Three Weeks in December (9781609459024) by Audrey Schulman Read Free Book Online Page A

father—on the dairy farm she had grown up on, before she had changed all their surnames back to her maiden name.
    Since the start of the rains, more of the Indians’ cuts were getting infected, fist-sized ulcers rising in a matter of hours, purplish and hot. Jungle sores, they were called. Already, the first cases of malaria had been reported. Yesterday, he had decided he would stroll through the hospital tent to visit the ailing men. He had pictured himself calling out words of good cheer to the three or four patients there, raising spirits, breaking the boredom of the sick bed, perhaps even sitting for a moment and chatting about the rapid progress the railroad was making, the service they were providing to this land.
    Instead, as he stepped into the tent, he saw there were fifteen, maybe twenty, men. In the heat, the stench of vomit and putrefaction rose to his nose. Some of the men shivered in delirium. The male nurses moved between the beds, able to offer little aside from glasses of water, wet towels for fevers and, in the case of gangrene, speedy amputation.
    Since Jeremy was a child, the physical processes of the body had made him light-headed. He could not even bandage his own cuts. The opened flesh and welling blood seemed so disturbing and
animal-like
, distinct from the human soul he recognized as the very essence of himself. His inability to help Grandpapi during calving season—the bawling bloody cows and mucus-covered newborns—had been a lot of his initial motivation for choosing engineering. Manufactured metal was clean, exact and durable, the apex of civilization, worthy of a lifetime’s devotion.
    Standing in the doorway of the hospital tent, he felt his face freeze in horror, an emotion he struggled to erase. These men—who labored hard under this tropical sun, who had traveled thousands of miles away from their families, risking death in a foreign land for the contracted period of three long years—deserved better. He created muscle by muscle the original smile of good cheer he’d had in mind, forced himself forward in a slow amble through the tent. To keep this expression affixed to his face, he made sure not to look directly at any blood-soaked bandages or open wounds, forcing his eyes instead just above the men’s faces, while he nodded and called out words of encouragement. The overriding thought was this was his fault, each fever here, each missing limb, any deaths. He was the one responsible—as much as if he had injected each infection of malaria or inflicted each wound—him and the British, this railroad.
    Just in time, he reached the far end of the tent, raising his hand in a casual salute good-bye. Three paces past the door flap, out of sight of the men, his left leg abruptly crumpled under him. He sat down hard, made no motion to get up, strangely content to listen to the rising static in his ears, while his vision tunneled in until all he could see was a single mango peel discarded in the dirt.
    Â 
    â€œBwana,” a man’s voice said.
    Startled from his memories, Jeremy looked up from his slouch in the saddle, recalling this hunt. Otombe was pointing to a large creature two hundred yards ahead in the midst of the grassy plain. “Eland,” he said.
    The animal stood as tall as Jeremy imagined a moose must, only it had spiral horns. It stared at the unfamiliar sight of a man astride a horse. He reined Patsy in hurriedly, although there was little possibility of escape for his prey. Its best hope would be to gallop—dewlaps flapping—for the crest of the hill half a mile away in an attempt to reach shelter on the far side. Wishing to forestall this option, Jeremy grabbed his 450 Express and raised it to his shoulder, ready to squeeze off the shot. For a moment he paused then, for the eland hadn’t begun to run, but was still standing there, its deerlike eyes watching, filled with curiosity at his action. It had never seen a