Home is Goodbye (9 page)

Matt spoke with the leader, an older man than the others, with large gaps in his teeth and an enormous abscess on his leg that made Sara catch her breath with
pity.

‘We saw your bird descending from the sky,’ he said in a curiously accented English.
‘
We came speedily to see if you were still among the living men. We will take you to our village.’

Matt accepted his invitation with a warm shake of the hand and asked if some of the young men could be delegated back to the little Auster in case the search party should arrive sooner than expected.

The leader nodded with great dignity and delegated some of his followers in the general direction of the aircraft. Then he turned his attention to Sara, his gaze resting on her for several doubtful seconds.

‘The memsahib will walk?’ he asked at last.

Matt looked inquiringly at Sara.

‘Would you like me to arrange for them to make you some sort of a hammock?’ he asked.

She shook her head quickly. ‘Oh no!’ she exclaimed. ‘If anyone has a hammock it ought to be that man! Have you seen his leg?’

The African understood her and glanced down at the running sore on his calf. It appeared to amuse him, for he burst out laughing and translated the joke to his followers, who found it just as funny. Sara felt suddenly very foreign and inexperienced and instinctively her hand reached out to clasp Matt’s. He gave it a reassuring squeeze.

‘Isn’t this the Africa you came out to see, Nurse Wayne?’ he asked her.

And of course it was. It was what she had wanted far more than any town or city. This was a bit of Africa as it had always been, where men and animals understood and respected one another; where death was a part of life and laughter a part of sorrow.

‘I must do something for him when we reach the village,’ she said out loud. ‘He can’t go on like that!’

Matt looked at it judiciously. ‘Well,’ he drawled, ‘if you’re very good, I just might hold him down for you while you get to work!’

This time it was their turn to laugh and for the Africans to look askance. Sara smiled at them gently.

‘How far is your village?’ she asked.

‘Maybe one hour’s walk,’ the leader said solemnly.

‘You can double that!’ Matt whispered. ‘They always tell one what they think one wants to know.’

‘But it’s much better than we thought!’ she said with feeling. ‘Perhaps only eight miles.’

The heat from the sun was beginning to make her feel lightheaded. She felt a little giddy and had difficulty in propelling her feet forward. Over and over again her mind went over the moment of the aeroplane touching down on the ground and she began to shiver. She must not give way, she told herself sternly, they had to walk eight more miles, and Matt would think her a poor sort of nurse if she couldn’t manage that! He might even sack her at the end of the month if he thought that she hadn’t the necessary stamina. She put up her hand to wipe away the sweat from her face and was dismayed to discover that it was wet with tears as well.

‘That’s no distance at all!’ she said out loud. ‘Only eight miles!’

Matt gave her a rather curious look. ‘Is your head buzzing inside?’ he asked.

She laughed weakly. It was such a ridiculous question.

‘It’s shock,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m crying! I’ve never crashed in an aeroplane before.’

Matt said nothing. He turned away to the Africans and the effort of appearing normal became too much for her and she sank down to the ground. When he came back to her, she was too miserable to care what happened to her.

‘Go away!’ she pleaded.

But he came a great deal closer, putting his hand on her forehead and nodding to himself.

‘Temperature! The lot, Nurse Wayne! No wonder you’ve been so argumentative all day!’

The unfairness of that roused her and she struggled to her feet.

‘I hate you!’ she stormed at him.
‘
I hate you, do you hear?’

He grinned. ‘You’d be hating anyone near you at this minute,’ he told her cheerfully.
‘
You’ve got a nice little dose of fever, that’s all. And don’t cry, nurse! It will only make your head ache all the more!’

He took her medical bag from her unresisting fingers and found some tablets inside which he handed to her.

‘Take these!’ he commanded, his voice trembling with laughter. ‘You may very well have cause to hate me after that!’

She didn’t even glance down to see what they were. Anything, she thought, that will keep me on my feet. She swallowed them down and thanked him, ashamed of her previous anger. Perhaps he was right and she really wasn’t well. She didn’t feel ill exactly, but she certainly felt most peculiar.

Matt turned away from her and she felt that he had deserted her. A great sob shook her and she began to cry in earnest. Then black arms lifted her on to the back of one of their shields and she wriggled to get free of them. She could smell the sweat on their athletic bodies, and the abominable stench of skins not properly cured.

‘Matt!’ she cried out weakly.

‘Hush,’ he said, and she was surprised to find that he was quite close to her. ‘Be still, you little fool, while I tie you on!’

By the time he had finished with her she felt like a mummy. She could move neither arm nor leg and she felt hot and sticky.

‘Why won’t you let me walk?’ she asked querulously. ‘I’d much rather. There’s nothing the matter with me, and I can’t possibly have malaria, I haven’t been out here long enough, so it must be something else!’

‘It’s malaria,’ Matt told her, ‘so hush up. Go to sleep if you can!’

Really, she thought, of all the impossible suggestions! Either she was far too hot or else she was far too cold and shivering, and sometimes she was doing both together.

Two of the Africans lifted her easily up to waist height. When she turned her head, she could see their muscles gleaming in the sunlight and wondered that they should be able to carry her so easily. Their leader broke out into a chant and the rest of them joined in the chorus. Monotonously they went on and on, with the variations too subtle for her to hear, but it was soothing and she began to relax, no longer afraid that they would drop her or find her too heavy for them.

The shield that she lay on was very simply made — a skin stretched tight across a bonework of wood and sewn into place. It was hard and badly prepared, but it served its purpose well and she was really quite comfortable once she became accustomed to the smell and the swaying motion as they walked.

She must have dropped off to sleep after all, for when she awoke the sun had moved a long way across the sky and it was a little cooler. She felt better, but so weak that she could hardly have moved even if her bonds had allowed her to.

‘Matt!’ she called out.

He was beside her immediately, smiling down at her.

‘Thirsty?’ he asked.

She nodded and he handed her the canteen that he always carried in his hip pocket.

‘Have a go at that,’ he said, ‘and I’ll give you some more pills to take with it.’

She was too weak to argue with him. Besides, anti
-
malaria pills would not do her any harm, whether she had fever or not. Some people in the tropics took them every day and thrived on them.

It was difficult to drink in a lying position, with her hands tied almost to her sides, but in the end Matt came to her rescue, holding the canteen to her
li
ps and pouring the water down her throat.

The Africans laughed and talked among themselves, changing the litter bearers without even pausing in their stride and grinning down at her with a friendly interest that she could have very well done without. She felt quite embarrassed by their laughter when she spilt some of the water.

‘It’s because you’re something odd in their experience,’ Matt told her, answering her mute inquiry. ‘Wait until we get to the village and the entire population will turn out to see you!’

The prospect appalled her. If she had been feeling well she might have been amused by it all, but all she wanted now was to crawl into some dark hole, away from the sun, and go to sleep. She shut her eyes hopefully, but it was almost as bad as having them open. Little red dots and patterns danced before her and she opened them again quickly before they became more involved and increased the pain in her head.

‘Are you awake, Sara?’ Matt’s voice asked her.

‘Yes,’ she said simply.

‘Good. We’re starting down the escarpment now and
I’m afraid you’ll be badly jogged about, but we’re nearly there, so it won’t last long.’

Almost immediately they began to go downhill. Down a sheer cliff, it seemed to Sara, who had to clench her teeth to keep back the moan that came to her lips. Once one of the men who was carrying her slipped and they all went crashing to the ground. It was only Matt’s hand that saved her from rolling higgledy-piggledy down the rest of the slope, but they were up again in a moment and shouting commands to one another so that it should not happen again.

At last they reached the bottom of the great break in the earth’s surface and the village came into sight behind a magnificent fortified gate of wood, woven together to form a solid wall. One of the men ran on ahead to warn the village of their coming, while the others broke into another, gayer chant, some of them dancing to the beat with shuffling movements of the feet and odd contortions of the neck and head. Gradually it was taken up by the whole party and Sara could feel herself swaying to the rhythm and was surprisingly comforted by the motion.

The village was practically deserted. A few women and some elders came forward, curious to see the new arrivals, but most of the young men and the children were out of the village, hunting or gathering berries.

Sara’s makeshift stretcher was placed in the centre of the compound and Matt bent down over her, untying the strips of cloth that had held her on during the journey.

‘I should wait a few minutes before you attempt to get up,’ he advised her. ‘You’ll be as stiff as anything from lying so still for such a long time.’

But Sara wanted to prove her independence and staggered to her feet, marvelling that her knees were so like cotton wool in such a short time. She had the strange sensation of floating over the ground, rather than walking on it, and knew that she was still running a high temperature. She stumbled and Matt put his arm around her to support her.

‘Muggins!’ he teased her. ‘Why won’t you admit that you’re ill and let us look after you?’

The gentleness in his tones brought the tears into her eyes, with the result that her first view of the village was a blurred mass of huts, surrounded by a wall that was badly in need of repair.

One of the women came up to Matt and said something to him that she could not understand and Matt relinquished her to her.

‘
Kuja
,
memsahib,’ the woman said softly.
‘
Kuja
.’

Two strong brown arms supported her weight all the way to the nearest hut and helped her inside. It was surprisingly clean and well-swept and Sara had no objection to allowing herself to be seated on a pallet in one corner.

The woman went to the doorway and called out to Matt, but the wonderful, cool darkness of the interior was too much for Sara and she was asleep before he came to her.

It was a moment or two before Sara could believe that the buzzing in her ears had really ceased. She pulled herself up into a sitting position and swayed weakly against the mud and wattle wall of the hut. A lizard shot up the wall making her jump and she was reminded of the dark shapes that had frightened her so badly in the night, but had turned out to be nothing more than a few bats. A night in Africa had proved to be a noisy affair, with hyenas howling and owls screeching and even dogs barking, until she had wondered how anyone had got any
sleep at all.

A dark shape moved across the entrance of the hut and a moment later Matt came in. She could see him blinking rapidly to get his eyes accustomed to the sudden darkness and smiled at him a little shyly.

‘Is it very late?’ she asked.

‘
No, but there are some smoke fires on the top of the escarpment. I’m going up to see what they’re all about. Will you be okay here by yourself?’

She nodded, suppressing a moment of panic as she wondered what she would do if he never came back.

‘Do you think it might be someone for us?’ she asked hopefully.

‘It might be. They’ll know by now that we came down here somewhere.’

His face looked ste
rn
in the half-light. She thought that he might be angry. He was a man given to sudden tempestuous moods, she knew, and this enforced inactivity might well irritate him.

‘I might get up for a while,’ she said bravely. ‘I feel much better and I’m almost sure the fever has gone.’

He gave her an indifferent look.

‘Don’t move outside the compound, will you?’ he ordered. ‘And for heaven’s sake, don’t overdo it!’

He was unimpressed by her swift protest that she had no intention of doing any such thing.

‘See that you don’t!’ he reiterated, and then he was gone.

Sara did what she could about her appearance before venturing out, but it was very little without water or anything very much in the way of cosmetics. The only mirror she could find was one of the tins in her medical case, and with that and a lipstick she found in her pocket she had to make do.

When she had done she wandered out into the compound and stood watching the women and children at their work. Their tools were primitive. Most of them dug the gardens around their huts with nothing better than a digging stick, but they were so cheerful that she almost envied them their carefree existence. All of them watched her covertly from a distance, though they chided their children from doing the very same thing.

The leader of the men who had found them the day before came and squatted down beside her, his long staff grasped firmly in his right hand.

‘You missie n
u
rse,’ he said with satisfaction.

Sara agreed that she was.

‘You make my leg well now.’

‘When Bwana Halifax returns,’ Sara said pleasantly.

The man stuck out his lower lip belligerently. ‘Now,’ he said.

She was quite willing to give in. His leg must have been terribly painful and she needed something to do. She still felt extremely weak, but she thought she could quite easily manage such a simple operation.

‘Very well, now,’ she agreed.

She was rewarded by a beatific smile, the gaps in his teeth emphasizing the pinkness of his gums.

‘I fetch wives,’ he told her proudly, and vanished across the compound into one of the huts.

While he was gone, Sara collected her instruments and did what she could to sterilize them. One of the African women was boiling water on a fire and she commandeered the blackened tin kettle she was using while the woman watched her with sullen suspicion.

She was able to look around the village while she was waiting for her patient. The night before she had seen little, and had only got a vague impression of the huts and the wall that surrounded them. Now she was able to see it all very much more clearly. Most of the buildings were circular, with one or two rectangular ones dotted among them. The thatching was not very thick and had a bedraggled look that was repeated in the wall that had not been repaired for a very long time. Only the gateway remained impressive, with the platform over the narrow entrance where the Sonjo braves had done their best to repel the Masai marauders who had terrorized the whole neighbourhood before German, and subsequently British rule had forced them into a more peaceful way of life.

Her patient returned surrounded by onlookers, who squatted down on the ground in a circle all round her. Nervously she collected her instruments close to hand and gave him a local anaesthetic.

‘
Aya
!’
exclaimed the audience.

Sara’s hands shook a little and she tried to forget them. Normally they would not have bothered her particularly, for she was accustomed to student nurses watching her work. But today they made her nervous. The aftermath of a high temperature had not completely left her and not even her professional self could entirely subdue her nervousness.

But in a few seconds she had done. The leg was clean and relieved of the evil-smelling pus that had been poisoning it.

‘
Aya
!’
the onlookers exclaimed with satisfaction. Here was a medicine woman who could show them the devil that had been in the leg. They looked at it curiously. It certainly smelt like a devil. The man was well rid of it.

Sara re-boiled her instruments carefully and put them away. She was glad that she had been able to help him; glad that her training had been so thorough and that she had known what to do. It was a job well done and she felt
pleased with herself. The only thing that was the matter with her now, she reflected, was that she was hungry, hungrier than she had ever been in her life before.

The villagers didn’t seem to eat much. They lazed around the compound playing with the children and chatting sleepily among themselves. It was too hot to do anything else. Sara wondered how Matt could possibly find the energy to climb up to the top of the escarpment. He had been gone a long time and she felt very solitary without him. There was no one with whom she could talk and there was very
little
that she could find to do. In the end she decided that she would go to meet him.

The track that they had come along the day before was quite
cl
early defined and she had no difficulty in finding her way. Even her cooked celery limbs began to find their usual strength and she quite enjoyed the slow stroll towards the edge of the cliff. Nothing was out in the hot sun, not even a bird, and there was a silence all about her. Ahead she could see Matt’s tall figure making its way down the face of the cliff towards her and she waved to him, but he didn’t see her.

His stride was rapid, covering the distance between them with amazing rapidity, and she stood waiting for him beneath a thorn tree.

‘You look better,’ he greeted her, when he came up to her.

‘I am better,’ she assured him.

He gave her a measured look that brought the colour to her cheeks.

‘In that case,’ he said slowly, ‘I needn’t feel a brute if I take you to task for not obeying my orders.’

She remembered that he had told her not to leave the compound and looked quickly down at her feet to avoid his penetrating gaze.

‘I came to meet you
,’
she said in a small voice.