A few days before I meet David Nott for lunch, he is in Kharkiv, operating on victims of Russian drone strikes. A few days later, when you read this, he’s in the West Bank, teaching doctors how to suture blood vessels and bowels.
Nott’s work as a surgeon in conflict zones has probably saved thousands of lives. Many people call him a hero. But the man waiting for me is not from Hollywood casting. He is gentle, shy and wide-eyed. Sitting at a long table, he looks more likely to sell raffle tickets than to tell war stories. His soft voice barely registers over the clatter of the brasserie. He has the hesitant air of, if not exactly a rabbit in the headlights, perhaps a rabbit in a French restaurant.
“One of the translators in Kharkiv said, ‘The only person who doesn’t know who David Nott is, is you,’” he tells me, smiling. “And I think that’s true. I sometimes live in this world of looking at what I have achieved, or what has been achieved on my behalf by other people, and it doesn’t seem to be me.” When teaching fellow surgeons, he wonders of himself: “Blimey O’Reilly, how do you know all this?”