Читать книгу In the Wet - Nevil Shute Norway - Страница 4

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Sister Finlay came out on to the verandah behind me. I turned, and told her that Stevie was sick. She nodded briefly, and I knew that she had been expecting this. “Where is he sick, Liang?” she asked. “Show me just where the place is.”

He put his hand upon his abdomen and rubbed it over a fairly wide area. “He sick here.”

“Does that mean anything to you?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “It might be almost anything.” She turned to Liang. “Has he been taking anything for it?”

Perhaps there was a tiny hesitation. “Hot cloths,” he said. “I put hot cloths on belly. Very hot water, sister.”

“And that didn’t do any good?”

“No, sister.”

“Why didn’t you bring him in here with you?”

Liang said, “He no understand me—him mind away. I no can lift him, put in jinker. I no know what to do, and then I think better come for help.”

She stood biting her lip for a minute. “We’ll have to get him in here, Liang,” she said. “He can’t be nursed out there.”

“He very sick,” he said. “We take stretcher and put stretcher on the cart, maybe.”

“What’s the road like?” I asked. “Did you have much difficulty getting in here, Liang?”

“Or-right,” he said. “Water near house, one mile, two mile.” He put his hand down to within nine or ten inches of the floor. “Deep like that. Then road or-right.”

A mile or more of shallow water wasn’t quite so good, but the old horse could pull the light two-wheeled cart where no motor vehicle could go.

“All right, Liang,” said Sister Finlay. “I’ll come back with you. If we go at once, can we get to your place before dark?”

He nodded. “We start quick, sister.”

I turned to him. “How long did it take you to get in here, Liang?”

“I no got watch,” he said. “I think two hours, maybe.”

It was nearly three in the afternoon, and in that overcast weather it would be dark before six. I had never been to Liang’s house but I had been told that it was ten miles out; clearly in the conditions the old horse would not go very fast. I turned to Sister Finlay. “We’d better get away as soon as we can. I’ll come with you, sister.”

She hesitated for a moment. “You’d better stay here,” she said. “I’ll get Sergeant Donovan to come out with us. I don’t want you getting a relapse.”

“I ought to go,” I said. “If the man’s likely to die, I should be with him.”

“He won’t die before we get him back here to the hospital,” she said. “I’ll take some dopes with me. All I want is somebody to help me get him on the cart and bring him in. No, you stay here. I’ll pick up Donovan on the way out.”

It was sensible, of course; I had only been out of bed a day or two. “I tell you what I’ll do,” I said. “While you’re getting ready, I’ll go on down and warn Donovan, so that he’ll be ready to start when you come past with Liang.” There are no telephones in Landsborough.

“That’d be a help,” she said. “I’ll be about a quarter of an hour.”

I went and slipped on a pair of trousers and a raincoat and shoes, and set off down the road to the police sergeant’s house. Mrs. Donovan came out to meet me on the verandah. “Afternoon, Mrs. Donovan,” I said. “Is Arthur in?”

“Why, Mr. Hargreaves!” she said. “I heard you’d been sick—I do hope you’re recovered. Art’s gone to Millangarra—he rode out this morning.”

“When’s he coming back?”

“He’ll have stayed for dinner,” she said. “He said he’d be back before dark. Is it anything important?”

I told her briefly what had happened. “Jim Phillips is still on leave?”

“I’m afraid he is, Mr. Hargreaves. I don’t know what to suggest, unless she took one of the black boys. Dicky might go.”

I shook my head. “I’ll go with her myself. When Arthur comes in, tell him where we’ve gone, will you? If we’re not back by ten o’clock tomorrow morning, ask him to ride out that way and have a look. I’m just a bit afraid that with all this rain the water may be rising.”

“I think it will,” she said. “Liang Shih got through all right, did he?”

“Didn’t have any difficulty,” I told her. “If you’d just tell Art when he comes in.”

I met Liang and Sister coming towards me in the cart as I walked back towards the hospital. “Donovan’s away,” I said. “He’s gone to Millangarra—I left a message.” I swung myself up into the cart. “I’ll come with you, sister.”

“I don’t like it, Mr. Hargreaves. There must be someone who could come.”

“I’ll be all right,” I said. “If we waste time looking for somebody you won’t get there in daylight.”

She said no more, because it would be most dangerous to go wandering about in darkness in the flooded Queensland bush; it was imperative that the journey should be finished in daylight. We stopped for a minute or two at the vicarage while I went in and picked up my little case of sacramental vessels and a small electric torch, and then we started out upon the road to Dorset Downs. It was raining steadily.

One of the characteristics of that part of North Queensland is that it is entirely featureless; it is a flat country with no hills or mountain ranges, covered in sparse forest and intersected with river beds. The view is exactly the same whichever way you look, and the sun gives little guidance in the middle of the day at that time of the year, for it is directly overhead. It is a very easy country to get bushed in; the sense of direction can be easily lost, and when that happens the only safe course is to camp till the evening when the setting sun will show the direction of the west.

That afternoon there was no sun in any case; we plodded on through the rain, the old horse sometimes trotting on hard patches but more often walking and labouring in the shafts to pull the jinker over the soft ground. In half an hour I had lost all sense of direction; we might have been going north or south, or east or west for all I knew. Liang, however, knew the way; from time to time he showed us broken trees or a side track branching off into the bush that were familiar signposts to him on the road he knew so well.

We were all of us wet through in a very short time, of course, but with the temperature still in the eighties that was no great matter; there was little risk of a chill, because there was no wind at all. We sat there in a row on the bench seat of the jinker, motionless but for the movement of our bodies as the wheels bumped and swayed over the uneven ground, not talking, depressed. The grey, monotonous scene and the hot, steaming rain, and perhaps a sense of the futility of our mission to relieve this drink-sodden old man, all these conspired to rob us of all wish to talk. For my part, although it was my duty to go to offer spiritual consolation to any man near to his death, I went with the knowledge that my offer to Stevie would almost certainly be spurned, and I could not help thinking of the cheerful, green painted hospital rooms that I had left to come upon this somewhat worthless errand.

Presently we came to pools and standing water on the road, and soon the pools were continuous and we were driving through water several inches deep, the old horse making a great splashing as he plodded on. I roused myself, and said to Liang, “Has the water risen much since you came out this morning?”

He said, “No water here this morning. Water deeper now.”

“What do you think about it? Will we be able to get to your house?”

“Or-right,” he said. “We get to house or-right.”

He kept on steadily, and though now we could seldom see the track it was clear that he never left it, for the wheels rolled beneath the water on fairly hard ground. With the approach of evening the light began to fail, or possibly it was that the clouds were getting thicker. I asked Liang, “How much further have we got to go? How long before we get there?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Two-three mile, maybe.”

“Think we’ll get there before dark?”

“Or-right,” he said. “We get there before dark.”

Presently we came to land that undulated slightly, so that islands of dry land appeared among the floods, and here we had to go more cautiously, for we were getting to a region that was cut up by tributaries of the Dorset River. We crossed one or two small creeks, places that Liang identified carefully and where the depth of water reached almost to the wheel hubs. Presently, as we drove cautiously through one of these rising creeks, we saw a very unpleasant sight.

There were three or four Hereford cows standing on a dry piece of land quite near to us, part of the Dorset Downs station. One of these cows standing near the water’s edge had a small calf running with her, only two or three days old. The cow raised her head to look at us as we splashed past, and moved in curiosity a little nearer to us, and to the water’s edge. The calf moved nearer to the water, too.

I happened to be looking at them, and I saw the whole thing happen. The long nose of a crocodile thrust quietly up out of the water and the jaws closed upon the near foreleg of the calf; there was a great thrashing in the water and a struggling as the brute dragged the calf under. The thrashing and the struggling went on under the water for a time, and then everything was still. The cow did nothing about it, but stood looking puzzled.

Sister Finlay said, “We should have brought a rifle.”

“I never thought of it,” I said. “I should have borrowed one from Mrs. Donovan.”

We went on in silence after that, busy with our own thoughts, and now the water was over a foot deep, and the light was definitely going. Presently Liang pointed with his whip to a ridge of dry land ahead of us, perhaps a mile away across the surface of the water. “House,” he said. “House on land.”

“That’s your house, is it?” I asked him. “Where we’re going to?”

He nodded, and at that moment we went down into the hole. It was impossible, of course, to see the track ahead of us, and perhaps I had distracted Liang’s attention from the course. Whatever was the reason, one moment we were on firm ground and the next moment the old horse was swimming, and the jinker was rolling down an underwater bank pushing the horse further out.

Liang dropped the reins and stood up, and plunged over the side to go to the horse’s head; he must have known the ground, for he was wading hardly more than waist deep. I hesitated for a moment, and then, shamed by the old Chinaman, I plunged in from my side to go to the horse on the near side and to lighten the jinker. The water was out of my depth, and I swam to the horse’s head with the thought of a crocodile searing on my mind, terrified. My feet touched ground at the same moment as the horse’s feet, and then Liang and I were on each side of his head as he fought and strained to climb the steep underwater bank and pull the sinking jinker up it. Sister Finlay was standing up, uncertain whether to get out and swim. I shouted to her to stay where she was.

With a series of strains and heaves the horse pulled the jinker up the bank and stood in a foot of water, quivering with fright. I was quivering no less, and even Liang was disturbed, I think, because we all got back into the jinker in remarkably short time, out of the way of the crocodiles.

“Well, that’s all right,” I said rather stupidly, because one has to say something when one is frightened. “There must have been a hole there.” And then I looked around, “Everything all right?”

And then I saw that everything was far from right. The tailboard of the jinker had fallen down, and Sister Finlay’s case and my case of sacramental vessels were no longer in the cart with us. They must have slid out as the jinker was pulled up the bank, and they were nowhere to be seen.

“Hold on a minute,” I said to Liang. “We’ve lost the cases.” I looked under the seat, but they were not there. Darkness was falling quickly, and the water behind us looked grey and menacing, and deep enough, I knew, to hold a crocodile. My own case could lie there till the dry weather, perhaps, for in emergency I could give the Sacrament in a teacup and had often done so, but the sister’s case was essential. Without her drugs and medicines she could do little to relieve her patient.

“Wait a minute while I find them,” I said, and slipped down into the water again, absolutely terrified. Sister Finlay said, “Come back, Mr. Hargreaves!” but I did up the tailboard of the jinker and started to walk slowly back, feeling under water with my feet to find the cases, miserable with fear. When I was about waist deep down the submerged bank my foot touched one of them and I stooped down in the water and picked it out; as luck would have it, it was my own case of sacramental vessels.

“Here’s one of them,” I said. “The other one won’t be far off,” and I waded back and put it in the jinker. Liang and Sister Finlay were expostulating with me, but I was too shaken with my terror to answer them, and I started back into the pool to look for the other case. I could not touch it with my feet, and when the water was up to my shoulders I dived down, and searched for it under water with my hands among the mud and grass. When I came to the surface Liang and Sister Finlay were splashing through the water to me; they seized me one on each side and began to propel me back to the jinker.

“I’ll find it in a minute,” I said. “Let me have one more try.” And Sister Finlay said, “You’re absolutely crazy. This place is full of crocodiles. I can manage without it tonight.”

“But it’s got all your medicines in it,” I said.

She was quite angry. “Get back into that cart at once,” she said. “I don’t know how you could be such a fool.” We were all very frightened secretly, of course, or she wouldn’t have spoken to me in that way.

We all got back into the jinker in silence, and Liang touched the old horse with the whip; he strained and we moved forward. It was really getting quite dark now; we could still see the loom of the dry land ahead of us, but I could see no sign of the house. I found out soon that the land on which the house stood was a ridge a mile or so in length between two creeks, which was so high that it was never flooded; the house was at one end of this dry ridge and we were approaching it from the other.

We plodded on through the water in the dusk; the water grew shallower and the old horse went faster, and presently in the dim light the track appeared before us winding through the gum trees, and we were on dry land. And then we saw a most extraordinary sight. The ground under the trees was covered as usual with a light growth of stunted scrub and grass and bracken fern, and in this undergrowth were animals, hundreds and hundreds of them. I saw Hereford cows and bulls, and Brahmah bulls, and scores of wallabies, and several enormous black wild pigs with long faces and savage tusks. There were dogs there, too—dingoes, perhaps, or cattle dogs gone wild and breeding in the bush. There were plains turkeys there stalking about like little emus, and there were goannas and lizards and snakes upon the track ahead of us, gliding off out of our way. All these animals had swum and walked and crawled and hopped and crept to this sanctuary of dry land among the floods, and now they stood looking at us as we passed in the half light.

I said to Liang, “Do you get all these animals here every year, in the wet?”

He nodded. “Every year.” He turned and grinned at me. “I Buddhist. Animals, they know. I no eat um.”

We plodded on through the trees, and now I was impatient to arrive. We had sat upon the hard seat of the jinker for about three hours, and I was beginning to feel quite unwell. As I have said, my temperature had been rising every evening just a point or so, but now I was feeling hot and I was having difficulty in focussing my eyes and thinking clearly. I was very much annoyed at the thought that my fever might be coming back again; at all costs I must suppress it till I got back to Landsborough next day. I felt that if I could get down out of the jinker and have a long drink of cold water, and sit quietly in a comfortable chair for a little I should be all right, and able to carry on with what I had to do that night without letting Sister Finlay see that I was not very well.

I was thankful when at last we saw the house in the last of the light. It was a poor little place of two rooms built of weatherboard with an iron roof; whatever paint there might once have been on it was now bleached and blown away, and it had weathered to the normal grey colour of ancient wood. It was built on posts as usual in that country, and a short flight of steps led up to a rickety verandah. A tumble-down fence surrounded it and stretched away into the darkness.

There was no light in the house.

Liang got down from the jinker and tied the reins to the fence and went up the steps; we followed him. It was quite dark under the roof and we heard him striking a match; a sputter of flame followed, and Liang made some kind of exclamation. Then he lit a candle that was standing in a saucer on a table; as the light slowly grew we could take in the scene.

There was a bed in the room with a mosquito net, but this net was thrown back disclosing the soiled, rumpled sheet and pillow. Stevie was lying on this bed clothed in shirt and trousers, with bare feet; only the top button of the trousers was done up. On a chair beside the bed was a small spirit lamp, and a slender metal pipe with a tiny bowl, and a saucer with some brown stuff in it; there was a heavy, acrid smell about the room. On the floor beside the bed a cheap paraffin lamp, the sort that hangs upon a wall, lay overturned; the oil had flowed out of this and made a pool upon the wooden floor. Stevie did not appear to be conscious.

Liang went forward and picked up the lamp and swept away the pipe and spirit lamp and saucer, but not before we had seen them. Sister Finlay went forward to the bed. “Evening, Stevie,” she said. “I’m Sister Finlay from the hospital. What’s the matter with you?”

There was no answer; the old man was clean out, but whether from the opium or from the march of his disease I could not say. Finlay threw off her raincoat and took Stevie’s wrist to feel his pulse, peering at her wrist watch. “Would you see if you can get that lamp lit, Mr. Hargreaves?” she asked. “We’ll have to have more light than this.”

I picked up the lamp from the floor and examined it; the glass was unbroken. I asked Liang, “Where’s your drum of kerosene?” He did not answer me, but began to hunt about the cluttered room for something, and finally produced about an inch of candle end. I said, “I’ve got a torch here,” and opened my soaked case; the torch was lying in a puddle of water with my cassock, but it lit all right. Liang grinned, and led the way down from the verandah underneath the house, which stood on posts as many of these houses do.

The drum of kerosene was there, and that’s about all there was—just the drum. Somebody—it could only have been Stevie—had left the tap running, and there was paraffin all over the earth floor, soaking in and running away with the water. We shall never know exactly how he did it, but I think he must have gone down to refill the lamp, and probably a spasm of his abdominal pain took him while he was down there, so that it was all that he could do to get back to his bed. Anyway, the barrel was just about empty.

Liang picked up a can and made me hold it while he tilted the drum forward, but only about a teacupful ran out into the can because the drum had already been tilted down a little as it lay. “Is that all you’ve got, Liang?” I asked. “Have you got another drum?”

He shook his head. “No more drum.”

“No more kerosene than this?”

“No more.”

It was bad, but there was nothing to be done about it. He produced a funnel and we emptied the can carefully into the lamp, filling it about a quarter full. We went back up into the house, and I explained the position to Sister Finlay. “I’m sorry, sister,” I said, “but this is all the kerosene there is. I shouldn’t think it would last through the night, but it may. We’d better turn the wick down when you’ve finished—make it last as long possible.”

I helped her to get Stevie’s trousers off so that she could examine him. We laid him on his back, and he did not wake, and then I held the lamp while she examined the man’s abdomen. There was a swelling which was evidently tender, because when she pressed it gently he stirred and complained even in his deep, drugged sleep. Presently she pulled the sheet over him to the waist, and stood there looking down at him in silence. “Peritonitis, I should think,” she said at last. “He’s so heavily doped there’s not much we can do.”

She turned to Liang. “Show me the things that were on this chair, Liang,” she said, and there was no acrimony in her tone. “The pipe, and the opium.”

He brought them out and showed them to her in silence.

“Does he smoke much of this?” she asked.

“Three,” he said. “Three, when it is dark, to sleep. Not good smoke more.”

“You smoke it yourself, I suppose?” I asked.

He nodded.

Sister Finlay asked him, “Do three pipes send a man to sleep like that?”

He shook his head. “He smoke more yesterday, today. Good for pain.”

“How many pipes do you think he’s had today?”

He picked up the saucer and looked at the remnant of brown, treacly paste smeared on the bottom. “Ten—eleven,” he said. “I not know. I think when he wake up he smoke one, two pipes, good for pain, and then he sleeps again, one, two hours.”

She leaned over the patient and raised one eyelid carefully; I held the lamp for her while she looked at the eye. Then she stood back again from the bed. “It’s not a bad thing, in a way,” she said at last. “We’ll have to get him to the aerodrome tomorrow somehow, and get the ambulance to fly him to the Curry. There’ll have to be an operation. If I’d had my case with me I’d probably have had to give him a dope, and now he’s doped himself. In a way, and in the circumstances, it may be rather a good thing.”

I nodded. “What is opium?” I asked.

“It’s morphine,” she said. “I don’t know what else it is, but that’s the element that works in it. It’s what I should have given him in any case, so far as the narcotic goes.”

There was nothing to be done, and I sat down wearily on a packing case beside a table that was littered with the remains of a meal; my head was swimming and I was very hot. From a great distance I heard Finlay say, “We’ll just have to watch him tonight, and hope we can get him out of this tomorrow, somehow.”

I forced attention to what she was saying. “The water will be higher, with all this rain,” I said.

“I know. That’s what I’ve been thinking about.” There was a pause, and then she said, “Are you feeling all right, Mr. Hargreaves?”

“I’m all right,” I said. The next thing that I knew was that her hand was on my wrist taking my pulse. “You’re not all right at all,” she said. “You’ve got a temperature.”

“Not bad,” I said. “I’d like a drink of water, though.”

She spoke to Liang, and in a dream I heard her arguing about something with him, but I could not comprehend what it was about. Then she was giving me a glass of water, thick in colour and tasting of the floods, but it refreshed me, and I felt more myself.

Presently Liang appeared from the other room, where there was a wood fuel cooking stove, and began to lay the table for a meal. He produced three large wooden bowls, three cheap spoons, and bread that was misshapen and homemade as a sort of a flat bun. Lastly he brought in from the other room a copper saucepan full of hot, steaming soup, thickened with many vegetables. This was our supper, and very good it was; I had two bowls of the soup and felt a great deal better. At the end of the meal there was a cup of black tea, without sugar.

It was while we were drinking our tea, sitting at the table in silence, that the rain stopped. The drumming on the iron roof had made a background noise that we had been unconscious of, but now it reduced, and finally stopped altogether. I raised my head and looked at Sister Finlay, and she looked at me.

“That’s better,” I said. “I was beginning to get a little bit worried about getting him away tomorrow.”

“I was thinking of that, too,” she said. “If it gets any deeper we shall have to have a boat.”

“They’ve got a boat at Dorset Downs,” I said. “Donovan knows we’re here, and he’ll organize something for us in the morning.” I turned to the Chinaman. “How far are you from Dorset Downs homestead, Liang?” I asked.

“Ten—fifteen miles, maybe,” he said. “Not far.”

There was nothing much for either Sister Finlay or myself to do; Stevie lay in a coma, though he stirred once or twice. I got up presently and went out on to the verandah; it was cooler there, with a faint whisper of a breeze that cooled my fever. The clouds were breaking up and a full moon was showing now and then, illuminating the natural clearing in which the house stood, and the gum tree forest beyond.

I stood there letting the light breeze play through my clothes, while my eyes gradually adjusted to night vision. And then I saw a most extraordinary sight.

The animals were there, standing or sitting at the far edge of the clearing, grouped in a rough semi-circle round the house, their heads all turned in our direction, watching. The cattle were there, and the wild dogs, and the dingoes, and the wild pigs, and the wallabies, all at a distance of about a hundred yards from the verandah. They did not seem to be grazing or moving about much, although they were not motionless; one or two of the dogs were scratching and the cattle were changing their position a little. They were just standing or sitting there in a semi-circle round the house, watching us.

I turned and went back into the room, and said to Sister Finlay, “Come and look at this.” She came out on the verandah, and when her eyes became accustomed to the moonlight she saw them too. “It’s the lamp,” I said. “I suppose they’ve been attracted by the light.”

Behind us, Liang grunted; he had come out quietly, and I had not realized that he was there. The sister turned to him. “Do you often get them like this?”

He said something that neither of us could quite understand, and then he turned and went back into the house. We stayed on the verandah watching the animals for a time, and because Liang was not with us I could speak more freely to the sister. “What’s the position with Stevie?” I asked her. “Do you think he’ll get through?”

She said, “I doubt it. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I think it’s peritonitis by now; if it is, I doubt if he’ll get as far as Cloncurry. It’s quite possible that he might die tonight.”

I nodded; I had been thinking the same thing. “I’m very sorry about your medicine case, sister. I ought to have looked after the things better.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It doesn’t look as if I’ll have much use for what was in it.”

We stayed out on the verandah for a time. I was still hot and it was cool there and refreshing, but presently I got a cold spell and began to shiver a little, and I made some excuse and we went back into the room. Liang was not there, and now there was a faint odour of fragrance in the room that I had not noticed before. I went and looked into the other room, to see what was there.

It was lit by the candle, now burnt down quite low. There was a small, tawdry little shrine set up in one corner of the room, with dirty Chinese hangings; in it was a battered Chinese Buddha mostly painted red and very dirty. There was a stick of incense burning in front of this, a joss stick, I suppose, and Liang was kneeling in front of it in silent prayer. I withdrew quietly.

“He’s in there, praying,” I whispered to the sister. “In front of an idol.”

She raised her eyebrows, but there was nothing we could do about it, and it was none of our business. We turned the lamp low to conserve the kerosene, and settled down to wait for something to happen. I sat dozing on a chair, hot and feverish; my clothes were dry by that time, but I was very uncomfortable. From time to time I got up and drank a glass of the muddy water, and sat down again.

I don’t know what time it was when Stevie came to; perhaps about eleven o’clock, or midnight. We had been there for several hours. I was dozing in my chair, and woke to see Sister Finlay get up and go to the bedside. I got up also, and went over to the bed. She was feeling the pulse, and Stevie was now restless. Once or twice the eyes opened and shut. He had drawn his knees up tight against his stomach, evidently in pain.

“He’s coming round,” she said quietly. “This is where our job begins, Mr. Hargreaves. We could have done with that case, after all.”

I crossed to the table and turned up the lamp, and then went back to the bed. Liang came out of the next room, roused, perhaps, by our movements; he stood with us in silence for a time watching the gradual return to consciousness and pain. Then he went softly to the verandah and stood looking out.

There was nothing I could do, and so I went out with him, and stood there while my eyes became accustomed. It was intermittent moonlight and darkness as the thick clouds parted and drifted across the moon, and in the passing, silvery light I saw that the animals were still there watching us, much as I had seen them before. I said to Liang again, “Do the animals usually come around like this, in the wet?”

He said, “Stevie die tonight.”

“I hope not,” I replied. “We’ll get him to the hospital tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “Animals, they come. I think he die.”

I stared at him. “You think the animals know?”

He nodded. “Animals, they know.”

I didn’t see why the death of one drunken, dissolute old man should excite the animal kingdom very much, but there was no good arguing it with Liang, if indeed the language difficulties had permitted argument. I stayed with him in silence for a minute or two, and then went back into the room, to Sister Finlay and her patient.

Stevie was fully conscious now, and evidently in considerable pain. He was moaning a little; from time to time his face became distorted as the spasm racked him, and this was more eloquent to me than the noise that he was making.

When he saw me he said to Sister Finlay, “What’s that Pommie parson doing here?” I think it was parson that he said, but Sister Finlay is sure that it was bastard, and says that she didn’t know which way to look when he called the vicar a Pommie bastard. Whichever way it was, it doesn’t matter. I went over to the bed and said, “I came out with Sister Finlay when we heard you were sick. Sergeant Donovan would have brought her out here, but he was away at Millangarra, so I came instead. How are you feeling, cobber?”

“I’m bad,” he muttered. “I been bad three days. Got a bottle of whiskey, Roger?”

“I haven’t,” I said. “I didn’t bring any, and anyway it wouldn’t be good for you.”

He stared at me for a minute. “Your name’s Roger?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m Roger and you’re Stevie.”

“I know,” he said. “Harps and angel’s wings. Pack of bloody lies, that’s what I think.”

I felt Sister Finlay beside me quiver with indignation, and I must say it didn’t look as though Stevie was likely to accept the sort of spiritual consolation that I could offer him. “That’s all right,” I said. “We’ll argue that one out when you’re well. We’ll get you into Landsborough tomorrow, and then the ambulance will come and fly you to Cloncurry.”

“I flown further than that,” he muttered. “Up ’n down, up ’n down, all across the world, carrying the Queen. Ottawa, Keeling Cocos, Nanyuki, Ratmalana—I know all them places. I got the Seventh Vote—did you know that, cobber? Did you know I got the Seventh Vote?”

I glanced at the sister, and she raised her eyebrows. He was wandering in his mind, of course, but anything that would take his thoughts off his pain was probably useful, since we had no morphia to ease it. “I never heard that,” I replied. “How did you come to get the Seventh Vote?”

The pain hit him again, and his face contorted with the spasm. The current of his thought was broken, because presently he said, “I been sick in the belly three days. Got any whiskey, cobber?”

“I’m sorry,” I said patiently. “I didn’t bring any with me.”

Sister Finlay said, “Lie down, and try and get some sleep, Stevie. It won’t be long till morning, now, and then we’ll get you to the hospital.”

I withdrew a little from the bed, partly because I could not help her in her treatment of the disease, and partly because I was hot and sweating again, and my head was swimming, and I did not want her to see my condition. The old man’s hallucinations went round and round in my tired brain, the Seventh Vote, Ottawa, Keeling Cocos, carrying the Queen. I seemed to remember that he had talked to me like that before. Where did it all come from, what vagrant memories had come together to be expressed in those words? Old copies of some travel magazine for Ottawa and Keeling Cocos? Some article in the Australian Women’s Weekly about the Queen? And then the flying motif once again. But that was easier, because I knew that once a man has piloted an aeroplane the memory lies deep within his brain, and he can never forget it.

I sat there in a hot discomfort while the crisis rose upon the bed. From a great distance I watched the spasms, and watched Sister Finlay doing her best to help her patient; it was little enough that she could do. Liang was bringing hot, steaming cloths now from the other room, and they were laying them upon the skinny, rigid abdomen. And presently, as the hot fit passed and I grew temporarily more comfortable, I heard the old man say,

“Is Liang there?”

“He’s just in the next room,” said Sister Finlay. “Do you want to speak to him?”

Stevie nodded, and the sister called Liang, who came to the bedside. He said, “You want something, Stevie?”

“Too right, I want something,” the old man said. “Give us a pipe, mate.”

The Chinaman glanced at the sister, who shook her head, and Liang withdrew softly to the other room, leaving her to fight her patient. “Not now, Stevie,” she said. “You’ve had enough of that for today—it would be dangerous to take any more. Come on—I’ll give you another of these cloths.”

There was a long, long pause. At last I heard him say in a weak voice, “Give us a whiskey, sister. I’m bloody crook.”

She said a little desperately, “I haven’t got a whiskey, Stevie, and it wouldn’t be good for you. Lie still, and try and get some rest.”

The spasm came to him again, and I saw her holding him down upon the bed with both hands on his shoulders. Liang must have been somewhere in the background watching, because he came forward softly and helped her, and together they fought with Stevie till the spasm passed. I felt ashamed that I was not helping her myself, and that I had given in to my weakness, and I got to my feet, holding on to the table.

“Can I do anything?” I asked stupidly.

The patient was quiet again now, for the moment and until the next spasm. She turned to me, and she was sweating with her exertions, and a wisp of her damp hair had fallen down over her eyes. “How are you feeling, Mr. Hargreaves?” she asked.

“I’m all right,” I said. “I felt a bit queer just then, but I’m all right now.”

She brushed the hair back from her eyes. “Come out on the verandah.”

We went out of the room, and the moon was still fitfully lighting up the clearing and the forest, and the animals were still there watching us. She turned to me, and said in a low tone, “I know you’re feverish. Can you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Hargreaves?”

“Of course,” I said. “I understand you perfectly.”

She nodded. “I don’t think he’s got a chance,” she said quietly. She glanced at her wrist watch. “It’s an hour and ten minutes since he came to, and he’s much weaker now than he was then. I think he’ll die before morning, Mr. Hargreaves.”

I nodded. “I should think so. There’s nothing we can do?”

“Nothing,” she said. “The only possible thing would be an operation now, at once, and I can’t do that. Even if I had my medicine case I couldn’t do anything for him, except give him a dope to ease the pain. He’s having a great deal of pain.”

“I know,” I said. “I can see that.”

“I think our job now is to make things easy for him,” she said quietly. “I don’t think it would hurt him to have a few pipes of that opium stuff. I don’t think it will make any difference, now.” She looked up at me. “Would you think that very terrible?”

I shook my head. “No. I should think it was the kindest thing that you could do.”

“It’s very unprofessional,” she muttered. “I don’t know ... If he were quieter, it might conserve his strength ...”

I said, “I should let him have it.”

She nodded gravely. “I think one ought to.” She hesitated, and then turned to me. “I don’t think it will kill him,” she said quietly, “but if he takes enough to put him under, I think he may die before he comes to. I want you to understand exactly the position, Mr. Hargreaves.”

“Nevertheless,” I said, “I think you ought to let him have it.” I hesitated, and then I said, “If I may, I should like to sit and talk to him a little while he’s going off.”

Behind us, the darkness was closing down. “Of course,” she said. “I’ve never seen this stuff work, and I don’t know how long it will take. If it’s like any of the others, there’ll be a drowsy period when the pain is almost gone, before he goes to sleep. He may be able to talk sensibly for a few minutes then.”

The shadows crept out of the room behind and enveloped us; on the far side of the clearing we could see the beasts of the field, waiting. She shivered a little. “Those animals ...” she said. She turned back to her patient, and then said, “For goodness’ sake!”

“What is it, sister?” And then I saw what it was. The room behind us was indeed nearly in darkness, because the kerosene in the lamp had come to an end, and there was now only a small flickering blue flame above the wick. “Never mind,” I said. “There’s a candle somewhere.”

I went into the room, and called, “Liang!” He came at once from the other room, and a ray of candlelight shone from the door. He looked at the lamp with concern and went straight to it and shook it, but it was bone dry. I went to my case and opened it, and took out my torch. “I’ve got this,” I said, and it shone a pool of yellow light upon the floor. “Have you got any more candles, Liang?”

“Little candle,” he said ruefully. “Very small.” He went back into the other room, and returned with about an inch of candle burning in a saucer.

“Is that all there is?” I asked.

He nodded.

“No more candles?”

He shook his head.

“No kerosene? Nothing more to burn for a light?”

He shook his head again.

I turned to the sister. “We’ll be in darkness before morning, I’m afraid. That candle won’t last long, and this torch is very dim.”

She laughed shortly. “It’s just one thing after another tonight, Mr. Hargreaves. It doesn’t matter much, after he’s gone to sleep. We’ll have to keep watch over him, but when he’s dropped off we’d better put the lights out, so as to have them if we need them later on. He may come to again.”

“I should think that’s the best thing to do,” I said.

She turned to Liang. “Give him a pipe now, if he wants it.”

“One pipe?” he asked.

“Give him as many as he wants, to kill the pain and send him to sleep,” she said.

He took the torch from me, and padded off into the next room. He came back presently with the long metal pipe and the spirit lamp and the brown stuff in the saucer that we had seen upon the chair beside the bed as we came in. He put them down upon the chair again, and drew the chair up to the bed.

Sister Finlay said, “Liang’s got a pipe for you, if you want it, Stevie. You can have one now.”

He did not speak, but lying on his back he made an effort to roll over on to his right side, towards the room. He seemed to be incapable of moving the lower part of his body; Liang moved forward and with Sister Finlay helping him arranged the old man’s limbs in a comfortable and reclining position on his side. Then Liang lit the spirit stove upon the chair, and took a sort of skewer and dipped it in the brown substance, and picked up a morsel about the size of a pea, and began to toast it in the blue flame while it burned and sizzled. Then he transferred it carefully to the tiny bowl of the metal pipe, put the bowl to the flame, and drew in slowly to get the morsel glowing; he exhaled at once. Then he gave the pipe to Stevie.

The old man took it, and put it to his mouth; he inhaled deeply, held it for a few moments, and exhaled it from his nose; the smoke was acrid and unpleasant. He did this four or five times, and it appeared to give him almost instantaneous relief, because within a minute or two he was lying more relaxed, and the strained lines of pain were smoothing on his face. The pipe was apparently finished with those few inhalations, because he handed it back to Liang.

“Another?” asked the Chinaman.

The old man nodded, and Liang set about preparing another pipe. I moved forward and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Stevie,” I said. “I’m Roger Hargreaves. You know me; I’m the parson from Landsborough. Remember?”

“Too right,” he said weakly. “You got on Black Joke.”

“That’s right,” I said. “You and I are cobbers. You’re a sick man now, Stevie. You’ll go off to sleep after you’ve had these pipes, and while you’re asleep we’re going to take you into hospital for an operation. I think it’s going to be successful, and you’ll be strong and well again, but there’s a risk in every operation. I’ve got to die some time, and so has Liang here, and Sister Finlay; we’ve all got to face it when the time comes. You’ve got to face it too, Stevie. You may die tonight. Would you like me to say a prayer or two before you go to sleep?”

“Harps and angel’s wings,” he muttered. “I don’t hold with that.”

“I know you don’t,” I said. “What creed were you baptized into, Stevie? What church did you go to when you were a boy?”

“I never went to no church,” he said. “I was raised out on the station.”

“When you were in the army, what did you have on your identity disc?” I asked him. “C. of E., or R.C., or what?”

“Church of England,” he said sleepily. “That’s what they said I was.”

“Then you’re one of my parishioners,” I said. “Look, Stevie, I’m going to say two little prayers, and then I want you to answer one or two questions. They’re very simple. Now listen carefully.”

So I did what I had to do, and he was quite good about it, and I gave him the Absolution. Then Liang was ready with the second pipe, and he took that and smoked it, and now he was much easier, and apparently in little pain.

He handed the pipe back to Liang.

“Another?” asked the Chinaman, and Stevie nodded. I glanced at Sister Finlay; she shrugged her shoulders slightly, and then nodded.

Stevie said, “I’m dying, aren’t I?”

“I hope not,” I replied. “If you are, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m crook all right,” he muttered. “She wouldn’t let me have three pipes, ’less I was bloody crook. I ain’t afraid of dying. I’ll go carrying the Queen.”

The hallucinations were returning; no doubt that was the opium. Perhaps the fading mind was poisoned through and through with that outlandish drug. “You’ll be all right,” I said quietly. “God is very merciful, and he won’t judge you too hard.”

“You don’t know nothing,” the old man muttered weakly. “I could tell you things. Old Liang here, he’s got the rights of it. I ain’t done so good. I know it. I’ll start lower down next time. But I’ll be right. Everyone gets another shot, however low you go, and I’ll be right.”

He seemed to be convinced about reincarnation in some form, and he was too weak for me to argue with him. I was weak myself; the hot fit had come on me again, and I was restless and sweating.

“You’ll be right,” I said. “God will look after you.”

There was a long, long pause while Liang fiddled about preparing the next pipe. “I ain’t afraid of dying,” Stevie muttered at last. “That’s nothing. Old Liang here, he knows a thing or two. It’s just going off to sleep and sliding off into the next time, into the dream. I reckon that I’d rather be there than here.”

I was too hot and fuddled with my fever to say anything to that. Liang lit the pellet in the bowl of the third pipe and gave it to Stevie; the old man inhaled deeply four or five times, and gave it back to Liang.

“Another?”

Stevie gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head, and relaxed on to the pillow. Liang gathered up the spirit lamp and the pipe and the saucer of opium, and padded off with them to the next room. I moved and sat down on the chair beside the bed. Sister Finlay bent over and held the old man’s pulse for a minute, and then stood up again.

“Going off now,” she said in a whisper.

I nodded. “I’ll sit with him for a bit.” I glanced at the candle; it was burning very low. “You can put that candle out and save it, sister, if you like. We may need it later on. I’ve got the torch here.”

She moved to the table and blew out the candle; I switched the torch on for a moment. Stevie’s hand was lying on the sheet. I took it and held it in my own; it was rather cold. I was concerned at that, and then I thought that part of the effect, at least, lay in my own high temperature. I switched the torch off, and sat holding him by the hand. A little light filtered into the room from outside in the glade, but it was waning, and as I sat there a few raindrops fell on the iron roof again, and steadied to an even drumming.

I knew that there was something that I had intended to ask Stevie, and that I had forgotten. I sat there in the darkness holding his cold hand, fuddled and incompetent in my fever, trying to remember what it was that I had forgotten to do. The drumming of the rain upon the roof perplexed me, making it difficult to think clearly; I felt myself falling into a coma, and I had to jerk myself awake. What was it that I had to ask?

And then it came to me—it was about relatives. I had forgotten to ask if there was a wife anywhere, or any children—any relatives who should be told if the old man should die. It was quite doubtful if anyone in Landsborough knew much about him, because they were all so very much younger. Even Liang probably knew little about his relations. As for myself, I did not even know his name.

I pressed his cold hand, doubtful if I had not left it too late. “Stevie, can you understand me? This is Roger here—the parson. Tell me, before you go to sleep—what’s your other name, your surname? What’s your full name?”

I felt the hand that I was holding stir a little in my own, and I forced my fuddled mind to concentrate upon what he was saying.

“Anderson,” he muttered, “David Anderson. Me cobbers call me Nigger.”