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Warning: Spoilers for Assignment 2. In fact, it makes no sense at all if you haven't seen Assignment 2.



A Good Death

"Oh, my dear Sharon," gasped Nurse Pearce, dropping down into the chair opposite her friend in the Lyons tea shop. "Such goings-on at the hospital, you can't think!"

"Gone downhill since I left," said RSN Graves (retired), with a certain grim satisfaction. "We'll have another pot of Earl Grey, waitress, and an extra cup. Now then, tell me all about it."

"Well," said Nurse Pearce, spooning sugar into her tea. "Oh dear, I suppose I shouldn't take so much, should I, not with my figure. Still, sweet tea's good for shock. Do you remember Mr Tully?"

"The lung cancer in bed 6?" said Mrs Graves with interest. "Indeed I do. A very nice gentleman. Has he passed away?"

"I should say so!" said Nurse Pearce with enthusiasm.

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Mrs Graves, taking a sip of her Earl Grey. "Could you pass the sugar, dear? He was always very polite. Very interested in ghost stories and such. He used to tell me about all the stately homes around here that were haunted."

"Well," interrupted Nurse Pearce, who was not especially interested in other people's memories of Mr Tully, "they think the cancer spread to his brain."

"Oh dear," said Mrs Graves sympathetically. "Very nasty that."

Nurse Pearce, not to be outdone in empathy, pursed her lips and nodded. "He started seeing things," she said. "Soldiers and what not. Terrible, it was. He kept going on about how they was trapped and he had to rescue them. I think he thought he was back in the war."

"Oh, no dear," said Mrs Graves, "he can't of thought that. He didn't serve, you know. I'm not sure why, but I know he felt it very deeply, that he hadn't been able to join up."

"Well, he kept going on about it, anyhow," said Nurse Pearce, slightly affronted that Mrs Graves should presume to be an expert on her story. "Plane crashes and submarines and things, and how there was no air and he had to get them out. Then he went into a coma, so a specialist come up from London – and don't ask me who paid for it, for there were no living relatives to speak of, and he wasn't a rich man, poor old fellow."

"A specialist, eh?" said Mrs Graves. "I don't suppose Matron liked that."

"She certainly didn't," said Nurse Pearce with relish. "Put her nose right out of joint, it did. There was a real argy-bargy at one point, but the long and the short of it is, Doctor said there was nothing anyone could do for him and they should take him off the oxygen – they had him in an iron lung at that point, you see. Matron wasn't too happy about that, but she couldn't override the specialist, and anyhow, poor Mr Tully was in a coma and couldn't express an opinion either way. Dr Steel said he wouldn't know anything about it, he'd just slip away."

"A nice quiet death, then," said Mrs Graves approvingly.

"That's what you think! Poor Mr Tully! I hope I never see anything like that again as long as I live. When Doctor went and put his hand on the oxygen tube, Mr Tully opened his eyes and looked at him. Such a look! I tell you, I felt quite faint. It was like he was seeing the angel of death. And when the tube came out he screamed. Oh, Sharon, I tell you, I still hear that scream nights, when there's no-one in the house."

She shuddered theatrically, but her face was pale under her make-up.

"It's my belief," said Mrs Graves, her eyes gleaming, "that that doctor made a mistake."

"You took the words right out of my mouth," said Nurse Pearce. "Still, he's gone now. I just hope he gets called to account for it, the unfeeling so-and-so."

"Well," said Mrs Graves philosophically, "that's these London doctors for you. Always talk so high and mighty, and half the time they don't really know what they're doing. I daresay poor Mr Tully would have lived quite a while longer, if he hadn't intervened. Still, at least we know he's gone to a better place, and that's a comfort." She licked her lips thoughtfully. "More tea, dear?"