Authors: Isobel Chace
CHAPTER TWO
‘Are
you still frightfully angry?’ Felicity asked across the breakfast table.
Sara smiled at her over the blue and white striped crockery.
‘Not angry exactly, but it does put me in rather a false position, doesn’t it? You see, I have the feeling that the job is being made for me, and much as I want to stay in Tanzania, I prefer to work for my livings really work!’
Felicity blinked at her.
‘Oh, you will!’ she assured her. ‘Matt should have been born somewhere in the Southern States of America. I can just see him flicking his whip and watching all the slaves jump to it! Besides, he really did need another nurse. Of course, he might have got away with paying a local nurse less, but I don’t suppose he’ll really quibble so long as you’re efficient.’ She poured Sara out another cup of tea, her lips twitching with amusement. ‘Any other girl,’ she remarked, ‘would have been as mad as a hatter at being left to travel up by train, but you don’t seem to care about that part of it at all!’
‘Well, why should I?’ Sara demanded. ‘Back at home we still use them, so naturally I thought you would out here too!’
‘We do sometimes, but only if we have to. Would you like me to run you over to the hospital? I collected the jeep for you yesterday.’
Sara’s heart sank a little.
‘A jeep?’ she repeated.
‘Yes. The genuine article, left-hand drive, the lot! It went right through the desert campaign in the war, and just occasionally shows her age, but when she is going, she goes like a bomb!’ Felicity pushed back her chair and stood up stretching. ‘By the way,’ she drawled, ‘did anyone tell you that you look very fetching in that uniform of yours?’
Rather to her annoyance, Sara found herself blushing. There was a dry undertone to all Felicity’s remarks, as though she found the whole thing rather amusing. Sara wondered whether she really was as cynical as she made out, or whether it was just a pose she had found useful to adopt.
They hurried out to the waiting jeep, which looked quite monstrous to Sara, sitting in the middle of the drive with its battered hood all cock-eyed.
‘Am I really expected to drive that?’ she asked a little hollowly.
‘Sure. Why not? You might have to go anywhere on the estate at a moment’s notice. An ordinary car would stick in the dust or get bogged down or something, but this little wonder ploughs its way over anything. You can have four-wheeled drive if the going gets really bad!’
Sara glanced down at the heavy pedals and the solid-looking accelerator. She wished earnestly that she had paid more attention to the medical student who had taken her out so often in his M.G. sports model. She couldn’t remember that it had looked anything like this!
‘Do you want to drive?’ Felicity asked.
Sara shook her head.
‘Not this morning,’ she said firmly. This afternoon, she vowed to herself, she would really go into the whole business of getting the thing to move, but not now! Now, she had to admit, she was scared stiff of it.
She sat down timidly on the passenger seat and held on to anything that she could lay her hands on while Felicity charged down the drive at full speed. Less than three shaken minutes later, they had arrived at the hospital.
In spite of the mode of her arrival, Sara cast a quick professional eye over the building, and was pleased with what she could see. It was low-built and shaded by trees. True, the roofing was corrugated iron, which could be terribly hot, but it was newly painted and obviously well kept. Sara sighed with relief. At least her job was not looked on as an unimportant etcetera to the workings of the estate, for someone had taken a great deal of trouble over the siting of the hospital. It was convenient for almost any part of the great sprawling miles of sisal.
As if by some prearranged signal, Matt strode out of the hospital at the very moment of their arrival. Felicity greeted him with a gay wave of the hand, but Sara was overcome by sudden embarrassment, remembering all too vividly her harassed feelings of the evening before when he had said, ‘I suppose you are a nurse?’
The Matt of this morning was no less difficult in his approach. He took in her neat uniform and polished shoes with a grunt which might have meant anything, and then turned to Felicity.
‘The fact that Nurse Wayne is your cousin doesn’t mean that you can delay her on her way to work,’ he said coldly, causing Sara to take a quick glance down at her watch. She was relieved to see that there was still one minute to go to half past eight. This then was not a scold but a warning.
‘Oh, don’t be stuffy, Matt,’ Felicity said carelessly. ‘Sara didn’t altogether like the look of the jeep, so I drove her down.’
‘Haven’t you ever driven before with a left-hand drive?’ he asked, and this time his lips definitely twitched with amusement.
‘No,’ Sara admitted.
‘Well, drive her round to the dispensary door now,’ he commanded. ‘You can’t come to much harm in those few yards.’
Sara swallowed hard. Not for anything would she have admitted that she had never driven a car in her life before. Driving might very well prove to be a major part of her work. Surely, she thought, it couldn’t be so very difficult to make the thing go.
Anxiously she climbed into the driver’s seat, and pressed the self-starter with her right toe. To her relief the engine sprang into life. That was something anyway. She pressed her left foot down on to the clutch and pushed the gear lever wildly into the first gear she could find. There was a grinding sound and the engine stalled.
‘Have you ever driven before, Nurse?’ Matt asked almost gently.
Sara flushed.
‘N-no, Mr. Halifax,’ she admitted. ‘But I’ll learn! It can’t be so very difficult, and I’ve driven in cars a lot which should help, and—
’
Now, she thought, she had handed it to him on a plate. There was no earthly reason why
he should employ her when she couldn’t carry out her full duties properly until she had mastered that hateful jeep! Why couldn’t it have gone for her, just that once?
He gave her a grave look that brought the colour racing up into her cheeks again.
‘It would certainly be better if you learned something of the art before you mash those gears around any more,’ he said. ‘Leave it there, Nurse, and I’ll take you in and introduce you to the rest of the staff.’
So she hadn’t been sacked
—
yet! She exchanged glances with Felicity, who gave her one of her sudden, slow smiles, and hastily followed her employer into the building.
Inside, the hospital
w
as everything that Sara could have desired. The cream-coloured walls were clean without seeming too clinical, and the equipment was almost lavish for the size of the wards. Sara’s heart gave a little skip of excitement as she noted the careful planning. Two wards, with the linen cupboard between them; a small operating theatre for emergencies; a room for the outpatients leading off the dispensary; and three small offices, one for each member of the staff.
‘It’s marvellous!’ Sara exclaimed. ‘I had no idea that it would be anything like this!’
Matt gave her a rather reluctant smile.
‘We like our staff to be comfortable,’ he said. ‘It can be very difficult working in heat like we have here, and I find that plenty of room and
p
rivacy helps a great deal.’
Sara didn’t doubt it for a moment, but she couldn’t help wishing that some of the nurses who had shared her life in the large London hospital where she had done her training could have seen her now!
Matt knocked on the first of the three doors of the offices and walked in.
‘Morning, Cengupta,’ he said in more friendly tones than any Sara had yet heard from him. ‘I’ve brought you your new nurse. Mrs. Wayne got her out here early to surprise us, so, for the time being at least, you’ll have to make the best of her.’
Sara found herself face to face with an Indian, whose soft brown eyes met hers with a faint smile of welcome. He joined his hands together and bowed slightly and then
shook her warmly by the hand.
‘Dr. Cengupta, Nurse Wayne,’ Matt introduced them.
‘How do you do, sir,’ Sara greeted him. She caught the sardonic smile on Matt’s face and was suddenly amused. So he had thought that she might baulk at working under an Indian! Well, she didn’t mind in the least! In fact she rather liked his elegant courtesy and his flashing smile.
But Matt still had one more hurdle for her to jump.
‘Is Nurse Lucy here yet?’ he asked.
Dr. Cengupta nodded.
‘Nurse!’ he called out.
‘Yessir,’ came back the answer.
‘
You want me?’
She came shyly to the door of the doctor’s office and smiled at everyone in turn, her black face contrasting vividly with her wonderfully even teeth.
‘Nurse Lucy Mgweri,’ Matt said slyly.
Sara found herself returning Nurse Lucy’s generous smile. She went over to the doorway and shook hands with her. Her palms, she noticed, were almost as pale as Sara’s own, in spite of the darkness of the rest of her skin.
‘You is the new nurse?’ Lucy asked.
Sara nodded.
‘Well, you sure is nice to look at! Dr. Cengupta, sir, he say we need new face round here—’ she broke off and smiled agai
n —
‘but we have only one patient. He get pretty good nursing, yes?’
Sara joined in the general laughter, though secretly she was wondering whether Lucy meant that she really was nice to look at, or whether it was just that she was pleased to see another nurse on the estate.
Matt gave her a cursory glance as though he were wondering very much the same thing and then turned to the
doctor.
‘Nurse Wayne must have a driver if she’s called out anywhere,’ he said curtly, ‘until she learns how to drive. Gabriel is probably the safest and he’s working near at hand for the next day or so. Is there anything else?’
Dr. Cengupta shook his handsome head and escorted Matt to the doorway.
‘It will be a great pleasure to work with Nurse Wayne,’ he said courteously. ‘I must thank you for finding us a nurse so quickly.’
Matt grinned.
‘You don’t want to thank me,’ he said dryly,
‘
you want to thank Mrs. Wayne!’
Sara watched him through the office window as he got into his car. He was not as tall as she had first thought, and yet there was something about him that made him always seem the biggest man in the room. She hoped that she would not see too much of him until she was thoroughly settled down in her new job, for he was the most disturbing person she had ever met.
Dr. Cengupta came back into his office and joined her at the window to watch the departing car vanish into the horizon and a cloud of red dust.
‘He is a very fine man,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It is a privilege to work with him.’
For a second longer they stood side by side gazing into space and then, as if by mutual consent, they became doctor and nurse again and seated themselves on either side of the desk.
‘Now, Nurse, we will get down to business,’ he said. ‘You must forgive me if I ask you a lot of questions, but I like to know as much as I can about my nurses. You also will want to know all about our hospital, and I think it best that we should spend the time now when we are not
v
ery busy.
’
Sara nodded her agreement. She had no difficulty at all in telling him her qualifications. They were good ones, she knew, and she had no need to stress her worth to him, for he was quite overcome that he should have been given such an assistant.
‘We are very lucky to have you,’ he told her frankly. ‘I am surprised that you did not stay on in your hospital in London?’
‘I wanted to travel,’ she explained. ‘They offered me the Sistership of the Maternity Ward, because I had specialized in that side, but I refused. My aunt suggested that I should come out here and I was thrilled. I had no idea then, either, that you would have such a
well-equipped
hospital here. I’m afraid I only knew Africa from the films and I expected something very primitive!’ She smiled reminiscently as she remembered her picture of a mud and wattle hut, with herself battling with some awful disease armed with nothing better than a blunt scalpel.
‘We are exceptionally fortunate here at Kwaheri,’ Dr. Cengupta agreed. ‘Matt has always been determined that we should be adequately equipped. There was a very nasty accident here once, when he was still a small boy, and he never got over the idea that the man died because there were no facilities for him to be operated on. When he came of age, this hospital was one of the first things he built, much of it he oversaw himself. I was very lucky to be taken on as doctor here.’
He nodded with satisfaction.
‘Have you been here long?’ Sara asked, interested in the history of the place where she was to work.
‘Twelve years. Matt is thirty-four now.’ He smiled suddenly, his soft brown eyes twinkling at her. ‘And that
reminds me, I have not asked your age?
’
‘I’m twenty-five,’ Sara told him readily. ‘I’ve been nursing ever since I was eighteen, though, and I’ve loved every minute of it.’
‘Well, that, I think, completes my question
s
,’ the doctor said. ‘I shall try to tell you now just what your duties will be, though that is a little difficult, because naturally we are not so strictly organized as
a
hospital in England.
‘Mostly it is a question of one or other of us being here. We have a rota system, and it is not usually necessary to do night duty unless we have someone who is very ill. Nurse Lucy sleeps at the hospital and she sees to the odd glass of water that the normal patient needs. Otherwise it is largely as it comes. Sometimes we fly to the other estate to hand out injections and so on. There is usually something that has to be done, it is surprising. The estate employs a colossal number of workers one way and another, and there is always a possibility of one of them lopping off a portion of himself instead of the sisal plant!’ He paused, thinking proudly of his little domain. ‘Ah! And the best of all! Our clinic. Some of the local wives help us with that. We have babies in from miles around, and weigh them, just like in England. We are very proud of the clinic!’
It sounded fun to Sara. She remembered a
little
black infant she had had for a short while in Maternity in London. It had been a solid, healthy little baby and she had completely lost her heart to it.