The Hospital in Buwambo

by Anne Vinton

  “It’s my half-day, too. Can I take you anywhere?”

  She was in a hurry and didn’t know how to refuse. “Very well,” she said.

  Therefore, when she was trying on evening dresses at Burnside’s, Martin was consulted.

  “This is hardly the thing for Buwambo, I’m sure,” she said apologetically, coming from behind the screens in a froth of white tulle. “But there is always shipboard to consider. Madame thinks I ought to go a little mad and buy this. It’s more suitable for a debutante, in my opinion.”

  “Or a bride,” said the French fitter under her breath. “But it is you, mademoiselle.”

  Martin had risen. As Sylvia modeled in front of the mirror he touched her shoulder almost timidly.

  “Sylvia, it’s—you’re beautiful!” he exclaimed, a note of wonder in his voice. He turned away, muttering, and she thought he said, “What a fool I’ve been!”

  Her heart was fluttering nervously as the dress was decided on and taken away. A glance of admiration from Martin could still upset her—make her feel weak like this. She resolved to avoid him in future.

  Occasionally she saw Mike Hogan, who had booked her a passage on the Accra, sailing the twelfth of May. He wouldn’t hear of her flying out, saying that the ocean voyage would gradually acclimatize her for the heat to be experienced later.

  Each time she heard more about Buwambo and the characters in it. Sister Kineton had been at the same London hospital as David Carroll ten years ago when he was a rising young surgeon. She was convinced that only his skill had saved her life when she had been brought to him for an operation, and had therefore devoted herself to him, had followed him to Buwambo and stayed there the whole of eight years, with only one break when her mother had died. Sylvia decided that the prim Sister Kineton might well resent the presence of a younger woman at the hospital. How would the senior surgeon himself react? She still knew little enough about him save that he had every known degree in surgery after his name. It was a mystery that he should be buried in the African bush like this, as she observed to Mike.

  “Dave doesn’t like to talk about it,” was all he said.

  “I didn’t mean to pry,” she quickly responded, and the subject was dropped.

  Time was dragging now at the hospital. She was counting the weeks, and then it was only a matter of days to leaving. On one of those days she was asked to relieve in Theater, and feeling her eyes drawn to another’s, in the middle of an operation, she saw Martin was acting anesthetist.

  She felt strangely disturbed, almost afraid.

  They met when they were “scrubbing up” at the finish.

  “I love you, Sylvia,” he said, out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I beg your pardon?” She was naturally taken aback.

  The senior surgeon passed through on his way to the changing room, and Sylvia found herself in Martin’s arms, dominated by his superior strength.

  “I realize I’ve loved you all along, and only when I thought I’d lost you did I find my need of you. That’s life, I suppose, but it’s not too late, is it?”

  He kissed her, and as she struggled and tried to speak he kissed her again and again. A discreet cough behind them told them that Theater Sister had returned to her post and had seen all before quickly fading out of sight again.

  “How dare you!” blazed Sylvia, as she stood back. “Oh, Martin, how dare you make yourself so hateful to me! Please say no more. I’m going to my room.”

  On her bed she sat trembling, afraid to face herself for awhile. But it had to be done. As she calmed herself she was surprised to find that through her anger at Martin’s behavior her heart had remained still. It did not flutter or thrill at his passionate advances. She felt almost grateful to Martin for thus destroying his own image in her mind. He was irretrievably gone from the niche where she had kept him. The affair was over and done with.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Accra was a trim vessel of about twelve thousand tons, painted dove-gray and white. It had an air of the tropics about it, an impatience to get away from the chill of the Mersey to the warm seas where flying fishes played and schools of porpoises danced attendance.

  Sylvia had spent her last week with relatives in the north, and while she was there Martin had written regretting that their final parting had been so public—in the staff sitting room as a matter of fact—and did she imagine he was still engaged to Kay when he had kissed her? This was not so, for Kay had broken the engagement, which both had agreed had been a mistake, and he would never really love anyone but her, Sylvia, and could she change her plans at this eleventh hour and marry him?

  Sylvia replied cautiously but with finality. She told Martin that she couldn’t believe her leaving the country would affect him for very long, but that in any case her plans had been carefully thought out and she would adhere to them. She wished him well and begged to remain his sincerely.

  She was rather thankful nowadays for the episode of Martin—it was like a vaccination against bitter entanglements. She would never be quite so naive again. Perhaps a bruise from an ill-fated love affair was a good thing, and one should be grateful not to have endured a break. There would always be a fence around her heart now. Sylvia doubted if anyone would climb in again. One would be afraid the next time...

  Sylvia had made no request to be placed at any particular table on the Accra, and she was rather amused to find herself with the ship’s doctor at meals, Surgeon-Commander Fitch, late of the Royal Navy.

  “I absolutely refuse to talk shop with you, dear lady,” was his opening remark after introductions. “Have you any other subjects for conversation, or shall we just eat?”

  He was a jolly fellow, and the next morning the other two passengers assigned to that table appeared for breakfast. They were Kelso Blaine, who described himself as a “bring-’em-back-alive bloke,” and his sister Constance. Sylvia picked up her ears when she heard they were going to Buwambo.

  “What do you expect to bring back alive from Buwambo, Mr. Blaine?” Sylvia asked with a smile. “I am interested because that is my destination.”

  “Oh?” For a moment the man exchanged glances with his sister, then looked back at the questioner. “I am going after a leopard, Dr. Phillips. A few snakes, perhaps, if we’re lucky, but I’ll be satisfied with a leopard. It’s curious you should be going to Buwambo, as it is almost wholly native territory.”

  “I am going to the hospital,” she explained quietly. “I was not given any illusions about its being a center of social activity.”

  “She is a sawbones like me,” smiled Fitch. “We get to some out-of-the-way places, don’t we, Dr. Phillips?”

  “Mr. Blaine is making me think that Buwambo is even more out-of-the-way than I imagined!” she laughed. “Still, now I’ve burned my bridges...”

  “She must be going to that weird place where that awful man was so rude to you last time, Kelso, when we took the bearer in who had fallen on his rifle and injured his foot. Do you remember?” At last Constance Blaine realized that her brother’s grimaces were intended to tell her to be quiet, and she flushed and looked down at her plate. Everybody else was suddenly concentrating on the food.

  It was three days before the dining room was filled to capacity again, for seventy-five percent of the passengers succumbed to seasickness during the crossing of Biscay. The Accra was a flat-bottomed craft and absolutely as safe as a house, but it rolled alarmingly. The tables had no refinement of cloths during this time, for cups had a habit of overturning in dozens. There were many annoying injuries—a passenger slipped on the tilted deck and broke a femur, and there was a crop of sprained ankles, cuts and bruises.

  Commander Fitch, looking very harassed, actually asked Sylvia’s help.

  “I’m nearly off my head!” he complained. “I only have four official beds in the hospital, and two of those are taken up already by the crew. The fractured femur is in number three and I must keep Mrs. Lockyer in four because she’s deciding to have her bab
y ahead of time. Stupid woman for attempting the voyage so near the event, but they will do these things! Then I have twenty-four passengers up and down the ship with all kinds of ailments, and I don’t include the hypochondriacs in that number. Dr. Phillips, is it fair to ask you to give a hand until the crisis is over?”

  He looked so appealing that she smiled.

  “Of course I’ll help out, Commander. Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “Take the confinement off my hands and give an eye to the other hospital patients, will you? Then I can scuttle in and out of cabins with an easy mind.”

  “Very well, then.”

  Sylvia realized that when she had met Commander Fitch she had been on her way to her cabin with a feeling of nausea, but all thought of personal unfitness had now left her.

  She did not go in to dinner that evening, and at nine o’clock over the ship’s loudspeakers came the announcement that a seven-pound baby boy had been born to Mrs. Lockyer, and that the captain would appreciate the gesture if passengers would accept the drinks now being brought around, in order to drink the health of Philip Accra Lockyer, born at sea!

  Sylvia went to her cabin, tired but pleased with her night’s work. It had been quite a straightforward birth, though young Mrs. Lockyer had been extremely nervous at first and inclined to resist. Sylvia had talked to her, after giving an injection, explaining what was required of the young mother. They had managed without calling Commander Fitch.

  “It was wonderful, thanks to you!” said Mrs. Lockyer, when all was over. “I’m going to call the baby Philip, after you, and Accra after the ship. It’s something to be born on a ship isn’t it?”

  “Indeed!” said Commander Fitch who had heard this. “We’ll put a signal out in napkins every day to tell of our great event!”

  When life settled down to normality again and the Canaries were behind, formality had gone at the dining tables. It was now “Gerald,” “Sylvia,” “Kelso,” and “Connie.” Friendships were fast becoming cemented.

  “I’m going to come and dig you out of that bush hospital and take you leopard hunting Sylvia,” Kelso Blaine announced one evening as they left the dining room and strolled on deck for a “cooler.” “You’ll find monotony one of your greatest enemies up there in the bush. I’ve made up my mind this will be my last trip.”

  “I’ve heard that before too,” smiled Sylvia. “This ship is half-full of people going back who have vowed they never would. A leopard hunter talking of monotony? What would all the young boys who read adventure stories say to that?”

  “Nevertheless it’s true,” sighed Kelso. “Sometimes we go for days without seeing our quarry. Of course it could be considerably enlivened by being in stimulating company. Connie’s a sport but I would love it if you would consider ... You are listening, aren’t you, Sylvia?”

  Careful, Sylvia! Careful, Kelso! ran her thoughts, for his voice had taken on a new warmth which was not purely friendly.

  “Look!” she changed the subject. “Here’s the Apapa, our sister ship, taking a load home on leave. Doesn’t she look beautiful with her lights? I suppose we look the same to her! We’re saluting her now! Thrilling, isn’t it? Yes, Kelso, you were talking about monotony. I’m not going to worry about that until I experience it. You see I may find an Africa full of interest and activity. It depends what you’re looking for, doesn’t it? I’m just looking for sick people who need me. Nothing more. Do you understand?”

  He understood perfectly, and they turned and went into the lounge, where a concert was in progress.

  The heat was almost unbearable as they stood off Freetown, and with a professional eye Sylvia noticed how all the children were losing their rosy color and becoming a uniform shade of buff.

  Sylvia turned away from the rails as Commander Fitch invited her to join him for afternoon tea.

  “That’s the best cooler,” she agreed. “No matter what I may look like Gerald, I’m hot. They tell me this is the cool season in these parts.”

  “You can’t judge from shipboard,” he told her. “These vessels exude heat both above and below decks. You’ll find the humidity your biggest trial ashore.”

  The company was much depleted by the time the Accra docked at Apapa wharf, across the sound from Lagos. Some had disembarked at Freetown and quite a number at Takoradi, mostly men returning to the mines at Kumasi. The remaining passengers had caught the itch to get on dry land again, and organized social events now were poorly attended—the company preferring to spend its time seeing to personal matters, catching up on letter-writing and finishing oddments of embroidery.

  Then came the day at last when Sylvia woke with an accompanying surge of excitement running through her veins, for the ship’s motors were still. During the night the Accra had docked, and now a new life lay ahead. Sylvia looked out of the porthole across the oily waters of a lagoon to Lagos itself, with its broad, handsome marina stretching as far as the eye could see. It might as well have been a thousand miles away, however, for this was to prove one of the most tiresome days in Sylvia’s existence. The immigration officials were not expected aboard until late afternoon, and no one was allowed ashore apart from certain members of the crew, who naturally took advantage of their privilege. Cabins were also being cleaned, and the passengers were thrown together in the lounges and staterooms until they began to feel tired of the sight of one another. The children, naturally enough, became fretful and rather naughty, and one party solemnly “drowned” the youngest member’s teddy bear in the oily, fouled brine between ship and dock. Meals became picnic affairs, but the only demand seemed to be for cups of tea.

  Now that there was no motion it was unbearably hot. The previously immaculate ship reeked of oil fumes, and all day the cranes whined and creaked. Sylvia watched her own small car unloaded and standing there on the dock in the blistering sun—so maddeningly near, yet formality making it so far away.

  By noon she had developed a headache, and as is the way with days that start gladly, she was now unaccountably depressed and experiencing her first misgivings about the whole venture.

  Was it possible to survive in such heat? How could one work in a climate where one’s minimum of clothing became wet, miserable rags within the hour? Had she been too hasty? Jumped out of the frying pan into the fire?

  After an eternity, formalities were over and visitors came on board to greet their friends and relatives. There was immediately an outbreak of chatter and relieved laughter. Sylvia waited for David Carroll to come and claim her—Michael Hogan had assured her that she would be met—but the ship was now almost deserted and she was coming to the conclusion that Buwambo was not even up to this common courtesy. A young African, immaculate in white linen and wearing a topee, had tried to converse with her a couple of times. She did not quite understand his stilted English, but gathered that he was looking for the ship’s doctor.

  “I’m sorry I cannot help you,” she said at the third approach, and rather sharply. “The doctor went ashore for supplies. Please don’t trouble me.”

  “So sorry, Madame.”

  With a courtly bow the stranger departed, leaving Sylvia feeling mean and more angry than ever with the officials at Buwambo who had brought her to this pass.

  She wished now she had left the ship with the Blaines, who knew this part of the world as well as she knew her native Wales. But she had her suspicions that Kelso was attracted to her, and rather than risk so early an entanglement she had decided that the less she saw of him the better.

  At last she stepped out of the customs shed, realizing she must brave the city alone and unescorted before darkness caught up with her. A hotel was the answer, but which particular hotel should she favor as a lone woman? Then there was her car. Dare she drive out without first knowing the traffic hazards of a new continent? She felt like weeping hysterically, only to find herself seized by the shoulders.

  “Sylvia, whatever are you doing here, still?”

  It was Kelso, and she almost kissed him
in relief.

  “Connie wouldn’t let me rest until I’d checked up on all the hotels to find out where you were staying. She said she had a hunch that fellow you said was meeting you would let you down. Did he?”

  Telling herself she would book a passage on the next ship home, Sylvia allowed herself to be led to Kelso’s commodious estate-car waiting at the dock gate. Her own car, he said, he would collect in the morning.

  “Come to the Bristol for the night, anyhow, and we’ll talk things over. You could come up to Buwambo with us, if you like, but I’d be hanged before I’d let Carroll get away with this. He deserves to be left short-handed after treating you so.”

  Sylvia knew that Kelso had already crossed swords with this man in charge of Buwambo hospital. It seemed there was no love lost between them.

  “I may accept your offer to travel up to Buwambo with you, Kelso,” she said, her panic stilled and her chin jutting again, “if only to tell David Carroll exactly what I think of him and his manners!”

  That first waking on a new continent could not but impress Sylvia. Just after dawn she felt a presence by her bed, and was about to challenge it when a voice whispered, “Tea for lady!”

  “Thank you!” she shakily accepted.

  The curtains swished back, the shutters creaked open and daylight flooded into the room.

  “Madame?” the servant queried.

  “Yes?” She rubbed her eyes.

  “It is now six-thirty, Madame. Later many will be wanting bathroom.”

  “Thanks for telling me. What is your name?”

  “Simon, Madame.”

  “Thank you, Simon.” Sylvia reached for her bag and gave the young man a coin.