Free Kindling by Nevil Shute Page B

the road.”
    “Out of a job?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where are you going to?”
    “I was walking down to Hull. Then if I couldn’t get anything there, I was going on to London.”
    The surgeon eyed him keenly. “You’re an educated man. What’s your job?”
    “I’m a bank clerk.”
    The surgeon got up from the bed. “Well,” he said, “you won’t be fit to walk to Hull for a couple of weeks yet.”
    He moved on to the next bed. At the end of his round he walked down to the Secretary’s office, and through it to the Almoner’s little room. He found Miss MacMahon at her desk.
    “That bank clerk in the surgical,” he said. “He’ll be ready for discharge in three or four days—say at the endof the week. But I understand he’s walking the roads.”
    “That’s right, sir. He told me he was walking to Hull.”
    The surgeon considered for a minute. “He won’t be fit to walk to Hull for a fortnight. You’d better go down to the Labour Exchange and see if he can draw a fortnight’s benefit here before he leaves the town. Tell them he’s convalescing.”
    The Almoner made a little grimace. “I’ll try it on, Doctor, but I don’t know that we’ll get away with it. You remember that man Halliday?”
    The surgeon did; he hesitated. “Well, try it on. They can’t expect us to support a man when he’s fit for discharge. Besides, I want the bed.”
    The Almoner nodded. “I’ll go down right away.”
    Behind their backs the Secretary spoke. “If he’s a bank clerk, I could use him for a fortnight here.” They turned to him. “With Vernon off sick I’m that behind with my books I just don’t know how we’ll get through. There’s the auditors coming in the middle of next month. Could he check the ledgers, do you think?”
    “I don’t know,” said the Almoner. “I suppose he could.”
    “Let him come down, and let me have a word with him,” said the Secretary. “I’ll know if he can help us, then. It might suit both.”
    “We’d have to fit him in somewhere else to sleep for that fortnight,” said the Almoner. “I could see the Matron about that.”
    The surgeon turned away. “Fix it up that way if you like,” he said. “We can’t afford to keep him after he’s fit to walk, though. And get him out of the ward by the end of the week.”
    By the end of the week Warren was sitting in the Secretary’s office totting up ledgers. It was a great many years since he had served his apprenticeship in his father’s bank and he had some difficulty with the work; there are few things so difficult to the amateur as simple addition on the scale required for an audit. Miss MacMahon asked the Secretary after the first day:
    “How’s your new clerk doing?”
    He smiled dourly. “I’m not surprised he’s out of a job.”
    She was interested. “Isn’t he any good?”
    “He’s slow—very slow. A good lad of sixteen would do it quicker.”
    “I suppose it’s not the sort of work he’s used to. If he’s no good to you we’ll have to think of something else.”
    The Secretary rubbed his chin. “Leave him a while. I’d no say that he’s no use, only he isn’t handy with the books. He was telling me the way they make up the charges in the bank, which is a thing I never rightly understood—no more than anyone else. He was showing me the way we could save half of one per cent on the overdraft. That’s over a hundred a year saved—if he’s right.”
    The girl smiled. “If he’s saved us a hundred a year already we can afford to keep him for the next fortnight,” she said. “Whether he can tot up books or not.”
    “It’s no saved yet,” said the Secretary cautiously. “I must think on it.”
    The next afternoon Warren had his first walk in Sharples.
    He went first to the Post Office nearby, and sent apostcard to Morgan, giving his address and strict instructions that he was not to be written to except on the most urgent necessity. Having thus satisfied his business conscience, he set