“Borrowed it from Ignatius. A bit long in the leg and tight round the waist, but less out of place in a sick ward than the accoutrements
of war.”
“It suits you, Doctor Mike,” said Shermaine.
“Nice to hear someone call me that again.” The smile spread all over Haig’s face. “I suppose you want to see your baby, Shermaine?”
“Is he well?”
“Mother and child both doing fine,” he assured her and led Shermaine down between the row of beds, each with a black woolly head on the pillow and big curious eyes following their progress.
“May I pick him up?”
“He’s asleep, Shermaine.”
“Oh, please!”
“I doubt it will kill him. Very well, then.”
“Bruce, come and look.
Isn’t he a darling?” She held the tiny black body to her chest and the child snuffled, its mouth automatically starting to search. Bruce leaned forward to peer at it.
“Very nice,” he said and turned to Ignatius. “I have those supplies I promised you. Will you send an orderly to get them out of the car?” Then to Mike Haig, “You’d better get changed, Mike. We’re all ready to leave.” Not looking at Bruce, fiddling with the stethoscope round his neck, Mike shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll be going with you, Bruce.” Surprised, Bruce faced him.
“What?”
“I think I’ll stay on here with Ignatius. He has offered me a job.”
“You must be mad, Mike.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Haig and took the infant from Shermaine, placed it back in the cradle beside its mother and tucked the sheet in round its tiny body, “and then again, perhaps not.” He straightened up and waved a hand down the rows of occupied beds. “There’s plenty to do here, that you must admit.” Bruce stared helplessly at him and then appealed to Shermaine.
“Talk him out of it. Perhaps you can make him see the futility of it.” Shermaine shook her head. “No, Bruce, I will not.”
“Mike, listen to reason, for God’s sake. You can’t stay here in this disease-ridden backwater. I’ll walk out to the car with you, Bruce. I know you’re in a hurry. He led them out through the side door and stood by the
driver’s window of the Ford while they climbed in. Bruce extended his hand and Mike took it, gripping hard.
“Cheerio, Bruce. Thanks for everything.”
“Cheerio, Mike. I suppose you’ll be taking orders and having yourself made into a fully licensed dispenser of salvation?”
“I don’t know about that, Bruce. I doubt it. I just want another chance to do the only work I know. I just want a last-minute tally to reduce the formidable score that’s been chalked up against me so far.” report you
“missing, believed killed” - throw your uniform in the river,” said
Bruce.
“I’ll do that.” Mike stepped back. “Look after each other, you two.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Shermaine informed him primly, trying not to smile.
“I’m an old dog, not easy to fool,” said Mike. “Go to it with a will.” Bruce let out the clutch and the Ford slid forward.
“God speed, my children.” That smile spread all over Mike’s face as he waved.
“Au revoir, Doctor Michael.”
“So long, Mike.” Bruce watched him in the rear-view mirror, tall in his ill-fitting cassock, something proud and worthwhile in his stance. He waved once more and then turned and hurried back into the hospital.
Neither of them spoke until they had almost reached the main road.
Shermaine nestled softly against Bruce, smiling to herself, looking ahead down the tree-lined passage of the road.
“He’s a good man, Bruce.”
“Light me a cigarette, please, Shermaine.” He didn’t want to talk about it. It was one of those things that can only be made grubby by words.
Slowing for the intersection, Bruce dropped her into second gear, automatically glancing to his left to make sure the main road was clear before turning into it.
“Oh my God!” he gasped.
“What is it, Bruce?” Shermaine looked up with alarm from the cigarette she was lighting.
“Look! ” A hundred yards up the road, parked close to the edge of the forest, was a convoy of six large vehicles. The first five were heavy canvas-canopied lorries painted dull military olive, the sixth was a gasoline tanker in bright yellow and red with the Shell Company insignia on the barrel-shaped body. Hitched behind the leading lorry
was a squat, rubbertyred 25-pounder anti-tank gun with its long barrel pointed jauntily skywards. Round the vehicles, dressed in an assortment of uniforms and different styled helmets, were at least sixty men. They were all armed, some with automatic weapons and others with obsolete bolt-action rifles. Most of them were urinating carelessly into the grass that lined the road, while the others were standing in small groups smoking and talking.
“General Moses!” said Shermaine, her voice small with the shock.
“Get down,” ordered Bruce and with his free hand thrust her on to the floor. He rammed the accelerator flat and the Ford roared out into the main road, swerving violently, the back end floating free in the loose dust as he held the wheel over. Correcting the skid, meeting it and straightening out, Bruce glanced at the rear-view mirror. Behind
them the men had dissolved into a confused pattern of movement; he heard their shouts high and thin above the racing engine of the Ford.
Bruce looked ahead; it was another hundred yards to the bend in the road that would hide them and take them down to the causeway across the swamp.
Shermaine was on her knees pulling herself up to look over the back of the seat.
“Keep on the floor, damn you!” shouted Bruce and pushed her head down roughly.
As he spoke the roadside next to them erupted in a rapid series of leaping dust fountains and he heard the high hysterical beat of machine-gun fire.
The bend in the road rushed towards them, just a few more seconds.
Then with a succession of jarring crashes that shook the whole body of the car a burst of fire hit them from behind. The windscreen starred into a sheet of opaque diamond lacework, the dashboard clock exploded powdering Shermaine’s hair with particles of glass, two bullets tore
“through the seat ripping out the stuffing like the entrails of a wounded animal.
“Close your eyes,” shouted Bruce and punched his fist through the windscreen. Slitting his own eyes against the chips of flying glass, he could just see through the hole his fist had made. The corner was right on top of them and he dragged the steering-wheel over, skidding into it, his offside wheels bumping into the verge, grass and leaves brushing the side of the car.
Then they were through the corner and racing down towards the causeway.
“Are you all right, Shermaine?”
“Yes, are you?” She emerged from under the dashboard, a smear of blood across one cheek where the glass had scratched her, and her eyes bigger than ever with fright.
“I only pray that Boussier and Hendry are ready to pull out.
Those bastards won’t be five minutes behind us.” They went across the causeway with the needle of the speedometer touching eighty, up the far side and into the main street of Port Reprieve. Bruce thrust his hand down on the hooter ring, blowing urgent warning blasts.
“Please God, let them be ready,” he muttered. With relief he saw that the street was empty and the hotel seemed deserted. He kept blowing the horn as they roared down towards the station, a great
billowing cloud of dust rising behind them. Braking the Ford hard, he turned it in past the station buildings and on to the platform.
Most of Boussier’s people were standing next to the train.
Boussier himself was beside the last truck with his wife and the small group of women around him. Bruce shouted at them through the open window.