In a minute he spotted them across the dingy waiting room, and turning into the cafeteria watched them through the smoky glass. She was sitting very still on her corner of the bench, her lovely eyes cast down gazing at nothing. As always he seemed to see something new in her. Trouble has that awesome quality, Trouble and Beauty, of showing new facets without preparation. People who passed her, salesmen, casual travelers, stopped for the break of an instant, stared, and then went on…
Bill finished his coffee and stood up from the counter, thankful to Harris for the whites—when he had accepted them it was without any idea of what the day would offer. They were scarcely soiled, scarcely mussed. As he approached the pair on the bench he saw that Mr. Polk Johnston, on the contrary, showed signs of his recent experience. What had looked to Bill like a swarm of bees incomprehensibly gathered upon him presently developed as a great gathering of burrs. They clung around him, as unnecessary epaulets on his shoulders and shin-guards on his knees; a full cluster adhered to his waist line and service stripes of them trailed down his cuffs.
They were engrossed in conversation when he addressed them.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Johnston. Good afternoon, Miss Trouble.”
Mr. Johnston looked at him with startled eyes.
“And what are you doing here?” he demanded. “—did they send you after me?”
“No, I came of my own accord.”
Johnston relaxed.
“What did you do to your nose?” he inquired.
“Well, you see, Mr. Johnston, that ladder you made wasn’t strong enough for three people in succession and the joke was on me. One of the knots gave way half way down.”
Trouble laughed.
“I could have made it better,” said Johnston resentfully, “if I had the time.”
Bill had a picture of the whole hospital swarming suddenly out the window and down Mr. Johnston’s rope-ladder.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“About twenty minutes,” said Trouble. She looked at her wrist watch. “It took me about an hour—I got a bus at the city limits.”
“I hitch-hiked,” said Mr. Johnston complacently. “I got here only five minutes after she did.”
“I got a taxi,” said Bill, “and came in a poor third. We ought to enter the Olympics like Bonthron and Venski and Cunningham.”
“Hm!” said Mr. Johnston. He did not seem as friendly as upon previous occasions—in fact Bill got the sense that his presence was considered an intrusion.
“I’m not going to the Olympics,” Mr. Johnston continued, “in fact my intention is to go to Tibet this summer. I understand they have a drug that relieves high blood-pressure without this crazy operation.”
“That’s a long way,” said Bill.
“Oh, I’m not going alone. Miss Trouble has just consented to go with me—in the capacity of my wife.”
“I see,” said Bill, but he felt his face reset in a curious uncomfortable way.
“I see you don’t like the idea,” said Johnston observantly. “Old man’s darling and all that. Well, why didn’t you ask her when you had the chance?”
And then suddenly Bill did ask her, not in so many words but by looking straight into her rather stricken blue eyes.
“Internes are not in a position to ask anyone to marry them.”
Trouble hardened protectively.
“You to ask me, Dr. Craig! You that only this morning referred to us as—”
“Can’t we skip that,” said Bill. “We’re out of the hospital now. Anyhow I guess I’ve intruded.”
“You certainly have,” said Trouble, trying desperately to make her eyes fall into line with her bitter voice. What was her choice—back to rock with her mother on the porch of a farmhouse through the best days of her life, or back with her sister making three night stands in movie houses from Bangor to Tallahassee.
So engrossed was she with her thought that only Bill’s eyes, leaving hers suddenly, made her look at Mr. Johnston. He was dead white, the left side of his face was twitching in time to his right hand and arm which played an invisible drum. Bill grabbed his shoulders just in time to keep him from slumping to the floor.
“Stay with him!” he ordered abruptly. “I’ll get coffee.”
III
He sent it back at a run by the cafeteria waiter and phoned the police emergency department for an ambulance. When he came back a small crowd had gathered.
“Stand back!” he ordered without raising his voice. “This man is very sick indeed.”
“What are you going to do?” Trouble demanded.
“Wait for the ambulance. Did he take all the coffee—pour it all into him, Trouble.”
“I couldn’t quite. I could feel his pulse in his shoulder. He just about hasn’t got any.”
“I didn’t think he would.” Again he motioned the crowd away from the bench, and beckoned the huskiest bystander.
“Give me a hand, will you? I’m going to try artificial respiration.”
He straddled the man and went through the motions. Just when he was sure it was hopeless he caught the quiver of a reaction beginning; simultaneously Trouble said in his ear:
“The ambulance orderlies have come. What shall I do?”
“Have them stand by.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Need any help, sir?” one of them asked.
“No—just keep that crowd back—”
Life was returning to Mr. Johnston—it came in a gasp, a lurch, then a sudden grasp on his faculties that made him realize his predicament, try unsuccessfully to sit up and almost with his first breath begin to gasp orders.
“Who are all these people? Take them away! Have them removed.”
“You lie down.” Bill smiled inwardly, as he climbed off the resuscitated torso, thinking: “What does he suppose they are, waiters?”
“Off we go,” he said to the orderlies. “You brought in a stretcher of course.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, load him on. We go to the Battle Hospital.”
He started to follow, somewhat exhausted by his exertion. He felt alone; then he saw what was the matter—Trouble was hanging back.
“Am I supposed to go?”
“Come on, you idiot. Of course you are. Hurry up. They’ve got him in.”
“Do you think anybody there would ever want to see you and me again?”
“Come on now. Don’t be stupid.”
In the darkness of the ambulance Mr. Polk Johnston weakly demanded a cigar.
“I don’t think they furnish them,” said Bill.
“Then I want to go in some ambulance where they do. You ought to know—you’re the only doctor any good out there.”
“Well, I don’t think I can supply you with—”
Dr. Craig never finished that sentence. He was tossed forward precipitately to land on the chair ahead in the approximate straddling position he had used on Mr. Johnston. He saw Trouble flying past him at the same jolt, heard her yelp as she took it on a shoulder against the unbreakable glass. Mr. Johnston was flung up and back like a doll. It was a full minute before Bill could reach around the darkness of the ambulance and get out to see what had happened—then he saw plenty.
They had been run into by a school bus which lay, burning, half on its side against a tall bank of the road, with the little girls screaming as they stumbled out the back. He made a lunge for one who was afire, bumped into Trouble who had chosen the same one and rolled over on to another, beating at the flames with his hands. The two orderlies being in front had guessed the situation earlier and were already at it.
“Is there anyone left inside?” Bill cried after the first wild moment.
Simultaneously he saw that there was one, and acting deliberately wrapped a handkerchief around his palm and smashed the glass. The ambulance driver put his thick gabardine coat over the sill and they dragged the little girl over it. Bill was burning himself and he rolled for a moment in a wet ditch. Half a dozen other cars had come up and they had help now. A quick roll call of the girls by one of them showed no one missing.
“Anyone who lives close go for some flour,” Bill said. “You girls pile into the ambulance—all of you. One of you orderlies stand by the door and see that no clothes are still smoldering. Don’t let anyone you’re not sure of get into that ambulance.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Then go on, quick as you can. Emergency Ward.”
“How about you, sir?”
“I’m all right. I’ll get someone to take me.”
He went back to the ditch and plastered his hands with wet mud—then he discovered Trouble beside him doing the same.
“Let’s get a hitch right over,” he said. “I think maybe they’ll let us in now, don’t you?”
“How about Mr. Johnston?”
“I hadn’t thought about him. He’s off to the hospital in the ambulance. I hope they’re not sitting all over him.”
“They’re not. The orderlies lifted him out to make room. He’s lying over across the road.”
“Alive?”
“Very much so. They’ve tried twice to get him into that car.”
“The old devil. I’ll get that sock off him now or know the reason why.”
He repeated this remark as he knelt to take Johnston’s pulse.
“No, you won’t,” Johnston answered.
“Why won’t I?”
“Because it’s off. I felt sort of ashamed the way you people have to work, so I thought I’d do that for you.”
Bill stooped to the exposed foot.
“Well, I’ll be a son-of-a-gun. It’s nothing but a supernumerary toe!”
“You think that’s nothing! It’s worried me all my life.”
“We’ll take it off tomorrow.” Bill stood up. He breathed. “So that’s all it was. Well, it’ll cost you the expenses of all these little girls.”
“No,” insisted Mr. Johnston, obstinate as ever. “It’ll cost me enough to build you a pediatric wing for your damn hospital—if they’ll take you back. You and your girl.”
