The Hospital in Buwambo

by Anne Vinton

  From the garden which surrounded the bungalow she selected a pink rosebud for her lapel. Gideon proudly pointed to the beds of lettuce, cress and radish, explaining that Dr. Carroll liked such things.

  “In Nigeria we do not eat the grass,” he explained kindly. “Farina is very good. I will show Madame. Also I will cook yam. Very nice.”

  “I can see you would very quickly spoil me if I were staying,” she smiled, and as quickly sighed as she opened the gate and crossed the compound to the hospital.

  On the hospital porch Carroll looked at her keenly, noticing the rosebud.

  This was not the frightened woman he had caught in night attire; this was the surgeon—cool-looking, tailored, satin-haired. Only the touch of the rose in the lapel stirred uneasy memories of last night, memories he would wish forgotten beyond recall.

  The party turned into the women’s ward, and heads immediately craned, anxious to be noticed. Two nurses joined the procession. They were girls from Buwambo village, and this was the only nursing they had done.

  Sylvia asked questions unobtrusively, with sincere interest and due deference. She volunteered no opinions. This quite disarmed Sister, who became more voluble in consequence.

  “We intend to build a maternity wing when funds permit,” she told Sylvia. “Most bush women have their babies as nature intended, in the course of a day’s work, but now and then a complication occurs that has to be brought in.”

  “Sister dislikes maternity work,” said Carroll in a teasing voice.

  “Well, I had my fill of it back home, as you’ll admit, sir,” said Sister, tapping her cuffs animatedly. Turning to Sylvia she continued. “I was Ward Sister on maternity at the Dockland Hospital in London’s east end before coming here.”

  “You were?” Sylvia thought this a remarkable appointment for a twenty-one-year-old. The Dockland was almost as big as St. Augustine’s.

  “Yes, nine years of it, I had, and six years before that in general nursing after my training.”

  Sylvia did some rapid arithmetic and then looked accusingly at David Carroll, but with his tongue in his cheek he was proceeding down the ward. Sylvia looked again at Sister. So this was the twenty-nine-year-old who had aged in the tropics, was it? A woman with twenty-three years in the nursing profession openly acknowledged. It was hardly likely she had started her career as a child of six!

  Just wait! Sylvia thought, glaring at the superintendent’s back. Get rid of me by a trick, will you? We’ll see!

  But the senior officer proved to be most elusive all day, and Sylvia’s wrath had cooled by tea time when he joined her briefly.

  “Don’t say it!” he begged, and laughed. “I was well and truly caught out!”

  “Very well.” Looking cool and delightful in blue lawn, an ancient periodical on her lap, Sylvia looked up at him languidly. “I won’t say anything. But I will also not be writing a letter of resignation. Fair enough?”

  Carroll put his cup down hurriedly.

  “Dr. Phillips ...! Look! I’m doing a transfusion just now. A girl was brought in with her leg almost severed by a machete. A nasty business. We’ll have dinner at seven-thirty and talk. Gideon!” he yelled. “Wa! Wa nihi!”

  “Master!” The lad came at a run, his countenance all attention and devotion. There was a harangue in the Yoruba dialect, and as Carroll hastened away with a final salute in Sylvia’s direction, the steward sought to translate his instructions for the guest’s benefit.

  “I am to kill fat chicken,” he told her, dolefully. “This I do not understand. Chicken lays many eggs—two each day. With chicken I serve beans and potatoes, also sauce. Then I make rum-baba and open bottle champagne. I never make such feast before. Is Madame go for to marry Master?”

  Sylvia flushed quickly and laughed to cover her embarrassment.

  “You’re an old gossip! Your Master can’t bear to have me near him for six months, let alone a lifetime!” The lad looked at her uncomprehendingly. “Anyway, about the chicken you are told to kill, the fat one that lays two eggs a day. That seems wrong, doesn’t it? Haven’t you a chicken not quite so fat that will serve?”

  Gideon looked horrified as he digested her words and finally understood them.

  “Master would kill me!” he said darkly. “Madame go for make me cheat Master?”

  Any reply to that would have been inadequate, she decided, with a shrug.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Fifty miles to the north of Buwambo was a patch of scrub country, the abode of many reptilian varieties. Here the Blaines had set up camp.

  Connie, in old breeches and a man’s shirt, poked the fire with a long stick and looked uneasily across at her brother, who had been staring into the flames for a full hour. About twenty yards away the natives of the party chatted amicably around their own fire. They had fed on cooked meal and the dried, smelly fish they carried with them, which was a great delicacy.

  Kelso Blaine sighed a long, quivering sigh, and again Connie poked with her stick, a little impatiently. Not noted for tact and finesse, she came right out with a challenge to end this ridiculous moping.

  “So she didn’t come,” she stated flatly. “Now forget it.”

  Kelso’s eyes left the flames to gaze at his sister uncomprehendingly.

  “Ugh?” he grunted.

  “Sylvia...”

  “What about Sylvia?”

  “She decided not to join our party, but you’ve insisted on bringing her along. She’s been between us all day.”

  Kelso began to stuff a pipe with some deliberation.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said coldly.

  “Oh, but you do!” Connie squatted on her haunches beside him squaring her jaw to his. “You know darned well what I’m talking about. Hiding your head in the sand won’t help, either. Things are different between us this expedition. You hardly know I’m here, and you certainly don’t care! It’s Sylvia you want, isn’t it?”

  Kelso looked at her, pain in his blue eyes.

  “Con—don’t!” he pleaded.

  “Before when you’ve been hurt I’ve been able to help.” Connie looked helplessly about her. “But this time I can’t. I don’t know what to do. I don’t understand about—about love, I guess.”

  “There’s really nothing for you to understand,” Kelso replied to his sister. “I must snap out of it and get to work. Don’t you let me down, Con, I need you. We’re a team.”

  “I want to cry hearing you say that,” she said huskily, wiping impatiently at her eyes. “I felt for you, and wondered how bad it was going to be. This morning I thought I knew, and it was awful. We waited and waited and Sylvia didn’t come. I don’t suppose she even gave us a thought.”

  “Please, Con.” Kelso turned away sharply. “You’ve been so understanding about things so far. Try to understand; some things are—painful to talk about. They’re new wounds. As I said, let’s forget the whole business and get to work. I’m going to turn in now. Good night, Con!”

  She watched him cross the clearing and enter his tent. After a while he placed his lantern in the opening as a deterrent to snake visitations during the night. These were acts of precaution that had become automatic over the years.

  Connie, too, went moodily to her bed, mourning the carefree days she knew to be lost. “Damn Sylvia!” she said viciously, battering her pillow.

  Unaware of the importance attached to her favors, or lack of them, by her shipboard friends, Sylvia left Dr. Kalengo at the gate of the bungalow, feeling strangely eager for the evening ahead to proceed. She had earlier accompanied Kalengo to Buwambo village, where a vaccination had been performed on a fine male child. The following day the superintendent and Kalengo would make a foray into the bush to vaccinate those who had so far dodged the issue. They would be away all night, for distances between villages and communities are great in a vast continent. Thus, Sylvia realized, she might see no more of David Carroll after the dinner he had planned for this evening. She would be expec
ted to leave with the supply truck at daybreak on Thursday, the day after tomorrow. It had been planned so for her. Kalengo would be hastening back ahead of his senior to act as escort.

  Gideon passed Sylvia with freshly pressed clothes over his arm. “For Master,” he explained.

  “Oh,” she smiled. “Are we dressing up?”

  “Never before,” the lad confided, “have I seen him wear such clothes.”

  Sylvia went into the bedroom and took her white tulle dress off its hanger. She had hardly ever worn it even on the ship, so it was ridiculous to consider it for this evening’s more modest event. Still she looked at it, the corsage studded with diamante, the skirt a froth of mist.

  Why is he making such a show for my benefit? she wondered to herself. He confesses he doesn’t want to know me, let alone work with me. So how do the fat chicken, the champagne and the pressed clothes fit in? I think I’ll play up and wear this dress. After all, if I’m being dismissed for being a woman, I shouldn’t hesitate to look like one—with all the trimmings!

  Half an hour later she looked at herself in the mirror The picture she made was not only pleasing, but breathtaking. She had left her hair smoothly unadorned in favor of pendant earrings. Her throat and chest were bare—rather too bare. She swathed a chiffon stole about her shoulders and went into the living room.

  Gideon had laid the table joyously, with plenty of silver and shining glassware. The only thing lacking was a vase of flowers. Sylvia tentatively suggested this.

  “Madame?” The lad’s round eyes became pools of wonder as he beheld her. His stare was uninhibited and she began to feel embarrassed, to question her wisdom in dressing so.

  “Flowers for the table, Gideon!” she said sharply, to break the spell.

  “Madame?” he looked hurt. “I do not know this thing you ask. Flowers are in garden. I go back to my cooking.”

  Had she offended him?

  She shrugged her shoulders. Flowers as a house decoration were obviously beyond his comprehension, as was “eating grass,” which a green salad appeared to be to him.

  Sylvia carefully stepped over the column of sugar-ants that had arrived, and went out into the garden with her nail scissors. Cutting roses would do these no good, but that table, this evening, simply had to have roses to give a finishing touch.

  With several delicately furled blooms in her hand she turned toward the house, and realized her dress had caught on a thorn. At the same moment David Carroll came in at the gate and stood still to behold her.

  “ ‘She walks in beauty, like the night...’ ” he observed. “Can this be my fellow in surgery, or someone stepped from a Gainsborough canvas? Surely my lady is in the wrong ‘theater’ tonight?”

  “When you have finished making amusing remarks, Dr. Carroll,” she said coldly, “I happen to be stuck on something.”

  “I fly! I fly!” he reassured her. “Let’s get my flashlight to bear on this. Of course I could suggest more suitable clothes for gardening...”

  She tugged and there was a slight rip.

  “Temper!” he chided. “Be still, Dr. Phillips, I almost have you free. There!” As she flounced away he was holding on to the end of the stole and this came away revealing her bared, creamy shoulders. She turned back uncertainly.

  “May I—may I have it, please?”

  He advanced a step and she immediately retreated.

  “I was going to put it on for you,” he told her. “Why are you so nervous of me?”

  “Don’t be absurd! I’m not nervous!”

  “Well-shy, then. You’re shy! You think I’m going to kiss you, don’t you?”

  “Of course I don’t. Dr. Carroll—sir—my scarf, please!”

  “Only if you let me put it on for you.”

  This time she stood her ground as he came near. He swathed the stole about her with deft fingers and felt her tremble at his touch. “If you didn’t expect it, I’m going to surprise you,” he told her. She did not stir.

  His firm lips descended upon hers lightly, exploratively, as a taster will sample the wine he is soon to enjoy. Then, like earthing lightning, there was a surge of sudden, searing heat, an eagerness of demand and response, a quivering of depths inadvertently stirred.

  He looked away as he left her.

  “Why didn’t you run away?” he asked.

  “I rather thought I would surprise you, too.”

  “You have. Don’t you mind? I rather expected a slap at least.”

  “I happen to know such things mean nothing in the tropics. It’s the moon—or something. I’ve had it all explained to me.”

  “The devil you have! Look here, Dr.—oh, dammit, I can’t keep calling you Dr. Phillips after I’ve kissed you!”

  “I rather think time is getting short for further familiarities,” she stated. “Now, shall we go inside?”

  He hesitated a moment longer.

  “A perfect incision, Dr. Phillips,” he acknowledged. “May I retrieve your scalpel from my wound?”

  Gideon had excelled himself, and the success of the feast compensated for the loss of the fat chicken, famous for yielding two eggs per day. Layer upon layer he had carved from the full breast, more than enough for the two doctors, and he intended wrapping up a slice or two for himself, and enjoying it in the privacy of his own compound at the rear of the hospital when work was done for the day. Chicken with farina was delicious—he had already put aside the liver and heart of the bird for his personal delectation.

  The rum-baba had particularly pleased Madame. He had made it with fresh pineapple and banana together with a very rich sauce containing plenty of rum and palm wine, and served with cream that came from England in a tin bearing a picture of the most fabulous dairy cow Gideon had ever seen.

  Gideon peeped through the woven fiber curtain that shielded his kitchen from the living room and beheld Master leaning across the table toward Madame, a glass in his hand.

  “Have we drunk to Winnie?” Dave Carroll asked brightly.

  “No. To Winnie! Good old Winnie!” responded Sylvia, drinking champagne and feeling wonderful.

  Carroll smiled. For some time she had enunciated every syllable carefully, which was a sure sign of early inebriation. The boy had certainly lashed the alcohol about. Brandy in the white sauce, palm wine and rum in the dessert, and his fair guest had enjoyed two helpings! Then the champagne to cap all.

  She’ll never believe I didn’t plot this, he thought, and remembered, disturbingly, the cool potency of her soft lips on his own.

  “Dr. Phillips,” he said gently, “you’ve had enough to drink.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she giggled. “I can at least call my own halts, sir. Aren’t I being sent home the day after tomorrow? You’ll—never see me again, you know.” The reproof was lost in a hiccup. “Now that was something I ate,” she frowned at him. “Excuse me!”

  “You were going to write a letter of resignation,” he reminded her, realizing he would have to leave the hospital with Kalengo and an orderly at daybreak. “Did you do it, Dr. Phillips?”

  “No,” she waved her hand airily and her stole slipped to the floor. Flushed with the wine, she looked very lovely and vulnerable. “I had to teach you a lesson for playing a trick on me about Sister’s age. When you tell me the truth, your real reason for not wanting me to stay, I’ll write the letter.” She deliberately drained her glass. “Can’t we have some music?” she demanded, and screwed up her nose. “I don’t feel like writing a letter at this moment.”

  Carroll rose and selected a record, smiling to himself.

  “I think you’re too much under the influence to write,” he challenged, as the strains of a waltz filled the air.

  “You don’t catch me out like that,” she said gaily. “I’ve never been tipsy in my life! Look!”

  She rose and swayed about the room, light as a cloud. “Convinced?” she asked, as Gideon quietly cleared the table and lifted it aside. Carroll told him he could go.

  Sylvia paused
breathlessly in her dance, stumbled and was caught by a pair of strong arms.

  “Oh!” she sighed happily. “Are you going to dance, too?”

  To please her he waltzed a few steps in the small space of the room.

  “Now,” she demanded, “while we’re friends, tell me why you want me to go away. If you tell me the simple truth I’ll go without argument. That’s a promise.”

  He bent down to her ear.

  “I’m afraid of falling in love with you,” he whispered, “and have been ever since the first moment I saw you.”

  She was jolted into sobriety, never for a moment questioning his sincerity.

  “I—I don’t know why,” she said, “I was at St. Augustine’s with two hundred men, and none of them fell in love with me.”

  “They obviously never saw you in this, dress,” he smiled.

  “But I wasn’t wearing this dress the first time you saw me.”

  “No. It can’t be the dress, then, can it?”

  She gave up the effort of trying to keep a dignified front. Her knees sagged and he drew her closer in support.

  “I’ll put you to bed,” he said gently.

  “Oh, no! No!” She resisted, and would have slipped to the floor had he not swept her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

  Gideon had thoughtfully lowered the mosquito netting, but Carroll elbowed it aside and placed her on the bed. Sylvia felt as weak and helpless as a baby. Her lovely gray eyes mutely appealed.

  “Well”—he smoothed back his hair—“it turned out to be quite a party, didn’t it? Can you remove your dress?”