Ruined City (7 page)

The doctor came back with the sister, bringing with him an older man, grey-haired and thin, and competent. Warren gathered that this was Dr Miller, the surgeon. He made a careful examination, asked a few questions,
prodded
the rigid abdomen with searching fingers.

'Acute obstruction,' he said to the young man. 'Look at it for yourself. I don't think there's any doubt about it.'

'What's that?' asked Warren, interested. They disregarded his question altogether, and he subsided again into his role of patient.

The older man got up. 'I'll do it right away,' he said to the sister. 'You can get him in there soon as you like.' He turned to Warren. 'Soon have you right,' he said confidently. 'I don't suppose you'll be sorry to get rid of the pain, either.'

'I could do without it,' said Warren.

The surgeon and the doctor went away, and shortly after that two porters came with a stretcher, and took Warren to the theatre.

In Godalming, at the same time, Morgan, the confidential secretary, was sitting with old Mortimer, seventy-eight years old and growing feeble in his pleasant house.

'So that's all I know, sir,' he was saying. 'He's been away for three days now. I thought you ought to know.'

The old man considered for a moment. 'You say he told you he might be away for a few days?'

'Yes, sir. But it's quite unlike hirrt not to have let me know when he would be going, or where I could get hold of him.'

'None of the servants knew where he was going to — except the chauffeur?'

'No, sir. And he died.'

'H'm.'

There was a silence for a time. Then Morgan said:

'He's almost certainly somewhere in this country, probably in the north of England or Scotland. If you thought it wise, sir, I could broadcast for him on the B.B.C
.
'

'Certainly not,' said the old man sharply. There was another pause, and then he said:

'Never do anything to destroy confidence. Always remember, confidence is your chief trading asset. Don't squander it.' He paused again.

'I don't see any reason for extreme measures,' he said. 'Leave him alone, and he'll come home, like the sheep. And bring his tail behind him — you know.' Morgan smiled politely. 'You say there's nothing very urgent
.
If there is, bring the papers down to me
.
Tell everyone he's gone off on a holiday. Tell them the truth — that that damned woman of his has run away with a black man, and he's too busy sorting out the mess to attend to business for a week or two. And keep in touch with me upon the telephone.'

'Yes, sir.'

The old man stared into the distance
.
'He'll come back all right,' he said
.
'But I am afraid he may be very different. It makes a great change in a man's life, a thing like this.'

For three days after his operation Warren took little notice of his surroundings. In those three days, without conscious process of thought, he decided upon a policy in regard to his identity. He was in a ward of working-class people, labourers and artisans, in some northern town, he was not quite sure which. He would have to stay there for some weeks, perhaps; he had no desire to be different from the rest, and an object of curiosity. They had assumed, a little curiously, he thought, that he was an out-of-work clerk, and the sister had provided of her own accord a credible story. He was content to accept that story and tp maintain it; it was good enough for him. He had no desire to be a merchant banker in a ward of labourers.

On the morning of the third day he asked the sister, as she washed him, 'What place is this?' She looked at him blankly. 'I mean, what's the name of this town?'

'Sharples,' she said. 'Didn't you know?'

'No. I was taken ill on the road a good way from here, I think.'

'Aye, a lorry brought you in. Where did you come from?'

'Glasgow,' he said readily. 'I wanted to get to Hull. I used to work in Hull. I thought maybe they could fix me up with a job.'

She made no comment upon that, and Warren lay digesting what he had heard. Presendy he said:

They build ships here, don't they?'

'Used to, you mean. Barlows shut down five years ago, and the plate mills, and the joineries. There's been no ship built here since then.'

Warren nodded slowly. He knew now where he was. The Barlow proposition had been before him a few years before, not once, but many times. It had been hawked round the City in its later stages like a vacuum cleaner.

He said, 'Used to build a lot of ships here, didn't they?'

'Oh aye — one time. The Heather Line Boats, and the Myers' boats — they all came from Barlows. And then there was a great many foreigners, and floating docks, and that. There was the Admiralty work, too. There were seven Barlow destroyers at the battle of Jutland — did you know that?' She paused, and then she said, 'It's different here now to what it was in them days.'

She left him, and Warren lay considering what he had learned.

The ward he lay in was a light and airy room, lit with

windows down each side. Each bed was neat and tidy, with a red blanket folded mediodicalry at the foot, and a standard locker by the side. Two of the beds had screens around them.

For a time Warren lay and stuthed his surroundings. The ward was neat and clean, and yet there was something wrong about it that he could not place.

It was half an hour before it struck him what was wrong. The ward was overcrowded. There were six windows down each side and one at the end; it was clear that the architect had designed for six beds to a side, one between each window. But now the ward held nineteen beds, nine down each side and one across the bottom of the ward where no bed should have been. And all the beds were full.

He stuthed the occupants of the beds for a time. They lay inert, a gaunt and listless crew. One or two were reading newspapers and tattered books; most of them were lying still, staring at the ceiling, as though they were already dead. For all his weakness and his discomfort, Warren felt himself to be the only virile man in the whole ward.

He turned his head, and met the eyes of the man in the next bed. A tall, gaunt man of fifty years or so with a grey face; he lay quite motionless.

Warren saw that he was watched. 'Morning,' he said.

There was silence for a moment, and then the man said:

'What's your name?'

'Warren. What's yours?'

'Petersen. Jock Petersen, they call me. Ye're no from theseparts?'

'I'm from America,' said Warren. 'I had a job in Philadelphia.'

The grey face showed a flicker of animation. Is things good in America? Would a man as was a charge-hand riveter get work oot there?'

'I don't think so. It's pretty bad.'

'Not even holding up?'

'I shouldn't say so. There's over ten million out of a job already over there.'

The animation died from the thin face. Listlessly the next question came.

'What brought ye back to England?'

'I was in a bank,' said Warren. 'I got laid off with fifteen others, last September. Then I bummed around and spent my money, looking for a job. And then they picked me up, and put me on a boat for Glasgow. That's what they do, unless you've taken out your papers.'

'Ye came by Glasgie?' said Petersen. 'Eh, I'd like fine to be in Glasgie again.'

There was a pause, and presently the riveter said:

'What ails ye?'

'A twisted gut,' said Warren. 'They cut out a bit and joined it up again. They say I'll be as good as ever when it's healed, but I wouldn't trust to that.'

'Aye, I wouldna say that's no a fact. Ye've made a fine recovery.'

'What's the matter with you?'

'I had the colic awfu' bad. They took me in for obsairvation, as they say.'

'Have you had it long?'

'Twa three months
.
It took me sair after eating or drinking
.
I couldna sleep nights for the colicky pain of it
.
I come to outpatients, and the wee doctor ladthe he said to me to drink three pints o' milk each day — the domned fool
.
Did ye ever hear o' sich daft talk, with milk threepence a pint! And that wasn't the end to it
.
There was baby's food and all sorts I was to take — oot o' thirty-one an' six a week for the four of us, an' nine an' three gaeing for rent. I got nae better, so they took me in for obsairvation.'

'You'll be getting the milk now?' said Warren.

'Aye. An' weary stuff it is.'

On the other side of Warren was a younger man, a dock labourer by the name of Thompson, making a slow recovery from appendicitis. He was largely inarticulate, and apparently had little interest beyond the football pools. He did, however, give one sound piece of advice.

'See here, chum,' he said hoarsely, 'you want to watch that Miss MacMahon. She'll try an' make you pay for what they done to you, but don't you do it. If you got any o' the dibs, don't let on, see? You got a right to be here, same as anyone.'

Warren gathered that Miss MacMahon must be the Almoner.

The bed beyond Thompson was the corner bed; there was a screen around it and an intermittent babble of incoherent talk. From the screen, the delirium, and the movements of the nurses Warren gathered that the case was serious; he asked the ward nurse when she came to him with a drink.

'He's a young man called Tinsley,' she said. 'I think he's a carpenter when he's in work. He ruptured himself lifting some weight or other, and came in for the operation. The wound healed nicely and we thought he was all right, but then it broke out septic. He's very ill.'

Warren wrinkled his brows in perplexity. 'What made it go like that?'

'I don't know, I'm sure. He had terribly neglected teem. Doctor Miller thinks it' might have been from that.'

She went away, and Warren lay puzzling what she had said until he fell asleep. It didn't make sense to him. Bad teeth could not infect a healed wound, unless you turned and bit it. There must be something else wrong with the man; he could not have had an ordinary constitution. But then, were any of these listless people ordinary?

He did not think they were.

That night the young man died. The screen was taken from around the bed, the bed made up, and by lunch time the next day it was occupied again by a man with a crushed foot.

That afternoon the Almoner came to him. He had seen her once or twice before, a slim dark woman about thirty years of age distributing books and papers in the ward. She came and drew a chair up to his bed; she had a notebook and a pencil in her hand.

'How are you feeling now, Mr Warren?' she enquired.

'Better, thanks. I'd feel better still if I could get some real food.'

'I don't suppose you'll get that for some time. Now, Mr Warren, I've come to talk to you about paying for the treatment that you've had. You've had a very big operation that would have cost a great deal of money if a surgeon had done it for you privately, and on top of that there's your expense of living here for at least three weeks.'

'Boiled water,' said Warren.

'Yes,' said Miss MacMahon firmly. 'Later on you'll get expensive foods when you are able to take something — patent milk foods out of tins, white fish, chicken, all that sort of thing, until you are able to get on to a normal thet. It all costs a great deal of money, at least thirty-five shillings a week.'

'I'm afraid I haven't got that much,' said Warren. 'You see, I'm out of a job at the moment.'

She looked at him critically. 'What is your job?'

'I'm a bank clerk,' he said. 'I was over in America, in Philadelphia. Then I fell out of work and the Federal authorities shipped me back here, because I was an Englishman. I was walking down to Hull. I might be able to pick up something there. Otherwise I was going on down to London.'

'Have you got any relations who could help you with this expense?'

He shook his head. 'I don't think so.'

'You must make good money when you're in a job.'

He said, 'I was making five pounds ten in England seven years ago, and over in America I was drawing two hundred a month. I don't want you to think I'm trying to dodge this expense. I'll be able to pay it off when I get work again. But I haven't got it now, I'm afraid.'

She looked at him searchingly. 'How much money have you got?'

'Less than a pound,' he said.

She smiled. 'We won't take arty of that if you've got to walk to Hull and London. But you must give me an address before you go, and I shall tell you what the treatment has cost the hospital. We shall want you to sign a note acknowledging that you owe the hospital that money. And then you must pay it off in instalments when you get a job.'

That's right,' said Warren
.
'I'll do that.'

Her pencil poised above the pad. 'How much a week will you be able to pay?'

'If I get a job at five pounds a week or more, I could manage ten bob.'

She calculated for a moment. 'That would do.' She smiled at him. 'All right, Mr Warren — we'll leave it at that for the time being. I shall want you to sign that note before you go, and of course I'll tell you how much we have to charge you. And then you'll pay it off at the rate of ten shillings a week when you get in work again.'