Free Outpost Hospital by Sheila Ridley Page A

I’ve grown very fond of you, Kathie, my dear. I’ll miss you more than I can say.”
    “I’ll miss you, too, Andrew. And I’ll come back as soon as I can, I promise. Now I must put a few things into a case. When can we start?”
    “We’ll be on our way first thing in the morning.”
    “Couldn’t we go this evening?” she asked eagerly.
    He smiled. “I’m afraid not. It will be dark very soon and Howard, my friend with the plane, lives 60 miles away.”
    A door banged and Andrew said, “That sounds like Charlton coining in. I’ll go and tell him what’s happened.”
    Katherine sponged her face and ran a comb through her hair before following him, and when she reached the living-room door he had already broken the news to Mark.
    Seeing her in the doorway Mark swung around, his hands on his hips. “What’s this all about, Nurse Marlowe?” he asked sharply. “Kennedy tells me you want to go home.”
    Shaken by his anger, Katherine said, “But he told you why, didn’t he?” She glanced at Andrew who nodded, a puzzled frown on his face.
    “He told me that your father is ill, and I’m sorry about it,” Charlton replied, his voice still hard, “but you surely don’t think that is sufficient reason for abandoning your work here? I’m very surprised that you should wish to put your personal interest before you r obligation to the patients.”
    “I ... I’m not, I mean ...” she stammered. She felt awfully small and miserable as she stood looking up at him, trying to frame a reply that would make him understand and sympathize. Why did he twist things to make it seem that she was in the wrong? “I just want to go for a little while until my father is out of danger. There’s no one else.”
    The doctor’s dark face did not soften. “Kennedy says he’s in hospital—in the Grinsley General, in fact.” She nodded. “Then you know he’s being well looked after,” he went on. “You couldn’t do anything for him that isn’t already being done.”
    “I wasn’t thinking of medical treatment,” she said, more boldly. “I know the hospital will do everything that’s necessary in that way. But I’m all the family he has; well, except for an old uncle. He’ll be so lonely.”
    “Has he no friends?”
    “Oh, yes. He has a good many close friends.”
    “Then they will take care of the visiting. Can I see the cable?” Katherine gave it to him, and he studied it carefully. “Is this Mrs. Parks a responsible person?”
    Recalling the housekeeper’s invariable habit of seeing the blackest side of any situation, Katherine hesitated. “Well, I suppose she might have been in a bit of a panic when she sent that cable,” she said eventually. “But—”
    “But,” Mark broke in, “your father is undoubtedly ill. Yes, but you must consider both sides of the matter calmly. You have responsibilities here, and you owe it to the people who depend on us to remember them. It may well be that your father only needs a few weeks’ rest to restore him to health.”
    “That’s possible,” she agreed. “But it’s just as likely that he is seriously ill.”
    Mark turned away from her and stood, feet apart, staring out of the window. “Even if you were sure he was seriously ill I should expect you to put your work here first.”
    Katherine looked at Andrew who came to her and put his arm around her shoulders, but said nothing. Tears were in her eyes as she said, to no one in particular, “What am I to do?”
    Andrew’s arm tightened. “I think you’d best leave it till the morning before you come to a decision. It’s always easier to see things clearly the next morning.”
    “Perhaps you’re right, Andrew,” she said shakily. “I don’t think I could decide now, anyway.”
    Mark turned to face them. With his back to the window, it was impossible to see the expression on his face. “I may as well tell you, Nurse, that if you decide to go I will be compelled to ask for a replacement for you,” he