Death of a houseman

For the whole of a six month house job half a lifetime ago, he was my friend, colleague, and doppelganger. The rota was grim, a one in two made worse by Saturday receiving: so no weekends off, ever. And once there was a minor misunderstanding and we were both dismissed with immediate effect by a surgical chieftain who was surprised to learn shortly afterwards that he couldn't do that sort of thing any more. We survived. Soon afterwards we …