In the Wet (7 page)

There was nothing to be done, and I sat down wearily on a packing case beside a table that was littered with the remains of a meal; my head was swimming and I was very hot. From a great distance I heard Finlay say, “We’ll just have to watch him tonight, and hope we can get him out of this tomorrow, somehow.”

I forced attention to what she was saying. “The water will be higher, with all this rain,” I said.

“I know. That’s what I’ve been thinking about.” There was a pause, and then she said, “Are you feeling all right, Mr. Hargreaves?”

“I’m all right,” I said. The next thing that I knew was that her hand was on my wrist taking my pulse. “You’re not all right at all,” she said. “You’ve got a temperature.”

“Not bad,” I said. “I’d like a drink of water, though.”

She spoke to Liang, and in a dream I heard her arguing about something with him, but I could not comprehend what it was all about. Then she was giving me a glass of water, thick in colour and tasting of the floods, but it refreshed me, and I felt more myself.

Presently Liang appeared from the other room, where there was a wood fuel cooking stove, and began to lay the table for a meal. He produced three large wooden bowls, three cheap spoons, and bread that was mis-shapen and home made as a sort of a flat bun. Lastly he brought in from the other room a copper saucepan full of hot, steaming soup, thickened with many vegetables. This was our supper, and very good it was; I had two bowls of the soup and felt a great deal better. At the end of the meal there was a cup of black tea, without sugar.

It was while we were drinking our tea, sitting at the table in silence, that the rain stopped. The drumming on the iron roof had made a background noise that we had been unconscious of, but now it reduced, and finally stopped altogether. I raised my head and looked at Sister Finlay, and she looked at me.

“That’s better,” I said. “I was beginning to get a little bit worried about getting him away tomorrow.”

“I was thinking of that, too,” she said. “If it gets any deeper we shall have to have a boat.”

“They’ve got a boat at Dorset Downs,” I said. “Donovan
knows we’re here, and he’ll organise something for us in the morning.” I turned to the Chinaman. “How far are you from Dorset Downs homestead, Liang?” I asked.

“Ten—fifteen miles, maybe,” he said. “Not far.”

There was nothing much for either Sister Finlay or myself to do; Stevie lay in a coma, though he stirred once or twice. I got up presently and went out on to the verandah; it was cooler there, with a faint whisper of a breeze that cooled my fever. The clouds were breaking up and a full moon was showing now and then, illuminating the natural clearing in which the house stood and the gum tree forest beyond.

I stood there letting the light breeze play through my clothes, while my eyes gradually adjusted to night vision. And then I saw a most extraordinary sight.

The animals were there, standing or sitting at the far edge of the clearing, grouped in a rough semi-circle round the house, their heads all turned in our direction, watching. The cattle were there, and the wild dogs, and the dingoes, and the wild pigs, and the wallabies, all at a distance of about a hundred yards from the verandah. They did not seem to be grazing or moving about much, although they were not motionless; one or two of the dogs were scratching and the cattle were changing their position a little. They were just standing or sitting there in a semi-circle round the house, watching us.

I turned and went back into the room, and said to Sister Finlay, “Come and look at this.” She came out on the verandah, and when her eyes became accustomed to the moonlight she saw them too. “It’s the lamp,” I said. “I suppose they’ve been attracted by the light.”

Behind us, Liang grunted; he had come out quietly, and I had not realised that he was there. The sister turned to him. “Do you often get them like this?”

He said something that neither of us could quite understand, and then he turned and went back into the house. We stayed on the verandah watching the animals for a time, and because Liang was not with us I could speak more freely to the sister. “What’s the position with Stevie?” I asked her. “Do you think he’ll get through?”

She said, “I doubt it. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I think it’s peritonitis by now; if it is, I doubt if he’ll get as far as Cloncurry. It’s quite possible that he might die tonight.”

I nodded; I had been thinking the same thing. “I’m very sorry about your medicine case, Sister. I ought to have looked after the things better.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It doesn’t look as if I’ll have much use for what was in it.”

We stayed out on the verandah for a time. I was still hot and it was cool there and refreshing, but presently I got a cold spell and began to shiver a little, and I made some excuse and we went back into the room. Liang was not there, and now there was a faint odour of fragrance in the room that I had not noticed before. I went and looked into the other room, to see what was there.

It was lit by the candle, now burnt down quite low. There was a small, tawdry little shrine set up in one corner of the room, with dirty Chinese hangings; in it was a battered Chinese Buddha mostly painted red and very dirty. There was a stick of incense burning in front of this, a joss stick, I suppose, and Liang was kneeling in front of it in silent prayer. I withdrew quietly.

“He’s in there, praying,” I whispered to the sister. “In front of an idol.”

She raised her eyebrows, but there was nothing we could do about it, and it was none of our business. We turned the lamp low to conserve the kerosene, and settled down to wait
for something to happen. I sat dozing on a chair, hot and feverish; my clothes were dry by that time, but I was very uncomfortable. From time to time I got up and drank a glass of the muddy water, and sat down again.

I don’t know what time it was when Stevie came to; perhaps about eleven o’clock, or midnight. We had been there for several hours. I was dozing in my chair, and woke to see Sister Finlay get up and go to the bedside. I got up also, and went over to the bed. She was feeling the pulse, and Stevie was now restless. Once or twice the eyes opened and shut. He had drawn his knees up tight against his stomach, evidently in pain.

“He’s coming round,” she said quietly. “This is where our job begins, Mr. Hargreaves. We could have done with that case, after all.”

I crossed to the table and turned up the lamp, and then went back to the bed. Liang came out of the next room, roused, perhaps, by our movements; he stood with us in silence for a time watching the gradual return to consciousness and pain. Then he went softly to the verandah and stood looking out.

There was nothing I could do, and so I went out with him, and stood there while my eyes became accustomed. It was intermittent moonlight and darkness as the thick clouds parted and drifted across the moon, and in the passing, silvery light I saw that the animals were still there watching us, much as I had seen them before. I said to Liang again, “Do the animals usually come around like this, in the wet?”

He said, “Stevie die tonight.”

“I hope not,” I replied. “Well get him to the hospital tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “Animals, they come. I think he die.”

I stared at him. “You think the animals know?”

He nodded. “Animals, they know.”

I didn’t see why the death of one drunken, dissolute old man should excite the animal kingdom very much, but there was no good arguing it with Liang, if indeed the language difficulties had permitted argument. I stayed with him in silence for a minute or two, and then went back into the room, to Sister Finlay and her patient.

Stevie was fully conscious now, and evidently in considerable pain. He was moaning a little; from time to time his face became distorted as the spasm racked him, and this was more eloquent to me than the noise that he was making.

When he saw me he said to Sister Finlay, “What’s that Pommie parson doing here?” I think it was parson that he said, but Sister Finlay is sure that it was bastard, and says that she didn’t know which way to look when he called the vicar a Pommie bastard. Whichever way it was, it doesn’t matter. I went over to the bed and said, “I came out with Sister Finlay when we heard you were sick. Sergeant Donovan would have brought her out here, but he was away at Millangarra, so I came instead. How are you feeling, cobber?”

“I’m bad,” he muttered. “I been bad three days. Got a bottle of whiskey, Roger?”

“I haven’t,” I said. “I didn’t bring any, and anyway it wouldn’t be good for you.”

He stared at me for a minute. “Your name’s Roger?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m Roger and you’re Stevie.”

“I know,” he said. “Harps and angels’ wings. Pack of bloody lies, that’s what
I
think.”

I felt Sister Finlay beside me quiver with indignation, and I must say it didn’t look as though Stevie was likely to accept the sort of spiritual consolation that I could offer him.

“That’s all right,” I said. “We’ll argue that one out when you’re well. We’ll get you into Landsborough tomorrow,
and then the ambulance will come and fly you to Cloncurry.”

“I flown further than that,” he muttered. “Up ’n down, up ’n down, all across the world, carrying the Queen. Ottawa, Keeling Cocos, Nanyuki, Ratmalana—I know all them places. I got the Seventh Vote—did you know that, cobber? Did you know I got the Seventh Vote?”

I glanced at the sister, and she raised her eyebrows. He was wandering in his mind, of course, but anything that would take his thoughts off his pain was probably useful, since we had no morphia to ease it. “I never heard that,” I replied. “How did you come to get the Seventh Vote?”

The pain hit him again, and his face contorted with the spasm. The current of his thought was broken, because presently he said, “I been sick in the belly three days. Got any whiskey, cobber?”

“I’m sorry,” I said patiently. “I didn’t bring any with me.”

Sister Finlay said, “Lie down, and try and get some sleep, Stevie. It won’t be long till morning, now, and then we’ll get you to the hospital.”

I withdrew a little from the bed, partly because I could not help her in her treatment of the disease, and partly because I was hot and sweating again, and my head was swimming, and I did not want her to see my condition. The old man’s hallucinations went round and round in my tired brain, the Seventh Vote, Ottawa, Keeling Cocos, carrying the Queen. I seemed to remember that he had talked to me like that before. Where did it all come from, what vagrant memories had come together to be expressed in those words? Old copies of some travel magazine for Ottawa and Keeling Cocos? Some article in the
Australian Women’s Weekly
about the Queen? And then the flying motif once again. But that was easier, because I knew that once a man has piloted an aeroplane the memory lies deep within his brain, and he can never forget it.

I sat there in a hot discomfort while the crisis rose upon the bed. From a great distance I watched the spasms, and watched Sister Finlay doing her best to help her patient; it was little enough that she could do. Liang was bringing hot, steaming cloths now from the other room, and they were laying them upon the skinny, rigid abdomen. And presently, as the hot fit passed and I grew temporarily more comfortable, I heard the old man say,

“Is Liang there?”

“He’s just in the next room,” said Sister Finlay. “Do you want to speak to him?”

Stevie nodded, and the sister called Liang, who came to the bedside. He said, “You want something, Stevie?”

“Too right, I want something,” the old man said. “Give us a pipe, mate.”

The Chinaman glanced at the sister, who shook her head, and Liang withdrew softly to the other room, leaving her to fight her patient. “Not now, Stevie,” she said. “You’ve had enough of that for today—it would be dangerous to take any more. Come on—I’ll give you another of these cloths.”

There was a long, long pause. At last I heard him say in a weak voice, “Give us a whiskey, Sister. I’m bloody crook.”

She said a little desperately, “I haven’t got a whiskey, Stevie, and it wouldn’t be good for you. Lie still, and try and get some rest.”

The spasm came to him again, and I saw her holding him down upon the bed with both hands on his shoulders. Liang must have been somewhere in the background watching, because he came forward softly and helped her, and together they fought with Stevie till the spasm passed. I felt ashamed that I was not helping her myself, and that I had given in to my weakness, and I got to my feet, holding on to the table.

“Can I do anything?” I asked stupidly.

The patient was quiet again now, for the moment and until the next spasm. She turned to me, and she was sweating with her exertions, and a wisp of her damp hair had fallen down over her eyes. “How are you feeling, Mr. Hargreaves?” she asked.

“I’m all right,” I said. “I felt a bit queer just then, but I’m all right now.”

She brushed the hair back from her eyes. “Come out on the verandah.”

We went out of the room, and the moon was still fitfully lighting up the clearing and the forest, and the animals were still there watching us. She turned to me, and said in a low tone, “I know you’re feverish. Can you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Hargreaves?”

“Of course,” I said. “I understand you perfectly.”

She nodded. “I don’t think he’s got a chance,” she said quietly. She glanced at her wrist watch. “It’s an hour and ten minutes since he came to, and he’s much weaker now than he was then. I think he’ll die before morning, Mr. Hargreaves.”

I nodded. “I should think so. There’s nothing we can do?

“Nothing,” she said. “The only possible thing would be an operation now, at once, and I can’t do that. Even if I had my medicine case I couldn’t do anything for him, except give him a dope to ease the pain. He’s having a great deal of pain.”

“I know,” I said. “I can see that.”

“I think our job now is to make things easy for him,” she said quietly. “I don’t think it would hurt him to have a few pipes of that opium stuff. I don’t think it will make any difference, now.” She looked up at me. “Would you think that very terrible?”