Sherwood  Spirit   by  Jacquie Groom

[Surgical Spirit is a British comedy series.  It's based around the character of Sheila Sabatini, a sarcastic surgeon with very little patience for men.  Duncan Preston, who played Von Erlichshausen in the episode 'Seven Poor Knights from Acre,' is her long-suffering anaesthetist, Jonathan Haslam.]

'Jonathan !'

Sheila Sabatini's strident voice echoed down the corridors.  Dr. Jonathan Haslam sunk deeper into his chair and pulled the newspaper further over his face.  He'd seen enough of Sheila for one morning.  All he wanted was a few minutes peace.

The door to the surgeons' room opened, and Jonathan tensed himself.  He knew what was coming.  Any moment now, the newspaper would be ripped from his face and tossed into the bin.  And an angry face would be staring down at him, tearing his character to shreds, demanding ...

He sat up.  It hadn't happened.  Cautiously, fearing a trick, Jonathan peered over the top of the paper.  Neil Copeland was standing by the coffee machine, staring pensively at the murky brown liquid in the pot. 'Someone really should complain,' he said. 'Things are getting worse and worse round here.'

Jonathan buried his face in his paper once more. 'Try telling Joyce,' he said. 'You two spend more time drinking it than anyone else.'

Copeland, his face glum, nodded as he stirred in another spoonful of sugar.  'By the way,' he said. 'Did you realise that Sabatini woman is yelling the place down for you ? Something about being due in Theatre 3 five minutes ago.'

Sheila's anaesthetist dug himself deeper into his chair. 'She's been going non-stop since eight this morning.  I sometimes think she's determined to cut the NHS's waiting lists single-handed.'  He put his feet up on the coffee table. 'Well, I need a few minutes rest.  I've put so many patients to sleep today, I'm in serious danger of nodding off myself.'

Neil Copeland raised his eyebrows. 'Standing up to Sabatini, I see.  Very brave.'  He stood still for a moment, then headed for the door. 'I think I'll find somewhere quieter to drink this.'

The door opened a crack, and the rabbit-like face of Giles, Sheila's registrar, appeared.  He coughed nervously. 'Dr. Haslam ?' he said. 'Dr. Sabatini is waiting for you.'

'I know,' Jonathan said with a sigh. 'I'll be there in five minutes.  I've just got to borrow some supplies from Simon.  Tell her to keep her hair on.'

Giles glanced down the corridor. 'I think I'll phrase that slightly differently, if you don't mind.'

The room was quiet once more.  Jonathan closed his eyes. 'Just for a moment,' he thought. 'Just one moment.'

He woke up with a jump.  He was staring through a letter-box.

Correction.  He was inside a letter box.

Something hard, metal-cold, was in his hands.  He glanced downwards, peering through the strange, coal-scuttle like contraption that seemed to be on his head.

It was a sword.

Jonathan gulped.

A large, ugly sword.  One that looked as if it meant business.

For a man who had serious qualms about killing even such nasties as mosquitos, it did not augur well for the future.

Where on earth was he ? What little he could see from inside his pillar-box prison did not give much away.  Blueish sky.  Green grass.  The sound of wind blowing through tree-tops.  It smelt ...

It smelt like burning.  Someone had lit a bonfire behind him.

But the smell was not the pleasant, smoky smell of garden rubbish.  It was more ... reminiscent of ...

It hit him.

Burning flesh.

Involuntarily, Jonathan turned round.  A great mound of twigs and branches was smouldering behind him.  Flames licked round an object in the centre.  A body.  Unmistakeably a body.

And for the first time Jonathan saw his companions.  And their garments and stance brought back hazy memories of history lessons.  The crusades.  The ..

Knights Templar.

He turned back round, and shut his eyes.

'Let me wake up now,' he pleaded silently. ' I'll do a million gastrectomies.  A thousand appendectomies.  Patients from now till Christmas.  Just let me wake up ...'

He opened his eyes.   It hadn't worked.

'Nous confions notre frere aux feux purificateurs.  C'est une morte pleine de gloire, mes freres...'  It was obviously their leader who spoke.  Surprisingly, Jonathan found he understood the words.  But, a bit of breton folk music notwithstanding, he was hopeless at languages ...

The words changed into latin.  It must have been the funeral service.  Jonathan stood and stared into the forest beyond.  Suddenly he noticed a figure slip from the undergrowth and make his way stealthily to where the templars had made their camp.  A slim, dark-haired figure, dressed in greens and browns.   Making his way to where a  young lad was tied to a hefty stake.

Jonathan smiled.   Always one to favour the underdog, he silently willed the youth on.  The lad who wriggled and writhed by the stake looked harmless enough.  Especially compared to the knights, with their grim faces and grimmer swords.

A few  more feet ...

Caught.

It happened so quickly, Jonathan could not work out what had gone wrong.  One moment the escape had been well under way, the next - swords raised, the dark-haired man was surrounded.  Forced to fight.  He raised a sword that seemed to glow softly in the faint sunshine.

And their leader - de Villaret, the name came to him suddenly, he knew not where from - lifted his mighty weapon and began the fight in earnest.

Jonathan could hardly bear to look.  De Villaret looked vicious, driven.  And his opponent ... there was something in his eyes.  Desperation, surely, but something more.  A light, a truth.  But he was no match for the Knight Templar, newly returned from the Holy Lands.  One of the mightiest fighting machines of the land.  And soon he lay on the ground, his sword wrenched from his hand.  And de Villaret called him a thief.  And sentenced him to a trial by battle.

'And you, confrere, shall be our champion...'

The words hung in the air for a moment before Jonathan realised they were all looking at him.  Him ? Fight this - this lad ? He couldn't.  Could he ?

He had no choice.

He'd never seen anything like it.  A chain, maybe three feet long.  With a wicked, vicious ball at the end of it.  And it wasn't made of polystyrene, either.  It was heavy.  And deadly.  They put a shield in his other hand, and sent him out to fight.

Slowly they circled, the reluctant anaesthetist and the young man with such burning passion in his emerald eyes.  Jonathan wanted to say something.  To reassure him that he was not who he appeared to be.  That he was in no danger.

But how could he ?

Round and round they went, iron ball clanging against metal shield.

And suddenly the lad was down.

Something deep in his mind, belonging to the knight, not the doctor, said he should move in, finish him off.  But Jonathan couldn't.  He hesitated.  Stepped back.  And the lad got up.

And it was his turn to be hit.  Pain.  Such as he had never had in his life.  And the iron ball was swinging wildly at him.  And was coming closer ...

'Jonathan !' 

The voice was sharp and angry.  And beautiful.  And as Jonathan looked up into Sheila Sabatini's face, he thought it was the most marvellous thing in the world.  He jumped up from his chair, and soundly kissed her.

Some time later,   Dr Jonathan Haslam, satisfied his patient was well asleep, reached under the trolley for the book he kept there.  A new one today, one plucked at random, as usual, from one of the charity shops he found himself unable to keep away from.  With a yawn he opened the first page.  And began to read. 

Some time later, with a frown, he turned back to look at the title.  'Robin of Sherwood,' it said.  By Richard Carpenter.

With a shrug, he carried on reading.