Hammond Innes - The Strange Land

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?’