Lease-Lend Lochinvar

Short Story:

OH, Arthur, this is awful. Can’t you make it go?” she asked fearfully; “it is getting so late.”

“What do you mean, can’t I make it go? Do you think I’m doing this for fun?” he demanded querulously, straightening his aching back and brushing the hair from his forehead with the back of one hand.

The streak of oil left across his sweat ing brow did not improve his appearance, already dishevelled by reason of some hours’ fruitless fiddling with reluctant mechanism. His eyes—those sulky brown eyes that had done so much to wreck her peace of mind in the far-off days before her marriage to John—glared angrily into her, fell before her anxious gaze, and ran nervously over his own besmirched cloth ing and bleeding knuckles.

“Please, Arthur, don’t let us quarrel. It’s just that I am so worried,” she pleaded.

“Worried! Do you think I am enjoying it myself? I don’t know what’s wrong with the blasted thing. I’m no good at this sort of thing,” he snapped, the admis sion sounding somehow like a boast.

NO, he’s no good at that sort of thing, she reflected hopelessly, returning to the seat beside the wheel. Not like John —John used to say that a man should not take on something he could not con trol under all circumstances. She won deredd idly how John would react to this situation . . . But no, she must not think about that. She had finished with John for good, as he’d find out for himself when he returned to the empty house to-night from Kagali and found the note she’d left on the table.

It would be a shock for him, of course, but he would have to get over that. She just couldn’t stand any more.

These past six months on Viti Malu had been too'much. It had been different be fore the war, of course. Marriaee with John had seemed, then, the best thing in the world for both of them. She really had not known much about the world.

Born on Gala-Gala, on her father’s plantation around the beach from Kagali. she’d seen nothing of the outside world except a couple of months in Sydney every two years. And she’d always been glad to get back to the island again. It was the life she knew, and those hurrying crowds in Sydney frightened her —so ruthless and crude, lost in their own affairs. And John was so cheerful and unflurried, doing very well in his “private world” as he call ed his lovely little island of Viti Malu.

“You will be oueen there,” he had said.

But the war had spoilt it all; the flight to Sydney when the Japs approached; the three long years while John was in the Air Force; a never-ending sequence of pat riotic activities, dances, canteens, picncs, for men on leave. She had succumbed to the attraction, or rather, the fascination of Sydney life.

And then the peace, John’s discharge and their belated return to Viti Malu, their once lovely home now over-run with jungle re-growth and half wrecked by Jap looters. Oh, it was too much!

“T JUST can’t stand it, Arthur,” she had A told him half hysterically, sitting on the verandah overlooking Uie western sea that morning. John had been gone since before sunrise on the six-hour trip round to Kagali, to order materials need ed for reconstruction and (he had said it with that tantalising grin of his), to pick up a little birthday present he had ordered for her.

Scarcely an hour later, coming in from the northern end of Gala Gala, Arthur had stepped ashore from his own small launch. He’d come to say good-bye, he said; he had sold out his interests on Gala Gala and wanted John to give him a lift in his bigger boat on the less easy open sea trip to Takala in the western islands, in time to catch the steamer leaving for Sydney that night.

“I know how you feel, Madge,” he said.

“I couldn’t stick it any longer either.

Those years in Sydney have spoilt me for the islands. But you don’t have to stand it. Let us make a break!! Grab a few clothes and we’ll take the small boat and

A Romance in the Best Traditions of Virtue Triumphant

By V. J. Hearnes

hop over to Takala, and away on the steamer to-night. You know I was always fond of you, years before John ever turned up, and we can make a new start in Syd ney or Melbourne.”

OH, it was madness, she realised now, listening to the petulant muttering from the incompetent fig;ire struggl ing with the obstinate engine.

But that morning she had felt so hope less, so miserable and despondent, think ing with a shiver of the past six months back on the island, the scanty post-war food supply and bad water, indolent native servants spoiled by four years loafing back in their villages. And ahead, two years or more of hard work before the planta tion was back on its feet again, with no guarantee of security even then, the way the world was going. Then the lonely monotony—two years on Viti Malu, two months in Sydney, two years on Viti Malu —work and sweat and squabbles, ragged nerves and frayed tempers . . .

John had been a different man since the war, too; gentle with her mostly, but at times hard and impatient, different from the laughing, confident young giant who had come down from his island to the social gatherings at Kagali and carried her off at last, away from Arthur and the rest of her ring of admirers.

But he had never had much time for Arthur, she remembered. Not jealous, actually, but simply didn’t like him.

“He may be one of your friends, Madge, but I don’t like him around the place too much,” he had said shortly. “He hangs round too many women. He's just not straight.” And that had ended it, for John. He did not harp on things.

Maybe he was right, too; she had heard a number of things about Arthur during the years in Sydney. He had got into a Government department of some sort, and seemed to enjoy a good deal of social ac tivity. But still, he had always been fond of her, and maybe they could make a do of it.

But now, scarcely half-way to Takala, they were stuck in a small boat, the en

gine broken down, and Arthur unable to get it going again. And night was falling —she shivered again.

The prospect of a night alone with Arthur in the launch dismayed her. It would have been so different on the steam er. Different cabins, and probably mutual friends found on board; she’d have had time to get used to things before they were alone in Sydney.

A FAINT humming sound, unexpected but recognised, jerked her from her, despondent musings. Glancing quick ly upwards, she made out a small, bright red shape against the darkening blue of the eastern sky, a shape that grew rapidly until it became a small float-plane racing up at mast height. Roaring past, it swung round in a gentle curve, glided confidently down to the waveless, swelling sea, and came swiftly back against the late sun, silvery sparkles edging the twin sprays thrown up by the floats. The idling pro peller mocked her racing heart . . .

John slipped down on to a float and jumped agilely to the launch, tied a moor ing rope quickly, then straightened up and faced her.

“Well, louse, couldn’t take it, eh?” he taunted her.

She dropped her eyes. Somehow, it all seemed so petty now. And there was something so comforting, so reassuring, in his upright body and steady eyes, even in his bantering voice.

“You might have waited till I brought your birthday present home, anyway.

What do you think of her? Got her from the Yanks; I heard they were selling a number of them at Noumea, and I grabbed one. Reckoned that with a spare gas tank fitted, she’d do fine for a week-end in Brisbane or Sydney, whenever things got us down a bit.”

“Oh, John .”

“Skip it! Get aboard,” he ordered, haul ing on the mooring rope till the plane floated close alongside.

“But, John .”

“Cut it out, mug, or I might remember that you were running out on me,” he in terrupted, drawing an automatic from a pocket as Arthur’s dishevelled head ap peared above deck. “As for you, brother, I’ll attend to you in a minute.”

Scrambling into the cabin of the plane, she turned in time to see John’s right fist crash into Arthur’s face. A cry of pain, then the sound of a falling body was fol lowed by John’s voice roaring in anger, two thunderous reports, and then a silence more terrible than any noise.

Poking her suitcase into the cabin, John dragged his long frame through the awk ward doorway after her. and fastened the door behind him. “Well, there’s one fella that won’t ever worry us again,” he said, climbing into the seat beside her and fin gering the controls.

“Oh, John, you didn’t ,” her voice faltered.

“Of course I did. I’ll send some boys over to-morrow to tow him away. He’ll look fine being dragged into Takala behind a canoe full of coons.”

“But, John, its awful is he d-dead?”

“No, not quite, though he will be half dead when the boys reach him to-morrow.

I only shot him twice —once in the mag neto 'and once in the drinking-water tank.!

“Home, James!” he chuckled.

Captain O’Neil, US Navy, commander of the Noumea naval base, has placed a number of navy huts in what was far merly known to the Americans as “Con fusion Row” at the disposal of the re turned New Caledonian volunteers. The huts are on the road leading down from Government House.