to cluster round the hospital or the army encampment, and we'd seen pathetic faces hovering near our own camp during the early hours of the morning. We didn't spend much time in the town, but asked Sister Ursula to direct us to the hospital which stood slightly apart and to the east. The road getting there was not in good condition.
The hospital looked exactly like the casualty station it had become. We threaded our way through the knots of Nyalans who were already setting up their makeshift homes in the grounds, avoiding the little cooking fires and the livestock which wandered about underfoot, and the small naked children. People stared at us but there was none of the crowding round that usually happened in the villages in happier times. Sister Ursula, though, was accosted and hailed by name as we left the car and made our way indoors.
We met Sister Mary, who was elderly and frail, and two younger nuns, all fully occupied. I noticed that none of them seemed surprised to see Sister Ursula back with a team of British men, or even particularly relieved at her safe return from what might have been regarded as a dangerous mission; the impression I got was that they all had the most sublime faith in her ability to take care of herself, and to turn up trumps in any eventuality. I could see their point of view.
She led us into an office, asked us to wait and vanished, to return very soon with the surgeon in tow.
Kemp said, 'We're very pleased to meet you, Doctor -'
He was a tall, saturnine Nyalan with a strong Asian streak, grey-haired and authoritative. He wore tropical whites which were smudged and blood-streaked. He put out a hand and took Kemp's, and smiled a mouthful of very white teeth at all of us.
'Katabisirua. But here everyone calls me Doctor Kat. It is a pleasure to have you here, especially at this moment.'
'Doctor – Doctor Kat, I'm Basil Kemp of Wyvern Transport. You probably know what we're doing here in Nyala. This is my partner, Mister Wingstead. Mister Hammond, our chief mechanic. Mister Mannix is from our associated company, British Electric.' He ran through the introductions and there were handshakes all round, very formal. Ben hid a smile at the man's nickname.
'Gentlemen, I can offer you little hospitality. Please forgive me.'
Wingstead brushed this aside.
'Of course you can't, and we don't expect it. There's work to be done here. Let me say that I think we have got your water problem sorted out, thanks to some of my lads, provided you've got tanks or somewhere to store the stuff.'
Dr Kat's eyes lit up. Thank God. Water is a pressing need. We have a storage tank which is almost empty; I have been trying to take nothing from it until we knew about replacement, but naturally everyone is in need of it.'
'We'll get the tanker up here as soon as we can. We expect Captain Sadiq to join us soon; he's the officer of the military detachment here. When he comes, I'll get him to send a message to our camp,' Wingstead said. He and Dr Kat were on the same wavelength almost immediately, both men of decision and determination. Basil Kemp's tendency to surrender to irritation and his stubborn inability to keep his plans flexible would be easily overridden by these two.
'Now, what about the electricity? We cannot make our generator work. We have bottled gas, but not much. What can you do to help us there?' Dr Kat asked. He had another attribute, the calm assurance that every other man was willing to put himself and his possessions completely at the service of the hospital at any time. Without that self-confidence no man would have been capable of even beginning to run such a project, for the obstacles Katabisirua must have had to overcome in his time would have been enormous.
'Hammond and I are going to have a look at your generator. We've some experience at that sort of thing. I can't make any promises but we'll do our best,' Wingstead said.
Sister Ursula interrupted. 'What about your refrigerator?' she asked.
Dr Kat's head came up alertly. 'What refrigerator?'
Wingstead hadn't known about last evening's conversation and Kemp, for whatever motives I didn't quite like to think about, hadn't referred to it. Sister Ursula said firmly, 'Doctor Kat, they have a working fridge on their transporter. We should send all the drugs that must be kept cold and as much food as possible down there immediately. We can save a lot of it.'
His face beamed. 'But that's wonderful!'
Sister Ursula went on inexorably, 'And also they have electricity. Lights, cooking, even a deepfreeze. I saw all this last night. Isn't that so, gentlemen?'
'Of course we have,' Wingstead concurred. 'We're going to do what we can to use our power supply to restart yours. We'll have to get the rig up here, though, and that isn't going to be at all easy.'
Kemp looked troubled. 'I've been studying the road up here. What with the refugees and the condition of the road itself, I'd say it's going to be damn near impossible, Geoff.'
The nun interrupted, her jaw set at its firmest. 'But all we want is your generator. We don't need that huge thing of yours. We could do with your deepfreeze too; and with the generator our own refrigerator will run. You gentlemen can manage without cold beer, but we need that facility of yours.'
The Wyvern team exchanged looks of despair.
'Ma'am, Doctor Kat, that just isn't possible,' Hammond said at last.
'Why not, please?' The surgeon asked.
Sister Ursula showed that she'd picked up a bit of politics during her evening at our camp. 'Mister Mannix,' she said, 'you represent a very wealthy company. Please explain to your colleagues that it is imperative that we have this facility! I am sure your board of executives will approve. It is of the highest importance.'
I was dumbfounded and showed it. 'Sister, that fust isn't the problem. British Electric would give you anything you asked for, but they're not here. And the reason you can't have the generator isn't economic, it's technical. Explain, someone.'
Hammond took up a pad of paper lying on the desk, and his pen began to fly over the paper as he sketched rapidly.
'Look here, ma'am. You too, Doctor.'
They bent over the sheet of paper and I peered over Ben's shoulder. He had produced a lightning and very competent sketch of the entire rig. He pointed to various parts as he spoke, and it must have been obvious to his whole audience that he was speaking the truth.
'Here's the generator. To drive it you have to have an engine, and that's here. The actual generator is really a part of the engine, not a separate section. If you looked at it, just here, you'd see that the engine casting and the generator casting are one and the same; it's an integral unit.'
'Then we must have the engine too,' said Sister Ursula practically.
Kemp choked.
Hammond shook his head. 'Sorry. The engine has much more to do than just drive this generator. Sure, it provided the electricity to power the fridge and freezer, and light the camp at night and stuff like that, but that's just a bonus.'
He pointed to the illustration of the transformer.
This big lump on its trailer is now resting on the ground, practically. Before we can move off we have to lift three hundred and thirty tons – that's the load plus the platform it's resting on – through a vertical distance of three feet. It's done hydraulically and it needs a whole lot of power, which comes from the engine. And when we're moving we must have power for the brakes which are also hydraulically operated. Without this engine we're immobile.'
Then you must – '
Hammond anticipated the nun's next demand.
'We can't ditch our load. It took a couple of pretty hefty cranes to get it in place, and it'd need the same to shift it off its base. Some flat-bed trucks have the mobility to tip sideways, but this one hasn't, so we can't spill it off. And any attempt to do so will probably wreck the entire works.'
It was stalemate. Kemp tried to hide his sigh of relief.
Into the disappointed silence Wingstead spoke. 'Don't be too downhearted. We can refrigerate your drugs and a lot of your food too, if you think it's safe to do so, at least while we're here. And we can probably get the whole rig up here so that we can couple up with your lighting and sterilizing units.
Sister Ursula did look thoroughly downcast.
