Four

I ARRIVE IN HASSANIEH

Three days later I left Baghdad.

I was sorry to leave Mrs.?Kelsey and the baby, who was a little love and was thrivingsplendidly, gaining her proper number of ounces every week. Major Kelsey took me to the stationand saw me off. I should arrive at Kirkuk the following morning, and there someone was to meetme.

I slept badly, I never sleep very well in a train and I was troubled by dreams. The nextmorning, however, when I looked out of the window it was a lovely day and I felt interested andcurious about the people I was going to see.

As I stood on the platform hesitating and looking about me I saw a young man comingtowards me. He had a round pink face, and really, in all my life, I have never seen anyone whoseemed so exactly like a young man out of one of Mr.?P.?G.?Wodehouse’s books.

“Hallo, ’allo, ’allo,” he said. “Are you Nurse Leatheran? Well, I mean you must be—I cansee that. Ha ha! My name’s Coleman. Dr.?Leidner sent me along. How are you feeling? Beastlyjourney and all that? Don’t I know these trains! Well, here we are—had any breakfast? This yourkit? I say, awfully¹ modest, aren’t you? Mrs.?Leidner has four suitcases and a trunk—to say nothingof a hatbox and a patent pillow, and this, that and the other. Am I talking too much? Come alongto the old bus.”

There was what I heard called later a station wagon² waiting outside. It was a little like awagonette, a little like a lorry and a little like a car. Mr.?Coleman helped me in, explaining that Ihad better sit next to the driver so as to get less jolting³.

Jolting! I wonder the whole contraption didn’t fall to pieces! And nothing like a road—just asort of track all ruts and holes. Glorious East indeed! When I thought of our splendid arterial roadsin England it made me quite homesick.

Mr.?Coleman leaned forward from his seat behind me and yelled in my ear a good deal.

“Track’s in pretty good condition,” he shouted just after we had been thrown up in our seatstill we nearly touched the roof.

And apparently⁴ he was speaking quite seriously.

“Very good for you—jogs the liver,” he said. “You ought to know that, nurse.”

“A stimulated⁵ liver won’t be much good to me if my head’s split open,” I observed tartly⁶.

“You should come along here after it’s rained! The skids⁷ are glorious. Most of the time one’sgoing sideways.”

To this I did not respond.

Presently we had to cross the river, which we did on the craziest ferryboat you can imagine. Itwas a mercy we ever got across, but everyone seemed to think it was quite usual.

It took us about four hours to get to Hassanieh, which, to my surprise, was quite a big place.

Very pretty it looked, too, before we got there from the other side of the river—standing up quitewhite and fairy-like with minarets⁸. It was a bit different, though, when one had crossed the bridgeand come right into it. Such a smell and everything ramshackle and tumbledown, and mud andmess everywhere.

Mr.?Coleman took me to Dr.?Reilly’s house, where, he said, the doctor was expecting me tolunch.

Dr.?Reilly was just as nice as ever, and his house was nice too, with a bathroom andeverything spick and span. I had a nice bath, and by the time I got back into my uniform and camedown I was feeling fine.

Lunch was just ready and we went in, the doctor apologizing for his daughter, who he saidwas always late. We’d just had a very good dish of eggs in sauce when she came in and Dr.?Reillysaid, “Nurse, this is my daughter Sheila.”

She shook hands, hoped I’d had a good journey, tossed off her hat, gave a cool nod toMr.?Coleman and sat down.

“Well, Bill,” she said. “How’s everything?”

He began to talk to her about some party or other that was to come off at the club, and I tookstock of her.

I can’t say I took to her much. A thought too cool for my liking⁹. An offhand¹⁰ sort of girl,though good-looking. Black hair and blue eyes—a pale sort of face and the usual lipsticked mouth.

She’d a cool, sarcastic¹¹ way of talking that rather annoyed me. I had a probationer like her underme once—a girl who worked well, I’ll admit, but whose manner always riled me.

It looked to me rather as though Mr.?Coleman was gone on her. He stammered¹² a bit, and hisconversation became slightly more idiotic¹³ than it was before, if that was possible! He reminded meof a large stupid dog wagging its tail and trying to please.

After lunch Dr.?Reilly went off to the hospital, and Mr.?Coleman had some things to get in thetown, and Miss?Reilly asked me whether I’d like to see round the town a bit or whether I’d ratherstop in the house. Mr.?Coleman, she said, would be back to fetch me in about an hour.

“Is there anything to see?” I asked.

“There are some picturesque¹⁴ corners,” said Miss?Reilly. “But I don’t know that you’d care forthem. They’re extremely dirty.”

The way she said it rather nettled¹⁵ me. I’ve never been able to see that picturesquenessexcuses dirt.

In the end she took me to the club, which was pleasant enough, overlooking the river, andthere were English papers and magazines there.

When we got back to the house Mr.?Coleman wasn’t there yet, so we sat down and talked abit. It wasn’t easy somehow.

She asked me if I’d met Mrs.?Leidner yet.

“No,” I said. “Only her husband.”

“Oh,” she said. “I wonder what you’ll think of her?”

I didn’t say anything to that. And she went on: “I like Dr.?Leidner very much. Everybodylikes him.”

That’s as good as saying, I thought, that you don’t like his wife.

I still didn’t say anything and presently she asked abruptly¹⁶: “What’s the matter with her? DidDr.?Leidner tell you?”

I wasn’t going to start gossiping about a patient before I got there even, so I said evasively: “Iunderstand she’s a bit rundown and wants looking after.”

She laughed—a nasty sort of laugh—hard and abrupt¹⁷.

“Good God,” she said. “Aren’t nine people looking after her already enough?”

“I suppose they’ve all got their work to do,” I said.

“Work to do? Of course they’ve got work to do. But Louise comes first—she sees to that allright.”

“No,” I said to myself. “You don’t like her.”

“All the same,” went on Miss?Reilly, “I don’t see what she wants with a professional hospitalnurse. I should have thought amateur assistance was more in her line; not someone who’ll jam athermometer in her mouth, and count her pulse and bring everything down to hard facts.”

Well, I must admit it, I was curious.

“You think there’s nothing the matter with her?” I asked.

“Of course there’s nothing the matter with her! The woman’s as strong as an ox. ‘DearLouise hasn’t slept.’ ‘She’s got black circles under her eyes.’ Yes—put there with a blue pencil!

Anything to get attention, to have everybody hovering¹⁸ round her, making a fuss of?her!”

There was something in that, of course. I had (what nurse hasn’t?) come across many cases ofhypochondriacs whose delight it is to keep a whole household dancing attendance. And if a doctoror a nurse were to say to them: “There’s nothing on earth the matter with you!” Well, to beginwith they wouldn’t believe it, and their indignation would be as genuine as indignation can be.

Of course it was quite possible that Mrs.?Leidner might be a case of this kind. The husband,naturally, would be the first to be deceived. Husbands, I’ve found, are a credulous¹⁹ lot where illnessis concerned. But all the same, it didn’t quite square with what I’d heard. It didn’t, for instance, fitin with that word “safer.”

Funny how that word had got kind of stuck in my mind.

Reflecting on it, I asked: “Is Mrs.?Leidner a nervous woman? Is she nervous, for instance, ofliving out far from anywhere?”

“What is there to be nervous of? Good heavens, there are ten of them! And they’ve gotguards too—because of the antiquities²⁰. Oh, no, she’s not nervous—at least—”

She seemed struck by some thought and stopped—going on slowly after a minute or two.

“It’s odd your saying that.”

“Why?”

“Flight Lieutenant²¹ Jervis and I rode over the other day. It was in the morning. Most of themwere up on the dig. She was sitting writing a letter and I suppose she didn’t hear us coming. Theboy who brings you in wasn’t about for once, and we came straight up on to the verandah.

Apparently she saw Flight Lieutenant Jervis’s shadow thrown on the wall — and she fairlyscreamed! Apologized, of course. Said she thought it was a strange man. A bit odd, that. I mean,even if it was a strange man, why get the wind up?”

I nodded thoughtfully.

Miss?Reilly was silent, then burst out suddenly:

“I don’t know what’s the matter with them this year. They’ve all got the jumps. Johnson goesabout so glum²² she can’t open her mouth. David never speaks if he can help it. Bill, of course,never stops, and somehow his chatter²³ seems to make the others worse. Carey goes about lookingas though something would snap any minute. And they all watch each other as though—as though—Oh, I don’t know, but it’s queer.”

It was odd, I thought, that two such dissimilar people as Miss Reilly and Major Pennymanshould have been struck in the same manner.

Just then Mr.?Coleman came bustling²⁴ in. Bustling was just the word for it. If his tongue hadhung out and he had suddenly produced a tail to wag you wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Hallo-allo,” he said. “Absolutely the world’s best shopper—that’s me. Have you shownnurse all the beauties of the town?”

“She wasn’t impressed,” said Miss?Reilly dryly.

“I don’t blame her,” said Mr.?Coleman heartily²⁵. “Of all the one-horse tumbledown places!”

“Not a lover of the picturesque or the antique, are you, Bill? I can’t think why you are anarchaeologist.”

“Don’t blame me for that. Blame my guardian²⁶. He’s a learned bird—fellow of his college—browses among books in bedroom slippers—that kind of man. Bit of a shock for him to have award like me.”

“I think it’s frightfully stupid of you to be forced into a profession you don’t care for,” saidthe girl sharply.

“Not forced, Sheila, old girl, not forced. The old man asked if I had any special profession inmind, and I said I hadn’t, and so he wangled a season out here for me.”

“But haven’t you any idea really what you’d like to do? You must have!”

“Of course I have. My idea would be to give work a miss altogether. What I’d like to do is tohave plenty of money and go in for motor racing²⁷.”

“You’re absurd!” said Miss?Reilly.

She sounded quite angry.

“Oh, I realize that it’s quite out of the question,” said Mr.?Coleman cheerfully. “So, if I’ve gotto do something, I don’t much care what it is so long as it isn’t mugging in an office all day long. Iwas quite agreeable to seeing a bit of the world. Here goes, I said, and along I came.”

“And a fat lot of use you must be, I expect!”

“There you’re wrong. I can stand up on the dig and shout ‘Y’Allah’ with anybody! And as amatter of fact I’m not so dusty at drawing. Imitating handwriting used to be my speciality atschool. I’d have made a first-class forger²⁸. Oh, well, I may come to that yet. If my Rolls-Roycesplashes you with mud as you’re waiting for a bus, you’ll know that I’ve taken to crime.”

Miss?Reilly said coldly: “Don’t you think it’s about time you started instead of talking somuch?”

“Hospitable, aren’t we, nurse?”

“I’m sure Nurse Leatheran is anxious to get settled in.”

“You’re always sure of everything,” retorted Mr.?Coleman with a grin.

That was true enough, I thought. Cocksure little minx.

I said dryly: “Perhaps we’d better start, Mr.?Coleman.”

“Right you are, nurse.”

I shook hands with Miss?Reilly and thanked her, and we set?off.

“Damned attractive girl, Sheila,” said Mr.?Coleman. “But always ticking a fellow off.”

We drove out of the town and presently took a kind of track between green crops. It was verybumpy and full of ruts.

After about half an hour Mr.?Coleman pointed²⁹ to a big mound³⁰ by the river bank ahead of usand said: “Tell Yarimjah.”

I could see little black figures moving about it like ants.

As I was looking they suddenly began to run all together down the side of the mound.

“Fidos,” said Mr.?Coleman. “Knocking-off time. We knock off an hour before sunset.”

The expedition house lay a little way back from the river.

The driver rounded a corner, bumped through an extremely narrow arch and there we were.

The house was built round a courtyard. Originally it had occupied only the south side of thecourtyard with a few unimportant outbuildings on the east. The expedition had continued thebuilding on the other two sides. As the plan of the house was to prove of special interest later, Iappend a rough sketch³¹ of it here.

All the rooms opened on to the courtyard, and most of the windows—the exception being inthe original south building where there were windows giving on the outside country as well. Thesewindows, however, were barred on the outside. In the south-west corner a staircase ran up to along flat roof with a parapet running the length of the south side of the building which was higherthan the other three sides.

Mr.?Coleman led me along the east side of the courtyard and round to where a big openverandah occupied the centre of the south side. He pushed open a door at one side of it and weentered a room where several people were sitting round a tea table.

“Toodle-oodle-oo!” said Mr.?Coleman. “Here’s Sairey Gamp.”

The lady who was sitting at the head of the table rose and came to greet me.

I had my first glimpse of Louise Leidner.

 

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