It was thorough, but interesting at the same time as he explained what he was looking for at each stage of the examination - he made it into a teaching session with me as the subject.

"Right - take your pants off and let's see if your love gear is up to the same standard as the rest of you."

That made me laugh and to feel an increasing liking for the man. He gently felt the outline of my balls.

"That's good - no lumps or bumps. They can be very nasty - testicular cancer can be a real killer and you should examine yourself on a regular basis."

He took my hand and guided my fingers over my own testicles.

"That bump is okay - it's duct that carries the sperm. The rest should be really smooth."

I instinctively bent forward as he pushed his finger past my balls and way up inside of my body.

"I'm checking the inguinal canal to make sure that there's nothing lurking in there. Now lets see if you have a hernia. Cough please."

"Is that why you have to cough?"

"Yes - if there's a tear in the muscle sheet, it makes your intestines bulge through it and form a temporary lump. You're fine."

He stood up and reached for a thin rubber glove. I got that sinking feeling as he dipped his gloved finger into a pot of grease.

"Now I need to examine your anus. Turn round and rest your chest on the table."

I didn't like it, but I didn't really have the option. I felt him looking at me and then his fingers pulled my anus open.

"I'm looking for external piles and fissures - little cracks in the skin. You don't have any. Now hold still - I want to check for internal piles."

I discovered that I was more interested than embarrassed as his finger slid inside of me.

"That's fine, Mr Boyd. No sign of any piles. Have you taken an enema recently?"

Oh hell - he could tell, of course.

"Yes sir, I..."

"That's excellent. You would be surprised how many new students turn up with severe compaction once they don't have their mothers to keep a check on their bowel habits. I'm glad to see that you attend to yourself."

It was really weird to carry on a conversation with a guy whose finger was stuck up my ass and probing deeply into my rectum!

"Now I just need to check your prostate gland. Have you had this done before?"

"I don't know. I never heard of a prostate gland."

"Read your textbooks boy and you'll find out about it. It can cause a lot of trouble but not usually with young men. You may experience some sensation now."

His finger pushed downwards and I almost hit the roof as it produced an almost electric response which was totally sexual in nature. I just could not hold back from emitting a groan."

"Aargh!"

He actually chuckled.

"My - you're real sensitive, aren't you!"

"For god's sake - what are you doing?"

"Palpating your prostate gland. Try to hold still - it won't take long."

The he did it again. I felt myself rising on to my toes and at the same time I got an erection. My calf muscles relaxed as he removed his finger - but my dick didn't.

"That's fine. You can get dressed now."

I remained bent over the table, wondering just how the hell I was going to explain my erection and totally unwilling to expose it by turning around. I heard another chuckle.

"Don't worry about the erection, Mr Boyd. It sometimes happens and I've seen my share of them. It was involuntary - some men are more sensitive to stimulation of the prostate than others. There's no need for embarrassment."

That gave me the courage to stand up and turn round - I considered covering myself with my hands but rejected the idea - it would just make me look like some timid child, ashamed of a natural function. Professor Miller looked at my erection with interest and I felt my residual shame ebbing away, mainly because he didn't try to pretend not to look. He nodded and then spoke dryly.

"Well - that certainly works well. Very impressive."

That made me laugh and he joined in while I scrambled into my clothes. I was about to leave when he gestured to a chair.

"Sit down, Mr Boyd. I need to explain something and ask you for a favour."

"Sir?"

"You'll be starting anatomy class next Monday and I've paired you up with a girl."

"I don't understand."

"She is the only girl in the class and she comes from a small island in the Hebrides. She's a brilliant girl - she was very impressive at interview - but I'm worried that she might be the butt of a great deal of harassment from the men students. You're three years older than them and a lot more mature. I would take it as a personal favour if you could be a sort of protector - a big brother - to Fiona McGregor."

I felt highly complimented by what he had said.

"Yes sir. I'll look out for her."

He nodded.

"And, Mr Boyd, I said 'big brother' - I would be happy if you kept the relationship at that level. Fiona has spent her entire life in a small community and I don't think she will be wise in the ways of men, if you understand what I mean."

That annoyed me. I had already said that I would do what he wanted and I resented the reminder. I lost my deference.

"What the hell do you think I am? I don't take advantage of schoolkids! I said I would take care of her."

He smiled again.

"Thank you, Mr Boyd. I hoped you would say that. Off you go - until Monday."

I wasn't happy about the task he had dumped on me, but it gave me an opportunity.

"Professor - I wonder if I could ask you for a favour too?"

He frowned and I could sense his suspicion.

"What might that be, Mr Boyd?"

"I think the surgery you do is totally amazing and I reckon I want to do the same sort of thing when I graduate. Is it possible to watch you operate? Could I work in the ward in my spare time - as an orderly or something? I really want to see what happens and maybe find out if I could ever hope to master it."

His face cleared.

"You can certainly watch surgery - all students have that privilege although most of them don't use it until they are further along in their course. As to working on the wards, that's a matter for the ward sister - she's the one who controls staff and duties. And I warn you - she's not an easy woman to convince."

"Sir, I would like to try. I really do want to help - it was just incredible what you did with those kids."

"All right. I've other students to see, but meet me at the entrance at five and we will see what Sister thinks."

That gave me a few hours to kill so I wandered around the bookshops looking for anything about cardiac surgery and finding nothing - the standard textbooks just seemed to think that all you could do was to give digitalis and diuretics and oxygen until the patient eventually died. The university library refused to let me in until I had a student card, so I couldn't check there either.

I made sure I was waiting when the professor arrived. He pointed to a car.

"Get in. I'll take you to meet Sister."

"Sir - I have my own vehicle. That jeep over there."

He chuckled.

"Well I'm damned - you do well for yourself. Okay - follow me."

I started after him and then became totally baffled because he drove in the opposite direction to the hospital. I followed anyway and we eventually turned in to the gates of a large house. He got out of his car and beckoned to me.

"Come along, Mr Boyd. Or can I call you Jason?"

"Yes, of course. Where are we?"

"This is my house. Come and have tea."

"But...?"

"Just come and have tea."

I followed him inside and heard him calling to his wife.

"Honey - we have a guest."

A striking lady emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel and looking curiously at me. Professor Miller did the introductions.

"Honey, this is Jason Boyd, another displaced Yankee and a new medical student. Jason, this is my wife, Sister Miller. She's ward sister on the cardiac unit."

My mouth dropped open and I turned to see his grinning face. I shook hands with Sister Miller and then glared at him for not telling me in advance.

It was a substantial meal too - the ubiquitous Scottish stew with freshly baked bread cakes and real butter - a rarity because it was still rationed. I even drank the tea and it wasn't too bad - maybe I was getting used to it. Then the professor explained what I wanted. Sister Miller raised an eyebrow as she looked at me.

"Well, we can always use help with the bedpans. Do you think you could do that sort of thing, Jason?"

"Yes ma'am. I know that I'm not going to be able to give any treatments, but I can empty bedpans and help out with feeding the really weak children. I just want to be able to understand what happens and to learn as much as I can."

"My, my. Well - the junior nurses will love you. All right - I'll give you a trial and we will see if you can handle the seamy side of medicine. When are you available?"

"I could give an hour each morning before classes start to help out with breakfasts, I could work after class and on Saturdays. I can't manage Sundays - I have to visit with very good friends then."

"Too much. You need to study evenings. But I'll take the breakfasts and Saturdays. If it proves to be too much, we can reduce it - and if you can't take it then I won't hold it against you."

"I can take it!"

She looked sad.

"It's not that easy, Jason. Nursing very sick children never is. Some people, good people, just can't stand watching them suffer. You won't know until you try it."

I went home elated, but at the same time I was starting to wonder if I hadn't let enthusiasm run away with me. It wasn't exactly going to be fun and I was beginning to realise that my commitment was open-ended. Still - I had to start. I got up early on the Monday morning and got to the hospital by seven-thirty to find a scene of organised chaos. Sister Miller handed me a short white coat.

"So you really did mean it! Come along then and I'll introduce you."

My eyes gradually made sense of what was going on. There was food on trays and some of the children were feeding themselves whilst others were getting an occasional spoonful from a nurse who was feeding several at the same time. There were no cups - even the biggest ones were sucking milk or tea from baby's bottles in case they spilled it over their beds. We went halfway down the ward and I suddenly realised that there was a kid lying in his bed and a nurse giving him an enema. She was using just a rectal tube fitted with a large funnel and topping it up from a jug of soapsuds. Nobody seemed to think that it was anything unusual, least of all the little girl concerned who was contentedly sucking on a bottle of tea while her enema proceeded.

"Nurse Wilkins - here's the help I promised you. Finish that one and then show Mr Boyd how to operate the sluice."

The nurse extracted the enema pipe and then lifted the child up while Sister slipped a bedpan into position. The little girl still gave no expression of concern and continued drinking her tea while she peed and moved her bowels. Nurse Wilkins cleaned her up with a handful of tissue and then sprinkled the little butt with powder before she helped the kid back into her pyjama pants and tucked her back in bed.

"Right - follow me."

She carried the bedpan, covered with a cloth, into a room at the end of the ward and opened the round steel door of a large machine.

"Put the bedpan like this. Then move all three clamps into position like this."

She whipped the cloth away and closed the door.

"Now press the bar right down to the floor and release it."

There was the sound of high pressure water from within the machine and I suddenly realised that the washing process was completely automatic.

"Now take it out and stack it on the rack over there."

"It's easy!"

She looked at me with contempt.

"What did you think we did? Scrub them out by hand?"

I followed her back to the ward and she moved to the next bed, helped a boy out of his PJ pants and started on the next enema.

"Do they all get an enema?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Another withering look.

"Because they are very sick children. They can't exert themselves at all and that includes their toilet. We give all of them a quick enema every morning and that makes it easy for them to move their bowels."

She extracted the pipe after a few minutes and lifted him on to a bedpan.

"Can you deal with this? Then I can start on the next bed."

"Yes. I think so."

I supported the boy until he had finished, then I wiped his ass, powdered him and got him back into his pyjamas just like she had done. I hurried off with the bedpan and by the time I got back the next enema was complete. We worked our way right round the ward, boys and girls alike being treated without any thought of privacy. When we were finished, Nurse Wilkins seemed delighted.

"That's marvellous - it only took half the time! Maybe you will be useful after all."

She looked round and then beckoned me into a room marked "Staff Only". It held a few comfortable chairs and tea-making equipment. She felt the teapot.

"Still hot. Milk and sugar?"

"Just milk please."

She poured two cups and handed one to me, then she kicked off her shoes, sat down and started to massage her feet with noises of relief as she restored the circulation. Meanwhile I just kept looking out of the corner of my eye while I held the cup up to my lips and sipped. The view was magnificent and I suddenly discovered that black stockings are really, really sexy. They encased shapely legs and disappeared up into her starched white dress. Phew!

Then she seemed to forget that I was there. She hooked a stool across to her and placed one foot on it so that she could really get to grips. That lifted the front of her dress - the starch prevented it from draping itself modestly around her legs. Now she revealed the thicker black of the stocking tops and incongruously pink garters emerging from the legs of white cotton panties. I took a larger sip of the tea, forgetting that it was scalding hot and yelled in agony as it seared my tongue and the inside of my mouth. I yelled, jumped to my feet, rushed to the sink and held my open mouth under the running tap to take the burn out of my flesh.

The noise attracted Sister Miller, who swirled into the room.

"What on earth has happened here?"

I dried my chin and felt sheepish.

"Sorry. I scalded my mouth - the tea was too hot."

"Nurse Wilkins - I'm sure you have something else to do, or should I find you something?"

Wilkins fled, leaving me alone with Sister Miller. Her anger disappeared like someone had thrown a switch.

"I must say you were a lot more useful than I had thought, Mr Boyd. You did good work this morning."

"Thank you. I'm sorry if I got Nurse Wilkins into any sort of trouble - I was exhausted and she offered me a cup of tea before I left. I never knew nurses worked so hard."

She beamed at me.

"Just make sure you remember that when you become a doctor! Don't worry about Wilkins - she's flighty, but she's a good nurse."

The day at the medical school started with a shock - for me at least. It had never crossed my mind that the anatomy class would involve dissection of an actual person! We all gathered in the main lecture theatre and the Dean himself addressed us in solemn tones, pointing out that the bodies we would be dissecting had been donated for the purposes of medical research and that they must be treated with the utmost reverence. The penalty for misbehaviour in anatomy class was instant dismissal from the medical school. He concluded with what appeared to be a joke.

"....and so, if you do faint, please faint backwards, not over the body."

I looked around me as I heard nervous laughter and realised that I was surrounded by big children. My fellow students had come straight out of highschool - their bodies were still boyish, their cheeks were mainly smooth and... and everything. They were just boys. Did the medical school really intend to let them loose with scalpels on dead bodies?

It did. We marched into a huge room which reeked of formalin and was filled with several rows of steel tables, each of which had a bulging sheet on top of it. I consulted the chart beside the door and identified my table. I had barely gotten there when I was joined by a minuscule girl dressed in what looked like home-knits with her hair cropped as short as any boy's. It was only the fact that she was wearing a skirt that gave a clue to her gender - if she had boobs then they were concealed by the greyish-white wool sweater she was wearing under her lab coat. She stood there, looking bewildered until I stuck out my hand.

"Hello. I'm Jason Boyd and you must be Fiona McGregor."

Her hand was tiny in mine and she whispered something that I assumed was in reply to my greeting. I looked at her and then decided that somebody had to take the plunge, so I pulled the sheet halfway down the body, revealing the corpse of an elderly man. It wasn't pink, it wasn't even white, it was grey and leathery and it had obviously spent a long time immersed in preservative.

I consulted the handout - it said that we had to do a gross dissection of the right forearm. That meant peeling back the skin and exposing the main muscles but without cutting into them - there was a picture in Gray's Anatomy to illustrate the desired result. I had brought my full set of dissecting instruments and I was surprised to see that Fiona had only a scalpel, a pair of scissors and a few probes and retractors while I was fully equipped for major surgery. I felt a fool - nobody else seemed to have much more than she did.

"Will you start or shall I?"

She smiled a nervous smile and then nicked the skin with her scalpel and used the scissors to cut a long incision. There was no blood - just more formalin. She finished the longitudinal incision and then stepped back to let me have a go. I did the transverse at each end, amazed at how tough skin was, and then we both used blunt probes to peel it back.

We worked well together, almost as if we had partnered each other for years. With my copy of Gray propped on the chest, we isolated the major muscles and blood vessels and tied them with string to separate and display them. There were pauses at first, then we got used to each other and co-operated without words as we followed Gray to produce a copy of the illustration. It was simply the most fascinating task I had ever undertaken and I lost track of time as we concentrated on the unfamiliar techniques of separating and isolating.

The only interruptions came from the demonstrators - final year students who earned some cash by supervising us. Even they just stood and watched and then grunted approval before they moved on to one of the noisier tables where a stream of muffled oaths indicated that not everyone was winning.

"Very nice."

I straightened up from the finished job that we were tidying up to see a familiar figure.

"Hello, Professor Miller. We're just about finished."

"So I see. Maybe you should go and get your lunches."

I looked around and realised that we were alone. He laughed at my expression.

"They went half an hour ago, but nobody dared interrupt you two. Give me your cards."

We grinned in glee as he gave us both an A. Fiona headed for the door, but the professor held me back.

"Thank you, Jason. We were all afraid that Fiona might freeze. I'm glad you helped her."

"Helped her? She's brilliant! She helped me!"

"Well, maybe it was mutual, eh?"

"I'll settle for that, professor."

"Go get your lunch - but wash first."

That didn't do much good. The refectory was polarised with us freshers banished to a corner underneath the extractor fans in a vain effort to remove the stench of formaldehyde from the other eaters. I looked around for Fiona, but I could not see her so I gulped down sausage and mashed potato and then hurried to make the afternoon lectures. She came in after me and I was disappointed to see her take a corner seat away from everyone, but that was forgotten as the lecturer launched himself into human physiology and we scribbled frantically to keep up.

I bought a large bottle of strong disinfectant on the way home and tried to wash the smell from my body while my clothes soaked in a bucket for the same purpose. After my bath I hung them above the Aga to dry while I went through my notes and learned the material by heart - I had learned a long time in the past that you had to keep up with the material or you were totally lost.

I reported to the ward early the next morning and Nurse Wilkins wrinkled her nose.

"God - you stink of formalin."

"It's the anatomy dissection. I just can't get rid of it."

She stared at me.

"Surely you don't wear your best clothes for that? You need two separate sets - change before and after the class. Even your underwear."

It was so obvious that it made me feel real stupid. Nurse Wilkins started to mix up her jugs of enema liquid, then she loaded a cart with them and we went into the ward. I was one bed behind her, of course, and that meant I had a real good view of her butt as she leaned forward over each kid to plug the enema pipe in. It triggered some highly lascivious thoughts in me - there was something very, very sexy about that lady.

We went to the staff room again when all of the kids were empty, and again she brewed tea and kicked off her shoes.

"Sore feet - the curse of the nursing profession!"

She put both her feet on a stool and hugged her knees with one hand while she held her cup in the other. It gave me an even better view of the black stockings, the band of pale flesh above their tops, the pink garters and the white panties. It was the sort of pose that four year olds adopt when they are too young to have any idea of modesty and it began to sink into even my primitive brain that it wasn't accidental. That sounds like I was retarded, but in 1950 girls didn't make passes at boys - they sat demurely and prayed that some boy would invite them to the prom or propose marriage. They certainly didn't behave like Helen Wilkins!

I let it ride for a couple of days, but the signals continued to arrive loud and clear and I became more and more conscious of the fact that, apart from my single experience on the boat, I was definitely feeling very deprived of sexual contact. I tried some conversation.

"Don't you ever get bored doing the same thing every day?"

She looked at me and I looked at her panties.

"I'm just a working girl, Jason. It's better than being a typist or slaving in some factory making shirts."

"Well, yes, but you spend all your time giving enemas!"

"No I don't. They are finished by eight-thirty. Then there is the medicine round, wounds to be dressed, children to be fed and washed, beds to be made. They keep us busy all day. Anyway - enemas aren't bad, at lest not with these little ones. It's the older boys who play hell about having to take an enema."

"Older boys?"

"Yes - ones about your age. Most of them hate enemas. Don't you?"

"No. They're okay. They're good for you."

She giggled.

"So who does your enemas then?"

"Nobody. I can do them myself."

"That's quite awkward. Any time you need an enema, just let me know and I'll be glad to administer it for you."

I could hardly believe what she had said. She laughed at my expression and hugged her knees more tightly.

"It's all right, Jason. I used to be on a men's surgical ward before this one and I must have given hundreds of enemas to men - you don't need to be bashful about asking me. Of course, I live in the nurses home, so it would have to be at your place. I hear you rent a nice cottage all by yourself."

"Actually, I bought it. It works out cheaper than renting in the long run."

She stared at me for a while before she got up and returned to the ward.

All the signs were there for me to see that she liked the idea of a rich American doctor as a husband, but I didn't see them at all. Instead I waited a few days and asked her if she would like to go out for a meal one night.

She certainly knew the good restaurants - and that was another clue that I missed. We ate in a modest-looking Italian place that served amazingly good food - at top prices. Still - it was worth every penny not to have to eat stew or sausage, mash and brown gravy and to drink a chilled white wine instead of warm chewy Scottish ale. When we had finished it was about ten and I offered to drive Helen home. She shook her head.

"No. Why don't you show me this cottage you own?"

I got that message okay. The wine had put me in the mood and Helen was positively drooling. When we arrived, Helen investigated the place with enthusiasm and bounced on the bed with obvious enjoyment. Then she started to rummage in the bathroom and finally emerged with the enema equipment.

"I knew it would be somewhere in there! Get undressed while I fill this!"

"What?"

"Come on - you know you want this. Don't waste time - just get your clothes off."

It was a shock that she was so blunt about it. I had always justified enemas to others, at least publicly, on grounds of health or hygiene but Helen made no pretence. When she returned with the full bag, I was already down to my shorts. She nodded at me - and then proceeded to take her own clothes off before she made me lie on the bed.

"Lie on your back."

She inspected me when I was in position.

"Circumcised, eh? That's nice - circumcised men last longer!"

She ran her fingers lightly over my erection and then pursed her lips and blew air at the head - nobody had done that to me before and it felt real good.

"Right - pull your legs up to your chest."

When I complied, she grabbed my dick in one hand and at the same time plunged a greased finger up my ass. She certainly knew all about the prostate gland because she attacked it vigorously while she squeezed rather than rubbed my erection. I was just on the point of coming when she abruptly stopped.

"Let's not waste it. It's enema time!"

She plunged the rectal tube into my greased anus without any resistance. I lowered my legs as she opened the clip and the first rush of water entered my rectum. Helen proved to be an absolute artist with an enema bag - she alternated sudden blasts of liquid with attention to my raging erection, taking me to the brink of ecstasy and then cooling things down for a while until I wanted to scream at her to finish things. Then she lowered her mouth on to my dick and flicked the clip wide open...

I think I actually passed out for a few moments as I experienced a level of sexual pleasure that transcended mere mortality. I staggered out to the john and, when I returned, Helen put her arms round me and kissed me passionately. That restored my vitality - those were the days! - and I laid her down on the bed and made my first move towards her. She jumped up quickly.

"Wait - not yet."

She opened her purse and pulled out a circular rubber object. Then she smeared it with something and placed one foot on the bed to allow her to slip the thing inside of her sex. She laughed at my bewilderment.

"Haven't you ever seen a diaphragm before? I don't want to get pregnant, do I?"

I realised what it was for at that point and I wondered if it was just something they used in Britain. Whatever, it was a comforting thought that she couldn't get pregnant!

I got my revenge on Helen. Mrs Watson had taught me a lot in our one and only session in her cabin and Helen's manipulation had just about completely desensitised my dick. I was rock hard and I stayed that way as I fucked her to a climax - and then a second one. Then she shocked me more than I imagined possible. She rolled away from me and dipped her finger into the vaseline, then thrust it into her asshole and worked it around before she turned on to her face and raised her butt slightly.

The invitation was unmistakeable and unbelievable. I knew that queers did it that way, but I had never imagined that a woman would want it in there!

"Gently, Jason. Do it gently."

I accepted the offer, for the sake of curiosity if nothing else. I positioned the head of my dick against her anus and pushed gently. There was a resistance, then it slid inside. The feeling was just incredible - I was gripped tightly and smoothly and it just about fried what little brain remained in my skull as I started to move in and out. She screamed with pleasure and that broke the dam that was holding back my orgasm. I thrust harder and then I subsided into a prolonged and draining orgasm that left me weak and shivering from its intensity.

I lay there and slowly recovered while Helen stood up and moved over to the enema bag. She was completely casual about it - she slipped the tube into position and ran in the rest of the water from the bag, then she padded to the outhouse to empty her bowels.

When she returned we both got dressed and I made some proper coffee to revive my energy. She sipped it with appreciation.

"You Americans - you have all the money, don't you? This is a really nice house, you have a car and you can eat in the best places. When can we do this again?"

It was the hungry look in her eyes that finally made the alarm bells in my head start to ring. One the suspicion started to sprout, everything suddenly fell into place. Helen was no older than me and I had always reckoned that I was much more sexually experienced than most guys my age, but she was way, way ahead of me. She had even gotten that diaphragm thing so that she didn't need to worry and I was obviously not the first conquest - not by a long way. She had started the first time we met to work up to this and she obviously had plans for the future. Worst of all, although the sex had been fantastic, it had been planned in advance and executed with almost military precision.

"I'm not sure, Helen. I really need to work hard for the next couple of weeks - we have a test coming up and I have to pass it to stay on the course."

She pouted.

"Don't you love me?"

I wanted to tell her that I had never gotten close to love with her, but I chickened out.

"It doesn't matter how much I love you. I just have to pass that test if I want to stay here. If I fail, I'm going back to America to try to get into a medical school there because they don't give you any second chances here."

It was an inspired statement. She looked alarmed and then she just nodded.

"Yes - I see how important it is. We can wait for a couple of weeks, can't we?"

"Get your coat - I'll drive you home before they lock up."

I delivered her to the nurses home and turned back towards the cottage. I didn't make it before my guts rebelled and I had to stop by the side of the road and puke into the ditch, revolted with both Helen and myself. How the hell could I have been so naïve? And how the hell was I going to get out of this mess?

Next morning, I sought out Sister Miller before I actually entered the ward.

"Sister, I was wondering if maybe I could work with the post-operative patients for a while? There must be things I could do there and it would give me a better view of the process."

Her bright eyes seemed to drill a hole right into my brain. She nodded.

"Yes - it might be a good idea at that. It's time Nurse Wilkins got down to her job again instead of having the time for social chit-chat with you. She's always looking for a way out of her work, you know."

That left me wondering just what she meant as we went into the other half of the cardiac ward. The atmosphere there was totally different - the children were brighter, they could feed themselves and most of them were allowed out of bed, mainly to sit in chairs in a corner of the room which had been made into a sort of activity centre where they could read, draw, paint and play gentle games.

Sister introduced me to the staff nurse - a cheerful, bustling woman - and then left. I asked the obvious question.

"What do you want me to do?"

She looked around and I followed her gaze. Then she pointed to the corner.

"What I would really like you to do is to look after that area for me. We have to get the children washed and fed, see to their dressings and give them their medicine. We really don't have the time to keep them amused once they are done and they usually start squabbling. I know it's not the sort of thing that a medical student expects to do, but it would be a tremendous help if you could keep them occupied."

"Sure - I don't mind doing that at all. It's better than bedpans!"

She laughed.

"We have to use them for the children who are still recovering from their operation, but we want the rest of them to get back to normal life, so they use the ordinary toilets. A little gentle exercise does them good."

I really enjoyed my session in the activity corner. It was no problem to keep them busy with pencils or crayons and they were just like all little kids - they wanted someone to see what they had done and praise them for it. The time just flew past until the staff nurse came to remind me that it was getting close to nine o'clock. The kids were actually sorry to see me go.

"Jason - are you coming back tomorrow?"

"Maybe. But be a good boy anyway, will you?"

Staff seemed pleased.

"You've got a gift with them, Jason, and it was really good not to have to run back and forth to settle their arguments."

I rushed over and just made it in time for the start of the anatomy class where we had progressed to the detail of nerves and major blood vessels - all with names that had to be learned, of course - leading to the horrors of the armpit and the incredible complications of the brachial plexus. Fiona had gradually started to relax with me and when we finally exposed the radial nerve with all of its branches and peculiar routes and got it signed up on our cards she gave a sigh of relief and covered up the dissection.

"I can't do any more today."

I shrugged.

"That's fine - we're way ahead of everyone else. Lets get some fresh air. Meet me outside when you get changed."

She looked alarmed, then she relaxed.

"All right, if that's what you want."

Not for the first time, I felt like kicking her butt and yelling at her that she was allowed to have preferences as well, but that would have made her run away and hide, so I just agreed. We met outside - it was mid November by then and a crisp clear day - and I breathed the fresh air gratefully.

"Gee, Fiona, it sure smells funny when there's no formalin in the air!"

She actually giggled at that feeble joke. We walked along in silence before she spoke again.

"Jason, can I ask you a question? A personal question?"

"Ask whatever you like."

"Are you ill?"

"Me? No! What makes you think that?"

"Well - somebody was saying that you had to go to the heart unit in the hospital every day. I thought it must be really bad if you had to go there every morning before class."

I couldn't help it. I had to sir on a low wall and I laughed until the tears ran down my cheeks while Fiona looked increasingly miserable. Finally I managed to speak again.

"I'm not ill at all. I go over there to do some voluntary work with the children."

"You do? What sort of work?"

"Well, up until this morning I've been mainly cleaning bedpans, but today I ran a sort of play group for the post-operative kids. They don't have many things to play with though."

And then I realised that was something I could fix.

"Wait here. I'm going to get my jeep."

I ran back to the medical school and got it, then I picked Fiona up.

"Get in."

"Were are we going?"

"Wait and see! You'll like it!"

I drove to Sauchiehall Street and stopped outside of Smith's toy shop. Fiona was like a child herself as we selected a dozen small toys that little kids could play quietly with. I paid for them and then looked at my watch.

"It's getting late. I'll buy you lunch for being so helpful."

She was reluctant, but I eventually persuaded her. She ate quickly and hungrily and I jokingly asked if they didn't feed her properly in her lodgings. She blushed.

"Not very well and not as nice as this! Thank you."

"My pleasure."

"Jason, do you think that they would let me help like you do?"

"I don't know. I'll ask Sister."

I deliberately didn't take the toys in next morning and I did ask Sister Miller of Fiona could come and help.

"That's the wee girl from the islands?"

"Yes. She's very nice and I'm sure she would be good with the children."

"My husband speaks well of her. Bring her on Saturday morning."

She did know about Helen Wilkins, or at the very least she suspected. Saturday was Helen's day off and she always went to see her parents in Greenock.

Fiona was delighted when I gave her the news and she was waiting on Saturday when I arrived. Sister Miller greeted her with a broad smile and we went into the post-operative ward with the sack of toys.. I handed them over to Staff with the statement that they came from Fiona and me. We put them in the corner and soon had the kids playing quietly, all apart from three who seemed very excited.

"What's going on with them, Staff?"

"Oh - they're going home today. The professor gave them his final examination yesterday and their parents are coming to collect them at midday. We just need to get them clean and tidy first."