by Ann Bridge
‘Ouch!’ said Julia, as he lowered her carefully on to the floor of the dinghy, in the bows.
‘That hurt?’
‘Not too much. I mean, it hurts anyhow. Mr. O’Malley, how kind of you to come and fetch me.’
‘What happened ye, Miss Probyn?’
‘Like a perfect fool I slipped on the quay,’ Julia said, as the landlord started to row round into the harbour again.
‘Are ye much hurt?’
‘We’ll have to ask the doctor that. Can we get hold of him?’
‘He’s every place!—but we’ll get him all right.’
In fact when they drew in below the hotel Dr. Feinstein was there waiting for them—Mrs. O’Malley had sent out her scouts and caught him close by. Together he and Jamieson lifted the girl out of the boat, carried her up that little staircase, and laid her on her bed, where the doctor made his examination.
‘Yes, you’ve broken your leg all right,’ he said. ‘Only the fibula though, and luckily down by the ankle. What on earth made you do such a damn-fool thing?’
‘Oh, I slipped. I expect I am a damn fool!’
Dr. Feinstein grunted, while he prepared a splint and put it on the lower part of Julia’s leg, bandaging it round the foot as well—Jamieson looked on in dismay.
‘How soon can she be moved?’ he asked the American, when the job was done, and they had left Julia in Mrs. O’Malley’s care, having her wet clothes removed.
‘Oh, any time, if we get an ambulance the far side and take her to Castlebar—or to a house where she can be cared for.’
‘She’s been staying with the O’Haras at Rostrunk. Would that do? They have plenty of servants.’
‘By what I hear of Rostrunk it should be more than O.K.’ Dr. Feinstein said. ‘It seems there’s a lady there that has the County in the palm of her hand.’
‘Could you arrange the ambulance for tomorrow? I think Miss Probyn is rather anxious to get back.’
‘Yes, I’ll wire Castlebar for the ambulance. It’s a perfectly clean break, with just a few lacerations where she hit the rocks; the Doctor in Martinstown will have to put it into plaster, of course—I’ve only done a make-shift job.’ He lit an American cigarette, and held out his pack to Jamieson—the Colonel loathed Chesterfields, but took one. ‘I have the impression that some way Miss Probyn got a bit of a shock,’ the Doctor then said thoughtfully. ‘I’ve given her a sedative. Did you see what happened?’
‘No, I was in the hotel—I only went out when I heard her call, and found her in the water.’
‘Sounds crazy to me, an active girl like that going and falling off a quay,’ Feinstein said.
Jamieson didn’t take up this point.
‘Accidents do happen,’ he said. ‘Well, Doctor, if you’ll draft your telegram, I’ll draft mine—then we can get going. What do we owe you, by the way?’
‘Forget it,’ the American said. ‘I’d do anything for that girl! I won’t take a cent, from you or from her.’
When the two men had prepared their telegrams Mrs. O’Malley went into her little office and did some frantic pedalling; the doctor left; Jamieson went upstairs to Julia. He found her lying relaxed and sleepy.
‘All right?’ he asked.
‘Gosh, that was some pill the little man gave me!’ the girl said, with a contented smile. ‘I feel as if I could sleep for a thousand years.’
‘Well sleep away. I’ll come up later and see about your supper.’
‘Oh I fixed that. Mrs. O’M. has got some real chicken broth brewing tonight, and I’m having it. “Just soup, Miss Probyn, after an accident,” she said. Aren’t they clever?’
‘They’re frightfully nice,’ the Colonel said. He went over to the bed and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Bless you, my darling,’ he murmured, and went out. Julia began to cry after the kiss, but almost at once she fell asleep.
The Colonel tried to settle down again to his report on the Clare Island installations, but found it hard to concentrate; Julia’s accident had stirred up his emotions towards her more violently than ever, and he longed, in particular, to know what had really happened down on the quay. He was actually relieved when his efforts were interrupted by Dr. Feinstein’s voice calling out below his window—‘Colonel, could you come down a moment?’
‘Yes,’ he called back, again locking his notes in his despatch-case before he left the room.
In the garden he found the doctor, holding a very small boy tightly by the hand.
‘This is Patrick Joseph O’Malley,’ the doctor said. ‘He has something to tell you. Come on down the quay.’
‘ ’Tis P. J. I’m called always,’ the small boy protested as he was led, wriggling and reluctant, along the jetty. When they were well out of earshot of the hotel Feinstein stopped and said—’ Now tell the Colonel what you told me.’
‘Is it a Colonel he is?’ the small boy asked, staring up at Jamieson’s tall figure with sudden interest.
‘Yes,’ Jamieson said.
‘Were ye in battles—real battles?’
‘Yes, in lots—in Greece, and Africa, and Italy.’
‘Ah, ye were out foreign! Would ye tell me about your battles? I never met a man was in a real foreign war,’ the child said eagerly.
‘Yes, I will,’ Jamieson said, smiling. ‘But first you must tell me what you saw.’ He guessed that the clever little Jewish doctor had found a witness of Julia’s accident.
‘ ’Twas the little small ugly foreign woman that done it,’ the child said. ‘The young lady was sitting on the side of the quay, and that one was up above among the wool; someway she tipped a bale, and it hit the young lady, and she went into the water.’
‘Where were you when you saw this?’ Jamieson asked. He wanted to be quite clear on his facts.
‘Up in the wool.’
‘What were you doing there?’ the Colonel enquired.
‘Me and me small sister was playing houses in it,’ P. J. replied.
Jamieson almost laughed. This was a perfectly satisfactory explanation—children, the world over, will ‘play houses’ in anything which enables them to re-create the caverns in which the human race spent its first thousands of years. But he had one or two further questions.
‘What was the young lady doing when the bale fell and knocked her into the water?’
‘Scribblin’ or drawin’ something on a little small pad,’ P. J. replied unhesitatingly.
‘What happened to the pad?’ the Colonel wanted to know—Julia might have been writing something better not in alien hands.
‘It fell on the quay, and that one picked it up and took it.’
‘And what did the foreign woman do then?’
‘The small man that’s with her had a boat waiting at the steps, and she ran back to him and got into it, and they rowed away to the Castle.’
Jamieson had seen them doing this himself. ‘And what did you do?’ he asked the child.
‘We went on playing houses till ‘twas tea-time, and the Doctor found us as we were going home. Me mother will be mad at me if I don’t go back now,’ P. J. said, wriggling more violently than ever in Dr. Feinstein’s grasp.
‘Run home and get your tea,’ Feinstein said, releasing him. But the child didn’t go.
‘When will ye be telling me about your battles?’ he demanded of Jamieson.
‘Come down to the hotel when you’ve had your tea, and I’ll tell you all about them, if you’ll give me one promise.’
‘What’s that?’
‘That you don’t tell your mother, or anyone else, what you saw. Will you promise?’
‘I will that.’
‘What about your little sister? Did she see it too?’
‘Ah no—she was within in the wee houseen we was making.’
‘All right—well come down presently.’ P. J. shot away to the village.
‘Now why did you make him give you that promise?’ Feinstein asked. ‘He’s a witness. Aren’t you going to put the police onto this?’
‘No,’ Jamieson said. ‘Mrs. Czech may have dislodged the bale by accident. For one thing, there are no police on the Island.’
‘They come over from Louisburg if they’re wanted.’
‘Well they aren’t wanted now,’ Jamieson said firmly. He paused. ‘Miss Probyn told me that you told her about the installations you saw being put in,’ he said carefully. ‘Not very nice. But these things are much better handled with the minimum of publicity, if they’re to be handled at all.’
Dr. Feinstein laughed out at Jamieson’s phrase ‘Not very nice’—it was so ultra-British. But he listened carefully to the Englishman’s last words.
‘Are you in a position to handle it? Miss Probyn didn’t seem at all sure that she was,’ he said.
‘I’m not sure that I can,’ Jamieson said, more carefully than ever. ‘I shall certainly try. It sounds as if it might be quite important.’
‘It’s important all right. I’m fairly certain that these checkpoints are to enable the Russians to make dead sure that they blow Dublin and Cork to glory—I guess they must have others to fix places like Glasgow and Liverpool. Of course they can only put them on outa-the-way places, like this.’
Jamieson looked at Feinstein with deep interest.
‘How did you come to decide that that is the purpose of these bits of machinery?’ he asked.
‘I’m interested in electronics,’ the doctor replied—‘and I have a friend in the States who’s pretty high up in that field. They have satellite-trackers over there, too.’
‘I see,’ was all Jamieson said.
‘Well, I suppose you know your own business best, but I don’t like to see that little woman get away with smashing Miss Probyn up,’ Feinstein said in a dissatisfied tone.
‘She may not, of course—let’s hope she doesn’t. But I don’t think the local police would be much help.’
The two men strolled back to the hotel, and presently collected the replies to their telegrams. An ambulance from Castlebar would be at Roonagh at eleven the following morning; a long, agitated wire from Lady Helen said that of course darling Julia must come back to Rostrunk to be nursed, and how terrible!
‘Well all that seems Okay,’ the little doctor said—they had fetched their drinks from the bar, and were sitting on a bench in the garden. ‘I guess I’ll just go up and have a look at my patient.’
At this point young P. J. O’Malley appeared, demanding to be given the promised account of the Colonel’s battles ‘out foreign’. Jamieson applied himself very nicely to this task. He stopped short when Feinstein reappeared. ‘How is she?’ he asked.
‘Fine, She has a superb constitution—she’ll be all right.’
‘Can I go and see her?’
‘Yes, if you don’t stay too long.’
Jamieson rose.
‘Thank you more than I can say,’ he said. ‘You won’t have another drink?’
‘Thanks, no. I have some patients to see.’
‘Will you promise me to keep this quiet, unless—and until—I give you the say-so?’ Jamieson asked.
‘Sure. Do it your own way.’ He shook the Colonel’s hand, and went off.
‘But what happened then?’ P. J. demanded. ‘Ye were in the middle of that battle, and the tanks crossing the wadi.’
‘Ah, yes—well we got the tanks across, and beat the Italians; they just ran away! That’ll have to be all for now, P. J.—I must get my tea.’
Julia was drinking chicken broth when Jamieson went up to her room.
‘Heaven soup!’ she said.
‘So glad. How do you feel?’
‘Still sleepy. It’s stopped hurting for the moment.’
‘Did Mrs. O’M. tell you that we’re off tomorrow?’
‘Oh yes, ambulance and all. That will make a sensation in the Bay, an ambulance at Rostrunk!’ the girl said, with her burbling laugh. ‘And poor Helen in a frightful fuss, I gather.’
So much for the secrecy and silence of the postal service, the Colonel thought, as he handed Julia Mrs. O’Malley’s neatly-written telegram from Lady Helen. The girl read it.
‘Oh well, that’s all right. But I do wish you could have seen the Abbey and the Castle properly.’
‘Your so-called accident gives us an admirable excuse for hurrying back, anyhow,’ Jamieson said—’ though I’m wretchedly sorry about your leg.’
‘Why do you say “so-called” accident?’ she asked, staring at him.
‘Because I’ve just been told, by an eye-witness, how you came to be toppled into the water.’
‘Who by, for pity’s sake? There wasn’t a soul about.’
‘Yes there was—a little boy who was playing up in the wool-bales.’
‘How on earth did you get hold of him?’
‘I didn’t—Feinstein did. And this infant gave the completely clear and factual account that children do give. What had you written on the pad that Mrs. Czech picked up?’
‘Only a letter to Edina about the birds, and this sweet place. Nothing to do that revolting little woman any good, or you any harm,’ Julia replied.
‘You hadn’t signed it?’
‘No.’
Jamieson decided to leave her. Julia’s colour had risen; he wanted her to sleep. He got up from the single chair, and went over to the bed.
‘My darling one, take it easy! We’ve got everything we came for, thanks to you. I only wish you hadn’t paid for it with a broken leg.’
‘What shall you do about the Czechs?’ Julia asked.
‘Tell London. They’re in touch with Dublin.’
‘Will the Yank keep quiet? He seems rather upset.’
‘I’ve sworn him to silence. Of course he wanted to lay on the police—Americans always do! I’ve sworn Master Patrick Joseph O’Malley to silence too.’
‘Oh, was your eye-witness little P. J.? His Mother is such a nice woman.’ She lay back on the pillows smiling, looking more relaxed. ‘But I can’t think how you bribed P. J. to keep his mouth shut,’ she added.
‘By telling him about my battles “out foreign”, darling,’ the Colonel said—the charming Mayo phrase for abroad had stuck in his mind. He stooped down and kissed her. ‘Now sleep,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you how much I love you some other time. Good night.’
But those last words of Philip Jamieson’s made Julia cry again—what could it all mean? She dabbed at her eyes when she heard Mrs. O’Malley’s step on the stairs, coming to fetch her supper-tray. After the kind woman had gone it was some time before she fell asleep once more.
Chapter 11
Clare Island didn’t boast such a thing as a stretcher, but a door lifted off its hinges and lashed to two oars served to carry Julia along the quay and down to the mail-boat next morning. Dr. Feinstein insisted on coming across to Roonagh with them, and seeing the girl safely installed in the ambulance from Gastlebar, which was provided with a proper stretcher, orderlies, and a nurse. The little American had sent another telegram overnight to Dr. O’Brien in Martinstown, telling him to expect a casualty with a broken leg about noon; and when the ambulance, followed by Jamieson, drew up at the surgery the doctor was expecting them. Julia was carried in; the ambulance-driver and the orderlies went off to the nearest pub, and Dr. O’Brien skilfully set Julia’s leg with the handy modern plaster, already attached to strips of canvas.
‘Ah, ’tis a clean break low down in the fibula— nothing at all! She’ll be walking again in seven weeks, or eight at the worst,’ he told the Colonel. ‘Those lacerations are nothing— I’ve given her a shot of penicillin. I’ll be out to Rostrunk to see her in a day or two.’
The doctor’s ‘housekeep’ collected the ambulance personnel from the inn, and they drove on to Rostrunk in time for a late lunch. The ambulance men carried Julia up that curved staircase and into her pretty corner bedroom with its two windows, one looking out on the tall grey shape of the old castle, the other down the long inlet to the open Atlantic. Julia was apologetic for ‘being such a nuisance’;
Lady Helen, while she and Annie were undressing the girl and putting her to bed, was all concern.
‘Dearest, what may you eat?’
‘Everything— and drink too!’
‘Annie, tell Attracta to bring up a tray with gin and sherry and vermouth— and everything— now at once; and let Nonie know that Miss Probyn will have the same lunch as the rest of us — the trout, and the veal, and the raspberry mousse.’
‘Right you be, Lady.’
‘Veal?’ Julia asked, surprised. Veal is normally unobtainable in rural Ireland; the farmers will not sacrifice calves, which can make a good price later for ‘finishing’ in England, merely to furnish a delicious form of food.
‘Julia, so lucky! Daphne’s last calf was born with crumpled feet; I made Tom Grady feed her on the bottle for a month, and then got Arthur to kill her and keep the joints in his frig— so we’re going to have lovely veal for weeks.’
Julia laughed. This was all so completely the Mayo she loved. Attracta appeared with a varied tray of drinks, which she set on one of the deep window-sills; she then enquired earnestly about Miss Probyn’s accident?
‘I’m not too bad, thank you Attracta. The Doctor says I’ll be all right in no time.’
‘Well thanks be to God.’
While Julia and Lady Helen took their aperitifs upstairs, Jamieson was having drinks with the General in the library; he had agreed to remain for luncheon. ‘I’ve seen those birds. Fascinating, they are.’
Michael O’Hara made a polite comment about the fulmars. But like so many soldiers his mind only ran on three, or at most four tracks; at the moment his newest track was his neighbour’s Communist sympathies, and he was soon running along it.
‘You were quite right about that fella MacMahon— he is a Communist, or as good as. I drove up to Dublin and asked about him. He’s rather odd— dances, or something like that. They have their eye on him— anyhow, he’s not trustworthy.’
Lady Helen, coming in at that moment, heard the last words.