by Nevil Shute
There was a knock at the door, and Zlinter went out into the corridor with Jennifer; Jim Forrest was there. “This one is doing well,” he said softly, “ — the amputation. He is now conscious and resting. The other one, the head case, is not good. Will the doctor come tonight?”
The manager said, “His appendicitis case has turned out bad, Zlinter. Peritonitis, or something. I told him what you said about not taking the head case any further before examining him, and he said to do the best you can. I asked if I should get you to ring him, but he’s going back to his appendicitis. He’ll be back at the hotel about ten or eleven. He said to do the best you can, and he’ll be out here in the morning.”
“Did you tell him I may have to lift the bone to ease the pressure on the brain?”
“I told him that you thought an operation might be necessary tonight.”
“What did he answer, when you told him that?”
“He said, he couldn’t be in two places at once, and you’d have to do the best you could. It was a crook line, and I had to make him repeat a good many times, but that’s what it amounted to.”
The Czech stood silent for a minute. Then he said, “I would like you to come in and look at him, with me. You do not mind the sight of a bad wound?”
“That’ll be right.” They went into the room, and Jennifer followed. The manager, in spite of his assurance, drew his breath in sharply when he saw the extent of the injury. Zlinter moved his hand above the great depression. “The bone here is much depressed, as you will see,” he said. “There is hæmorrhage in the brain cavity, also.” He motioned to Jennifer to move the light; she held it above the face, putty-coloured and with a bluish tinge. “He is a bad colour,” said Zlinter softly, “and the breathing is bad also, and the pulse is weak. I do not think this man will live until the morning in his present state. What do you think, Mr. Forrest?”
The manager said, “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a thing like this before, Splinter. I should think you’re right. He’s dying now, isn’t he?”
The Czech said, “I think he will be much improved if we can lift the bone and ease the pressure on the brain.” He motioned Jennifer to put the light back on the nail, and took them out into the corridor. When the door was shut, he said, “I have wanted you to see him now, Mr. Forrest, so that if he should not recover from the operation you can say how he was.”
“You’re going to operate, Splinter?”
The Czech nodded. “I am going to lift the bone, and perhaps take some of it away completely.”
“Right. What do you want?”
Carl Zlinter turned to Jennifer. “Are you too tired to go on again?”
She said, “I’m all right.”
“It will be long, perhaps two hours.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said again.
He smiled at her. “That is good.” He turned to the manager. “We must eat before we start again,” he said, “especially this lady. We shall need a small meal, very quickly now, because we must not wait. Some tea, and boiled eggs, perhaps — something that will be ready soon, in a few minutes. After that we will begin the work. We shall need much boiling water.”
They went into the little room again at about a quarter to nine, freshened by a meal in the canteen and a cigarette. Heat, and not horror, was the enemy that Jennifer had to battle against in the next two hours. There was no fly-screen on the window and it was impossible to open it because of the moths and the flying beetles that crashed against the pane, attracted by the light. It was impossible to have the door open without sacrificing sterility. Both worked in a steady drip of sweat, made more intense by the heat from the high-power lamp that Jennifer held most of the time in the positions that the surgeon told her. From time to time they rested and drank lukewarm water from a pitcher before going on.
Thinking it over afterwards, Jennifer came to the conclusion that the heat made the experience easy for her. She was so miserably hot and uncomfortable that it was all that she could do to keep her wits about her, to keep on handing him the things he wanted at the time he wanted them; she had no nervous energy left with which to be upset at what she saw. She needed all her energy for what she had to do.
It was a quarter past eleven by the time the head was finally bandaged. Zlinter went out into the corridor to get some help and with Forrest and Dorman and two other men they lifted the patient in a sheet from the operating table to the bed, and laid him there. The men stood looking on while Zlinter felt the pulse.
Forrest said, “Looking better, isn’t he, Splinter?”
The Czech said, “I think so, too. It is now a question of the operation shock. If he can live through that, I think he will recover and be a well man.”
He turned to the door. “We will leave him for a little now. I shall come back later.” He moved them out of the room and shut the door carefully behind them, and leaned for a moment limply against the wall. He said to Jennifer, “You must be very tired.”
She was drenched with sweat, her clothes sticking to her body at every movement. “It was so hot in there,” she said. She felt now as though she might be going to faint. “Let’s get out into the air.”
Jack Dorman took her arm, and they moved towards the door of the hut. Zlinter stopped at the room of the other man, and went in softly to look at his amputation case. The man was lying on his back and breathing deeply, sound asleep; he did not seem to have moved since Zlinter had seen him last. He lifted the sheet and glanced at the bandaged leg, and lowered the sheet again. “Good,” he said softly to Forrest. “This one is all right.” He moved to the door, and then stopped for a moment. “Do you smell anything?”
“Carbolic,” said the manager.
“I thought I could smell whisky.”
Jim Forrest laughed. “Too right, Splinter. Jack Dorman’s got a bottle in his car — it’s me you’re smelling. Come on and have one.”
It was cool and fresh out in the forest night after the close stuffiness of the small room, and the air smelt wonderful after the stenches of the operating table. Jennifer felt better when they got outside; Jim Forrest fetched glasses from the canteen and she drank a small, weak whisky and water with the men, and felt better still. They stood smoking together and relaxing in the cool night air, letting the freshness cool and dry their bodies and their clothes, talking in short, desultory sentences about the operation.
Once Jennifer asked, “Will he really recover, like an ordinary man?”
The Czech said, “He may. Not to do bulldozing again, perhaps, but for light work he may recover very well. There will be danger of paralysis, on the right side. We will see.” He turned to the manager. “It is this man who is the student, is he not?”
“That’s right,” said Jim Forrest. “He’s trying to save up to do a university course.” He paused. “Should be able to, the money that one has to pay a bulldozer driver.”
Jennifer asked, “What’s he going to do at the university?”
“Metallurgy, I think.” He turned to the Czech. “What about tonight, Splinter? Will he wake up?”
“I think he may, in two or three hours’ time. I shall stay with him all night, myself.”
Jennifer asked, “Will you want me again?”
He looked down at her. “Not again tonight,” he said. “I could not have done very much for these men without your help. I find it wonderful that you have never been a nurse.”
She smiled. “My father’s a doctor,” she said. “Perhaps that makes a difference.”
“So?” he said. “A doctor in England?”
“That’s right,” she replied. “He practises in Leicester.”
“And you have helped him in his practice?”
She shook her head. “I know a little bit from living in the house, of course. One can’t help learning little bits of things.”
“You have learned more than little bits of things,” he said. “Now you must be very tired. You should go home and get some sleep.”
“You
’re sure you won’t want me any more?”
“No,” he said. “Nothing will happen now that will be urgent, till the doctor comes in the morning.”
She said, “I’d like to know what happens to them.”
“Sure,” he said. “Perhaps I may come in and tell you, at the homestead.”
Jack Dorman said, “That’s right. Come in for tea tomorrow or the next day.”
“If I can, I will do that,” he said. “When the doctor comes, he may wish that I go to Banbury with him, to the hospital, to show what I have done and to hand over the cases in the proper way. I do not know. I will come and tell you tomorrow or the day after.”
She said simply, “I’ll look forward to you coming.”
She got into the utility, and Jack Dorman drove her home. Jane and Angela were waiting up for her with a small meal of cold meat and salad and cheese; she was hungry, but before she ate she had to rid herself of her clothes, that stank of sweat and chemicals. She went and stood under the shower, and put on clean pyjamas and a house-coat, and came back to the kitchen and ate a little cold mutton and drank a cup of tea while telling them about it.
Jack Dorman told Jane, “It was that fellow Zlinter that Ann Pearson told us about, when Peter Loring got his mastoid. He’s quite a surgeon, so it seems.”
She said, “The one that you met over on the Howqua, who found his own grave?”
“That’s right. They all call him Splinter up at the camp.”
Jennifer said sleepily, “Found his own grave?”
“That’s right,” said Dorman. “Get him to tell you about it. It’s quite a story.”
She was too tired to go into that at the moment. “He’s very sure of himself,” she said reflectively. “He knew exactly what he wanted to do, right from first to last.”
Angela asked, “Is he good-looking?”
“Rather like Boris Karloff,” Jennifer told her. “But he’s got a nice smile.” She paused. “I should think he’s a very good doctor.”
“He wouldn’t be as good as an English doctor, though, would he?” asked Angela.
Jennifer smiled at the rose-coloured dream of England. “I don’t know,” she said. “All English doctors aren’t super-men.”
“I thought the English medical schools were the best in the world,” said Angela. “Every Aussie doctor who wants to do post-graduate work goes to England.”
“Maybe that’s because they can’t get dollars to go to America,” Jane said dryly.
Jennifer got up from the table. “I think I’ll go to bed,” she said. “I should think we’d all better go to bed. I’m sorry you’ve had to stay up like this for me.”
“Makes a bit of a change, a thing like this. We’ve not had so much excitement since the cow calved,” Jane remarked. “Don’t get up tomorrow, Jenny. Sleep in late.”
“That’s a damn good idea,” said Angela.
“I didn’t mean you,” said her mother.
At the lumber camp after the utility had gone, Carl Zlinter sat on the steps of the hut in the cool, velvety night talking to the manager. Jack Dorman had left the remains of his bottle of whisky with them to finish off; the Czech had a second but refused a third. “I should sleep if I drink more,” he told Jim Forrest, “and I must stay awake tonight. Presently this man, he will wake up and I must be with him then.”
“Look,” said the manager, “is there anything I can do? I’ll stay up with you, if you like.”
“It is not necessary. There are men sleeping in the hut. If it should be needed, I will send for you. But I think it will not be needed. Everything I think will now be all right.”
Presently Jim Forrest went back to his house to bed; Carl Zlinter finished his cigarette and went back to the hut. He looked in on his amputation case; the man was still in the same position, apparently asleep; from the door Zlinter could hear the even, regular breathing. He did not go in or make any close examination; better to let him sleep. He went into his trephine case and began cleaning and tidying the room, clearing away the debris of the operation and cleaning and drying his instruments.
An hour later, at about one in the morning, the man began to come to. He became conscious; once or twice the eyes opened and closed. The colour and the breathing were now much better. Presently the lips moved; the man was trying to say something.
Carl Zlinter bent beside him. “Don’t talk, Harry,” he said. “Don’t move about. You got a blow upon your head, but you’re right now. Don’t try and talk or move about. Just lie quietly as you are, and rest. You’re right now.”
He could not make out if the man had understood or not; the lips moved again and he bent to try and hear what he was saying. But now there was a humming in the air, unmelodious but recognisable as a tune. In one of the cubicles of the hut somebody was humming, or chanting to himself in a low tone, “God Save the King”.
It was impossible for the Czech to hear if his patient was speaking, or if the lips were merely moving by some reflex originating from the damaged brain. He got to his feet in annoyance; the men in the hut were all good types and they knew very well that there were critically ill men in the hut with them. They should know better than to make a row like that in the middle of the night. He went out into the corridor to find out where the noise was coming from and stop it.
It was coming from the next-door cubicle, that housed his amputation case.
He opened the door. In the dim, shaded light Bert Hanson was lying on his back awake, maundering through “God Save the King” in low, alcoholic tones, and beating time with one hand. The air was heavy with the aroma of whisky. He took no notice of the doctor, but continued beating time and singing, his eyes half closed, the voice getting stronger and the tune louder with every minute.
Thy choicess gifs insore
On him beplea stupore ...
Zlinter went into the room and plucked the towel from the lamp; the room was flooded with light. He saw a lump under the bedclothes, turned them back, and there was the bottle, uncorked and practically empty. He dropped it on the floor with tightened lips, wondering if his patient had drunk the whole of it. From the look of him, he probably had.
The man said genially in a strong voice, “Good old Splinter. Good old mucking bastard!” He burst into laughter in an access of bonhomie. “Come on, le’s sing ‘God Save the King’ together, and muck the mucking Germans!”
A man appeared in the corridor dressed in pyjama trousers and no top. “Want any help, Splinter?”
“This verdamt stupid bloody fool,” said the Czech angrily, “somebody has given him a bottle of whisky. We must try and keep him quiet, for his own sake and for the man next door.”
The next two hours were a nightmare. At an early stage Zlinter sent a man to fetch Forrest from his house; by the time he came running the pandemonium was terrific, with three men fighting to keep Bert Hanson in his bed, with Zlinter himself attempting to keep his trephine case quiet and tranquil in the next room behind a beaverboard wall. The man was frantically, fighting drunk; at one stage he got hold of the bottle and used it as a club till it broke, mercifully upon the wall beside him. It was with the greatest difficulty that they got the jagged, broken neck out of his hand.
Jim Forrest said to Zlinter at the height of it, “You’ll have to give him something. Morphia.”
The Czech said, “I do not think that will be good. When this is over, there will be reaction, and he will be very weak. I do not think that any drug will work while there is so much alcohol, unless to give it in a great dose as would kill him later.”
“What the hell are we going to do with him?”
“Hold him, until the thing passes. If these men grow tired, get other men.”
“How’s Harry going on?”
“He is going on ver’ well. It would be better for him if there was less noise.”
“I’ll do the best I can. But if he can’t have any dope, he’ll have to work it out, and he’s got some way to go.”
At about thr
ee o’clock, and almost suddenly, the man stopped struggling and shouting, and entered on a stage of collapse. Carl Zlinter left his trephine case and gave his whole attention to his amputation drunk. The heart was now very weak. The man lay in a stupor of weakness, gradually sinking. At about four o’clock Zlinter gave an injection of strychnine, which only had a very temporary, slight effect.
At about half-past five, in the first light of dawn, Bert Hanson died.
Seven
IT IS THE duty of the police to take note of all serious accidents occurring in their district, and Sister Fellowes at the hospital in Banbury had rung up Sergeant Russell the previous evening to tell him there had been an accident at Lamirra, and that the doctor was away at Woods Point on an operation case. The police got to the lumber camp at about half-past seven in the morning, inspired more by a genuine desire to assist than with any thought of invoking the processes of law. It was unfortunate, however, that they got there before Dr. Jennings, who would probably have extended Bert Hanson’s life a little upon paper and signed a death certificate which the police sergeant would have honoured; in a country chronically short of doctors it was no business of the police to go round making trouble.
As it was, they came upon the scene before the stage was set for them. They found a Czech lumberman utterly exhausted, who had conducted two major operations without any valid medical qualifications whatsoever, and they found one of the patients dead and in a shocking state of death, for there had been little time or energy to clean the body up. The other patient, on whom a major head operation had been performed, was clearly very ill and, in the view of the police sergeant, probably dying too. The whole thing was irregular and possibly criminal. In any case the coroner would have to be informed, and there must be an inquest.
Dr. Jennings arrived direct from Woods Point half an hour after the police. He found them taking statements from Jim Forrest and Carl Zlinter in the canteen hut, Zlinter having refused point-blank to go to the office of the lumber company, half a mile from his patient. When the doctor came in he got up from the table. “This can wait,” he said to the police sergeant, with small courtesy, for he was very tired. “There are now more important things that must be done.”
