Ruined City (6 page)

He washed and went downstairs to a high tea of ham and eggs, and marmalade, and cherry cake. In the coffee room there was nothing to read but a few copies of the motoring journals of the previous summer, and a queer paper about cattle breeding that he could not understand. He was tired and disinclined to sit and gossip in,the bar with the landlord and his cronies. He went to bed at about half-past seven, leaving his ulster and suit to be dried before the kitchen fire.

He slept in his underclothes, a thing he had not done since the War. It had the pleasure of novelty for him, brought back old times and made him feel a subaltern again. He slept soundly for about five hours, got up and had a drink of water, and then slept again till dawn.

His clothes were stacked outside his door when he got up. The suit had shrunk a little and the ulster was no longer the fine fleecy garment it had been; Warren smiled quietly at his reflection in the glass. He did not mind, in fact he rather welcomed, the change; it made him look a little less conspicuous. He went down to his breakfast with a lighter heart than he had had for some months.

Again he was not hungry, and ate very little.

It was a better morning, cold and raw, but fine. He paid his bill and set out on the road again. Again he kept to moorland tracks all day, trending north-east; now and again he passed through tiny hamlets in the folds of the black hills, or crossed a road. It was better going; from time to time a watery sun lit up the barren country, and was lost again in racing cloud.

Warren walked steadily all through the day. He was not feeling fit; a stale, tired feeling dulled his pleasure in the exercise. Again he had no lunch except a mouthful of bread from his pocket, and did not feel the need of any. Towards sunset he came out on a hill-top; the sky had cleared and over to the east, some ten or fifteen miles away, he saw a grey line of the sea.

He left the hill and dropped down to the valley, where the smoke of houses rose among the trees. Getting over a gate into the main road he dropped down heavily, and in an instant he was wrung with the same stabbing, muscular pain that he had had two days before in the office. He sank down on the grass verge of the road and lay there gasping for a moment, white and shaken; slowly the sharpness of the pain eased, and left only a dull ache behind.

'God, but I'm soft,' he muttered to himself. I'll never let myself get down like this again.'

After a time he got up from the grass and walked slowly for the half mile to the village
.
Again he put up at the inn; he felt rested and refreshed after his tea, and went out to the village cinema.

That night he stripped and examined his abdomen with care, thinking of rupture
.
He found nothing wrong and came to the conclusion that his pain was muscular alone. He sat for a time in bed studying his maps by the light of a flickering candle. It might well be that he was taking things too hard, bearing in mind that he had taken little exercise for years. Tomorrow he would not go on the hills. The coast was not so far; he would go gently down to the sea and strike northwards up the coast; then on the following day he could turn north-westwards to the hills again.

Moreover, there were towns down there. He could buy a razor, or perhaps get shaved.

He turned to sleep. Already London and his house seemed infinitely distant to him; his troubles had sunk deep into the background of his mind, things that had happened to him very long ago, that could not touch him now. If anything were needed to expunge them from his mind the little pain that he had had done it; he rested for the first time in some months with an easy mind, only concerned about the physical circumstances of his present life. He slept.

The morning dawned wet and chilly again. He paid his bill and turned towards the east, tramping in a windy, drizzling rain. The road ran downhill into farming land, a change from the rough moors that he had traversed for the last few days. Although he kept to the road and it was easy walking he was curiously tired; he went slowly with an ache and heaviness where he had had the muscular pain the night before. He began to have his doubts about that muscular pain.

By the middle of the day his doubts were doubts no longer.

He was perhaps five miles from the coast. Tired, he sat down for a few minutes at a crossroads to smoke a cigarette, when suddenly the pain flared up and pierced him through. He clutched himself and bent up double on the grass; the cigarette fell from his mouth and lay there smouldering beside him.

'God,' he whispered; white to the lips. 'It'll pass off in a minute,'

But it did not pass off. It continued and grew worse, with a throbbing deep down in his abdomen that could not be merely muscular. He lay there for a quarter of an hour in great pain; one or two cars passed by without stopping.

'Better get going somewhere,' he muttered to himself at last. 'It's no good stopping here.'

He struggled to his feet and set himself to walk a quarter of a mile back to a house that he had passed. He covered about a hundred yards, and then he fell by me edge of the road. He heard a rumbling behind him and struggled to a sitting posture, raising one hand.

The lorry drew up to a standstill. The driver remained sitting at his wheel, looking down upon him curiously.

'What's up with you, chum?' he enquired
.

Warren said something unintelligible. The driver climbed down and took him by the shoulder, turning him to look into his face. 'Hey, what's the matter, chum?' he said. 'You got it bad?'

'Hell of a pain,' gasped Warren. 'In my guts. Be a good sort. Get me to a doctor.'

The driver paused, irresolute. 'Don't know about a doctor — I'm a stranger in these parts.' And then he said, 'Buck up, chum. I'll see you right.'

Two cars, following each other close, had drawn up at the lorry blocking the road; one of them was full of men. In a minute there was a little crowd around. 'Bloke taken sick,' said the lorry driver. 'Give us a hand with him, an' put him up in the back. I'll take him somewhere.'

The lorry was half full of sacks of cattle food, with a strange, sweet smell. There was a bustling about, letting down the tail board, and adjusting sacks; somebody bent over Warren and removed his collar, which was cutting deep into his neck. Then mere were many hands about him and he was lifted shoulder-high in a wild blur of pain, passed into the hands of other men standing in the lorry, and, deposited on the sacks. The lorry driver made him as comfortable as possible.

'Won't be long now,' he said. I'll see you right. That all comfy now?'

'That's all right,' said Warren feebly. I'll be all right here. Get me to a doctor.'

'Won't be two jiffys now, chum,' said the driver. He got down from the lorry and put up the tail-board; men with a jerk the vehicle moved on.

Warren lay wedged between the sacks, dazed and in great pain. He had lost his collar and his shirt was open at the neck, for which he felt relief; presendy an emptiness about his clothes made him feel his breast pocket, to discover dial his wallet was gone. The fact impressed itself upon his consciousness but did not worry him; he was in too much pain for that.

Presently the lorry came to a standstill and he heard the driver speaking from the cab. 'Got a bloke in the back what's taken bad. Picked him up on the road, three, four miles back. Sick in the stomach, I reckon. Says he wants to be taken to a doctor. What'll I do?'

'Sick in the stomach? Let's 'ave a look at him.'

The tail board was let down, and a constable climbed in on to the sacks. He knelt beside Warren. 'What's all this?' he asked. 'Where's the pain?'

'In my guts,' said Warren. 'It's serious. Is there a doctor here?'

'No doctor here,' said the constable. 'Did it come on sudden-like? 'Ave you eyer had it before?'

'I had spasm of it about three days ago,' said Warren. 'And then I had another yesterday. Just short ones, they were. Nothing like this.' And then he said suddenly, Tm going to be sick.' Which he was.

They watched with interest. 'Well,' said the constable at last, 'we can't do nothing for him here. Where you heading for?'

'Burnton,' said the driver. 'I got to dump this load an' get back to Newcastle tonight'

'Going by Sharples?'

'That's right.'

'Better drop him off at the hospital. You know where that is?'

'Round the back of Palmer Street, ain't it?'

'Aye,' said the constable, 'that's right. You drop him off there, and I'll telephone to say he's coming.' He produced his notebook, and walked round to the back of the lorry. He took the number carefully, took a few particulars, and. the lorry drove on.

Warren lay jolting on the sacks in a stupor of pain for many miles. Presently he knew that they were entering a town. They drove on for a time, seemingly on cobbled streets. Then the lorry drew up to a standstill, and he heard the driver get down.

And presently he heard the driver's voice again. 'You'll want to get a stretcher to him, mate. Sick in the stomach, he is.'

A porter got into the lorry. 'Come, lad,' he said. 'Let's get ye oot o' this.' Warren found himself assisted from the lorry and handled competently into the hospital. They took him down an echoing corridor and put him in the casualty room, and laid him on an examination couch.

He wanted to see the lorry driver to thank him, but the man had disappeared. He had no time to lose.

A very young house surgeon came with a sister; together they examined him, and asked a few questions. His abdomen was rigid as a board. 'Peritonitis,' said the young man to the sister. 'And yet — I don't know. Not quite like that, to me.'

He straightened up. 'All right, get him along to the ward and get him ready. I'll ring up Dr Miller.'

The sister said, 'I'd better get the theatre ready. I suppose he'll want to do it at once.'

'I should think so. You'd better give him a shot — quarter grain of the hydrochloride.'

He turned to Warren. 'You've got to have an operation,' he said. 'You've never had one before, have you? Well, it's nothing to worry about. But we'll have to do it at once.'

'All right,' said Warren. He had known for the last hour that this was coming.

The sister came with a hypodermic, wiped his arm deftly, and gave him the injection., Then he was wheeled in a chair down a long corridor and into a ward, and to a bed surrounded by a screen. There he was undressed and washed, and put to bed in a clean shirt.

The morphia began to take firm hold of him; the pain was eased, and he became at rest. A nurse came with a notebook.

'Name?' she asked.

'Henry Warren.'

'Married?'

'Yes. I don't know. She left me — went off with another chap. A black man.'

'Do ye know her address?'

Warren shook his head. 'I don't think she's in England. She wouldn't care, anyway.'

'Next of kin? Have ye got a father, or a mother, any brothers or sisters?'

Warren smiled. 'There's nobody like that. If I peg out, let Mr Morgan know. Hundred and forty-three, Lisle Court, London, E.C.3.'

'Is he a relation?'

'No. Chap I know in an office.'

'Nobody else?'

'No,' said Warren wearily.

The nurse went away, and he lay quietly for some minutes, in a doze. At the foot of the bed the sister and a maid were sorting out his discarded clothes, and turning out his pockets. He listened quietly to their low commentary.

That's funny — where's his cards? There ought to be some cards. Funny. What's in the coat pockets? Oh, that's bread — throw it away. He won't want that. Here's his money in the trousers. Eleven and fourpence — no more, is there? All right, write it down, and I'll sign for it. There's his cigarettes and his matches — he'll want those presently. But I can't make out about his cards.'

'Shall I ask him?'

'No, let him be now.'

'What is he, do you think? A clerk?'

The sister turned over the clothes. 'Aye, that'll be it. A clerk, walking down south. They say there's work in the south, but I don't know, I'm sure. Many that's on the road will be glad to be home again, if you ask me.' She was examining the coat. 'They've been good clothes — he's come down from a good position in his time.' She examined the tailor's tab. 'New York! He didn't speak like he was American. I know what he is. He'll have been over in America and been shipped over here when he fell out of work. To Glasgow, like as not, and then be walking south. They do that, I was reading.'

'That's why there wouldn't be any cards,' said the maid.

'Aye, that's it.'

They folded the clothes together and put them in a locker by his bed. Warren lay listening to them in drugged indifference. Their ready acceptance of him as an out-of-work clerk amused him faintly, but he had no intention of refuting their idea at the moment. That would need too much energy; for the next few days his best course was to take the line of least resistance. He did not wonder at the mistake. With three days of stubble on his chin, his soiled and dirty clothes, pockets full of bread, and no wallet he was a very different man from the Henry Warren of Lisle Court off Cornhill. It did not matter. In a few hours he might be dead, for all he knew.