Free Kindling by Nevil Shute

and American hospitals. I’ve only been in this country for a fortnight.”
    She softened. “I forgot.” She glanced at him queerly. “You’ve come from the New World, and you don’t know anything about your own country. Funny.”
    “What do you mean?”
    She answered his question with another. “What did you think of your country when you came back to it again? What did you think of Sharples?”
    “I’ve never seen Sharples.”
    “But how did you get here?”
    “I got picked upon the road when I was ill, and brought along here on a motor lorry.”
    She got up from the bed. “You’ve got a lot to learn about this country, Mr. Warren,” she said coldly. “You’d have done better to have stayed in America. In this country a man on public assistance gets about five shillings a week for his food—not that, unless he’s economical. After five years of that you can’t expect him to stand operations very well. I should have thought that was obvious, even in America.”
    She swept away, and left Warren to his own reflections.
    Five shillings a week for food—it didn’t seem very much. The riveter had told him that his weekly incomefrom the public assistance committee was thirty-one and six, out of which nine and threepence went for rent. That left twenty-two and threepence for everything else, for four people. If you deducted something for fuel—he did not know how much—and for clothing, it looked as if five shillings was an overstatement.
    How much food could you get for five shillings? Like most men, Warren was lamentably ignorant of the price of food. Eggs, he thought, were twopence each; if you lived exclusively on eggs that would be four and a half eggs a day for five shillings a week. You wouldn’t get fat on that. There were probably cheaper foods than eggs—bread and stuff. However, there was not much nourishment in those.
    And there was no contingency at all to cater for bad management, or ignorance.
    The reason for the listlessness of the patients became clear to him. This was the result of unemployment for five years, of living at a gradually decreasing standard of nourishment. Gradually decreasing, because all families would have some capital, something that could be sold from time to time throughout the early period, to add to the family income. There would be things to be picked up, too, at first, firewood from the deserted shipyard, loose coal from the idle slag heaps—trifles unconsidered in the time of general prosperity. Gradually, as time went on, the town would become swept bare, till at last there would be nothing to supplement the weekly dole.
    And that, it seemed, meant undernourishment. You did not die when you were drawing public assistance money, but you certainly did not remain alive.
    Unlike most hospitals, Warren thought, there was nowireless laid on to the beds. That evening after tea, however, Miss MacMahon appeared with an electric portable, set it on a table at the end of the ward, and plugged it to a concert of “old favourites”. The effect upon the ward was magical. Men who had lain inert all day turned their heads and raised themselves on one elbow; the ward woke up. The Almoner strolled over to Warren’s bed.
    “Good thing, that,” he said. “Gives them an interest.”
    She nodded. “I wish we could have it laid on properly, with headphones at the beds. Having it like this means you can only have it when there’s nobody very ill in the ward.” She smiled at him wryly. “And as you’ve pointed out, that isn’t very often.”
    He said, “I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn this morning.”
    “I was unnecessarily rude,” she said. “Forget it.”
    The ward was thoroughly awake. The men were humming the familiar tunes, singing in low, discordant tones, beating rhythmically with one hand on the counterpane. Warren lay and watched them for a time.
    “How much does it cost to put in wireless to the beds?” he asked. “I should have thought it would have