“My member,” the Major said, “was now like a whitehot rod of iron burning into my body. I leaped up from my chair and rushed to my car and drove like a madman for the nearest hospital, which was in Khartoum. I got there in forty minutes flat. I was scared fartless.”

“Now wait just a minute,” the Gwendoline creature said. “I’m still not quite following you. Exactly why were you so frightened?”

Boy, what a dreadful girl. I should never have invited her. The Major, to his great credit, ignored her completely this time.

“I dashed into the hospital,” he went on, “and found the casualty room where an English doctor was stitching up somebody’s knife wound. ‘Look at this!’ I cried, taking it out and waving it at him.”

“Waving what at him, for heaven’s sake?” the awful Gwendoline asked.

“Shut up, Gwendoline,” I said.

“Thank you,” the Major said. “The doctor stopped stitching and regarded the object I was holding out to him with some alarm. I quickly told him my story. He looked glum. There was no antidote for Blister Beetle, he informed me. I was in grave trouble. But he would do his best. So they stomach-pumped me and put me to bed and packed ice all around my poor throbbing member.”

“Who did?” someone asked. “Who’s they?”

“A nurse,” the Major answered. “A young Scottish nurse with dark hair. She brought the ice in small rubber bags and packed it round and kept the bags in place with a bandage.”

“Didn’t you get frostbite?”

“You can’t get frostbite on something that’s practically red hot,” the Major said.

“What happened next?”

“They kept changing the ice every three hours day and night.”

“Who, the Scottish nurse?”

“They took it in turns. Several nurses.”

“Good God.”

“It took two weeks to subside.”

“Two weeks!” I said. “Were you all right afterwards, sir? Are you all right now?”