by Nevil Shute
The coroner whispered again to Sergeant Russell. Then he said, “Have you ever known the man Zlinter to do an operation before?”
“No sir. I have known him to do dressings and first aid for minor injuries, which have sometimes come to me for treatment later on, at the hospital.”
“And you have been quite happy that he should do that sort of work up at Lamirra?”
“Yes, sir. I understand that he is qualified as a medical practitioner in his own country, but not in Australia. He is quite competent to do that sort of first-aid work.”
“Do you consider him competent to do the sort of operations that he did on this occasion, Dr. Jennings?”
The doctor said carefully, “As a general rule, sir, I should not regard him as competent to operate until he had complied with the regulations of the Medical Registration Board, which means that he should have to do a further period in a medical school here. In this particular emergency both these men would probably have died but for his care. That was the alternative. The operations that he performed should have saved both lives, but unfortunately one man has died through his own intemperance.” He paused. “I should like to make it clear that I have quite a high opinion of Mr. Zlinter’s capabilities as a surgeon.”
The old man blinked at him. “You have a high opinion of him?”
“Certainly, sir. If he were properly qualified in this country I should be glad to have him as a partner.”
A further bout of whispering with the police sergeant. “That will do, Doctor, thank you. Call Mr. Zlinter.”
Carl Zlinter stepped to the witness stand and took the oath. “What is your nationality, Mr. Zlinter?”
“I am a Czechoslovakian, sir.”
“And have you any medical qualifications?”
“I am a licentiate of the University of Pilsen and a Doctor of Medicine, sir.” He pulled some papers from the breast pocket of his coat. “I have here my diploma.”
He passed it to the police sergeant and the coroner, who looked at it with interest, unable to read one single word. “Very good.”
The coroner leaned back in his chair. “You have heard all the evidence, Mr. Zlinter,” he said. “I think we have heard enough evidence now to determine the cause of this man’s death, and I do not propose to ask you any questions. I have called you because I have some things to say to you.”
He paused, and went on slowly and deliberately, “You have heard the evidence, and from the evidence it is fairly clear that in an emergency you performed two operations competently and well, one of which was a very serious and delicate operation. I have to thank you on behalf of the community, and at the same time I have to give you a warning. You are not licensed as a doctor in this State or in Australia at all, and if you should do any further operations, and if they should turn out badly, you would be open to a charge of manslaughter, because in this country you are not a doctor. I do not want to seem ungrateful to you, but that is the law. Before doing any further operations you must get yourself qualified, or you may find yourself in trouble. Do you understand that?”
Carl Zlinter said, “Yes, sir. I have always understood that ver’ well.”
“Well, you’d better get yourself qualified as soon as you are able to. Thank you, Mr. Zlinter; you can stand down now.”
Carl Zlinter went back to his seat, and the coroner whispered again with the police sergeant. At last he raised his head, shuffled his papers, and said,
“This inquest has been called to ascertain the cause of the death of Albert Hanson. The evidence that we have heard shows that the man died of operational shock following upon an accident with a bulldozer, and that the operational shock was aggravated and intensified by a great quantity of alcohol which the man got hold of in some way that cannot be ascertained, and drank. I do not think the fact that the operation was performed by an unregistered surgeon had any particular bearing on the cause of death, but the fact that whisky was supplied to him after the operation was certainly a factor in his death. For this the management of the Lamirra Timber Company were responsible. I cannot close this inquest without expressing my opinion that some negligence occurred on the part of Mr. Forrest in the after-care of these men. It appears that no organisation for the treatment of serious injuries exists at Lamirra. I think that there should be such an organisation, a small hospital or dressing station where such injuries can be properly treated and isolated. If that had existed, the life of this man might have been saved. I find a verdict of accidental death, with a strong recommendation that the company should consider what I have said. I shall not be so lenient with them if this should happen again.”
He shuffled his papers together, rose from his seat and went out of the court; the people on the public benches began to stream out of the door. Jack Dorman unostentatiously got out early, and fell into step with Dr. Jennings as he walked towards his car.
“All went off very well, Doctor,” he said.
The doctor nodded. “I was sorry Jim Forrest got a rap, but I suppose somebody had to have it. I think there was some carelessness. Jim must have known the man was a boozer, and he might have thought some of his mates would try to slip him something.”
“Aye,” said the grazier, “but I don’t suppose Jim’ll lose much sleep.”
“He should put up a dressing station of some sort.”
“Maybe he’ll do that.” He hesitated. “It was good of you to say what you did about Splinter,” he said. “It could have gone crook for him.”
The doctor nodded. “I know. He did a good job, as good as anybody could have done in the conditions. I thought it was only fair to make that clear.”
“When you said you’d be glad to have him as a partner,” Jack Dorman remarked, “I suppose that was just a manner of speaking, for the police and old Bert Richardson?”
The doctor stopped and glanced at him. “I don’t know that I meant it to be taken very seriously,” he said. “We could do with two more doctors in this district, but we’re not likely to get them so long as any young chap just qualified can put his plate up in a suburb of the city and make a go of it. If Zlinter was qualified I wouldn’t mind having him; he’s probably quite a good doctor. However, he’s not qualified, so there’s an end of it.”
“He might be one day,” the grazier said.
“Are you thinking of financing him?”
Jack Dorman laughed. “Not on your life. I was just wondering how you’d feel about it if he ever turned up in this district as a proper doctor.”
“I wouldn’t mind a bit,” the doctor said. “He certainly did those two operations very skilfully.”
Outside the court-house Jane Dorman stopped Carl Zlinter as he was about to get into the utility with Mr. Forrest. “Carl,” she said, “what’s the best way to get hold of this man Shulkin? What would be the best time to go and talk to him about pictures?”
“I think the week-end,” Zlinter said. “In the week he will be working always, on the railway somewhere.”
Jim Forrest said, “He won’t be working today, Mrs. Dorman.”
She turned to him. “Why not?”
“The railwaymen are on strike.”
“Are they? What’s it for this time?”
“It’s a twenty-four-hour stoppage,” he said. “The wharfies went to the Arbitration Court for another pound a week for something or other, and they didn’t get it, so they’ve stopped work for a day to show their displeasure, and the railwaymen have done that too. Like what they call a Day of Mourning in India.”
“My word,” said Jane. “Everybody’s making too much money in this country, that’s the trouble.”
“Too right,” said Mr. Forrest.
“You think I’d find Shulkin at his home?”
“Unless he’s in the pub. These twenty-four-hour stop-pages, most of ’em spend the Day of Mourning in the pub.”
“I do not think that Shulkin will be in the pub,” said Zlinter. “I think he is a serious man. I think that you will find him in
his garden, or perhaps painting.”
Mr. Shulkin was painting, but not in the style that Zlinter had visualised; Jane and Jennifer found him distempering a bedroom of the little weatherboard house beside the railway coach. He got down off a chair to greet them, brush in hand; a little girl about five years old, smothered in distemper and rather dirty, stared at them, finger in mouth. Jane said, “Are you Mr. Shulkin?”
He smiled. “I am Stanislaus Shulkin.”
“Mr. Zlinter was telling me that you paint pictures.”
He beamed at her, pulled forward the chair, and dusted it. “Please — I am so sorry you must find me like this. Carl Zlinter, he was telling me that there is — there is a lady who was wanting beautiful picture. So?”
Jane said, “I do want a very, very nice oil painting, Mr. Shulkin. The trouble is, I don’t want just anything. I don’t even know what I do want until I see it.”
He smiled. “Also, you do not know if I can paint such a picture, that you will want.”
She laughed with him. “That’s right.”
“I can paint any kind of picture,” he said. “Just like the carpenter, he can make any wood — a chair, a table, a bed, a cupboard. The good carpenter he can make all things, in all woods. So the good artist, he can paint all kinds of picture. But the good carpenter, he makes some things in some woods ver’, ver’ well, and the others, just like anyone could make. So the good artist. Some things I can do ver’, ver’ well, and others just as any artist, so-so.” He glanced at her. “You understand me?”
“Perfectly.”
“So. Now we will go and I shall show you some pictures.”
He took Jennifer and Jane to the railway coach and showed them his pictures. For half an hour he pulled canvas after canvas out of untidy piles, set them up upon the easel, and described them. Of the ten or fifteen canvases displayed, Jane set aside three, all landscapes, one of them the Delatite river picture with the wattles that Zlinter had admired.
“These are something like it,” she said slowly, “but not just what I want. I’m sure they’re good enough in the technique, but they are not my picture. Do you understand what I mean?”
He nodded. “I understand ver’ well.”
She said slowly, “Let me tell you something, Mr. Shulkin. I grew up with pictures, and I never thought about them much. I was born in England and my people were well off, and there were lots of paintings in the house. I think some of them must have been very good, but I never thought about them at the time. It’s only now that I’m getting old that I’m beginning to realise what a lot you miss by not having good paintings. When we couldn’t have them because we hadn’t enough money I never worried about them, or thought about them much. But now we’ve got a bit more, and I want a good picture almost more than anything.”
He nodded slowly. “May I ask a little question, or two?”
“Of course.”
“What is it that you do?” he asked. “What interests have you?”
“I don’t do anything except the housework,” she said. “It’s a whole-time job upon a station. You can’t get any help.”
“Are you interested more in flowers or in people?” he asked.
She smiled. “Cold beef or Thursday.” She thought for a moment. “I think, really, I like flowers more than people. They never disappoint you.”
“Do you like the high mountains and the rivers better, or the bright lights in shop windows in the coming darkness of a winter night?” he asked.
“I like the high mountains and the rivers better,” she said. “I don’t really like the city.”
He said surprisingly, “This young lady, she is a relation of you?”
“Why, yes. This is Jennifer Morton, Mr. Shulkin — she’s a kind of niece. She’s only just arrived from England.”
“So — she is English.” He moved round Jennifer and looked at her in profile, thoughtfully. “Ver’ interesting,” he said at last. “Now one last question, Mrs. Dorman. Do you like better the picture that is full of colour or that is full of good drawing, with the colour more quiet?”
Jane thought for a long time. “I think the picture that is full of good drawing,” she said. “One gets such brilliant colours in this country all day long. Unless it was very unusual colour, it would be a repetition of what you see all the time, and I think one might get tired of that. I think I like quiet colours with good drawing.”
“So,” he replied. “Now I will say what I can do for you.” He looked at her, smiling. “I like to paint,” he said, “but I cannot now buy canvases and paints for pictures that nobody will buy. I would like to paint three pictures, of this size,” he raised a canvas, “and show the three for you to choose which you like best. If you like one to buy it, you shall pay me seventy pounds. If you do not like any of the pictures, then you shall pay me five pounds for the cost of the canvases and the paints. That is all that I would need, the money that I shall have spent.”
“That sounds fair enough,” Jane said. “But if I don’t like any of the pictures, you’ll have done a great deal of work for nothing.”
“I like to paint,” he said simply. “I will have been able to paint three more pictures because you will have paid for the materials.” He paused. “Also,” he said, “the work is not alone for me. This young lady will require to work with me.”
“Me?” asked Jennifer.
“These pictures are to have quiet colour and good drawing,” he said equably. “Your head also has quiet colour and good drawing. One of the pictures is to be a portrait of you, upon some landscape background of this place.”
There was a momentary silence. “It’s not a bad idea Jenny,” Jane said at last. “You’ve got some lovely colours in your hair, if he could ever get them right.”
“I also have noticed those,” said Mr. Shulkin. “It will be ver’ difficult, and I may not do well. But I would like to try the portrait, for one picture.”
“I don’t mind sitting,” said Jennifer. “I’ve never done it before, though. How many times should I have to come?”
“Three times,” said Shulkin. “If it was not possible in three sittings, then it would be impossible, and we should stop and do something different. But I think it will be possible.”
They arranged for Jennifer to come down to his cottage in the evenings after tea; he wanted her at the week-end, but she objected to that, having in mind her excursion to Woods Point with Carl Zlinter. She thought of offering to drive herself in to these sittings in Jane’s little Morris; she had driven her father’s car in England a little and she held an English licence. But she abandoned that idea; Jane was still proud and jealous of her little Morris, and would probably not have taken kindly to the idea, and the Chevrolet was bigger than anything that Jennifer had driven, and she was rather frightened of it. “It won’t be any trouble, driving in after tea, just three times,” Jane said. “I should come into town more, anyway.”
The week was an uneasy one for Jennifer. Each day a letter from her father came by air mail; she knew that he must be very troubled to be writing every day. These letters had been written earlier than the cable that she had received, of course, and disclosed a crescendo of her mother’s illness, worse with each letter. She got no more cables, which comforted her a little; she wrote to her mother and father every day, long cheerful letters about the Australian scene.
These troubles were half smothered by the beauty and the interest of her life at Merrijig. She went into market one day with Jack Dorman and spent a couple of hours among the pens of sheep and pigs and cattle with the grazier and Tim Archer studying the form and characteristics and the prices of the beasts; they sold one of the homestead cows that had gone dry and bought another one, and she enjoyed every minute of it. She sat twice for Shulkin in the little railway coach, a couple of hours each time till it became too dark to work, while dumpy little Mrs. Shulkin brought her cups of tea and little foreign macaroons and biscuits that she had made herself; conversation with Mrs. Shulkin was
difficult because she spoke practically no English. With the artist she got on very well.
Once she asked him, “Are you glad you came to Australia, Mr. Shulkin?”
He did not answer at once, being in the middle of a careful stroke. He finished it, stepped back from the canvas, and then said, “You are just from England, no? Not Australian?”
“I’m not Australian,” she laughed. “You can say what you like with me. I’m English.”
“So ... the pose again, please, just for one minute. So ...” He stepped up to the canvas, worked for a moment, and stepped back again. “I think it was best to come to Australia from the camp in Germany,” he said. “When I come first and I was told that my work would be on the railway, I was sad then that it had not been possible to go to the United States. But there also, I think perhaps my work would have been upon the railway, because there also they have their own teachers of fine arts. So, if it is to work upon the railway in Germany or America or Australia — —” he stepped up to the easel again and began to work— “then I think Australia is good, because here is more opportunity for my children than even in America.”
He stepped back again and looked critically at his work. “One little minute, and then you may relax.... Also,” he said, “it is now three years that I have worked upon the railway, and it is not bad work. It is happier, I think, to live quietly in the country than to strain always with the mind, to teach art all the day, and to think art all the day, nothing, nothing, nothing but art. So, I think the mind will soon be sour, like bad milk.” He waved his hand towards the untidy stacks of canvases. “I have here pictures that I painted before the war in Kaunas, that I took with me in the war to Germany, and so to the camps, and after here to Banbury, because I thought they were good pictures, ver’ good, that would show me the great artist in Australia. But now, these pictures do not please me; they are strained, too much complicated, too much technique, too little to be said. You may rest now ...”
