"What's her name?"
"Uki Ichikawa. Please to hurry."
"Her brother's an important samurai?"
"Yes," Cheng-sin said. "I accompany you, not be fear."
Hoag snorted. "Afraid? Me? The pox on fear! Wait here." He went to the surgery, opened the door quietly. Babcott was heavily involved extracting an abscessed tooth, his knee on the youth's chest, the distraught mother wringing her hands and chattering. He decided not to disturb him.
At the gates the Sergeant of the Guard politely stopped them and asked where he was going.
"I'll send a couple of my lads with you.
Better safe than sorry."
The girl tried to dissuade them from bringing soldiers but the Sergeant was adamant. At length she agreed and, more nervously, led the way down one street, into an alley, into another and then another. The villagers they passed averted their eyes and scuttled away. Hoag carried his doctor's bag. Over the rooftops he could still see the temple, and was reassured, and glad for the soldiers, knowing it would have been foolhardy to go without them. Cheng-sin plodded along, a tall staff in his hand.
This young lady's not all she pretends to be, Hoag thought, not a little excited by the adventure.
Into another alley. Then she stopped at a door set in a tall fence and knocked. A grill opened, then the door. When the burly servant saw the soldiers he started to close it but the girl imperiously ordered him to desist.
The garden was small, well kept but not extravagant. At the steps to the veranda of a small shoji house, she slipped out of clog shoes and asked them to do the same. It was awkward for Hoag as he wore high boots. At once she ordered the servant to help him and was obeyed instantly.
"You two best guard here," Hoag said to the soldiers, embarrassed by the holes in his socks.
"Yes sir." One of the soldiers checked his rifle. "I'll just look around the back. Any trouble just shout."
The girl slid back the shoji. Ori Ryoma, the shishi of the Tokaido attack, lay on the futons, the sheet soaking, a maidservant fanning him. Her eyes widened seeing Hoag and not Honorable Medicine Giant Healer as she had expected and she backed away as he came in ponderously.
Ori was unconscious, in a coma--his swords on a low rack nearby, a flower arrangement in the takoma. Hoag squatted on his haunches beside him. The youth's forehead was very hot, face flushed, dangerously high fever.
The cause was quickly apparent as Hoag pulled away the bandage on his shoulder and upper arm.
"Christ," he muttered, seeing the extent of the puffy, poisonous inflammation, the telltale smell and black of dead tissue--gangrene-- around the bullet wound.
"When was he shot?"
"She not know exactly. Two or three weeks."
Once more he looked at the wound. Then, oblivious of all the eyes focused on him, he went out and sat on the edge of the veranda and stared into space.
All I need now is my fine Hong Kong hospital and fine operation equipment, my wonderful Nightingale nurses, together with a barrel of luck, to save this poor youth. Fucking guns, fucking wars, fucking politicians...
For God's sake, I've been trying to patch up gun mutilations all my working life, failing most of the time--six years with the East India Company in bloody Bengal, fifteen years in the Colony and Opium War years, a volunteered year in the Crimea, the bloodiest of all, with the Hong Kong Hospital Detachment. Fucking guns! Christ, what a waste!
After he had sworn his rage away he lit a cheroot, puffed, then discarded the match. At once the shocked servant rushed forward and picked up the offending object.
"Oh sorry," Hoag said, not having noticed the pristine cleanliness of the path and surrounds.
He inhaled deeply, then dismissed everything from his mind except the youth. At length he decided, began to throw his butt away, stopped and gave it to the servant who bowed and went to bury it.
"Cheng-sin, tell her I'm sorry but if I operate or not I think her brother will die.
Sorry."
"She says "If die is karma. If no help, he dies today, tomorrow. Please to try. If he dies, karma. She ask help."
Cheng-sin added softly: "Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened, this youth important.
Important try, heya?"
Hoag looked at the girl. Her eyes gazed back at him.
"Dozo, Hoh Geh-sama," she said.
Please.
"Very well, Uki. Cheng-sin, tell her again I can't promise anything but I'll try. I will need soap, lots of hot water in bowls, lots of clean sheets, lots of sheets torn into swabs and bandages, lots of quiet and someone with a strong stomach to help me."
At once the girl pointed at herself.
"Soji shimasu." I will do it.
Hoag frowned. "Tell her it will be very unpleasant, much blood, much stink, and ugly."
He saw her listen intently to the Chinese, then reply with evident pride, "Gomen nasai, Hoh Geh-san, wakarimasen. Watashi samurai desu."
"She say, "Please to excuse, I understand.
I am samurai."
"I don't know what that means to you, pretty young lady, and I didn't know women could be samurai, but let's begin."
Hoag found out quickly that one characteristic of samurai was courage. Never once did she falter during the cleaning operation, cutting away the infected tissue, releasing the foul-smelling pus, flushing the wound, blood pulsing from a partially severed vein until he could stanch the flow and repair it, swabbing and swabbing again--the big sleeves of the maid's kimono into which she had changed rolled up and fastened out of the way, and the scarf with which she had tied back her hair, both soon soiled and reeking.
For an hour he worked away, humming from time to time, ears closed, nostrils closed, every sense engrossed, repeating an operation he had done a thousand times too often. Cutting, sewing, cleaning, bandaging. Then he had finished.
Without haste he stretched to ease his cramped back muscles, washed his hands and took off the now bloody sheet he had used as an apron.
Ori was balanced on the edge of the veranda as a makeshift table, he standing in the garden against it: "Can't operate on my knees easily, Uki," he had said.
Everything he had wanted done she had done without hesitation. There had been no need to anesthetize the man he was told was Hiro Ichikawa, his coma was so deep. Once or twice Ori cried out, but not from pain, just some devil in his nightmare. And struggled, but without strength.
Ori sighed deeply. Anxiously Hoag felt his pulse. It was imperceptible, so was the breathing. "Never mind," he muttered. "At least he has a pulse."
"Gomen nasai, Hoh Geh-san," the soft voice said, "anata kangaemasu, hai, iy`e?"
"She says, "Excuse me, Honorable Wise Enlightened you think yes or no?"'
Cheng-sin coughed. He had spent the time well away from the veranda, his back towards them.
Hoag shrugged, watching her, wondering about her, where the strength came from, where she lived and what would happen now. She was quite pale, her features stark but still dominated by an iron will. His eyes crinkled with a smile. "I don't know. It's up to God.
Uki, you number one. Samurai."
"Domo... domo arigato gozaimashita." Thank you. She bowed to the tatami. Her real name was Sumomo Anato, she was Hiraga's wife-to-be, and Shorin's sister, not Ori's.
"She asks what should she do now?"
"For her brother, nothing at moment. Tell the maid to put cold towels on his forehead and keep bandages soaked with clean water until the fever goes down. If the... once the fever's gone --I hope before dawn--the youth will live.
Perhaps." And what are the odds, was usually the next question. This time it did not happen. "Well, I'll go now. Tell her to send guide for me early tomorrow morning..." if he's still alive, was in his mind but he decided not to say it.
As Cheng-sin translated he began to wash his instruments. The girl beckoned the manservant and spoke to him. "Hai," the man said and hurried away.