Limekiller!

So he got up and got dressed. Someone, probably Purificacion, had carefully washed his clothes and dried and ironed them. He hadn’t imagined everything: there was the very large cup with the twigs of country yerba in it. He went downstairs in the early morning quiet, cocking an ear. Not even a buzzard scrabbled on the iron roof. There on the hall table was the old record book used as a register. On the impulse, he opened it. Disappointment washed over him. John L. Limekiller, sloop Saccharissa, out of King Town. There were several names after that, all male, all ending in — oglu, and all from the various lumber camps round about in the back bush: Wild Hog Eddy, Funny Gal Hat, Garobo Stream.

Garobo.

Struck a faint echo. Too faint to bother with.

But no one named Felix. Or even Felicia. Or May.

Shite and onions.

There on the comer was someone.

“Lahvly morning,” said someone. ‘Just come from hospital, seeing about the accident victims. Name is Pauls, George Pauls. Teach the Red Cross clahsses. British. You?”

‘Jack Limekiller. Canadian. Have you seen two women, one a redhead?”

The Red Cross teacher had seen them, right there on that corner, but knew nothing more helpful than that. So, anyway, that hadn’t been any delirium or dreams, either, thank God. (For how often had he not dreamed of fine friends and comely companions, only to wake and know that they had not been and would never be.)

At Tia Sani’s. In came Captain Sneed. “I say! Terribly sorry! Shameful of me — I don’t know how — Well. There’d been a motor accident, lorry overturned, eight people injured, so we all had to pitch in, there in hospital — Ah, by the way. I did meet your young ladies, thought you’d imagined them, you know — District Engineer gave them a ride from King Town — I told them about you, went on up to hospital, then there was this damned accident — By the time we had taken care of them, poor chaps, fact is, I am ashamed to say, I’d forgotten all about you. - But you look all right, now.” He scanned Limekiller closely. “Hm, still, you should see the doctor. I wonder. ”

He walked back to the restaurant door, looked up the street, looked down the street. “Doc-tor! — Here he comes now.”

In came a slender Eurasian man; the District Medical Officer himself. (Things were always happening like that in Hidalgo. Sometimes it was, “You should see the Premier. Ah, here he comes now. Prem-ier!) The D.M.O. felt Limekiller’s pulse, pulled down his lower eyelid, poked at spleen and liver, listened to an account of yesterday. Said, “Evidently you have had a brief though severe fever. Something like the one-day flu. Feeling all right now? Good. Well, eat your usual breakfast, and if you can’t hold it down, come see me at my office.”

And was gone.

“Where are they now? The young women, I mean.”

Captain Sneed said that he was blessed if he knew, adding immediately, “Ah. Here they come now.”

Both talking at once, they asked Jack if he felt all right, assured him that he looked well, said that they’d spent the night at Government Guest House (there was one of these in every out-district capital and was best not confused with Government House, which existed only in the colonial capital itself: the Royal Governor lived there, and he was not prepared to put up guests below the rank of, well, Governor).

“Mr. Boyd arranged it. We met him in King Town. He was coming here anyway,” said Felix, looking long and lovely. “He’s an engineer. He’s. how would you describe him, May?”

“He’s an engineer,” May said.

Felix’s sherrv-colored eves met Limekiller’s. “Come and live on by boat with me and we will sail the Spanish Main together and I will tell you all about myself and frequently make love to you,” he said at once. Out loud, however, all he could say was, “Uh. thanks for wiping my beard last night. uh.

“Don’t mention it,” she said.

May said, “I want lots and lots of exotic foods for breakfast.” She got two fried eggs, buttered toast of thick-sliced, home-baked bread, beans (mashed), tea, orange juice. “There is nothing like these exotic foods,” she said.

Felix got egg on her chin. Jack took his napkin and wiped. She said that turnabout was fair play. He said that one good turn deserved another. She asked him if he had ever been to Kettle Point Lagoon, said by They to be beautiful. A spirit touched his lips with a glowing coal.

“I am going there today!” he exclaimed. He had never heard of it.

“Oh, good! Then we can all go together!”

Whom did he see as they walked towards the river, but Filiberto Marin. Who greeted him with glad cries, and a wink, evidently intended as compliments on Jack’s company. “Don Fili, can you take us to Kettle Point Lagoon?”