Arthur Upfield: Wings above the Diamantina

Dr Knowles put down his ship as lightly as a feather and taxied to the waiting car. Shutting off his engine, he turned round to regard Sergeant Cox with bright, twinkling eyes.

“Good!” said Cox steadily. “I have a good mind to learn to fly. Lots more fun than driving a car.”

GuestsAt Coolibah

ELIZABETH NETTLEFOLD waited on the east veranda before the hall door to welcome her guests. She was gowned in a semi-evening frock of biscuit-coloured voile, and in the deepening twilight she appeared extremely attractive.

“I am so glad you came, Doctor,” she said, taking Knowles’s hand. “Good evening, Sergeant Cox! Did you have a good flight?”

Dr Knowles turned to face both the sergeant and Elizabeth.

“I tried to make him sick, Miss Nettlefold,” he told her with mockery in his voice. “After what he’s been through nothing would upset him; not even a hurricane in the North Sea on a fishing trawler.”

“I’ve lived before my time,” Cox complained in his official voice. “I should not have been born until the year nineteen-eighty, and then I would have graduated as an air cop.”

“You were born in a lucky year, Sergeant Cox,” Elizabeth affirmed, giving Knowles a reproachful look. “Come in, please. Will you see the girl now, Doctor?”

“Yes! Oh yes! I’ll examine her now. Cox can see her afterwards.”

He went off with Elizabeth, her father conducting the policeman to his own room, which he was pleased to call his study and which opened on to the western end of the south veranda. Elizabeth led the doctor along the cool, dimly-lit corridor to pause outside a door with her hand on the handle. The smile of welcome had vanished, replaced in her dark eyes by one of pleading.

“It is the most terrible thing I have ever seen,” she cried softly. “The poor girl cannot move a muscle. She can’t even raise or lower her eyelids. Promise me something before we go in.”

“What do you want me to promise?”

He stood looking down at her, his cheeks criss-crossed with fine blue lines caused by excess. His eyes were bloodshot, and the fingers which stroked the small black moustache markedly trembled. He was still good looking despite his thirty-eight years and hard living. His cultured English voice was the only thing about him which did not reflect his mode of life.

“What is it you want me to promise?” he repeated when she continued to stare up at him. With a start, she collected herself.

“Promise me that you won’t order her off to a hospital,” she replied earnestly. “Hetty and I will nurse her very, very carefully. We will do everything you say, and Dad says he will spare no reasonable expense.”

“But the girl is nothing to you, is she? Do you know her?”

“We have never seen her before, Doctor, but nursing her will give me something to do. You couldn’t understand, but… but she will give me an interest in life. You will not order her away, will you?”

“Not unless it would be forher own good,” he compromised. “Come! Take me to her.”

“A moment! You will not permit Sergeant Cox to have her moved to the hospital at Winton, will you? Promise me that.”

A faint smile crept into the man’s dark eyes.

“I’ll promise you that,” he told her, to add with a flash of humour: “Cox owes me a debt.”

They found Hetty seated in a chair beside the bed, at her side an electric reading lamp which sent its shaded radiance to the edge of the small occasional table. The woman rose when they approached.

“This is Mrs Hetty Brown, my co-nurse.”

Knowles nodded and passed to the bed. He raised the lamp-shade so that its light fell on the patient’s face. And then he stepped back with a sharp ejaculation to stare down at the immobile features. His eyes grew big with amazement.

Astonished, herself, Elizabeth asked:

“Do you know her, Doctor?”

She had to repeat her question before he was able to master himself enough to answer.

“No,” he said sharply, and bent over the helpless girl. Elizabeth noticed that no longer were his hands trembling, and when he spoke his voice again was steady.

“Well, young lady, you appear to be in a peculiar fix,” he drawled. “If you are conscious and can hear what I’m saying, don’t be afraid. They say that I am the best doctor in western Queensland, but, as I do not agree, you need not believe it.”

Presently he raised the patient’s eyelids and gazed steadily into the large, blue, intelligent and pleading orbs. He smiled at her, and the watching Elizabeth saw his expression soften, become one of infinite pity. She had heard a great deal about the flying doctor and his wild life. She had often seen him and conversed with him, and she had never thought he could be anything but reckless and cynical.

“I believe that if you could speak, you would tell us a lot of interesting things,” he went on. “But never mind that now. You must not worry. You will regain the use of all your muscles quite suddenly, and the less you worry and fret the sooner that will be. Ah! I can see that you hear and understand me. Now I will partly lower your eyelids so that you will be able to note your surroundings.”

For a little while he sat at the foot of the bed in a most unprofessional attitude whilst he regarded the pale face, almost beautiful in its impassiveness. Elizabeth and Hetty watched him, but they could not guess what passed through his mind. It seemed that he had utterly forgotten them.

“What do you think of her?” Elizabeth asked presently.

“What? Oh, what this young lady needs is quiet and careful attention. Yes, and a little amusement to stop her thinking about herself. I think we will have her up and about in no time. I will come to see her again during the late evening, and meanwhile I will ask my colleague to drop in and see her. Aurevoir, young lady. Remember now, no worry! Hetty will read you a book and talk to you, and to-morrow, perhaps, Miss Nettlefold will have the radio brought in.”

Standing up, he then reached forward and took one of her palsied hands, which lay so still on the white coverlet.

“Aurevoir!”he again said softly.

When in the corridor with Elizabeth, with the door closed behind them, he asked:

“Have you discovered any clue about her? Any laundry marks or initials on her linen?”

“Yes. Several articles have the initials M.M. worked on them with silk. That is all.”

“Hum! She is rather lovely, don’t you think? Not more than twenty-five. Perhaps not twenty.”

“What is the matter with her, Doctor?”

“Candidly, I do not know yet,” he confessed. “Has she eaten?”

“No. She can swallow, but she cannot move her jaw.”

“All that she can do is to swallow and slightly, very slightly, move her eyes,” he said slowly, as though to himself. “No, I do not understand. I might in the morning when I have examined her again. What liquids have you given her?”

“Milk.”

“Good! Don’t, however, give her too much. Give her cocoa and beef tea. I will draw up a diet list before I leave. To-nightgive her a teaspoonful of brandy in coffee. Who will be with her during the night?”

“I will from ten o’clock.”

“Oh! I believe you will make an excellent nurse, Miss Nettlefold. I will look in before going to bed. Now we will permit Sergeant Cox to pay his official visit-as my medical colleague.”

“Why as your colleague?”

“Because I am not going to have my patient frightened by a policeman.”

She took him along to the study where they found Cox taking notes from what the cattleman was telling him.

“Well, do you know her?” asked the sergeant.

“No. I have never seen her before,” Knowles answered, and Elizabeth looked at him intently.