To The Coral Strand

by John Masters

  She gripped the wheel more firmly. Perhaps she had shown Rodney something of determination, too, and could show him more.

  The road made another full turn, to the right, resuming its original westward course. Rodney struggled to his feet and walked on. Half an hour later he signalled her to stop. The wandering flashlight shone on an uprooted palm, others struggling in the grip of the wind, a house. The light vanished. She waited alone in the heaving car, keeping the engine running fast. The light reappeared, flickered, now shone in her eyes, now downward on the water through which he splashed back towards her.

  He tumbled in and flopped forward over the wheel as she squeezed away to make room for him. His breath came in long shuddering gasps. She put out her hand and stroked his streaming hair. He did not shrug her off - but perhaps he did not notice. After a time he raised his head. ‘Alkhuti,’ he said, ‘she came through just after six, and went on to Pabal. The taxi came back at once, without her... But we can’t take the car farther than this.

  Tarmac ends - sand track beyond, all flooded now.’ He edged the Austin into the lee of a hut and switched off the engine. ‘Close the windows ... Ready?’

  She braced herself. ‘Yes, I’m ready.’

  ‘Here, carry the torch. Walk on my left, hold it in your left hand, hold me with your right. Straight ahead to the beach, a couple of hundred yards, then right, quarter of a mile on beach road, over bridge.’

  He forced open the door and got out. She passed him the case and then struggled out herself. Hands locked, they began to walk. Walking was hard, breathing harder. The wind blew so strongly that sometimes it sucked the air out of her lungs and sometimes rammed an emulsion of air and spray down her throat, at a hundred miles an hour. She could only breathe through clenched teeth, but she needed more oxygen than that to move. Rodney, the heavy case dragging and flapping in his right hand, often at arm’s length, dragged her forward. The wind came in an alternating pattern of shriek and roar as they passed among and between the hovels of the village. All the time they walked in wind-whipped water, shifting sand under their feet below. All the time, too, a heavy throbbing, deeper than the boom of a liner’s siren, deep as the deepest thunder, grew steadily louder and closer, and above it a rising hiss. The water in the wind now tasted salt, there was froth on the road, and the palm trunks were rimmed with white. The last trees fell back and without warning they came upon the sea.

  It offered no hold to any sense except hearing. The beam of the flashlight could not reach even to the nearest outflung fingers of the waves. Smell and touch were numb. Only through sound did she know that it had passed the high marks of the highest tides. In sound she ‘saw’ the short waves crashing down, hurling forward with the long sibilant hiss, being dragged back, hissing louder. In sound she ‘saw’ the deep swell from a thousand miles out, slowly rising and falling under the surface waves, twelve waves to every surge of the swell. In the upper registers she heard the wind dragging the surface off the water, as one drags a carpet off a floor, and hurling it inland, to coat with salt the palm trees and the huts.

  Rodney dragged her round to the right and immediately she found herself floating in huge strides, the wind forcing into her back and up under her buttocks in violent thrusts. In the jumping light she saw that they were being carried like sail planes down a beach road that ran along the top of what was normally a high, flat dune, now a ridge hardly above the level of the water. Rodney, offering more surface to the wind in his body and in the case gripped in his right hand, flew in longer strides beside her, and twice pulled her off her feet so that she dived on her face into the flooded sand. Then the wind held her down, and it took their combined strengths to get her up. On again, the sound of the sea lessening ...

  Rodney leaned back, pulled hard at her arm. ‘Bridge,’ he screamed against her ear.

  She swung the light and it picked out a wooden railing in the sea. Waves raced past - not full ones, or nothing could have survived, but short, steep waves, near the end of their force as they rushed up into the long re-entrant leading to the marshes.

  ‘Walk behind me,’ Rodney shouted, ‘hand in my belt.’

  They went forward into the water. Ten feet out the railing began. By then the water was up to her knees. At the railing he leaned forward, grasped it firmly, and extended one foot to the right.

  ‘No, left,’ he shouted. He transferred the case to his left shoulder, gripped the railing with his right hand, and again carefully extended his foot. ‘O.K.’

  They advanced slowly. The waves surged past at waist level, the crests tossing over the top of the railing. On, one foot at a time, feeling for the surface of the bridge under the water, cautiously placing some weight on the leading foot, then more, then all. Shine the light forward, past Rodney’s body. Anxiously look at the case, the white tension of his knuckles.

  ‘Hold!’

  She braced against a wave that almost knocked her off her feet.

  Rodney moved a little faster. He jerked downward and she lost her grip on his belt. The weight of the case dragged him sideways. The railing shuddered. He recovered his balance. ‘Surface gone,’ he shouted. He edged left, away from the railing, two, three, four sideways paces. Tried again. ‘O.K.’ On. Railing ended. ‘Bridge may have gone, too.’ Test... ‘O.K.’ One pace, another, another, the water thrusting like an animal against her, between her legs, wrenching at her skirt. Sudden step down, stumble, scream, regain footing. Shallower, shallower, up on to sand, churned sand strewn with foam and wreckage.

  ‘We’ve done it! Rodney, we’ve done it!’

  The flashlight showed a hut at the head of the beach. They struggled up the steps, banged on the door, shone the light through the windows. Empty. Fifty yards farther, another hut. Empty. And another. The light picked out a chair, a couch, a pair of feet, Sumitra’s face and wide frightened eyes.

  Rodney said, ‘Door’s bolted from inside. Through the window. No glass ...’ He hoisted and pushed her head-first through the small window, which had never had any glass, only shutters now torn from their hinges and vanished. She hurried to the door and jerked back the bolt.

  Sumitra’s voice called feebly, ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Margaret,’ she shouted, ‘and Rodney.’

  The only response was a long-drawn fluttering moan. Rodney came in. Together they pushed the door shut and refastened the bolt.

  Margaret hurried to the couch. ‘Is there a lamp here, Sumitra?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the voice muttered, ‘doesn’t matter.’

  The flashlight hurried round the room. A cupboard in one corner, an almirah in another, two cane chairs, some deck chairs stacked against the front wall, door at the back. Rodney ran to it, opened it ... the light shone on a small kitchen, shelves stacked with cans - and a hurricane lantern, matchboxes. Rodney brought them out. Margaret found Sumitra’s hand and gripped it. A match scratched, the glow of the hurricane lantern spread through the room. The gurgle and slap of oil as Rodney shook the lamp. ‘Almost full,’ he said. ‘More oil in the kitchen.’

  Margaret said, ‘Now it’s my turn.’ She said it aloud but no one heard. The light showed bare walls, the open window through which they had made entry, water lying below it. The wind howled into the room, the rain spattering her where she sat beside Sumitra. ‘Block that window,’ she said.

  Rodney dragged and pushed the almirah in front of the window. Margaret noticed another door beside the front door. ‘What’s through there?’

  Rodney opened it, and the howling wind entered. He peered into the outer darkness for a moment and closed the door. ‘Bedroom, but most of the roof’s gone there.’

  He came to the couch. ‘Why did you run away? Were you trying to have the baby secretly and get out of your promise to us?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it now, Sumitra,’ Margaret said, throwing a warning glance at Rodney. ‘When did the pains begin?’

  ‘A long time ago. I don’t know. What time is it? ... I thought I’d give you a
fright. You were going to get everything. I didn’t believe ... I’m frightened, Margaret.’ Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead and a groan was forced between her writhing lips.

  Margaret said, ‘Hold me ... Rodney, get sheets out of the bedroom. Knot one into a rope. Tear up others for rags and cloths. I’ve got to have hot water, too. Quickly.’

  When the pain was over, Margaret asked again, ‘When did they begin?’

  ‘The waters broke just before I got here, in the taxi. Six o’clock.’ Margaret looked at her watch and started with horror and astonishment. Half-past two. They had taken over five hours getting here. Sumitra had been in labour eight and a half hours.

  Rodney gave her the knotted sheet. She tied one end quickly to a leg of the couch and gave the other to Sumitra. ‘Here, pull on that.’

  Rodney said, ‘No fresh water. The tank outside’s been overturned. I can boil salt water. Make a desert cooker with sand and kerosene. It’ll take about an hour to boil any quantity. A basinful. That’s all there is to boil it in.’

  ‘I can’t wait that long,’ Margaret said, ‘I must examine her now. Take off her sari. Put a sheet or blanket under her.’

  ‘No blanket. The sheets are all soaked and filthy, like that one.’

  ‘Leave it then. Go and get the water boiling. I’ll need it later.’ She took Sumitra’s wrist and felt for the pulse.

  Pulse 109, temperature about 101. She took the surgical gloves out of the case and began to spread them with Dettol.

  The couch on which Sumitra lay was a cane-bottom lounger, its end curved up to support the head. Margaret pulled her chair closer and said, ‘Raise your legs. Spread them. Tell me when you feel a pain coming.’

  ‘It hurts all the time now.’

  Margaret bent forward ... Transverse presentation for certain.

  That showed from the markedly transverse arch of the swollen belly, quite unlike the usual downward pointing egg. Gently she inserted her right hand into the birth passage. Feeling cautiously upward through the thin rubber of the glove she came upon a small protuberance. She slid her finger over it, and bent her head to stifle a gasp. She had felt a hand and part of a forearm. ‘Hurry,’ Sumitra cried. Margaret slid her hand farther up and tried to feel inside the pelvic cavities to right and left. She could not, because both appeared to be filled, the foetal head and shoulder being in the cavity to the right. She withdrew her hand just in time before Sumitra’s next pain began.

  Slowly, with the vast force of the mother’s reserves of birth power, created for this final act, the hand and wrist of the foetus came into sight. She saw Rodney, passing with a kerosene oil can full of sand, pause and stare. His dark, drawn face turned pale.

  Margaret got up. Whatever might or might not have been done earlier, Sumitra had now arrived at a situation where the amniotic fluid had long since drained away, and could not perform its function as a lubricant of the birth passage. The foetus, pushed downward by her contracting muscles, had jammed sideways into the pelvis, one arm out-thrust. Every succeeding pain would impact it still more firmly.

  Black smoke and particles of oily soot swirled round the room. Quickly she pulled Sumitra’s sari over her upraised knees, sheltering the vulva. ‘What are you doing?’ she called. Sumitra began to gasp, tugging at the knotted sheet.

  Rodney called, ‘It’ll be better in a minute. I’m going to wedge the front door open an inch or two, and the kitchen door the same, to make a draught.’

  She heard him pushing and pulling behind her, the scrape and creak of furniture, the roar of the wind. The smoke lessened. She shook her head, willing herself to think of nothing but her medical task.

  She must try to turn the foetus, though it was almost certainly too late to do so. If she failed, an expert obstetrician, with all facilities ready at hand, would be needed immediately. Suppose she sent Rodney back at once ... he could reach Khed in about three hours. Supposing he found a doctor at once, he could be back in three more ... six hours. But suppose the bridge went?

  And how could he drive across the flooded marsh alone, without lights? She would lose them all then - the baby, the mother, and Rodney. That she must not think about. Her responsibility was the mother and child ... Six hours was too much. She must act sooner than that, and when she did she would need an assistant.

  Rodney stood beside her, staring fixedly at the hand and wrist of his child protruding from Sumitra’s body, just visible under the arched sari. Sumitra saw his face concentrated only on her loins, and closed her eyes.

  Margaret took his arm. ‘Come over here.’ In a corner of the room close to the door, where she had to raise her voice to be heard above the bellow of the sea and the roar of the wind, she said, ‘I am going to try to turn the foetus. You’ll give her chloroform. Move that small table to be ready beside you, at her head. Five drops on to the pad, and when I nod, hold it gently on her face. Hold her pulse in the other hand, and count it aloud, so that I can hear. At “ten” raise the pad, and don’t put it on again until I say so, and then only for a count of five. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes ... My hand’s shaking ... What’s the matter?’

  ‘I can’t explain now ... hold the pad loosely. Don’t tense. If I say stop, take the pad off at once. It means her pulse rate is getting dangerous. Pull her sari up - right up. More Dettol on the gloves. That’s enough. All right, there’s the chloroform, and the pads. Get ready.’

  She bent over her patient. ‘I’ve got to put you to sleep for a bit now, Sumitra. Count aloud.’

  ‘One - two - three--’

  ‘Head back. Relax. Just breathe easily, between counts, not too deeply.’ She saw that Rodney was ready, and nodded. He lowered the pad on to Sumitra’s upturned face.

  ‘Seven - eight - nine - ten.’ The counting turned to a mumble and died away.

  ‘Pulse,’ Margaret snapped.

  Rodney jumped, took Sumitra’s wrist and began to count. Margaret inserted her right hand into the birth passage, pressed her left hand firmly into the drumlike belly from outside, forcing down until she felt the head and shoulder of the foetus. She began to try to turn it out of its position ... The hut trembled continuously, the bottles and instruments rattled on the flimsy table.

  Rodney’s voice intoned on, sharp and nervous, counting beats of the pulse. The patient moved. ‘Pad,’ she said.

  She had never done this before. This was a doctor’s job, always. Once, at the Royal Mersey, a sardonic young intern had told her to feel the position, so that she would know what they were up against. The forces of the birth pains, which had been spaced apart, had now become a steady bursting pressure, like an overinflated balloon. The sweat ran down her face, but her body was clammy and cold. Using all her strength, pushing up from inside and forcing up from outside, she could not move the foetus an inch.

  She stood up. Rodney kept his eyes down, counting on. Pulse rate rising. She would be conscious in a moment or two. Temperature still raised.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Rodney said, breaking the rhythm, - ‘five, six, seven - for God’s sake, what’s happening? - eight, nine ... Is the baby all right?’

  She did not answer. Should she bring Sumitra round, knowing that she would have to put her out again soon? How strong was she? Not very. She’d have to come round. Coming now ...

  A long moan. ‘She’ll be sick,’ she said. ‘Hold her head. Wash her face, then clean up.’

  She turned away. Behind her she heard the sound of retching mixed with groans and, later, Sumitra’s faint voice, ‘I’m alive ... Margaret.’

  ‘Yes?’

  The hot hand reached up for hers. She smiled, withdrawing her hand. ‘I can’t touch you, Sumitra ... gloves.’

  ‘Margaret, there’s something wrong, isn’t there?’

  Margaret held the smile on her face. ‘Not exactly wrong - just a little difficulty.’

  ‘Don’t lie, Margaret ... I’m not afraid now ... I think I have nothing to live for. You can save the baby, at least? Th
en I will live on, through her. He’ll love that much of me, all the rest forgiven …

  Rodney’s face, tortured into ugliness, stared at her across Sumitra’s body. Margaret turned away and gazed at the almirah that blocked the window, willing her vision to see through it to the open air beyond. But beyond there was a storm of wind and rain, night, and the sea, no peace, no distant view.

  Only a Caesarean could now save the baby. It was a major operation, only to be performed with safety by a trained surgeon in a well-equipped theatre, with all the proper assistants. She looked at the thin catgut and fine needles in the case, suitable for the repair of a minor post-parturition tear, never for a Caesarean. She looked at the muddy slop on the floor, the streaks of sand and mud on Rodney’s face, the filth and stains on her own blouse and skirt.

  She remembered a film where some man marooned in a cabin miles from anywhere had done some tremendous operation directed by a doctor over the radio. But that was a film, this was real. She knew more than the man in the cabin had known, she had seen many Caesareans performed under her eyes. She knew too much. There was the sheer skill at the cutting and sewing, the time in which she must complete the resewing before haemorrhage killed the patient. If it were a matter of life and death, with no alternative, then she would have to try. But there was an alternative. She could cut the foetus in pieces and deliver them, one at a time, through the birth passage. Barring infection under these appalling conditions, that would save Sumitra.

  But supposing she could do the operation? Once she cut into the skin would not a miraculous skill come to her from God, from her experience, lending her for those vital minutes the incisive certainty of Mr Dutt, Mr Mackenzie at the Royal Mersey?