The Far Country

by Nevil Shute

  Jennifer sat up, dumbfounded. “He couldn’t have died,” she exclaimed. “He was getting on splendidly. It was the other one who was so bad.”

  “That’s what he says, my dear. You’d better get up and put some clothes on and come out and see him. I’ve sent Mario to find Jack, to come along as well.”

  Ten minutes later Jennifer was sitting at the table with a cup of tea, facing the sergeant, who told her about the whisky. “It’s just a matter of form, Miss,” he said. “I’ve got to make out a report for the coroner on all this.” He asked her name and her address, which Jane told her to give as Leonora. Then he said, “I understand you helped this man Carl Zlinter to do both operations?”

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Had you ever helped him to do an operation before?”

  She stared at him. “Of course not. I only met him yesterday, for the first time. I’ve only been in this country about ten days.”

  He wrote in his book. “That’s right,” he said equably. “It’s just these questions that I have to ask. Now, what made you help him this time?”

  She hesitated, not knowing quite where to begin. “Well—I suppose because my hands were cleaner than anybody else’s. Look, Sergeant—this is what happened.”

  Jack Dorman came into the kitchen while she was telling her story; Jane briefed him in a whisper with what was going on. He pulled up a chair and sat down to listen. Jennifer came to an end of her story, and the sergeant made a note or two, and looked back at his notes of what Jim Forrest had said. There was no real discrepancy, which was satisfactory. He said, “That’s all clear enough, Miss Morton. Now there’s just one or two things arising out of that. Did this man tell you at any time that he wasn’t a registered doctor?”

  She wrinkled her forehead. “I remember he told me that I mustn’t call him a doctor … some time or other.” She sat in thought for a moment. “I’m afraid I just can’t remember,” she said. “Such a lot happened last night, and I was so tired, I can’t remember who said what. I certainly knew that he wasn’t supposed to do operations, but whether he told me or someone else, I couldn’t say.”

  “You did know that, Miss? You knew he wasn’t supposed to do operations?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I knew that.”

  He made a note in his book. “Then why did you help him to do the operations?” he asked.

  She stared at him. “Well—someone had to help him.”

  Jack Dorman broke in, “Aw, look, Sergeant. There wasn’t any other doctor—someone had to do something. Jim Forrest tried all ends up to get Dr. Jennings. In the end we just had to do the best we could without a proper doctor. Jenny here gave him a hand. I’d have given him a hand myself, but she could do it so much better. You don’t think we should have let ’em lie until the doctor came this morning, do you?”

  The sergeant closed his book. “It doesn’t matter what I think, Jack,” he said. “I’m just the copper. It’s what the coroner thinks that matters, and he’s got to have the facts. I’m not saying that in Jim Forrest’s shoes I wouldn’t have done the same as he did, or in this young lady’s shoes, either. But if the coroner thinks different when he hears the facts of this man’s death, there could be a charge of manslaughter against Carl Zlinter, oh my word. Now that’s the truth of it.”

  He went away, leaving them dumbfounded. Jennifer said, as they watched the car departing through the gates, “It can’t be like he said. They couldn’t be so stupid.”

  Jack Dorman scratched his head. “What does he think we ought to have done—left ’em lying till the doctor came? It won’t go any further, Jenny.”

  She said, “I’m so sorry for Carl Zlinter if they’re going on like this. It must be beastly for him, and he’s not deserved it.”

  The fire that had burned in Lieutenant Dorman thirty years before flared up again. “If they start anything against that chap I’ll raise the bloody roof,” he said evenly. “Pack of bloody wowsers. I never heard of such a thing.”

  Jennifer said, “If it should come to manslaughter—I can’t see how it could, but if it should—I’d be in it too, wouldn’t I? I mean, I helped him do the operations.”

  Jane said, “Oh no, they’d never bring you into it, dear. You only helped—you didn’t do anything yourself. I’m sure we could keep you out of it.”

  “I don’t want to be kept out of it,” the girl said. “I was glad to be in it last night, and I’m glad to be in it still. I think it was the right thing to do.” She turned to Jack Dorman. “I would like to have a talk with him about what’s going to happen—with Carl Zlinter. He said he’d come round here today but if there’s a row on he may not come.”

  Jack Dorman said, “I might take a run up the road and have a talk with Jim Forrest. If Zlinter’s there, I’ll tell him we’re expecting him.”

  He got into his utility presently and went up to Lamirra; he found Jim Forrest in his office. “Morning, Jim,” he said. “We’ve had the police sergeant at our place, asking Jenny all about last night.”

  “Pack of bloody nonsense,” the manager said. “He hasn’t got enough to do. I’ve been trying to find the bloody fool that gave Bert Hanson the whisky, but I’ll never do it.”

  “He had a bottle, did he?” Mr. Dorman asked with interest. “A whole bottle?”

  “I don’t know how full it was when he got hold of it. Probably full—we found the tinsel paper that goes round the cork. He had most of what there was, except what got spilt into the bed.”

  “He took a lot, did he? In the ordinary way?”

  “Oh aye—he was a pretty fair soak. A lot of them are, of course. There’s nothing else to do, in barracks, in a place like this.” He paused. “The New Australians are the sober ones here. All saving their money for when their two years are up, to buy a house or start a business or something. But for the language trouble, they’re the best men that I’ve got.”

  “This chap Zlinter—what’s he like?”

  “He’s right,” said the manager. “Doesn’t drink a lot—not more ’n you or I. Goes fishing all of his spare time.”

  “I know. I met him on the Howqua one time, down at Billy Slim’s place.” He paused. “The sergeant was saying that if this goes wrong at the inquest, he could be up for manslaughter.”

  “I know. I don’t know what in hell they expect one to do. But anyway, it won’t go wrong. We’ve got Doc Jennings on our side.”

  “He’s satisfied that what was done was right, is he?”

  “I think so. They’ve gone into Banbury now with Harry in the ambulance, him and Zlinter. They took Bert Hanson in the bottom bunk; he’s going to do a post-mortem on him after he’s got Harry fixed up right. I said that I’d go in tomorrow afternoon and get the news.”

  “I’d like to come in with you,” Dorman said. “My girl Jenny’s all mixed up in this, if it should come to manslaughter.”

  The manager stared at him. “Oh my word,” he said. “It couldn’t go that far.”

  “It could if we don’t watch it,” said Jack Dorman. “Zlinter’s in Banbury now with the doctor?”

  “That’s right. They went in the ambulance.”

  “Jenny wants to see him. I’d like to see him myself, ’n have a talk about all this.”

  “I’ve got a truck coming out this afternoon with Diesel oil, leaving the Shell depot after dinner. I told him to get a ride out on that.”

  “I’ll ring the hospital and tell him to drop off at our place, and I’ll bring him on here later.”

  Carl Zlinter walked up from the road to Leonora homestead at about three o’clock that afternoon, dressed in a shabby grey suit of continental cut; it was hot coming across the paddocks from the road in the blazing sun, and he carried his coat over his arm. Jennifer, sitting in a deck-chair on the veranda, saw him coming, and went to the last gate to meet him. “Come and sit in the shade,” she said. “You look very hot.”

  She was wearing a clean summer frock and her legs were bare; she looked cool
and pretty; the sun lit up the auburn colours in her hair. It was many years since Carl Zlinter had talked to a well-dressed girl and he was rather shy of her; in the camps that he had lived in for so long in Europe women had not dressed like that. He took courage from the memory of the sweating girl who had helped him a few hours before, and went with her to the veranda, where Jennifer introduced him to Jane. They sat down together in the deck-chairs, and talked for a little about the hot road out from Banbury.

  He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “It is ver’ beautiful here,” he said. “For me, this is a very lovely piece of country, just this part around here, between Mount Buller and the town of Banbury, with the rivers, the Howqua and the Delatite. I would be happy if I were to stay here all my life.”

  Jane was pleased. “You like it so much as that?” She paused. “We came here twenty years ago, and we’ve sometimes talked of getting another station, nearer in to Melbourne. But, well, I don’t know. We’ve never been in the habit of going to the city much, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else than here. If we went it would only be to see more of the children.”

  “I would never want to live in any better place than here,” he said.

  Jennifer smiled. “But not as a lumberman.”

  He looked at her, smiling also. “There are worse things than to be a lumberman,” he said. “It is not what I was educated for. But if I may not be a doctor in this country, I would rather be a lumbermen, in beautiful country such as this, than work in the city.”

  The girl said, “It’s such a waste for a man like you to have to work in the woods. How long will it be, after your two years are up, before you can be a doctor again?”

  He said, “I do not think that I shall ever be a doctor in Australia.”

  “Why not?”

  “It costs too much,” he said. “It is necessary for a foreign doctor to do three years of medical training again, in a Melbourne hospital, before he may practise in this country. That would cost fifteen hundred pounds, and that I have not got, and I shall never have. If I should have the money, it would then be very difficult to get a place in a hospital, because the hospitals are full with your Australian doctors.” He paused. “I do not think that I shall be a doctor again,” he said.

  “But what an idiotic regulation!” the girl said.

  He looked at her, smiling at her indignation for him. “It is not so idiotic,” he said. “There must be some rule. The doctors from some countries are ver’ bad. I would not like you to be treated by a Rumanian doctor, or a doctor from Albania.”

  Jane asked, “What do you think you’ll do when your two years are up?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know. Perhaps I shall stay on and be a lumberman for ever.”

  “It seems a frightful waste,” the girl repeated.

  Jane changed the subject. “Tell me,” she said, “how’s your patient getting on—the one with the fractured skull?”

  “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 postmortem 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 Zlin
ter 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.”