Plantation Doctor by Kathryn Blair Page A

he’s away.”
    “Away!” Lyn echoed. “Do you mean that he’s already gone somewhere?”
    “Yes, he went this afternoon to a place on the other side of Palmas called Mkolu. He has a friend there who grows oil palms, and about every three months he goes there and gives this man and his workers a check-up. He’ll be gone for a week or so.”
    A week! Lyn felt an inward pang of weakness and helplessness, as if something overwhelming and vast were threatening her personality. It was the climate, she thought again; the climate and the uncertainty of her position here at Denton.
    The next time Roger came he brought her a letter which resolved th e uncertainty. The postmark was blurred with dampness, but the letter had been written by an old mission doctor in the interior of Sierra Leone. Lyn read the shaky scrawl, felt her knees tremble, and read it through again.
    Mrs. Latimer was dead. Like others in equatorial regions her life had gone out, a candle blown by the raging wind of fever. The old missionary had taken the liberty of reading Dr. Sinclair’s letter and decided to write to Miss Russell direct to deter her from travelling inland. There were a few effects and some manuscripts; perhaps in due course Miss Russell would inform him what to do with them.
    That night Lyn went late to her uninviting bed. She had paced and drunk copiously of lime and soda and debated her situation. She no longer had any business in West Africa; and there was no longer the remotest reason why she should continue to occupy the assistant medical officer’s house at Denton.

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT
    Hazel took the news philosophically, pointing out that had Lyn gone straight to Akasi from Cape Bandu she might have been stranded amid the swamps or even have contracted one of those foul illnesses which were prevalent in soggy, smelly country.
    “People who live in such spots — particularly a woman who needn’t — must be crazy. Maybe this Mrs. Latimer hadn’t much besides the work she had set herself to live for, and she might have got a kick out of risking her life. You’re well out of it, Lyn, and don’t go all soft and think otherwise. What are you going to do?”
    “That’s what I came down to talk about. Will Claud be in to lunch?”
    “Sure to be.” Hazel lifted a brow, rather cynically. “I adore that brother of mine and in many ways I wouldn’t have him different, but I do wish he’d stay longer at the plantation. He’s home by one most days, and seeing that he seldom starts before ten, he can’t get much done. His boys are the laziest on the Coast.” She sighed briefly; then her expression changed slightly, became shuttered. “Are you planning to leave Denton?”
    “Of course. What else could I do?” Lyn turned from the tangled garden which she had been moodily contemplating through the window. “I’m going back to England. That’s why I want to see Claud. He knows all about shipping and could fix my passage.”
    “You don’t mind leaving ... the friends you’ve made?” Her pause half-way through the sentence was obvious, but Lyn missed its significance.
    “I shall hate it, especially saying good-bye to you and Claud. But I’m not a person of means. True, I haven’t yet used much money ... ”
    “That old chap you work for,” Hazel put in on a sudden thought. “He’s a good sort, isn’t he? Did he give you leave of absence?”
    Lyn nodded. “For six months. He was fond of this sister-in-law and willing to do anything she asked. If she’d wished, he’d have let me remain with her indefinitely.”
    “Then what’s in the way of your staying on for a few weeks? You could live with us — we can quickly shift another bed into my room. That way you and I could eventually sail away together.”
    It sounded attractive. Hazel was so lovely, so easygoing and knowledgeable. To live in the same house with her above the Palmas shore would be to know the Coast at its sultry best. Yet Lyn could not ignore the threat