Complete Works of Nevil Shute

by Nevil Shute

“I think he will recover,” he said. “We took an X-ray at the hospital and then we took off the dressings, that Dr. Jennings could see what had been done, and he was happy; he did not want to do anything else. We made all clean and more sterile with the better equipment at the hospital. If that one does not drink a bottle of whisky I think he will be well.”

  “He wouldn’t want to, would he?” Jennifer asked. “You said that he was a better type than the man with the foot.”

  “Did I say that? I think that is true. Dr. Jennings is to do a post-mortem on the man who died this afternoon. I think that he expects to find cirrhosis of the liver.”

  “It’ll be rather a good thing if he does find that, won’t it?” she asked. “If it proves he was a bad life, anyway?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I do not think it matters a great deal. He died because he drank a bottle of whisky after amputation.”

  There was a little silence. “The police sergeant was here today,” she said. “He wanted me to answer a lot of questions.”

  He looked up. “I am ver’ sorry. Is that because you helped me in the operating?”

  She nodded. “I’m not sorry a bit. If there’s going to be a row I’m quite willing to be in it.”

  “There is no reason for you to be in it,” he said. “You did nothing but to hand things to me when I wanted them, and hold the light. I shall say to the police that you had nothing to do with the operation.”

  “Don’t do that,” she said. “Just let things take their course and see what happens.”

  “There is no reason for you to get into trouble with the police.”

  “I don’t mind getting into trouble with the police a bit,” she said. “I think I’d rather like to. It was a good thing to have helped in, and I’m glad I did it. I’d rather like to have the chance of getting up in court, or somewhere, to say that.”

  “It’s her red hair, Mr. Zlinter,” Jane remarked. “Quarrelsome young person, isn’t she? She might be an Australian.”

  There was a step on the veranda behind them, and Jack Dorman appeared. “How do, Zlinter,” he said. “Go on — sit down — you don’t have to get up. You’re just the same as Mario.” He dropped down into a chair beside them, and laid his hat on the floor by him. “Warming up,” he said. “Been down to the Howqua again?”

  “I was there last Saturday and Sunday,” the Czech said, “but it is now too hot. I only caught two little fishes, and those I set free to grow bigger.”

  The grazier glanced at Jennifer. “Has he been telling you how he found his own grave?”

  “Found his own grave?” she exclaimed. “You said something about that last night.”

  “You don’t know nothing yet,” Jack Dorman said. “Go on and tell her about it, Carl.”

  The Czech laughed, a little embarrassed. “It is nothing.”

  The girl said, “Do tell me.”

  “It is a stupid thing,” he said. “Have you been into the valley of the Howqua River, Miss Morton?”

  “The name’s Jenny,” she said. “I’ve not been there yet. That’s the next valley, isn’t it — over those hills?”

  “That is the one,” he said. “It is very wild because there is no road to it, and very few people have been there. But once there was a town, a town for the gold miners, because there was a mine there, you understand, but now all that is finished. And the town also is finished, because the forest fires, they burnt it, so that now there is nothing of the town left to see at all, only a little machinery by the entrance to the old mine, and nothing else at all. Only the stones in the old cemetery are there still, because those the fire would not burn.”

  “When did this happen, Carl?” she asked. “When was the town there?”

  “Fifty years ago,” he said. “It was nearly fifty years since all the people went away, because the gold was finished. And after that the fires came, and there was no one living there to protect the town, and so it was all burnt.”

  “All except the headstones?”

  “That is right. I met Mr. Dorman fishing in the Howqua a month ago, and we went together to find the stones that are on the graves. And on one stone, there is an inscription with my own name, and my town in Czechoslovakia.”

  He reached for his coat on the floor beside his chair, and took a wallet from the inside pocket. “I have copied the inscription.” He took a paper, unfolded it, and handed it to her. “That is what is written on the stone.”

  Jane Dorman leaned over, and they read it together. The girl said, “What an extraordinary thing! Is your name Charlie?”

  “Carl,” he replied, “and I was born in Pilsen, but not in 1869.” He paused. “It is not so very extraordinary,” he said. “We were a large family with many branches in Pilsen, and many people from Pilsen emigrated in this last century, when times were hard. The extraordinary thing is that I should have found the grave, I myself, with the same name.” He paused, and turned to the grazier. “I wondered if you have ever heard the name in this country, so that I could find out who this Charlie Zlinter was. He was certainly a relation of some kind.”

  Jack Dorman shook his head. “I’ve never heard the name,” he said. “I don’t suppose anybody in this country could tell you anything about him now. I should think you’d find out something more easily in Pilsen. Get the names of people who left for Australia at the end of the last century.”

  The Czech shook his head. “It is not possible to find out anything from Pilsen now,” he said. “I do not even know who I could write to there, to ask. And if I did write, any letter might make trouble from the Russians. They do not like people who get letters from the West.”

  “Why did it say, Charlie Zlinter and his dog?” asked Jennifer. “Was the dog buried with him?”

  “I do not know. I would like to know, ver’ much.”

  Jack Dorman said, “I think you’ll have a job to find out much now, after fifty years.”

  “There would not be a record of deaths in the shire?”

  “What about the parish register?” the girl asked.

  “I doubt it,” Dorman said slowly. “I never heard there was a church in Howqua. The nearest church would be in Banbury — if there was one there then. I shouldn’t think that they’d have taken much account of what went on at Howqua. There might have been a shire officer there, but I rather doubt it. These gold-mining towns were pretty free and easy in those days.”

  “Would there have been a policeman living in the town?” asked Zlinter.

  “I shouldn’t think so — not in 1902. They’d send police out from Banbury if there was any trouble.”

  “It is not likely, then, that there would be any record of Charlie Zlinter anywhere?”

  “It’s just a chance,” said Dorman. “If he belonged in Banbury, if he lived there, you might find something about him at the Shire Hall. It’s just possible there may be descendants in the district — people of the same name, sons or grandsons, though I never heard the name before. Apart from that, the only thing would be to find somebody who was living in the Howqua at the time. They might remember something about this Charlie Zlinter, some old person.”

  “Would it be easy to find such an old person?”

  “I shouldn’t think it would. Those gold-mining towns, they weren’t settled places, if you know what I mean. People went there to take up claims and work the gold; if it didn’t work out right for them, they went off to some other place — West Australia or South Africa, maybe, where there was gold to be found. They didn’t stay around where there wasn’t any gold. I think you’ll have a job to find anybody who was living at Howqua then.”

  The Czech said quietly, “That is very bad luck.”

  He seemed so disappointed that Jennifer asked, “Is it very important?”

  He smiled at her. “It is not important at all,” he said. “Only, if a member of my family had been here before me, I would have liked to know.”

  Presently Jane went to the kitchen door and rang the hand-bell on the v
eranda to warn Tim and Mario that it was five o’clock and time to knock off for tea. Jack Dorman took the Czech off for a wash: he came back to the veranda presently and found Jennifer there alone.

  He said, laughing, “I must try to remember the way to behave. This will be the first time that I have eaten in a private house since I left Germany, nearly two years.”

  She was appalled at the casual statement. “Is that really true?”

  “But, yes. I do not think that I know anybody in Australia yet, although I have been here for fifteen months. Hotels and bars and cinemas — I know those. This is the first time that I have entered a person’s home.”

  She did not know what to say. “I suppose you don’t meet many people, living up there in the camp?”

  He smiled. “Ordinary people keep away from camps, and sometimes for good reason. And I have spent much of my life in camps. Since 1939 I have lived always in camps, with practically no break — twelve years. I really do not know how ordinary people live.” He laughed.

  Over the meal they talked of small, casual matters of the countryside and afterwards, in the cool of the evening, they sat on the veranda, smoking. When in the dusk he took his leave Jack Dorman offered to run him back to Lamirra. He refused that, saying that Jim Forrest was coming out of town and would pick him up upon the road; they did not press it, thinking that perhaps he meant to stop at the hotel and have a drink. On his part, he was unwilling to extend their hospitality, and preferred the four-mile walk back to Lamirra. Jennifer strolled across the paddocks with him to the road.

  She knew that the matter of Charlie Zlinter and his dog was still upon his mind, and she raised the subject for him, in case he wanted to talk about it. “It’s funny about that headstone,” she said. “Charlie Zlinter.”

  “I would like to find out something about Charlie Zlinter,” he said. “I think he must have been related to me in some way. All of the Zlinters in Pilsen are uncles or cousins of each other.”

  He turned to her. “When you leave your own place and you start again in a new country, with nobody that you know, it is wonderful to find that someone of your family has been there before,” he said. “Even fifty years before. It makes a tie with your own home. And however good the new country may be, unless you know somebody in it you are not a part of it.”

  They walked on in silence for a time. She had not met such loneliness before. “You know some real people now, anyway,” she said. “You know the Dormans, and me. More substantial than Charlie Zlinter. I hope you’ll come and see us again some time.”

  “I would like to do that,” he said. “But also, I would like to find out about Charlie Zlinter and his dog.”

  She laughed. “I believe you’ve been making it all up. I don’t believe there’s any such person, really.”

  He laughed with her. “I promise you that it is true. I would say that I would take you there and show you the stone, but it is ten miles to walk and ten miles back. Some day when Mr. Dorman goes with Mr. Fisher in the Land Rover to fish in the Howqua you must come with him, and I will show you the stone.”

  “That’s a bargain,” she said. “I’d like to do that some day.”

  “I should be much honoured if you would,” he said.

  They walked across the last paddock to the road in silence. It was nearly dark.

  At the gate on to the road he turned to her. “Now I must say good-bye. I am afraid that I have been awkward in company this evening, and I ask if you will forgive me.”

  “You’ve not been awkward a bit,” she said. “You’ve been very interesting, and very charming, Mr. Zlinter. I hope you’ll come again.”

  He laughed diffidently. “It is many years since I have been in company with people of good family, like you. You must forgive the awkward things I must have done. But I would like to come again, and some day I would like to take you to the Howqua to see the stone.”

  “We’ll fix that somehow or other,” she said. “Good-night, Carl. Don’t get run over on the way back, and don’t stop at the pub too long.”

  “Good-night, Miss Jennifer,” he said formally. “Thank you again for all that you have done for me. I shall not stop at the pub tonight at all.”

  “I bet,” she laughed. “Good-night. Come and see us again.”

  She walked back across the paddocks deep in thought. She found Jane sitting on the veranda with Jack Dorman; Angela was away with friends in Banbury, driving her mother’s Morris. Jane said, “I rather like Carl Zlinter.”

  Jennifer dropped down into a chair. “It’s extraordinary,” she said. “He’s been in the country fifteen months, and this is the first time that he’s been inside a private house.”

  “Is that right?” asked Jack Dorman.

  “That’s what he said.”

  Jane said slowly, “Well, I can understand that in a way, although it sounds rather awful. They’re a pretty rough lot up at Lamirra. Before that camp started up, Jack and I used to go down sometimes to the hotel and have a glass of beer and chat with Mrs. Hawkey, the landlady, but we haven’t been for a long time. Too many drunks.”

  “From the lumber camp?”

  “Yes — from Lamirra.”

  “Of course, he’s different to the ordinary lumberman,” Jack Dorman explained. “He’s an educated man.”

  There was a little silence. “I don’t suppose he thinks much of Australia and Australians,” Jane said.

  “He thinks it’s a lovely country,” Jennifer told her. “He doesn’t want to live anywhere else. Only, he’d like to know some people. That’s why he’s so keen to find out something about Charlie Zlinter and his dog.”

  In the dim light Jane stared at her. “But Charlie Zlinter’s dead!”

  “I know. All the same, he’s the only person in Australia that Dr. Zlinter knows, outside the lumber camp.”

  “My dear. I think that’s rather touching.”

  “I thought that, too,” the girl said. “I told him he must come and see us here again — I hope you don’t mind. It seemed such rotten luck.”

  “Of course, Jenny. I liked him. Makes a change to talk to somebody who’s lived outside the Shire of Banbury.”

  “He wants to take me over to the Howqua some time, to see his tombstone,” she said. “I’d like to see it, and I’d like to see the Howqua, but I’m not going to walk ten miles there and ten miles back in this hot weather.”

  Jane said, “You don’t have to walk ten miles to get into the Howqua, surely? You can ride over on a horse.”

  “I can’t,” said Jennifer. “I’d fall off.”

  Jack Dorman said, “You could probably get into the Howqua in a utility, in this dry weather. You can get in in a Land Rover any time of year. It’s easy going on the track this side; the other side’s a bit steep. You could leave the utility parked up in Jock McDougall’s paddock on the top of the ridge, and walk down to the river. That’ld only be about two miles. Zlinter can drive, I suppose?”

  “I really don’t know,” Jennifer said. “I should think he could.”

  “I never met a doctor yet who couldn’t drive a car,” said Jane.

  “He wouldn’t be used to driving on our side of the road, anyway,” said Jennifer.

  “Aw, look,” Jack Dorman said, “there’s only a mile and a half of road before you turn off on the track across the paddocks up into the timber. He won’t hit anything in that distance. If you want to get into the Howqua, make him drive you up to Jock McDougall’s paddock and then walk. You can take the Chev.”

  “That’s awfully good of you,” the girl said. “We’ll ask if he can drive, if he turns up again. I’d be afraid he might smash the Chev up.”

  “It’s worn out, anyway. I’ve been thinking we should get a Land Rover to replace it.”

  “That’s enough of that,” said Jane. “We’ve got too many cars already. I’m going to have my painting before we get another car.”

  “I thought you’d forgotten about that,” he said.

  “Indeed I
haven’t. It’s just that I don’t know how to get the sort of painting that I want. I’m not going to have one of those modern things we saw in Melbourne.”

  Jennifer went to bed that night unreasonably happy. She was deeply grateful to Jack Dorman for his casual offer of the old utility; she had wanted to do something to ease the loneliness of Carl Zlinter, but she had been powerless to do much about it by herself. She was still happy next morning till the postman came by just before dinner, and Mario went down to pick up the mail from their box on the main road. There was a letter from her father, air-mailed from England; the happiness went from her face, and was succeeded by a troubled frown. Jane saw it, and said casually, “Everything all right at home?”

  “Not absolutely,” the girl said. “Mummy’s been in bed with bronchitis. They seem to have had terrible weather in England. Of course, it’s January.”

  “Not serious, is it?”

  “Oh, no. The thing is that when Mummy’s ill it makes things hard for Daddy. They’ve only got a woman who comes in in the mornings.” She paused. “It happened last winter, and I took ten days of my holiday and went up there and ran the house. I didn’t bargain on it happening again this winter.”

  She said no more, but she was troubled at the thought of difficulties in the snow and rain of the Midlands, so far away. It needed a strong mental effort to picture the conditions of an English winter in the Australian summer heat, though she had left so recently.

  At dinner Jack Dorman said, “I’m going in this afternoon to meet Jim Forrest at the hospital. Anyone got anything for the post?”

  “I shall have,” Jennifer said. “I want to write an air-mail to my mother. I’ll let you have it after dinner. What time are you going?”

  “Not till about three.”

  “I’ll write it as soon as we’ve cleared away.”

  Jack Dorman drove into Banbury in the new utility, posted Jennifer’s letter before he forgot it, and drove round to the hospital. Jim Forrest’s car was parked in the street; he parked behind it and went in. A New Australian ward-maid told him that Mr. Forrest was with Dr. Jennings in the office; he put his head in at the door.