needed time. He gave himself to his friend to bring him through a soggy brained monsoon rot. It came over long chess games, with children scrambling underfoot. After all, Adam came to realize, Campbell had done it as a widower with four children. And he found the iron.
“It’s never so bad, Adam, that it’s worth turning one of your children into a drunk or leading them to a life of darkness. After all, man, they didn’t bargain for this place,”
Adam Kelno decided he owed Ian Campbell very much and the way to pay it came through young Terrence. Often as not Terrence Campbell’s curious brown eyes peered over the window sill of the dispensary, mouth agape.
“Come on in, Terry. Don’t stand there like a Lampur monkey.”
The boy would ease into the room and watch for hours as Dr. Adam, the magic Dr. Adam, made people well. As Terry’s reward, Dr. Adam would ask him to fetch something or assist in some small way. And he dreamed of being a doctor.
When Dr. Adam was in a good mood, and Terry knew them all, he would ask a never-ending stream of questions about medicine. More than once Adam wished it were his own son, Stephan. But Stephan was outside doing something with a hammer and nails ... a raft, a tree house.
“God works in strange ways,” Adam thought, accepting but not accepting.
One thing was obvious and that was if Terrence Campbell had half a chance, he would be a doctor.
11
T HE MONSOON SEASON ENDED . Adam Kelno had returned to life.
A small surgery was installed with a capability of minor operations. MacAlister came from Kuching to attend the dedication and remained for several days. What he saw in the operating theater was a revelation. With Angela assisting, Adam performed a number of operations. MacAlister witnessed a complete change in Kelno with the surgeon’s knife in his hands. Extraordinary skill, exquisite movements, command and concentration.
A short time thereafter the police station radio received a request from the capital at Kuching to have Dr. Kelno come to perform an emergency surgery. A light plane was dispatched to Fort Bobang for him. It soon became fashionable for the British colony in Kuching to have Adam Kelno as their surgeon instead of traveling to Singapore.
As soon as the river was passable, Adam headed up the Lemanak. This time his son, Stephan, traveled with him. He came upon the Ulu long houses to find that disaster had struck during the monsoon season in the form of raging cholera.
Bintang was in mortal grief over the death of his two eldest sons. Pirak had used water from sacred jars, magic oil, specially prepared pepper, and ordered gongs and drums beaten for days to drive away the evil spirits. But it came. Diarrhea followed by unbearable cramps and vomiting, dehydration, and the sunken eyes and fever and the leg pains and the apathetic wait for death. As the epidemic mounted, Bintang and those who were not stricken fled to the hills and left the sick to die.
The twenty families of the tribe who had taken Dr. Adam’s medicine lived in six different long houses, and none of them fell to the sickness. Out of his own great sorrow, Bintang began to change his attitude. Although he still disliked the terse, cold doctor he now had to respect his medicine. Bintang called his Turahs together and with the disaster still fresh in their minds, they agreed to make changes.
The cemetery, a chief cause of contamination, was moved. It was a brazen step. Then, the long debated okra fields were planted and bullocks brought to plow the fields. The buffalo were able to turn the earth much deeper than their own crude hand plows and the crops of yams and vegetables became larger and finer in taste. Dr. Adam brought a fishing expert from Kuching who was able to replace the spear with netting methods. The chickens and pigs were fenced and the place to make human refuse was moved away from each long house. Much new medicine was given through Dr. Adam’s needle.
And as the year wore
“It’s never so bad, Adam, that it’s worth turning one of your children into a drunk or leading them to a life of darkness. After all, man, they didn’t bargain for this place,”
Adam Kelno decided he owed Ian Campbell very much and the way to pay it came through young Terrence. Often as not Terrence Campbell’s curious brown eyes peered over the window sill of the dispensary, mouth agape.
“Come on in, Terry. Don’t stand there like a Lampur monkey.”
The boy would ease into the room and watch for hours as Dr. Adam, the magic Dr. Adam, made people well. As Terry’s reward, Dr. Adam would ask him to fetch something or assist in some small way. And he dreamed of being a doctor.
When Dr. Adam was in a good mood, and Terry knew them all, he would ask a never-ending stream of questions about medicine. More than once Adam wished it were his own son, Stephan. But Stephan was outside doing something with a hammer and nails ... a raft, a tree house.
“God works in strange ways,” Adam thought, accepting but not accepting.
One thing was obvious and that was if Terrence Campbell had half a chance, he would be a doctor.
11
T HE MONSOON SEASON ENDED . Adam Kelno had returned to life.
A small surgery was installed with a capability of minor operations. MacAlister came from Kuching to attend the dedication and remained for several days. What he saw in the operating theater was a revelation. With Angela assisting, Adam performed a number of operations. MacAlister witnessed a complete change in Kelno with the surgeon’s knife in his hands. Extraordinary skill, exquisite movements, command and concentration.
A short time thereafter the police station radio received a request from the capital at Kuching to have Dr. Kelno come to perform an emergency surgery. A light plane was dispatched to Fort Bobang for him. It soon became fashionable for the British colony in Kuching to have Adam Kelno as their surgeon instead of traveling to Singapore.
As soon as the river was passable, Adam headed up the Lemanak. This time his son, Stephan, traveled with him. He came upon the Ulu long houses to find that disaster had struck during the monsoon season in the form of raging cholera.
Bintang was in mortal grief over the death of his two eldest sons. Pirak had used water from sacred jars, magic oil, specially prepared pepper, and ordered gongs and drums beaten for days to drive away the evil spirits. But it came. Diarrhea followed by unbearable cramps and vomiting, dehydration, and the sunken eyes and fever and the leg pains and the apathetic wait for death. As the epidemic mounted, Bintang and those who were not stricken fled to the hills and left the sick to die.
The twenty families of the tribe who had taken Dr. Adam’s medicine lived in six different long houses, and none of them fell to the sickness. Out of his own great sorrow, Bintang began to change his attitude. Although he still disliked the terse, cold doctor he now had to respect his medicine. Bintang called his Turahs together and with the disaster still fresh in their minds, they agreed to make changes.
The cemetery, a chief cause of contamination, was moved. It was a brazen step. Then, the long debated okra fields were planted and bullocks brought to plow the fields. The buffalo were able to turn the earth much deeper than their own crude hand plows and the crops of yams and vegetables became larger and finer in taste. Dr. Adam brought a fishing expert from Kuching who was able to replace the spear with netting methods. The chickens and pigs were fenced and the place to make human refuse was moved away from each long house. Much new medicine was given through Dr. Adam’s needle.
And as the year wore
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