“Yes.”
“Good.” He sounded pleased yet cold, a busy voice and humorless.
“Are you the port-doctor?” asked Sondelius.
“No, not exactly. I’m Dr. Stokes, of St. Swithin’s Parish. We’re all of us almost everything, nowadays. The port-doctor— In fact he died couple of days ago.”
Martin grunted. But his imagination had ceased to agitate him.
“You’re Dr. Sondelius, I imagine. I know your work in Africa, in German East—was out there myself. And you’re Dr. Arrowsmith? I read your plague phage paper. Much impressed. Now I have just the chance to say before we go ashore— You’ll both be opposed. Inchcape Jones, the S.G., has lost his head. Running in circles, lancing buboes—afraid to burn Carib, where most of the infection is. Arrowsmith, I have a notion of what you may want to do experimentally. If Inchcape balks, you come to me in my parish—if I’m still alive. Stokes, my name is.... Damn it, boy, what are you doing? Trying to drift clear down to Venezuela?... Inchcape and H.E. are so afraid that they won’t even cremate the bodies—some religious prejudice among the blacks—obee or something.”
“I see,” said Martin.
“How many cases plague you got now?” said Sondelius.
“Lord knows. Maybe a thousand. And ten million rats.... I’m so sleepy!... Well, welcome, gentlemen—” He flung out his arms in a dry hysteria. “Welcome to the Island of Hesperides!”
Out of darkness Blackwater swung toward them, low flimsy barracks on a low swampy plain stinking of slimy mud. Most of the town was dark, dark and wickedly still. There was no face along the dim waterfront—warehouses, tram station, mean hotels—and they ground against a pier, they went ashore, without attention from customs officials. There were no carriages, and the hotel-runners who once had pestered tourists landing from the St. Buryan, whatever the hour, were dead now or hidden.