The Doctor's Apprentice

by Ann Walsh

  I flipped through the manual, searching for the description of Remarkable Delusions. Here is was, just after the part about dreams. Without taking my eyes from the book, I reached out for my tea and took a deep swallow, draining the cup.

  Once more, I began to read.

  Twelve

  It was hot, much too hot. Someone was calling me, calling me loudly. That was most impolite because I didn’t wish to be disturbed. I would ignore the shouting.

  “Wake up!”

  I didn’t want to wake up. I was tired, very tired. It seemed to me that my head rested on a table and that a book served as a pillow, but it didn’t matter how uncomfortable my bed was. I was asleep and I would not listen to that unmannerly voice.

  “Wake up. There is danger.”

  Danger? That was ridiculous. I was only sleeping; what could be dangerous in that? I wondered if maybe I should try to raise my head and see what was wrong, but it was too heavy to lift. I vaguely realized that I had drooled as I slept. I wanted to wipe my face but I would have to wake up to do that. I would sleep some more and then…

  “Master Percy, for your life. Wake up.”

  Master Percy? How cruel of J.B. to call me that. Or was it my father who spoke to me?

  “Master Percy, listen to me, listen well. There is danger, great danger.”

  I knew that voice. Slowly, very slowly as if moving through layers of molasses, I raised my head.

  “Wake up, Percy. Wake up and escape with your life!”

  With difficulty I turned my head, peering into the corner of the Peace House from where the voice came. A tall man stood there, his face shadowed. I swallowed hard, suddenly afraid. He seemed to be wearing a thick necktie, but I could not see clearly. Why was the light so strange? A red glow came through the window, but it was not constant, flickering red, then orange, then dark again as if black clouds covered the sun.

  No. Not clouds, I realized. Smoke. I could smell it. Thick smoke, billowing and blotting out for a moment the red glow of…

  “Fire! The town is burning and you will burn, too, if you do not wake up and run.”

  Wake up? But surely I was dreaming all of this: the voice, the smell of smoke, the red glow. I could not be awake. I must be having another nightmare. I must be dreaming. Only James Barry had ever called me Master Percy. He was dead, so if he were here in the room with me, I must be asleep. That was logical. That had to be true. Unless I were dead, too.

  “Stand up, Master Percy. Stand!”

  My head hurt and my legs felt too weak to hold me, but I knew that, dream or no dream, I had to obey. I leaned heavily on the table, pushing with my arms, forcing myself to stand. My legs buckled under me, and I fell back, groaning, knowing with a sick certainty that this was no dream. Nor was I dead. I was alive, awake and in danger.

  “I can not stand,” I said, the words pushing past my dry lips in a whisper. “I can not stand up.”

  It felt as if someone grabbed my arm and yanked me upright, for I was suddenly on my feet, standing unsteadily, but standing. Yet no one was near me. In the corner the tall man, who could not be who I knew he was, stood motionless in the red flickering light. Who, then, had lifted me?

  “Run, Master Percy! To save your life, run from this place.”

  “Run?” Yes, that seemed a good idea. Slowly one foot moved ahead of the other but the floor heaved under me. “I can not run,” I said.

  “You must.” Something seemed to give me a push from behind and my other foot moved. Again a push, then I took one last step and I was at the door. Both of my hands reached out and grasped the latch and then I thought of my patient.

  “Yan Quan! I must help him.”

  The shadowed figure spoke urgently. “Leave him. He is in my care now. He will go with me.”

  “But…”

  “Time grows short, Ted. Run to save your life. To save my soul. Run!”

  I pulled at the latch, but my fingers slipped from it. I reached out, grasped it again and pulled once more. The door slowly swung open and I stepped outside, into the street and into madness.

  Smoke billowed about me, so thick that I could not see more than a few feet ahead. The noise of fire filled the air: the crackle of burning wood, the hiss of sparks landing on water, the crash of timbers falling to the ground. Shouts and screams echoed against the sound of running feet. Behind all the other noises, and louder than any of them, was the roar of the hungry flames.

  There was a louder crash as a building collapsed. A gust of hot wind raced towards me, small glowing embers blown before it. I coughed as I drew a breath, then staggered as the movement sent a sharp pain through my head. I must run, but which way? Smoke surrounded me and, although I could not see the fire, I could hear it very near to me. I coughed again as another gust of wind blew down the street, clearing the smoke for a few seconds and showing more clearly the red flames licking up from the buildings ahead of me. I could not go in that direction, towards the main part of town. That way was barred by the fire which, even as I watched, took new life from the wind and blazed more fiercely, blocking the entire street with hot, hungry flames.

  I must turn around, go up the road, go towards Richfield. The smoke hurt my throat and burned my lungs when I drew a breath. I coughed again. My head ached fiercely, throbbing with every movement I made. Surely I had fallen and injured my head, for it pained me so. I turned towards Richfield, taking one unsteady step, then another.

  Why was it so hard to walk? Why did the ground seem to be made of cloth which shook and trembled under my feet? I must move away. I must run. He had said so.

  Through the smoke ahead of me emerged a tall figure. “Ted? Ted?”

  I stopped trying to move and stood so still that I did not even breathe. My heart raced as I peered through the haze, trying to see who called my name.

  It could not be him, it could not be. I had left him in the cabin behind me. How could he be standing in front of me? He could not be here, he could not. “Go away,” I said, taking a step backwards and nearly falling as I did so. “Leave me. Go away.”

  “Ted? Ted, is that you?” The figure moved nearer to me and I saw his face. It was J.B.

  I remember him putting his arms around me and dragging me away from the fire. I remember how my head ached and how I could not move quickly and how J.B. kept urging me on, almost carrying me at times when the road became steep. I remember asking if my parents were safe, and I remember beginning to weep as I told J.B. I had left his new book in the Peace House and it would surely be destroyed.

  I also remember saying, “He was there.”

  After that, I remember nothing.

  “Where is he, Ted?”

  “In the Peace House,” I mumbled, through lips that were thick and dry. “In the corner, standing there.”

  “Standing? He was able to stand?”

  Suddenly I came wide awake. I was in my own bed, still wearing my clothes, even my boots. My throat burned, my eyes stung and my vision was blurred. When I raised my hands to wipe my face, when I saw the soot on my palms and smelled the stale smoke on my hands, I remembered.

  Fire! Barkerville was burning. I must escape! Sitting up, I swung my feet to the floor, ready to bolt from my bed and run to safety.

  “Easy, Ted.”

  “J.B.? The fire. My parents…”

  “You are safe, your parents are too. They have gone to town to help those who have lost their homes. Your mother sat with you all night, but could not awaken you. I arrived after helping to fight the fire and she turned your care over to me.” J.B. offered me water and I gulped it eagerly. He, too, smelled of smoke, but also of charred wood, singed hair and wet wool clothing. His eyebrows and eyelashes were gone and there was an ugly bruise across his forehead.

  “Fire,” I said. “I remember.”

  “Good. Then remember more. Where is he?”

  I looked at J.B., not understanding. “I don’t know,” I said. “He was in the Peace House when I left.”

  �
��You left your patient? You abandoned Yan Quan?”

  “Yan Quan? Is he safe?”

  J.B. sighed. “That is exactly what I have been asking you for the past hour, Ted. Come to your senses. I have just returned from Barkerville, or what is left of it. The upper end, most of the Chinese section including the Peace House, was spared the worse of the fire although the rest of the town is nothing more than ashes.”

  “I’m glad,” I said, relieved. “Then Yan Quan survived—or did his illness take him as you thought it would?”

  “Ted, the Peace House is empty. I searched it thoroughly. Yan Quan’s bed is unoccupied by either a live man or a corpse. He was too ill to move far on his own, but he has vanished. What happened to him?”

  “He is gone? His bed is empty?”

  J.B. sighed again, and offered me more water. “As empty as your head appears to be. Try to remember, Ted. You make no sense at all.”

  No sense at all, I thought. My head ached, and I found it hard to think. Nothing made sense, nothing.

  “I don’t remember. I don’t understand. My head hurts. Did I injure it badly?”

  “You injured it not at all, for I had a thorough look when I brought you home last night. However you kept complaining about it, also about the fact that the ground would not stay still beneath your feet. I realize that you were affected by the fumes you inhaled, but your symptoms and behaviour reminded me more of the time you took laudanum. That time, too, you slept until your parents despaired for you and awoke feeling sore-headed and irritable. Last night, when we cleared the soot from you face, I saw that you were also covered with a red rash, something I feel sure was not caused by the fire. What happened to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sing Kee told me that he left a vial of opium for you to give to Yan Quan. Are you sure you did not take some of it?”

  Indignantly, I shook my head, then wished that I had kept it still. “I took no medication at all… opium?” Of course, that was what was in the slender glass bottle. That was why the smell had seemed familiar when I added it to the tea.

  The tea! I drank the remainder of Yan Quan’s tea, thinking it was mine. The second cup had tasted more bitter than the first, I remembered, but I had been reading and had not paid much attention.

  “I did take the drug,” I said, “by mistake. I drank from the wrong cup.” No wonder the ground had seemed to move beneath my feet as J.B. had helped me away from the fire. No wonder my legs were unsteady and my head hurt.

  “That would explain much, but it still does not explain the fact that you have lost a patient. Now, if your head is clear, tell me what happened yesterday. Tell me everything.”

  For a long moment, I did not speak. Then, softly, I said, “I can not. For I am not sure myself.”

  “Try,” said the doctor. He looked at me strangely. “Surely you did not carry Yan Quan away from the Peace House. You were in no shape to do that as I well know, for it was I who had to carry you.”

  “Thank you, J.B. I remember that.”

  “Then try to remember more.”

  Avoiding his eyes, I answered reluctantly. “I can not tell you any more. I do not know what happened in the Peace House. I do not know where Yan Quan is. I know nothing.”

  J.B. stood up and took several paces around the room. He spoke aloud, musing to himself as I had often heard him do when he was considering what to do about a patient.

  “The lad remembers nothing, or so he says. But somehow he awoke from a drugged sleep—and we must remember that he has a particular sensitivity to that drug and would not have returned to consciousness easily. It was a miracle he awoke at all, but this wakening saved his life. The fumes from the smoke would have surely killed him had he remained where he was. Once awake, he had enough presence of mind to leave the cabin and attempt to escape the fire, although he could barely hold himself upright. Now, although his memory has returned, he resists revealing the rest of the story.”

  I stared at the floor and was silent. J.B. took another turn around my bedroom, still speaking as if to himself. “Does he tell the truth? He is an honest lad, not given to falsehoods, yet he claims to know nothing more. This is a particularly perplexing problem which prompts me to…”

  “Stop that!”

  “Ah. The patient’s temper has survived his ordeal. I consider that a sign of imminent recovery.”

  He stopped pacing and returned to my bedside, sitting down and waiting until I lifted my head and looked at him. “The disappearance of Yan Quan is not so terrible, Ted, although I despair of your success as a physician if you continue to lose patients in this mysterious way. The man was dying; he may have been dead when you left. It is possible that his countrymen removed his body. I will ask Sing Kee and perhaps he can tell us what happened.”

  “I think not,” I said doubtfully, remembering the voice from the shadows telling me that Yan Quan was in “his” care and would go with him.

  “Ted, what is wrong? You have turned pale and look near to fainting.”

  I kept silent. What could I say? How could I tell J.B. that I believed that my patient had been taken by someone or something who did not exist?

  “Ted, you have been far away. Please return to the present.” I blinked and found, to my surprise, that my eyes were damp. “I am here, J.B.”

  Again he looked at me strangely. “Perhaps one day you will tell me more. But now, I must go. There is much to be done in Barkerville—many burns, scrapes, and coughs to attend to. Although I have no dispensary and nothing to dispense, no supplies, no bed, no…”

  “J.B.! Your surgery burned down?”

  “It did. Everything is gone. All my books—except this one, which you so kindly left on the table in the Peace House.” Smiling, he held up The Physician’s Vade Mecum. “This book and my small black bag, which I had the foresight to grab when I ran from the approaching flames, now represent my entire surgery, dispensary, and reference library.”

  “It’s all gone? Everything?”

  “Everything. So, once I have done what I can do for the distraught inhabitants of Barkerville, I will leave.”

  “Leave? What will you do?”

  “I will become a travelling physician, wandering around the goldfields with my invaluable reference book, trusting nature and luck to provide for me, offering my services where I can.”

  “I could come with you.”

  “Ted, Barkerville now has a much greater need of carpenters than of physicians. If you listen carefully you can hear, drifting up the hill, the sounds of great activity. The ashes of the town are scarcely cool but already people have begun rebuilding what was lost. Your father has made plans for you. His shop was damaged but still stands, and customers are lining up outside his charred door begging him to work for them. He is in great need of a capable assistant.”

  “I don’t want to…”

  “Your father needs your help, Ted. Barkerville needs your carpentry skills. I, however, do not need an assistant at the moment, having no place where you can assist and nothing for you to assist me with. I think your course of action should be clear.”

  “But…”

  J.B. stood, pushing back the chair on which he had been sitting. “I must leave, Ted. Regain your strength quickly. Your help is greatly needed.”

  Carefully, I swung my feet onto the floor and stood up. My head still hurt slightly, but my legs were strong again and my mind was clear. This was no time to be lounging about in bed. There was work to do.

  J.B. picked up his doctor’s bag and began to walk towards the door, but then he turned to me once more.

  “I know you do not wish to speak of what occurred yesterday, Ted, but there is something which puzzles me. You said, one of the few sensible things I managed to hear as I dragged your uncooperative person away, you said, ‘He was there.’”

  “Did I?”

  “Indeed you did, as I suspect you know full well.”

  “It was nothing,” I said. “A dream.”
>
  How could I tell J.B. that a ghost had stolen a sick man, that a murderer had returned from the grave to offer me help? These things did not happen. There were no ghosts and I did not believe in them anyway. Maybe I had dreamt it, or maybe it was the effects of the drugged tea or maybe…

  I remembered what he had said, the ‘he’ who could not have been there. “Run, Master Percy, to save your life.” And then, the last words he spoke, “To save my soul.”

  “I do not think it was a dream,” said J.B. “Who was there, Ted? Who was with you?”

  “I do not know,” I answered, and that was the truth.

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  The events in this story take place in Barkerville between April and September 1868.

  MAIN CHARACTERS

  Ted

  Theodore Percival MacIntosh, better known as Ted, is fictional. He appears first in Moses, Me and Murder (Pacific Educational Press), where the story of the murder of Charles Blessing and the subsequent arrest, trial, and hanging of James Barry is fully told. The third book in the series, By the Skin of His Teeth (The Dundurn Group), takes up where The Doctor’s Apprentice, the second book, leaves off.

  Doctor J.B. Wilkinson

  J.B. (whose middle name I never did learn) practised medicine in Barkerville for many years and is buried in the cemetery there. His story and his relationship with Sophia Cameron is much as I have told it in this book. Nowhere did I find any historical evidence that he abused drugs; however, since opium was as widely used in the nineteenth century as aspirin is today, I invented a drug dependency for him. Because of his role as Sophia Cameron’s physician and because he was one of the men who helped Cariboo Cameron carry her body away from the goldfields, I did not believe it would be a great leap of faith to assume that Doctor Wilkinson would have suffered some form of depression or other mental anguish as a result of those experiences. He was only thirty-five years old when he died on November 3, 1869.