January 11th .
The man in the hospital bed shifted his body slightly and stifled a groan.
The nurse in charge of the ward got up from her table and came down to him. She shifted his pillows and moved him into a more comfortable position.
Angus MacWhirter only gave a grunt by way of thanks. He was in a state of seething rebellion and bitterness.
By this time it ought all to have been over. He ought to have been out of it all! Curse that damned ridiculous tree growing out of the cliff! Curse those officious sweethearts who braved the cold of a winter's night to keep a tryst on the cliff edge.
But for them (and the tree!) it would have been over — a plunge into the deep icy water, a brief struggle perhaps, and then oblivion — the end of a misused, useless, unprofitable life.
And now where was he? Lying ridiculously in a hospital bed with a broken shoulder and with the prospect of being hauled up in a police court for the crime of trying to take his own life.
Curse it, it was his own life, wasn't it?
And if he had succeeded in the job, they would have buried him piously as of unsound mind!
Unsound mind, indeed! He'd never been saner! And to commit suicide was the most logical and sensible thing that could be done by a man in his position.
Completely down and out, with his health permanently affected, with a wife who had left him for another man. Without a job, without affection, without money, health or hope, surely to end it all was the only possible solution?
And now here he was in this ridiculous plight. He would shortly be admonished by a sanctimonious magistrate for doing the common-sense thing with a commodity which belonged to him and to him only — his life.
He snorted with anger. A wave of fever passed over him.
The nurse was beside him again. She was young, red-haired, with a kindly, rather vacant face.
'Are you in much pain?'
'No, I'm not.'
'I'll give you something to make you sleep.'
'You'll do nothing of the sort.'
'But — '
'Do you think I can't bear a bit of pain and sleeplessness?'
She smiled in a gentle, slightly superior way.
'Doctor said you could have something.'
'I don't care what doctor said.'
She straightened the covers and set a glass of lemonade a little nearer to him. He said, slightly ashamed of himself: 'Sorry if I was rude.'
'Oh, that's all right.'
It annoyed him that she was so completely undisturbed by his bad temper. Nothing like that could penetrate her nurse's armour of indulgent indifference. He was a patient — not a man.
He said: 'Damned interference — all this damned interference …'
She said reprovingly: 'Now, now, that isn't very nice.'
'Nice?' he demanded. 'Nice? My God!'
She said calmly: 'You'll feel better in the morning.'
He swallowed. 'You nurses. You nurses! You're inhuman, that's what you are!'
'We know what's best for you, you see.'
'That's what's so infuriating! About you. About a hospital. About the world. Continual interference! Knowing what's best for other people. I tried to kill myself. You know that, don't you?'
She nodded.
'Nobody's business but mine whether I threw myself off a bloody cliff or not. I'd finished with life. I was down and out!'
She made a little clicking noise with her tongue. It indicated abstract sympathy. He was a patient. She was soothing him by letting him blow off steam.
'Why shouldn't I kill myself if I want to?' he demanded. She replied to that quite seriously. 'Because it's wrong.'
She looked at him doubtfully. She was not disturbed in her own belief, but she was much too inarticulate to explain her reaction.
'Well — I mean — it's wicked to kill yourself. You've got to go on living whether you like it or not.'
'Why have you?'
'Well, there are other people to consider, aren't there?'
'Not in my case. There's not a soul in the world who'd be the worse for my passing on.'
'Haven't you got any relations? No mother or sisters or anything?'
'No. I had a wife once, but she left me — quite right, too! She saw I was no good.'
'But you've got friends, surely?'
'No, I haven't. I'm not a friendly sort of man. Look here, nurse, I'll tell you something. I was a happy sort of chap once. Had a good job and a good-looking wife. There was a car accident. My boss was driving the car and I was in it. He wanted me to say he was driving under thirty at the time of the accident. He wasn't. He was driving nearer fifty. Nobody was killed, nothing like that, he just wanted to be in the right for the insurance people. Well, I wouldn't say what he wanted. It was a lie. I don't tell lies.'
The nurse said: 'Well, I think you were quite right. Quite right.'
'You do, do you? That pig-headedness of mine cost me my job. My boss was sore. He saw to it that I didn't get another. My wife got fed up seeing me much about unable to get anything to do. She went off with a man who had been my friend. He was doing well and going up in the world. I drifted along, going steadily down. I took to drinking a bit. That didn't help me to hold down jobs. Finally I came down to hauling — strained my inside — the doctor told me I'd never be strong again. Well, there wasn't much to live for then. Easiest way, and the cleanest way, was to go right out. My life was no good to myself or anyone else.'
The little nurse murmured: 'You don't know that.'
He laughed. He was better-tempered already. Her naive obstinacy amused him.
'My dear girl, what use am I to anybody?'
She said confusedly: 'You don't know. You may be — some day — '
'Some day? There won't be any some day. Next time I shall make sure.'
She shook her head decidedly.
'Oh, no,' she said. 'You won't kill yourself now.'
'Why not?' '
They never do.'
He stared at her. 'They never do.' He was one of a class of would-be suicides. Opening his mouth to protest energetically, his innate honesty suddenly stopped him.
Would he do it again? Did he really mean to do it?
He knew suddenly that he didn't. For no reason. Perhaps the right reason was the one she had given out of her specialised knowledge. Suicides didn't do it again.
All the more he felt determined to force an admission from her on the ethical side.
'At any rate, I've got a right to do what I like with my own life.'
'No — no, you haven't.'
'But why not, my dear girl, why?'
She flushed. She said, her fingers playing with the little gold cross that hung round her neck: 'You don't understand. God may need you.'
He stared — taken aback. He did not want to upset her child-like faith. He said mockingly: 'I suppose that one day I may stop a runaway horse and save a golden-haired child from death — eh? Is that it?'
She shook her head. She said with vehemence and trying to express what was so vivid in her mind and so
