“Mon cher,” said Dr. Vernet, taking a chair and sitting down, “you are an extremely ill man—to tell you otherwise would be to insult your intelligence. But—et voilà ce qu’il y a d’étonnant—you remain alive! A few days ago I would have given very little for your chances; today I see one more demonstration of the phenomenal powers of resistance of the human organism. Evidemment we cannot yet talk in terms of positive amelioration, still less of convalescence. Mais vous tenez le coup!
“As to what the next few days will produce—I cannot say. In the disarming phrase beloved of notre cher Bruneau, ‘I am no prophet!’ As ever, it seems to me an equation in terms of quasi-imponderables—the really significant factors we cannot anticipate. Apart from this, on the plus side you have your physical powers of resistance, which are good and for which you are indebted to your fundamentally strong constitution. (Un pauvre malheureux whose development has been undermined by years of tuberculosis or malnutrition would not survive two days in your condition.) On the negative side there is what I am at last forced to recognise as your innate pessimism. In a crisis, when it is least a question of your will, your body and its natural instincts will dominate and help you to survive. But when your good body has extricated you from immediate danger and it is time for your will to play its rôle—then, cher monsieur, I do not know.
“Ought I to try and keep you alive if you have no very great wish to live? I don’t know, monsieur, and I don’t very much care. Perhaps you would be better dead, perhaps we would all be better dead. Issues like these I leave to more exalted intellects than my own.
“We are here a breakdown factory, and I am the mécanicien chef. What is given to me broken, I try to repair. And no questions! Voilà tout! It is a practical French outlook, and not a bad one, en somme.
“But now you are following me less well—your eyes look through me, as though they were catching glimpses of other shores. It is plain that my presence has become an intrusion. And yet I have still not finished.
“Your comrades, monsieur. After you, they constitute my gravest problem. Everywhere I go I am accosted and interrogated; fifty times a day I have to refuse some impertinent and temerarious student the authorisation to visit you. And it seems to me that I am now faced with the choice of reconciling myself indefinitely to this nuisance or of forfeiting for ever my integrity as a man of science. Unhesitatingly, and for the sake of my sanity, I choose the latter. Now outside the door is a first instalment of trouble-makers and malcontents, all lined up to pay their probably lethal respects. Any chance of survival would be based on their staying no longer than two minutes.”
Dr. Vernet went to the door and opened it. “Your comrade is very fragile. You may look, but do not touch. On your honour, for two minutes only.” He stood to one side that they might enter, then with a good-humoured nod left the room. Kubahskoi, most of the British colony, and half a dozen students of various nationalities grouped themselves about Paul’s bed.
“Natter, natter, natter!” said William Davis, seating himself on a convenient chamber-pot. “We risk our heads being bitten off every day by asking Vernet if we can come and see you, and when at last we manage to wear him down and get as far as the door, you both have to spend half an hour whispering sweet nothings to each other!”
“What were you doing? Giving each other enemas?” asked David Bean.
“Chaps!” said John MacAllister, amidst laughter, “Vernet’s only allowing us two minutes. If anyone’s got anything worth saying …”
Silence. Then William Davis got up from the chamber-pot and said gruffly: “Paul, for pity’s sake, please get better. We’re all agreed that we’re not going to leave Brisset without you, but we’re blowed if we can spend the rest of our lives here.”
“Besides,” added Angus Gray, “life in the sanatorium’s come to a stop. There are no nurses—they’re all looking after you. There’s no food—it’s all being rendered down to feed to you in tabloid form. There’s no——”
“In a word,” interrupted John MacAllister, “get better!” “Yes, for Christ’s sake get better!” echoed everyone.
Was there anything Paul wanted? Letters written? Reading aloud? Eggs for tea?
The door opened and Dr. Vernet came back into the room. “Just as I thought—caught the lot of you! Let no one dare to ask for permission to visit Monsieur Davenant again! Now quick march, tout le monde!”
Kubahskoi alone was allowed to remain a moment longer. He wanted to explain how he had come to send a telegram to Desmond Beale. When it had been known that Paul’s condition was serious, Dr. Vernet’s secretary had asked him if he knew of anyone whom Paul might wish to see. Desmond was the only friend to whom Paul had ever referred and the name of his college was in the magazine in which his photo had appeared.
“Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner,” cried Dr. Vernet. “Maintenant en avant!”
It was only after they had left that Paul reflected that John Cotterell had not been among them.
“Then you don’t know? No, of course you don’t,” said Sœur Yvette, as she gave Paul an injection. She went on to explain that subsequent to the discovery that some old lesions had reopened, John Cotterell had had a bad pleural effusion. And—since he refused to admit or to accept that there was anything wrong with him—he was proving a very difficult patient. Nor was Dr. Vernet at all satisfied with his condition. “You mark my words, he’ll be the next one for the operating table!” she concluded grimly.
There was a knock at the door. When Sœur Yvette opened it and found that Desmond Beale was outside, she would have shut it again had not the latter inserted his foot through the opening. “Look,” he pleaded, “I’m absolutely sober and I’ve only called to say good-bye. I’m leaving on the afternoon train.”
Sœur Yvette considered him doubtfully. His features were lost in an ingratiating smirk; his hair had been so flattened that it looked as if it had been painted on his scalp.
“You really are leaving?”
“Yes. Yes. And what is more, I’ve made a solemn resolution to give up drinking.”
“You have? Well, I hope you’ll keep it.” Sœur Yvette shook Desmond’s outstretched hand and left the room.
“Paul,” said Desmond, the smirk disappearing, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. In the first place this bloody mountain is sending me round the bend. In the second, that bastard Vernet’s sent me a note saying that if ever I cause any more disturbances, he’ll call the police. Can you beat it? Of course, it’s Sœur Yvette who’s at the bottom of it. She’s a two-faced bloody bitch!” He clenched his fists.
“But that’s not why I’m leaving. The thing is I’ve decided to reorganise my life. I’m not going back to Cambridge. I want power and money” (each substantive emphasised by the thud of his fist against the centre of the palm of his hand), “and power and money are just what I am going all out to get. And never mind the means! Power and money,” he repeated rapturously, as he began to stride up and down the room. Then his expression darkened. “And when I’m rich and powerful—which will be sooner than you may think—there are a few bastards here and at Cambridge who will have some very nasty shocks coming to them!” There was a chair in his path: he kicked it across the room.
“And I wasn’t shooting a line when I said I was giving up drink. I really am. Why? Not because of Sœur Yvette’s bloody little bourgeois prejudices, but because it dissipates my powers. And I shall need all my powers to be able to crush my enemies!” His expression became apocalyptic.
“Now don’t think that just because I won’t be here I’ll have forgotten you. As soon as I’ve got enough money, I’ll send you all you want. Here, take this to start with!” He pulled a five-thousand-franc note out of his pocket and flung it on to Paul’s table de nuit. “No, keep it. Get someone to buy you wine or flowers or something. A few weeks from now there will be a great smell floating across the Alps—it will be me stinking of money. Till then, keep alive!”
He shook Paul’s hand, went to the door, waved and left. The day unrolled. Paul slept and sweated and woke and was injected and fed and slept. Pus was taken out of his body, blood was put into it. His towering fever was artificially reduced by doses of insidious little white pills which made him feel as if he had been dragged by his tongue down a narrow drain-pipe.
In the late afternoon, Desmond returned.
“Thank Christ I kept just enough money to buy myself a couple of drinks,” he said, laughing. “If not, I’d have been on that train and I’d never have had an absolutely brilliant idea! My mind’s bursting with it. It’s the answer to all our problems ….”
He perched on the side of a table, started to swing his legs. “I just don’t know how to tell you about it, it’s so pathetically simple. But then of course anything which works always is simple—look at the safety pin! Still, I mustn’t give you the wrong idea—its full development will require masterly organisation.” He broke off, his eye caught by the five-thousand-franc note which he had tossed on to the table de nuit. “Ah! Have to borrow that back now. There are just a few initial expenses ….
“Well now, it’s like this. But it’s no use—you’re going to think I’m joking. I mean, I admit I’m pissed again, but that’s got nothing to do with it. Besides I got pissed after having the idea, not before it. Now listen carefully—this is it. But one point I must make clear before I start—there’s not a fortune in it, just a good, comfortable income for one or two people at the top. I mean that’s probably why no one’s doing it—there’s not enough money to attract the real tycoon, whilst it requires too much organising ability to be within the scope of the small operator. But mind you, I say there’s no fortune in it …. Still, once developed and launched on an international scale, there’d be no knowing …”
He glanced at his watch. “Christ, I mustn’t stay here crapping away or I’ll miss my train to Chatigny. But I had to look in and tell you I’d be away for a couple of days. I think it’ll go all right, don’t you? Must admit I feel a bit nervous, like an actor on a first night. He knows the play’s all right, he knows it will run for months, but there’s always a something, a faint uneasiness, a fear of the unexpected. Difficult to explain, except in the broadest terms. So that’s why you’re to keep your fingers crossed till I get back. Well, look after yourself and give Sœur Yvette the glad news that I am back for good. Brisset’s just the right place for our H.Q.”
Two minutes later, and Desmond would have been able to give Sœur Yvette the news in person. She came in to puff up Paul’s pillows, and to see if he needed anything. “Ah,” she cried, noticing the flask which Desmond had inadvertently left on the table, “so he did not even bother to take it back to England! That gives me real pleasure! There is good hope for him. All who sincerely try to reform have access to a special strength. It is part of God’s grace to His children!”
She left the room, but returned, very flustered, about forty minutes later. “Come quickly, there is a telephone call for you from England. I explained that you were too ill, but they said that it was very, very urgent, and no message could be given. I can’t ask Dr. Vernet for permission because he’s at dinner.”
She helped Paul into the wheel-chair and pushed him hurriedly to the telephone box at the end of the corridor.
“Hullo,” said Desmond’s voice, “sorry to get you up, old man, but I’m down at the bottom of the mountain, and I’ve got twenty minutes to fill in before the train goes out. I bet Sœur Yvette didn’t recognise my voice just now—I was holding my fingers over my nose! What I’m ringing up about is my plan. I don’t think I really gave you the gist of it when I was in your room. Now are you ready for it? I want you to try and get rid of any preconceived ideas you may have on the subject, and try and see what I’m going to tell you with a fresh eye. Well, it’s like this—Christ! there’s the train coming in. I must have made a mistake with the time-table. Well, can’t stop now. Just keep your fingers crossed—that’s your side of the bargain. A bientôt.”
“I hope not bad news, but do not tell me unless you wish to,” said Sœur Yvette as she wheeled Paul back to bed. “In any case I think it’s best if we do not tell Dr. Vernet—he would probably not have let you take the call. Now I think I will give you your morphia and you can go back to your fantasy world, where you are happiest.”
After the injection Paul turned on his stomach and spread out his arms. His condition grew easier, but he did not become free of his body. Lying very still, relaxing his limbs, he waited.
Minutes or hours passed; the light began to trouble his eyes. It was strange that Sœur Yvette had neglected to turn it out. He turned over on his back, just in time to see the flurry at the door as his old and frayed dressing-gown leapt back on to its hook.
Paul stared at it. A fold stirred, then fell back into position. Suddenly it inflated and turned completely round. Sweat broke out all over Paul’s face. Then tentatively, and with a slight jerk, it detached itself from the hook and came to the bottom of the bed.
Footsteps sounded in the passage. The dressing-gown leapt back to within a yard of the door, one hollow sleeve raised to where its ear should have been, the other pointed at Paul commanding silence. The footsteps stopped outside his door. The dressing-gown shot back on to its hook, its folds collapsed and hanging, only the sleeves still raised in warning.
A hand touched the door-knob; the dressing-gown sleeves dropped to their full length. But the door-knob did not turn. Whoever was without changed his mind and returned down the passage.
As the footsteps died away, the dressing-gown leapt back to the foot of the bed and started a jigging dance of triumph. Then it launched into a silent harangue, at the same time grasping the end of the bed with its sleeves. Paul thought: ‘I am going to faint. And if I faint, it will be on me.’
As the dressing-gown advanced up the side of the bed, Paul braced himself to meet its attack. Sucked down into the whirlpool of his effort, he lost a second of consciousness: his eyes reopened on the dressing-gown, sleeves raised, poised to pounce. He held it rigid with the fixity of his stare. A moment of lowered vigilance and he would be lost; desperately he kept his eyes open, his head painfully propped upon his shoulder. A lessening of his resolution, a mist across his eyes, and then …
It came. Warm and bitter cloth, orifice-filling, all-enveloping. He was suffocating. In a flash of brilliant light, his senses floundered and expired.
When Sœur Yvette returned from early mass, she found him still crouched upon his pillows, fists clenched, eyes open, face bloody. He screamed as she touched his arm, the sound shocking him back to consciousness. “There!” he shouted, pointing at the dressing-gown which was hanging as usual on the door. Sœur Yvette took it in astonishment, demonstrated its limpness, twisted it up, turned it inside out, but when she brought it near him he shrank back in his bed and screamed again. Gabbling, muttering, biting at his fingers, he recounted what had happened; Sœur Yvette’s protestations and calls to reason were for nothing.
And the outcome was a prohibition against the use of morphia for Paul. In the words of Sœur Yvette (which she had picked up when nursing a British Army sergeant during the war), he would now “just have to sweat it out.”
“Monsieur,” said Dr. Vernet equably, “it may interest you to learn that your amiable friend, Mr. Beale, is now in the hands of the police. In addition to a number of routine statements, he has done me the honour of claiming both that I am his father-in-law, and that I employ him in the rôle of visiting psychiatrist to my sanatorium. My cousin, who incidentally is the head of the police department at Chatigny, and who was hitherto unaware of my British affiliations, has been thoughtful enough to supply me with these details.
“Primarily it appears that your friend has been arrested for begging and threatened assault. His defence is that neither is an offence in England, and that he has deliberately restricted his activities to British tourists. So confident is he in the legality of his actions that he has further confessed that, in conjunction with a partner in the mountains (you, my honoured sir), he has founded an organisation of professional English beggars who operate in all the principal French tourist resorts.
“Had he fallen into other hands than those of my cousin, I hesitate to think in which of our fortresses he would now be languishing. But as it is, he will be given two hundred francs (which sum, cher monsieur, you will kindly remit to my cousin at your earliest convenience), after which he will be ordered to leave the precincts of Chatigny. Further he will be warned that, should he be rearrested, proceedings for extradition will be taken against him.
“Should you be in any form of correspondence with your friend, you would do well to advise him against returning to Brisset. In the first place I could not agree to his paying you any further visits. In the second, Dr. Hervet, who claims that he has been robbed of quite a considerable sum of money, is looking for someone of strikingly similar appearance. Probably, in the circumstances, Mr. Beale would do best if he transferred the whole of his organisation back to England ….”
The next morning Paul received a letter, which Sœur Yvette opened and read aloud:
Dear Paul,
I am back in Brisset, but I just cannot bring myself to come round and see you. The fact is—as you may have heard—everything has gone wrong. I just don’t know what to do next.
Did I ever really give you the details of my plan? If not, there’s no point in doing so now. But—grossly simplifying—it really amounted to little more than the systematic milking of British and American tourists by telling them hard-luck stories. But good ones—no crap. Missed connections with baggage and money gone on ahead. Currency allowance run out and a wife sick in the hotel, etc., etc. Coupled with a good appearance, courteous manner, educated accent, you’d have said an absolute cinch.
But I hadn’t reckoned with the tourist mentality. I swear to you that in all my life I’ve never seen such a crew of hard-faced, flint-eyed bastards. Three hours’ work and not a five-franc piece! I wouldn’t even have eaten if a little sod with a crutch (I’d got him pressed up against a corner) hadn’t given me a five-hundred-franc note (after which he scuttled away as if I had the plague).
I can tell you that my temper was beginning to wear pretty thin. Then one bloody little jumped-up runt stuck his nose in the air and said: “It is not my practice to encourage beggars at home or abroad.” I was just going to knock his teeth in when I got arrested.
I first tried to bluff it out by telling the police I was Vernet’s son-in-law and a psychiatrist. Then they rang up Vernet and I really thought I’d had it. Then there was a lot of arsing about and suddenly I was given two hundred francs and told to get the hell out of Chatigny.
Can’t write any more for the moment.
Later
There’s a cabinet de toilette in my room, and I went out to buy some sausages, and it seems that I left the tap of the bidet running, and it’s flooded the room, and they talk to me as if I’d done it deliberately. And now something else has happened. In order to heat up the sausages, I put them on a plate on the carpet, and put the electric fire face downwards on top of them. And while I was out of the room, the plate broke, and the fire’s burnt a hole in the carpet. This really is the end—I just don’t know what to do. I’ve had nothing to eat, and in case they come in I’m even sitting on the hole as I write this letter.
Evening
I’ve got to the end of my tether. A maid found the hole and the manager’s been giving me absolute hell. Says I’ve got to pay for a new carpet. I told him that it was probably the maid who’d done it but he said not to give him that crap. Bloody little swine! I just don’t see what to do next. I can’t go back to Cambridge. Then what? Maybe I’ll have a shot at the aspirin trick—I’ve just got enough money left to buy a couple of hundred. If I do I’ll leave this letter down in the hall.
Somebody will probably post it.
“Goodness!” said Sœur Yvette. “I must telephone his hotel immediately.”
They met on the staircase.
“Can’t stop. Train leaves in ten minutes,” said Desmond. He pushed past Sœur Yvette. She ran after him, pulling at his jacket. “Deus ex bloody machina!” he cried, as he threw open Paul’s door.
“I’m going off to ring for Dr. Vernet!” shouted Sœur Yvette.
“You’d better hurry or he’ll miss me!” Desmond called after her. He turned to Paul, his face radiant. “You’ll never believe it. I’ve just had a letter from Figgis—you remember he used to be with me in air crew. He says he’s chucking Cambridge because he’s got a first-class smuggling contact—chiefly arms and drugs—and that if I’m interested I’m to go at once to Paris. If I’m interested! Yippee!” He seized one of Paul’s pillows and tossed it up to the ceiling. “Now look, I’ve got to have five hundred francs to get down the mountain. I——” He broke off as Paul pulled half a dozen notes out of his wallet. “Oh, no. Five hundred and not a centime more. Well, maybe a thousand. I’m certainly not going to pay my hotel bill. And I’ll hitch to Paris—I was getting too soft with all the B.E.A. travel.” He glanced at his watch.
“Now I’m afraid that it’s really good-bye. Still I’ve seen you through the worst—you’re looking better every day. In no time you’ll be completely fit. And then—yes, that’s it—you could join us. I’ll keep a seat warm for you. Six months from now and I guarantee you’ll be helping me fly crates of rusty rifles from Argentine to Suez.”
As he was talking he seized Paul’s hand and shook it vigorously. Then, picking up and pocketing a thousand-franc note which had fallen on to the duvet, he waved a hurried last farewell and raced out of the room. His footsteps echoed down the corridor, faded, then suddenly grew louder again. His head reappeared round the door. “Warning—never try the aspirin trick. Just as you’re getting the last one down the first starts coming up. They ought to warn you on the bottle. Best thing’s to stay alive. Try and grab life by the knackers—it gives you something to hold on to!”
And he was gone for good.
No more blood being available from his particular group, it was necessary for Paul to be given a transfusion from someone whose blood group was universal.
The multifarious transfusions and intravenous injections had hardened his veins and caused them to sink. Dr. Bruneau experienced great difficulty in locating the vein and piercing it. At last came the customary spurt of blood. Dr. Bruneau linked the needle by a rubber tube to the little nickel-plated transfusion machine which, when set in operation, would draw the blood from the donor, who was now lying on a chaise longue at the side of Paul’s bed.
He started to turn the handle. There was a slight hissing from the machine. Paul suddenly felt stifled. “Stop,” he cried, “air is getting in. You’re pumping air into my veins.”
Dr. Bruneau stopped turning the handle, and examined briefly the connections of the machine. “Vous avez tort,” he said at last, and recommenced the transfusion.
Two more revolutions of the handle, and Paul gave a great cry, at the same time pulling his arm away; as the needle slipped from the vein, blood sprayed across the counterpane. His lungs had become rigid. The attempt to breathe contracted his features, puffed his tongue from his mouth, his eyes from their sockets; a series of violent reflexes threw him from one side of the bed to the other. Everyone but Dr. Florent ran from the room, shouting for Dr. Vernet; the former retained his fingers on Paul’s pulse, muttering: “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!”
The final reflex threw Paul back on to his pillow. In that moment his vision was brilliant but remote, like the reflection of a well-lit scene in a convex mirror. As Dr. Vernet hurried into the room, Paul heard Dr. Florent cry:
“His pulse has stopped.” Then deafness … then blackness … then …
Then waking out of nothing into the nightmare; the white blobs forming into faces, the roaring silence breaking down into speech, the whole act and experience of dying, wasted, thrown away, futilely and wantonly squandered. Dr. Vernet smiling at Paul the smile of warriors and of equals, the smile which dissociates the smiler and the smiled-at from the banal and vulgar entourage, the smile of the superior to the superior, the damned to the damned.
“Get out!” said Paul, but his lips would not move. Everyone was crowding round him, he could not breathe, it was all happening again. “Get out! Get out!” he screamed. And still his lips would not move.
“His pulse is coming back,” said Dr. Florent, his voice very hollow.
“Monsieur, you are indestructible. A gift to science,” said Dr. Vernet.
“Get out!” Paul’s shout rose barely above a whisper.
“Il est un peu nerveux. Cela se comprend, d’ailleurs,” said Dr. Bruneau, understandingly.
“Oui. On peut le laisser en paix—il n’y a plus de danger pour le moment,” said Dr. Vernet. Then in English: “You have no danger, Monsieur Davenant. This little incident is closed. And be assured, it will not militate against your prospects of recovery. Now just lie tranquilly and easily. Surtout, ne pensez pas en noir!”
“I won’t argue and I won’t discuss it. The fact is that yesterday you nearly killed me with your leaking machine,” said Paul.
“The machine was not leaking,” said Dr. Vernet.
“The two bloods congealed. It happens once in five thousand transfusions. It is a chance you must take,” explained Sœur Yvette.
“And today you take the chance for the last time. Your blood count has improved, and you will not need another transfusion,” added Dr. Vernet.
“I don’t care. Besides, you know very well there’s no one left in my blood group. And I’m not going to risk——”
“Our curé from the village is in your blood group. He has agreed to give you his blood this afternoon.”
“Kindly tell him not to come.”
“He arrives in five minutes.”
“I will not have another transfusion.”
“Good!”
There was a sound of aggressive sneezing from the corridor. The door opened. Paul caught sight of an enormous, black-robed figure which stepped suddenly to one side in order that Sœur Miriam, pushing her glass-topped medical trolley, might precede it. The figure then bowed to Dr. Bruneau, offering him precedence. Dr. Bruneau, still sneezing, clasped his nose with one hand, and returned the compliment, gracefully and delicately, with the other. Both men began to advance simultaneously, then darted back with more bows, smiles and protestations. Behind them were Dr. Florent and three nurses.
They surrounded Paul’s bed. Dr. Florent turned back the blankets. Two nurses started to pull the bed over to the light, another adjusted the chaise longue. Sœur Miriam began to prepare her needles.
Dr. Vernet was now busy scrubbing his hands. “Our patient is getting better. He is once again remembering how to protest,” he said grimly.
Paul stared at Dr. Vernet, his lips tightening. Sœur Yvette brought the curé to the top of the bed.
“I regret Monsieur Davenant is not a Catholic, mon père,” she said.
“We are all the children of God. It is better to be a good man than a bad Catholic,” replied the large curé, inclining his head with gravity and offering Paul an enormous pink hand.
Dr. Florent helped the curé off with his black cloak, after which he divested himself of his jacket with the adroitness of a strip-tease dancer. He had a plump and healthy face, his eyes were cold, but not unsympathetic. As he undid the sleeve of his right arm, rolling it high above the elbow, he revealed pink and tender biceps.
Sœur Miriam removed the dressings from Paul’s arms, disclosing the contused and swollen areas where previous transfusions and intravenous injections had been made.
The curé lay back on the chaise longue and watched with interest as Dr. Vernet inspected first one arm, then the other. “Bien. On va voir,” Dr. Vernet said at last, and told Paul to start clenching and unclenching his right hand.
He then rubbed the area of the joint of the arm with a spirit-soaked swab, and plunged a needle half a centimetre below the surface. “Je crois que j’ai traversé,” he said, withdrawing the needle slowly, and pulling at the plunger. No blood appeared in the glass syringe. Without removing the needle, but slightly altering its angle, he pushed it deeper into the arm, but still without piercing the vein.
The curé’s eyes opened wide as, after several more unsuccessful attempts, Dr. Vernet took a second needle and thrust it laterally below the surface of the flesh. Unconsciously he unrolled his sleeve.
Paul watched the detached and spasmodic clutching of his hand as though it were no part of him, a fallen sparrow convulsively expiring. Suddenly it lay rigid, unmodified by his brain’s impulses.
“Open and close ze ’and like zis,” cried Dr. Bruneau, making one of his rare excursions into English, and at the same time snatching at the air.
A great effort. The fingers fluttered. Dr. Vernet took another needle and forced it through the flesh at right-angles to the first. Paul groaned. Dr. Florent and Dr. Bruneau seized tightly hold of his arm.
“Mais où est-ce, cette sacrée veine?” muttered Dr. Vernet, taking a third needle. He prodded, twisted, withdrew, prodded again, and suddenly, eel-like, the vein rose to the surface. “Voilà! Voilà!” shouted Dr. Bruneau excitedly, as though drawing the attention of a fisherman to the fact that there was something at the end of his line.
Meanwhile Sœur Miriam had been making clear to the curé that this somewhat radical procedure had been necessitated by the condition of Paul’s veins; in his own case these preliminaries would be effected painlessly and in a very few seconds. And as she was concluding her explanation, she rolled back his sleeve once more, and fixed a rubber tourniquet above the elbow.
When the curé’s vein had been pierced and the connection to the transfusion machine had been established, Dr. Vernet took hold of the handle which operated it. At the same moment Paul had an access of panic.
“I tell you there is a leak in the machine,” he said weakly.
“Nonsense,” replied Dr. Vernet.
“Yesterday I——”
“I know what happened yesterday. Yesterday is not today.”
The blood started to pour into his vein, and his body grew tense. “God,” he said to himself, “God, it is going to happen, it is going to happen.” There was a pressure in his brain, he felt the restriction of his breathing. “Stop!” he shouted.
“What is the matter?” cried Dr. Vernet angrily. “There is nothing at all wrong.”
Nor was there anything wrong. Paul realised the rôle that his imagination had been playing and became silent. Dr. Vernet brought the transfusion to its conclusion.
Sœur Yvette affixed a dressing to Paul’s arm. The plump curé got up from the chaise longue and pulled on his jacket. Dr. Bruneau sniffed loudly, then examined the tip of his nose in the mirror. Dr. Vernet looked at his watch and said: “And now, Monsieur Davenant, with your permission we proceed to the Service Médical and I puncture you.”
Paul lay slack as a carcase in the wheel-chair. Dr. Florent walked beside him, steadying his shoulder.
“La vie est belle, cher ami,” he whispered as he helped Sœur Yvette put Paul to bed. Paul stared past him. “Did you hear what I said?” added Dr. Florent.
“The poor boy is discouraged to death,” said Sœur Yvette.
“Is there anything you want?” demanded Dr. Florent.
Paul’s impulse was to say: “For it to be over.” Instead he shook his head.
“Mais voyons,” said Dr. Florent, his eyes suddenly filling with tears. He wanted to sympathise, apologise, encourage, but he lacked the vocabulary in his own language, even more so in one to which, as yet, he had devoted no more than a dozen hours of study.
“We are good friends?”
“Of course.”
“But very good friends,” insisted Dr. Florent. He turned to the door. Then inspiration came. He returned to Paul’s bed. “In the future you will permit me to call you Davenant?”
“Yes.”
“And you will call me Florent?”
“Thank you.”
“Davenant!” said Dr. Florent, by way of demonstration.
“Florent!” replied Paul co-operatively.
“A ta santé, Davenant!”
“A la tienne, Florent!”
The ludicrous nature of the exchanges suddenly made Paul smile. Dr. Florent, overwhelmed, grinned broadly.
Said Sœur Yvette somewhat acidly: “If you would prefer it, I will go out of the room.”
The man with the purple, heavy-lidded eyes and earthy complexion was John Cotterell. He stood in the doorway, very thin, monk-like in his long dressing-gown. “Coast clear?” he demanded, breathing heavily.
“John!”
“I said, ‘Coast clear?’”
“Yes.”
“Good.” John Cotterell closed the door very quietly and tiptoed to the foot of Paul’s bed. “Night nurse been round?”
“Half an hour ago.”
John Cotterell sat down. Then he lowered his chin to his knees. “Had to climb the service stairs,” he explained, when he had regained his breath. “All the other times I’ve come to see you, I’ve always been caught and sent back.” He coughed. As he raised his hand to his mouth, Paul noticed that his formerly well-kept nails were bitten away and his finger-tips were ragged. “You’ve heard my news?” he demanded.
“That you’ve relapsed?”
“What do you mean, ‘relapsed’?”
“I——”
“Get this straight, I’ve never been fitter. But tomorrow Vernet’s going to give me a pneumo. And if the pneumo doesn’t work—the knife!” John Cotterell made a hacking, sawing motion. “Not bad when there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me!” His tone of voice was utterly unfamiliar.
“This morning I told him again that I was absolutely fit and that I would not agree to any treatment,” he continued. “Do you know what he said?”
“No.”
“He said that it was a classic pre-treatment reaction and that all it meant was that I was in a blue funk. A blue funk! I told him I wouldn’t give a damn if I was to be hanged, drawn and quartered as long as——” He started to cough, rocked from side to side in his efforts to stifle it. “Damn it! Damn it!” he repeated.
“As long as?”
“As long as there was a reason for it.” Then, raising his voice, he cried: “What’s the use of giving a fit man a pneumo? Why shouldn’t Vernet have one, if I’ve got to? How can I lie still tomorrow and let that butcher pump air into me?” And as Paul did not answer, he added: “Well, say something. For Christ’s sake say something.”
Paul stared at John Cotterell. He felt an overwhelming impulse to ring for the night nurse. Suddenly John Cotterell got up and went over to the window. “I wish it were lighter,” he said, shading his eyes with his hands and staring out. “The mountains are covered with flowers—they grow right out of the rock. Angus and David brought back bunches of gentians and mountain violets this morning.” Suddenly he swung round. “You are a treacherous, bloody spy!” he shouted.
“What!”
“You heard!”
Both men stared at each other.
“I’m sorry.” John Cotterell smiled evasively. He returned to the foot of the bed. “There are still uncharted islands in strange seas,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“A new course, new bearings.”
“John!”
John Cotterell leapt to the side of the bed, his face an inch from Paul’s. “You’ve been speaking to Vernet! Admit it!” he cried.
“I don’t——”
“Shut up! You’re spying for Vernet. I see the signs. It’s written all over your face. I’m glad I know my friends!” He drew back, lips contorted. “Vernet’s a crackpot. He’s dangerous, ought to be locked up. I watch him, watch him all the time, every moment, every gesture, nothing is hidden.” He glanced over his shoulder. Then raising his hand to the side of his mouth, he leant urgently across the bed. “There’s something in his skull,” he whispered.
He snatched away the hanging bell-push before Paul’s fingers reached it. “Easy, old man,” he said, his voice controlled. The evasive smile returned to his lips. “I’ve gone too far. I can see from your face that I’ve gone too far. Can’t you see that it’s all just an act? If you don’t believe me, question me, ask me anything.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and his tone became urgent. “I came here to warn you. Now listen,” he said. “When the ogre’s eaten me, he’ll start on you—you know that, don’t you? This is your last chance to——” he broke off, coughed and spat into his handkerchief. “I’ve got my plans, but I can’t trust you—you play both ways,” he said, rubbing his eyes. He got up and went to the door. “It’s all up with me. You could still escape. But you haven’t much time. I’ll send you a sign, I’ll send you—” he paused and reflected—“I’ll send you gentians, bunches of them. When you get them, put on your pants and don’t stop running till you reach the pancake lands. Otherwise—” he marked each word with the wag of an index finger—“OUT GO YOU.”
His lips parted. He watched Paul a few moments, then turned and left the room.
“He is not a coward, not at all,” explained Dr. Vernet, smiling, when, at Sœur Yvette’s request, Paul had related the details of John Cotterell’s visit the previous night. “To tell a real coward that he is a coward serves no purpose, quite the contrary. I taunted John Cotterell in order to make him react.
“All his trouble is that he was convinced that he was cured, and some facet of his brain temporarily refused to adjust itself to the changed situation. Although this is rare, it is not isolated—at bottom it is the reaction of an optimist. Your difficulty, cher monsieur, will be to adjust yourself to being better!
“However, this morning I managed to induce a successful pneumothorax and it has brought with it, as I anticipated, a complete easing of the mental tension. Cotterell is now as reasonable as anyone in the sanatorium.
“As for you, you are looking far less well than yesterday. Kindly forget the whole incident and concentrate on implementing your own rétablissement. I am forced to admit to you frankly that if my whole medical reputation were in the balance, I would prefer to be looking after a hundred Cotterells than one Davenant.”