The Little Doctor (16 page)

As they moved to the door a tall Englishman in black vorlages and a bright blue anorak came toward them. Holding out a lean, tanned hand to Max, he spoke in a swift undertone, offering his help.

“
The name’s Elgg,” he introduced himself briefly. “I hear you’re in trouble. Both my wife and myself are experienced skiers. We’ve been out with these search parties before. If you need any help—” He left the sentence in mid-air, and Max turned to Hans Kampel for guidance.

“Two more,” Hans agreed, “would be good.”

He already knew Stephen Elgg, it seemed, and looked at him with admiration. What he thought of Mary Elgg, when she finally
p
ut in an appearance to join them, was hard to say. Jane felt that
h
e had to acknowledge her ability but disliked her as a woman. Well, it didn’t really matter. To look at Mary Elgg was to be assured in an odd, undefinable way. Hard-bitten and tough she might be, but somewhere beneath the leathery surface beat a generous enough heart. She took Jane under her wing rather reluctantly.

“You’re not very good, are you?” she asked in her abrupt way. “On snow, I mean. But you’re a doctor, I hear, and that
could
be a help. The whole thing, of course is ridiculous,” she added under her breath as they followed Max and the guides out to the porch. “That silly girl should never have been allowed out of his sight!”

Jane flushed.

“Doctor Kilsyth had to stay behind in England because of an epidemic,” she explained curtly. “Otherwise ne would have been here a week ago—with his wife.”

Mary Elgg gave her a long, Searching scrutiny.

“You his partner?” she asked laconically.

“No. We’re—friends.”

The older woman smiled a trifle crookedly.

“Pity he hadn’t married you,” she decided in her forthright way. “That other minx will lead him a fine old dance all her life. I know her kind. Had a daughter like that. Lovely gal. Her father worshipped her. Gave her everything she could possibly want—and more. Seems it just wasn’t enough, though. She went her own way, and it nearly broke Stevie’s heart, sentimental old fool that he is!” She looked toward her husband, but there was genuine affection in her eyes as they rested on the finely-chiselled features and tall, lean figure of the man she had married thirty years ago.

“Ready to go?” Stephen Elgg asked, smiling down at Jane out of his sad eyes. “The guides have a theory t
h
at Jakes and Mrs. Kilsyth may have tried to get over to the Hochwang or even up as far as the Rothorn. In that case they will be at Arosa. We’re telephoning through to see.”

When Herr Adler came back from the telephone kiosk, however, he had no encouraging news for them.

“We must search,
”
Stephen Elgg said grimly, “until we find them. After all, we know in which direction they went.”

Mary Elgg’s mouth took on a hard line as they moved down the hotel steps. Cloud had built up to the northeast and already it had formed a barrier between them and the Silvrettahorn. A wind soughed restlessly among the pines, tossing their dark heads restlessly to and fro.

Jane was never quite sure afterwards how long it took them to reach the mountain hut. Even before Stephen Elgg opened the door she knew that they would find it empty.

It was decided that she should stay there with Mary Elgg, allowing the men to go on alone. It might even happen, Stephen explained in his kind way, that the
lost skiers would eventually find their own way back to the hut.

Mary looked sceptical but did not say anything. It was plain that she could not share her husband’s generous optimism, and Jane had already noticed the troubled expression on Hans Kampel’s brow. Duri, on the other hand, was more confident.

“The storm, it is not bad,” he assured them against the sound of the rising wind. “We will go on toward the Hochwang.”

Jane stood on the little wooden platform in front of the hut to watch the men go. They were a weird-looking little procession with their swinging lanterns etched sharply against the snow-clad mountainside and the hoods of their anoraks drawn tightly about their faces. Max paused beside her.

“Don’t attempt to follow us, Jane,” he cautioned. “Hans has a theory. We’ll work it out and make our way back here.” His voice sounded tired and there was a drawn look about his mouth, “It would only complicate matters if any of us got into difficulties.”

She glanced at him and then swiftly away.

“Take care, Max,” was all she found to say.

For the next two hours she waited patiently enough with Mary Elgg while the storm gathered impetus, hurling the full force of its fury against the log walls of the little hut. She could feel Mary’s restlessness, her desire to be out with the men, sharing the search, but for once the tough little Englishwoman refrained from giving voice to her thoughts. She was the sort of person who looked better in action, and every now and then she prowled to door or window to look out. The night was too dark, however, for her to see very far. Although they were high up now, there was still a thin stratus of cloud between them
and
the heavens, and to Jane it seemed as if all the stars had gone out.

To while the hours away Mary gave her a long and detailed description of the valley in springtime. She knew it well, she declared, and Jane was amazed at the beauty this seemingly harsh and unsentimental woman could paint in a few well-chosen words. The flora of the high Alps was her passion and delight. Gentians took on a deeper blue as she described them, and the white and yellow and orange of the Icelandic poppies that grew like weeds all over the terraces were bright and vivid on her lips. Streams ran in pellucid, sparkling contentment through crystalline rock as she traced their courses from the high reaches of some snowcapped peak, and everywhere there was the suggestion of peace.

“If we were not so firmly tied to England,” she confessed, “we would come out and live here. But my husband has a business to look after for our son. Perhaps, in a year or two, when John is able to take over—”

She paused, listening to something Jane had not heard. “Perhaps,” she went on slowly, “we can live our lives as we would wish to. But who can really tell? We wait and wait for these things that are nearest our hearts, and sometimes, by the time they come to us, they are not really the same. They lack something. The aura of youthful desire, perhaps. Or maybe we have just waited too long. The heart grows tired with waiting sometimes.
”

Again she was listening, and this time Jane picked up the sound. It was like a thin wailing, something almost human, but she had heard it before and recognized it as the soughing of the wind among the tormented branches of the arolla pines. Then, above and beyond it, she heard another sound. It began as a low and insistent rumbling, like the beating of distant drums, yet it was without form or rhythm. It seemed to rise and fall, subsiding at last into a deathly silence across which even the wind seemed afraid to move. Jane met Mary Elgg’s blue eyes across the roughly-carved table. “Is it—an avalanche?” she asked.

Mary nodded.

“Not too bad,” she answered encouragingly. “And it was some distance away.”

“How far would you say?”

“Too far to affect us.”

“I wasn’t thinking of myself.” Jane looked straight at her companion. “It was—the others.”

“Yes, I know.” Mary got to her feet and strode toward the tiny window, although there was nothing to be seen outside but the darkness. “One can’t really tell how far sound will carry on a night like this,” she said, “but once, in the Arlberg, we heard the thing coming down miles away. It sounded like an express train at first, coming nearer and nearer—”

“Listen!” Jane said beneath her breath. “There it is again.”

The rumbling sounded nearer this time. Jane felt as if the sound was right outside the hut.

“Sometimes,” Mary said, “sound is magnified by the mere fact of distance. Across a deep valley, for instance.”

“Mrs. Elgg,” Jane said, “don’t try to be kind. It’s down there, somewhere Beneath us, isn’t it? Or on the opposite face.”

“
I
suppose it is.” Mary tugged at the door, allowing the wind to rush past her into the hut. It seemed to tear Jane off the wooden bench where she had been sitting with an empty coffee mug between her hands. “There’s nothing to be seen of course—”

Jane put down the mug on the table and ran toward the door. As Mary had just said, there was nothing to be seen, and now, also nothing to be heard. The silence after the final deep, guttural rumbling could almost be felt.

“Do you think—?”

“It doesn’t pay to think, to start imagining things.” Mary closed the door, leaning against the insistent force of the wind. “We’d better put on some more wood or the fire will go out,” she added.

In spite of her practical approach, she was nervous. Nervous and anxious, Jane realized, but she would not panic nor would she ask needless questions. Avalanches—small ones—were practically daily occurrences in this part of the world and generally did very little harm. A movement of the snow, disturbing the loose stones and rock beneath it, slid gently down the mountainside, carrying the surface things with it. Sometimes a tree would be uprooted or a stockade swept away.

They sat for another hour, sorting through the medical equipment they had brought with them, and Mary made more coffee.

“I drink pints of this stuff,” she was saying when Jane looked through the window and saw the lights. They were coming steadily toward the hut.

Jumping to her feet, she ran to the door to wrench it open as the stretcher-bearers came along the mountain path.

In the split second she searched for Max, thinking to see him walking behind the stretcher, and then Stephen Elgg said:

“We brought him here. We thought it was the best thing to do.” She knew, then, that Max was lying there, inert and lifeless-looking between the dark blankets, and fear gripped her by the throat, so that she could not move. Then, automatically, all those years of training and experience rose uppermost and she was the doctor in chaise.

“Over here,” she commanded, “where there’s plenty of light.”

Mary was already making room for the stretcher beside the fire. “What happened?”

“There was a fall of rock and snow—a small avalanche. It was
j
ust above us. We couldn’t escape it.” Stephen drew a hand across his forehead and it came away wet with perspiration. “Kilsyth was in the direct line of the thing. He jumped and fell. It could have been worse,” he added laconically.

Jane scarcely heard him. Apart from the main fact of the accident, she could think of nothing but Max—Max lying helpless here on the narrow stretcher—Max injured—Max dying, perhaps. There was a considerable hemorrhage from the back of the head and his clothing was badly torn.

Deftly, calmly almost, she began to look for the seat of the trouble, finding it eventually at the base of the skull. The guides were useful. Both Hans and Duri had been trained extensively in first-aid and soon Max’s rapid pulse began to steady. He had stirred once, although he had lapsed almost immediately into unconsciousness again. Within half an hour, however, the drug she had injected to augment the general clotting power of the blood began to take effect and gradually the bleeding ceased.

Mary was ready with warm blankets and two hot-water bottles, which she had filled from the kettles already steaming by the fire.

“Thank God we got him out in time!” Stephen said when, finally, he straightened to light a much-needed cigarette. “You’ve been wonderful, Doctor.”

Jane scarcely heard the praise.

“Of course she’s been wonderful!” Mary said. “Don’t be a goose, Stevie!”

He looked at her without understanding, and Jane said: “He must be allowed to rest. I’ll wait for a bit to see whether a salt solution might be necessary.” She looked round at the three men. “Did you—find the others?”

Stephen Elgg shook his head.

“We saw t
h
eir tracks,” he said cryptically. “They go right up over the pass.”

Jane was not quite sure what that meant, but the fact had angered Stephen. He considered it a foolhardy adventure.

“
Will you go on?” she asked doubtfully without taking her attention from her patient. “Do you think there may have been an accident?”

“One accident is sufficient for one night,” the otherwise amiable Stephen growled. “Still, I suppose we’ll go on.”

“Take me with you this time,” Mary argued. “Doctor Kilsyth looks as if he’s going to be all right, but you may have trouble with Mrs. Kilsyth. I think I might be able to deal with that better than you could, m’dear,” she added grimly.

Stephen looked down at Jane.

“What do you think?” he asked. “We could be back before daybreak, or shortly after, even if we went right over the pass.”

“I think you should go on,” Jane said. “I ought to be able to cope here.”

They did not know that she was in love with Max. How could they? They had no idea that this was no ordinary patient, as far as she was concerned, but the one man who counte
d
in her life. The only man who could ever count. She knew now that she could never marry Nicholas or anyone else, however hard they might plead. She had known it in that split second as they had carried Max over the threshold of the little mountain hut, helpless and broken in the attempt to rescue his wife.