The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [50]
And yet he could believe in no God who was not human enough to love what he had created. ‘How on earth did she survive till now?’ he wondered aloud.
The officer said gloomily, ‘Of course they looked after her on the boat. They gave up their own share of the water often. It was foolish, of course, but one cannot always be logical. And it gave them something to think about.’ It was like the hint of an explanation - too faint to be grasped. He said, ‘Here is another who makes one angry.’
The face was ugly with exhaustion: the skin looked as though it were about to crack over the cheek-bones: only the absence of lines showed that it was a young face. The French officer said, ‘She was just married - before she sailed. Her husband was lost. Her passport says she is nineteen. She may live. You see, she still has some strength.’ Her arms as thin as a child’s lay outside the blanket, and her fingers clasped a book firmly. Scobie could see the wedding-ring loose on her dried-up finger.
‘What is it?’
‘Timbres,’ the French officer said. He added bitterly, ‘When this damned war started, she must have been still at school.’
Scobie always remembered how she was carried into his life on a stretcher grasping a stamp-album with her eyes fast shut.
3
In the evening they gathered together again for drinks, but they were subdued. Even Perrot was no longer trying to impress them. Druce said, ‘Well, tomorrow I’m off. You coming, Scobie?’
‘I suppose so.’
Mrs Perrot said, ‘You got all you wanted?’
‘All I needed. That chief engineer was a good fellow. He had it ready in his head. I could hardly write fast enough. When he stopped he went flat out. That was what was keeping him together - ‘ma responsibility’. You know they’d walked - the ones that could walk - five days to get here.’
Wilson said, ‘Were they sailing without an escort?’
‘They started out in convoy, but they had some engine trouble - and you know the rule of the road nowadays: no waiting for lame ducks. They were twelve hours behind the convoy and were trying to pick up when they were sniped. The submarine commander surfaced and gave them direction. He said he would have given them a tow, but there was a naval patrol out looking for him. You see, you can really blame nobody for this sort of thing,’ and this sort of thing came at once to Scobie’s mind’s eye - the child with the open mouth, the thin hands holding the stamp-album. He said, ‘I suppose the doctor will look in when he gets a chance?’
He went restlessly out on to the verandah, closing the netted door carefully behind him, and a mosquito immediately droned towards his ear. The skirring went on all the time, but when they drove to the attack they had the deeper tone of dive-bombers. The lights were showing in the temporary hospital, and the weight of that misery lay on his shoulders. It was as if he had shed one responsibility only to take on another. This was a responsibility he shared with all human beings, but that was no comfort, for it sometimes seemed to him that he was the only one who recognized his responsibility. In the Cities of the Plain a single soul might have changed the mind of God.
The doctor came up the steps on to the verandah. ‘Hallo, Scobie,’ he said in a voice as bowed as his shoulders, ‘taking the night air? It’s not healthy in this place.’
‘How are they?’ Scobie asked.
‘There’ll be only two more deaths, I think. Perhaps only one.’
‘The child?’
‘Shell be dead by morning,’ the doctor said abruptly.
‘Is she conscious?’
‘Never completely. She asks for her father sometimes: she probably thinks she’s in the boat still. They’d kept it from her there - said her parents were in one of the other boats. But of course they’d signalled to check up.’
‘Won’t she take you for her father?’
‘No, she won’t accept the beard.’
Scobie said, ‘How’s the school teacher?’
‘Miss Malcott? She’ll be all right. I’ve given her enough bromide to put her out of action till morning. That’s all she needs