Trade Wind (91 page)

It was Batty who had carried the message to Dr Kealey, and the doctor had called at the earliest opportunity, and not only promised his help, but brought with him twin babies, barely a month old, whom he had found wailing in an abandoned house in which their parents lay dead.

“I’ve been wondering what on earth to do with them,” confessed Dr Kealey, “for Milly is in a sad way. What with boils and prickly-heat and a sore throat, she is in no condition to look after the little things, and my servants threatened to leave if I brought them into the house. I blessed you when I heard of this.”

“Uncle Nat didn’t,” said Hero ruefully. “I’m afraid he’s very angry with me.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised—all things considered. But then he’s not a medical man, and he is your uncle and responsible for you, which makes it difficult for him. He’ll come round.”

“I wish I thought so. But I don’t think he will. He doesn’t understand how I can come here. Because of Rory—I mean Captain Frost.”

“I’m not sure I understand that myself,” admitted Dr Kealey candidly. “But I’m profoundly grateful that you should have felt you could. If you can help to save even a small proportion of these unfortunate infants, it will be something. There’s nothing much that we can do about their elders, and one can only hope that they’ll learn a few elementary lessons in sanitation from this. Though I doubt it. They appear to look upon such visitations as a necessary evil: an affliction sent by Allah, or witchcraft And when it’s over they’ll forget about it until the next time, and do nothing towards preventing it from happening again. The only thing they are doing about it now is to say their prayers and let off firecrackers to scare away the evil spirits, or paint their faces white. But they still fling all their refuse into the open street and think nothing of allowing corpses to lie about unburied. I tell you, it’s hopeless!”

It did not seem so to Hero. Admittedly two of the babies had died, but the rest were responding well to food and care and already looked plumper, and within three days the original handful of children had swollen to more than fifty, with the numbers increasing hourly. Word had gone round that both food and shelter were obtainable at The Dolphins’ House, and the doors were besieged by a clamorous mob begging for admittance.

Left to herself, Hero might well have admitted them all. But she was not so left. Rory had been adamant in the matter. She could take in children who were too young to fend for themselves, but not their parents or any other adults.

“If we once start that, we’re lost,” said Rory. “You’ve got to draw the line somewhere. Anything over the age of eight will have to fend for itself. Well, ten then! But that’s the limit!”

“Couldn’t we just take in a few of the women?” pleaded Hero. “They could help with the children, and we need help so badly.”

Rory could see the sense of that, but he had not given way, and backed by Ralub and his crew had finally succeeded in persuading the crowd to disperse and to accept the fact that only young children would be admitted.

It was a measure of his authority and the esteem in which his crew and the household held him, that apart from a few murmurs not one of them had rebelled on discovering that Miss Hollis had been given permission to turn the house into a temporary orphanage. They had not forgotten Hero’s valiant fight to save the life of Zorah’s child; nor were they left long without outside assistance, for once again Mrs Platt’s carriage edged its painful way through the rain and the narrow streets, and stopping before the door of The Dolphins’ House, deposited Olivia Credwell and a large portmanteau.

“Your uncle told me where you’d gone,” explained Olivia, shaking the wet out of an absurd ribbon-trimmed bonnet.’ I’m afraid he is exceedingly angry with you, and it seems that Clay’s nose is broken, which is die greatest pity as it will quite
ruin
his looks. But though it was all right before (your being here I mean, dear, not Clay’s nose), now that Captain Frost is here too you really
should
have a chaperone, if only to make it look a little less…Well, anyway, I know that you were bound to need help, and I don’t mind in the least where I sleep. The floor will do. And you need not think that you can send me away, because I’m not going to go!”

Hero had not tried very hard to make her, for she was beginning to realize the full magnitude of the task she had so impetuously undertaken, and the extent of the disaster that might result if it failed.

“You can’t win, miss. Not nowise,” Batty had warned her. “If them nippers ups and dies, the ‘ole town’ll blame you, and like as not try and bum the ‘ouse down over our ‘eads. And if they lives you’ll get no word of thanks. That’s the way it goes, for they don’t know no better—the poor bleedin’ “eathens.”

Rory had merely laughed when she taxed him with this, and said that Batty was a croaking old pessimist and she should know better than to listen to him. But Hero could not rid herself of the conviction that Batty had told her the truth. If so, there were other reasons besides purely charitable ones why this venture must not be allowed to end in failure—as her others had done! For which reason she welcomed Olivia, who for all her feather-headedness could be trusted to see that the kitchens were kept clean, the windows open and the water boiled: matters which still seemed unimportant and quite unnecessary to the majority of the household, and that had to be constantly supervised.

Olivia had not been the only volunteer. Barely an hour after her arrival another visitor, also accompanied by luggage, knocked at the door of The Dolphins’ House, and being admitted by the porter, walked unannounced into a room where Hero was laying rows of makeshift mattresses on the floor.

“
Tiens!
It is true, then,” said Thérèse Tissot, looking about her with interest. “My servants informed me that you had established an orphanage here.
Comment allez-vous
, Hero? It is long since we last met, and I see that you have become too thin.”

Hero made no attempt to return either Thérèse’s greeting or her smile. She said flatly and without emotion: “What do you want?”

“
Eh bien!
To offer you my assistance; what else? If you should need it, which I see very plainly that you do! Me, I am not afraid of hard work or the cholera, and I speak the language of these people better than you. Tell me what you wish me to do, and I will do it.”

“I don’t wish you to do anything, thank you,” said Hero coldly. “We are managing very well and are in no need of assistance.”

“Ah,
bah!
” said Thérèse. “You mean you do not wish me to be here, which is a thing that I well understand. But will these children care who it is who feeds them? Of course they will not! Be reasonable. Mademoiselle. Now that I am here I shall not go, because I can see for myself that what the doorkeeper tells me is true. There are already a great many little ones in the house, and it is plain that there will soon be more—many, many more! You cannot afford at such a time to turn away any who will help. Is that not so?”

“Yes,” said Hero slowly. “Yes, you are right…”

Thérèse had stayed. And before the day was out Hero had forgotten that she had ever disliked her, and forgiven her everything: the trickery over the rifles, the affair with Clayton, the wounds to her own pride. This was a new Thérèse; her airs and affectations forgotten, her Paris dresses laid aside and her fashionable coiffeur hidden under a cloth tied peasant-wise about her head: cheerful, tireless, indomitable. Thérèse took no interest in either children or good works; but she was a born organizer, and it was not in her character to stay idle in her own home during a time of crisis. Her command of the local languages enabled her to exert considerably more authority over the women of the household than Hero had been able to achieve, and both servants and children obeyed her in a way they did not obey the gentler and more soft-hearted Olivia. Thérèse scolded and cajoled in Arabic and Kiswahili and worked wonders in the way of procuring extra beds, mattresses, sheets and clothing from the various consulates, European fums, rich merchants and landowners in the Island.

The house of the Dolphins was one of the oldest houses in Zanzibar: a huge, rambling building of four stories and many rooms. But it was not long before every available foot of space was occupied; the verandahs turned into dormitories and the courtyard itself tented in to provide extra room. But Hero was still dissatisfied, for Dr Kealey had unwisely mentioned the terrible plight of the dwellers in the African Town across the creek: “From what I hear,” said Dr Kealey, “their situation is a great deal worse than it is over here, and I shudder to think how many infants and young children must be lying abandoned in empty huts or on the streets, because their parents and relatives are dead and there is no one left to feed or care for them. But there is nothing we can do about it.”

“Why couldn’t we go there ourselves and bring them here?” asked Hero thoughtfully.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed the doctor in alarm, annoyed with himself for not realizing how Hero would react to such information, “on no account! And don’t you dare try it, young woman! I haven’t even been there myself—and what’s more I don’t intend to. We have a deal more work than we can handle already without going hunting for more. Besides, we’d only bring back the infection with us, and put the life of every child in this house at risk.”

Hero laughed at him and said affectionately: “Now that, dear sir, if you will forgive me saying so, is downright nonsense, and I’m surprised at you! Why, every single child in this house has been in contact with cholera, and you know it! That’s why they are here—because every one of them has lost parents or relatives, and many have no one left alive to look after them. Besides, surely this cholera is the same wherever it has broken out, so if we can take in the children it has orphaned here in the Stone Town, why not those from the African Town? The risk of infection can’t be greater, can it?”

“Speaking as a doctor, no; I suppose not But the sights you would be exposed to are far worse, which is why none of you are going there. That, dear girl, is an order!—and don’t you dare forget it!”

“No doctor,” said Hero with deceptive meekness. Nor did she forget it The plight of the orphaned children in the slums across the creek, who, according to Dr Kealey would have no one to bring them to the shelter of The Dolphins’ House, preyed on her mind and gave her no rest.

Someone would have to go to their help. And since Hero Athena, like Dan Larrimore, was incapable of shirking responsibility by shifting it onto others’ shoulders, that someone would have to be herself—though accompanied, of necessity, by one of the serving-women to act as guide and help carry babies who were too young to walk. She dared not discuss the project with anyone else either, for Dr Kealey’s reaction to it had shown her that if she did so it would certainly be vetoed. So she kept her own counsel. But despite his admission that the risks of infection could be no greater on one side of the creek than the other (and no worse, surely, than those that they all incurred daily with every new foundling they admitted!) she took the precaution of soaking two complete sets of outer clothing, including slippers, in strong disinfectant, and drying them without rinsing them out These could be put on in the house and removed before re-entering it; while as for any children rescued from the African Town, they would be treated in the same way as all the others—their clothes, if any, taken off and burnt, and they themselves dunked in a bath containing disinfectant.

With her preparations completed. Hero wasted no time, but left unobtrusively by a side door, accompanied by the once fat little negress, Ifabi—stout no longer but worn with anxiety and hard work. And ever afterwards she was to remember that day, and sometimes dream of it and wake up screaming.

“It had rained all the previous night. Unseasonable rain, Ralub had said, since normally at this time of year there was little rainfall. But though it had ceased at dawn, the day was grey and intolerably hot, for clouds still blanketed the sky and there was no breath of wind. The sodden earth, the gaunt Arab houses, the streets and lanes and alleyways of the city steamed with heat, and now that the rain had stopped there were more people in the streets. Life had still to be lived, and food must be bought and sold to sustain it. But many of the shops were shuttered or empty, and the crowds were no longer gay and colourful, but cowed and apprehensive and for the most part silent, save for organized processions of Koranic chanters and men who prayed aloud, invoking God to stay the pestilence and spare the living.

The streets themselves were cleaner than usual, for the heavy rain of the previous night had swept the usual accumulation of filth down to the sea in a rushing spate, and scoured the open gutters free of garbage. But the city stank of death, and the smell of it was all-pervading and inescapable.

It was a smell that Hero had become accustomed to, for no walls or windows could shut it out; though in The Dolphins’ House, as in Nathaniel Hollis’s, they burned pastilles and incense and joss-sticks to disguise it. But here in the open street it was sickeningly evident, and even the folded handkerchief that she had soaked in Cologne and held over her nose and mouth could not subdue it. She fought down her rising nausea and hurried resolutely forward, making for the African Town on the far side of the tidal creek that separated the stone-built town of Zanzibar from the stews where the negroes and the freed slaves lived. It was there that the cholera had taken its greatest toll, and where it still raged at white heat, and there must be hundreds of helpless children there; far more than in the better quarters of the town. But nothing that she had heard or imagined had prepared her for the sight of the creek, or the reeking abomination that lay on the far side of it.

The ground that had been set apart for burials had been soon filled, and fresh fields opened in the suburbs. But these too were already crammed with hastily buried corpses that rain and the dogs had uncovered, and now the negroes of the African Town were taking their dead by night to the Darajani Bridge that spanned the creek, and throwing them into the water below. Some of these the tide carried out to sea, but others—too many others—the ebb left behind, and a dozen terrible, putrefying bodies lay sprawled on the mud flats below the bridge. But the nightmare creek was as nothing to the open ground on the far side of it, for here the earth could no longer conceal the bodies of all those whom the denizens of the African Town had attempted to bury in it, and the red, reeking ground seemed to heave with a grisly host who appeared to be struggling to escape from their shallow graves, lifting skulls and arms and bony hands out of the mire.