Summary
On the blistered edge of empire, where fever tides hiss against a garrison of dented white-washed wards, Dr. Carew—scalpel monk, keeper of sutures and silent hungers—tends the broken bodies of colonial ambition while nursing one unspoken wound: an adoration for Marjorie Caldwell, social butterfly whose laughter flutters like a scarlet flag above the parade ground. She treasures his steadiness yet mistakes it for marble, not blood; enter Lt. Dames, freshly commissioned, eyes like wet ink, swagger that smells of gin and newsprint. In the candle-lit mess, string-quartet sentences are exchanged; Marjorie’s gaze pivots, compass-needle to Dames’s magnetism, and within weeks a regimental chapel witnesses vows that taste of gun-metal to Carew. The newly-weds sail into a Manila posting, but the widowed Mrs. Drew—veiled in jet and rumor—arrives, trailing the musk of disillusion; Dames, already bored, drifts into her boudoir orbit. Carew, sentinel of Marjorie’s sleep, absorbs the gossip, camouflages betrayal as “extra rounds,” and requests transfer east, hoping salt-water will cauterize longing. Both surgeons embark; typhoon, reef, scream of iron: the liner hemorrhages passengers. Dames, sodden with brandy, rips a cork jacket from a matron’s grasp and thrashes toward a lifeboat. Carew stays, half-cruciform, guiding Marjorie through corridors of rising black; dawn reveals them stranded on volcanic sand, corpses rocking like driftwood rosaries. Across the reef, Dames is salvaged by cassocked fishermen; fever, abscess, amnesia—his past dissolves. On island one, Marjorie, sun-scorched, sees Carew’s chivalry etched in salt rime; he withholds her husband’s cowardice, fearing the knowledge would scald. When a steamer’s silhouette glimmers, Carew wrestles his heart, torches a beacon that summons rescue and probable separation. Months later, San Francisco fog: cables list Dames “missing.” Carew proposes; Marjorie hesitates, sensing a ghost. Meanwhile Dames, now Brother Fabrician, kneels among lepers, peeling their bandages like pages of a book he cannot read. Carew tracks the story to that leper-crowned isle; recognition flickers, yet Dames denies the mirror. Abbot and confessional, Manila hospital, trepanation: shards of identity re-anchor. Memory restored, Dames reverts to carousing, intercepts Carew’s correspondence, twists Marjorie’s tenderness into treachery, lunges for revenge. He glimpses his own budding lesions—white as surrender—recoils, plummets into the bay, swallowed by phosphorescent jaws. Carew returns, narrates the ledger of failures; Marjorie, no longer girl but weather-worn woman, chooses the man who never needed reminding that love is an amputation of the self.
Synopsis
Carew, surgeon at an army post, is in love with Marjorie Caldwell, but Marjorie, who is all for social stuff, thinks her feeling toward him is only friendship. Dames comes to the post as junior surgeon, and supersedes Carew in her regard, marrying the girl. Mrs. Drew, a widow, comes to the post and an intrigue begins between Dames and the widow. Carew sees it, and to save Marjorie tells her that his absences are matters of duty. He asks to be transferred to Manila, and he and Dames are both sent there. On the way Carew warns Dames that he will lose Marjorie's love, and they quarrel, Dames being partly drunk. The ship hits a reef, and Dames, in an effort to save himself, wrenches a life preserver from a woman. Marjorie and Carew are left on the ship, but Carew rescues her, and in the morning they are on the shore of an island with an overturned boat and the bodies of their fellow passengers in the surf. On the shore of another island Dames is rescued by an Abbot, but his wounds cause him to lose his identity. On the first island, Marjorie comes to see the strength of Carew's character but he refrains from telling her of the actions of her husband. A ship is sighted, and Carew, after a struggle, lights the beacon that will save them both but probably take Marjorie away from him. In San Francisco they learn that Dames is reported missing. He asks her to be his wife, but she thinks Dames may still be alive. Dames is on the island with lepers, and works with the monks as Father Fabrician. Carew comes to the island and finds Dames at work among the lepers. He recognizes Dames, but the latter denies his identity. He goes to the monastery, tells the Abbot the truth, and Dames leaves with Carew for Manila, and an operation that will restore his memory. After the operation Dames returns to his drunken habits, and reading some of Carew's letters he learns of the feeling of his wife, giving it a sinister turn. As he prepares to assault Carew he sees the marks of leprosy on his arm, becomes agonized with fear, jumps overboard and is lost. In San Francisco Carew finds Marjorie, tells her of the occurrences and of Dame's death, and while she feels sorry that he has gone as he did, she finds her true happiness with Carew.
