only confirmed the thoughts I had had during my last weeks at school – that he was, when all was said, just a conventionally able boy. For he had prospered as a games player, it seemed, and he had done his work thoroughly, and the “soundness” of his character had been unwavering. So he had become Head of the Classical Sixth and Head of the School and Captain of Cricket; and he had got a good Classical Scholarship to Lancaster College, Cambridge. The latter was the most hopeful item: but even this proved nothing, other than that he was dexterous in the formal manipulation of the ancient tongues: for the study of Latin and Greek, which can be the most thrilling study of them all, yet lends itself sooner than any to be exploited, for examination purposes, by clever and superficial boys who are adept at wielding words while having no understanding whatever of the meaning which lies behind them. This might be the case with Richard, and it might not. Since I was to go to Lancaster myself in the autumn of ’48, and so, it appeared, was he, I might shortly find out about this and much else – if I still had the interest and the energy to do so. Meanwhile four years in the Army had sapped my energies; and as for my interest, I found little in anticipation of meeting Richard again. For it seemed to me from what I had heard that he had simply passed the years in strict and dull accordance with the brains, games, character tradition, and that all I was likely to find at Lancaster was an empty husk inside the most suitable sort of blazer.