The Strange Land Read online

  I saw the look of relief in the man’s eyes and then he had closed them and his body sagged as though he had suddenly relaxed his hold on consciousness. Youssef and I had to carry him to the taxi.

  I had expected the girl to be sitting there, waiting for us. But she wasn’t in the taxi and when I asked the driver whether he had seen her, he said ‘No.’ I turned and stared back along the path but there was no sign of her. I wondered whether to go and look for her, but I was cold and the man was just about all in. I decided the girl would have to look after herself and I got into the taxi. As we drove off I caught a glimpse of Kostos running towards us. He shouted something. I think it was the man’s name. And then we were bumping our way back to the village and the road to Tangier, the police jeep following behind us.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It seemed a long drive back to Tangier. I felt tired and sick and dispirited, and the taste of the salt water I had swallowed was like a thick, furry film on my tongue. The man I had pulled out of the water lay slumped in his corner and I sat and stared at him, almost hating him. Why couldn’t it be Kavan? If only one man was going to arrive in that boat, why couldn’t it be … We were on a bend and his eyes suddenly flicked open and he grabbed at me. ‘Look out! Hold on!’ His voice was thick and blurred. He was back on the boat. Then he slumped back in the seat again and his head was lolling and he was mumbling to himself.

  I should have realised the significance of his words immediately. But my brain was dulled with the cold and it only came to me slowly. That warning had been shouted to somebody. If in his mind he were back on the boat then he couldn’t have been alone; there would have been no reason in shouting a warning if he were single-handed. In a sudden surge of anger I caught hold of him and shook him and shouted, ‘What happened to Kavan? What have you done with him?’ I was convinced now that Kavan had been on that boat.

  But the man was dazed and only half conscious. He mumbled something I couldn’t understand and then his head was lolling again to the movement of the car. The blood was caked on his temple and his face was grey with exhaustion. My mood changed from anger to pity and I leaned back and closed my eyes. I could find out about Kavan later. I was thinking what it must have been like at the helm of that yacht coming down through the Bay of Biscay and along the coasts of Spain and Portugal in winter. And then I began to think about Enfida again and how I had told the chiefs of all the villages about my plans and had persuaded them to send men down to help me build an extension to the house to act as a surgery and dispensary. They would shrug their shoulders and murmur insh’ Allah. But it was a serious blow to my work. And it was no use pretending I should get another doctor. Kavan alone had replied to my advertisements. The salary I was able to offer was too small. I would have been able to stay on here in Tangier and run a few more cargoes. If I had done that…

  It was stupid to think like that, but my mind was confused and angry. In my loneliness and isolation I had built too much upon Kavan, upon this idea of getting a doctor out to the mountain villages. I closed my eyes wearily, sinking back into a lassitude of exhaustion, too tired to face the thought of planning for the future again.

  And then the taxi stopped and we were at the Hotel Malabata. It was a small, cheap hotel occupying a part of one of those grey blocks of cracking concrete that cling to the escarpment above the Avenue d’Espagne. I pushed open the taxi door and stumbled out. The police jeep had parked behind us and they came and lifted the unconscious man out and carried him into the hotel. As I paid off the driver, an American car rolled quietly down the cobbled street, paused beside the taxi and then drove on. It was Kostos, and in the gleam of the street lighting I saw the hard, inquisitive stare of his eyes.

  The hotel was full, but the patrone agreed to let the man share my room and they carried him up the stairs and laid him on the stiff, horsehair couch at the foot of the bed. The police and Customs officers left then with little bows, each of them shaking me by the hand and commending me for having saved the man’s life. ‘We will return in the morning, senor,’ the sergeant said. ‘For the formalities, you understand.’ The Customs officers nodded. ‘Buenas noches, senor.’

  ‘Buenas noches.’

  They were gone and the door shut behind them and I stood there, shivering and staring down at the man on the couch. His eyes were closed and his body trembled uncontrollably with the cold. His skin had a wax-like transparency and the blue veins of his forehead showed through like the marks of an indelible pencil. I felt deathly tired. All I wanted to do was to get into my bed and sleep, and I wished I had ignored his plea and taken him straight to the French hospital. But he was here now and I was responsible for him. I sent Youssef for hot-water bottles and began to strip off his sodden clothing.

  Below his oilskin jacket I found a waterproof bag hung by a line round his neck. It had the hard compactness of documents; the ship’s papers presumably and the log. I tossed it onto the bed, making a mental note to have a look at it later. His sodden clothes I piled on the floor where they formed a little pool of water that trickled away across the bare tiles under the bed.

  I was struggling to pull off his blue seaman’s jersey when his eyes flicked open. They were incredibly blue. His hair was lank and his beard all grey with salt. Combined with the marble pallor of his face, it made him look like a corpse given back by the sea. He stared up at me. It was a fixed, glazed stare, without expression. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged from the cracked lips. He wiped his hand across his face, slowly, wearily, and then reached out automatically for something he imagined to be hanging above his head. ‘Is it my watch already? I’m just coming.’ His voice was dead and quite toneless.

  Then, suddenly, there was consciousness in his eyes as they stared up at me and his forehead creased in a puzzled frown. He pushed himself up on his elbow with a quick-violent movement and stared wildly around the room. ‘Who are you? What am I doing here?’ His eyes had come back to my face and his voice was hard and urgent.

  I started to explain and he nodded as though it were all coming back to him. ‘Have the police gone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were down on the beach, waiting for me, weren’t you?’

  ‘I was waiting for Kavan,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Then you must be Philip Latham.’

  ‘You know my name?’ I stared at him. And then I caught hold of him, gripping his arm. ‘How do you know my name’s Philip Latham? Did Kavan tell you I’d be waiting here for him?’ I shook him violently. ‘What happened to him? He was on the boat, wasn’t he? What happened to him?’

  He stared at me. His eyes had a dazed look and he was frowning as though trying to concentrate his noughts.

  ‘What happened to Jan Kavan?’ I repeated.

  ‘Nothing.’ His voice sounded dazed, and then in the same flat tone he added, ‘I am Jan Kavan.’

  ‘What?’ I didn’t understand for the moment. ‘What was that you said?’

  His eyes were suddenly wide open and he fought to ruse himself. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? You are Latham?’

  ‘Yes. What did you mean just now?’ I shouted at him. ‘You said you were Kavan. What did you mean?’

  ‘Yes. I am Kavan.’ He said it wearily.

  ‘But — ‘ I stared at him stupidly. ‘You’re not Wade at ill then,’ I heard myself say.

  ‘No. I told you. I’m Jan Kavan. I’ve come here to act as a doctor …’

  ‘But you said you were Wade. Down there on the beach — ‘

  ‘I never said I was Wade,’ he said quickly.

  ‘But you let Kostos think — ‘ I stopped there. It was so unbelievable.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I wanted to tell you, but — ‘ He frowned. ‘Who is that man Kostos? What did he want - do you know?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘He was meeting Wade, that’s all.’ It didn’t matter about Kostos. It didn’t matter about anything. Kavan was alive. He was here in my room. ‘Did you check up on trachoma?’ I asked.
It was a stupid thing to ask of a man who was so utterly exhausted, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t think of anything but the fact that he was alive, that my dream of a doctor at the Mission was coming true. Eye diseases were the bane of the Berber people in their fly-ridden villages.

  ‘Yes,’ he said wearily. ‘I checked up on everything -all the things I have forgotten.’ He sighed and then said, ‘When do we leave for your Mission?’

  ‘As soon as you’re fit enough to travel,’ I said.

  ‘Good.’ He nodded and closed his eyes. I thought for a moment that he had lost consciousness again, but then his eyelids flicked back and he was looking up at me again. ‘Is Kasbah Foum anywhere near your Mission?’ he asked.

  ‘Kasbah Foum?’ It was an Arab name, meaning fort at the entrance. Probably it was somewhere down in the south, in the kasbah country beyond the High Atlas. ‘No,‘I replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘I have to go there. It’s important. I have to go to Kasbah Foum.’ He spoke in a whisper, his voice urgent. ‘Wade told me that the Caid’s son …” He stopped there and his eyes closed again.

  That mention of Wade brought me back to the problems of the moment. ‘What happened to him?’ I demanded. ‘What happened to Wade?’

  But he didn’t answer. His eyes remained closed. It was then I began to get uneasy. The police would have be informed that he was Kavan. And then there would be an investigation. It might take some days … Where’s Wade?’ I asked him again. And when he still didn’t answer, I took hold of him and shook him. ‘What happened to Wade?’ I was certain he wasn’t unconscious, and yet… ‘You’ll have to explain to the police,’ I told him.

  ‘The police?’ His eyes flicked open again and he stared up at me. There was something near to panic in his face.

  ‘They’re coming here tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ He said it as though it were some distant thing like a mountain peak that had to be faced and overcome.

  ‘It was Wade’s boat,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t have left England without him. He was the skipper. What happened? You must tell me what happened.’

  ‘Wade’s dead.’ He said it in a flat, toneless voice. There was a sort of hopelessness in the way he said it.

  So Wade was dead. Somehow I wasn’t surprised or even shocked. Maybe I was too tired and my senses were dulled. All I knew was that if this was Kavan, then Wade had to be dead. And then I remembered how he’d said he was alone on the boat, that he’d come single-handed from England and an awful thought came into my mind. ‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘For God’s sake tell me what happened.’

  He stared at me, his eyes clouded as though he were looking back through time to a scene that was indelibly imprinted on his mind. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how it happened. He just seemed to jump over the guardrail into the sea.’

  There was a pause and then he lifted his head and stared up at me and it all came out of him in a rush. ‘It was off Cape St Vincent. It had been blowing. The seas were terrible; great big seas, but not breaking then. It was night and I remember the St Vincent light was winking at us on the port quarter. There had been a bad storm, but the wind had dropped and it was a clear night. The sea was big and confused and there was a lot of movement. And we were tired. I was just coming on watch to relieve him. We were both of us in the cockpit. Then the jib sheet broke. The sail was flapping about and I had hold of the helm. It was difficult to hold the boat. She was yawing wildly and Wade jumped out of the cockpit to get the sail down. He was tired, that was the trouble. We were both of us tired. He jumped out of the cockpit straight into the sea. That was the way it seemed. He just jumped straight over the guardrail.’

  He pushed his hand through his hair and glanced up at me. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’ His voice was agitated. ‘There was nothing I could do. The boat sunk away into a trough and then he was in the water. I saw him reach up to catch hold of the side and a wave came and he disappeared. I threw the lifebelt to him. I think he got hold of it. I don’t know. It was dark. The moon had set. It took me a long time to go about single-handed and I didn’t see him again, though I sailed round and round that area till dawn and for a long time after.’

  He lay back, exhausted. ‘That’s all,’ he said. ‘That’s how it happened. There was nothing I could do…’ His voice trailed away. His eyes closed and he drifted into unconsciousness again, or maybe it was sleep. His face was relaxed, his breathing easier and more regular.

  Youssef came back then with four wine bottles filled with hot water. I got some underclothes from my suitcase, wrapped them round the bottles and slipped them into the bed. Then we got Kavan stripped and I washed his body with hot water, rubbing hard with a towel to restore the circulation. His back and buttocks were covered with salt water sores, little nodules of suppuration that bled when I rubbed them. Patches of white, scabrous skin flaked away and his feet and hands were soft and wrinkled with long immersion.

  ‘Is going to die?’ Youssef asked.

  ‘Of course not.’ I spoke sharply, conscious of the Arab’s fascination at the white European body lying naked and hurt and helpless. We got him on to the bed and I piled the blankets on top of him and then I sent Youssef for a doctor I had known, a Frenchman who had lived just across the Boulevard Pasteur.

  Then at last I was free to slip out of my own damp clothes. I put on a dressing-gown and lit a cigarette. I would have liked a bath, but the hotel was inexpensive and Spanish and its occupants were expected to use the public baths or go without. I sat on the bed, thinking of the girl and their meeting on the beach. Of course, they had recognised each other. That was why he had collapsed. It was the shock of recognising her. He had said he was Wade and then she had turned away and disappeared. There was no longer any doubt in my mind. This man lying on my bed really was Jan Kavan. But why had he said he was Wade? That was the thing I couldn’t understand. And he’d been scared of the police. Why?

  I dragged myself to my feet and went over to the chair where my clothes lay. Both his letters were in my wallet - his original application and his note saying that he would be sailing with Wade on Gay Juliet.

  Youssef returned as I was getting out my wallet. The French doctor had moved. Nobody seemed to know where he now lived. I looked at Kavan lying there on the farther side of the big double bed. His eyes were closed and he was breathing peacefully. It was sleep he needed more than a doctor. I let it go at that and paid Youssef off with two hundred peseta notes. Then I switched on the bedside lamp and checked through the letters.

  It was the one in which he had applied for the post of doctor to the Mission that chiefly interested me. I knew it all, of course, but I was hoping that perhaps there was something I had missed, some little point that would now prove significant. I ran through it quickly…

  I will be quite frank. I am 38 years old and I have not looked at a medical book since I obtained my degree. Nor have I at any time practised as a doctor. I studied at Prague, Berlin and Paris. My father was a specialist in diseases of the heart, and it was for him I passed my examinations. Already I was primarily interested in physics. All my life since then has been devoted to scientific research.

  Normally I would not think of applying for a position as doctor, but I gather from your advertisement that you are in desperate need of one, that you can pay very little and that your Mission is in a remote area amongst backward people. I am a man of some brilliance. I do not think I should let you down or prove inadequate for the task. I am a Czech refugee and for personal reasons I wish to get out of England. I have the need to lose myself in work quite remote …

  I folded the letter up and put it back in my wallet. He was a Czech refugee. He had been a scientist. He had personal reasons for wanting to leave England.

  There was nothing there I had missed.

  He had cabled acceptance of my offer. The final letter had merely announced that the French had given him a visa to work as a doctor in Morocco and that he would be sailing with Wade in the fifteen-ton
ketch, Gay Juliet, leaving Falmouth on 24 November, and arriving Tangier by 14 December, all being well. He hadn’t mentioned his wife, or even the fact that he was married. He hadn’t explained his reasons for wanting such remote and out-of-the-way employment and he hadn’t haggled over the ridiculously small salary which was all I had been able to offer him.

  Then I remembered the oilskin bag. The answer to some, at any rate, of the things that were puzzling me might lie in the documents he’d salvaged. It’s not a very nice thing to go prying into another man’s papers, but in this case, I felt it was justified. I got up and began searching through the bedclothes. But I couldn’t find it and I was afraid of waking him.

  I didn’t persist in the search. It was very cold in the room. North African hotels, with their bare, plaster walls and tiled floors are designed for the summer heat. Also I was tired. It could wait till morning. There was no point in trying to work it out for myself. When he was rested, he’d be able to explain the whole thing. I lay back again and switched off the light, pulling the blankets up round me. The moonlight cast the pattern of the window in a long, sloping rectangle on the opposite wall. I yawned and closed my eyes and was instantly asleep.

  But it was only my body that was tired and probably this accounts for the fact that I awoke with such startling suddenness at the sound of movement in the room. The moonlight showed me a figure stooped over the couch at the foot of the bed. ‘Who’s that?’ I called out.

  The figure started up. It was one of the Arab hotel boys. I switched on the light. ‘What are you doing in here?’ I asked him in Spanish. ‘I didn’t send for you.’

  ‘No, senor.’ He looked scared and his rather too thick lips trembled slightly. He looked as though he had negro blood in him; so many of them did who came from the south. ‘The patrone sent me to collect the clothes that are wet.’ He held up some of Kavan’s sodden garments. ‘They are to be made dry.’