Tony: The assault

[Set around 1946 – Rushton has just visited a London hospital, to enquire about the possibility of training to be a doctor]

It was a cold wind blowing from the river, as Rushton walked hastily past the entrance of Smithfield Market, towards the tube station of his choice.

His visit to the hospital had been inconclusive.  The doctor’s words had been, on the whole, encouraging.  A career was open to Rushton, to practise eventually as a specialist.  The cost?  Time – a large chunk of it: certainly enough to drain finances and stamina alike.  If he was quick, the doctor advised, he could make use of one of the government’s training grants, then available to those in his situation.  But time was running out, and a decision would have to be made.

Rushton could not decide.  At least, not yet.  Snow was beginning to fall – he pulled up the collar of his coat and glanced at his watch.  There was just time for a warming cup of tea before the train journey home to his mother and father.  They, too, would be waiting for the outcome of his visit.

He shouldered open the door of a street-side café, which seemed, as he gazed through the steamy windows, to offer some seats.

The air was thick with cigarette smoke.  He paid for a large mug of tea, and perched on a stool near the one window which was mercifully free of condensation.

He looked out.  The ceaseless lights of the cars went by, and a man, dressed in an expensive-looking coat, stood with his back to Rushton, leaning against the window.

Rushton stared at the fibres of the man’s coat, pressed against the glass, only inches from his own eyes.  Rushton's mind was still wrestling with the choice he had to make.  His mind’s eye kept reverting to the startling medical specimens which the doctor had shown him in the hospital laboratory, as they made their way out.  Enormous tumours in bottles, exuding a scent of formaldehyde.  Eyes, muscles, a man’s dissected hand, all the elaborations of human anatomy, occupied Rushton’s memory, troubling his thoughts.  The human body was indeed a formidable thing.  What could he, Rushton, hope to contribute to its salvation?

Outside, the man in the expensive coat was apparently being addressed by another man, dressed shabbily, his face murky and indistinct.  Rushton, yawning wearily, took up a tattered newspaper, which he attempted to read.

He heard sudden cries and a shout from outside, and a heavy thump as something hit the window-glass.  Rushton backed away instinctively, and saw the shabbily-dressed man grasping something in his hands.  Peering more closely, Rushton realised with horror that it was the staring, gasping face of the well-dressed man, now scratched and torn across the eyes, with blood oozing from his nose.  Those staring eyes riveted Rushton.  They showed a raw terror, such as one might see in a trapped animal, lacking all hope of escape.

A short man, with a conspicuously stubbly chin, barged past Rushton and opened the café door to the street outside.  Rushton followed, and, feeling snow on his face, came onto the pavement, almost tripping over the man in the elegant coat, who was now lying on his back, prone.  Above, the shabby man was raising his hand high, as if to strike a decisive blow.

“No!”  The stubbly man had thrown himself against the assailant, and was now wrestling clumsily with him, losing his cap and flailing around wildly, before getting an arm around the shabby man’s neck, and hauling him clear.

There was a menacing sound of snarling, scuffling and growling, as Rushton himself knelt down beside the prone man, who was raising trembling arms, as if to ward off a further attack.  His eyes, which had so impressed themselves on Rushton before, were raised towards him now in a piteous appeal for protection.  The stylish coat was torn, and the man’s jacket was ripped open, revealing his bare, exposed chest, rising and falling rapidly.

So this was life.  Rushton remembered the bizarre, almost grotesque, medical specimens he had seen in the laboratory.  Something stood between them and this man lying beside him.  Those fearful forms had seemed devoid of hope – here was a man still clinging to the living world, his body threatened, his life revealed in all its fearful vulnerability.

“Is he alright?”  A man, in a black, snow-smeared coat, was kneeling beside Rushton, who in his confusion thought it might even be a doctor, come from the nearby hospital.

Another voice now spoke:  “He needs help ….  We’ll take him in ….”  A bearded man, tall and solemn, had approached them, and now seemed to be taking control of the situation.  Rushton, in a daze, now backed away, and, wiping the snow from his eyes, moved slowly off, to where the rush-hour crowds were gathering at a nearby crossing.

He knew, now, what he could do.

Having considered medicine rather in the abstract as a career, Rushton, as a result of this experience, now feels convinced that it is his “chosen path”, and the novel continues with Rushton's recollections of his life as a medical student.