by Andrew Garve
The black boy grinned. “Ah nah bin neer de tree, sah, nah fo’ long times, an’ dat’s de troof ah’s tellin’ yo.”
“Were you in the tree when Mr. Rawlins talked to me about Tacri?”
Johnson looked a little shamefaced. “Ah bin heer yo tark ’bout dat place long time ’go,” he admitted.
Garland nodded grimly. “That’s what I thought. Did you hear anything interesting?”
Johnson wriggled uncomfortably. He would have preferred not to talk about it, but at least Dr. Garland didn’t seem at all angry so perhaps it was all right. He said, with a gleam of teeth, “Ah bin heer de mans say ’e give yo fifty tousand pound.”
“And you told Eke?”
Johnson avoided the direct stare. “Eke say ah nah fo’ tark ’bout de Australy mans.”
“What made you tell Eke?”
“Eke say ah damn fool nigger an’ don’t know nuffin.”
“I see. I suppose you’ve told a lot of people?”
“Oh, no, sah.” Johnson shook his head vigorously. “No, sah, ah bin keep me mout shet al de times. Ah nah go fo’ to tell anyones ’bout dat, nebber.”
“No,” said Garland thoughtfully, “I don’t think you will.”
For a few minutes there was silence except for the spluttering engine. Garland was thinking what a simple soul Johnson was. There was no malice in him at all—it was a shame to have to drown him. He obviously had no idea of the significance of what he knew. Still, it simply wouldn’t be safe to let him live.
“Have you done any swimming lately, Johnson?” he asked presently.
“No, sah, ah bin workin’ al de times in de garden.”
“Do you think you could swim to the shore from here?”
Johnson glanced across at the palm-fringed coast line and smiled. “No, sah, ah drown ef ah tries.”
“H’m,” said Garland. The fellow clearly had no inkling of his danger. “Well, I think we might put a line out now.”
He watched Johnson attach the silver spoon as bait and stream the mackerel line overboard. They were alone on the sea, and they must be nearly a mile from land. It wouldn’t do to go too far—a mile should be about right. He trailed his hand for a moment in the warm water and glanced up at the cloudless sky. A lovely day for a long swim!
Johnson was busying himself with the second line, and on his face was the absorbed look of a child. He was humming again, quietly. It would be rather like drowning a child. Garland forced himself to think of his own danger. He really had no choice—it was his own life or Johnson’s. Abruptly he stood up in the boat, seized an oar, and stabbed with all his strength at the soft plank. At the second blow the oar handle went clean through the rotten wood, and as he pulled it back the sea came gushing in.
Johnson turned at the sound, and his mouth fell open. He stared with round frightened eyes at the bubbling fountain, and at Garland with the oar. Then he gave a yell and scrambled forward to try to plug the hole. Garland shoved him back on to the stern seat with his foot. The dinghy was settling. Johnson, gibbering with fear, grabbed the bailer from under this seat and began to scoop the water overboard.
“It’s no use, Johnson,” said Garland. “You’ll have to try to swim.”
The boat was filling. Johnson stopped bailing and began to moan and rock himself. “Why you do dis, sah?” he asked pathetically.
Garland didn’t answer. The motor coughed and died, the bows of the dinghy dipped, and the two men were in the sea. Garland, peering down into the translucent water, watched the boat’s long slow dive until it was finally lost in the depths. That was that. It would never be recovered. All the evidence had gone.
He looked around for Johnson, who had got hold of a floating oar and was swimming fairly well a few yards away, his popping eyes straining for the land. Garland called out, “Keep it up, Johnson, it’s not far to the shore.” He didn’t want Johnson to drown too soon.
Garland was swimming easily, comfortably. In water as warm as this, and as quiet, a mile was nothing of a swim … A tendril of weed, winding itself round his legs, reminded him that there were other dangers. Spanish men o’ war—big stinging jellyfish that left a rash on a man’s body like the weals of a cat-o’ -nine-tails. And barracudas, too, that could nip off a limb as neatly as a shark and couldn’t be frightened away by splashing. It was rumoured that there were some around these coasts. Somehow the thought restored Garland’s self-respect. He was running something of a risk himself. At the same time, these natural hazards increased his ultimate safety if he survived them. It would be argued—if the matter ever came up, which it wouldn’t—that no man in his senses would scuttle a boat in such waters.
They had covered a hundred yards or so. Johnson was puffing a lot and lashing out with his legs in a way that would soon use up his strength, but the oar was giving him buoyancy. Too much buoyancy. Garland swam up to him and with a sharp jerk snatched the oar away and swam with it out of reach. Johnson looked at him piteously. What had happened was altogether too much for Johnson. He didn’t understand. All he could think of, as he beat at the water with quick in-effectual strokes, was that the land seemed very far away and that he didn’t want to drown.
Garland began to wonder if he had underrated Johnson. These black fellows had remarkable staying power. Johnson was a little man, puny beside Garland, but he was certainly clinging to life. They must be nearly halfway to the shore— they were getting too close for safety. Johnson might just make it. He was in difficulties, but he might just make it. His difficulties must be increased.
“I’ll give you a hand,” called Garland and once more swam toward Johnson. The Negro didn’t trust him any more and tried desperately to fight him off. Garland put a large heavy hand on the wet mop of hair and pushed the head under water. Johnson kicked violently, there was a stream of bubbles, and the head bobbed up with an agonised gasp. Garland gripped a handful of hair and pushed the head down again. The wildly thrashing body suddenly went limp. Garland turned it on its back, put a hand on either side of the grey face, and began swimming toward the shore again. He swam in a life-saving position, but Johnson’s face was under water all the time.
Ten minutes later Garland thankfully felt sandy ground beneath his feet. That last effort had exhausted even his great energy, and he could barely drag Johnson’s body out of the surf. At the edge of the water he made sure that the Negro was quite dead. For the sake of appearances, in case anyone should be near enough to see, he made a formal attempt at artificial respiration. Then he staggered up the beach toward the palms, shouting and waving his arms.
Chapter Seventeen
Celeste was lying in the swing seat, watching with a faraway look in her eyes the stately descent of an incoming airliner, when Salacity came bouncing out into the garden and proudly presented the Fontego Gazette.
“Al de paper say Massa Garlan’ good good man, jes like yo tell me,” she announced a little breathlessly.
Celeste took the paper and scanned the headlines. “Coroner Praises Doctor Garland,” she read. “Heroic Rescue Attempt.”
She skimmed quickly through the opening paragraph: “A verdict of death by misadventure was returned at the inquest on Johnson Johnson, 28, of Paradise Heights … ,” and turned with an air of concentration to the account of the evidence which she had heard her husband give in court that morning.
Dr. Adrian Garland, in evidence, said that he and Johnson had been out fishing in the dinghy on several occasions prior to the tragedy. On Saturday afternoon they planned to fish for mackerel a mile off-shore.
“Everything went quite smoothly at first,” Dr. Garland said. “We had streamed a couple of lines and suddenly we got a bite. I don’t know what it was, but it was something much bigger than a mackerel. I saw that Johnson was having trouble with it so I got up from the bows to help him haul in. The dinghy gave a lurch and I lost my balance and fell rather heavily. I wasn’t hurt—I thought nothing of it at the time. I scrambled up and went to assist Johnson. Whatever there w
as on the hook got away after a bit of a struggle. When I looked round I saw to my horror that the dinghy was making water fast.”
The Coroner: “You hadn’t noticed it leaking before?” “It had been leaking a little, though not seriously. It was an old boat—in fact I had been a bit worried about a bad plank, and I had ordered a new dinghy only last week. I suppose the boat must have been holed when I fell. I shouted to Johnson to steer for the shore while I bailed, and I tried to plug the leak with a handkerchief but the water rose very quickly and in a few minutes the dinghy filled and went down under us. Johnson was clinging to an oar, but after a while he let go of it as he found it was impeding his swimming, and we struck out together for the shore. He wasn’t a very strong swimmer and very soon I had to support him. I think we might have reached the beach safely, but unfortunately the poor fellow got into a panic as he felt his strength failing, and struggled so wildly that both of us became exhausted. I did my best, but I’m sorry to say my best wasn’t good enough. By the time I reached the shore with him he was dead.”
The Coroner: “Did you try to revive him?”
“Naturally. I applied artificial respiration, but he showed no sign of life. I was too tired myself to do much good, so I went up the beach for help and after a little while I found some labourers. I brought them back and under my direction another effort was made to revive him. We worked for nearly an hour before giving up.”
After the verdict of misadventure had been returned, the Coroner complimented Dr. Garland on his behaviour. He had evidently done everything in his power to save his weaker companion and had stuck by him and assisted him even when his own strength was exhausted. His loyalty might well have cost him his own life. The whole Colony would rejoice that Dr. Garland had been spared to continue his unremitting efforts to improve conditions in Fontego.
As Dr. Garland left the court he was warmly applauded by
the large crowd which had gathered.
After the inquest, Dr. Garland told our reporter, “I am very deeply shocked by the accident. Johnson Johnson was a good companion and a loyal servant and I shall miss him. I cannot help feeling some responsibility.”
Celeste put down the paper and lay for a long time very still, thinking.
Chapter Eighteen
The month of May was drawing to a close, and Fontego was parched. For more than twenty weeks no drop of rain had fallen. Under its layer of fine dust the ground was baked. The last of the sugar cane had been reaped and carted, and the stubbly fields were brown. So was the coarse-leaved grass. The leaves on the citrus trees were beginning to wilt as the merciless heat burned down to the roots. Even the fronds of the coco-nut palms seemed to droop. The “bush” had become a crackle underfoot, and fires a constant menace. At the bottom of gullies and riverbeds the dry mud was deeply fissured. In Fontego City the scorched pavements hurled the heat back to the brassy sky and people loitered, gasping, in the shade. The Colony’s reservoirs, always inadequate, had fallen so low that many taps and standpipes yielded no more than a trickle of heavily chlorinated water.
That was in the morning of this day, but the climacteric had been reached. The brooding stillness presaged storm. In the thirsty countryside, where the earth looked dead and the animals desiccated, the knowing peasants had their eyes on the eastern sky over beyond Tacri. They were wondering just when the storm would break, and how fierce it would be, and how soon afterwards they would be able to start work in the rice fields.
Just before noon, banks of lurid cloud came sweeping up out of the sea, black and red and green, and shot with lightning. For a while the water took on a leaden hue. Then the wind came roaring over the Colony—less than a hurricane, but not much less. The palms bent on the shore, their fronds streaming out like blown hair. In exposed places, trees and telegraph poles were snapped off short. The air became thick with flying objects—leaves and vegetation and tiles and thatch, and even sheets of galvanised iron torn from the roofs of rickety shacks. Great waves came sweeping into Fontego’s inadequate harbour and many small boats were broken up. Over in Darwin Bay the Papeete was carried up under the palms by a small tidal wave and left high and dry above the beach.
With the wind came the rain. First there were a few huge premonitory gusts, and then the heavens opened and the water came down in a continuous beating stream, as though a giant bowl had been overturned above the earth. The din was so great that even indoors it was barely possible to converse. Outside, all traffic stood where it had been caught, and every living thing sought shelter. At first the roads and pavements steamed and sizzled, but presently, as the overloaded drains failed to carry off the surface water, floods covered the lower parts of the town to a depth of several feet, and every street became a rushing foaming torrent. Outside the town, down every old dried watercourse, red and yellow floods tore their way, carrying before them half a year’s accumulated deposit of vegetation and refuse. Down every inhabited hillside water streamed in cascading sheets, washing away foundations, giving old shacks a new tilt, and applying to others the last destructive touch. Riverbeds filled to the brim and beyond in a matter of minutes, and unleashed torrents hurled themselves upon decrepit bridges and broke them up. One of the first to go was the temporary bridge over the Silver River. High mountain roads were undermined and became impassable as great walls of eroded earth slipped fifty or a hundred feet.
For three hours Fontego cowered and Nature did her worst. Three hours of shattering rain and tempest, of cracking thunder and splitting lightning. Then, as suddenly as they had formed, the clouds broke and passed for the day. Life began again. To-morrow, probably, and on many to-morrows, the rain would return, but in the meantime hot sunshine was breaking through the humid air. The waters abated in the streets and the people emerged from their shelters and went about their business. The pavements steamed again and quickly dried. Cleaners came out to clear away some of the mud and mess and litter. The Office of Works was already gathering damage reports from all over the Colony. The tenants of the hundreds of damaged shacks were beginning to prop and repair, talking without bitterness of this first storm of the season, which had been one of the heaviest in Fontegan memory. Out in the country, peasants strolled barefooted between the reeking verges of the roads, stopping to chatter happily beside the placid pools where green rice would soon be springing.
Everywhere men sweated and sweated in the close moist air.
Chapter Nineteen
Little Miss Chang was sorting Dr. Garland’s mail when the door of the outer office was flung open with a vigour that set the flimsy partitions rattling, and Martin West strode in.
“Good morning, Dr. West,” she said. Her impassive face rarely registered surprise, but she looked mildly interested when she saw that his clothes were damp and stained and his hair tousled. “We weren’t expecting you this morning. Is anything wrong?”
Martin said curtly, “Is Dr. Garland alone?”
“Yes,” said Miss Chang, “but——”
Martin pushed open Garland’s door unceremoniously and plunged in. Directly Garland saw who it was he sensed trouble. The leprosarium—always the leprosarium! Why couldn’t he be allowed to forget it?
“Hello, West,” he said in a voice that held no shade of welcome. “What on earth are you doing here so early?”
“I’m paying a personal visit because there’s no telephone on that damned island,” said Martin grimly. “I’ve some bad news for you.”
“Oh!” Garland braced himself. “You’d better sit down. Well, what’s happened?”
“Tacri was almost washed away yesterday afternoon.”
“I dare say,” said Garland. “So was Fontego.” Relief made him sound almost amiable.
“Two patients were drowned,” went on Martin in the same grim tone. “Bed patients. They were swept into the sea.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Garland. “That certainly is bad news. How did it happen? Wasn’t there anyone in charge?”
Martin made an obvious e
ffort to speak calmly. “I was in charge. I don’t think you quite realise what conditions were like. It rained so hard for two hours that water poured down that rock face like a small Niagara. What with the rain and the wind it was almost impossible to move. You’ve no conception.”
“Was there much damage?” asked Garland in a serious tone.
“The male infirmary was washed off its foundations—that’s where the two drowned men were—and it’s now lying on the slope of the hill at an angle of forty-five degrees, smashed up. It’s a miracle more people weren’t killed. Two of the residential huts were undermined and we’ve had to evacuate them. Several of the latrines have been blown to blazes, and one of the kitchens is unusable. They’re the major items, but the fact is that the whole place is in chaos. I’d have come yesterday, but I couldn’t leave Mortimer until we’d cleared up a bit. We need help badly.”
“Of course, my dear fellow,” agreed Garland. Now that he realised the extent of the disaster his attitude had changed. “You must have had a dreadful time. What would you like me to do? What do you need? Shall I come out there?”
Martin thought of the tired attendants, the tangles of wreckage, the neglected patients. It was difficult to know where to begin. “We need a working party of labourers,” he said, “to start repairs and clean things up as far as possible—and at least three additional attendants to lend a hand until we get straight. If we ever do.”
“Of course you will,” said Garland. “Heavens, man, you mustn’t get dispirited over a storm. It’s bad luck, but it was an act of God and couldn’t be helped.”