'One hour may be too long, sir. To save the organ, at any rate.'
'Surgeon, there are reasons of great import why the boy should remain aboard. Diplomatic reasons.'
'I'm sorry, Your Honour, but I can't be persuaded by any other reasons than surgical ones, and those are quite plain. Hubert, isn't it? Well, Hubert's health is in serious danger, maybe his life. For all I know, infection is possible. But my predictions can't be expert. Any more than my deftness. Whatever the event, Hubert must go aground immediately.'
The Archpresbyter looked at his chaplain, who had been thinking hard, and who now said, 'Your Honour: go to the Captain and tell him we have a stowaway here whom of course neither of us has ever seen before. Tell him the truth if you wish, but that must be the public tale. When the stowaway goes aground to have his sickness relieved, I go with him, out of simple Christian charity, to be of comfort. I'll join you by the next aircraft, or as soon as I can.'
'I mustn't let you do it, Al. The English constabulary will attach you.'
'On what inculpation? Once Hubert's sanction from the Embassy is destroyed, there's no link between him and any of us, none they can prove. And he'll be back in their hands—their task will be done. Now you must give me leave, sir. I have to get myself and my baggage out of this ship.'
As Williams spoke, motors fore and aft set up their deep throbbing, bells were rung and voices began to be heard repeating, 'All visitors aground.' Hubert was given an opiate by the surgeon, taken from the aircraft on a litter, put into a hospital express that had been standing by for casual needs, and driven off with Williams beside him. Before the vehicle had gone more than a hundred yards, Edgar Allan Poe was slowly standing up from her berth, and, by the time the hospital had been reached, she was already distant, half a mile above the western edge of Salisbury Plain and still ascending and accelerating. Williams watched her, his eyes screwed up against the sun, till her course brought her more directly between it and him, and he could no longer see her at all. Then he turned and followed the attendants who were carrying Hubert into the contingency department of the hospital.
Chapter Six
Four days later, though he himself was not at all clear about how long it had been, Hubert awoke from a vague dream of disappointment, of having failed to meet somebody because of a mistake about the place or time. It was the latest of several or many of the same sort, hard to distinguish now from equally vague recollections of comings and goings at his bedside, of being taken from where he was and brought back, of finding himself in another room where bright lights were reflected off metal. But other things were less obscure. Two officials had wanted him to tell them how he had come to be aboard the aircraft, putting their questions in soft voices but over and over again; as Pastor Williams had instructed him before the opiate was administered, Hubert had answered that he had made his way on his own with assistance from a succession of strangers, and that he could remember very little more. Very little? How much? Nothing. How much? Nothing. Father Dilke's curiosity about such points had been easier to satisfy, or to silence, and their talk had shifted to the state of affairs at the Chapel, including the prosperity of Decuman and the others that persisted despite certain understood considerations. Anthony would of course be told the truth in full (or rather that part of it he did not already know at first hand) as soon as possible, but the opportunity had yet to arise, because so far Hubert had seen him only in the company of their parents, and they must not hear any of the truth, not until these events were finished and done with, if then.
At the news that Hubert must be considered a runaway, and on the instruction that any clue to his whereabouts must be reported, Tobias Anvil had done nothing. At the further news, the next evening, that Hubert was lying ill of an unspecified malady in Cholderton Hospital, Tobias had shared it with his wife, to whom he had not addressed a word since the previous morning, that of LyalPs death. He had proposed that the two of them put aside their own difficulties for the time being, and she had agreed at once. On arriving at the hospital, they had been introduced to a surgeon, who had nothing to tell them except that Hubert was receiving attention and that no danger to his life was foreseen as things stood, and to a priest from New England, who had not been very communicative either. It seemed that the latter had insisted on interrupting his journey home, in case Hubert, with whom he had only the most recent and accidental connection, should feel the need of spiritual or other comfort. Even now, when he might have departed with perfect propriety, and indeed with an English transatlantic aircraft near the point of rise-off, he refused to move until he should know the issue of the boy's illness, of the nature of which he said he was altogether ignorant.
They had not had very long to wait. The surgeon had come back, a small paper in his hand; on seeing his face, Pastor Williams had turned and left without a word or a look. The Anvils had started to learn about what had afflicted their son, but after the opening phrases Margaret had collapsed, and Tobias had had to hear the rest of the story alone.
'The name of it is torsion, master, in this case bilateral, which is somewhat unusual. I penetrated the scrotum and tried to untwist the cords, but with no success in the result. The swelling has increased, and one testicle begins to be necrosed, to die. The other must follow. That process would spread unless checked. I must be ready to remove them both.'
'Is there anything different to be done?'
'Believe me, master, I'd do it if there were.'
'Very well.'
'Would you sign this document, sir? It authorises the action.'
Tobias had taken out his pocket-stylus. 'You'll need a priest's signature besides,' he had said in a voice that made the surgeon look at him suddenly.
'No, this is a casualty, master. Thank you. My deep regrets.
However, with God's help your son's health will soon be fully restored.'
'Amen.'
Hubert had not been told every detail of this, but, as on a previous occasion, his father had seen to it that he understood the essentials. Once again he went over them listlessly in his mind. The division where he lay was neither crowded nor noisy, but there was enough to distract him from his thoughts: the neat rapid movements of the nursing nuns, the shuffling progress of an aged vendor of eggs and fruit, the bell and shaken bowl of a mendicant friar. Then, through the double doors at the further end of the division, Anthony appeared. Hubert felt pleased. They greeted each other, and Anthony asked after Hubert's condition, a shade perfunctorily: it seemed he had a point to come to and, explaining that he could not stay long, he soon came to it.
'There's something I must let you know.' He looked rather grim.
'About me?'
'No, my dear, not about you. About mama. When she came to you here with papa and me, did you see
