by Edna Dawes
‘Sergeant,’ she called in a loud voice. ‘I am waiting for transport back to the clinic. Until you give the command, I imagine no one will make a move.’
There was no reply from the room, so she knocked on the door and said, ‘As Brigadier of Alwynsrus do you think you could authorize one of these men to drive me five miles! I was in an air crash this morning, I have had nothing to eat all day . . . and if you don’t do as I ask, I shall get into that truck and drive myself back.’
That brought a bellow from within which sent the African running for the door. Within seconds, the other policeman appeared, rubbing his eyes, and climbed into the truck to start it up.
Dr Gavascar was full of complaints about fussing over formalities when it was obvious she should be in bed. After a simple meal, during which she learned that Jan was now quite comfortable, the doctor bade her good night, and a nurse showed her where she could wash before handing over some tablets to help her sleep. Jan was dead to the world when she slipped into the bed opposite him, glad that the rules of this country made it necessary for them to share the same room. She felt a special responsibility for her first human patient.
For a long while, every time she closed her eyes, the bed became a police truck bumping over rough roads, or an aircraft being buffeted and tossed by storm winds. The tablets didn’t have much effect on her bewildered brain which marched the day’s events before her eyes in less than chronological order. Black faces and white faces swam above her like disembodied ghosts, some smiling, some threatening, but the one which plagued her most was covered in freckles and branded her as one who condemns without a trial. Eventually, sleep took over and she continued the theme through her dreams.
She was not the only one in that room who was wandering through time. In the early hours, Jan became restless and succeeded in waking Margaret with his noisy delirium. He was throwing his head from side to side while his hands clutched the cover convulsively. She heard Chris’s name over and over again with parts of broken sentences which meant nothing to her, but she couldn’t bear to let him continue. It took but a second to cross the room and take his hand. It was burning! She wiped the sweat from him with a small towel and spoke soothing words in the hope of calming him, but it was a vain task. At last, a Bantu nurse entered with her stately stride and took over where Margaret had failed. A couple of tablets, a small drink of water, and her patient was soon quietly asleep again, leaving the other occupant of the room gazing at the wall feeling distinctly melancholy. One phrase stood out in her mind and haunted her. ‘It hurt like hell, but I didn’t holler, did I?’ It was a man’s body which had suffered, but the cry had come from a small boy. Who knew what was passing through his mind as he lay there.
It was light when she woke and found Jan looking at her.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked immediately.
‘Fine . . . just fine. You’ve had a hell of a time. I’m sorry.’
‘It wasn’t a rave-up for you, either,’ she said, ‘but it could have been a lot worse, I suppose.’ Her head threatened to roll off her neck when she sat up, but a determined effort kept it upright while she poured water into a glass beside her bed. Jan’s appearance cheered her. Apart from the reddish stubble and equally red-rimmed eyes which gave him a disreputable look, his colour was normal and his mind had returned from the past. He sat up carefully and reached across to his shirt lying folded on a table.
‘Where are my cigarettes?’ he asked after searching through every pocket.
‘Burnt to smoke. I had to keep the flies away somehow.’
‘Hell! If ever I wanted one, it is now.’ He flung the shirt aside in disgust.
‘Breakfast will do you more good,’ she told him cheerily. ‘What do they eat first thing in the morning in a place like this?’
‘The same as at any other time of the day. It will be an unappetizing mess, I promise you.’ He was completely disgruntled now that he had been denied the one thing he most wanted. Margaret smiled to herself. ‘You’ll eat it, just the same, or you’ll be too weak to do anything.’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Heaven preserve me from “nursy” types. I can’t stand being treated like a difficult child. I like my women soft and submissive!’
‘You won’t be fit for any kind of woman unless you get some food inside you.’
He gave her a long scowl. ‘Now I know why you became an animal doctor – they can’t argue with the treatment.’
To change the subject she asked, ‘Will you be able to get a message to Chris from here? If so, how long will it take him to get a new engine?’
‘There’s no point in worrying Chris,’ he said, looking carefully at the opposite wall. ‘I’m not sure the Dakota is worth saving.’
She was astonished. ‘That’s a complete reversal of what you said yesterday.’
‘At the time, I didn’t realize the extent of the damage. I don’t think I can afford the repairs, and Chris certainly won’t sanction spending any money on it.’
‘I don’t understand. How has the situation changed?’
The brown eyes swivelled to meet hers. ‘When we came down, I made a good landing – if we hadn’t hit those trees in the blinding rain it would have been near perfect – but some time later the wheels folded up and she flopped on her belly. I can only guess that the locking gear was damaged on impact and you released the lever when you clambered over the controls.’ He paused. ‘Don’t look so stricken!’
‘But I feel responsible! Won’t insurance cover the damage?’
‘I . . . she was so damned cheap, our broker was hesitant over issuing a policy. I . . . well . . . I would have sorted the thing out when I got back.’ He plucked savagely at the coverlet. ‘I wasn’t to know this would happen. You have to take risks in a business like ours or you lose clients.’
‘Would Chris have taken the risk?’ Why had she said that? It was not like her to hit below the belt, but this man brought out a side of her character she had not known existed.
‘No, he bloody-well wouldn’t. You knew the answer before you asked the question, but if your object was to fill me with remorse, you failed. Given the same set of circumstances, I’d do it again.’
Silence settled on the room. After breakfast Margaret gladly escaped to wash and dress in fresh clothes. When she returned, Jan had on the cut-off shorts and crumpled jacket, and had just finished washing in the bowl brought to his bedside. While putting her things back into her case Margaret came across the canvas satchel she had brought from the aircraft.
‘Here . . . you had better take charge of this now.’ She tossed it on to his bed. ‘I don’t know how much you remember of last night, but those policemen took me as far as the town so the crates could be locked in the police compound. They couldn’t have all that blocking these corridors and it wasn’t safe to leave it outside. The sergeant at the station didn’t fill me with confidence. This is his idea of a receipt.’ She held out the scrap of paper. ‘He said it was impossible to state what he had received because nobody knew. I said I thought it was a mixture of food and veterinary supplies.’
‘That’s about it,’ he confirmed. ‘I have the manifest here if he wants to see it. You seem to have handled my affairs with your usual competence, Maggie. You are putting me in a position no man likes to be in . . . but I’m very grateful.’ This was said stiffly and she guessed he didn’t find it easy to accept. What had fostered this fierce independence of others this desire to head into the future knowing it was fatal trying to go it alone? Had he always shunned any suggestion of a helping hand?
She watched him as he sat on the bed putting his papers in order. A small dressing covered the head wound and his thigh was expertly bandaged, but the droop of his shoulders showed he was far from fit. A sudden clamour from outside brought his head up, and next minute, the door crashed open, making Margaret jump. Sergeant De Wet pushed between Dr Gavascar and a nurse to command the centre of the room. One of the African constables covered the doorway,
looking scared. The massive sergeant had his revolver pointing straight at Jan.
‘On your feet!’ he commanded.
‘What the . . .!’ exclaimed Jan angrily.
‘Don’t attempt to reach for your gun,’ he said, advancing and pulling out handcuffs. ‘You are under arrest.’
‘Don’t be bloody stupid!’ shouted Jan as the sergeant snapped them on his wrists and hauled him to his feet. ‘You can’t arrest a man without cause.’
‘I am perfectly aware of my duties, man,’ was the answer.
Margaret stood up, trembling. ‘Take your hands off him! He has twenty stitches in his leg and has lost a lot of blood. Do you want to make him ill?’
‘You keep out of this,’ Jan told her savagely as he leant against the bed-rail for support. ‘What is the charge?’
‘A very serious one,’ replied the sergeant. ‘Gun-running!’
‘You’re raving mad!’
‘Do you deny your cargo contained arms?’
‘There are a couple of Capchur guns and a supply of darts. They are only used to sedate sick animals.’
‘Then I shall be interested to hear you repeat that when you are shown the collection of small arms and ammunition which I found in the false bottom of six of those crates which were deposited at my station by this young woman last night. She told me you were bound for Myala which stretches along the border for nearly sixty miles. A convenient place to smuggle supplies across to the rebels.’
There was a stupefied silence after that. Jan stood swaying, staring at the wall with blank eyes. Margaret was frightened. He looked so strange it seemed he had travelled to another realm, another time, and this room, the present, had been forgotten. It had all happened so quickly there was no time to collect her thoughts. Had the sergeant gone beserk? Could there really be guns in those crates? The answer was clear. To charge a man with a crime as serious as this he had to be very sure of himself – and Sergeant De Wet had already made one mistake which had sent him to a town like Alwynsrus – yet it seemed incredible that Jan would get involved in a despicable business like this, but Helen’s condemnation of the cargoes he flew, plus his determination to make this trip in the Dakota as arranged added up to some damning evidence!
Jan was being dragged across the room when Dr Gavascar stepped forward. ‘I have to say that this man is still under my medical care and in my opinion needs complete rest for another twenty-four hours.’
‘Right,’ said the sergeant through his teeth, ‘now you have said it, stand aside . . . unless you wish to sign a statement that you take full responsibility for guarding a prisoner while he is in this miserable place. A white prisoner!’
The Indian knew the rules and bowed to the inevitable, but not without a last word. ‘By taking him from here you are assuming full responsibility for his health, I trust.’
The sergeant ignored that and ordered his constable to bring Margaret’s luggage. ‘I want you, too,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how deeply you are mixed up in this.’
The nurse helped Margaret with the few belongings she had unpacked, and when the constable had taken two of her cases outside, the English girl walked across to Jan’s bed to collect his papers in the satchel. He would need them, perhaps.
Now that it was daylight Alwynsrus was seen to be no more than a trading post for a farming community with a general store, miniature bank, petrol pumps and a café as the focal points. The police office looked just as bare when they were marched through to reach the wired compound behind the building. There, the wooden crates stood with their contents spilling around them, and as nobody by then doubted, six of them contained a collection of small guns and ammunition beneath a light layer of sawdust. Jan looked at them with the same stunned resignation he had adopted since leaving the clinic. Not once during the five mile drive had he looked at Margaret; simply stared at the opposite canvas as if it revealed innumerable fantastic pictures. Once, he had lifted his hand to brush away a fly, found he was shackled to the sergeant, and shifted his gaze to the metal ring round his wrist.
The questioning then began. Margaret had to sit outside on a wooden bench watched over by a black constable who stood in the doorway. Two hours passed while the morning grew hotter and hotter. At last, there were sounds of movement within and she was summoned.
‘Where is Mr Schroeder?’ she asked, seeing the empty room.
‘Safely locked up until I can send him to a city jail. This case is too big for a circuit judge. Now sit down and tell me your version of the story.’
At the end of the short account of her acquaintance with Jan and how she came to be on the aircraft, Sergeant De Wet stood up with a grunt.
‘Umm. He said you were an innocent passenger – that’s about all he would say. Why are you concealing a gun?’
‘Pardon?’ She sounded genuinely surprised.
‘One of my men saw you put a revolver into your suitcase last night. He handled it; said it was an expensive weapon.’
‘Come, come, Sergeant, I realize life must be a little dull around here, but don’t let this present excitement run away with you. Surely you have enough guns in those crates without imagining that I have one hidden away.’ She was using the technique practised by great numbers of English gentlewomen who had frequented the colonies in past years, and that derisory hauteur could still be used to effect, at times. Sergeant De Wet hated them, but was unable to deal with such women. Once, his physical attraction had been enough to make the most toffee-nosed girl change her tune, but these days he seemed to have lost his touch. This flerric with the wide green eyes, smooth hair and milky white skin had that aloof tranquillity so many English girls seemed to possess. It made a man long to get her on her knees. Twenty years ago he would have succeeded! Now, he walked across to her suitcases and emptied the contents of them all in a heap on the floor. Margaret burned inside, but kept her calm expression as he pawed through her clothes and personal possessions. Failing to find the gun, he turned his attention to the case at her feet. ‘What are these?’ he asked.
‘My surgical instruments. I told you last night that I am a trained vet. Did you think it was a do-it-yourself burglar’s kit?’
There it was again: that hauteur which made him feel a fool. He told her to stand up. ‘There is only one conclusion I can reach,’ he said with a mean smile, ‘I shall have to search you.’
‘There is no need for that. You have already studied me quite closely enough to be sure I couldn’t conceal a bulky weapon beneath this dress.’
‘Not at all. You’d be surprised where people hide them!’
‘Then I suggest you ask your wife to perform the task. I saw her briefly last night. That would be the best way out of the predicament, I think.’
The game was lost, and he told her she could go. Her request to see Jan was refused and he warned her not to attempt to leave Alwynsrus without telling him. There was not much likelihood of her going anywhere at the moment, she reflected, as she repacked her cases. This town was not exactly a Mecca, an intersection of African highways but, in any case, she would not leave Jan locked away in this isolated spot. Not knowing the legal system operating in this country, it seemed likely that he could wait weeks before his case came up and someone should be here to represent him until Chris could arrive. The authorities were sure to get in touch with him.
When all the clothes were neatly folded into the cases again she realized she had nowhere to go. Rather than ask the sergeant she carried her cases in relays to the general store where she asked the pretty assistant if there was a boarding house near. It seemed the only rooms which might be available were in a small one-storey annexe to the café run by a Greek named Andropolou. How a Hellene came to be in this part of the world was a mystery to Margaret, but there he was, large as life, when she walked into the pleasant eating-room. It was clean and bright, but hardly well-appointed. Through an open door to the left was a bar which Margaret had already learned she would not be able to enter even had she wanted.
Andropolou had a room which she could have for the night until she decided what to do, and he helped her carry in her cases.
The room was only that. Bare walls, bare floor, an old-fashioned bedstead, a wooden chest and an enamel bowl to serve as a wash-basin, but it was somewhere and had the advantage of being situated only three doors from the police station. After a rest following lunch, she put on her most comfortable shoes and set off for the clinic. The distance didn’t daunt her; at home she walked for miles with the family dogs. For a second, remembrance of her bicycle back in Cape Town brought a wry smile, but it was soon banished because it reminded her of that day at Sea Point when all this had started. Why, oh why, had Jan allowed himself to get mixed-up with such a business? Suddenly Van Heerdon’s words at the party took on a meaning. ‘I know Jan Schroeder. I can buy him any time I like.’ Was this what he had meant?
Dr Gavascar was delighted to see her and expressed consternation over what had happened.
‘I understand there was nothing you could do,’ she told him. ‘Mr Schroeder and I are very indebted to you for taking us in last night. He might have been very seriously ill if you had not. I have returned to pay you for the treatment we received; there was no chance this morning.’
‘What will you do now, Miss Ward?’
‘I’m not sure. I cannot continue my journey to Myala until Mr Schroeder’s brother turns up.’
‘Then there were guns in the wooden boxes?’
‘I am afraid so.’ Margaret’s eyes appealed to the Indian to comfort her by dismissing the idea of Jan being involved as ridiculous, but he merely wagged his head and told her, ‘Sergeant De Wet is very powerful in this district. He has invisible eyelids. When his eyes appear to be looking, they are really tightly closed. For this phenomenon many people pay him large sums of money. They are afraid, you see, that the eyelids may lose their power one day. I hope . . .’ He tailed off hesitantly.