During the Plague

Summary

Under the blistering saffron skies of a cantonment somewhere between Peshawar and the Deccan, Dr. Warren—scalpel-wielding ascetic in a starched colonel’s tunic—trades domestic silk for field-stench, convinced that cholera-stricken sepoys matter more than his restless porcelain wife, Alice, who drifts through shuttered bungalows like a perfumed ghost. Enter Captain Alston: moustache like a sabre, laugh like champagne uncorked at noon, eager to fill the surgeon’s empty side of the marital bed with whispered nothings and garden-party gallantry. Rumours smoulder, yet duty howls louder: a river-camp erupts into bubonic hell, Warren’s experimental serum its only fragile bridge back from mass grave; he vanishes into the inferno of pus and burning huts, leaving two would-be lovers to their own devices. A chance encounter with a feverish child on the Grand Trunk Road turns gallant escort into death sentence for Alston, who, swaying in the saddle, seeks refuge in the very bungalow where Alice finally learns that her husband’s absence is martyrdom, not abandonment. Guilt ricochets; she hides the delirious captain just as Warren—gaunt, reeking of carbolic and kismet—returns, revolver in hand, Hippocratic oath in shambles. One heartbeat later, ethics eclipse vendetta: the doctor drags rival-turned-patient into the lab, sweating bullets and antitoxin alike, saving the very life that insulted him. Convalescence breeds contrition; Alston vows exile, Alice begs reconciliation, and Warren confronts the mirror of his own emotional malpractice, allowing the marriage to cauterise into something rawer, realer, radiant.

Synopsis

Dr. Warren, a reserved man of a seemingly stern, cold nature, which is roused only in behalf of his loved profession, is an army surgeon, stationed in India. In the pursuit of his duties, he leaves his beautiful, pleasure-loving wife, Alice, to her own devices. Captain Richard Alston, a handsome young officer, tries to make up for the husband's neglect by paying the pretty wife decided attention. Dr. Warren's suspicions are aroused, but at this juncture he is called away by an attack of plague at the river camp, some distance away, where a serum that he has discovered is demanded to stem the death rate. Dr. Warren works heroically among the wretched huts of the natives, nursing the sick and burning down the hovels to prevent the spread of the infection. In her loneliness, Alice sends for Captain Alston. On the road he encounters a child stricken with the plague. Alston puts the little one on the saddle before him and gallops away toward the hospital. When later he arrives at the Warren villa he reels with an awful sickness; the deadly infection has overtaken him. Alice, horrified and distressed, suddenly discovers a note to her husband, advising him of the plague at the river camp. This is her first knowledge of the reason for his absence, and suddenly she realizes that it is her husband she fears for most, and loves most, after all. At this moment the Indian servant announces the approach of Dr. Warren, returning after successfully accomplishing his surgical labors. Alice drags Alston into an adjoining room and goes to meet her husband. The doctor wonders at her nervous, frightened manner, when there is a sudden crash in the next room. The doctor rushes in, his terrified wife following, and finds Captain Alston prostrate on the floor. Alice springs between the angry husband and the helpless officer. Dr. Warren pushes her aside, and going into his laboratory, selects a revolver from the wall. As he turns to go, Alice confronts him and forcefully reminds him of his duty as a soldier and a surgeon. Torn by conflicting emotions but moved by his sense of professional duty to suffering humanity, the doctor hesitates only a moment. Forgetting all other impulses, he treats and cures the stricken captain. After Alston recovers, he goes to the doctor and promises to do whatever may be asked of him as atonement. The doctor asks him to promise to leave the country forever. Then, turning to his wife, he tells her to choose whether she will go with the captain or remain with him. Alice, now awakened to the full nobility of her husband, asks him to let her remain. The doctor, too, realizes his neglect of Alice, and husband and wife are at last united on the basis of a greater understanding and a truer and more abiding bond.