“You’d have come here in time.”
“But I didn’t come here in time. I came right away. Didn’t I?”
Tommy thought a moment and then nodded slowly, sadly.
“You did.” His eyes came up; he sounded aggrieved. “Why didn’t you get them? Weren’t they there?”
McNeil slumped down on the top step again. “You say the girl’s all right for now?”
“She’s fine.”
“Then get some rum and I’ll tell you.”
“All right.” Tommy disappeared into the house, hurrying. His hand still pained, but it seemed to pain less. He came back with a bottle and handed it down, seating himself in the creaking chair. McNeil drank deeply and handed the bottle back; Tommy took a short drink, recorked the bottle, and set it aside. He leaned forward. “Well? Weren’t they there?”
“I don’t know, but I imagine they were.”
“Then why didn’t you get them? Mon, don’t make me drag it out of you word by word!”
“Because it was Green Hell Island, that’s where I hid them. And I didn’t even get off the bloody boat.”
“Green Hell Island?” Tommy stared at him. “You hid them there? But they went and built a sanatorium there, I heard. Over five hundred men on the island, I hear. Hansen’s disease, it was for, they said. They must have built it a good ten years, now.”
“I know.” McNeil paused. When he spoke at last, his voice was expressionless; he stared up somberly, looking at the faint shadow of the other’s face. “I think I’m almost sure to have caught leprosy, Tommy. And now so do you, you see, because you drank from the same bottle...”
“Leprosy?” Tommy stared at him. “You say you didn’t even get off the boat? Then how the devil could you have gotten leprosy?”
“There were two men — lepers. Christ, you should have seen them!” McNeil shook his head. His deep voice was despondent, remembering. “One of them had a hoe and the other had a rake, I think. Anyway, they must have been coming in from the fields, or something. They came by the cove where I was tied up. One of them touched the boat rail. Both of them breathed on me...”
“Did you handle either one of them rough? Or drink from the same bottle, or anything like that?”
“Christ, no!” McNeil shuddered at the thought. “But I tell you the whole place is full of leprosy. It has to be. And these two — you should have seen them. I talked to them; they breathed on me. And one of them even touched the rail. I scrubbed it down good with holystone and rum, and threw everything away, but he touched it. And they both of them breathed on me...”
Tommy let out his pent-up breath and leaned back in his chair, relieved.
“Mon, you had me frightened there for a moment! You don’t pick up leprosy that easy, believe me. Don’t you know anything? Leprosy is one of the least contagious diseases in the world. Mon, there was a lot of opposition from a lot of ignorant people when that sanatorium was put on that island; the folks here in Barbados were afraid the wee little bugs might jump the fifty-odd miles, or come flying over on a good onshore wind like Mother Carey’s chicks. I remember clear; I was passing through at the time. The newspapers were full of it, you know — articles like fleas — trying to get the straight of it through people’s skulls.”
“And what’s the straight of it?” McNeil asked dully. He continued to stare at the step below him, not seeing it. “Do they know what the straight of it is?”
“Of course they know what the straight of it is, mon! You have to have physical contact with a leper, and on one of his sores, too. And for a long time. And then only in some cases. I’m not saying,” Tommy added, unable to stop himself, “but what if you’d have shook one of them with his spit flying in your face, the way you shook me, but what in five years or so you might not have come up with something unpleasant; but just catch it because you both breathed the same air? Or because some poor bloke puts his crippled mitt on the rail of the boat? Don’t be daft!”
“Daft, eh? My word.” McNeil looked up. “You know why I’m still alive, Tommy? Because I was daft, you’d call it.” He paused a moment and then continued. “Let me tell you something: Down in that Brazilian hellhole of a prison, they had a typhoid epidemic once. They had some medic around punching arms with needles, to save you, they said. Well, they’re a civilized nation, you see; needles and doctors and all that, just spreading the bugs, and I wasn’t having any part of it. But you don’t get away from the needles that easy, my word! So I slogged him.”
“Who?”
“The doctor, mon!” Despite his depression, McNeil smiled faintly. “Got me two weeks in solitary, which was my aim, you see?”
“A fortnight in the dungeon was your aim? And you’re not daft?”
“Am I, though! For fourteen days I had neither food nor drink — nor contact with the bloody sick either. It wasn’t easy, but I came out whole, which is more than I can say for those suffered the doctor. Eighty-four dead, and over a hundred sweating their guts out over the head, and never the same — but me?” His predicament suddenly came back to him. “Well... Anyway, up until today...”
“There’s nothing to it, I tell you, Billy! A hand on a rail...”
“You didn’t see that hand,” McNeil said stubbornly. “I did. It looked more a claw than a mitt.”
“I don’t care if it looked like Captain Hook’s beauty, Billy boy. Don’t scare me like that.” Tommy leaned forward, his aching hand forgotten for the moment, his voice enthusiastic. “Look, Billy! Now that you’ve finally let loose of the precious name of the island, we can go back there tonight yet, and still pick the stuff up first thing in the morning. There’s still ample time before light, and more than ample petrol aboard. What say?”
McNeil stared at him quietly, stubbornly.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I didn’t get the dommed disease. Maybe the newspapers were right back then, and it’s straight the way you say. But I’m not setting foot on that island ever again, and that’s the fact. I’m not, you know!”
“Then I’ll go myself.” Tommy instantly recognized the argument he knew he would face and quickly moved to correct his error, leaning forward, his voice as ingenuous as he could make it, honeylike in its sincerity. “Ah, Billy, you can tell me where the stuff is on the island and just how to get there. You can, you know. You can trust me.”
There was the briefest of glances from the seated man. His voice was dry. “Can I, now?”
“You can, you know. Of course you can, mon! I’ll get my gear together, and extra petrol and all if needed, and be ready in—”
“You’ll go down and free Diana and take her home right this minute, that’s what you’ll do!” McNeil said suddenly in a harsh voice. He slammed his fist viciously on the porch to emphasize his point, not feeling any pain. (Wasn’t that one of the symptoms he’d heard about — not feeling anything in the hands and feet? Tommy swore he couldn’t possibly have caught the disease, but did Tommy really know? Tomorrow would undoubtedly tell; if he hadn’t developed large open sores...) He stretched his hand for the rum bottle. “First you get the girl home, and then we’ll talk about it. And even so, don’t touch her, do you hear? Call it just for luck.”
“Right, Billy.” Tommy came to his feet with alacrity, sensing victory. McNeil would finally tell him where the stuff was — all because of the establishment of the sanatorium on the island. What a break! Thank God the big man was as ignorant as he was vicious. “Just as you say, Billy boy! I’ll have her home in a jiffy and right as rain. And then you’ll tell me—” He sensed the look on the other man’s face even without seeing it in the darkness, just in the way the outstretched hand suddenly froze with the rum bottle in it. “We’ll talk about it then, Billy boy,” he said hastily. “We’ll talk about it then.”