Green for Danger by Christianna Brand Page B

in. After that I gave an injection of adrenalin and after that we gave him a shot of coramine, intramuscularly; finally I gave him some into a vein; but it was all no use.”
    â€œAnd these are literally the only things that were used on him?”
    â€œYes, definitely; unless you count the injection of morphia and atropine an hour before the operation began?”
    Cockrill considered. “No, for the moment I’m only interested in what happened here in the theatre.”
    â€œWell, that’s absolutely all,” said Barney, looking surreptitiously at his watch.
    Cockrill observed the glance and grinned to himself; he made no comment on it, however, but continued steadily with his questions: “These injections—you gave them all yourself?”
    â€œI gave the adrenalin, and the second lot of coramine, intravenously. The V.A.D. gave the other dose, into the muscle.”
    â€œWho, Miss Woods?”
    â€œYes, that’s right.” He pointed to a row of little glass ampoules, similar to those sold by tobacconists for filling cigarette lighters. “This is the coramine. You just break the thing open and suck the stuff up into a hypodermic.”
    â€œAnd the adrenalin?”
    â€œIn a bottle.”
    â€œCould there have been anything wrong with the bottle?”
    â€œThere could, I suppose, though heaven knows what or how; but I’ve used it since, and anyway the man was already collapsing when I gave him the first injection.”
    â€œI see. So that all that was used before things began to go wrong was really just the gas and oxygen?”
    â€œThat’s absolutely all. I gave pure nitrous oxide first, to get him under.…”
    â€œThe black cylinder,” said Cockie, scowling at it.
    â€œThat’s right; and then added oxygen till the mixture was about fifty-fifty.…”
    â€œThe black cylinder with the white top …?”
    â€œYes,” said Barney again, grinning faintly at this naïve summary of his lesson.
    â€œAnd they both passed through the water in the first bottle on the bracket, the clear glass one; bubbling out of the two outside tubes in the bottle, and mixing above the surface of the water and then passing along this big rubber tube to the patient.”
    â€œYou’d better come and give the next lot yourself, Cockie,” said Barney, laughing.
    Cockrill made a little movement of irritation at this misplaced levity; he continued stolidly: “And all these tubes from the cylinders to the glass bottle—they definitely weren’t crossed or mixed up in any way?”
    â€œNo, definitely not. Moon and Eden and I all checked them over till we were blue in the face. There was nothing wrong with the trolley.”
    Cockrill was silent, swivelling gently to and fro on the stool. He said at last: “I suppose you will think this is funny too—but would it be possible to have the wrong gas in a cylinder? Would it be possible to empty one and fill it with something else?”
    Barney, far from being amused, was shocked to the core by such a suggestion. “Good heavens, no. It would be impossible. It takes terrific pressure to fill these things; that’s why they’re made so strong.”
    â€œOh,” said Cockrill, continuing to swivel.
    â€œEven supposing it could happen—supposing you got nitrous oxide in an oxygen cyclinder, for example—it wouldn’t work, because the reducing valves of the oxygen and nitrous oxide cylinders are different. The things wouldn’t fit and you’d soon find out what was happening.”
    â€œWhat about the green tube in the middle—the carbon dioxide?”
    â€œWell, yes, that’s the same size valve,” admitted Barney.
    â€œAll right then; supposing, just for the sake of argument, that you somehow got carbon dioxide in an oxygen cylinder, a black and white cylinder … supposing the manufacturers made a mistake, for