by Andrew Garve
“Ah trus’ de vice ob me own airs,” said Johnson obstinately. At least there was no doubt now that he’d gained Eke’s full attention. “Ah was in de mango jes by de hopen winder an ’ah sees Doctor Garlan’ an’ dis Australy mans an’ dey bot drinkin‘ whisky an’ ah ’ears wha dey say ’bout de leper place, an’ de Australy mans say it am big portant job an’ ’e wan fo’ to do um bad an’ den’ ’e say ’e pay fifty tousand pound fo Doctor Garlan’.”
Dubois looked incredulous. “What did Doctor Garland say?”
“Doctor Garlan’ ’e say dat sort ob ting all right fo’ de blacks peeple but de Australy mans ’e say jus lil present. At las’ Doctor Garlan’ ’e say ’e tink ’ bout um an’ Australy mans say p’raps ’e pass back. Aw Gawd, man, it’s de truf ah’s tellin’ yo.”
“Listen,” said Dubois earnestly, “you’re not to talk about this to anyone else, do you understand? If you do you’ll get into serious trouble. I’m glad you told me—you were quite right to do so—but it must be a secret between us. Is that clear?”
“ ’Course ah’s nah goin’ fo’ tark ’bout et,” said Johnson, pleased to share a secret which he had not realised had so much significance. “Doctor Garlan’ ’e nice mans, good good mans.” Eke, he thought, was making a surprising fuss about nothing.
Chapter Seven
The Colonial Secretary, Jocelyn Anstruther, sat with his daughter Susan on the terrace of Martin’s house at Tacri, drinking lime-squash and relaxing after a gruelling two-hour inspection of the leprosarium. Martin was playing the assiduous host and feeling moderately pleased with himself. It had been a useful visit from his point of view. The Colonial Secretary had tramped doggedly from block to block, more and more appalled, his face wearing the abstracted look of a man compelled suddenly to adjust preconceived views in the light of new facts. Susan had taken the horrors in her stride and had asked a great many questions.
“You know, West,” Anstruther was saying, “this place has always had a bad reputation but I’d no idea it was quite so shocking. I really think I’ll have to persuade H. E. to come out.” He lay back in the deck chair and tied his long legs into what was presumably a comfortable knot. He was a tall, slender man in his late fifties, with a manner suggesting the scholar rather than the administrator. Some illness had left one arm and shoulder slightly paralysed, so that his head was held always a little to one side, giving him the appearance of an extremely sympathetic listener. Martin had been needing a sympathetic listener, and as he now contemplated the expression on the Colonial Secretary’s face, he felt that he had not wasted his opportunity.
“As a matter of fact,” said Anstruther, as though troubled by a sense of neglected duty, “I would have come before if the place hadn’t been so inaccessible.” He caught Martin’s eye and smiled. “Yes, that’s a point for you. I should need to give the problem more thought before conceding your case as a whole, but I admit that the difficulty of getting here is a major defect.”
“Personally, I think Dr. West’s case will be extremely hard to answer,” said Susan. “He’s quite convinced me, for what that’s worth.”
Martin smiled his thanks. He was impressed with Susan. She seemed to be clear-headed and practical, but she was none the less attractive for that. She looked fresh and pretty in pale green linen, her chestnut hair cut short and clustering in thick soft waves round her head. Intelligence and good looks—a fairly rare combination. She would be a useful ally.
The same thought appeared to strike her father. “I won’t have you taking sides in this controversy,” he told her, with mock severity. “If there’s one thing I can’t bear, it’s propoganda at the breakfast table. Anyway,” he added, “I thought you seemed remarkably unmoved by Tacri.”
Susan raised an eyebrow. “What did you expect me to do—faint? It’s revolting, but I’ve seen living conditions almost as bad on the mainland.”
“Oh, surely not,” Anstruther protested.
“I have, though. You ought to see the exercise yard at the Mental Hospital—it’s grim. Or the workhouse—you could hardly have anything more squalid than that. And think of the huts on the estates—think of Paradise—think of the sleepers-out.”
“What sleepers-out?” asked Martin.
“Oh, they’re one of the sights. The pavements of Fontego are littered with them every night—mostly old people with nowhere to go. Scores and scores of them. The only time they see a bed is when they’re lucky enough to be rounded up by the police and spend a few hours in the Colonial Jail. There’s no social security here, you know. You can’t lift a stone in this place without finding something horrible underneath.”
“And yet you lift the stones?”
“Of course. I like to know what’s going on.”
“I wish I had your opportunities,” said Martin. “I’m afraid I may find myself chained to this rock.”
“Oh, you can’t possibly stay here all the time,” said Susan. “Surely there’s someone you can leave in charge.”
“Not since Dr. Carnegie went, but I’ve asked for an assistant.”
“They’ll give you one, of course.”
Martin smiled. “I very much hope so. I expect they will in time. The point is, you see, that the problem of leprosy can’t be tackled from here. It isn’t enough just to look after the leper patients that we know about. The disease will never be stamped out, as it could and should be, until we can make a thorough survey of the whole Colony. That means a network of out-patient clinics on the mainland, the training of personnel, and a great deal of organisation. It’s only field work that will give us results. That’s why I want to be able to travel around—to set up the machinery.”
Susan was listening with interest. “You don’t want a chauffeuse, do you?”
Martin’s eyes dropped to her bandaged right hand. “That depends,” he said with a grin.
Susan made a face. “How people chatter! I couldn’t help it if an idiotic taxi-driver drove straight at me.”
“One of the big mistakes of my life,” Anstruther confided, “was to buy Susan that car. All the same, West, if you happen to have nerves of steel you could do worse than take her up on that offer. Susan knows the Colony a good deal better than most people.”
“I’ll be delighted to have a guide,” said Martin. “So far, I haven’t received a very favourable impression of the place. I was at the Garlands’ a week or two ago, and most of the people there couldn’t find a good word to say either for the Colony or for its inhabitants.”
“Could they find a good word to say for anything?” said Susan. “You mustn’t pay too much attention to Celeste—she always makes a point of disparaging things. And most of the whites are more or less fed up. The Colony is in a mess in many ways, but it’s a fascinating place all the same. You’ll find the people most likeable and amusing once you can understand what they say, and provided you don’t expect too much. It’s hopeless to judge them by our standards, of course, but then why should we? You’ll have a good opportunity to study them en masse soon—at Fiesta.”
“Yes,” said Martin. “I’ve heard about that. I gather from Mrs. Sylvester that it’s rather a lurid festival—definitely not quite nice.”
“Neither is your leprosarium, but that’s no reason for not seeing it. Whatever you do, you mustn’t miss Fiesta. Why not come to dinner with us on Tuesday and stay over? Daddy, you must see that Dr. West gets his assistant this week.”
“If you think I’m going to poke my finger into departmental pies just to provide you with an escort for Fiesta, you’re very much mistaken,” said the Colonial Secretary.
“Oh, don’t be so stuffy, darling. That’s settled, then. And please, Dr. West, don’t believe everything you hear about the Colony until you have had an opportunity to judge for yourself. It’s by no means all bad, and a lot of the whites are very superficial. They’re so busy running the place that they never have time to get to know it.”
“I’m told it may be under entirely new management
soon,” said Martin. “At least that’s the impression I got from Dr. Dubois. Do you know him?”
“Know Eke? I should say I do. He’s rather priceless, isn’t he? We both spent some time at the London School of Economics—different years, of course—and he regards it as a bond between us. Almost every time I see him he manages to drag in some reference to the ‘London School of Ec.’ Affectionate diminutive! He’s intelligent, in spite of his complexes. He’ll probably play quite a part when the Colony gets self-government.”
“I suppose there’s no doubt that it will get it?”
“None at all, I should say. The politicians at home have given the people here all sorts of promises, and they can’t back out now. Isn’t that right, Daddy?”
Martin turned to Anstruther, who lay smoking peacefully. “And will the people be better off or worse? What do you think, sir?”
“That’s a big question,” said Anstruther slowly. “I’m inclined to think they’ll be worse off to begin with, but in the long run it may not make very much difference. It depends a good deal on what sort of leaders they throw up. Anyhow, there’s not much we can do about it. The transition is well under way. The local people run most of the services already, and we’re being more and more pushed aside. British rule is getting very nominal. I think we’ve just about shot our bolt.”
“Eke would say it’s a pity we didn’t clear out a long time ago,” said Susan.
“Well, he’s wrong there, of course,” said Anstruther firmly. “We may not have taught them as much as we ought to have done, but we have given people like Dubois himself some sort of education and training, and we have given them a pattern of government and set them on the road to wherever it is that we are going ourselves.”
“The trouble is,” said Susan in her forthright way, “that we’ve given them the framework but we haven’t provided them with enough money to finish the building. In fact, we’ve taken away what there was. If they had now what we removed in the old days, when cocoa was doing well and sugar was profitable, they could really do something about their slums and hospitals and schools. It seems to me that we’ve milked the cow, and now that it’s running dry we’re handing it back to its owner and expecting him to say ‘thank you’.”
Her father demurred. “As things are at present, Susan, money from outside wouldn’t be a permanent solution. Look what the Americans have lavished on Puerto Rico—and it still hasn’t given the place a stable economy. Look what happened here over the Base—it brought Fontego a considerable amount of temporary wealth, but most of it’s been squandered. I think some help will be necessary, of course, but the most important thing for these people is to shake down by themselves, to find their own natural level of production and population.”
“Do you think they’ll manage to make ends meet?” asked Martin. “From what I’ve seen and heard, I should say there’s a very small margin between what they’ve got now and starvation.”
“That’s true enough,” said Susan, “and it’s partly their own fault. Everybody knows that Fontego can only survive as an agricultural country, but the people have got used to the bright lights of the towns, and they don’t want to go back to the land. I think we’ve been a bad influence in that respect. We’ve dazzled them with a sort of life they can’t ever hope to have. Most of the young people to-day think there’s something degrading about manual work. Directly they get a little education they want to be doctors or lawyers or civil servants or shop assistants or taxi-drivers—in just about that order. Nobody ever wants to grow anything.”
“Perhaps they’ll feel more like getting down to it when we’ve gone,” suggested Martin. “More incentive, do you think, knowing the place belongs to them?”
“I wonder,” said Susan thoughtfully. “It’s a demoralising place, you know. Quite the pleasantest way of passing the time here is to lie in the shade and sleep. The people can scrape along on a minimum of food. Why should they bother? Perhaps they’ll forget the bright lights and revert quite happily to subsistence level.”
Anstruther untwined his legs. “Could you bear to postpone this discussion of the Colony’s future? I’d like to stroll to the end of the jetty with you, West. You’ll excuse us, won’t you, Susan? We shan’t be very long.”
“Poor old civil servants,” said Susan, with a twinkle at Martin. “I shall lie in the hammock and snooze.” She watched the two men stroll away.
“I hope you didn’t mind my mixing business with pleasure in this way,” Anstruther said. “My bringing Susan, I mean. There were several things I wanted to talk to you about, but I thought it would be much better to discuss them informally than across an office desk.”
“Of course,” said Martin.
Anstruther marshalled his points. “Well, now—first of all, this feeling of yours that the leprosarium should be moved from Tacri. It’s an old problem, it’s been discussed over and over again. There seems to be no doubt at all that your general argument is sound. In fact, Garland is strongly in agreement with you, in principle. At the same time, there is the political aspect to consider, and in any case I think he’s right that having got so far it’s really too late to reopen the subject.”
“I suppose so,” said Martin. “I gather that the contract for the rebuilding programme has just been signed. That seems to settle the matter, doesn’t it? I won’t pretend that I’m reconciled to the project, because I’m not. I’m one hundred per cent against it and I always shall be. But I can imagine that it’s too late to do anything effective about it, and quite frankly I’ve too much on my hands now to worry about what can’t be helped. I’ll carry on as best I can, and we’ll see what happens.”
Anstruther looked relieved. “I’m very glad to hear you say that—very glad indeed.”
“I only hope that Dr. Garland won’t be misled by his easy victory,” Martin added.
Anstruther laughed. “Not he. He’ll think you’re a sensible fellow. Tell me, what do you think of the reconstruction plans themselves, now that you’ve gone into them?”
“I find them quite incredible,” said Martin. “Didn’t Dr. Garland tell you my opinion? The more I look at them, the more they amaze me.”
Anstruther raised his eyebrows. “Oh? Why?”
“They’re so lavish. They go from one extreme to the other. The intention seems to be to turn Tacri into a sort of Shangri-La.”
“Surely the idea is to make it comfortable and up-to-date?” said Anstruther.
“The plans go far beyond that. For instance, there is to be an elaborate reception station near the jetty, with enormous reinforced concrete pillars sunk about five feet into the rock. It’s going to cost ten thousand pounds. That money might just as well be dropped into the sea.”
“H’m. I remember there was some debate about that. It was Garland who persuaded us. He pressed the view very strongly that if we were going to make Tacri a permanent home for the lepers, everything must be done to give them a good first impression.”
“With all respect to Dr. Garland,” said Martin impatiently, “a good second impression is what matters. They’re not going to live in the reception room. But that’s only one little item that happened to catch my eye. The whole scheme is on the same exaggerated scale. The new administrative offices will be far more luxuriously equipped than is necessary in a place like this, and far too big. The new kitchen accommodation would be appropriate for the feeding of the five thousand—but we shall only have five hundred. The capacity of the new laundry is so great that it’ll be idle half the time. As for the hospital——”
“What’s wrong with the hospital?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it—it’s going to be marvellous. The operating theatre would delight Carnegie’s heart. But what a crime to put it on Tacri when hospitals are so badly needed on the mainland. All we want here is a modest building with modest facilities, costing about a quarter of what’s proposed. Major operations will have to be done on the mainland anyway. As for the cost of clearing the new
housing sites—well, I guessed it would be high, but the actual figure shatters me.”
“I think it’s possible that the scheme does err a little on the side of extravagance,” the Colonial Secretary admitted. “The point was made, several times. But Dr. Garland was most insistent that this was a case where no expense should be spared. His attitude was that if the Colony was determined not to have the leprosarium on the mainland, then it must be prepared to pay for its prejudices. I must say he presented his arguments very skilfully, and with much force. He’s a great fighter, you know, and I’ve never seen him more determined than he was when he attended the Finance Committee.”
“I still can’t understand it,” said Martin. “It’s a shocking waste of money when there are so many other things that need doing. Dr. Garland himself must see that.”
“Well, there it is,” said Anstruther. “The plans are passed and the contract is signed.”
Martin gazed across the water at the tiers of shacks. “It’ll certainly be a showplace when it’s finished. Fontego’s Folly! Everyone will be happy except the patients. Still, I’ve given my view and I’ll say no more about it.” He glanced at the Colonial Secretary’s worried countenance. “Is there anything else, sir?”
“There are one or two minor matters,” Anstruther told him. “At least,” he amended, “they’re minor at the moment. You’ve been making some changes here, haven’t you?”
“Quite a lot. And I plan to make a lot more.”
Anstruther nodded. “That’s quite natural. After seeing the place this morning I’m all in favour. You must expect, though, to encounter criticism.”
“I do,” said Martin. “Has it begun?”
“It has, as a matter of fact. I had a talk with Garland yesterday and he’s a bit concerned. He’s not against anything you are doing, not in principle, but he doesn’t want trouble at this stage. He’s absolutely set on getting the new leprosarium built as quickly as possible, and he doesn’t want any sort of complications which might hold it up.”