Random Island by Vivian Stuart

Author:Vivian Stuart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jentas Ehf
Published: 2022-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

We set off in darkness, but the moon rose as the boat in which we had rowed ashore grounded in the shallows. By its fitful silvery light, the Maty Rose looked like a ghost ship lying at anchor in the lagoon, her deck and navigation lamps extinguished and only a faint gleam showing, here and there, from behind her lidded ports.

The ship had been left in Luke Helio’s nominal charge, Luke himself being, of necessity, under Susie’s supervision, since he was still too weak to be able to stand unaided. Both bitterly resented the inactive roles for which they had been cast, but while Luke accepted his philosophically, Susie had unloosed a stream of reproaches when I had told her that I was to accompany the shore party. Remembering the nature of some of her remarks, I felt my cheeks flame as James Bruce, with a soft, ‘Come on, Samarinda,’ offered me his hand and I stepped on to the beach beside him.

‘You should let me go, if there’s any danger, Dr Lazenby,’ she had said. ‘The danger is to Europeans, isn’t it? Well, look at me—I could pass as a non-European, couldn’t I? And besides, you’re a doctor and I’m only a nurse . . . I’m expendable, there are plenty of native nurses at the Mission. Or is it the Captain’s choice? Does he want you with him, rather than me? Does he think I might lose my head, panic in a crisis, is that it?’

‘I’m sure it isn’t that at all, Susie,’ I had tried to assure her, but she had refused to listen.

‘Then why, Doctor? Because he can’t bear to be parted from you . . . or you from him? Is that why you keep throwing me at Luke Helio’s head, although you know how I feel, although you know you’re breaking my heart? You have your doctor in England, don’t you, the one you’re going to marry? Yet now you’re with the Captain all the time and he seeks you out, talks with you by the hour, confides in you . . .’

She had continued on this theme for some time, in a childish, unreasonable display of jealousy, mixed with a contradictory concern for my safety which—because, oddly enough, it was genuine—had eventually ended in tears of contrition. Poor little Susie had flung her arms round my neck, I recalled, and begged me distractedly not to go. On Captain Bruce’s instructions, I had told her only part of George French’s story and I could neither enlarge on this nor explain the real reason for my anxiety to find out at first hand what happened at Port Random and why. The result was that I parted from her feeling absurdly guilty and very much aware that, in her estimation, I had failed her badly.

James Bruce had no such qualms, but I sensed while we were still in the ship’s boat halfway to the shore, that he regretted having permitted me to accompany him. I

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