Nurse Kelsey Abroad (4 page)

By the time the train had chugged into a small station with the destination Seonyata inscribed on the indication board, she was cold, hungry and in anything but a receptive mood for whatever life had to offer. It was more than a little disconcerting to find the passengers lined up as they descended from the train and compelled to show their passports before they were allowed to leave the station.

Two uniformed men, obviously some sort of military or police officers, stood by the ticket collector at the barrier, and as she moved slowly along the line of shuffling passengers Jane was appalled to see another man, even more officious-looking than the other two, giv
e
a brief nod in the direction of a small, insignificant-looking man in a shabby fur coat. The two military-looking men sprang to attention, placed themselves one on either side of the man in whose direction the nod had been made. Before Jane could really believe it was happening, the man had been ushered into a long black car which was speedily driven away. The other two resumed their positions by the barrier, and the line of people moved slowly onwards.

What could be the meaning of it all? Jane felt suddenly more cold and forlorn than ever, and she looked desperately round at the few people gathered presumably to welcome friends in the hope of seeing one friendly British face.

She was rewarded. Not far from the tall, imposing figure who had given the nod to what she could only suppose to be the arrest of the man in the shabby fur coat stood a round-faced, rosy-cheeked girl whose halo of bright auburn hair stood out amongst the dark locks of most of the women present like a lighted lamp.

The girl waved frantically as she saw Jane’s anxious expression, and in the midst of her relief Jane waved in return. It was then she saw, with an unaccountable chill at her heart, that the tall man with the stern expression and the coldest eyes she had ever seen was looking unwaveringly in her own direction.

Jane held his glance, but she felt an unmistakable chill of fear creep up her spine, even though she knew perfectly well there was nothing wrong with
her
passport and that she was permitted entry to the country as an accredited worker.

As she tendered her passport and watched as the official scrutinised it, grunted and marked it in some strange fashion, she felt his gaze boring into her back, and only as the girl with the flaming hair greeted her did she attempt to relax.

“Nurse Kelsey?” the other demanded as Jane emerged through the gangway. “I’m Ann Palmer; it’s my job you’re taking, my flat they’re allowing you to have. I’ve a taxi, such as it is, waiting. Come on. I’ll take your case. They’ll send your trunk later.”

“When they’ve gone through it with a fine-tooth comb, I’ve no doubt!” Jane said sardonically, but Ann only laughed.

“You’ll get used to it, after a time,” she asserted. “I admit it
is
a little unnerving, just at first. I wonder what Karl Brotnovitch was doing there?” she speculated. “Must have been on the lookout for someone important, at least so far as the state’s safety’s concerned. He doesn’t usually interest himself in the lesser evils
!
”

“Who’s he?” Jane demanded, regardless of grammar.

“The tall one in the uniform, the one who was staring at you. That’d be because of your hair. He likes all fair-haired people, and you must be something like the
qu
een of them all!” she concluded, admiring Jane’s
s
ilver-gilt locks openly.

Jane wasn’t impressed. The man’s eyes had looked too cold and too calculating for comfort.

“But
who
is he?” she insisted, and wasn’t in the least cheered when Ann answered with gay inconsequence
:
“The Chief of Police in Seonyata. Quite a big bug in his own small sphere
!”

CHAPTER
2

IF Jane had the idea that she was finished with her quota of shocks on arrival it did not take long for her to discover her error. To begin with, she could scarcely believe the ramshackle old vehicle which stood with the engine running—-and apparently only on one cylinder—was really the best taxi in Seonyata, as Ann proudly claimed.

The vehicle looked as though it had long seen its best days of service, but when the girls were seated comfortably the elderly driver, who appeared to know Ann and recognise her as someone from the hospital, started his ancient conveyance with the air of an oldtime coachman in charge of a mettlesome team.

“Do they always drive like this?” Jane gasped as the taxi swung round a corner, almo
st unseating the pair of them.

“Usually,” Ann laughed, and tossed her bright hair from her face. “Goodness knows why, because they never go anywhere important.”

“Why?” Jane demanded, suddenly suspicious as Ann glanced first at the solid back of the driver’s bulletshaped head before answering.

“Lots of reasons,” she said lightly, “but mainly because there just isn’t anywhere to go. Or money to afford ' travel without a purpose. We’ll talk later,” she seemed to dismiss the matter and pointed out of the window. “That’s the hospital,” she announced, “the oblong building over there. The tall, square-shaped effort’s the British Embassy.”

To Jane’s worried glance it was a relief to note that the Embassy didn’t appear too far from the hospital, but she
was somewhat puzzled by the three-storied houses clustered at the end of what were obviously the hospital precincts.

“What are those?” she asked, pointing, then she became aware, that the taxi had come to a
h
alt before the gates of one of them. “These,” she changed her wording immediately. “I mean
...
what place is this?”

“They’re the hospital flats,” Ann explained as she hopped briskly from the vehicle and counted out a number of coins into the driver’s outstretched hand. Before she attempted any further explanation she poured out a torrent of what Jane could only assume to be Dalasalavian, indicating Jane’s case as she spoke.

At first Jane thought the man was about to refuse to carry the case upstairs for her, but Ann went on speaking, quickly and with an air of authority, and after a moment or so a slow grin spread over his face. He picked up the case and went ahead of them, not hurrying but not moving with deliberate slowness, whistling as he climbed the long, steep flight of concrete stairs.

“Whatever was all that about?” she asked as the girls prepared to follow. “I could have carried that myself, you know. It wasn’t heavy at all; most of my stuff’s in the big trunk they kept at the station. I wonder when I’ll get it back?”

“Later tonight, I wouldn’t wonder,” Ann was busily unlocking the door of a room which faced them just at the head of the stairs. Other rooms might well be down either side and along one or the other of the corridors which angled out from the central landing, but there was very little light and Jane could make out nothing much more than the door which faced them.

“They’re not a lazy people,” Ann explained as she opened the door and gestured to Jane to precede her. “They have a strong inner fear of ‘belonging’
—
to anyone or anything other than their own state. I suppose it’s natural, living where they do, politically, I mean, and they have a rooted objection to taking what they regard as orders, even if it’s a question of a mere polite request for help, from someone who ‘doesn’t belong.’ ”

“Then how
...?
” Jane was beginning, but Ann laughed.

“Get him to do it?” she completed Jane’s sentence for her. “His wife’s in the hospital every year, to have a baby. She’s not had an easy birth yet, poor soul, and he relies on my looking after her. I should, of course, in any event, but he won’t believe that. In his mind he has to keep on the right side of the hospital staff, which, as you’ve just seen, does have its advantages now and again
!”

“How perfectly horrible!” Jane was frankly appalled. “Doesn’t he realise you’d help her no matter who she was or whether he were co-operative or not?”

“Not yet,” Ann told her cheerfully enough. “So many of them don’t. Some do, of course, but they’re in the minority. Just keep their rules—simple enough when you’ve been around a bit—mind your own business, do your job and you’ll have as happy a time as I’ve had here, which is saying something. Just a word of warning. Doctor James Lowth isn’t exactly a woman-hater, he just hasn’t time for them. He sees nurses as a necessary evil, and because of that he’s polite to them—but only just. Someone told me he’d been badly let down by a girl back home, but I don’t know how much truth there is in
that
story.”

“He won’t be very easy to work with, then?” Jane said in a speculative tone. “How disappointing
!
”

“Work with? Oh, he’s all right on that score, it’s the other side where he’s absolutely a washout. As a social standby and that sort of thing, you know.”

“I’d no dreams of being taken about with him on a mad whirl of gaiety in this, if I may say so, somewhat dreary-looking capital
...”
Jane was beginning, when she was halted by Ann’s warning finger on her lips.

“Don’t!” the other girl whispered dramatically, adding a quite unnecessary “hush!” before tiptoeing to the door and opening it with a flourish. Apparently there was no one there, for she looked out, peering up and down the corridor and then returning, closing the door behind her and saying in a quiet voice
:

“That wasn’t to frighten you, Jane. It’s just that nobody here really cares for foreigners, and that’s what we are in this country, you know. I don’t think the walls are bugged or anything dramatic like that, but I do think the caretaker is a Party man, and I’m certain that if he hears anything like criticism of the government it would be reported, and then goodness knows
what
would happen!”

“You mean—the government doesn’t like criticism?” Jane said bewildered. “How do people air their views, then?”

“They don’t,” Ann said briefly, and smiling. “You’ll learn. As I said, you mind your business and leave them to mind theirs, and you won’t go far wrong. They’re kindly people on the whole. It’s that they aren’t very accustomed to governing themselves without the support of some other stronger power behind them, and they have to be careful. Don’t ask me of what, because I don’t know. I came here as a nurse, and that’s why I’ve been so happy and contented, I think. Because I’ve confined my activities to nursing and nothing else. I’ve made few friends outside the hospital staff, and even there I think I ought to warn you,” she ended cautiously.

“Warn me?” Jane was disturbed. “About
...
what, or whom?”

“Dr. Jim’s assistant, mainly,” Ann said seriously. “He’s a gay lad is young Kevin, and his head’s too big for his shoulders as well. He’s been warned several times about visiting places the people would rather visitors didn’t know about, and he’s made friends with any number of young people who fret under some of the restrictions and who are therefore classed as ‘unsubservient’ by the authorities. They’re a lot of young poets, musicians, writers and painters and such-like, the usual sort of people who get themselves mixed up in anything against authority. I don’t say they aren’t right in a number of things
they advocate, but this country’s not ready for their sort of ideas as yet, and Kevin is a stranger within the gates, so to speak. For his own sake he ought not to go around with so many of them, and for yours I’m warning you not to accompany him to any of these meetings and so forth he’s always being dragged away from.”

“At least he sounds human!” Jane laughed, then, as she looked round the flat in more detail, she decided it was high time the subject was changed.

“I must say,” she commented, “the authorities, whoever they are, appear to have done you proud where living quarters are concerned. This place is super.”

“Not bad,” Ann conceded. “A friend of Kevin’s painted the walls, after permission had been given. When I arrived they were all in a horrible uniform shade of olive green. The paintwork,” she shuddered realistically, “was Victoriana at its worst, mostly dark chocolate brown picked out here and there with a dirty mushroom shade.”

“It’s pretty enough now
,”
Jane stated, looking at the white walls, the azure blue of the paintwork, the daffodil yellow of the fresh spring green of the counterpane which covered the bed which was so obviously a divan by day and a bed by night. There was also a big
wooden framed
armchair in the far corner, piled high with scatter-.cushions and a thick travel rung.

“We had a sort of transformation scene just after Kevin Dean arrived,” Ann chuckled, remembering. “His flat was in the same shade of olive green with the usual dark brown and mushroom accompaniments, and he said he wouldn’t be able to work if he’d to live with all that horror in his free moments. It caused quite a shindy at the time,” she chuckled. “Dr. Jim was furious. Said he’d put up with the colour scheme ever since he’d first ar
r
ived and he’d no cause to complain, but he didn’t complain either when they moved in on him and did his flat out too. Kevin says it’s a really comfortable
and
tasteful flat now, and from him that’s high praise indeed.”

“Well, rebel or not,” Jane observed, “he’s evidently achieved something out of his revolt, which is more than can be said of every revolt there’s been in the world! I think I’m going to like Mr. Dean
!
”

“You’ll like him all right,” Ann prophesied. “Everyone does, but he’s too happy-go-lucky for his own good. One day he’ll come a regular purler, meddling in things which are no concern of his. I wish he’d see sense and stop it all before he gets into serious trouble. I don’t like the way people are arrested and taken off and never heard of again except from some remote part of the country.”

Jane had a momentary vision of the man in the shabby fur coat she’d seen at the station, but already Ann was speaking again and the mental image dismissed itself from her mind.

“As I said, they’re a friendly people on the whole,” Ann observed. “After all, it’s their country, and whether we’re here to help or not, what they do, how they rule the place and themselves is no concern of ours. I for one don’t understand it, and don’t try to; I mix with friends I’ve made in the families I’ve nursed, I visit, see people, have people in to the flat to see me, and, touch wood, I’ve never been in any trouble of any kind all the time I’ve lived here. I’ve received kindness from everyone, and if it weren’t that I’m leaving to be married and to start a home of my own in a new land
and
with the man I love, I’d be happy to stay on here. I like it all so much.”

“When do you go?” was Jane’s next question.

“Not tomorrow night, the night after,” Ann informed her. “That is I don’t really go at night, but on the one a.m
.
express. That,” she motioned to the divan bed, “is yours from now on. I’ll be quite all right in the chair. It won’t be the first time,” she laughed away Jane’s protests as they were about to be uttered. “When Mum came out to visit me they hadn’t prepared anywhere for her the first two nights and we doubled up. It was quite comfortable, and I’d arranged to do it again—if you’ve no objection to my sharing the flat for the two nights, of course?”

“How could I have?” Jane said in amusement. “Until you’ve actually gone it’s technically speaking,
your
flat, not mine! I’m the interloper
...
”

“The newcomer,” Ann corrected, laughing. “I wish we could have seen more of one another before I left. I think you and I could have become great friends!”

“I think we could too,” Jane recognised the compliment, and looked round as Ann began to set the small folding table and to set crockery which she took from a cupboard set beside the stove which was let into an alcove in the wall on the far side of the room. “I hope you’ll write to me,” she went on impulsively. “I’d like to hear how you make out in your adopted country, how marriage works out and so on. It’ll be such a change after life on the wards!”

“I’d like to hear from you too,” Ann agreed. “That’s a bright idea. Right now I suggest we have a snack meal and real English cuppa—I’m warning you, you’ll only get one if you brew it yourself! Then, if you’re not too tired, I suggest we go round what little of the town’s night-life there is and I’ll show you where you ought to go and where it's better not to be seen, then home to bed. How's that suit you?”

“Fine!” Jane nodded, “but when do I report to Dr. Lowth—I suppose I do report to him, or is there a Matron?”

“No Matron,” Ann informed her, clattering thick earthenware cups and saucers as she spoke. “You’re virtually in charge of nursing staff, what there is of it. There’s yourself, Senior Staff Nurse is the title you’ll hold, though goodness knows why as you’re the only one in the place. Then there’s Nurse Dawlish, competent and self-sufficient. She’s a hardened campaigner, the sort who’d go on with her nursing if the heavens fell about her, providing there was someone who’d accept responsibility for decisions and so on.”

“Who else?” Jane asked as Ann paused to open a tin of what appeared to be an assortment of small flattish cakes decorated with icing of some description and extremely attractive in appearance.