The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [49]
‘A penny for your thoughts, sir.’
‘I was just thinking that Louise is safe, Wilson.’
‘I was thinking that too, sir.’
‘Why do you always call me sir, Wilson? You are not in the police force. It makes me feel very old.’
‘I’m sorry, Major Scobie.’
‘What did Louise call you?’
‘Wilson. I don’t think she liked my Christian name.’
‘I believe they’ve got that launch to start at last, Wilson. Be a good chap and warn the doctor.’
A French officer in a stained white uniform stood in the bow: a soldier flung a rope and Scobie caught and fixed it ‘Bon jour,’ he said, and saluted.
The French officer returned his salute - a drained-out figure with a twitch in the left eyelid. He said in English, ‘Good morning. I have seven stretcher cases for you here.’
‘My signal says nine.’
‘One died on the way and one last night. One from black-water and one from - from, my English is bad, do you say fatigue?’
‘Exhaustion.’
‘That is it.’
‘If you will let my labourers come on board they will get the stretchers off.’ Scobie said to the carriers, ‘Very softly. Go very softly.’ It was an unnecessary command: no white hospital attendants could lift and carry more gently. ‘Won’t you stretch your legs on shore?’ Scobie asked, ‘or come up to the house and have some coffee?’
‘No. No coffee, thank you. I will just see that all is right here.’ He was courteous and unapproachable, but all the time his left eyelid flickered a message of doubt and distress.
‘I have some English papers if you would like to see them.’
‘No, no, thank you. I read English with difficulty.’
‘You speak it very well.’
‘That is a different thing.’
‘Have a cigarette?’
‘Thank you, no. I do not like American tobacco.’
The first stretcher came on shore - the sheets were drawn up to the man’s chin and it was impossible to tell from the stiff vacant face what his age might be. The doctor came down the hill to meet the stretcher and led the carriers away to the Government rest-house where the beds had been prepared.
‘I used to come over to your side,’ Scobie said, ‘to shoot with your police chief. A nice fellow called Durand - a Norman.’
‘He is not here any longer,’ the officer said
‘Gone home?’
‘He’s in prison at Dakar,’ the French officer replied, standing like a figure-head in the bows, but the eye twitching and twitching. The stretchers slowly passed Scobie and turned up the hill: a boy who couldn’t have been more than ten with a feverish face and a twig-like arm thrown out from his blanket: an old lady with grey hair falling every way who twisted and turned and whispered: a man with a bottle nose - a knob of scarlet and blue on a yellow face. One by one they turned up the hill - the carriers’ feet moving with the certainty of mules. ‘And Père Brûle?’ Scobie asked. ‘He was a good man.’
‘He died last year of blackwater.’
‘He was out here twenty years without leave, wasn’t he? He’ll be hard to replace.’
‘He has not been replaced,’ the officer said. He turned and gave a short savage order to one of his men. Scobie looked at the next stretcher load and looked away again. A small girl -she couldn’t have been more than six-lay on it. She was deeply and unhealthily asleep; her fair hair was tangled and wet with sweat; her open mouth was dry and cracked, and she shuddered regularly and spasmodically. ‘It’s terrible,’ Scobie said.
‘What is terrible?’
‘A child like that.’
‘Yes. Both parents were lost. But it is all right. She will die.’
Scobie watched the bearers go slowly up the hill, their bare feet very gently flapping the ground. He thought: It would need all Father Brûle’s ingenuity to explain that Not that the child would die - that needed no explanation. Even the pagans realized that the love of God might mean an early death, though the reason they ascribed was different; but that the child should have been allowed to