He broke off as the young man who had been speaking jumped down from the table he had mounted, and banged on its surface with his tankard. It seemed the signal for which they had all been waiting, for within minutes more and more tankards were being banged, more and more voices joining in a song which the youth had started to sing and which swelled to a loud chorus, rousing, but, Jane felt, in some way menacing.
She was about to say as much to Kevin when someone else came hurriedly through the door which led to this inner room. He was a young policeman, and for a moment the crowd seemed to close its ranks against him, but he had time for none of them. Without hesitation he advanced towards Kevin who was apparently known to him.
“Dr. Dean,” he said breathlessly, “Dr. Lowth asked me to find you. There’s been an accident and there’s to be ... how do you call it? ... an emergency operation. You are wanted, both of you, you and the pretty nurse,” and before Jane could gather herself together he had clicked his heels in exactly Karl’s fashion, bowed and left.
“Here we go again!” Kevin made a grimace as he explained to the others in fairly fluent Dalasalavian what had happened. “Every time I come here someone does something daft enough to warrant Dr. Lowth’s sending for me! It’s almost as though he arranges things on purpose, but I know he can’t do that. If there’s been an accident then it’s a genuine one, just as the row which’ll—follow my being here again will be equally genuine! Sorry I let you in for this, Staff! I might have known it would happen again ... and he warned me last time!”
“He didn’t warn me!” Jane said crossly, and then wished she could have bitten back the words. He’d warned her, more than once, both about the New Thought Club, joining in anything other than her own work duties, just as Ann had warned her. In addition, she remembered, colouring slightly, he had warned her, as Ann had done, about a too close association with Kevin Dean!
Well, it was too late to do anything about that now, she decided as Kevin drove as quickly as He could back to the hospital. She was already angry with Jim Lowth—and yet what right had she to be angry? All he had done was to take her out and try to give her a little pleasure in this strange new world in which she had found herself, and if he looked upon her as just another piece of hospital furniture, what right had she to complain. There was no law, in love or out of it, which said a man must love in return when once he was found to be beloved ... but with all her heart she wished there might be or that one could be invented before she was face to face with James Lowth again.
There was little time to brood about her own feelings or those of Dr. James Lowth, however, once she was changed into her uniform and had presented herself in the ward. She was quickly informed of the emergency, which had been caused by a boiler’s exploding in one of the older factories which so many of the more progressively-minded people of the country were determined to have closed and their orders for work transferred to one or other of the newer community-owned factories which were, one by one, being opened.
The patient in question was a young man of about twenty years of age. He had been badly burned, and in addition one of the flying pieces of metal as the explosion occurred, had caught his arm just above the elbow, severing vein, bone, muscle and tissue so badly that Dr. Jim had decided there was nothing to be done save to operate immediately.
The measure of Jim’s disapproval was apparent in the fact that he did not waste a second in reproving them for where they had chosen to spend their free time together. He told them clearly and precisely of the man’s extensive bums, his state of shock, the dangers that he would, in all probability, die under the anaesthetic, and outlined what he proposed to do in order to save what was left of the arm, and to combat the loss of blood, always a problem at St. George’s, where the blood bank was never really filled to capacity.
The trio worked in swift and sure silence, a silence broken only by Jim’s abrupt word of command for sutures, ligatures or instruments. Kevin’s face was absorbed as he watched the patient to whom he was administering the anaesthetic, and Jane, who had assisted once at an operation on a girl injured in a road accident, knew this time she was watching something equally miraculous in the way of operational technique. If this young man lived—and he would most certainly live if any skill of Dr. Jim’s could be brought to save him—then indeed he would owe his life to St. George’s and to the man who gave himself so wholeheartedly in service there. All the time she was watching him, anticipating his demands, something inside her seemed to be weeping over the fact that she had been in one of the places he had forbidden her to visit, and in the company of the man she felt instinctively he did not trust, at a moment when she should have been there, in the hospital precincts, and within call.
At last it was all over and the patient being wheeled away to the recovery room, which in St. George’s was merely a small annexe-like room which had been pressed into this service.
Not for the first time, as she recalled how often the surgical and nursing staff of Rawbridge General grumbled at their lack of modern equipment, their shortage of beds, their cramped quarters, Jane marvelled at the skill, patience and devotion with which Dr. Jim performed his numerous and often heartbreaking tasks. A man whose life’s work was devoted to the healing of the stricken in any bodily form, only lately had Jane realised how much each success meant to him, how every failure, no matter how small, counted as defeat.
“I think he’ll do,” he remarked as she helped him off with his gown, and for no apparent reason her heart sang, knowing that in hospital parlance that meant Dr. Jim thought the patient stood a fair chance of full recovery.
“I know this is supposed to be your free time, Staff Nurse,” he said with what seemed a deadly quietness as she turned to leave, “but I would greatly appreciate it if you would step into my office in just a few moments. I shall not keep you long,” he added, and Jane felt herself blush, wondering whether he was hinting and had not added, “if you want to return to your amusement.”
She murmured some non-committal reply and hurried to divest herself of her theatre gown and mask, knowing she was trembling inwardly. He had said nothing whatsoever to Kevin, beyond his customary, “Thank you, Dr. Dean. You did a difficult task remarkably well.” Kevin had nodded and left them, and although she had heard the' car drive away Jane felt instinctively he would not return, at least that evening, to the New Thought Club.
She told herself repeatedly and firmly that there was no reason whatsoever for the sudden onset of nervous tension which shook her as she tapped on the door of his office. Inwardly she was repeating what should have been the comfortable assurance that what she did in her free time was her business and hers alone, but just now none of it made any sense whatsoever.
Jim was seated at his desk when she responded to his quiet, “Come in, Staff Nurse.” He had been writing, and finished a sentence before pushing the paper on to one side. Jane did not know, but guessed he was writing up a report of the accident, as he had once told her that was part of his duty, since the government were seeking seriously to discover what safety measures were necessary and where in their developing industrialised society.
“Sit down ... Jane,” he said, pointing with his pen to a chair which stood before the desk. He had never called her Jane save on the night of the Embassy ball, and she wondered wildly whether this meant he was no longer thinking of her as “Staff Nurse” or whether, heaven forbid, he had decided she was, after all, an unsuitable person for such a position of responsibility.
“You were enjoying your evening with Dr. Dean?” he said in a questioning tone.
“I ... yes.’ Jane was nonplussed. This was not in the least the approach she had expected. “In a way,” she confessed belatedly, but he pounced on the half admission.
“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” he said smoothly. “As I see it, one is either enjoying oneself or not! Don’t you care for the New Thought Club, then? Wasn’t the company to your liking?”
“I don’t understa
nd the language, as you know,” Jane said with some spirit. “At the hospital it doesn’t really matter, nursing care’s the same in any language and there are always one or other of the nurses to translate anything I find puzzling. That’s how I learned quite a few words from Madam Brentlov. Karleina or Marietta would translate and then I would repeat what Madam had said, but it wasn’t enough for me to feel ... at home in the New Thought Club. All the same,” she felt suddenly not exactly defiant, but as though someone ought to stand up for whatever it was that drove Kevin Dean to seek this forbidden company and rendezvous, “people in that club are young.” she said too quickly. “Not like the few young people I’ve seen at the Golden Fiddle, either. These young folks are alive. You could see the same expressions on the faces of their age group in any capital in the world, London, New York, Paris, anywhere where youth isn’t restricted, held back as it is here!”
“But would you have seen that expression, as you phrase it, on the faces of the young people say in the pioneering days of America? Or in London, way back when a man could be hanged for stealing a loaf, deported for less? Or in Paris, when the mob were starving, and just afterwards, when they managed, for the first time in centuries, to have a fair price paid to them for a fair day’s work? I think not!” he said so severely that Jane’s heart sank.
“You have to remember, Jane,” he said in a more restrained tone, “this is an ancient state, with laws which go back into well before World War One. Most of those laws were still in force at the end of World War Two. It’s only now the people are beginning to realise what it can be like, must be like, to live in the world of today with all the modern advantages which, so far, have not come to this land. These advantages are coming, scientific, medical, cultural, educational—everything—but they’ll take both time and money to be as much a part of daily life as we are accustomed to in our own country. With all due respect for the urgency of youth, the members of the New Thought Club have little thought as to exactly how these miracles are to be accomplished. I realise their impatience, and I have a great deal of sympathy with their ideals, but upheaval of ordered routine, the instigation of disorder and, I regret to say, at times of violence, have nothing to recommend them in my eyes.”
“They none of them looked violent types of people to me,” Jane said defensively, and was almost offended when he smiled.
“I don’t suppose they would, tonight.” He sympathised with her resentment, so much was obvious, but his voice was still grave and stern.
“Tonight you visited them when they were probably doing nothing more than enjoying themselves in their own way. I did not mean to suggest that every evening at the New Thought is an evening devoted to the plotting of the overthrow of the government, far from it. The majority of the members work very hard in one capacity or another, and all of them have the good of Dalasaivian at heart, however misguided their ideas on helping may be!”
“They seemed a normal, jolly crowd of young people, enjoying themselves in their own way,” Jane said, and was at once betrayed by her memory of the young man .who had protested—or so it seemed—so violently and with such vehemence, banging his tankard and rousing the others to do the same. That memory wiped out the words she had just spoken, and what she might have said next died without being said.
“That is how they generally behave, I admit,” Dr. Jim said, reasonably enough. “Yet the records show that, over the past three years or more, several outbreaks of violence against authority, unmistakable evidence of attempted dealings with other and larger Powers which have promised them almost the earth as a reward, all have two or three members of the New Thought in the revolutionary group. We,” he was suddenly very serious indeed, “are visitors in this land. We hope we are helping, indeed we do our best to do so. Our Government has trade associations with the Dalasalavian government, and all these things must be considered. We,” he smiled suddenly and looked heartbreakingly like the Dr. Jim she loved with all her heart, “must do nothing to disturb the friendly agreements and arrangements enjoyed by the governing parties on both sides of the fence. That’s what I’ve tried to point out to Dr. Dean, and, I regret, have failed completely to do so, the greater the pity. I had, however, thought you had a more serious turn of mind!” he said with the faintest touch of reproof.
Jane felt suddenly miserable. She had tried hard to please, at first because she genuinely wanted to make a success of the job she had undertaken. Latterly, and she admitted it to herself now in this moment of self-revelation, her attempts to please in all aspects, not only as a nurse but as a person, had been with but one object in view. She wanted the approval of Jim Lowth. She wanted his admiration and approval, and she was prepared to go to almost any length to obtain it. As it was, she reflected abjectly, she seemed to have gone a good way towards losing what little approval she had gained. All because she had allowed herself, and she must admit it, against her better judgement, to be persuaded in going to a place to which she knew he would never approve of their going.
“I don’t suppose anything in Seonyata is in the least as you imagined it might be, Jane,” he surprised her by the remark and by the suddenly extra-friendly tone in which the words were spoken. “I had a few ... surprises, when I first arrived,” his eyes twinkled. “I was fortunate in having a friend at the Embassy when I arrived here. In fact,” his tone grew more confidential as he continued, “it was due to Stuart’s influence that I was offered the position I now hold. Like yourself, I was fired by the ambition to do all I could to help. There was a challenge in the post, and I accepted it. Over the years I feel I’m winning, just as the wise people in the government are winning the battle for their country’s survival in a competitive world. It isn’t easy, for them or for us, and I would rather no one from the hospital did anything whatsoever to cause disturbance which is always unwelcome, and might even, in this case, be dangerous.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Jane said miserably. “I’m afraid I didn’t think quite so far as that.”
“I didn’t myself, at first,” Jim admitted. “I found myself wanting to know everything that went on, good or bad so far as myself was concerned. It was only much later I realised a great deal of my uneasiness stemmed from being lonely, from being cut off from my own sort of people, my own language. I decided to learn Dalasalavian. That was the first step. Then I made friends with some of the business people in the town, some of the people who are working to bring distinction as well as prosperity to their country. Now I have friends all over the place, and,” he spread his hands dramatically and laughed outright, “little time in which to visit them! That’s the irony of life, I suppose.” He looked closely at her for a moment or two, then asked gently: “Was loneliness part of your problem, Jane?”
She hesitated. She had never throughout her life been really lonely, but since she had grown to love Jim Lowth she had known what she had once read as being described as “a hunger of the heart.” It had been enough in the beginning to be part of his team, part of St. George’s, helping with everything, which concerned the hospital because, unlike other men in his position at home, everything in and around St. George’s was of concern, in one way or another, to Dr. Lowth. Yet she could not in all honesty say she was lonely, not in the general meaning of the word. If she had longed passionately for someone to chat with, either Nurse Dawlish or Nurse Wroe would have been pleased enough to oblige.
If she had wanted to visit, there were Granny and Grandpa Hansvitch, whom Kevin had taken her to see—and left her there, calling for her an hour later—a week or more ago. There was also Madam Brentlov, Madam Hanzmytz and several other ex-patients, all of whom had extended a sincere and genuine welcome to the youthful nurse to whom they felt they owed so much of their restoration to health. No, she faced the truth in her own mind, she could not sincerely say it had been loneliness which had driven her into going to the forbidden club with Kevin.
“I don’t think so, not really, sir,” she said demurely. “I admit it’s a little bori
ng to have to play the same records over and over again, simply because there aren’t any more and I don’t care for what few there are in the shops here.”
“Recording and so forth in this country is making great strides now,” Jim told her, smiling. “And there’s shortly to be an entertainment programme on the radio, something in addition to all the news and talks we get day after day. We have a radio in the hospital somewhere. I’ll see about having it put to rights, it was damaged some time after I came here when we had a minor earthquake. Would you care to have it in your flat, or somewhere where it can be used as a community focal point?”
“Where the others can hear it too, please,” Jane said promptly. “Nurse Dawlish can knit as she listens, Nurse Wroe will no doubt read or sew, but Karleina, Marietta and Julianice would love it, I’m sure. And they could translate important points to the rest of us as we went along.”
“And that would do them no end of good morale-wise,” Jim grinned. “I’m sure they’d appreciate being able to show you something—even if it were only a knowledge of their own language—instead of the boot always being on the other foot, as it were! That disposes of one point, then. A little entertainment on the home ground, so to speak. There are other things too, of course.”
Unexpectedly he frowned, and for a moment Jane wondered exactly what else she must have done to incur his displeasure, but that idea was dispelled as soon as he spoke again.
“I realise you must have a change every now and then, Jane,” he admitted, “but I also realise Kevin Dean is not the right kind of companion for you to be going around with to anywhere which might set people talking. You did say, did you not,” he shot at her abruptly, “that you had no emotional entanglements of any description at home?”
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