Evie took big gulps of air and told herself to hold together for Doug’s sake. Later there would be time for tears. Right now she had to be stronger than she knew how.
‘May I go in?’ she asked the waiting Dr Van Den Bergh, hearing the tremor in her own voice.
‘Yes, but not for long. We’ll need to give him more morphine soon to deal with the pain.’ The doctor stood up, his face showing his exhaustion.
In an odd detachment from the reality of Doug’s condition, she wondered whether the doctor had been on duty throughout the night and how often he had to break news like this to relatives.
‘I’m sorry to place all this on you, Mrs Barrington. But time is critical.’
‘How long do we have?’
The doctor’s voice was steady. ‘Once septicaemia sets in he’ll be unlikely to last more than forty-eight hours.’
Numb and barely able to think straight, Evie nodded and followed the doctor into the room. ‘Five or ten minutes,’ he said before leaving her alone to face her husband.
Doug was lying on his back, eyes closed, his brow furrowed with pain, his face ashen. Evie stood beside the bed for a moment, uncertain what to do or say. She reached for his hand.
‘Evie,’ he said, opening his eyes.
She bent over him and dropped a kiss on his brow. It was ice cold but clammy with sweat. With her handkerchief she wiped his forehead. His skin felt as though death was imminent.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve made an utter hash of things. I went crashing through the jungle without paying attention to what was under my feet. I should have known better.’ He closed his eyes for a moment and winced with pain. ‘I’m a damned fool.
She stroked his brow. ‘Never mind all that. The doctor has told me he needs your permission to perform an operation.’
‘Damned quack. Wants to cut my leg off. I told him to bugger off.’
She tried to keep the fear out of her voice. ‘But Doug, the doctor knows what he’s doing. He says if he doesn’t amputate, your life is in grave danger. Worse than that. He says you will almost certainly die.’
‘My life’s over anyway.’ He turned his head away on the pillow. ‘Whether he chops it off or not I’ll never be whole again.’ He turned back to look at her again. ‘I’d be a cripple for the rest of my life. I can’t live like that.’
Evie could hold back the tears no longer. The dam had broken. She grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly in her own. ‘Please, Doug. Don’t do this. You have so much to live for. Little Hugh. And Jasmine. And me. We need you.’
He sighed. ‘They’re not taking my leg. I’ll go to my grave with it. I intend to stay whole. How can I run the estates from a wheelchair?’
‘The surgeon says you can be fitted with an artificial leg. You can learn to walk again.’
He snorted derisively. ‘He’s no idea what’s involved in running a rubber estate. I’m an active man. That’s my life. You know that, Evie. I won’t be carved up like a piece of meat. I’d rather be dead.’
He looked away from her. ‘Anyway it’s right that I should be punished for what I did to my brother. My death isn’t going to be as quick as Bertie’s, but it will be soon.’
Her tears were driven by anger as well as sorrow. ‘Don’t speak like that. You were not to blame for your brother’s death. You were a little boy. You meant your brother no ill.’
‘I’m too tired to argue. Please go, my darling, so they can give me another shot.’ His face contorted with pain and he clutched her hand. ‘I’m grateful to have a chance to say goodbye to you. Seeing you again was the only thing that stopped me using my gun to shoot myself when I was in that hole. Now go.’
She started to protest, but recognising that his pain was clearly intolerable, she bent over him and kissed him again. ‘I’ll be back when you’ve had some rest.’
He reached for her hand. ‘Please respect my wishes, Evie. If you care at all for me, let me go the way I want to go.’
The door opened and a nurse entered. ‘You’ll have to leave, Mrs Barrington. Your husband needs to sleep. You can come back tomorrow morning.’
Tears streaming down her face, Evie moved towards the door.
His voice was faint as she touched the handle. ‘And thank you, Evie. Thank you for putting up with me. For giving me my son. I know you’ll bring him up to be a better man than me.’
Her heart breaking, she pushed the door open and left him to the nurse and the comfort of a hypodermic needle.
Dr Van den Bergh was waiting in the corridor. He looked at her anxiously and she shook her head. ‘I’ll try again when he wakes up,’ she said.
The doctor frowned. He didn’t need to say anything. She could read in his eyes that he was thinking it may already be too late.
‘Isn’t there anything else you can do to stop infection?’
‘We’re doing all we can. We’re giving him sulpha drugs – the strongest anti-microbials we have. But his natural resistance is low because of the loss of blood and the stress of the pain. He was lying injured for several hours before he was brought to the surface. Time is the enemy here, Mrs Barrington. We’ll give him morphine to reduce his pain and help him sleep while we let the drugs try to do their work. You should go home and get some sleep yourself. You need to think of your baby. And Mr Barrington tells me
