Writing for Fun
Dressing To Kill - Janice Osborne
May 2014
Picking up my cane, top hat and gloves I glanced into the hall mirror for a final check. My lined and troubled, thirty something face looked less haggard now that it had been framed by freshly cut and pomandered locks. The new cravat with the diamond pin nestling amongst its soft silken folds was framed by a matching blue frock coat of the finest dark blue worsted wool. Grey trousers over highly polished black boots completed the ensemble. I felt as if I was dressed to kill and this feeling was exactly what I needed to give my morale a sorely needed boost.
Outside my Mayfair residence I saw Henry atop his hansom cab parked a few yards down the road. Seeing me step forward, one flick of the reins brought his poor bony horse and battered carriage alongside me with a precision born of many years of practise.
'Mornin' guv'. You wants the 'ospital?'
'Good morning to you, Henry. Yes if you please. I have an amputation to do this morning. How is your boy Arthur?'
'Lord luv you guv 'es comin' on somefink wunnerful thanks to what you dun' for 'im and for free like. Those boils of 'is 'as finished weeping an' almost gone an' 'cos of that 'es got his ol' job back at the bakery. All thanks to you. I'll never forgets your kindness guv not 'as long as I live. Now you gets aboard and sits an' relax. I'll gets you to yer 'hospital in a whisper.'
Sighing, I lay my head against the worn and faded squabs and closed my eyes. Henry gave his sad old nag the office to start and with a jerk we joined the traffic trundling towards Edgware road and the University College Hospital. Here I was the professor of clinical surgery. A position that I had earned due to my talent as a surgeon but the recent fiasco in the operating room made me question my fitness to hold such a post. If cabbie Henry knew what I had done he might not hold me in such high esteem.
I thought back over that fateful day. Frederick Williams was to have his gangrenous right leg amputated. Over four hundred spectators in the galleries overhead took out their pocket watches and cheered as I called out, 'Time me, gentlemen. Time me.' I had earned my fame and fortune as a surgeon because I had learned to operate fast. With no pain relief and high risk of infection surgery was horrific and dangerous with a very high mortality rate. I had observed that if pain and shock could be limited to a few minutes then the patient had a much better chance of survival, although why some then died of infection after was still a mystery.
With my knife in hand and saw in the hands of my medical student I had applied myself with gusto. Frederick screamed, the crowd roared and I sawed. Suddenly Tom, one of the lads holding down the afflicted leg shrieked and let go. I reared back in horror as I saw he was minus three fingers. In my haste I had hacked them off as well! My reflex was to jerk aside my blade which accidently caught in the coat of a spectator. Thinking he had been mortally wounded he had a heart attack and died at my feet. The theatre was in turmoil. I kicked aside the downed bystander and roared for someone to hold down the patient while I finished the amputation. Needless to say I did not beat my record of two and a half minutes from incision to final suture but at least Williams was alive when taken to the ward. Three days later both my medical assistant and Frederick Williams died of gangrene and joined the heart failure victim in the morgue.
Had I been showing off and trying too hard to beat my record for my own aggrandisement or was I sickened by the torture I inflicted on those under my knife and only trying to save them seemingly hour-long minutes of agony?
Henry's call of, ''Ere we are guv,' pulled me from my reverie. I picked up my hat, cane and gloves and descended the coach steps from my haven into the real, brutal world. After very generously tipping a protesting Henry I made my way into my office in the hospital. Sitting down at my desk I pulled out a bottle of whisky from one of the drawers and took a hearty slug . . . and then another. Minutes ticked by. Wallace, my medical student, put his head round the door and said all was ready in the theatre and that it was packed to the gunnels with spectators and the patient was about to be wheeled in. It was twelve year old Tommy Green with a crushed leg that would need to come off. It was decision time. Do I carry on? I slammed down my hands on the desktop and levered myself to my feet. Ripping off my new coat and cravat and paying scant attention to the very expensive diamond pin threw them on the floor. Shoes were similarly discarded. I was perhaps dressing to kill but I prayed not. On went my stiff and stinking blood stained green frock coat and green wellingtons that were my badge of power. Thus attired I strode with head held high into the operating room to be greeted with a standing ovation.
Tommy lay ashen faced on the table but managed a weak smile in my direction. 'Be quick, guv please.'
I looked down at him and smiled, then addressing the gallery shouted, 'Time me, gentlemen. Time me.'