A short while later, they were arranged around the camp fire, watching Éha and Rani obliviously playing cat’s cradle. Éha’s efforts were soon rewarded with a tangled mess, but Rani showed her patiently how the game was done.
‘Do you really think Doc can help them?’ Theuli asked Ralph.
Deborah lay asleep by the fire, her blankets carefully wrapped around her. She did not look well. Having her freedom restricted was taking its toll on her, and she was becoming feverish in the evenings.
‘I think they can’t go on as they are,’ Ralph replied. ‘Something has to be done.’
Pran sighed, and with great reluctance raised the bleak question, ‘What if nothing can be done? What then?’
For that, they had no answer.
Late that evening, as Ralph and Malina, Theuli and Pran, sat at the crude picnic table, drinking tea and talking quietly, Ralph suddenly remembered something.
‘Oh, yeah! I made something the other day, and forgot all about it.’ He got up and left them, going to the blacksmith shop briefly. They soon heard his heavy footfalls as he returned and resumed his seat. He then plunked an object down on the table.
The others could only stare.