War Cry. Wilbur Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ has a lady with wings at the front of its bonnet,’ Dr Hartson had told her. But she could not see the front of the car because the lights were so blinding. Then the car turned as it followed the drive round and now she could see it from the side and there, sure enough, was the flying lady. The nurse turned on her feet and burst through the double swing-doors into the hospital. ‘They are here, doctor!’ she called out as she ran down the corridor. ‘They are here!’

      Leon saw the nurse disappear into the building as he pulled up under the awning that covered the driveway in front of the entrance. He had not spoken for the final few miles of the journey, for fear of hearing words that would be unbearable. But now, as the engine spluttered and died, he could restrain himself no longer.

      ‘Is she still breathing?’ he asked.

      ‘Just,’ Birchinall replied. ‘But her pulse is very faint.’

      ‘Thank God,’ Leon muttered, grateful that he had delivered Eva to the hospital alive.

      ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to help lift her out,’ Birchinall said. ‘My leg has pretty well seized up.’

      ‘Of course.’

      Leon got out of the Rolls just as the hospital doors crashed open and an orderly appeared, pushing a wheeled stretcher. Behind him came the nurse and a man in a doctor’s white coat whom Leon recognized as Frank Hartson, the hospital’s sole consultant surgeon. They had met once or twice at social occasions, and so far as Leon could tell, Hartson seemed like a perfectly decent, intelligent fellow, if not the liveliest mind one was ever likely to encounter. Now this man would have Eva’s life in his hands.

      Leon ran round to the rear door of the car and opened it wide as the stretcher came to a halt just a few feet away. Then he put one foot into the well in front of the passenger seat, leaned in and placed his arms under Eva’s shoulders, between her body and Birchinall’s.

      ‘I have the legs, Bwana,’ the orderly said.

      ‘Lift on three,’ Leon told him. ‘One … two … three!’

      The two men lifted Eva’s limp, unresponsive body up off the seat and Leon watched in horror as her head rolled helplessly against his arm. Her eyes were closed. There was crusted spittle at the corners of her mouth. When he looked down at her skirt it was wet and pungent with blood and urine.

      ‘Oh my poor darling,’ Leon murmured.

      He placed her on the stretcher and watched as the orderly strapped her down. Then he took her hand and looked down at the face that had captivated him so utterly for so long. ‘Good luck. God speed. I love you so very, very much,’ Leon said and for a second he thought he saw, or perhaps it was just his longing that made him imagine a flicker of her eyelids and the tiniest fraction of a smile.

      ‘I’m sorry, Mr Courtney, but we really have to get your wife ready for surgery,’ Hartson said.

      ‘I understand.’ Leon forced himself to let go of Eva’s fingers.

      ‘Dr Birchinall is in the car,’ Hartson told the nurse. ‘He needs crutches. Please get some for him and then come straight to the operating theatre.’ He turned to the orderly. ‘Tell Matron I need to operate as soon as possible. So please prepare Mrs Courtney for surgery immediately. Got that?’

      ‘Yes, doctor.’

      ‘Off you go then.’

      As the orderly pushed the stretcher away towards the heart of the building, Hartson turned to Courtney. ‘I’m sorry we have to meet in such grim circumstances. Look, I don’t know how much Thompson has said to you about your wife’s condition …’

      ‘Nothing beyond what he said when she first went to see him. We didn’t really stop and chat today, what with the convulsions.’

      ‘Quite so. Well, here’s the situation. As Birchinall may have told you, we’re pretty certain your wife is suffering from eclampsia, which is what we call a hypertensive disorder. In layman’s terms, she’s got very high blood pressure and excess protein in her blood and urine. The seizures she’s suffered are characteristic of the condition. But I have to warn you that eclampsia can also lead to kidney failure, cardiac arrest, pneumonia and brain haemorrhage. I’m afraid to say that these can, on occasion, prove fatal.’

      ‘Why in God’s name didn’t Thompson do something about it days ago, if she was so ill?’ Leon asked, failing to keep the anger out of his voice.

      ‘With the resources available to him he couldn’t have predicted what would happen. The initial symptoms of dizziness, headaches, mild nausea could apply to all manner of conditions, many of them relatively trivial. And your wife is a pregnant woman living at altitude. She could feel sick or have a sore head and there’d be nothing whatever to worry about. The advice he gave was entirely appropriate. It’s just rotten luck that there was in fact something serious going on.’

      ‘So what can you do now?’

      ‘Ideally I would give your wife something to lower her blood pressure, but I fear we may be past that now. With your permission I will try an emergency delivery by caesarean section. I have to tell you that there is a high chance that we will lose the baby and a somewhat smaller but still significant chance that your wife will not survive the operation, also. It rather depends on the degree of organ damage she has already suffered.’

      Leon tried to cut through the emotions that were crowding out his rational mind and make some sense of what Hartson had just said: that calm, unflappable English voice delivering such devastating, heartbreaking news. Leon wanted something he could fight, an enemy he could defeat, for what in God’s name was the point of his existence as a man if not to protect his woman and his child? But there was nothing to be done, for the war was all within her, out of his reach.

      ‘Do I have your consent?’ Dr Hartson repeated.

      Leon nodded. ‘Do whatever you think is best, doctor. And if it comes to a choice …’ Leon stopped, choking on his words as he fought back desperate tears, ‘for God’s sake, please … save Eva.’

      ‘I’ll do my very best, I promise you,’ Hartson said. He half-turned, about to walk away, then stopped and looked back at Leon. ‘There’s a waiting room just down the corridor. Take a seat in there, why don’t you? I’ll have someone bring you some tea, good and sweet to keep your blood sugar up, eh?’

      Hartson had taken half-a-dozen steps down the corridor, when Leon said, ‘Doctor?’

      Hartson stopped: ‘Yes?’

      ‘Good luck.’

      Hartson said nothing, just looked for a couple more seconds at Leon, then went away towards the operating theatre.

      Leon watched him go, gave a heavy sigh, then went in search of the waiting room.

      An hour passed in the waiting room. There were four battered old armchairs and Leon sat in each one of them as he tried to find somewhere he could be still without needing to get up and pace around the room, just to work off the tension that had his guts as tight as drumskins. A low wooden table sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by the chairs. A few dog-eared old issues of Punch were scattered across its surface, next to a dirty Bakelite ashtray. Leon picked up the magazines in turn, flicked through their pages, gazed blankly at the cartoons, hardly even seeing the СКАЧАТЬ