36

REST FOR TUBERCULOSIS

I was visiting an ex-heavyweight amateur boxing champion who was a patient in a tuberculosis hospital. He looked so well that I told him he didn’t look like a T.B.

“Well,” he said, “I am one all right. I’m lying on my back for a year, then sitting up for six months, then up and around the grounds for another six months and then home.”

He was not only a good fighter or boxer, but he loved to fight, and yet he was willing to remain absolutely quiet for two years in order to get well.

…It is rest that allows the protecting scar tissue to form slowly yet surely.

When rest by simply lying down is not sufficient to allow the protecting wall to form, then other means of resting the lung—cutting the nerve that moves lung, injecting air into the pleural cavity in which the lung lies—may be used.

However, for the great majority of patients, simply resting for long period brings about the cure.

Northern Star, 21 January 1935

Le Fevre snapped shut the doctor’s bag as Edna walked into the room.

“Mademoiselle Higgins. I’ve just given Monsieur Sinclair a sedative to help him sleep. I’m afraid he will not be lively company but rest is vital to his recovery.”

Edna smiled. “I might just sit with him till he drifts off.” She smoothed the covers on Rowland’s bed. He mumbled a drowsy greeting. “How is he?” she asked Le Fevre.

“Quite unwell,” Le Fevre said disapprovingly. “It’s imperative he rests.” The physician regarded her almost accusingly.

“Of course. I won’t stay more than a couple of minutes. And I won’t say a word.”

“I shall return tomorrow morning. He should sleep till then.”

“Thank you, Dr. Le Fevre.”

“Good night, Mademoiselle.” The physician tipped his hat and walked out. Edna waited until his footsteps faded before she closed the door. She relaxed a little. There was something about Le Fevre that unnerved her.

“Rowly!” she said, startled to find him sitting up when she turned from the door.

He moved his finger to his lips and beckoned her over. Opening his hand he showed her the pills Le Fevre believed him to have swallowed.

“Oh Rowly, you have to take your medication,” she whispered.

“I haven’t got tuberculosis, Ed. Just a bit of a chest cold. Do you know where my clothes are?”

“Why?”

“We have to get out of here and I really don’t want to walk the streets of Shanghai in my pyjamas.”

“What? Rowly, be reasonable. You’re ill.”

“Ed.” He took her hand. “Le Fevre is a fraud, a charlatan.”

She tested his forehead for a fever, some cause of delirium. He was warm but not particularly so.

“Rowly, you’ve been so ill. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I’m not that ill. This diagnosis of tuberculosis is positively absurd.”

Edna clasped his face between her hands and spoke slowly. “You’re not a doctor, Le Fevre is.”

“He hasn’t so much as taken my temperature, Ed. He’s done nothing but sedate me!”

“Perhaps he is experienced enough to tell without a thermometer… and darling, he’s just trying to keep you quiet so you get the rest you need.”

“There’s nothing but a revolver in that bag of his—I got a glimpse of it when he was pretending to examine me.”

Edna stared at him. “A gun?”

He nodded. “And nothing else.”

She exhaled slowly. “Right then. Mr. Carmel told us he was a specialist…”

Rowland took her hands from his face and pressed them to his lips. “I’m not entirely sure what Carmel is up to, what Le Fevre’s told him. He seems convinced that unless I deal with the Japanese, I’ll die in prison. I’ve told him to draw up an agreement, that I’ll sign it.”

“But—”

“I don’t intend to go through with it, Ed.” He stood carefully. “I just needed him to leave, so we could leave.” Though he still felt quite weak, he was sure on his feet. “Perhaps you should leave first, Ed. You’re not a patient. You could tell them you’re meeting someone for dinner and just leave—”

The sculptress shook her head. “I made such a fuss about staying with you, they’d be suspicious. And I’m not leaving you, anyway.” She opened the cupboard and took out the dark grey suit and freshly laundered shirt they’d brought in when Rowland was admitted, though they hadn’t expected him to need it for several days. Rowland changed as quickly as he could. It was possible that one of the “nurses” would come in to check if Le Fevre’s pills had taken effect.

Edna helped him slip on his shirt, still shocked by the black bruises which covered his back and shoulders. He’d still not told them what had happened to him. She wasn’t sure he ever would.

“How do you feel?” she asked, studying him anxiously. Whether or not he had tuberculosis, he had been ill when they’d collected him from Ward Road. She buttoned his shirt gently, being careful not to pull the fabric against his injuries. “I’m not sure you’re well enough to do this.”

Rowland pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and turned away to cough. “It’s a chest cold,” he said when the paroxysm finally abated. “If we were in Sydney, you’d tell me to quit complaining and stop being such a baby.” He ran his hand through his hair in a vague attempt to tidy it.

Edna helped him with his tie, and then his jacket before she turned off the light and opened the curtain to look out. “So how are we going to do this?”

“Le Fevre believes he’s sedated me, and convinced you that I’m dangerously ill. He probably won’t have expected us to try and walk out. With any luck the night staff will be taken by surprise and not know what to do.”

Edna looked at him sceptically. “You want to just walk out?”

“I don’t think there’s any other way.”

“We could get a message to Milt and Clyde, or the police.” Edna was not fooled by his refusal to bend to pain. “They’re going to try to stop us and you’re in no condition to fight or even run.”

There was a movement of light at the window. Rowland looked out to see Carmel’s Packard come through the gate. The chauffeur got out and opened the rear door. Looking down on the dimly lit garden, it took Rowland a few moments to recognise the gentlemen who climbed out with his lawyer: Yiragowa and Akhito. Le Fevre emerged from the front passenger seat and the party proceeded briskly into Denville Sanatorium. “What the devil are they doing here?”

Edna took his hand. Any doubts that he was completely lucid were long allayed. Rowland’s manner was urgent but there was nothing fevered or hysterical about it. “What now, Rowly?”

Rowland opened the door. They could hear Carmel and his guests below. He beckoned Edna out into the hallway and closed the door after her. Rowland scanned the long corridor. All the doors along it were closed. They tried each in turn. Loudening footsteps on the stairs counted down the time. All but Edna’s room were locked. They slipped into it. A poor hiding place but their only option. Rowland hoped it might give them enough time to slip past.

He kept his ear to the door. “The moment they step into my room we’ll make a break for it,” he whispered. He could see Edna’s eyes in the darkness. Large. Worried. “I’ll be all right,” he promised.

They waited.

Le Fevre’s voice was first. Brusque, annoyed. “I told you before, I had to sedate him or the girl might have noticed he was improving… he might have realised.”

Now Carmel. “We’ll stick his head under a cold shower if we have to. The Japs are suspicious, they want to see him sign.”

“He might not cooperate.”

“Leave it to me. I’ll talk him round. Our friend Whitely did his job and Rowland has already agreed to sign. The poor boy, bless him, is not particularly bright.”

“What about her? Sinclair’s tart.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her.”

The click of a latch being turned and the voices stopped. This was their chance. Rowland counted to three and opened the door. He stepped out into the barrel of Le Fevre’s gun.