by Anne Vinton
“That doctor—Kalengo, is it?—interviewed me regarding a job up in the bush. I am a pathologist, you see. I was the best student of my year.”
“Really?” Sylvia found herself going off Dr. Wilstrop. His conceit was too much to bear.
“But how could I consider jumping out of the frying pan into the fire? Buwambo, I should think, is the world’s end.”
“We have the same diseases as elsewhere,” Sylvia said quietly.
“Ah, yes. You joke, Dr. Phillips.” Wilstrop smiled politely.
“Why did you come to see me?” Sylvia asked.
“To offer you my escort, of course. We Europeans must stick together. I heard of you from—”
“Dr. Kalengo,” Sylvia prompted quickly.
“Of course, I cannot allow a fellow European to be unescorted in this city.”
“I haven’t been molested—yet,” Sylvia asserted, with some irritation.
Harold Wilstrop, however, pressed his attentions regardless of whether or not they were needed or appreciated. His sleek, red car became a familiar landmark outside the Palladian Hotel for the next two days.
Though she enjoyed the events, Sylvia never got around to enjoying her escort. A little of him went a long way. He was not doing all this out of kindness, she realized, but because she was a professional. It inflated his ego to be in her company. Sylvia was glad when she could offer her hand and say goodbye.
“It may not be goodbye after all, Dr. Phillips,” he bowed, his dark eyes gleaming strangely. “I didn’t realize Buwambo might perhaps have—compensations.”
Sylvia wriggled in distaste and watched until the red car purred away. Then, with a sigh of relief, she went up to her room. Outside the door was a little group of stewards, indulging in an altercation with someone in their midst.
“I go bring manager,” said the bedroom steward sharply and jumped as Sylvia approached, her eyebrows raised. “Madame,” he pleaded, “here is a man who should not be in this hotel. He does not work here.”
“Kadiri!” Sylvia gasped gladly. “Where have you been?”
“I do not find my father,” he answered. “He does not work in that place any more. I had great trouble finding that place, and great trouble getting here. Lagos is not as I remember it. But here I am again.”
“I’m glad to see you,” Sylvia told him. She turned to the bedroom steward and requested that he find lodgings for Kadiri.
The little group melted away, Kadiri with them, looking, perhaps, less awkward than any.
Sylvia saw no more of him until about midnight, when she was awakened by the night steward battering at her door.
“Madame! Madame! that boy...!”
His eyes rolled and he was shivering in fright.
“What is it?” demanded Sylvia, shaking the lad.
“It is this steward of yours, Madame. He sleep in yard. There are foolish men tease him to make laugh. They say you are gone, have left him here alone. He—he...”
“Go on!” urged Sylvia.
“He go out of yard into road. There is a car—and he is knocked into gutter. The car does not stop.”
“Take me to him!”
Sylvia walked along the corridor, drawing her wrap about her. At a side door of the hotel lay Kadiri. His tormentors had lifted him out of the three-foot-deep gutter and laid him on the concrete path that bridged the gap.
“Carry him inside where there is light, please,” Sylvia instructed.
She could find no broken bones on Kadiri and very little blood. There was some bruising and abrasion on the left shoulder, where he had obviously taken the impact of the speeding car, and he was suffering from concussion.
The hotel manager, who had been roused, arrived sleepily on the scene and had a bed made up for Kadiri in the kitchen. Sylvia stayed with him all night, perched wearily on a stool. In the early hours the lad roused and groaned.
“You’re all right,” Sylvia hastened to whisper. “You’ve had a knock on the head. It will be better tomorrow. I’ll look after you.”
There was a small night-light burning over the bed. Sylvia could see the steward rolling his head from side to side.
“Don’t move, it will make it worse,” she advised gently.
“I don’t feel bad,” Kadiri said shakily. “What has happened— this thing—I do not know.”
Sylvia saw that the man’s eyes were actually regarding her, drinking her in.
“You can see, Kadiri?” she asked tensely.
“Allah be praised!” Kadiri gasped.
CHAPTER TEN
When the supply truck lumbered up the muddy track and into the compound, David Carroll experienced a strange sensation. He felt mightily relieved and unfamiliarly happy. Only Sister sniffing sharply across the bed at him prevented him from leaving the patient he was examining and dashing off to greet it.
“I think I’ll have a look at number three’s dressing now,” he said, deliberately transferring his interest from the compound for Sister’s benefit. “Will you see to the unloading outside, please? Nurse can assist me.”
“Certainly,” Sister Kineton agreed. There was no sign of Sylvia at the truck, but she had had time to reach her quarters, and as she would not be required for duty Sister did not inquire after her.
So it was that Dr. Kalengo, returning from Buwambo village, was the first to hear of Sylvia’s independent action. He rushed straight to David Carroll’s office.
“Have you heard about Dr. Phillips, sir?”
“What about her?” The superintendent felt a queer sinking inside. “What about her?” he almost whispered.
“It appears, sir, that she told the truck driver she was coming back, in her own car, hoping not to have to break the journey. Therefore, she”—Kalengo licked dry lips—“expects to be here by nightfall. But...” Kalengo looked at the gathering dusk outside, made darker, earlier, by the purple of storm clouds.
“The stupid little fool!” Carroll said harshly, to hide his anxiety.
Sylvia opened her eyes and stretched her cramped limbs a little. A trickle of sweat rolled from her nape as she lifted her head to look outside. She lowered the car window and saw the figure of Kadiri curled up in the bahama grass. He unwound himself slowly, his hands over his eyes. Then she watched him remove the palms and once more indulge in the miracle of sight.
“I can still see!” he exulted.
“Of course you can!” She swung out of the car, the better to uncramp her legs. “I told you sleep would not harm you. You’ll probably be able to see for the rest of your life, but Dr. Carroll will be able to tell you more about it than I can!”
She looked about her, ruefully observing the car wheels sunk into eighteen inches of mud. “How did we manage to lose the road, I wonder? We seem to be well and truly lost. The hospital can’t be more than twenty miles away. But which way? Do you know, Kadiri?”
The man shrugged.
“I lose sense of direction since I get my eyes,” he admitted wryly. “Tie me up, and I go for find Dr. Carroll.”
“You mean—bandage your eyes?” Sylvia was dumbfounded.
“This I mean. But take bandage off to see again!” he said joyously. “And do not leave car,” he forbade, as, bandaged, he stood as though listening intently. In a few moments he strode off in a direction she was certain was the wrong one, but it was too early in the day to feel fear. The car stood—or rather had sunk—into a broad track that obviously led somewhere or other. Giant mahogany trees pressed on both sides, and beyond them a tangle of weeds and undergrowth, almost impenetrable. A pair of gray parrots suddenly yak-yakked overhead, and Sylvia started. What would they be thinking at the hospital?
For an hour Sylvia fretted, wishing she could walk off somewhere herself, find water and wash, do anything rather than wait. Then the monotony of the occasion was unexpectedly relieved. She heard the welcome sound of voices.
She thought at first rescue was at hand, and plunged off in the direction of the noise. Ah! There were v
oices, and they were in the opposite direction to that which Kadiri had taken. She stumbled and slipped in the mud, and three hundred or so yards on came in sight of a large clearing. It had a palisade all about and was a village of some sort, with palm-thatched huts standing in a perfectly neat circle round a larger, communal-type dwelling. There were many people thronging about, and Sylvia marveled that the density of the bush had kept most of the noise of this community from her for so long.
“Excuse me,” she ventured, as she approached.
Two little boys playing happily in the dust looked up with great round eyes and then yelled for their mother. A woman emerged from the nearest hut and cuffed both children into silence, then smiled shyly at Sylvia. The latter could not but notice that one side of the woman’s face was shriveled and the skin peeling away.
“Is there someone in charge here?” Sylvia asked.
“Yes, Madame.” The young woman indicated the center building, and opened a gate in the palisade for the visitor to enter.
Sylvia did not know what she expected to see inside, but certainly she did not expect to see a fully uniformed nurse busily preparing dressings for sterilizing. The comforting smell of antiseptics rose to her nostrils. She gasped. “Oh! this is like heaven!” and wanted suddenly to weep in blessed relief.
The effect of her entrance on the company, however, was somewhat different.
“Who are you, please?” the nurse demanded.
“My name is Phillips. I work at the Buwambo hospital. My car left the road last night and is stuck in the mud near here.”
The nurse looked up at Sylvia. “You do know where you are, Dr. Phillips?”
“I’m afraid not, Nurse. I’m new to this country and today I am well and truly lost.”
The nurse looked somewhat ill at ease, as though loth to enlighten the visitor, then she made an effort and said, “You have entered Ebe Mula village, a center devoted to the treatment of leprous diseases. You should not be here at all,” she finished in a high, thin voice.
“Oh, but—you are here, Nurse,” said Sylvia.
“Yes, but—I, too, am a leper, you see.”
Morning rounds being over, Sister Kineton squared her shoulders, gave instructions to her staff and marched off militantly to the superintendent’s bungalow. He was uneasily rolling a cigarette when she arrived. He had smoked incessantly for the past twenty-four hours; normally, two pipes a day satisfied him.
“Yes, Sister?” he inquired. "Have you time to sit down?”
“No, thank you, sir. I won’t sit. I wish to give you my notice. I’ll write it out if you think that’s necessary, of course. I’ll stay on until you get someone, but...”
Carroll’s face was a study. This on top of his anxiety for Sylvia’s safety was too much.
“Sister!” he expostulated. “You can’t be serious! I admit I was a bit snappy on the wards, but it wasn’t you. You must understand—it was everything! I’m not myself.”
“That is very obvious lately, sir. But I am serious about leaving Buwambo. I think I’ve had enough of it. Don’t you think I deserve a change?”
“I think you deserve one, but I never suspected you wanted it. I thought you and I were Buwambo. Oh, come, now! What’s the real reason behind all this? You know I can’t let you go just for the asking!”
“Well—I get tired for one thing.”
“Rubbish!” snapped the superintendent. “That isn’t the reason, and you know it. It’s something to do with my assistant, Dr. Phillips, isn’t it?”
“Well—yes.” Shamed into the truth, Sister Kineton inflamed herself anew. “Things haven’t been the same since she came.”
“No, it’s been a darned sight easier all around, but that isn’t what you were going to say, is it? I have watched you, Winnifred, making a dead set against Sylvia Phillips, and I’ve been ashamed of you. You so obviously, on occasion, hated the sight of her. Now why should that be, unless you were jealous, perhaps?”
Sister’s mouth was working furiously, her eyes flashing.
“Jealous? Huh!”
“But what else can I think? Has Dr. Phillips interfered with you in any way? Has she taken over the domestic side of the hospital?”
“No. I should like to see her try!”
“There now!” Carroll said harshly. “Every time you even think of her your hackles rise. This won’t do. She should be here any moment now. When she has freshened up I’ll have her in and ask what she has done to upset you.”
“Oh, no, sir,” Sister said quickly. “Don’t do that. She—hasn’t done anything, knowingly. It’s just that you and I have been together so long and—and now there’s a third. You hardly notice me any more.” The voice wavered and became a whisper. “I have no right to expect more than casual recognition from you, I know, but I—I think a lot of you and—and it hurts. I don’t show what I feel, much, but I do have feelings you know, sir.” She put her hands up to her hot cheeks. “It’s awful to be talking to you like this. I’m so ashamed!”
The superintendent had turned away during this rather embarrassing confession. Still looking through the window he said, softly, “I think a heck of a lot of you, too, Winnie. I don’t know what I’d do without you!”
The woman closed her eyes, suddenly, rigid with ecstasy. “You’re my right hand, and I mean that. No one else could anticipate me, as you do. In fact, you’ve been everything to me for years—but my sweetheart.”
He watched her blanch, look uncertain.
“You never thought of me in that way, Winnie, did you?”
“No, sir. I—never thought of anyone in that way. I was content.”
“But you think Dr. Phillips might fill the bill for me in that respect, eh?”
“I—I—”
“Don’t bluster, Winnie. You’re an old dog-in-the-manger, and you know it. You don’t want me to indulge in a love life either. Well”—he sighed—“chance is a fine thing. If it will set your mind at rest, Dr. Phillips spends her time picking my brains for oddments of surgery. She calls me aggravating and we have several rows a day. Don’t be miserable over Sylvia. Recognize her for what she is, a rattling good surgeon and an asset to Buwambo. You would probably find her very pleasant company if you’d take off that damned collar once in a while. I mean it, my girl, you’re a stiff-necked old...”
She awaited the epithet with some interest, but it never fell. Sister decided to laugh. She felt the air had been cleared, the relationship restored, and she was happier for it.
“While we’re on the subject of other women,” Carroll went on, lighting another cigarette, “there was a letter from Velda in the mail. She is intending to descend upon us as soon as practicable.”
“Good!” said Sister Kineton more happily. “She always cheers things up. I wonder what color her hair will be this time? Gracious me! Those girls won’t have done the Ovaltine without me. They can’t think to do a thing themselves!”
“You got a dreadful shock when you knew what this place was, didn’t you Dr. Phillips?” Nurse Ismi asked.
“I shouldn’t have done,” Sylvia countered, evading the question. “It’s just a special branch of medicine, like many others.”
“Yes, but one that people do not care to think about.”
“Nurse Ismi, you are saying that, not I.”
“I know. It’s the way I feel, though. You outside at least have the choice of looking after lepers or not. I haven’t. I can only nurse in a leper colony. I have been well for many years, but...” Her great dark eyes suddenly smiled. “I am having a good old grumble to you, Dr. Phillips, am I not? You have such an understanding face.” Another young nurse interrupted the conversation. “Someone is coming! It must be your party, Dr. Phillips.”
Sylvia felt her heart bump strangely as she recognized David Carroll’s tall figure inside the palisade. He talked for a few moments earnestly with Nurse Ismi, then left her with Kalengo while he came on alone to the clinic building.
Sylvia rose slowly from he
r chair as he came in out of the strong sunlight, blinking his eyes.
“I’m over here—sir,” she said, in a choked little voice.
He beheld her, looked down at the borrowed frock she was wearing, noted the sallowness the fever had left in her cheeks, saw her hands clasped in a kind of supplication that he should not be angry with her, and the moment was ripe for the heart to speak.
“You—adorable little fool!” he said with difficulty, and clasped her to him fiercely. “Oh, Sylvia, I’ve been in hell wondering what had happened to you! Why did you risk yourself on these roads? What made you come here? Am I never to have any peace from you?” He ran out of questions and stooped to kiss her trembling lips. It was a long time before he raised his head and continued speaking. “Have you—nothing to say?” he asked.
She smoothed back a wisp of hair and sighed. “How did you know I love you, David?” she asked softly.
“I didn’t. It seems like a miracle. You always appeared to keep me on the other side of a barbed-wire fence. I couldn’t get near you.”
“You told me you didn’t want to know me,” she smiled ruefully.
“Oh!” he made a laughing gesture. “You were so lovely—” he indicated her trim figure, her rapt face—“and, a surgeon, too. Knowing—thinking—I hadn’t any chance with you, I took the initiative and renounced you from the outset. But—Sylvia, darling”—all defenses down, he wanted only to feel her near, yielding, feminine and dear—“it was hell without you. That’s all I’ve had time to discover so far.” Again they kissed.
Perhaps the fear of emotional bereavement troubled Sylvia despite herself. Certainly she had been aware today of a heaviness of spirit, almost of foreboding.
This was her first rest day since her leave, and she had hoped to sort herself out and find sanity and safety without emotional loss. But she missed the contact with the beloved more than she dared admit. Though during working hours David remained, perhaps, more aloof from her than usual, she felt the magnetism of him like an aura about her. With the day’s end they were free to cast off restraint, to enfold, to kiss, to sit side by side on the bungalow porch and look out at the firefly-starred bush and see, perhaps, Arcadia, with love-charmed eyes.
