The Story of Dr. Wassell

by James Hilton

  Although this was exactly what the Dutch officer had said, it somehow sounded immensely different, so they left the intruders sleeping in the car and returned to the hotel. There were only a couple of hours till dawn and the two men spent them in a very calm conversation. It was the wireless man who told the doctor that most of the people in the hotel hadn’t a ghost of a chance of getting away. “There are too many of them for the ships that will come in tomorrow. They will only be small ships. The people do not know that. They think they will find room, and so they sleep here tonight and hope there will be no air raid.” He smiled faintly and added: “I hope so too.”

  The doctor asked if he thought there was a chance of finding passage room for nine American sailors, most of whom must lie on their backs. The man answered quietly: “No, sir. I do not think there will be any chance. But I may be wrong. I have been wrong lately about so many things. I did not think Singapore would be taken. I did not think the Japs would land in Java at all…So maybe I am wrong again.”

  At dawn the town faced the problems of a new day. The sleepers at the hotel began to move and talk, peering into the gray light; the Dutch officer took a last look at Sun and Wilson (whom he had practically talked to sleep), then a last look at the Admiral’s white shoes, before he went to his own room in another part of the hotel and changed out of the bathrobe into his green uniform. He was very sad.

  At dawn the Chinese in the kitchen put the finishing touches on a huge dish of rice and assorted oddments—a kind of impromptu ristaffel with a distinctly Cantonese flavor. They carried it steaming into the hotel lobby, blandly smiling. They carried also great urns of tea. It was for all to share, but those who wanted could pay or—meaninglessly—sign chits.

  At dawn Francini sat upright in his chair and closed his eyes, sleeping and dreaming instantly, the sleep troubled, but the dreams riding high over pain and fever.

  At dawn the sea mist drifted in, covering the hills behind the town; and later the sun did not rise, but a fine rain began. Those who saw this from streets and windows were glad, because they thought it might keep off the air raiders. Soon after dawn, however, the sirens screamed, and for half an hour planes could be heard droning high and invisible over the town. People said they could hear them, anyway.

  Two ships edged through the mist and anchored like ghosts in the harbor. The doctor left the wireless man in the Ford car on the pier, and signaled a Javanese whose launch he had already engaged and paid for. With his thin tropical uniform already drenched and sticking to him coldly, the doctor watched the rain whip the harbor waves into a still calm. The downpour increased till the ship they were approaching disappeared behind a wall of rain that fell, no longer in hitting drops, but as long emptying funnels from sky to sea.

  Presently the grayness ahead darkened into the side of a ship and the doctor climbed aboard.

  The captain, a tall blond man wearing a blue beret, said it was utterly, utterly impossible to take nine wounded men. His was only a small inter-island coastal steamer; he had no sick bay or medical supplies beyond the merest first- aid kit; and furthermore his ship was already chartered and he had only put into Tjilatjap to take on Dutch Army personnel. He would not refuse passage to able-bodied Americans, if any there were; but men who could not look after themselves in an emergency (torpedo attack, for instance) had better stay on land. It would be far safer for them. The doctor had heard that argument before, but never quite so emphatically, for the captain (whose name was Prass) spoke a kind of English that could he called even more ferocious than atrocious. It was, indeed, a very effective language, and after ten minutes of it the doctor sloshed his way back and signaled the waiting Javanese to take him to the other ship. As the launch chugged away he noticed that the ship Captain Prass commanded was called the Janssens , He thought to himself, a little ruefully, that he would always remember Captain Prass of the Janssens .

  It took him twenty minutes to reach the other ship, where refugees were already streaming on hoard from rowboats and launches; the whole deck space crammed, he could see, with not an inch to spare. It was not a very roomy ship, anyhow, and neither so modern nor so well-kept as the Janssens . The doctor had already made up his mind that if this second captain said no, he would go back to the Janssens and ask again.

  He did not see the second captain, but he got a vaguely helpless “no” from every subordinate officer who could remotely understand what he said. And his own instinct (though he did not realize this till long afterwards) had already supplied the same answer.

  So he went back to Captain Prass.

  The terrible Captain Prass was shaving in his cabin. Somehow that seemed to give the doctor an initial advantage, for every time the captain took a sweeping stroke with the razor (his mouth being stretched stiff for the purpose), the doctor had a chance to edge in a few quick sentences. These sentences, put together, and leaving out the Prass replies, amounted to something like this: “Sir, I have to get these men aboard some ship and out of Java. They don’t mind taking a chance—they want to take a chance. And I’m going to see that they get a chance. And it’s no good saying no—I won’t take no from you, Captain Prass—now what are you going to do to a fellow who won’t take no from you?”

  Captain Prass spat gobs of soap across the floor of the cabin, while over a scraped cheek a streak of blood showed itself with difficulty upon skin almost as red. “I have cut myself,” he replied mournfully. Then he added, snapping back to normal: “But you understand—you and your men must keep out of my way. This is not a hospital ship, there is no proper accommodation. You must look after them yourself. And get them here soon—we leave anytime after dark. And we shall all be killed doubtless—a hundred to one we shall all be killed…You understand all that?”

  The doctor answered joyfully that he understood all that; then he hurried back to the hotel as quick as launch and car could take him.

  The street in front of the hotel was wedged tight with British Army trucks; the convoy had arrived. This, on top of his success with Captain Prass, raised the doctor’s spirits to a point where people stared at him, wondering incredulously what he could have to be so happy about—especially as he beamed his way through the crowded hotel lobby as if he hadn’t heard the air- raid sirens sounding off for the second time that morning. When he opened the door of the bedroom his eyes took in a sight that to most people would have seemed unspeakably tragic—his men in drenched clothes, in drenched bandages, sprawling on floor and beds in attitudes of pain and discomfort; but to him the sight was reassuring, because he had good news for them and their very presence was good news to him. And he noticed, in the trivial way these things obtrude, that McGuffey was wearing the Admiral’s white shoes and that the Dutch officer was rubbing one of the men’s feet with a towel.

  “Boys,” he cried, “I’ve found a ship that’ll take us and we go on board just as soon as I can fix you all up and get you there…”

  Greetings came from the floor where the men lay. Most of them were too tired to be excited, some were in too great pain to care what happened to them, but none withheld a murmur of cheer.

  The Dutch officer said: “It is very unfortunate that the sirens have just gone again—do you want to get your men into the shelter?”

  Promptly the doctor answered: “Hell, no—when we move from here, we move out for good, eh, boys?” A murmur of acquiescence answered him. “Sure, I thought so. All you want is a rest and a fixing-up, there can’t be much of a raid in this weather.” He shook the water from his own dripping clothes.

  “Bombs can fall in the rain,” said the Dutch officer, with the air of one stating a scientific fact.

  “But they can’t see where they’re dropping ‘em—not through this rain.”

  “You do not have rains like this in America?” said the Dutch officer, making polite conversation.

  “Yes, sir—we have everything in America, though this is a pretty good rain, I will say. It’s not what I’d call a sprinkle, and it’s n
ot a chip washer or a gully washer—it’s a real regular toad-strangler, and I’ve seen ‘em like this in Arkansas when it turns all the roads into black gumbo.”

  The Dutch officer stared uncomprehendingly. “Gumbo,” he echoed, as if sampling the word. “Gumbo. That is unfortunate.”

  The doctor was taking Hanrahan’s temperature when his attention was suddenly riveted elsewhere. “Why—there’s only seven of you all here? Where’s the other two?” His eyes ran round, identifying them. “Where’s Muller? Where’s Renny?”

  McGuffey answered: “Don’t know where Muller is—downstairs, maybe. But Renny got left behind.”

  “What? “

  “They dropped him off at a place along the road. About sixty miles back.”

  The doctor was on his feet in an instant. “But I don’t like this at all…What happened?”

  When he had extracted a few more details he rushed downstairs.

  The British officer (the one with the air of languid aloofness) sat before a glass-topped table as if waiting for a waiter who never came. The doctor approached hint without preamble. “Look here, sir—I want to know where two of my men are—there’s the one who was in the truck, and there’s Muller, who was with you in the car…”

  The British officer’s eyes sought focus and found it momentarily. “Ah yes—the boy with the smashed elbow. I sent him on ahead with my evacuation officer. He caught one of your Navy ships last night…”

  “You mean Muller’s already out?”

  “Rather. Any objection?”

  “Good God, no—I’ll say he’s lucky—”

  “I’d say he’s damned lucky.”

  “And what about the other boy—Renny?”

  “We dropped him off at a first-aid station.”

  “You dropped him off? But don’t you know we’re getting out of here tonight—in a few hours! I don’t want to leave any of my boys behind. And you promised—”

  The eyes of the British officer stared away into space. “He was very ill. He said he couldn’t stand any more. We stopped at the first-aid station to see what they could do for him, and he begged us to leave him there. We left one of our own men too—crashed into a bridge on his motorcycle and broke both legs. There was a nurse—Javanese—who stayed with your man. She told me she’d given him her blood and felt she must look after him whatever happened—at least that’s what I thought she said—I don’t speak Javanese well. And there wasn’t time to argue…You see, I had to use my own judgment—right or wrong, one often has to use one’s own judgment.”

  All at once the officer’s face rolled sideways and his body slipped forward across the table. The doctor was just in time to save him from falling to the floor, and the effort of doing so killed his indignation as effectively as it served to waken the other man from the sudden stab of sleep.

  “Awfully sorry,” he mumbled, forcing his eyes open. “Three days and two nights since we left Surabaya—on the road all the time—sort of a tiring trip…What was I saying? Oh yes, about your man…I tell you frankly, he looked pretty ghastly. I was afraid he’d die. I wouldn’t have liked that.”

  “I understand,” said the doctor quietly.

  “But I’ll tell you what I’ll do…I’ll keep in touch with him and if any of us get out, we’ll take him with us.”

  “You will?” said the doctor, putting out his hand.

  “Oh, rather.” The British officer shook hands with extreme embarrassment. “And…er…I’d better give you my name.”

  He did so, and received the doctor’s, after which the latter said gently: “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

  “Not half a bad idea,” replied the other, slumping forward across the table instantly.

  The seven men from the Marblehead went aboard the Janssens at dusk. They had rested for a while until all arrangements had been made by the doctor, assisted by the Dutch wireless man. The latter had commandeered from somewhere or other a school bus, and into this vehicle the less wounded men piled with their luggage and were driven through the still heavy rain to the dock. The three worse wounded traveled in the doctor’s car.

  But the Dutchman had done something else: he had procured, also from somewhere or other, some pretty good mattresses, which he presented to the doctor for the use of the men during the sea trip. And it was both reassuring and not so reassuring when he said, handing them over: “These mattresses are made of kapok, so they’ll float in water if you just hang onto them.”

  The doctor did not quite know how to thank him for the mattresses, so he gave him the Ford sedan. “But what shall I do with it,” asked the Dutchman, “when the Japs come?”

  “There’s a can of gas in the back. Pour it over the seat and throw a match inside, and then get the hell out of the way. Matter of fact, I don’t see why you should wait here till the Japs come. Why don’t you leave with us right now? We could use you.”

  The other answered: “Thank you, it is very kind of you, but I must stay at my duty. You understand, it is a duty I have here.”

  The doctor gripped his hand and said he understood.

  British boys from the convoy also did things. They were setting up anti- aircraft guns on the pier when the doctor signaled them. “Hey, give me a hand, will you—I can’t do all this myself…”

  They hadn’t realized what exactly he was trying to do until then. In the heavy rain, and with the crowds on the dock, and with the litter of guns and ammunition all around them, it wasn’t easy to see what anyone was doing. When they discovered that one man was actually trying to carry six wounded men from a bus to a launch, they left their guns as if (for the moment) even guns were less important. While Javanese took care of the luggage, these British soldiers carried the men piggyback to the launch; and later, when the launch reached the Janssens , Dutch sailors grabbed them one by one and carried them on deck by the same method.

  So the doctor and the seven men at last got on the Janssens and the doctor found a place for the mattresses on the stern deck, under an awning through which the rain only dripped a little. Every inch of the decks was occupied; many of the sprawled bodies were already drenched through, but nobody minded the rain, and while the doctor was fixing the men warmly and comfortably he just hoped it would go on raining all night.

  The Janssens , packed like a ferryboat after a holiday, waited till dark to nose out into the channel and zigzag through the minefields, and when at last it leaned to the touch of the first sea rollers the doctor leaned with it in a great sigh of content. Then he remembered something he had promised himself during the road journey with the convoy. So he pushed his way through to the bar and was soon in conversation with a newspaper correspondent who had been in Singapore and Batavia and knew so much about what was happening all over the world that the doctor, when eventually asked where he had been during recent weeks, replied humbly: “Oh, just back and forth between Tjilatjap and a place inland. I guess I’m just one of those sure slow Arkansas travelers.”

  The correspondent, however, proved an interesting companion and the doctor would have enjoyed his conversation thoroughly but for a realization that came to him when he fished in his pocket for the long cigarette holder. “It’s in my briefcase,” he reminded himself. “I put it there for safety…” Then he added aloud: “But, by golly, I must have left my briefcase some place—either on that dock or at the hotel…”

  “Oh, that’s nothing. I left a cigarette case that Chiang Kai-shek gave me in a cocktail bar in Calcutta, and my Leica was stolen in Kuala Lumpur, and a fool of a porter dropped my typewriter into the sea crossing to Sumatra…”

  “But there were papers in it as well as my cigarette holder,” said the doctor, uncomforted. “Important papers…”

  The correspondent laughed. “Take it from me, Doctor, no papers are important these days—not even newspapers.”

  The doctor did not feel he could tell a stranger (and a non-Navy man) what his lost papers were, but later that evening, when he made his good-night check
on the condition of the men, he confided in Wilson. “I’ve lost all those receipts,” he blurted out. “You know the Navy people gave me a thousand guilders altogether, and I’ve spent about half of it, but I can’t remember the items exactly—not without the receipts and the notes I made at the time…You’ll have to back me up, Wilson, when they come onto me about it, and they sure will—they’re all the same—whether it’s a school board or a missionary society or the CCC or even the Navy—you’ve got to show papers for everything…”

  “All right, I’ll back you up. Did you find a drink on this ocean greyhound?”

  “Sure I did, and I’d have brought something for you and the others only it wouldn’t mix with the shots I’ve just pumped into you.”

  Wilson smiled’ again. “That’s all right, Doc. Only I’m glad you got a drink. You deserved it, after all you did today—and yesterday…In fact I hope you got several drinks.”

  The doctor seemed pleased at the tribute. “Well,” he answered at length, “there wasn’t much to drink—I mean there wasn’t Scotch or anything. But I did punish the beer whenever I caught it wandering by…”

  All night the M.S. Janssens sailed into the rainy sea. She was a small ship, but good enough of her kind and for her normal class of business, which was interisland travel—rarely out of sight of land or more than overnight from one port to the next. She was even fairly luxurious, with her spick-and-span white-painted cabins, and the teak-paneled smoke room and the picture of Queen Wilhelmina in the lounge which faced (somewhat rebukingly, one could imagine) that of a bare-breasted bronze beauty whose charms in happier days might have tempted the traveler to include Bali in his tour.

  But now the Laps had included Bali, and for them there was a small gun on the bow and another on the stern, besides thirty-caliber machine guns on each side of a concrete-protected bridge.

  And there were other abnormalities due to recent events. Two hundred passengers the Janssens had often carried with peacetime speed and comfort; but now she had more than thrice that number and her Diesel engine, designed for eleven knots, made seven and a half at best. She was high in the water because, despite her excess passenger list, she had none of her usual heavy cargo of tea and rubber and automobiles—only cases of ammunition and (if one were pessimistic) far too few of them.