“THEY SAY SHE KILLED HIM”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 March 1941, Page 10

“THEY SAY SHE KILLED HIM”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

BY

PEARL BELLAIRS.

(Author of “Velvet and Steel,” "Christabel,” etc.)

CHAPTER XII. (Continued). "She's going ashore to help the missionaries. Miss Gallagher is trying to stop her. Dr. Macey said she shouldn’t, but she will go! She’s gone off to her cabin now to pack, and Miss Gallagher’s gone with her." "She isn’t trained, but she said she knew enough to be able to help,” another nurse put in excitedly. Before Dr. O’Connell could make any comment, Trench broke into their confusion explosively. “No!” he said, very decisively, “no.” He stepped from the doorway, breaking unceremoniously through the ring of astonished faces. He glanced over the rail to see the launch still bobbing below; the hands were lowering the boxes into it. Dr. Macey was with the group at the head of the ladder. Trench hurried down the companion on the main deck, to speak to him. He had one idea in his head, which was to stol Valerie. He had not a shadow of doubt that the intolerable things he had said to her yesterday had helped to drive her into it! He cursed the half-hour he had spent in the hold which had allowed her to go so far with the idea without his knowledge. “What’s this about Miss Lane?” he asked Dr. Macey, his face white. “She can't go!” Dr. Macey turned a disgruntled but resigned face to him. “I’ve forbidden her to go.” “Then she isn’t going?” “She says she is.” “But man, you know the risk! You knew what the conditions will be! Beginning of the epidemic, ninety per cent mortality! It’s impossible.!” Mr. Harkness, who was standing by said in a solemn tone: “The Lord will look after her. Whatever else, she will be a great moral comfort to Mrs. Simmonds.” Trench was desperate. “You're mad!” he said, and demanded of Macey ‘Surely you don’t agree to this?”

“I can’t force her to stay,” said Dr. Macey, growing a trifle angry himself. ' "You know she’s travelling with us in 1 exceptional circumstances. She isn’t trained, she has no proper place in our personnel, and I gather she’s with us ' for her own reasons! I’ve forbidden her to go, and I can’t do more!” The Captain joined them at that moment, pushing his way through the crowd, followed by the Chief Officer. The Chief Officer shouted some orders over the side to the men who were loading the launch. Trench appealed to the Captain. He said he had no authority to prevent Miss Lane leaving the ship at any intermediate port she liked: “But this isn’t an ‘intermediate port’! There’s nothing here but a mob of Chinese, and a mad missionary. She can do nothing. She’s taking a perfectly useless risk!” Mr. Harkness turned red and intervened. “If there is anyone willing to help the Simmonds's in their work —and I can’t go ashore, I have my work in Amoy—no one should try to stop them.” Trench nearly choked, and the Captain remarked: “It's not my business. The young lady may be mad, but she wasn’t put in my charge. If she gets into that boat I cannot stop her; but if she goes, I won’t have her back!” And he told the chief officer. "As soon as this job is finished, see that they cut away the repes that those coolies in the launch have been handling.” 'Baffled, Trench looked helplessly from one to the other. 'lt seemed as though, unless he could persuade her himself, no one else would keep her from her insane purpose. He opened his mouth to speak again, saw Valerie coming down the companion way from the upper deck, carrying a suitcase and followed by Miss Gallagher. He turned abruptly and pushed his way hastily to meet her. The crowd .of inquisitive Chinese parted to bring them face to face. “Look here!” said Trench. “What on earth is this? You can’t go ashore here!” He knew it was a strange beginning, after the things he had said yesterday. He saw the ghastly recollection of them in her eyes, large and brilliant with purpose in her pale face. They fell before his with a hunted look.

"Yes, I can! I’m going!” She began to push past h’im. Miss Gallagher became separated from them; a ring of yellow faces surrounded them,, staring, smiling incongruously. "But what good can you do?” “Not much, perhaps!” “Then why take the risk ?”

Moving doggedly towards the ■ rail, she threw at him over her shoulder; "It would be useless to explain to you.”

Face white and lips compressed, Trench elbowed his way after her. When they got to the head of the ladder, Miss Gallagher was already there' with the suitcase. A coolie had his hand on it to pass it over the side. O'Connell was there, too. eyes and ears agog.

“I think this is monstrous and absurd!” Trench said forcefully, for them all to hear. Ho used his most authoritative tone to the Captain: “I say that you’re taking a grave responsibility in allowing a passenger of yours, an Englishwoman to go ashore into a cholera epidemic—missionaries or no missionaries!"

Valerie stood staring at him with pent breath. The fire of their turbid emotions met in their gaze and seemed to mingle. "She’s a nurse, isn’t she?” said the Captain.

"The doctor here isn't thinking of Mrs. Simmonds—he isn’t thinking anything of the woman ashore!" put in Mr. Harkness.

"Miss Lane is not a nurse,” said Trench; “and I say you should pull up that ladder and let the launch go!" The Captain seemed to hesitate. Dr. Macey looked as though he thought it a good idea. Valerie took absolutely no notice, and before anyone could make a move to stop here she had swung herself on the ladder, and in another instant she was climbing down the swaying rungs towards the launch. Relieved of any choice, the Captain shrugged, and Dr. Macey said. “That’s that!”

The chief officer leaned over the rail watching Valerie’s progress on the ladder.

Everyone else looked at Trend ! curiously, wondering at the intense in ■ terest he had displayed in the mattei i His face showed some of the painful ness of his defeat, then became sudden ly cool and collected: “All right!" he said. “Hold on moment, then. I'm going, too!" "What?" said Dr. Macey. : “Hold the launch until I get my ki —or, no. O'Connell, will you run uj and get my brown medical case, am throw some shaving kit into my travel ling bag and bring them down. There’ a good chap.” I “Don’t be so mad,” said Dr. Macey “You can’t go. You're an importan I member of our staff. This is different I I’ll want you in Amoy." “I’m sorry,” said Trench, swinging himself over the ladder. “But yot can’t have me.” “You Can spare me better than yot can spare him,” O’Connell put in, suddenly waking up to the fact that h< had let Trench snatch an opportunity for chivalry from under his nose. But Trench was half-way down the swaying ladder. “Let him go!” Dr. Macey said; and a; O’Connell looked irresolute, he took the younger man’s arm and drew him from the rail, saying in a lower voice ; “He has his own reasons for going, 1 fancy. Get his bags for him.” And he sent the mystified O’Connel on his way with a slap on the back While they were waiting, Dr. Macey shouted to Trench in the launch, asking him what he wanted doing with his luggage when they arrived al Amoy. Valerie had retreated to the stern of the launch, and stood there alone. “I hope you both understand that you’re undertaking this job with my utmost disapproval!” shouted Dr Macey. Valerie made no reply. Trench waved his hand. “Well, I take off my hat to you, anyway!” yelled the chief officer. A laugh relieved the tension, and the Captain said, as he drew away from the ladder. "I’m glad I’m not in their shoes.” O’Connel] came back with a steward carrying Trench’s travelling bag and his medical case. They were handed into the launch. A minute later, churning water, the launch glided away. Trench and Mr. Simmonds waved, Valerie gazing back, lifted her hand once. A faint chorus of “goodbyes” came from the nurses on the upper deck. Miss Gallagher showed signs of an emotional temperament that no one would have imagined in her. Her voice burst into the silence in which Macey and O'Connell turned from the rail: I think it's noble of them!” she exclaimed. in heartfelt tones. "Noble!” “What did you mean?” O’Connell asked Macey later, as the Peiping steamed on into the blue noon, and the island of Sungehow had sunk below the horizon. "Had Trench some special reason for going?” I suppose he thought we couldn’t let a woman go alone," replied Dr. Macey.

He didn't tell O'Connell what Trench had told him. He didn't say that irench had explained to him privately that the Peter Trench who had been discussed on the Mahal had been his brother.

'I had no wish to deny it," Trench had said. "I merely wanted to save you embarrassment!....

He had not referred to Valerie Lane's pait in the affair except to mention he had not known that she would do with the mission.

At the time it had seemed to Dr. Macey that the situation between them must be very complicated. Now he was certain of it.

However, he resolutely kept Trench's confidence in the matter, little knowing that the nurses, in their cubby holes of cabins, were discussing the gossip they had heard on the Mahal.

When the mission arrived in Amoy an international Press correspondent got wind of the incident at Sungehow and interviewed Dr. Macey. He explained the affair by saying that both members of his staff had left the mission without his approval. But that as Miss Lane had insisted on going ashore, ho could hardly prevent one of his surgeons from volunteering also. Owing to the chance which brought the Prc'ij correspondent to Amoy with nothing more pressing to report, the incident was cabled to British and American papers; a day later it appeared even in the cable news of such remote countries as Tasmania and New Zealand.

“Miss Valerie Lane, daughter of Sir George Lane, Bart., travelling with a China Relief League mission, went ashore on the little known island of Sungehow to assist fighting cholera. She was accompanied only by a doctor. It is believed that there is no hospital on Sungehow, and only two other Europeans." The inhabitants of these remoter quarters of the globe were left to make what, they could of the information; with their usual confusing taciturnity about such odd bits of news, the cables never supplied an ending to the story. I (To be continued.)