"Who is she? What's her name? Where is she?
We'll report her to the Bakufu, they could force it out of her."
"They wouldn't care, why should they? The other House--it was a meeting place for revolutionaries, Inn of the Forty-seven Ronin, a week or so ago it was burned to the ground and her head stuck on a spike. Holy Mother of God, Henri, what am I going to do? Hana's dead and I'm alive..."
Early that afternoon Dr. Hoag was in the cutter heading for the Legation wharf at Kanagawa.
Babcott had sent word that he could not leave Kanagawa as he was operating in his clinic there but would return as soon as possible:... sorry, it can't be until late tonight, probably not until tomorrow morning. You're more than welcome to join me here if you wish but be prepared to stay the night as the weather is changeable...
Waiting on the wharf was a Grenadier and Lim who wore a white coat, loose black trousers, slippers and small skullcap. As Hoag came ashore Lim yawned a token bow.
"Heya Mass'er, Lim-ah, Numb'r One Boy."
"We can stop pidgin coolie talk, Lim,"
Hoag said in passable Cantonese, and Lim's eyes crossed. "I am Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened." This was Hoag's Chinese name--the meaning of the two characters nearest to the Cantonese sound of "hoh" and "geh"-- selected out of dozens of possibilities for him by Gordon Chen, the Struan compradore, one of his patients.
Lim stared at him, pretending not to understand, the usual and quickest way to make a foreign devil lose face who had the impertinence to dare to learn a few words of the civilized tongue. Ayeeyah, he thought, who's this gamy fornicator, this putrid red devil mother-eater with the neck of a bull, this toadlike monkey who has the gall to speak in our tongue with such a foul superior manner...
"Ayeeyah," Hoag said sweetly, "also I have many, very many dirty word to describe a fornicator's mother and her putrefying parts if a man from a dog-piss, dung-heap village gives me an eyelid of cause--like pretending not to understand me."
"Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened?
Ayeeyah, that's a good name!" Lim guffawed.
"And never have I heard such good man-talk from a foreign devil in many a year."
"Good. You will soon hear more if I am called again foreign devil. Noble House Chen selected my name."
"Noble House Chen?" Lim gawked at him.
"Illustrious Chen who has more bags of gold than an oxen has hairs? Ayeeyah, what a fornicating privilege!"
"Yes," Hoag agreed, adding not quite the truth, "and he told me if I have any dung-mixed troubles from any person of the Middle Kingdom--be he high or low--or not the at-once-service a friend of his must expect, to mention the vile fornicator's name on my return."
"Oh ko, Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened, it is indeed an honor to have you in our humble dung-heap house."
Dr. Hoag felt he had achieved greatness, blessing his teachers, mostly grateful patients, who had taught him the really important words and how to deal with certain persons and situations in the Middle Kingdom. The day was pleasant and warm and the look of the small town pleased him, the temples he could see over the rooftops, fishermen trawling the inland waters, peasants everywhere in the paddy, people coming and going and the inevitable stream of travellers on the Tokaido beyond.
By the time they reached the Legation with Lim's overtly attentive support, Hoag had a fairly good picture of what the situation was in Kanagawa, today's number of Babcott's patients, and what to expect.
George Babcott was in his surgery, assisted in the operation by a Japanese acolyte, a trainee appointed by the Bakufu to learn Western medicine, the anteroom outside crowded with villagers, men and women and children. The operation was messy, a foot amputation: "Poor fellow's a fisherman, got his leg trapped between the boat and the wharf, should never have happened, too much sak`e I'm afraid. When I'm through we can discuss Malcolm. Did you see him?"
"Yes, no hurry. It's good to see you, George, can I help in any way?"
"Thanks, I'd appreciate that. I'm all right here but if you could sift through the mob outside?
Those who are urgent, those who can wait. Treat any you want. There's another "surgery" next door though it's little more than a sickroom.
Mura, give me the saw," he said in studied English to his assistant and accepted the tool and began to use it. "Whenever I have a surgery here it gets hectic. In the cabinet there are the usual placebos, iodine, etc., usual medicines, painkillers, bitter cough mixtures for the sweet old ladies and sweet ones for the angry."
Hoag left him and looked over the waiting men women and children, astonished with their orderliness, patience, the bows and lack of noise. Quickly he established none had smallpox, leprosy, measles, typhoid or cholera or any of the other infectious diseases or plagues that were endemic in most of Asia. More than a little relieved he began to question them individually and met with grave suspicion. Fortunately, one was an elderly itinerant Cantonese letter writer and soothsayer, Cheng-sin, who could also speak some Japanese. With his help--after being introduced as the Giant Healer's Teacher--and a promise of an especially good, new modern medicine to ease his hacking cough, Dr. Hoag began a second surgery.
Some had minor ailments. A few were serious.
Fevers, illnesses, dysentery and the like, some he could diagnose, some he could not. Broken limbs, sword and knife cuts, ulcers. One, a young woman, in great pain, heavily pregnant.
His practiced eye told him the birth, her fourth, would be bad and that most of her trouble was caused by marrying too young, working the fields too long and carrying too much. He gave her a small bottle of opium extract. "Tell her when her time is come and the pain is bad to drink a spoonful."
"Spoonful? How big, Honorable Wise Enlightened?"
"A normal-size spoon, Cheng-sin."
The woman bowed. "Domo arigato gozaimashita," she muttered as she left, pathetic in her thanks, both hands trying to carry the weight of her belly.
Children with fevers and colds and hookworm, sores but not nearly as bad as he had expected, no mal-aria. Teeth generally good and strong, eyes clear, no lice--all patients astonishingly clean and healthy compared with similar villagers in China. No opium addicts. After an hour he was happily in his stride. He had just finished setting a broken arm when the door opened and a well-dressed, attractive young girl came in hesitantly and bowed. Her kimono was blue patterned silk, the obi green, hair dressed with combs. Blue sunshade.
Hoag noticed Cheng-sin's eyes narrow.
She answered his questions and spoke even more persuasively though clearly quite nervous, her voice soft.
"Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened,"
Cheng-sin said, his speech punctuated with the permanent, dry cough that Hoag had diagnosed instantly as terminal consumption. "This Lady say her brother need important help, near death. She beg you to accompany her--house is nearby."
"Tell her to have him brought here."
"Unfortunately afraid to move him."
"What's the matter with him?"
After more questions and answers, which to Hoag sounded more like bargaining than anything else, Cheng-sin said, "Her house only one or two street outside.
Her brother is..." he coughed as he searched for the word, "sleep like dead man, but alive with mad talk and fever." His voice became more honeyed.
"She afraid move him, Honorable Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened. Her brother samurai, she say many important persons very happy if you help brother. I think she say truth."
From Hong Kong newspapers Hoag was acquainted with the importance of samurai as the absolute ruling class in Japan, and that anything that would gain their confidence, and thus their cooperation, would assist British influence. He studied her. At once she dropped her eyes.
Her nervousness increased. She appeared to be fifteen or sixteen and her features quite unlike the villagers, lovely skin. If her brother's samurai so is she, he thought, intrigued.