Mercy me!

I don’t know what I expected as my daughter and I entered the hospital … the figure of a stout matron in blue starched uniform with starched face to match was in the back of my mind; a reminder of a short stay in a military hospital at Woolwich, England in my 18th year. But this was totally different; this was the angiography unit at Mercy Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand.

The matron who met me at 7 am was nothing like the Woolwich matron; this lady was a youngish motherly type who greeted me with, ‘Mr Crompton?’ in a voice that was warmly reassuring, calming my pulse which had threatened to move into a higher gear at the sight of a stethoscope or hypodermic needle: ‘Yes please!’ … I almost blurted out in reply.

Formalities were attended to and then it was up to my room on the second floor. A short explanation was given as to the over-sized nappy-type male knickers with tie-strings on both sides; they lacked any sense of style or appeal and brought a cheeky smile to my daughter’s face. Someone had to have had a sense of humour to have dreamt those things up.

Still, for the staff who had to cope with all manner of things, they covered in a practical way the range of male appendages which lay in the path of the tests the patient required. Although a gown with an opening down the back covered the lot, it still left me feeling vulnerable whichever way one looked at me.

Instructions were given that certain body hair should be removed; a ticklish job requiring steady nerves and an equally steady hand, a job I tackled myself, in fact. The result resembled a fresh piece of pork; soft, pink and with a baby-like texture.

Wow! I thought. I must have looked like that when I was born, on a smaller scale of course. You’ve no idea the thoughts that kept whizzing round inside my head as I walked around, clean-shaven for the next day or so. What would anyone think if I’d had an accident?

I won’t bore you with all that followed; suffice to say that things went smoothly in the angiography department, transferring from bed to table successfully, without as much as a hint of my ludicrous drawers revealing themselves. In any case, they were whisked away as neatly as you like almost before I realised they’d gone. Just as well, I’d have hated to have pictures of those being leaked to the media.
For the next half hour I watched the procedure on a monitor, with someone on the cardiologist team explaining to me the various steps being taken, which I found very reassuring.

This is a light-hearted view of the way I saw and experienced my ‘check-up’ that day. From the welcome at the door at 7am, to the goodbyes at 5pm, everyone helped me feel that my welfare was their concern and that I was important to them; I couldn’t have been in better hands. The hospital is well-named (Mercy Hospital), and this quote from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure aptly fits the staff there:

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become with them one half so good a grace
As mercy does.

They must have done a good job, because I’m still here; bless them.

Dennis Crompton © 1997

Places

In that small cottage over there,

I first saw the light of day.

 *

Up that dark and cobbled street,

awful demons I did meet.

 *

In that schoolyard I met Alfred;

he could pee two inches higher.

 *

In that schoolroom I did learn

the wonders of the written word.

 *

In this ear did a schoolgirl whisper:

come closer, love, and let me kiss you.

 *

My sister gave me in that house there

a delicious slice of her homemade bread.

 *

In that village house I knelt beside

the bedside of a coffined child.

 *

In that air raid shelter I did hide

from enemy bombers in the night.

 *

In this street I once did see

a big red bus run near over me.

 *

From Glasgow city I sailed away,

great expectations filled my day.

 *

Down that road I walked on air,

softly whispering my love for her.

 *

In that ward a miracle I did see;

my first daughter born to me.

 *

So many places I have seen,

wandering, adventurous, lucky me.

 *

Dennis Crompton © 1995

(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)

Hidden venom

It was early morning as Tai Woon, Captain of the 12,000 tonne fishing boat Nyanga, stood alone at the helm. He regularly fished this area just off the West coast of Gabon at Libreville where the waters of the Atlantic brought a rich harvest at certain times of the year. Now with the holds full, a little over 36 hours had passed since he’d set a course for home. His spirits were normally high at this stage, but today they were not. His mind was greatly troubled and his heart was heavy. And this time he’d taken the unusual precaution of locking the wheel-house door firmly behind him.

As he stood at the helm, his features, partly illuminated by the greenish-yellow light from the compass, showed something of the tension he was under. Over the last 36 hours his small, uncomplicated world had been invaded as two of his crew had died sudden and violent deaths, most of their bones broken in the grip of some terrible illness. Some of his crew murmured that an evil spirit had entered their bodies and brought about the frenzied convulsions they had witnessed. Whatever it was, or how or when it had found its way aboard, was beyond him and filled him with the utmost dread concerning the safety of his remaining crew and himself.

Since then, some six hours or so had passed without incident. Then suddenly, just twenty minutes ago, Hanson Yen, the second mate, had leapt overboard, foaming at the mouth, his eyes almost bursting from their sockets as he screamed obscenities to the wind and waves before his body sank beneath the murky waters. His insane plunge created a sudden surge of panic amongst them all with Tai Woon hard-pressed to keep control them all.

In the lull that followed he thought over these things as, with cargo heavy and sluggish to the helm, the Nyanga thumped her way through the deepening Atlantic swells. A sudden banging startled him and turning round he saw the face of the Korean cook through the small round window in the top of the wheel house door. With nothing to unduly alarm him, he unlocked the door and accepted the tray of food before locking the door again as the cook set off back to the galley. For the next few minutes Tai Woon was occupied checking map and compass bearings before making a few course corrections when the smell of food reminded him he hadn’t eaten for several hours.

Alarm bells rang in his mind as an unusual taste made him stop his chewing before he spat out what was in his mouth, shoving his fingers down his throat and vomiting the watery contents of his stomach to join the mess on the floor. It was as he drank water from a bottle that he caught sight of the cook’s venomous face glaring at him; his eyes wild and with whitish foam around his mouth he began battering at the door with an iron meat cleaver. Solid as it was it didn’t take long for the wooden door to splinter, and with nothing to defend himself with, Tai Woon retreated to the other side of the small cabin.

The cook, now a raving madman, forced his way through the broken panels and lifting the meat cleaver high above his head moved a step forward, his powerful arm beginning its downward sweep at Tai Woon. Suddenly his feet slipped from under him and he fell back striking his head heavily. The meat cleaver flew from his grasp and Tai Woon was able to see him locked safely away in the hold.

Things returned to normal as he went round the crew and talked to them. Calming them down he made them drink plenty of fresh water before eating a meal of fish and vegetables. The rest of the journey was uneventful and back on shore the port medical officer who checked the cook and inspected the galley explained what had happened. High humidity together with bad storage meant that all the grain foods on board the Nyanga had been contaminated by a variety of dangerous moulds. One mould in particular had caused the terrible sickness which sent three of the crew to their deaths, plus the madness which so strongly gripped the unfortunate Korean cook.

It isn’t surprising therefore, that for many years afterwards, and until his own death, Tai Woo would shudder at the sound of wood being splintered by an axe and would only eat Korean food with a meat cleaver of his own firmly gripped in his sweating hand…

Dennis Crompton © 1997
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)

The dreadful being knocked at the door...

I've always been glad that humans possess imagination giving us the ability to extend and colour our knowledge. Where would we be without it?

As a young boy I was honing my imagination by continuing various dramas in my head well after the film had ended, the book was closed or the radio switched off. One story I heard on the radio called, ‘The Monkey's Paw’, was one that I'd have been better off not hearing. I sat listening with the grown-ups around me, pulling my feet closer and closer towards me and the storyline developed. I was in a pretty scared state already before the real horror began and, '…the dreadful being knocked at the door'. Help! Fortunately my dad noticed how it was affecting me and hurried me off to bed, sharpish. But, alone.

I was still well tuned in to the story as I made my way up the stairs in double-quick time, and leaped from the door straight into my bed. I switched off the light and tried to sleep. If I didn't move and breathed quietly, I could still hear the radio downstairs, and a variety of increasingly terrifying and tantalising sounds began to do their work on my imagination. Then, from the radio, I heard more frantic knocking on a door, and the agitated murmurs of grown-ups, mingled with the most awful sounds.  

How can they bear to listen? Are they not terrified themselves? At least they've got each other to scream with, but what about me?!

The darkness now concentrated my thoughts on where I was…alone, completely alone, in the dark, and with potential horrors all around me. With my hearing now on full alert I was certain that something was stirring in the wardrobe, creeping up the stairs or slithering about under my bed, where, oh horrors! I'd failed to check. It was too much for me! I'd heard enough! Really scared now, I curled myself into a ball and pulled the bedclothes tightly round me. At some point, thankfully, my Sunday-school teacher's beliefs must have kicked in, for I imagined, "bands of angels gathered around me as they sang me gently to my rest." That was enough for me to find some peaceful relief, and I fell, gratefully, into those angels' arms and slept in a tight ball 'til morning.

I'll never forget that, and the fear I felt, all alone. Still, a scare is good for you sometimes, isn't it? Gets the adrenalin pumping, adds a bit of zest to life now and then.

Dennis Crompton © 1996
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)