Ship's Surgeon

by Celine Conway

  “Very well, then. I’m going to Uncle Dan.”

  Kristin had controlled her anger now. Her speech was slower, the syllables clearly defined. “I’m not going to give in to you, Pat, because I never step backwards; it’s fatal. When we first met on board I told you what I would do if you tattled about me to Vernon or anyone else. Well, I’ll add a little to that. I can’t afford to have you in my life, or the twins. I haven’t a single acquaintance who knows of your existence, and I’ll never acknowledge relationship with you, whatever happens. So don’t go too far, my dear. You should know by now that when I want something badly I’m quite ruthless. You’re not going beyond Colombo on this ship—or on any other!”

  Pat drew a quick, caught breath, but it was no use speaking. Kristin had swung about and was pattering swiftly on stilt heels into the main lounge. The deck seemed washed by a deathly stillness, and Pat became aware that her back ached from contact with the rail, and her hands were wet and warm at her sides. Her own anger had seeped away, leaving a chill that seemed concentrated about her heart. With an effort, she moved forward, avoided the opening Kristin had taken and went down to the dining saloon.

  She sat down, dully conscious that she was one of the first arrivals. She ordered fish, gazed down for some minutes at its crisp golden shape on her plate, the strip of lemon, and then got to her feet. Blindly, she walked straight into the doctor, who was making his way to his table. He caught her arm.

  “Hey, now. Too much wine for dinner?”

  She gave him a totally artificial smile, and nodded. “A lone tippler,” she said. “It caught up on me.” Quickly, she walked past him and out of the dining room, went down to B Deck and slipped into a restroom. Not a soul in there, thank heaven. They were all eating and drinking, philandering and arranging for the day ashore tomorrow. Pat sank on to a pink divan and stared at the mirror on the opposite wall; it reflected the flower arrangement above her head—yellow dahlias and trails of pale green tropical ivy.

  She pressed her fingers to her temples. What could she do? The worry was like little hammers beating insistently about her head. The boys needed Uncle Dan’s assistance. Kristin was determined that they should remain twelve thousand miles away from her future home base, Australia.

  Pat thought wildly, “What if I were to go to Vernon Corey and tell him the facts? Could Kristin really have the boys put into an orphanage? Would I regret, some time, that I’d stolen Kristin’s chance of marrying money?”

  There were more questions, many of them, and few answers. A couple of women came into the rest-room, repaired their complexions and went out again. She felt their curious glances, but didn’t really see the women. She was still thinking. Kristin must be absolutely broke. She had rich dresses and becoming play-suits which probably represented her last few months’ salary; the diamond and her furs would have been gifts from Corey of course. As far as cash went, she was penniless; so it was no use trying a sort of counter-blackmail. Kristin was simply getting along somehow till she could run up bills as Mrs. Vernon Corey.

  The door opened again, and Pat heard music starting up in the lounge. Dancing time already? She must have been here for well over an hour. She heard the red-haired and rather rattled stewardess ask if she felt all right, nodded and said it was only a headache. Then she walked to her cabin, got into pyjamas and lay down.

  There came a barely perceptible rap at the door and Bill Norton came in. His big figure in uniform seemed to fill the cabin, and the bed light shone upon his most clinical expression. Even the thick, springing, brown-gold hair did little to humanize it.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “No one could find you. Feel bad?”

  “It’s just a headache.” Go away, she pleaded silently. Please go away.

  “I’d better have your temperature.” He slipped a thermometer under her tongue and took her wrist, staring through her as he counted. He looked at the thermometer.

  “A very slight rise—the headache could cause it. No aches and pains—sore throat?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you keep your dinner down?”

  “I ... didn’t have any. I’m not seasick.”

  “No one could be seasick on this millpond. You looked odd in the dining-room so I searched for you afterwards. The ’flu is waning among the crew, but I was afraid you’d latched on to it. You’d better get under the blanket and I’ll give you some codeine. You know you mustn’t go near Deva Wadia unless you feel absolutely normal in the morning.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “Leave your door unlocked. Sister Edwards is on duty tonight and I’ll tell her to look in on you a couple of times.”

  “It isn’t necessary. It’s just a headache, and I even know what caused it. Now ... please go.”

  An icy surprise came swiftly into the steel-blue eyes. “Don’t speak to me like that,” he said curtly. “Anyone unwell on this ship is my responsibility.”

  “I’m not unwell.”

  “You haven’t got ’flu—didn’t imagine you had, as a matter of fact. But you’re sick, all right.” He dropped two tablets from a bottle into her hand, turned to the wash-basin and half-filled a glass with water. “Get those down,” he said, and waited while she swallowed them. He took the glass, rinsed it and put it back in its holder. He moved towards the door, spoke without expression. “I know what caused the headache, too. I was in the radio office sending a couple of cables when yours came in. Filthy luck, wasn’t it?”

  He went out, and Pat closed her eyes tightly. “... when yours came in.” Her what? Cable? Was something wrong with the boys? Oh, no! Terror spread paralysis through her limbs. She must get up, she must. There was a cable somewhere and she had to find it. There might have been an accident, or a sudden serious illness. Yes, it could only be bad news about the boys!

  She groped her way from the bunk, felt for the main switch and flooded the cabin with light. Feverishly, she pushed aside cosmetics and her writing pad which lay on the dressing chest, examined the book-tray over her bed. Then she saw it, a flimsy envelope which must have been whisked by a draught to the floor. Her fingers shook uncontrollably, but somehow she extracted the sheet of paper and unfolded it. She forced her eyes to focus, and read:

  “Alan and I were married this morning. I feel a swab but I do love him. Monica.”

  Relief and a cold, limited bitterness spread through Pat. Monica Birley ... Alan. But the boys were all right! She put out the light and got back into bed, turned her face into the coolness of the pillow. Alan ... Monica; quick work, very quick work. How could they? Pat shivered. There wasn’t much more that could happen to her, personally ... not now.

  The engines had slowed considerably, and the noises beyond the porthole were fantastic. Staccato yelling, the thud of boats jostling for position, the hooting of tugs and the piercing insistent note of a whistle blown, apparently, by someone who had carpets for sale, for occasionally the whistler broke off to scream hoarsely, “From Pairsia, mister ... lady. Real Pairsian carpets!”

  Pat crawled slowly from her bed. The headache was gone, and so had most of her feeling. She felt dull and apathetic, and a screen seemed to have been lowered between her head and her heart. As she washed she thought almost dispassionately of Alan. How little one really knew of another person ... any other person. They’d never talked much of love, she and Alan, because there had always been the boys between them. They’d had good times together, kissed and made light promises. At least, they must have been lightly made by Alan; to Pat they had been real enough, and rather lovely because they were the first promises she had ever made to a man. Alan had never said he would marry her once the boys were taken care of, but it had been understood between them. Pat had only mildly wondered whether she loved him enough to marry him; it had seemed a happier idea to take care of the boys’ future first. Then she would be free to consider herself.

  Alan liked an easy life, which might be peculiar in a doctor, but then Alan had known from the day h
e entered university that a partnership with his elderly cousin would be waiting for him when he was fully fledged; when the old chap retired Alan would take another partner and keep the plum patients for himself. That was what he’d said, adding, “You’re not going to work me like a horse, old thing. I know you’re earnest, but don’t be too tough on me, will you?”

  And now he was married to Monica Birley. Barely three weeks since they had said goodbye, and he was married to someone else. She remembered Monica very well, recalled also that she had been mentioned in Alan’s letter and she, Pat, had hardly taken it in. Monica had been that phenomenon among nurses, the daughter of a comfortably off eye-specialist. At St. Cedric’s she had always been the “lucky one” of the crowd; the one who managed more weekends, more dates, easier jobs, the least night duty. Pat had never known her as well as she knew the other nurses and physiotherapy students; Monica had been a year or two ahead, had been very sure of herself at a time when Pat had continually alternated between hope and despair both in her work and private friendships.

  Alan had taken Monica out; he had taken out many of the nurses, but not during the last year. Or had he? She supposed he must have been seeing Monica on the quiet, and had emerged into the open when Pat was out of the way. He’d reason it out, probably, to his own satisfaction. He was very fond of Pat, but it wasn’t as if the two of them were engaged. It seemed almost as if he’d hurried to get his marriage well over, so that Pat would be over it too, when she returned to England. If only he’d written about it, but he just hadn’t found the courage—even the bald telegram had had to come from Monica. That letter she had received at Gibraltar—he must have known what he was going to do to her, and yet he had written in his usual vein, allowing her to assume that they were as close as ever. He was a coward, a moral coward, but even though she could see it now, coolly and with detachment, she also knew that he could humiliate and hurt.

  As she dressed, rather forlornly, in a pink and white sun-dress, Pat recollected that the doctor had seen the cable which now lay shredded in her waste basket. Well, it didn’t matter. She had other things on her mind; Kristin’s threats, for instance. Perhaps it was fortunate that the cable had arrived at a time when Alan was rather less important than one or two other matters.

  Slackly, she went up on deck and stared at the glaring waterfront of Port Said. A towline of pontoons was being jockeyed alongside the Walhara, and she watched the linking up of the ship with the shore, forming a bridge on oil-drum floats. This was the Suez Canal, she remembered; that was why the shipping moved so slowly.

  Beside her, Van Pickard said, “Can’t you possibly take the whole day off? I’m just panting to see everything and my steward has promised to get me a picnic for two.”

  “I’m never free in the mornings,” she said. “The heat is fierce, isn’t it? Will you get a taxi again?”

  “Probably. I do wish you’d come. That patient of yours has a nurse-companion, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes, but I can’t miss a treatment.”

  “Isn’t she ever left alone—that girl?”

  “Only for an odd moment or two, when Mrs. Lai gets the food.”

  “Is she so precious?”

  “Her parents are strict that way. Mrs. Lai even had a room at the hospital and convalescent home.”

  “I’ve seen the old crone glowering on deck whenever your patient is there. The girl doesn’t look anything special. Lovely features, I grant you, but you wouldn’t think her father was rolling in boodle. Indian women of caste mostly wear lots of jewels. You’d think your Miss Wadia would wear hers, if only to give her spirits a lift.”

  “They don’t need a lift, and anyway, Deva doesn’t have any jewels on board.”

  “None at all?”

  Pat shook her head. “She doesn’t even have any money. Everything goes down on an account which her father will pay.”

  Van apparently lost interest in Pat’s patient after that. He hung over the rail, watching the conjurors on a barge below, and eventually he mentioned, dejectedly, that he would have to go ashore with Frank Thornton.

  Pat had some toast and coffee, and as she still had time to spare before Deva’s treatment, she went to the children’s deck and watched a leathery-skinned magician in dirty white plucking chicks and white mice from little boys’ pockets and girls’ hair. From there, it was only a step to the sun-deck, where a few vendors had been permitted to display silks and cheap jewellery, leather goods and gay rugs. These men had soft, sibilant voices which spoke enticingly of their wares.

  In spite of herself Pat became enthralled. She looked over the side at the conglomeration of merchandise in the bobbing boats which were now lining up beside the pontoons. Passengers were already making their way across the swaying bridge to the waterfront; women in cottons and straw hats, men in shorts and an astonishing variety of headgear, and all wearing sunglasses. Over there was Port Said, one of the taverns of the seas. Pat decided she would definitely go ashore after lunch.

  There weren’t many aboard during the morning. The heat was brassy, the smells legion, the Canal like a vast bath of oil. But valiantly the tourists toured, and towards one they came staggering back across the pontoons carrying a weird assortment of mementoes; basketware dyed every conceivable colour, orange leather bags stamped in black with pyramids and camels, matchwood boxes of sweetmeats and Turkish delight, and large models in vegetable ivory of the ancient Kings and palaces.

  After lunch, of course, they were flat out. Almost no one saw Pat, in the pink sun-dress and white straw hat, set out across the perilous-looking bridge for the town, and few of the vendors, still patiently strung out close to the ship, besought her to buy. The Egyptians and Arabs were sleepy in the great heat of the day.

  So Pat was able to walk about the old smelly district near the harbour without the usual string of would-be guides, and in the bazaars, where the clamour was muted, she bought a set of views of the town and the Canal, and a wall plaque of the Egyptian scene which the boys might like to hang in their room; it could be posted quite easily ... if she could only find the post office. She began walking towards the modern part of the city, where life was returning.

  “Lady wish coffee? Nice coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” she said to the wizened little man in grey rags who offered a steaming bowl of black liquid.

  A few more paces, and then, “Lady, nice snack? Good caffe ... lady, come with me.”

  “Buy bag, lady—any colour!”

  “Fine bracelets, cheap! Watches, nice camera...”

  “Good cakes, lady.”

  Pat was besieged. There was a glassed-in trolley packed with sticky buns and yellow pastries; there were brown men in dirty robes and tarboushes, trays of gimcrackery, pointing claws, searching eyes. From feeling hunted and a bit frightened, she suddenly knew a sense of overwhelming suffocation. Her handbag tight under her arm, she fought her way to the kerb, felt them dragging at her dress, at the things she held. Panic seized her; she might have flailed out at them with her arms if a taxi had not come to a screeching halt almost at her side. She saw the door swing violently open, felt an arm fairly lift her into the interior of the car and heard Bill Norton shout furiously, “Get back, you scummy lot. Drive on!” The cab jolted forward, the door slammed, and Pat sat slumped in her corner, gazing at Bill’s working jaw.

  “I dropped the bazaar bag,” she said weakly.

  “You crazy idiot!” he flung at her. “Don’t you know better than to walk alone in a place like this? That lot could have stripped you of everything worth selling, and you grizzle about losing a damned bazaar bag. You ought to be locked away!”

  “When I came there was hardly anyone about—a few sleeping beggars and one or two people walking. They took no interest in me. I ... I bought a couple of things and was looking for a post office.”

  “You’ve nothing to post now, I suppose,” he said grimly. “Be thankful nothing worse happened. I have to make a call, but you’d better go straig
ht back to the ship. The taxi will take you.”

  “Yes ... all right.”

  There was a long moment in which the cab turned a couple of corners. Then, with less anger but no more warmth, Bill said, “You scared me into yelling at you back there. I know you’re not feeling too good, but that made things worse. You shouldn’t have come ashore alone.”

  “You’ve ... said that.”

  “Well, for Pete’s sake remember it. The ports from here to Colombo are swarming with people who have to fight for their very existence; all the tourists mean to them is the money in their purses and pockets. Most of them try to get it legally, by selling something, but in every port there’s an element that will prey on the unwary and innocent. Don’t you dare go alone again. You hear me?”

  “After this I shan’t be tempted,” she said, low-voiced. “Thank you for picking me up.”

  Another silence before he asked, “Head normal today?”

  “Yes, thank you, though it did begin to throb a bit when that bunch...” she broke off, but after a second said, “I would like to buy a few photographic views. I promised my brothers I’d get some at every port.”

  “We’ll go to a hotel for some tea. You can get them there.”

  “Please,” she said, distressed. “I don’t want you to trouble. I dare say the boatmen near the ship have them.”

  But Bill ignored her. He leaned forward and gave the name of an hotel to the fezzed driver, and after that he half turned from her and looked out at the modern shops and the thickening crowds who walked at a leisurely pace in the heat-burdened air. They arrived at the hotel, and he led her through a cool tiled vestibule into a courtyard where palms shaded the tables and a fountain played. Without consulting her he ordered tea and pastries, and then excused himself. His business could be done on the telephone; he wouldn’t be long.