Plantation Doctor by Kathryn Blair

and pests uncomplainingly. Her sallow gauntness cloaked considerable physical strength; even when the air was suffocatingly still and the sun scorched down from directly overhead, Melia would carry on with her baking, or trot over to the doctor’s kitchen for supplies. She would have been content to stay for ever in this sprawling, orderly village of white people, serving the young “madam” and bossing the house - boy and the “small” boy who cleaned and filled the kerosene cooking-stove each day.
    But Lyn was becoming restless, more so since her talk with Claud Merrick last night. She didn’t care for the sensation of not belonging anywhere, of being so utterly at other people’s mercy. In a land like this it was easy to be frightened, to imagine evil where none existed, simply because one was alone. She had always thought of herself as possessing slightly more than average courage. During her grandmother’s last illness, when she had had to be prepared for the severance of the close and lovely relationship which had existed since her childhood, she had been poker-backed and tearless. When it was over she had wept, but sensibly set about selling most of the furniture and vacating the house. And without too much heartbreak she had moved to Bournemouth, and started making new contacts, new friends. To be solitary in England was not the same as to be alone in this place, where men of widely varying types predominated, and the few women were seasoned to the Coast, and married. There was no hope of making undemanding friendships.
    Being Saturday, a desultoriness pe r vaded the settlement. By noon all the men had returned to their homes, to take a bath, eat a meal and rest till the sun lost some of its ferocity. From four till six there would be tennis, or golf on the Palmas course.
    Lyn dressed in blue tailored silk touched here and there with white, and sat on her veranda to await Claud. It was fortunate that the path out to the Palmas road ran alongside her dwelling; unless he met someone on the road there would be no need for anyone to know that she would be lunching elsewhere. She would be back in good time to play tennis with Mrs. Baird and the others.
    She heard the car, swept up her topi from another chair and ran down and round to the path to meet Claud. He bumped to a halt, leaned over and opened the door for her. In the brilliant sunshine his smile was very white, his skin admirably tanned. His slacks and silk shirt were impeccably pearl-grey, but his tie scintillated. About Claud there was invariably a spot of gaiety.
    “Remarkable woman,” he said. “Ready on time. Did you have any trouble?”
    She pulled the car door shut and rested the helmet on the floor beside her. “What sort of trouble?”
    “With the body-guard.” He nodded jeeringly at the expanse of grass splodged with white thatched houses. “There’s no romance about the place, nothing tantalising. The folk down in Palmas may not be so healthy either in mind or body, but they do live.” He trod on the accelerator and swung the wheel. “Our friend Adrian’s too keen that his men shall have a future.”
    “That’s rather important, isn’t it? Some of them are only here for three years. After that they have to settle down to a job in England.”
    They sped away, first through a belt of cleared timber and then over the road between mile upon orderly mile of rubber trees. It was fifteen miles into Palmas, and the whole way lay through the Denton rubber forests. This was the first time Lyn had made the journey in daylight. She saw the straight, tall trunks with triangular gashes in the bark dripping latex into covered metal cups. There was no grass between the trees, only leaf-strewn earth flattened out by bare, black feet. The estate ended at the hill above Palmas, and the port lay spread before them, a medley of roofs, peeling stucco and trees. The stone jetty stuck out into the big grey rollers, with freighters tied up