The Keys of the Kingdom (27 page)

‘This does not shoot well. But as a symbol it encourages the unswerving obedience of my most trusted followers.’

They went out together into the cold grey day.

From the Street of the Stolen Hours they routed some thirty soldiers and marched to the teeming warrens of the basket-weavers’ quarters by the river. Here the plague had already settled, with the instinct of a dunghill fly. The river dwellings, tiers of cardboard hovels, leaning one on top of another, against the high mud bank, were festering with dirt, vermin, and the disease. Francis saw that unless immediate measures were taken the contagion would spread in this congestion like a raging conflagration.

He said to the Lieutenant, as they emerged, bent double, from the end hovel of the row:

‘We must find some place to house the sick.’

Shon reflected. He was enjoying himself more than he had expected. This foreign priest had shown much ‘face’ in stooping close to the stricken persons. He admired ‘face’ greatly.

‘We shall commandeer the yamen of the
yu shih
– the imperial recorder.’ For many months Shon had been at violent enmity with this official, who had defrauded him of his share of the salt tax. ‘I am confident that my absent friend’s abode will make a pleasing hospital.’

They went immediately to the recorder’s yamen. It was large and richly furnished, situated in the best part of the city. Shon effected entry by the simple expedient of breaking down the door. While Francis remained with half a dozen men to make some preparations for receiving the sick, he departed with the remainder. Presently the first cases arrived in litters and were arranged in rows on quilted mats upon the floor.

That night, as Francis went up the hill towards the mission, tired from his long day’s work, he heard above the faint incessant death music, the shouts of wild carousing and sporadic rifle shots. Behind him, Wai-Chu’s irregulars were looting the shuttered shops. But presently the city fell again to silence. In the still moonlight he could see the bandits, streaming from the Eastern Gate, spurring their stolen ponies across the plains. He was glad to see them go.

At the summit of the hill the moon suddenly was dimmed. It began at last to snow. When he drew near the gateway in the kaolin fence the air was alive and fluttering. Soft dry blinding flakes came whirling out of the darkness, settling on eyes and brow, entering his lips like tiny hosts, whirling so dense and thick that in a minute the ground was carpeted in white. He stood outside, in the white coldness, rent by anxiety, and called in a low voice. Immediately Mother Maria-Veronica came to the gate, holding up a lantern which cast a beam of spectral brightness on the snow.

He scarcely dared to put the question. ‘Are you all well?’

‘Yes.’

His heart stopped pounding in sheer relief. He waited, suddenly conscious of his fatigue and the fact that he had not eaten all that day. Then he said: ‘We have established a hospital in the town … not much … but the best we could do.’ Again he waited, as if for her to speak, deeply sensible of the difficulty of his position, and the greatness of the favour he must ask. ‘If one of the Sisters could be spared … would volunteer to come … to help us with the nursing … I should be most grateful.’

There was a pause. He could almost see her lips shape themselves to answer coldly: ‘You ordered us to remain in here. You forbade us to enter the town.’ Perhaps the sight of his face, worn, drawn and heavy-eyed, through the maze of snowflakes, restrained her. She said: ‘I will come.’

His heart lifted. Despite her fixed antagonism towards him she was incomparably more efficient than Martha or Clotilde. ‘It means moving your quarters to the yamen. Wrap up warmly. And take all you need.’

Ten minutes later he took her bag: they went down to the yamen together in silence. The dark lines of their footprints in the fresh snow were far apart.

Next morning sixteen of those admitted to the yamen were dead. But three times that number were coming in. It was pneumonic plaque and its virulence surpassed the fiercest venom. People dropped with it as if bludgeoned and were dead before the next dawn. It seemed to congeal the blood, to rot the lungs, which threw up a thin white speckled sputum, swarming with lethal germs. Often one hour spaced the interval between a man’s heedless laugh and the grin that was his death-mask.

The three physicians of Pai-tan had failed to arrest the epidemic by the method of acupuncture. On the second day they ceased pricking the limbs of their patients with needles, and discreetly withdrew to a more salubrious practice.

By the end of that week the city was riddled from end to end. A wave of panic struck through the apathy of the people. The southern exits of the city were choked with carts, chairs, overburdened mules and a struggling, hysterical populace.

The cold intensified. A great blight seemed to lie on the afflicted land, here and beyond. Dazed with overwork and lack of sleep, Francis nevertheless dimly sensed the calamity at Pai-tan to be but a portion of the major tragedy. He had no news. He did not grasp the immensity of the disaster: a hundred thousand miles of territory stricken, and half a million dead beneath the snow. Nor could he know that the eyes of the civilized world were bent in sympathy on China, that expeditions quickly organized in America and Britain had arrived to combat the disease.

The torturing suspense deepened daily. There was still no sign of Joseph’s return. Would help never reach them from Sen-siang? A dozen times each day he plodded to the wharfside for the sight of the upcoming boat.

Then, at the beginning of the second week, Joseph suddenly appeared, weary and spent, but with a pale smile of achievement. He had encountered every obstacle. The countryside was in a ferment, Sen-siang a place of torment, the mission there ravaged by the disease. But he had persisted. He had sent his telegrams and bravely waited, hiding in his launch in a creek of the river. Now he had a letter. He produced it with a grimed and shaking hand. More: a doctor who knew the Father, an old and respected friend of the Father, would arrive on the supply boat!

With beating excitement, and a strange wild premonition, Father Chisholm took the letter from Joseph, opened it and read:

Lord Leighton Relief Expedition Chek-kow

DEAR FRANCIS,

I have been in China five weeks now with the Leighton expedition. This should not surprise you if you remember my youthful longings for the decks of ocean-going freighters and the exotic jungles that lay beyond. Quite truly, I thought I had forgotten all that nonsense myself. But at home, when they began asking for volunteers for the relief party, I suddenly surprised myself by joining up. It certainly was not the desire to become a National Hero which prompted the absurd impulse. Probably a reaction, long deferred, against my humdrum life in Tynecastle. And perhaps, if I may say it, a very real hope of seeing you.

Anyhow, ever since we arrived, I’ve been working my way up-country, trying to push myself into your sacred presence. Your telegram to Nankin was turned over to our headquarters there and word of it reached me at Hai-chang next day. I immediately asked Leighton, who is a very decent fellow, despite his title, if I might push off to give you a hand. He agreed and even let me have one of our few remaining power boats. I’ve just reached Sen-siang and am collecting supplies. I will be along full steam ahead, probably arriving twenty-four hours behind your servant. Take care of yourself till then. All my news later.

In haste, Yours, WILLIE TULLOCH

The priest smiled, slowly, for the first time in many days, and with a deep and secret warmth. He felt no great amazement; it was so typical of Tulloch to sponsor such a cause. He was braced, fortified by the unexpected fortune of his friend’s arrival.

It was difficult to hold his eagerness in check. Next day when the relief boat was sighted he hastened to the wharf. Even before the launch drew alongside, Tulloch had stepped ashore, older, stouter, yet unchangeably the same dour quiet Scot, careless as ever in his dress, shy, strong and prejudiced as a Highland steer, as plain and honest as homespun tweed.

The priest’s vision was absurdly blurred.

‘Man, Francis, it’s you!’ Willie could say no more. He kept on shaking hands, confused by his emotion, debarred by his Northern blood from more overt demonstration. At last he muttered, as if conscious of the need of speech: ‘ When we walked down Darrow High Street we never dreamed we’d foregather in a place like this.’ He tried a half-laugh, but with little success. ‘ Where’s your coat and gumboots? You can’t stroll through the pest in these shoes. It’s high time I kept an eye on you.’

‘And on our hospital.’ Francis smiled.

‘What!’ The doctor’s sandy eyebrows lifted. ‘You have a hospital of sorts? Let’s see it.’

‘As soon as you are ready.’

Instructing the crew of the launch to follow him with the supplies, Tulloch set off, at the priest’s side, agile despite his increased girth, his eyes intent in his red hard-wearing face, his thinned hair showing a mass of freckles on his ruddy scalp as he punctuated his friend’s brief report with comprehending nods.

At the end of it, as they reached the yamen, he remarked with a dry twinkle: ‘ You might have done worse. Is this your centre?’ Across his shoulder he told his bearers to bring in the cases.

Inside the hospital he made a quick inspection, his eyes darting right, left, and with an odd curiosity towards Mother Maria-Veronica, who now accompanied them. He took a swift glance at Shon, when the young dandy came in, then firmly shook hands with him. Finally as they stood, all four, at the entrance to the long suite of rooms which formed the main ward, he addressed them quietly.

‘I think you have done wonders. And I hope you don’t expect melodramatic miracles from me. Forget all your preconceived ideas and face the truth – I’m not the dark handsome doctor with the portable laboratory. I’m here to work with you, like one of yourselves, which means … flatly … like a navvy. I haven’t a drop of vaccine in my bag – in the first place because it isn’t one damn bit of good outside the story-books. And in the second because every flask we brought to China was used up in a week. Ye’ll note,’ he inserted mildly, ‘it didn’t check the epidemic. Remember! This is practically a fatal disease once it gets you. In such circumstances, as my old dad used to say,’ he smiled faintly, ‘an ounce of prevention is better than a ton of cure. That’s why, if you don’t mind, we’ll turn our attention – not to the living – but to the dead.’

There was a silence while they slowly grasped his meaning. Lieutenant Shon smiled.

‘Cadavers are accumulating in the side streets at a disconcerting rate. It is discouraging to stumble in the darkness and fall into the arms of an unresponsive corpse.’

Francis shot a quick glance at Maria-Veronica’s expressionless face. Sometimes the young Lieutenant was a little indiscreet.

The doctor had moved to the nearest crate and, with stolid competence, was prying off the lid.

‘The first thing we do is fit you out properly. Oh! I know you two believe in God. And the Lieutenant in Confucius.’ He bent and produced rubber boots from the case. ‘But I believe in prophylaxis.’

He completed the unpacking of his supplies, fitting white overalls and goggles upon them, berating their negligence of their own safety. His remarks ran on, matter-of-fact, composed. ‘Don’t you realize, you confounded innocents … one cough in your eye and you’re done for … penetration of the cornea. They knew that even in the fourteenth century … they wore vizors of isinglass against this thing … it was brought down from Siberia by a band of marmoset hunters. Well, now, I’ll come back later, Sister, and have a real look at your patients. But first of all, Shon, the Reverend and myself will take a peek round.’

In his stress of mind, Francis had overlooked the grim necessity of swift interment before the germ-infested bodies were attacked by rats. Individual burial was impossible in that iron ground and the supply of coffins had run out long ago. All the fuel in China would not have burned the bodies – for as Shon again remarked, nothing is less inflammable than frozen human flesh. One practical solution remained. They dug a great pit outside the walls, lined it with quicklime, and requisitioned carts. The loaded carts, driven by Shon’s men, bumped through the streets and shot their cargo into this common grave.

Three days later, when the city was cleared and the stray carcasses, half-devoured and dragged away by dogs, collected from the ice-encrusted fields, stricter measures were enforced. Afraid lest the spirits of their ancestors be defiled by an unholy tomb, people were hiding the bodies of their relatives, storing scores of infected corpses under the floor-boards of their houses and in the kaolin roofs.

At the doctor’s suggestion Lieutenant Shon promulgated an edict that all such hoarders would be shot. When the death carts rumbled through the city his soldiers shouted: ‘Bring out your dead. Or you yourselves will die.’

Meanwhile, they were ruthlessly destroying certain properties which Tulloch had marked as breeding grounds of the disease. Experience and dire necessity made the doctor vengefully efficient. They entered, cleared the rooms, demolished the bamboo partitions with axes, spread kerosene, and made a pyre for the rats.

The Street of the Basket-makers was the first they razed. Returning, scorched and grimed, a hatchet still in his hand, Tulloch cast a queer glance at the priest, walking wearily beside him through the deserted streets. He said, in sudden compunction:

‘This isn’t your job, Francis. And you’re worn so fine you’re just about to drop. Why don’t you get up the hill for a few days, back to those kids you’re worrying yourself stiff over?’

‘That would be a pretty sight. The man of God taking his ease while the city burns.’

‘Who is there to see you in this out-of-the-way hole?’

Francis smiled strangely. ‘We are not unseen.’

Tulloch dropped the matter abruptly. Outside the yamen he swung round, gazing glumly at the redness still smouldering in the low dim sky. ‘The fire of London was a logical necessity.’ Suddenly his nerves rasped. ‘Damn it, Francis, kill yourself if you want to. But keep your motives to yourself.’