Though she had not voiced sentiments one way or the other, Lady Yee was very attuned to her husband’s moods and motives. She had begun to sense his agitation and restlessness. She was therefore not in the least surprised when he announced at breakfast one day that they were returning to California on The Silver Macy in six weeks. Lady Yee simply said she would see that everything was prepared for their departure in good time.
For Lady Yee, the hardest formalities involved making farewell calls on her numerous relatives. To each she brought a small commemorative gift, and from each she received protests and tears. It was expected. Then one day Lady Yee received a note sent by one of her favorite aunts. It requested she come to tea the following afternoon. The note hinted that her niece might discover something of great interest and value. Lady Yee accepted the invitation, but mostly to take her leave. Old ladies thought the oddest things were of interest, and so Lady Yee expected little.
The next afternoon Lady Yee waited upon her aunt with a farewell gift. Then her aunt suddenly took the opportunity to introduce a newly arrived guest, a young man named Dr. Wei Chun of the Korean legation in Canton. The young doctor spoke little Cantonese, but was quite conversant in English and French. Lady Yee and the young man jumped back and forth between the two languages where necessity required.
After a course in traditional greetings and pleasantries, Lady Yee discovered that Dr. Wei Chun had begun his medical training under his father, a well-known Korean physician, when he was eight years old. Having shown exceptional promise in the field of traditional Asian medicine, when he was sixteen he was sent to study under the famous Dr. Su Wong Loo in Peking, where he received praise and honors. When he returned to Korea, he was chosen by the government to be sent west to study Western medicine and surgery in Berlin and Paris, and when he returned to Korea five years later, he went to work for the government.
Canton was his third foreign legation posting. His nominal assignment was to look after the health of other high government officials, which he said was mostly a matter of dealing with their perpetual overindulgence in one vice or another. The work lacked all the challenges he had trained so long to master. Finally, he said, his contract was up at the end of the month, and though he had been invited to stay, he wanted to get married, and that was not allowed for low-level legation personnel, and anyway, in his present position he really couldn’t afford to get married. He bemoaned the fact that his salary was almost ceremonial, and therefore close to nothing. The bulk of his earnings went to repay the government for its investment. He believed he could do better somewhere else, and was told that Lady Yee might be able to help him find a new position more suited to his education and ambitions.
Lady Yee looked over at her aged aunt and smiled like a cat with a sparrow. She asked Dr. Chun where he wanted to work, and he replied that it didn’t really matter. He humorously added that he would live anywhere as long as it was relatively civilized, not at war, and not very cold. All he really wanted was a useful medical position, at which he could make a living wage and support a family. Lady Yee asked if he had any objections to treating poor Chinese. He responded by saying that the human body had no nationality, and only marginal differences based on medical susceptibilities to certain diseases. One human was very much like another. If you could cure one, you might cure another, but the principal importance still lay with the cure, not the monetary wealth of the patient. In short, he would use his skills to save anybody who requested his services as long as he could still feed and shelter his family decently.
Lady Yee played her part with her usual charm, elegant patience, and timing, and promised nothing that might confuse the issue. She continued her understated interrogation with the aura of a concerned friend, which went a long way toward making the young man feel at his ease. They shared subtle jokes in French, and absolutes in English. She asked if the doctor might be willing to immigrate to another country if his economic needs were satisfied, and he said he would as long as his other requirements were met. Lady Yee modestly laughed behind her sleeve and said she would keep that in mind. Before the tea party ended, she told the young doctor that she would look into the matter, and if he were to come to her residence in two days she might just have a solution to his predicament. The young Korean doctor seemed amazed at Lady Yee’s gentle confidence and concern, but she was Chinese, and in that regard he knew not to harbor unsupported presumptions.
Lady Yee told her husband all about the interview, and he encouraged her to strike while the steel was hot. He reminded her that Koreans were, in general, better engineers, scientists, and soldiers than the Chinese. He declared that it could be supposed that a Korean doctor may well show equal genius. At first Lady Yee thought her husband might be indulging a private joke out of affection, but then he laughed, kissed her on the forehead, and offered to loan her five hundred dollars in Yankee gold to secure the young man’s contract at once if it pleased her.
When Dr. Wei Chun came to call he seemed quite disoriented, and Lady Yee decided to take advantage of this situation. When the timing was right, she asked him if he was willing to travel to California on a five-year contract, and he said that he was. Then she asked if he was willing to look to medical needs of the poor, and again he said he was. Lady Yee then proposed a yearly stipend that made the young doctor blink with disbelief, and she even offered to pay half a year’s wages in advance so that he could send for his intended bride.
But there was one proviso: He had to be ready to depart in four weeks, wife or no wife. Lady Yee then stated that she had a contract at hand, and upon signing, everything would be set in train, as it were. As an afterthought, Lady Yee asked about the doctor’s intended bride, and learned that she was a trained midwife and nurse, with a particular genius for herbal remedies applicable to the perils of pregnancy. Lady Yee smiled and signed her part of the contract at once.
When Dr. Wei Chun departed he was carrying five hundred dollars in Yankee gold and a semi-humorous promise that Lady Yee would track him down if he betrayed her. The young doctor was so enamored of Lady Yee, as well as her generous offer of employment, that he would have battled his own family to please her. Happily, that test never came to pass, and Dr. Chun and his new bride returned to Canton five days before The Silver Macy was due to sail.
For Lady Yee, the hardest part of the preparations was taking leave of her parents and sisters. For Master Yee it was saying farewell to his grandchildren, and for Macy it was saying goodbye to her cousins. She was extremely happy in China and saw no reason to leave. She even asked if she might stay behind with her grandfather. And little Silver, who thought of his father’s ship as his own, mainly because his name was on the stern, couldn’t wait to get back aboard. The sailors had always spoiled him with constant attention, and he loved them all in return. The only thing that gave Macy any consolation was the fact that she would soon be reunited with Captain Penn, for whom she maintained a unique and profound affection.
Captain Hammond had to make special arrangements for Doctor Chun and his new wife, but that was soon taken care of to everyone’s satisfaction. Finding space for Ah Chu’s special cargo took some thinking, as it included a small flock of exotic Chinese geese and chickens that he hoped to crossbreed with their heartier California cousins. There were also ten large cases of cooking utensils, preserved foods, spices, and all the hardware necessary to construct an authentic Chinese baking oven and wok stove. Captain Hammond humorously bet his wife that her cook was about to go out on his own and start a restaurant using her money. Lady Yee took the bet as a sure thing. She said Ah Chu was far too lazy for commerce of any kind.
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THE SILVER MACY left Canton on the morning tide two days later. Lady Yee’s mother and father came to the docks to say a final farewell and to present Captain Penn with ceremonial gifts of wine, rare fruit, and fine silks. Master Yee gave each of his grandchildren a gold-mounted jade pi yao to be worn about the neck as protection. He gave his son-in-law an affectionate
embrace, a few words of praise, and a silk envelope containing a bonded draft drawn on the Bank of England for sixty-two thousand pounds sterling. It represented just a portion of the expected profits from their mutual business ventures.
The ship cleared the coast in good time. The seas were kind and the winds gentle, but on the third night it began to rain heavily, and the seas kicked up considerably. It wasn’t anything The Silver Macy couldn’t handle, of course, but the passengers were nonetheless encouraged to stay in their cabins and avoid the slippery decks. Slowly the driving winds increased from the northeast, and Captain Penn decided that, with a full cargo and plenty of sea room, it would be better to turn his stern to the wind and go with the storm. It was easier than fighting waves he could not see. The heavy rains, though a godsend for the boiler collectors, made the bridge functionally blind. All the watch officers had to go on was the binnacle compass and the direction of the waves. To be sure, there were lookouts posted bow, nest, and stern, but they were no better off than the bridge officers. And then the ship’s compass decided to change its mind and became decidedly fickle. A pocket compass, though affected by the iron hull, showed the binnacle compass to be far in error, and no one, considering the weather conditions, had the time to find out why. Repairs, if possible, would have to wait until the storm abated.
Then, at approximately four-thirty in the morning, The Silver Macy struck an obstacle substantial enough to throw the lookouts to the deck and the captain from his day berth behind the bridge. The ship shuddered like a bull, and then settled down to continue on course in the trough between the waves. At first no one knew what had happened, but the bow watch reported that he believed that in passing he saw the deck of a swamped fishing boat with broken masts but no sign of life. There didn’t appear to be any damage to the ship until later a crewman reported that the bow chain lockers were flooded with seawater. There was no immediate danger, since the chain lockers for the anchors were separated from the rest of the ship with a watertight bulkhead, but the added weight in the extreme bows might cause the hull to hog and place undue stress on the box keel. Captain Penn ordered pump hoses lowered into the flooded lockers, but it was soon discovered that the iron hull had been breached at the waterline with a handsome three-foot puncture that staved and split two abutting iron plates. They could pump all they liked, but it wouldn’t make the least difference until the breach was plugged and patched from the outside. There was too much anchor chain in the lockers to access the hole from within the ship while at sea.
There was some consternation among Captain Hammond’s many charges, but he and Lady Yee managed to calm everyone and saw that they returned to their berths, where they would be safest during the storm. Then the captain donned an oilskin and went to the bridge to support Captain Penn in any way possible.
At exactly noon, the storm moved on and left The Silver Macy floating like a battered swan on a placid sea. It was then discovered that one of the compensating magnets on the compass had come loose and fallen to the bottom of the brass binnacle. When that was repaired, Captain Penn and Captain Hammond took sextant sightings and determined that they had traveled a very fair distance to the southeast, and that the closest station to effect repairs was a Dutch navel re-coaling and maintenance base on an impoverished jungle island off the northern tip of the Malaysian archipelago. Sailing directories considered the port pestilential and its harbor an anchorage of last resort, but The Silver Macy and her present cargo were deemed far more important than the weather or the scenery, and Captain Penn set course for Van Koop’s Island at once.
The ship arrived eighteen hours later, anchored in the offing, and set up flags calling for a pilot. The harbor was empty of ships and almost looked abandoned. There were few people to be seen onshore, and those few appeared totally disinterested in the presence of the steamship offshore. Two hours later a boat approached with the harbormaster aboard. Captain Penn and the harbormaster communicated with voice trumpets. The ship was warned that the harbor was under tight quarantine due to an outbreak of malaria and cholera. The American ship would be permitted to anchor in the harbor to make repairs, but they could neither land people nor goods, nor allow locals to board with goods of any kind. They were permitted to purchase materials needed for repairs, but the ship’s crew would have to take delivery from unmanned barges ferried up to the ship by the harbor tug. If there were men ashore willing to assist in repairs on the outside of the ship, and they agreed never to board or fraternize with crew members, that might be arranged, but otherwise The Silver Macy would have to be its own best salvation. The Dutch harbormaster said that the recent heavy rains had raised virtual clouds of mosquitoes, sand fleas, blackflies, and fleas. For those unaccustomed or susceptible, life ashore was a death sentence. Dr. Chun recommended that before the ship entered the harbor, all the ports be closed and insect netting be placed over the companionways. He also suggested that despite the heat and cloying humidity, all those not needed on deck stay below in their cabins and quarters. This particularly applied to the women and children. Captain Penn agreed and made the doctor’s suggestions ship’s orders.
It took four long days to effect the simplest of repairs. However, all the anchor chain had to be pulled from the bow locker so that men could descend below and buck the back of the hot rivets that secured the iron patch plate to the starboard side of the bow. And the conditions belowdecks were uncomfortable in the extreme. Insect netting purchased from shore had been doubled over the deck ventilators, but since there was no breeze to speak of, the atmosphere in the cabins and saloon was hot and humid to the point of claustrophobia. No one escaped the constant discomfiture, but it was the children who suffered the most. For the men working on deck it was even worse. Even though the ship was anchored out in the harbor away from the jungle, the very presence of warm-blooded creatures drew virtual clouds of biting gnats, and when they departed the blackflies took up the feast, and as the sun slowly set, millions of thirsty mosquitoes appeared to do their part to torment the crew. The men made hoods of mosquito netting and covered their exposed skin with thick layers of black engine grease, but neither would drive off the blood-sucking fog of insects. Captain Penn had smoke buckets set up near the bows, but the breezes blew the smoke away without bothering the insect population one bit. Dr. Chun suggested the men be given plenty of raw garlic to eat, as this seemed to make the victims’ blood and body odor distasteful to biting insects. Luckily, there was plenty of that particular commodity on board. The cooks always placed numerous garlic bulbs in the potato sacks, vegetable bins, and fruit nets to prevent mold, and the process worked quite well. Captain Penn instructed the cook to peel numerous bulbs of garlic and had the crew swallow three or four of them like pills every few hours. It not only kept the mosquitoes from biting, it also somehow increased the men’s stamina and endurance. The clouds of insects never really departed, however, and they got into everything, including the food and the paint used on the hull patch.
The Silver Macy left port almost the moment repairs had been completed. The paint hadn’t even dried. Their departure occasioned jubilation all around. The companionways, deck hatches, and portholes were opened to air out the ship, and the passengers and crew came out on deck to relish the ocean breezes and take in lungfuls of fresh air that hadn’t been used by everyone else first. The children played on deck in the sunlight, and Lady Yee relaxed in the shade of her Chinese parasol and read from a volume of English poetry that Captain Penn had loaned her. To show his gratitude for surviving all that had befallen them, Ah Chu sacrificed two of his precious chickens and bartered with a crewman for a small freshly caught tuna. With these and a few Chinese vegetables, newly made rice-flour noodles, and fruit, he produced a remarkably diverse feast for the Hammonds, Captain Penn, and the officers.
The next day the dark clouds again rolled in from the south, and it rained all day. Happily, the seas and swells remained moderate, and the ship continued to make good time on an even keel, allowing those wh
o needed rest a peaceful, cradle-like sleep. But the next morning, hell once again came to visit.
Captain Hammond awoke and complained of aching muscles, a bad headache, fever, chills, and nausea. Lady Yee immediately sent Li-Lee for Dr. Chun, but he was a long time coming because he was not to be found in his cabin or on deck. The doctor and his bride had, in fact, been forward in the crew’s quarters since before dawn. They had been treating two other men who had come down with exactly the same symptoms. When Dr. Chun at last arrived, he made an immediate determination on treatment. He ordered that the patient be kept warm when chilled and cold-bathed when fever set in. He gave Ah Chu a big bundle of green willow bark and told him to brew it into a very strong tea. This in turn should be mixed with four parts water and fed to the patient on an almost continual basis to maintain hydration and help alleviate painful muscle cramps.
Then suddenly, Macy ran into the cabin and, unaware that her father was ill, rushed up to her mother in a panic. She begged her mother to come at once. With tears in her eyes, Macy said little Silver couldn’t get up, and he was hot and all wet. Lady Yee immediately swept her daughter up into her arms and rushed back across the saloon to the children’s cabin. Dr. Chun followed quickly on her heels.
After examining the little boy, Dr. Chun turned to a distraught Lady Yee and said the child was afflicted with the same disease his father had contracted, and the same as the two crewmen. There were several possibilities as to the cause, he said, but considering all the possibilities based upon conditions and the similarity of symptoms, he had ruled out typhoid and cholera because the patients showed no signs of dysentery as yet. The doctor said he believed that their last port of call held the answer, and led him to believe that the stricken had all contracted what the Americans called malaria. Treatment was limited, but in the case of all three possibilities, continuous rehydration was absolutely necessary. And it would be best, he said, if all the water was boiled for at least ten minutes, and then cooled.
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