"Don't know how she did it," he muttered.
"Sir?"
Momentarily he looked up and saw Tyrer, white-faced, staring at him. He had quite forgotten him. "I was just thinking about the Lady of the Lamp," he said, allowing his mouth to talk, to calm himself-- without letting this disturb his concentration on the sliced muscles and damaged veins. "Florence Nightingale. She went out to the Crimea with just thirty-eight nurses and in four months cut the death rate from forty in every hundred to about two--in every hundred."
Tyrer knew the statistic as every Englishman knew proudly that she had really founded the modern profession of nursing. "What was she like--personally?"
"Terrible, if you didn't keep everything clean and as she wanted it. Otherwise she was Godlike --in its most Christian way. She was born in Florence, in Italy, hence her name--though she was English through and through."
"Yes." Tyrer felt the doctor's warmth.
"Wonderful. So wonderful. Did you know her well?"
Babcott's eyes did not waver from the wound, or from his wise fingers as they probed and found, as he had feared, the severed part of the intestine. He swore without noticing it. Delicately he began seeking the other end. The stench increased.
"You were talking about Dutch. You know why some of the Japanners speak Dutch?"
With a violent effort, Tyrer tore his gaze away from the fingers and tried to close his nostrils.
He felt his stomach twist. "No sir."
Struan stirred. At once Babcott said, "Give him more of the ether... that's right, don't press too firmly... good. Well done.
How do you feel?"
"Dreadful."
"Never mind." The fingers began again, almost outside the doctor's will, then stopped.
Gently they exposed the other part of the severed intestine. "Wash your hands then give me the needle that's already threaded--there, on the table."
Tyrer obeyed.
"Good. Thanks." Babcott began the repair. Very accurately. "His liver's not hurt, bruised a little but not cut. His kidney's all right too. Ichiban--that's Japanese for "very good." I have a few Japanner patients.
In return for my work I make them give me words and phrases. I'll help you learn if you like."
"I'd... that would be wonderful--ichiban.
Sorry I'm so useless."
"You're not. I hate doing this alone. I, well I get frightened. Funny, but I do."
For a moment his fingers filled the room.
Tyrer looked at Struan's face, no color now where an hour ago it was ruddy, and strong where now it was stretched and ominous, eyelids flickering from time to time. Strange, he thought, strange how unbelievably naked Struan seems now. Two days ago I'd never even heard his name, now we're bonded like brothers, now life is different, will be different for both of us, like it or not. And I know he's brave and I'm not.
"Ah, you asked about Dutch," Babcott said, scarcely listening to himself, all his attention on the repairs. "Since about 1640 the only contact Japanners have had with the outside, apart from China, has been with Dutchmen. All others were forbidden to land in Japan, particularly Spaniards and Portuguese. Japanners don't like Catholics because they meddled in their politics back in the 1600's. At one time, so legend says, Japan almost went Catholic. Do you know any of this?"
"No sir."
"So the Dutch were tolerated because they'd never brought missionaries here, just wanted to trade."
For a moment he stopped talking but his fingers continued the fine neat stitches. Then he rambled on again.
"So a few Hollanders, men never women, were allowed to stay, but only with the most severe restrictions and confined on a man-made island of three acres in Nagasaki harbor called Deshima. The Dutch obeyed any law the Japanners made, and kowtowed--growing rich meanwhile. They brought in books, when they were allowed, traded, when they were allowed, and carried the China trade that's essential to Japan-- Chinese silks and silver for gold, paper, lacquer, chopsticks--you know what those are?"
"Yes sir. I was in Peking for three months."
"Oh yes, sorry I forgot. Never mind.
According to Dutch journals of the 1600's the first of the Toranaga Shoguns, their equivalent of emperors, decided foreign influence was against Japan's interests, so he closed the country and decreed that Japanners could not build any oceangoing ships, or leave the country--anyone who did could not come back or if they returned, they were to be killed instantly. That's still the law."
His fingers stopped for an instant as the delicate thread parted and he cursed. "Give me the other needle. Can't get decent gut though this silk's fine. Try to thread one of the others but wash your hands first and wash it when you're done. Thanks."
Tyrer was glad to have something to do and turned away but his fingers were helpless. His nausea was growing again, his head throbbing. "You were saying, about the Dutch?"
"Ah yes. So, warily, Dutch and Japanners began learning from the other though the Dutch were officially forbidden to learn Japanese.
Ten odd years ago the Bakufu started a Dutch language school..." Both men heard the running feet.
Hasty knock. The sweating Grenadier Sergeant stood there, trained never to enter while an operation was in progress. "Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there's four of the rotten little buggers coming down the road. Looks like a deputation. They's all samurai."
The doctor did not stop sewing. "Is Lim with them?"
"Yessir."
"Escort them into the reception room and tell Lim to look after them. I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Yessir." The Sergeant took one last glazed look at the table, then fled.
The doctor completed another stitch, knotted it, cut the thread, swabbed the oozing wound, and began anew. "Lim's one of our Chinese assistants. Our Chinese do most of our leg work, not that they're Japanese speakers or, or very trustworthy."
"We... it was the same... we found it was the same in Peking, sir. Dreadful liars."
"The Japanners are worse--but in a way that's not true either. It's not that they're liars, it's just that truth is mobile and depends on the whim of the speaker. Very important for you to learn to speak Japanese very quickly. We don't have even one interpreter, not of our own people."
Tyrer gaped at him. "None?"
"None. The British padre speaks a little but we can't use him, Japanners detest missionaries and priests. We've only three Dutch speakers in the Settlement, one Hollander, one Swiss who's our interpreter, and a Cape Colony trader, none British.
In the Settlement we speak a bastard sort of lingua franca called "pidgin," like in Hong Kong and Singapore and the other China Treaty ports and use compradores, business intercessors."
"It was the same in Peking."
Babcott heard the irritation but more the underlying danger. He glanced up, instantly saw into Tyrer that he was near to breaking, ready to vomit again any second. "You're doing fine," he said encouragingly, then straightened to ease his back, sweat running off him. Again he bent down. Very carefully he resettled the repaired intestine into the cavity, quickly began to stitch another laceration, working outwards. "How'd you like Peking?" he asked, not caring but wanting Tyrer to talk.
Better that than an outburst, he thought. Can't deal with him till this poor bugger's closed up.