Each day Paul continued to receive what M. Halfont proudly called “Le Régime”; it approached the standard, probably, of the diet served in the sick bay of a penal colony. Free interpretation of his requests led to the serving of almost identical meals: a plateful of unflavoured spaghetti or macaroni, pomme purée and a jug of watery milk. “A man ill enough to require a régime is too ill to gourmandise,” explained the chef de cuisine when John Cotterell inquired why Paul never received the poached egg on toast which he regularly ordered. But M. Halfont, who never liked to miss an occasion for making an exhibition of “bonne volonté”, would rush out of his bureau whenever he caught a glimpse of John Cotterell, and, beaming, demand: “Monsieur Davenant receives always his régime?” or “Monsieur Davenant retakes always his forces with the special nourriture?”
Nevertheless Paul’s temperature dropped consistently until, two weeks after the critical phase of his fever, it was little higher than during the period preceding the induction of his pneumothorax. Then suddenly it soared: headaches, pain, crises de toux: Paul was convinced that he was entering upon what would prove to be the final relapse. Three days later his temperature had again settled, and his symptoms had disappeared.
“Ah,” said Dr. Vernet, studying the new peak on his chart, “it is classical, quite classical. You are a medical student, Monsieur Davenant? No. It is a pity. You see your temperature curve makes the outline of an inverted frog. First you think it goes down, but I know it goes up. Then you think it goes more up, but I know it goes down. Science, I think, is very interesting.”
One morning the telephone sounded in the passage; even when he was expecting no fresh summons to the Service Médical, Paul heard it with misgiving. Then footsteps growing ominously louder. The door opened and in came William Davis, propelling the wheel-chair. “Come on, get togged up,” he said abruptly. Behind William Davis was Sœur Jeanne, pushing and scolding: why was time being wasted? Paul was fit enough to walk—he would only need the chair to bring him back!
Dr. Vernet was waiting for Paul at the entrance of the Service Médical. “You are now well enough for a new torture, one that I think you will not like at all,” he announced very affably. And ceremoniously he bowed the chair into the Salle d’Interventions.
Instinctively Paul scrutinised the preparations made for his reception. In the middle of the room was an operating table on which were ranged a series of hypodermic syringes. On the other side was a glass-topped table.
Dr. Vernet rolled up his sleeves and started to scrub his hands; Dr. Florent helped Paul off with his dressing-gown and pyjama jacket and then aided him on to the table. Dr. Bruneau filled a syringe with distilled water and aimed a thin jet at a passing fly. Sœur Miriam was engaged in examining and opening a number of small bottles of local anæsthetic.
Then Dr. Vernet selected a hypodermic, affixed to it a long needle, and seated himself at the side of Paul’s chest. He smiled down at him, holding the syringe poised above him like a dart. “Shall we use anæsthetic for Monsieur Davenant or, since he is a captain of the British Army, perhaps he would prefer it without?” he said playfully to Dr. Bruneau.
“Qu’est-ce que vous dites? Je comprends ‘British Army’,” replied Dr. Bruneau.
Dr. Vernet laughed delightedly. “You see,” he said to Paul, “he does not understand to perfection the language of Shakespeare.” It seemed that this common language provided a new bond between them.
“What are you going to do?” asked Paul.
Dr. Vernet, shaking with laughter, looked from face to face, the corners of his mouth reaching back to his ears.
“But he is insatiable. When he is not suffering, it is just so much time wasted.”
Sœur Miriam could contain herself no longer; her laugh swept out with the force of a cataract.
“Good,” said Dr. Vernet, speaking with the precision of one determined to control himself, cost what it may. “I am going to make a ponction sternale. It is very interesting. You are not a medical student? No, I remember. A pity—perhaps one day you will become one. How do you say ‘ponction sternale’ in English? Sternal puncture, perhaps? Is that right? It makes sense?” He turned to Dr. Bruneau. “Voyons, mon cher Bruneau, l’anglais est très facile—tous les mots sont les mêmes qu’en français.”
“Ponction sternale, sternal punction,” repeated Dr. Bruneau.
“‘Punction’ veut dire ‘ponction’; oui, c’est facile, ça.”
“Et maintenant, Florent, dites: ‘sternal puncture’,” ordered Dr. Vernet.
“Sternal puncture,” repeated Florent awkwardly.
“Voilà! Nous sommes tous des polyglots! Maintenant travaillons!”
Dr. Vernet pressed the tip of a finger about Paul’s sternum, indicated by an intensification of the pressure that he had located a suitable position, then swabbed the whole region with iodine. He inserted the needle a little way below the surface of Paul’s flesh, at the same time depressing the plunger of the anæsthetic-charged syringe. A click; the needle had made contact with his rib. Dr. Florent leaned over to get a better view, at the same time laying a hand on top of the glass table.
“Mais flute, alors!” cried Sœur Miriam as she noticed Dr. Florent’s hand; Dr. Florent, realising his error, withdrew it quickly, but not before it had been noted by his chief. “Florent, vous m’empoisonnez l’existence,” said Dr. Vernet wearily. The table top had been rendered sterile, and was now sterile no longer. Dr. Florent rapidly set himself to rubbing its surface with ether.
“Now I shall endeavour to make a little hole in your rib,” announced Dr. Vernet. He inserted another and thicker needle into the track of the first. Then needle followed needle with great rapidity, boring and enlarging. Both assistant doctors and Sœur Miriam watched with an admiration which even communicated itself to Paul (whose fascinated gaze only left the region of the hole in order to glance quickly at the next instrument to be inserted into it). And the whole time Dr. Vernet sustained a commentary for the benefit of his assistants, with occasional asides to Paul. “This will not hurt,” he would say, inserting another needle into the aperture, or dryly and with candour: “Attention! This will hurt.” He raised a lancet, and Paul objected: “I won’t have that in.” “Ach, ach,” replied Dr. Vernet. “No, you can put it down. I won’t have it.” “You have always murders in England because your policemen don’t carry revolvers,” said Dr. Vernet, plunging the lancet into the hole. With its progressive enlargement came the accompanying sound of the splintering of bone.
At last Dr. Vernet lowered a thick needle into the aperture, and it remained upright. To the free end he affixed a hypodermic syringe. “Now I draw out your marrow blood. It will hurt.” As blood gushed up into the transparent cylinder Paul’s chest twisted forward despite the fact that both assistant doctors had been securing his shoulders to the table.
Dr. Vernet then released all the blood from the syringe on to the newly-sterilised glass table, and Dr. Florent rubbed specimens of the blood on to slides. Sœur Miriam fastened a dressing over the wound. Paul made a movement to descend from the table.
“Halte! We have not finished,” cried Dr. Vernet.
“Quoi maintenant?” demanded Dr. Bruneau.
“Hospitality. I like Monsieur Davenant. I like his Oxford—pardon me, Cambridge—accent and his schoolroom French. He has been our victim—he will now be our guest. Sœur Miriam—the cognac.”
Sœur Miriam went over to the cupboard and brought out a bottle and three glasses; Dr. Vernet filled them generously. He handed one to Sœur Miriam, one to Paul, and took one himself. “Once we had six glasses, but now three are broken and we are forced to live à la bohème,” he explained. “Happily Florent does not drink, while Bruneau has evolved his own special and charming method.” And he handed the bottle to Dr. Bruneau.
And Dr. Bruneau, seeing that Paul was watching him, smiled slyly, smoothed back with one hand the copper quills which sweat had caused to adhere to his corpse-like forehead, and seizing the bottle made as if to raise it to his lips. “Excuse. Not for gentlemens,” he said in English. Then with a dexterity which argued practice he lowered a hypodermic syringe into the bottle, raised the plunger with his thumb, and discharged a cylinder of cognac down his throat.
Back in his bed Paul wondered whether the rest of his life was going to comprise a succession of refills of air and ponctions sternales. The very sight of a needle now emasculated him. “Ce n’est pas mal ici,” said Dr. Vernet, pointing reassuringly at Paul’s sternum during the course of a medical round a few days later. Paul made no reply, his expression a mixture of gloom and doubt.
Nevertheless the outcome of the treatment was becoming daily more apparent. He coughed less; his eyes no longer resembled the rear lights of Tube trains disappearing down tunnels.
The tedium of the days became oppressive, then their tenor was broken, in consequence of which they at once attained in memory the status of a golden age. For to Paul’s disgust he was again summoned to the Service Médical and another ponction sternale was performed. ‘Ah,’ he thought, ‘if only I could be left in peace. I ask nothing more of life than that.’
He decided at the first opportunity to ask Dr. Vernet for a statement as to his condition. “Ah no, monsieur, you are too indulgent,” Dr. Vernet replied, arching his eyebrows, “I know too well that you have no interest in the matter and that you are only asking out of courtesy and in order to encourage me.” He would have left the room if Paul had not detained him. Well, if M. Davenant really wanted the truth … Dr. Vernet hesitated, looked embarrassed. Paul appeared now to be ‘hors de danger’; his pneumothorax was working well; his analyses were almost negative. And if—the worst blow possible—the next analysis should prove to be completely negative, he would have to think in terms of leaving his mountain retreat during the next few months. He would then be free to wreck what would be his considerable expectation of life in whichever way his ingenuity might dictate.
“But my other lung?” inquired Paul.
“A little shop-soiled, but certainly serviceable,” replied Dr. Vernet.
With this reassurance, Paul started to impose a pattern on his days. He worked a few hours in the morning; in the afternoons he extended his limited knowledge of French. In the evening, wrapped in his battered dressing-gown and an additional blanket, he was allowed to lie on a bed in the room of one of his friends. And before long, as he got better and his right to a daily régime was revoked, he found himself sharing the general excitement and indignation of the rest of the student population.
The position was undeniably one of stalemate.
There had been regular committee meetings of what John Cotterell called “the little Balkan States”. A direct representation had been made to Dr. Vernet; it had had no effect. At last, after considerable deliberation, the committee had addressed a letter to the headquarters of the I.S.O. In consequence a representative had been sent to Les Alpes to talk to the students and to investigate their complaints.
The representative had confirmed that the situation was unsatisfactory; he would make known his findings to the directors of the I.S.O., and he was confident that in a matter of days there would be a considerable amelioration in the diet. Two weeks went by and there was none.
A weekly allowance of four hundred francs was made by the I.S.O. to each student. Such incidental expenses as haircuts, toilet requisites and writing paper accounted for a large part of this sum; the rest was of necessity devoted to supplementing the diet.
John Cotterell had inaugurated a milk round, buying milk in bulk from the local dairy and supplying it to any patient at a fifth of the price charged in the sanatorium. Then the Italians applied themselves to the preparation of simple meals; they purchased spaghetti and cooked it in saucepans normally reserved for the boiling-out of hypodermic syringes. The practice spread. Bedroom cupboards rapidly became repositories for crockery abstracted piece by piece from the trays of bed patients.
Each group endeavoured to reproduce its national specialities. On Sunday afternoons the sanatorium did not provide tea. Angus Gray’s foresight had been fully vindicated—he had brought with him a primus stove: each Sunday the stove was set up on the marble-topped commode in Paul’s room. Slices of black bread were purloined from the salle à manger, tins were opened, sandwiches, two inches thick and containing baked beans, sardines or pilchards in tomato sauce, were handed round, tea was brewed until it obtained the consistency of gelatine. Paul loved lying back on his pillow on these wintry afternoons, watching the jolly, surging, extrovert flames of the primus, illicit Sunday visitors, freebooters from the Britain main who warmly mocked the alien austerity of their surroundings.
Fresh farm butter from England, salami from Italy, smoked hams from Poland: a judicious system of exchange was instituted and the arrival of the parcel post transformed the end of the corridor into a market square.
Gradually the students settled down to a routine which—treatment apart—resembled that of an international summer school. Rambles and excursions for those who could go out; lectures, gramophone concerts, language classes for those who could not. There was no shortage of organisers—in number they frequently exceeded the members of the audience. Private lessons in languages were often exchanged. Paul received help in his French studies from Kubahskoi and in return he gave his room-mate regular tuition in English.
“Look,” said Kubahskoi one day, and he passed Paul the old copy of The Tatler which he had been reading. Cambridge. The Backs. Photos of tea-parties on the upper river, of groups at dances, of self-conscious young men in dinner jackets eating cold collations. “Explain, please,” demanded Kubahskoi—his appetite for details of Cambridge life was omnivorous.
Paul glanced idly at the photos. Then suddenly he laughed.
“You recognise someone?”
“Yes,” said Paul. He laughed again.
“Show me, please.”
Paul passed The Tatler back to Kubahskoi, indicating with his forefinger a young man seated with a number of others about a dinner table.
“What is his name?”
“Desmond Beale.”
“He has been drinking very well, I think.”
“Almost certainly.”
“Tell me about him.”
Paul lay back on his pillow and half-closed his eyes. The task was not simple. How best could he evoke for Kubahskoi one of the least likely representatives of post-war Cambridge?
“He was an ex-fighter pilot who returned to Cambridge after the war,” he commenced. Then he stopped. Words were simply inadequate.
“Go on,” said Kubahskoi.
“It was like this …” said Paul.
Lacking the stimulus of danger, Desmond Beale, back at Cambridge, sought other distractions. He drank immoderately and spent recklessly; in a succession of bottle parties, broken engagements and mounting debts, whole terms would pass without his opening a single textbook.
Impatience with life, with all that was ordered and pedestrian, drove him to embrace any supposition with a tenacity that was in proportion to its ridiculousness. The violence of his enthusiasm, the precipitate nature of his moods, the spontaneity of his reactions, combined to provide the necessary volition to put it into effect.
A passing conviction would obscure all faculty of judgment. In this way a theory formulated for the sake of paradox over morning coffee would by lunch-time have attained the status of an established truth. If Desmond Beale claimed idly that sleep was a matter of habit, a neurosis, that tiredness was no more than a sublimated form of hunger and could be countered by eating, then he would talk of nothing else until it had been put to the test. The filling of his room with provisions, the three days and nights of vigil, the subsequent eighteen hours, fully dressed, covered with crumbs, stretched out fast asleep on his armchair, followed as inevitable routine.
His lodgings varied with his fortunes. He had lived in a disused stable (‘The Studio’), in a tent erected in a coal cellar, in a rowing-boat (covered at night with a tarpaulin) which, at the sight of his creditors, he would discreetly row into the middle of the Cam.
He had given a celebrated party on board a leaky barge (on which he happened to be living at the time). Periodically through the evening the deck had sunk level with the water; a warning cry and the guests had manned the pumps and baled out the hold. Reduced vigilance—the outcome of love-making and general intoxication—and at two o’clock in the morning the barge had slipped silently beneath the surface of the water.
Kubahskoi listened with amused incredulity—this was not at all the foreigner’s conception of Cambridge. Occasionally he interrupted Paul’s narrative to pose questions both sociological and linguistic. It was often his practice on these occasions to write a résumé for Paul’s correction.
Thus the days passed monotonously but tranquilly; there were no more ponctions sternales, the refills were spaced to weekly intervals. Paul gradually ceased to lie half-listening for the sound of the telephone. He was not yet allowed out on the balcony but he often stood at the window, looking out across the great chain of mountains. Despite the approaching spring, all the high ground was as thickly covered with snow as on the day that he had arrived, but the valley showed green and the sunlight limned in dazzling reflection the winding course of the Arve.