Anne stopped the station-wagon with a jerk, said unnecessarily and almost as though she was talking merely to cover a sudden embarrassment, “Well — here we are. There’s Mummy.” She waved, called through the window, “Mummy, I’ve brought Commander Shaw along — we can’t make it by road. I thought we could phone through for the helicopter. All right?”
Mrs Hartog, a tall, graceful woman with fading fair hair, smiled and called back, “Yes, of course.” An African ‘boy’ came down the steps with a big, coloured umbrella, and the two got out of the vehicle and splashed across the short stretch to shelter. Shaw shook hands with Mrs Hartog.
He said, “It’s very good of you to put up with me. I hope I’m not a bother.”
“Good gracious, of course you aren’t!” She laughed, but rather forcedly; she had a nice face, Shaw thought, but there was more than a suspicion of strain behind it. She looked as though she was just about at the end of her resources, in fact. Shaw found that natural enough in the present circumstances of Nogolia, but all the same he fancied it went a little deeper than that. She went on, “It’s so nice to have some one new to talk to, you’ve simply no idea. Julian’ll be so pleased, too.”
As she mentioned her husband’s name a curious look came into her eyes and then she turned her head away. A little awkwardly Shaw asked, “How is your husband, Mrs Hartog?”
“You mean the accident?” It was almost as if she feared something else. “It wasn’t anything much.” As with Anne, there was the suggestion of a brush-off. “He’ll be down in a moment — he hasn’t been in long and I made him rest.”
She glanced across at Anne then and Shaw couldn’t interpret the odd look that passed between them. Then Mrs Hartog said quietly, “Anne, go in and call your father, will you? Tell him — Commander Shaw is here… but say I’m sure the Commander will excuse him if — if he doesn’t feel like coming down to breakfast.”
Quickly Shaw said, “Why, of course — but please don’t worry about breakfast for me—”
“You’ve not had any, have you?”
“No, but—”
“Then you’ll have some now. It’s late, but we always wait for my husband, so you mustn’t think you’re putting us out at all.”
There was a suspicion of a snort from the doorway through which Anne was just disappearing. A few seconds later Shaw heard the girl calling for her father from somewhere inside, and a hectoring voice answering her.
Shaw was halfway through a plate of fried eggs and bacon when Julian Hartog came into the dining-room.
The meal hadn’t been exactly festive so far, but it dropped into positive strain when the head of the house appeared, tall, lanky and moody and with a long, dark face. He had a somewhat bloodied bandage on his left arm, which was held in a sling. As Shaw got to his feet, Hartog said abruptly, “Good heavens, don’t trouble to get up for me. I gather you’re Shaw — that right? Geisler seemed anxious to see you.” Rather belatedly for good manners he added, “Glad to have you here, of course. Dare say my dear wife has already rung for the air transport.” There was a trace of a sneer in his manner as he looked at his wife.
Mrs Hartog said, ‘Yes, dear.”
Shaw gave a polite murmur, feeling extremely uncomfortable. Mrs Hartog was watching her husband anxiously. She murmured to Shaw, “Do sit down.” As Shaw sat, Hartog dropped into a chair heavily, winced, his long face glowering. No one offered him anything to eat, and in a moment Shaw realized why. An African houseboy appeared with a glass half full of whisky and a siphon. In utter silence he set the glass before his master and held the siphon poised over it.
Hartog nodded.
The man pressed the lever and the soda, a very little of it, fizzed into the glass. That was the only sound, except that Anne seemed to choke a little and then went very red. Hartog took no notice, but once again he nodded and the African serant withdrew as quietly as he had come in.
Hartog lifted his glass. “Breakfast,” he announced sardonically. His dark eyes glittered at the three of them round the table. “And your very good health.” He lifted the glass, drained it, and set it. down with a bang. His hand was shaking. He wiped his lips on a dinner-napkin. “That, I may say, is a damn sight better. I can now think, and feel, and see.” Bloodshot eyes in which there was an almost unbalanced look lit on his wife, and his rubbery mouth twisted. “For one thing, I can see you, Lena.”
“Yes, Julian.”
He said pettishly, “You look like a blasted dying duck in a thunderstorm. What’s the matter with you, for God’s sake?”
Shaw flushed, kept his eyes averted, felt rather than saw the misery and shame in Lena Hartog’s face. She muttered some excuse and got up and left the room. Things began to fall into place. Was the strain of things getting the man down — or what? There was that unbalanced look, the tinge of some kind of phobia, in the staring eyes, and Shaw felt that there was more than work and worry behind that look.
There must be some other explanation.
Shaw soon found out, and found out in a totally unexpected way.
After his ‘breakfast,’ which he completed with a piece of dry toast and in silence, Hartog gruffly excused himself, and Shaw was left alone with Anne. There was a constraint between them now, a natural embarrassment, and Shaw felt very sorry for the girl. After a while she looked straight at him and said, “I’m awfully sorry, Commander Shaw. I–I’d like you to know he hasn’t always been like that.” She hesitated, twisting a handkerchief round and round in her fingers. “I’m so worried about him. Mummy is too.”
Uncomfortably, Shaw waited. He guessed that Anne wanted badly to talk to him, and it would be a gross unkindness not to listen; but she didn’t say any more for a while. She got up and wandered over to the window, looking miserable and dejected, staring out into that relentless rain. Then, slowly, she turned and came back towards Shaw again, her slim young body held stiff and straight.
She said, “I don’t want to bore you. I know it’s awful cheek of me…. but you couldn’t help seeing and I wanted to explain.”
“You needn’t do that,” he told her gently. “I understood. I’ve knocked about a bit, you know. Everybody — and we ought to thank God for it — isn’t the same. You father’s got a better brain than most people. I don’t suppose you’ll believe this, but that often has a lot to do with this sort of thing.”
She didn’t seem to be listening. There was a haunted look in her face and she was very pale; it was as though she couldn’t keep things in any longer, as if something bottled up inside her for a long time was pressing for an outlet. She said in a low, tense voice, “It’s only started — well, quite recently. The last few weeks really. I mean, like he was at breakfast. He’s always drunk a fair amount, but he’s always been able to hold it so no one ever thought about it.” She flushed, then said defensively, “I know I shouldn’t be talking like this, but you do see, don’t you, there’s never anybody to get things off one’s mind to these days. If you’d lived out here yourself you’d know… I–I can’t really make you understand what it’s been like, I don’t think.” Her whole body was trembling now, tensed like a bow-string. “It’s… it’s — oh, it’s every damn thing about this blasted country… and I did so much want just to talk to somebody…"
Shaw said, “I know, my dear. I do understand, believe me. If you really feel you want to tell me something and it’ll help — go ahead I’ll listen, I promise. But you must remember your father’s had more than his share of strain lately. He’s had the worry of the station for a long, long time and now there’s all this trouble hanging fire. It can’t make things easy for a man in his particular job. And I’d say as a snap judgment that he’s very highly strung anyhow.”