Juggernaut

They spoke in English, I think in deference to us.

'The people of Kodowa will scatter among the smaller villages soon,' Kat said. 'The area is well populated, which is why they needed a hospital. Many of them have already gone.

But that solution does not apply to my patients.'

'Why not?' Kemp asked.

'Because we do not have the staff to scatter around with them, to visit the sick in their homes or the homes of friends. Many are too sick to trust to local treatment. We have many more patients now because of the air raid.'

'How many?'

'About fifty bed patients, if we had the beds to put them in, and a hundred or more ambulatory patients. In this context they could be called the "walking wounded",' he added acidly.

'So it is only a matter of extra shelter you need,' said Sadiq. I knew he was partly wrong, but waited to hear the Doctor put it into words.

'It is much more than that, Captain. We need shelter, yes, but that is not the main problem. We need medical supplies but we can manage for a while on what we have. But our patients need nursing, food and water.'

'There will be dysentery here soon,' put in Sister Ursula. 'There is already sepsis, and a lack of hygiene, more than we usually suffer.'

'They also are vulnerable to the depredations of marauding bands of rebels,' said Dr Kat, a sentence I felt like cheering for its sheer pomposity. But he was right for all that.

'As are we all, including the younger nurses,' added the Sister. It began to sound like a rather well-rehearsed chorus and Wingstead and I exchanged a glance of slowly dawning comprehension.

'Am I not correct, Mister Mannix, in saying that you consider it the safest and most prudent course for your men to leave Kodowa, to try and get away to a place of safety?'

'You heard me say so, Doctor.'

'Then it follows that it must also be the correct course for my patients.'

For a long moment no-one said anything, and then I broke the silence. 'Just how do you propose doing that?'

Katabisirua took a deep breath. This was the moment he had been building up to. 'Let me see if I have everything right that I have learned from you. Mister Hammond, you say that the large object you carry on your great vehicle weighs over three hundred tons, yes?'

That's about it.'

'Could you carry another seven tons?'

'No trouble at all,' said Hammond.

'Seven tons is about the weight of a hundred people,' said Katabisirua blandly.

Or one more elephant, I thought with a manic inward chuckle. The silence lengthened as we all examined this bizarre proposition. It was broken by the Doctor, speaking gently and reasonably, 'I am not suggesting that you take us all the way to the coast, of course. There is another good, if small, hospital at Kanja on the north road, just at the top of the next escarpment. It has no airfield and is not itself important, so I do not think it will have been troubled by the war. They could take care of us all.'

I doubted that and didn't for a moment think that Dr Kat believed it either, but I had to hand it to him; he was plausible and a damned good psychologist. Not only did his proposition sound well within the bounds of reason and capability, but I could tell from the rapt faces around me that the sheer glamour of what he was suggesting was beginning to put a spell on them. It was a Pied Piper sort of situation, stuffed with pathos and heroism, and would go far to turn the ignominious retreat into some sort of whacky triumph. The Dunkirk spirit, I thought -the great British knack of taking defeat and making it look like victory.

There was just one little problem. Kanja, it appeared, was on the very road that we had already decided to abandon, heading north into the desert and towards the oilfields at Bir Oassa. I was about to say as much when to my astonishment Wingstead cut in with a question which implied that his thinking was not going along with mine at all.

He said, 'How far to Kanja?'

'About fifty miles. The road is quite good. I have often driven there,' the Doctor said.

Hammond spoke up. 'Excuse me, Doctor. Is it level or uphill?'

'I would say it is fairly flat. There are no steep hills.'

McGrath said, 'We could rig awnings over the bogies to keep off the sun.'

Hammond asked, his mind seething with practicalities, 'Fifty odd patients, and a staff of -?'

'Say ten,' said Sister Ursula.

'What about all the rest, then?'

'They would walk. They are very hardy and used to that, and even those who are wounded will manage. There are a few hospital cars but we have no spare petrol. I believe you do not go very fast, gentlemen.'

'We could take some up on top of the trucks. And we've got your car, Mister Mannix, and Mister Kemp's Land Rover, and perhaps the military could give up some space,' Hammond said.

'And the tractors?' the Sister asked.

'No, ma'am. They're packed inside with steel plates set in cement, and the airlift truck is full of machinery and equipment we might need. But there's room on top of all of them. Awnings would be no problem?'