by Isobel Chace
‘And you’re not?’ she demanded, throwing any caution to the winds.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that!’ he teased her.
Her mouth set in a mutinous line. ‘Then I’ll stay with you,’ she said. ‘We can fly back together. After all, we began the whole thing together, and we’ll finish together.’
He was unexpectedly gentle in his reply.
‘I think you’d better get home to bed,’ he told her. ‘You won’t be feeling up to much for some time to come. I won’t crash the plane again, you can be sure of that!’
‘But—’ she began.
‘You are the most argumentative female I’ve ever met!’ he exploded. ‘You’ll go back with John and do as you’re told for once!’
He turned round in his seat so that all she could see of him was the uncompromising rear of his head. Her own was now aching worse than ever and she wished herself anywhere but in the confined space of the cockpit. She was afraid too, deep down inside her. She began to wonder whether she would ever be able to travel in complete comfort again. The funny thing was that she was sure she would be safer if it was Matt’s hands that guided the craft, and Matt’s voice that checked their position at intervals over the radio. John Halliday sat at the controls with a negligent ease that spoke of hours of experience, but Matt had flown with that quiet competence that characterized all his actions. He had not been stiff or uneasy, but he had looked ready for an emergency, whereas such things obviously never entered John’s horizons, even as possibilities!
Soon, she thought, she would be back at Kwaheri, and tomorrow she would be a nurse again at the little hospital that was already familiar to her. She would be in her own element again and out of this strange world that churned her into little pieces. The queue of out-patients would be there waiting for her and she would be able to work herself back into her usual peace of mind. It must be the size of the country that had made her find those curious uncharted lands within herself, lands that she had not even suspected the existence of back in that familiar little island called England.
Sometimes she hated Matt. What right had he to issue his orders to her as though she were no more than a child? Rebellion surged up inside her and she fostered it, making it bigger than it really was. She wanted to go home. She wanted to fall into bed and sleep for a week; sleep until her head had stopped aching and the ocean of tears behind her eyes had dispersed. But she wanted too to have Matt take her home; to have him drive her to the door of the manager’s house and to have him hand her down out of the jeep as he had once before. She wanted — she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted, and before she could make up her mind, she was asleep.
The little Auster was no more than a dot on the landscape. The Sonjo men who had been delegated to guard it had lit a fire nearby that showed up marvellously for miles around, the blue smoke curling up into the shimmering air. They had heard the Piper Tripacer long before it came into their vision and were standing waving white rags and grinning all over their faces. John swooped over them and they scattered to the left and to the right of his path, laughing gaily up at him.
It was the sudden descent over their heads that woke Sara. She knew immediately that she was running a temperature again. Her mouth was dry and little prickles of heat ran about just under the surface of her skin. With an effort she sat upright and tightened her belt ready for the landing. The Tripacer hit the earth with a jolt that almost winded her and then skidded into the long grass.
‘Why didn’t you land on the other side?’ Matt asked John impatiently. ‘This grass will stop you taking off, if you’re not careful!’
John grinned confidently.
‘Don’t you be too raking sure!’ he said. ‘If you hadn’t landed in the best place there might have been room for me.’
Matt grunted. He gave Sara a concerned glance, noting the drawn lines of her face. She winced as John taxied the aeroplane to a better spot for take-off and Matt smiled at her.
‘Take another pill!’ he ordered tersely.
Unsympathetic brute! Sara thought; but she did as he bid her, taking the water canteen from his outstretched hand and drinking the lukewarm water with an obvious distaste that made him laugh.
‘Poor little Sara!’ he said lightly, and the tears came flowing into her eyes. Fortunately his attention was diverted by John bringing the aeroplane to a standstill and cutting the engine.
They all climbed out on to the burning ground. John pushed his Australian bush hat further on to the back of his head and helped Sara down, laughing at her as she almost fell, her limbs were so cramped from the small place that had been allotted to her in the cockpit.
‘You’ll have more room going back to Kwaheri,’ he said easily. ‘Bed is what you need, my pet, and a little bit of attention from that Indian fellow.’
‘Dr. Cengupta,’ she murmured.
‘That’s the one. Be a pleasant change for you. He can dance attendance on you for a while, instead of you waiting on him!’
He gave her a friendly smile and mooched off in the direction of the Auster. He walked, Sara noted with amusement, just like a cowboy, or perhaps a sailor not quite accustomed yet to the land. He was probably more at home in the saddle than on his own two feet and would think nothing of riding hundreds of miles with only a swag and a billy-can. Not that he would call himself a cowboy, she reflected; Australians had another name for them. She must remember to ask him some time what it was.
Matt was standing in the centre of the group of Africans, laughing and joking with them. He showed them the inside of the two aeroplanes, smiling at their astonished comments as they gazed at the multitude of dials before them. For the very first time, these few men had seen an aeroplane as a man-made machine, but they accepted it as easily as they accepted a curious formation in the rocks. It was a matter for wonder, but their interest went no further than that. They would have flown in it quite happily, sure that the white men knew what they were doing.
Sara watched them for a few minutes feeling a little ashamed of her own fears on the subject. She would have to come to grips with it, she told herself, as she thought with near panic that she would soon be required to get back into the Tripacer for yet another take-off into the air.
She sat down on the ground, letting the sun beat into her flesh until it felt as though it was burning her very bones. Matt had taken down the engine of the Auster and the two white men were peering into its mechanism, looking for the fault. They were deep in the technicalities of flight and quite unaware of her presence. She might as well have been in Timbuctoo for all they cared, she thought, but at that moment, almost as if she had spoken aloud, Matt looked up from the pieces of aeroplane he had strewn all over the ground and said:
‘Sara Wayne! Get into the Tripacer at once! Do you want to add sunstroke to your troubles?’
And the smile that went with the words more than made up for the tone of his voice. She smiled sleepily back at him.
‘Are you going to be long?’ she asked.
‘Nope. I think we’ve got the trouble here.’ He turned to John and began to give him a list of the things that he wanted flown out to him. ‘Sorry to have given you all this trouble, old man,’ he finished.
‘No trouble at all!’ John grinned back, slapping Matt across the back. ‘We’ll push, if that’s all you want?’
‘That’s all.’
Matt stood upright to prepare himself for the battle with Sara. He was touched that she should want to stay with him, but determined that she should go home to bed. In the end, however, no battle was needed. Sara was sufficiently tired to allow herself to be escorted to the Tripacer and almost lifted into the passenger seat next to John’s.
‘You’ll be okay now,’ Matt told her, and his head came down to hers and, before she was aware of his intention, his mouth had claimed hers, his firm lips gentle against her own. Then he was gone and the little aeroplane was taxiing forward preparatory to taking off into the skies.
CHAPTER SEVEN
> ‘You and Matt have a pretty bad time?’ John asked when they were safely airborne.
‘Not really. It was just rather worrying because I was running a temperature. But Matt was wonderful, it would have been dreadful if he hadn’t been there!’
John looked at her closely.
‘You and he seem to get along pretty well,’ he said blandly. ‘Never seen any other girl get Matt all protective over her, unless maybe it was — Julia!’
Julia! Sara had forgotten all about her. How could she have done? she asked herself. How could she ever have forgotten Julia Davids, with that charming, complaining voice and those blatant good looks?
‘He’s just my employer,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m afraid, like most nurses, I wasn’t a very good patient and he felt responsible for me.’
‘Nothing more to it than that?’
Sara shook her head. It cost her something to do it, but she was no coward. She believed in facing facts, and the sooner one faced unpleasant ones the better!
John, on the contrary, looked relieved.
‘I’m glad,’ he said simply. ‘You must come and have a look over my spread. It’s not so big as Kwaheri, of course, but it’s a fair size for a foreigner in Tanzania.’ He looked a little regretful. ‘I don’t suppose we could support a full-blown hospital, but I’ve been thinking of employing a nurse for some time. You’ll have to give me your advice.’
His enthusiasm was contagious. Sara could never resist any discussion of anything related to her work.
‘What do you do with your casualties at the moment?’ she asked.
John grinned. ‘Send them down to you at Kwaheri,’ he told her. ‘Matt doesn’t mind, and it gives you lot something to do!’
‘I like that!’ Sara exclaimed, her indignation very nearly genuine. ‘And how much do you contribute towards the hospital funds?’
John was startled out of his complacent smile.
‘Nothing! The hospital is already there. The few patients I send down can’t make much difference to the expenses.’
‘Then it doesn’t sound as though you need a full-time nurse,’ Sara said firmly, rather enjoying his discomfiture.
‘I didn’t say that I did!’ he complained. ‘I suggested that you should come over and advise me about it!’
Sara flushed a little. She was so accustomed to people taking her nursing abilities seriously that it had never entered her head that John should not really be in the least interested in her profession. He really would think that she was lacking in humour!
‘Oh!’ she said, and saw that he was grinning at her again.
‘Well, how about it?’ he asked.
‘I should like to,’ she said as calmly, as she could. It would do her good to develop other interests outside Kwaheri. ‘Tell me about it!’
He was gratified that she wanted to hear about his estate. It was the love of his fife and he was never tired of talking about it.
‘I was in North Africa during the war,’ he began, ‘and was invalided down to Kenya for a spot of leave before we went on to Italy. The family who took me in drove me down here for a week and I fell in love with the place. I bought it after Uhuru — that’s Independence — and have been here ever since. It’s a pretty small place compared with some — nothing like the profits of Kwaheri, for instance — but then I don’t need so much, as I have a pretty good income from wool at home.’ He rambled on, telling her all about the various experiments he had made, while she, only half listening to him, drowsed beside him, content to be a small part of the new world in which she found herself.
Kwaheri seemed to be only half the distance away from what she had expected and they were soon coming in to land over the strip that had been hacked out of the side of the hills, in amongst the sisal plants. This time Sara wasn’t at all afraid. Every moment meant that she was nearer her bed and sleep and she was too tired to feel any other sensation besides fatigue. It was a better strip than the one at Arusha, she noticed, and was hardly aware of the actual moment when the wheels touched the ground.
‘There you are, ma’am, safe and sound!’ John smiled at her. ‘I’ll go and root out some transport to take you home while you’re getting out.’
He dropped down on to the ground and shouted to the nearest African. The man came over to him and they consulted earnestly together for a moment or two before the African went dashing off in the direction of the maintenance shed. John came round to her side of the Tripacer and helped her down on to the ground beside him.
‘Seems Mrs. Halifax is over in the shed,’ he said. ‘She’ll see you home and tell Dr. Cengupta what you’ve been up to.’
She nodded gratefully and grasped her medical bag under her arm. She had never really met Mrs. Halifax and she wanted to make a good impression. It was true that she had seen her that once on the train, but she didn’t flatter herself that the older woman would remember her.
When Mrs. Halifax came hurrying out of the shed, though, she wasn’t sure that this was the same woman at all. On the train she had remembered her as tall and good-looking, but now she seemed a good deal less frightening. Her hair was all anyhow and the lines that Sara had noticed around her eyes were lines of humour and lines from peering into a sunbaked horizon, but not the lines of temper that she had somehow expected.
‘Hullo, my dear!’ Mrs. Halifax greeted her, her eyes twinkling in a way that was very reminiscent of her son. ‘What a dreadful experience for you!’ Her glance darted up and down the slim girl before her and she nodded with apparent satisfaction. ‘My child, you look quite awful!’ she said frankly. ‘We’d better call in at the hospital on the way to your aunt’s — not that I really like to leave you there, because it’s no good expecting her to do anything in the way of nursing you, and Felicity hasn’t yet got her feet back on the ground!’
She paused dramatically for breath and at the same moment John came over to say good-bye. Sara had the interesting moment watching Mrs. Halifax change into a cool, competent business woman as she discussed the things that Matt needed to bring the Auster back to base, and then a moment later she had changed back again. This metamorphosis completed, she gave Sara a mischievous smile and hurried her along to the waiting Jaguar.
‘You must tell me all that happened to you. Well, no,’ she corrected herself, ‘perhaps not quite all!’ She watched with calm good nature as Sara blushed and looked pleased with herself. ‘We’ve had a terrible time here too,’ she confided. ‘James has finally dug in his heels and says that he’s catching the next boat home to England and, worse, that he’s taking Felicity with him!’
‘Worse?’ Sara asked weakly.
‘Definitely worse! Your aunt will go off the deep end! But we must worry about you now, not them! Tell me why you’re looking so dreadfully ill, my dear.’
Sara’s lips twitched with amusement. It was evident that Mrs. Halifax had a great feeling for effect! Her timing was too good not to be the outcome of years of accomplished practice. Why should it be so dreadful for James and Felicity to go off to England together? And why should her aunt object? Surely that was what she wanted, to make some lasting connection between herself and the Halifaxes. It had been the same when she had telephoned the house, Sara remembered; with James begging her not to mention the fact that Felicity was with him to her aunt. It was all very mysterious, but she had no intention of displaying her curiosity to Matt’s mother if she could help it.
‘I think I had a mild go of malaria. It was too stupid at such a time, but Matt was wonderfully practical about it all and I’m really none the worse.’
‘Matt can be useful,’ his mother agreed humorously. She hadn’t missed that quirk of amusement on Sara’s lips and she knew that she was beaten, not resenting it in the slightest, but rather glad that Sara should be worthy of her mettle.
The two women smiled at one another and then laughed.
‘Don’t you want to hear about James and Felicity?’ Mrs. Halifax asked.
‘Don’t you want to
tell me?’ Sara teased her.
‘Well, of course I do! Julia is not a very comfortable person to gossip with, I find, and I’m feminine enough to really enjoy a good natter every now and then. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come back to the house with me and stay with us for a few days?’
It could very well be that Mrs. Halifax was starved for feminine society, Sara thought, and she was seriously tempted to go with her. It would be so wonderful to have her look after her and to fuss her in a way that her aunt would never dream of doing. But of course, it was quite impossible. Her aunt would be terribly hurt if she were to do any such thing.
‘I’d have loved it,’ she said warmly, ‘but I think I ought to show my face at home Aunt Laura will have been very worried about me.’
‘Of course, dear,’ Mrs. Halifax said, looking for all the world as though she thoroughly agreed with this polite fiction. ‘I suppose it would be more civil.’ She put out a hand and squeezed both of Sara’s on her knee. ‘You’re not at all what I expected,’ she said frankly. ‘I’m usually frantically shy with people, but I should imagine that was very difficult with you! You must have a nice family at home.’
Sara felt a sudden gush of warmth towards her and smiled rather emotionally.
‘Why, thank you,’ she said. ‘T-tell me about Felicity and James.’
‘Ah yes!’ Mrs. Halifax’s eyes gleamed with anticipation. ‘They want to get married! Mind you, I’m not at all against it. Felicity is such a young thing that James would be obliged to grow up to look after her. And then it would be a good thing for her to have a rest from her mother. She would be able to see her so much more in proportion if she was away from her for a little while. I think it would be an excellent thing, but of course Mrs. Wayne won’t hear of it!’
