The Empire Trilogy Part 35

"Ladies and gentlemen, I need not tell you how we are ravaged by this disease in Krishnapur! Many have already departed by way of this terrible illness, no doubt others will follow before our present travail is over. That is the will of G.o.d. But it is surely not not the will of G.o.d that a gentleman who has come here to practise medicine...I cannot dignify him with the name of 'physician'...should send to their doom many poor souls who might, with the proper treatment, recover!" the will of G.o.d that a gentleman who has come here to practise medicine...I cannot dignify him with the name of 'physician'...should send to their doom many poor souls who might, with the proper treatment, recover!"

"Father!" exclaimed Louise in dismay.

Some of the tattered congregation turned their heads to right and left, searching for Dr McNab; others, though merely ragged skeletons these days, were required by their good breeding to remain facing to the front with expressions of indifference. Dr McNab was quickly located, half sitting and half leaning on a stone ledge at the back. The thoughtful look on his face did not change under Dr Dunstaple's abuse, but he frowned slightly and stood up a little straighter, evidently waiting to hear what else Dr Dunstaple had to say.

"I don't pretend that medical science has yet found a method of treating cholera that's quite satisfactory, I don't say there isn't room for improvement, ladies and gentlemen...but what I do do say is that it's the duty of a member of the medical profession to use the say is that it's the duty of a member of the medical profession to use the best available treatment best available treatment known and accepted by his fellow physicians! It's his duty. A licence to practise medicine isn't a licence to perform whatever hare-brained experiments may come into his head." known and accepted by his fellow physicians! It's his duty. A licence to practise medicine isn't a licence to perform whatever hare-brained experiments may come into his head."

"Dr Dunstaple, please!" protested the Magistrate, who was one of the few cantonment-dwellers who had never experienced any affection for Dr Dunstaple. "I must ask you to withdraw these abusive remarks which are clearly aimed at your colleague. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter medically speaking you've no right at all to impugn the motives of a dedicated member of our community."

"It's no time for niceties of etiquette when there are lives at stake, Willoughby. I challenge Dr McNab to justify his so-called remedies which fly in the face of all that's known about the pathology of this disease."

"Father!" cried Louise again, and burst into tears.

"I'm perfectly willing to discuss the pathology of cholera with Dr Dunstaple," said Dr McNab in a mild and gloomy manner, "but I doubt if there's anything to be gained by doing so publicly and in front of those who may tomorrow become our patients."

"See! He tries to avoid the issue. Sir, there is everything to be gained from exposing a charlatan."

The Magistrate's eye moved from one doctor to the other over the pa.s.sive rows of tattered skeletons and he forgot for a moment that he was as thin and ragged as they were. What chance was there of this little community, riddled with prejudice and of limited intelligence, being able to discriminate between the strength of one argument and the strength of another? They would inevitably support the man who shouted loudest. But what better opportunity could there be of examining the fate of those seeds of reason that might be cast on the stony ground of the communal intelligence?"

"Dr Dunstaple, you will hardly make any progress if you continue to abuse Dr McNab in this way. If you insist on a public debate then I suggest you give us your views in a more suitable manner."

"Certainly," said Dr Dunstaple. His face was flushed, his eyes glinting with excitement; he seemed to be having difficulty breathing, too, and he spoke so rapidly that he slurred his words. "But first ladies and gentlemen, you should know that Dr McNab holds the discredited belief that you catch cholera by drinking...more precisely, that in cholera the morbific matter is taken into the alimentary ca.n.a.l causing diarrhoea, that the poison is at the same time reproduced in the intestines and pa.s.ses out with the discharges, and that by these so-called rice-water' discharges becoming mingled with the drinking-water of others the disease is communicated from one person to another continually multiplying itself as it goes. I think that Dr McNab would not disagree with that."

"I'm grateful to you for such an accurate statement of my beliefs." Could it be that McNab was actually smiling? Probably not, but there had certainly been a tremor at each corner of his mouth.

"Let me now read to you the conclusion of Dr Baly in his Report on Epidemic Cholera Report on Epidemic Cholera, drawn up at the desire of the Royal College of Physicians and published in 1854. Dr Baly finds the only theory satisfactorily supported by evidence the only theory satisfactorily supported by evidence is that 'which regards the cause of cholera as a matter increasing by some process, whether chemical or organic, in impure or damp air'...I repeat, 'in impure or damp air'." Dr Dunstaple paused triumphantly for a moment to allow the significance of this to seep in. is that 'which regards the cause of cholera as a matter increasing by some process, whether chemical or organic, in impure or damp air'...I repeat, 'in impure or damp air'." Dr Dunstaple paused triumphantly for a moment to allow the significance of this to seep in.

Many supporters of Dr McNab exchanged glances of dismay at the words they had just heard. They had not realized that Dr Dunstaple had the support of the Royal College of Physicians...and felt distinctly aggrieved that they had not been told that such an august body disagreed with their own man. Two or three of Dr McNab's supporters wasted no time in surrept.i.tiously slipping their cards of emergency instructions from their pockets, crossing out the name McNab, and subst.i.tuting that of his rival, before settling back to watch their new champion in the lists. The Magistrate noted this with satisfaction. How much more easily they were swayed by prestige than by arguments!

Meanwhile Dr Dunstaple was continuing to disprove Dr McNab's drinking-water theories.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the fact that cholera is conveyed in the atmosphere is amply supported by the epidemic in Newcastle in 1853 when it became clear that during the months of September and October an invisible cholera cloud was suspended over the town. Few persons living in Newcastle during this period escaped without suffering some of the symptoms that are inescapably a.s.sociated with cholera, if not the disease itself. They suffered from pains in the head or indescribable sensations of uneasiness in the bowels. Furthermore, the fact of strangers coming into Newcastle from a distance in perfect health...and not having had any contact with cholera cases...being then suddenly seized with premonitory symptoms, and speedily pa.s.sing into collapse, proves proves that it was the result of atmospheric infection." that it was the result of atmospheric infection."

"What a fool! It proves nothing of the sort," thought the Magistrate, stroking his cinnamon whiskers with excitement that bordered on ecstasy.

However, Dr Dunstaple had now adopted a less ranting and more scientific tone which the audience could not help but find impressive. Some of his oldest friends, who for years had been accustomed to seeing him, fat and genial, as the leading light of a pig-sticking expedition, were astonished to hear him now holding forth like a veritable Newton or Faraday and discussing the latest discoveries in medicine as fluently as if they were entries in the Bengal Club Cup or the Planters' Handicap. One or two of his supporters turned to direct malicious glances at Dr McNab, who was still leaning calmly against the ledge and listening attentively to what his prosecutor had to say. Louise, too, had dried her tears. Her father was not doing too badly and perhaps, after all, he might be right about McNab.

"When you inhale the poison of cholera it kills or impairs the functions of the ganglionic nerves which line the air-cells of the lungs...hence, the vital chemistry of the lungs is suspended; neither caloric nor vital electricity is evolved...hence, the coldness which is so typical of cholera. The blood continues to be black and carbonated...the treacly aspect of the blood in cholera is well known...and in due course the heart becomes asphyxiated. This is the true and basic pathology of cholera. The disease is, however, attended by secondary symptoms, the well known purging and vomiting which, because they are so dramatic, have frequently been taken by the inept as indicating the primary seat of the infection...I need hardly add that this is the view held by Dr McNab."

Once again, heads turned in McNab's direction and the Magistrate's sharp eyes were able to detect a number of veiled smiles and smothered chuckles. McNab was frowning now, poor man, and looking worried as well he might with Dr Dunstaple, transformed into Sir Isaac Newton, mounting such an impressive attack. But Dr Dunstaple had now moved on to the treatment.

"What must it consist of? We must think of restoring the animal heat which has been lost and we must consider means of counter-irritating the disease...Hence, a warm bath, perhaps, and a blister to the spine. To relieve the pains in the head we might order leeches to the temples. An accepted method of counter-irritation in cholera is with sinapisms applied to the epigastrium...or, if I must interpret these learned expressions for the benefit of my distinguished colleague, with mustard-plasters to the pit of the stomach..."

There was subdued laughter at this sally. But the Doctor held up his hand genially and added: "As for medicine, brandy to support the system and pills composed of calomel, half a grain, opium and capsic.u.m, of each one-eighth of a grain, are considered usual. I could continue to talk about this disease indefinitely but to what purpose? I believe I have made my point. Now let Dr McNab justify his curious treatments, or lack of them, if he can."

Dr McNab was silent for such a long time that even those of his supporters who had remained steadfast throughout Dr Dunstaple's persuasive arguments and had not yet crossed his name from their emergency cards, began to fear that perhaps he had nothing to say. It surely could not be that McNab was confounded, utterly at a loss, for surely almost anyone could string a few medical terms together (enough to convince the survivors of Krishnapur if not the Royal College of Physicians) and save face. But still the silence continued. McNab's head was lowered and he seemed to be pondering in a lugubrious sort of way. His lips even moved a little, as if he were giving himself a consultation. At length, with a sigh and in a conversational tone which did not match Dr Dunstaple's oratory for effect, he observed: "Dr Dunstaple is quite wrong to suggest that there is an accepted treatment for cholera. The medical journals still present a variety of possible remedies, many of which sound most desperate and bizarre...missionaries report from China that they have been cured by having needles stuck into their bellies and arms, yet this is not thought too strange to mention...and almost every variety of chemical substance has been proposed at one time or another, all of which is a sure sign that our profession remains baffled by this disease."

"Needles stuck in people's bellies to cure cholera, whatever next!" the audience appeared to be thinking. And the Magistrate, watching like a stoat, could see by the alarm on their faces that they were a.s.signing this treatment to Dr McNab for no other reason than that he had happened to mention it. Here, in a test-tube before his very eyes, ignorance and prejudice were breeding like infusoria.

"In the greater number of epidemic diseases," McNab went on, "the morbid poison appears to enter the blood in some way, and after multiplying during a period of so-called incubation, it affects the whole system. Such is undoubtedly the case in smallpox, measles, scarlet fever and the various kinds of continued fever...but it must be remarked that in these diseases the illness always begins with general symptoms, such as headache, rigors, fever and la.s.situde...while particular symptoms only appear afterwards. Cholera, on the other hand, begins with an effusion of fluid into the alimentary ca.n.a.l, without any previous illness whatsoever. Indeed, after this fluid has begun to flow away as a copious diarrhoea the patient often feels so little indisposed that he cannot persuade himself that anything serious is the matter."

"Irrelevant!" muttered Dr Dunstaple loudly but McNab paid no attention and continued calmly.

"The symptoms which follow this affection of the alimentary ca.n.a.l are exactly what one would expect. If you a.n.a.lyse the blood of someone with cholera you'll find that the watery fluid effused into the stomach and bowels isn't replaced by absorption. The experiments of Dr O'Shaughnessy and others during the cholera of 18312 show that the amount of water in the blood was very much diminished in proportion to the solid const.i.tuents, as also were the salts...Well, the basis of my treatment of cholera is quite simply to try to restore the fluid and salts which have been lost from the blood, by injecting solutions of carbonate of soda or phosphate of soda into the blood vessels. Does that sound unreasonable? I don't believe so. At the same time I try to combat the morbid action by using antiseptic agents such as sulphur, hyposulphite of soda, creosote or camphor at the seat of the disease...that's to say, in the alimentary ca.n.a.l..."

"How eminently full of reason!" thought the Magistrate. "It will be too much for them, the dolts!"

"It's often been regretted by physicians that calomel and other medicines aren't absorbed in cholera...but this regret is needless, in my opinion, as they don't need to be absorbed. If calomel is given in cholera it should obviously not be in pills, as Dr Dunstaple suggests, but as a powder for the sake of better diffusion."

To say that the audience had found Dr McNab's discourse dull would not be entirely accurate; they had found it soothing, certainly, and perhaps monotonous. Many of those present had found it hard to pick up the thread of what he was saying and instead had thought with a s.h.i.+ver: "Needles driven into your belly! Good heavens!" But Dr McNab had at least one attentive listener and that was Dr Dunstaple.

"Dr McNab has omitted to mention certain post mortem appearances which refute his view of cholera and support mine," cried Dr Dunstaple waving his arms violently in his excitement and making thrusting gestures as if about to spear a particularly fine pig. "He hasn't mentioned the distended state of the pulmonary arteries and the right cavities of the heart. Nor has he mentioned the breathlessness suffered by the patient after he has inhaled the cholera poison!"

Dr McNab shrugged negligently and said: "These symptoms are obviously the result of the diminished volume of the blood...Its thickened and tarry condition impedes its pa.s.sage through the pulmonary capillaries and the pulmonary circulation in general. This is also the cause of the coldness found in cholera."

"Pure reason!" barked the Magistrate, unable to contain himself a moment longer.

"Nonsense!" roared Dr Dunstaple and started forward as if he meant to make a physical a.s.sault on Dr McNab. He was halted in his tracks, however, by a shout from the Padre.

"Gentlemen! Remember that you are in the presence of the altar. I must ask you to stop this quarrelling instantly, or to continue it in another place." Furious, Dr Dunstaple now seemed on the point of turning on the Padre and mowing the wiry cleric down with his fists, but by this time Louise and Mrs Dunstaple had hastened to his side and now they dragged him away, hus.h.i.+ng him desperately.

26.

It was only to be expected that sooner or later the Collector's sense of duty would rea.s.sert itself. Sure enough, within a day or two of this regrettable difference of opinion between the two physicians word went round the garrison that he had been seen up and about again. On the first day of his reappearance he contented himself with walking about, avoiding people's eyes, or shovelling at the still melting ramparts like a man with a crime to expiate. But on the following day he had shaved the red stubble from his chin, was wearing a cleaner s.h.i.+rt, and was once more beginning to adopt a stern and overbearing expression. The Magistrate continued to give the orders which regulated the defence of the enclave, but in a subdued tone, as if referring them to the final authority of the Collector, should he wish to exercise it. It was not until the auction, however, on the third day, that it became clear that the roof of the Collector's collapsed will had once more been sh.o.r.ed up with the stoutest timbers.

Food within the enclave had become so critically short by now that it was evident to the Magistrate that anything edible must now be used. So many people had died during the siege either from wounds or illness that a considerable quant.i.ty of private stores had acc.u.mulated. Their distribution could wait no longer. The Magistrate was in a position to order the confiscation of this food for the good of the community, to order that it should be equally divided among the survivors. But the relatives of the dead, when they heard what was afoot, raised a storm of protest and demanded that their rights to the stores should be respected. The Magistrate hesitated, stroking those terrible, radical, flaring whiskers of his...since he had shouted himself hoa.r.s.e as a young man in 1832 he had been devoted to the radical cause, a supporter of Chartism, of factory reform, and of every other progressive notion which crossed his path. Now at last he had an opportunity to act act, not merely to argue. Would he dare to grasp this chance and order the abolition of property within the community?

The Magistrate, standing in hesitation on the verandah, was illuminated by a rare shaft of watery sunlight for a moment and his whiskers flared more brilliantly than ever...but then the sun moved on, extinguis.h.i.+ng them. He realized now that his belief in people was no longer alive...he no longer loved the poor as a revolutionary must love them. People were stupid. The poor were just as stupid as the rich; he had only contempt for both of them. His interest in humanity now was stone dead, and probably had been for some time. He no longer believed that it was possible to struggle against the cruel forces of capitalist wealth. Nor did he particularly care. He had given up in despair.

"Yes, we'll hold an auction," he muttered. "That's the easiest thing."

At the time appointed for the auction the poor and the thrifty were left to man the ramparts; everyone else crowded into the hall of the Residency which was considered to be the most suitable place for the proceedings. The goods to be sold had been piled up on the stairs where once "the possessions" had been piled; bottles of jam and honey, heaps of hermetically sealed provisions, bottles of wine, cakes of chocolate pliable with the heat, tins of biscuits and even a few mouldy hams had been stacked against the splintered stumps which were all that now remained of the banisters Fleury had found so elegant the first evening he had entered the Residency.

With an effort the Collector removed his eyes from the food and looked at the crowd a.s.sembled to bid for it. How starved they looked! Only Rayne, standing on the stairs with his fingers idly drumming on the lid of a tin of Scottish shortbread, still looked as sleek as he had before the siege. Was this because Rayne had been in charge of the Commissariat? Behind Rayne stood his two servants, Ant and Monkey, as thin as their master was fat; their job was to deliver the food to those who bid successfully for it.

But just as the auction was about to begin there was a commotion amongst the knot of gentlemen who had gathered around the foot of the stairs. The stocky figure of Dr Dunstaple was seen thrusting his way towards the stairs. He looked nervous and excited. He said something to Rayne which the Collector could not hear; Rayne shook his head. They argued for a moment and Dr Dunstaple fell back dissatisfied. Using the b.u.t.t of a pistol as a gavel Rayne began the auction.

The first lot to be put up was a tin of sugar biscuits and a jar of "mendy", a pomade of native origin for dyeing the hair black. Rayne started the bidding at a guinea and after some brisk compet.i.tion among the gentlemen at the foot of the stairs it was knocked down to one of them for five guineas. Faces in the hall registered distress at this price as it became clear to many of those present that they would be unable to win anything with their limited resources. More tins of biscuits followed, then other foodstuffs. Then came a battle over a fine tooth-comb among the ladies who had lice in their hair; this ended at forty-five s.h.i.+llings amid tears and despair. A ham came next; after some frenzied bidding at the lower prices it climbed to thirteen guineas, then to fourteen where it seemed likely to stay until at the very last moment, a cautious male voice offered fifteen guineas.

"Vokins, what d'you need a ham for?"

Everyone was startled by the sound of the Collector's familiar, commanding tones, particularly Vokins. He mumbled unintelligibly and looked abashed. He had known it would be a mistake.

"And look here, man, how d'you think you're going to pay for it. You haven't a penny to your name."

Again Vokins mumbled. "Speak up, man!"

"It's not for me, sir."

"Then who is it for?"

"It's for Mr Rayne, sir."

All eyes turned towards Rayne, who smiled apologetically and said, yes, that he had asked Vokins to bid on his behalf as he himself would be conducting the auction and it would clearly be difficult for him to put in bids and be auctioneer at the same time.

"Who else has been making bids for Mr Rayne?" A number of gentlemen raised their hands uncertainly and a gasp of surprise went up from the a.s.sembly as it became evident that almost all the food had been bought on Rayne's behalf.

"D'you have enough money to pay for all these goods, Mr Rayne?"

"Not at the moment, sir, but I soon will have."

"You intend to sell them again?"

"Most of them, yes...There should be no difficulty...unless, of course," Rayne added with a smile, "the relief comes sooner than expected."

"Mr Rayne, d'you consider it honourable to profit from the distress of your comrades...of the men, women and children with whom you are fighting for your life?"

"It's a question of fortune, Mr Hopkins. One has to make the best of a situation, after all. Besides, everyone else is bidding out of their next pay, just as I am. They can bid against me if they are prepared to risk it."

"Is everyone bidding out of future pay?"

Several gentlemen nodded and someone said: "n.o.body has cash, of course. That was the only way to do it."

"Stand down, Mr Rayne."

Rayne shrugged and ceded his place to the Collector. The Collector looked down at the gaunt, upturned faces gathered at the foot of the stairs. They stared back at him with dull eyes. One or two of the men were smiling. The Magistrate was smiling, and so were Mr Rose and Mr Ford, and so were the Schleissner brothers. The smile spread to more and more people, then turned into a laugh. Everyone was laughing; it was a bitter, unpleasant laugh which the Collector recognized as the sound of despair. Hardly any of the men making these rash bids expected to live to pay for them. In their present mood people would think nothing of mortgaging themselves for years ahead in order to acquire some trifling luxury like a jar of brandied peaches or a few leaves of tobacco.

"Listen to me. It may seem to some of you that there's very little hope left for us in Krishnapur. But this is not so. With every pa.s.sing day our chances of relief improve. D'you think that the Government in Calcutta is prepared to leave us to our fate? Consider the immense resources available to our nation, consider the British soldiers who must now be converging on the mutinous Indian plains from every part of the Empire. Just think! Nearly three months have pa.s.sed...by now a relieving force may be no more than a day's march away, and yet you're prepared to mortgage away your future lives as if they did not exist! At the very outside, relief can't be more than two weeks away. A mere few days are nothing when we've already survived so much!"

The Collector, surveying the crowd, felt a little hope begin to stir in the hungry and despairing bodies below him. After all, they seemed to be thinking, it was perfectly true, relief should not be much longer in arriving.

"I don't believe that this is the time for us to profit from each other's misery so I hereby cancel all sales of food which have taken place this afternoon. The food will be handed over to the Commissariat and distributed either among the garrison as a whole, or among the sick, depending on its nature. The Commissariat will henceforth be administered by Mr Simmons, and Mr Rayne will take up his duties at the ramparts; his bearers, however, will remain to a.s.sist in the Commissariat. Let me say finally, that it's my intention that we should all starve together, or all survive together."

Once again there was silence. People looked at each other in astonishment. Then a man at the back of the hall began to clap, and someone else joined in. Soon the clapping became fierce applause. Such was the enthusiasm that you might have thought that the Collector had just sung an aria.

But hardly had the applause for the Collector died down when two hands reached up and dragged him down the stairs by his braces and into the crowd.

"I expect they're anxious to chair me around the hall," thought the Collector triumphantly. His success had come as a complete surprise to him. However, n.o.body seemed anxious to chair him round the hall, or anywhere. Indeed, they seemed to have forgotten about him altogether, for the hands which had grasped his braces to drag him off his podium had belonged to Dr Dunstaple. No sooner had he freed the platform of the Collector's superfluous presence than the Doctor sprang into his place and held up his hand for silence. The Collector had already perceived that all was not well with the Doctor. While speaking he had been aware of the Doctor's red, exasperated features grimacing in the first rank at the foot of the stairs; he had seemed nervously excited, anxious, impatient that the auction should be over. "Disgraceful!" he had muttered. "We could all be dead." But now the Doctor had begun to speak.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Dr McNab still hasn't offered any evidence to support his strange methods which amount, it seems, to pumping water into cholera victims. Nor has he provided any evidence to support his belief that cholera is spread in drinking water. Now, ladies and gentlemen, shouldn't we give him his opportunity?" And Dr Dunstaple laughed, though in a rather chilling manner.

As before in the cellar, all eyes turned to McNab who, once again, happened to be leaning against a wall at the back. On this occasion, however, his calm appeared to have been ruffled by Dr Dunstaple's words and he replied with a note of impatience in his voice: "If any evidence were needed it would be enough to see what happens when a weak saline solution is injected into the veins of a patient in the condition of collapse. His shrunken skin becomes filled out and loses its coldness and pallor. His face a.s.sumes a natural look...he's able to sit up and breathe more normally and for a time seems well...My dear Dr Dunstaple, perhaps you could explain to us why, if the symptoms are caused, as you seem to believe, by damage to the lungs or by a poison circulating in the blood and depressing the action of the heart...why it's possible that these symptoms should thus be suspended by an injection of warm water holding a little salt in solution?"

Dr McNab had asked this question with a smile. But the smile only irritated Dr Dunstaple and he bellowed: "Rubbis.h.!.+ Let Dr McNab give his reasons for saying that cholera is spread by the drinking of infected water!" He paused a moment to let his words sink in, and then added: "Perhaps he'll explain away the case, reported officially officially to the Royal College of Physicians, of a dispenser who accidentally swallowed some of the so-called 'rice-water' matter voided by a patient in a state of collapse from cholera... to the Royal College of Physicians, of a dispenser who accidentally swallowed some of the so-called 'rice-water' matter voided by a patient in a state of collapse from cholera... but who suffered no ill-effects whatsoever but who suffered no ill-effects whatsoever !" !"

"No, I can't explain that," replied McNab, who had now recovered his composure and was speaking in his usual calm tone. "Any more than I can explain why cholera should have always attacked those of our soldiers who had recently arrived in the Crimea in preference to those who had been there for some time...Or why, as has been suggested, Jews should be immune to cholera, and many other things about this mysterious disease."

Ah, it had been a mistake to mention Jews. The Magistrate could see people thinking: "Jews! Whatever next!"

"How d'you explain its high incidence in places known to be malodorous?"

"It should be obvious that in the crowded habitations of the poor, who live, cook, eat, and sleep in the same apartment and pay little regard to the was.h.i.+ng of hands, the evacuations of cholera victims which are almost colourless and without odour can be pa.s.sed from one person to another. It has often been noted that the disease is rarely contracted by medical, clerical or other visitors who don't eat and drink in the sickroom. And consider how severely the mining districts were affected in each of the epidemics in Britain. The pits are without privies and the excrement of the workmen lies about everywhere so that the hands are liable to be soiled by it. The pitmen remain underground for eight or nine hours at a time and invariably take food down with them into the pits and eat it with unwashed hands and without a knife and fork. The result is that any case of cholera in the pits has an unusually favourable situation in which to spread."

"Gentlemen," interrupted the Collector, "it's clear that the difference between you is a deeply felt and scientific one which none of us here are qualified for adjudicating...To an impartial observer it seems that there's something to be said on either side..." The Collector hesitated. "Let us therefore be content, until the...er...march of science has freed us from doubt, to take precautions against either eventuality. Let us take care, on the advice of Dr Dunstaple, to ventilate our rooms, our clothes and our persons as best we can lest cholera be present in an invisible poisonous miasma. And at the same time let us take care with was.h.i.+ng and cleanliness and other precautions to see that we don't ingest the morbid agent in any liquid or solid form. As for the treatment of those unfortunate enough to contract the disease, let them choose whichever approach seems to them the most expressive of reason."

The Collector fell silent, hoping that these words might bring the meeting to an end without leaving too great a schism between the two factions. But Dr Dunstaple's bitterness was too great to be satisfied with this armistice.

"Dr McNab still hasn't granted my request for evidence that cholera is spread by drinking water. Does he expect us to be convinced by his words about the prevalence of cholera in the pits? Ha! He's forgotten to mention, by some slip of the memory, the one fact about the pits which is known to everyone...the impurity of the air breathed by the pitmen! Moreover, I should warn those present of the risks they expose themselves to under McNab's treatment...which is, however, not a treatment at all, but a waste of time. Let him who is prepared, should McNab decide on another experiment, to have needles driven into his stomach, allow himself to be treated by this charlatan. I believe I've done my duty in making this plain."

"I shall also give a warning to those present, to the effect that, in my view, nothing could be worse for the treatment of cholera than the warm baths, mustard-plasters and compresses recommended by Dr Dunstaple, which can only further reduce the water content of the blood...No medicine could be more dangerous in cholera collapse than opium, and calomel in the form of a pill is utterly useless."

"Thank you, Dr McNab," put in the Collector hurriedly, but McNab paid no attention to him.

"As for the evidence that cholera is spread in drinking-water, there is, as Dr Dunstaple should be well aware, a considerable amount of evidence to support this view. I'll mention one small part of it only...evidence collected as a result of the epidemics of 1853 and 1854 by Dr Snow and which concerns the southern districts of London. These districts, with the exception of Greenwich and part of Lewisham and Rotherhithe, are supplied with water by two water companies, one called the Lambeth Company, and the other the Southwark and Vauxhall Company. Throughout the greater part of these districts the supply of water is intimately mixed, the pipes of both companies going down all the streets and into almost all the courts and alleys. At one time the two water companies were in active compet.i.tion and any person paying the rates, whether landlord or tenant, could change his water company as easily as his butcher or baker...and although this state of things has long since ceased, and the companies have come to an arrangement so that the people cannot now change their supply, all the same, the result of their earlier compet.i.tion remains. Here and there one may find a row of houses all having the same supply, but very often two adjacent houses are supplied differently. And there's no difference in the circ.u.mstances of the people supplied by the two companies...each company supplies rich and poor alike.

"Now in 1849 both companies supplied virtually the same water...the Lambeth Company got theirs from the Thames close to the Hungerford Bridge; the Southwark and Vauxhall Company got theirs at Battersea-fields. Each kind of water contained the sewage of London and was supplied with very little attempt at purification. In 1849 the cholera epidemic was almost equally severe in the districts supplied by each company.

"Between the epidemic of 1849 and that of 1853 the Lambeth Company removed their works from Hungerford Bridge to Thames Ditton, beyond the influence of the tide and out of reach of London's sewage. During the epidemic of 1854 Dr Snow uncovered the following facts...out of 134 deaths from cholera during the first four weeks, 115 of the fatal cases occurred in houses supplied by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, only 14 in that of the Lambeth Company's houses, and the remainder in houses that got their water from pump wells or direct from the river. Remember, this was in districts where houses standing next to each other very often had a different water supply."

"Pure reason!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Magistrate. "It will be too much for them. Ha! Ha!" If anything was destined to distract the a.s.sembly from an objective consideration of rival arguments it was this strange, almost mad, outburst from the Magistrate. Dr McNab continued, however: "During the epidemic as a whole which lasted ten weeks there were 2,443 deaths in houses supplied by Southwark and Vauxhall as against 313 in those supplied by the Lambeth Company. Admittedly the former supplied twice as many houses as the latter...but if the fatal cases of cholera during the entire epidemic are taken in proportion to the houses supplied, it will be seen that there were 610 deaths out of 10,000 houses supplied by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, whereas there were only 119 out of 10,000 supplied by the Lambeth Company. I challenge Dr Dunstaple to deny in the face of this evidence that cholera is not spread by drinking water!"

The effect of Dr McNab's arguments was by no means as overwhelming as might be supposed; with the best will in the world and in ideal circ.u.mstances it is next to impossible to escape cerebral indigestion as someone quotes comparative figures as fluently as Dr McNab had just been doing. The audience, their minds gone blank, stared craftily at Dr McNab wondering whether this was a conjuring trick in which he took advantage of their stupidity. Very likely it was. The audience, too, was painfully hungry and yet in the presence of food which was not apparently destined for their stomachs; this made them feel weak and peevish. The heat, too, was atrocious; the air in the hall was stagnant and the audience stinking. Every time you took a breath of that foul air you could not help imagining the cholera poison gnawing at your lungs. Even Fleury, who was perfectly conscious of the force of McNab's arguments, nevertheless gave a visceral a.s.sent to those of Dr Dunstaple.

What would have happened if Dr Dunstaple had replied to Dr McNab's challenge it is hard to say. He had taken a seat on the stairs while McNab was speaking. As he finished, however, he sprang to his feet, his face working with rage, his complexion tinged with lavender. He opened his mouth to speak but his words were drowned by a volley of musket fire nearby and the crash of a round shot which brought down a shower of plaster on the heads of his audience.

"Stand to arms!" came a cry from outside, and immediately everyone began to disperse in pandemonium (and more than one tin of food was accidentally grabbed up in the confusion). The Doctor was left to wave his arms and shout; he could not be heard above the din. However, he had one final argument, more crus.h.i.+ng than any he had yet delivered, and for this he needed no words. From his alpaca coat he whipped a medicine bottle of colourless fluid, flourished it significantly at Dr McNab and drank it all off. What was in the bottle that he had thus publicly drained to the last drop? The Doctor himself did not say. yet it did not require much imagination to see that it could only be one thing: the so-called "rice-water" fluid from a cholera patient, which Dr McNab claimed was so deadly. Against this argument Dr McNab's tiresome statistics could not hope to compete.

27.

At first, there had been great enthusiasm over the Collector's decision to suppress the rights of property in the food that was to have been auctioned and to give a share to everybody. But this enthusiasm swiftly evaporated and soon it became difficult to find anyone who was satisfied with it, let alone enthusiastic. A share for everybody would mean less than half a mouthful...and if "everybody" meant natives as well, the amount you received would hardly be worth opening your jaws for. The food in question had, of course, belonged to the dead; but now the living who still possessed their own meagre stores began to fear for their safety. Prices had already quadrupled during the siege; now a frenzy of economic activity took place in which more than one lady gave a handful of pearls for a bottle of honey or a box of dates. This was regarded by many of the erstwhile "bolting" party as the twilight of reason before the Collector's increasingly communistic inclinations demanded that you give up not only your stores, but perhaps your spare clothes, and, who knows? maybe even your wife as well. Others, conscious that they were eating the equivalent of a diamond brooch or a sapphire pendant, sat down to a last giddy meal, eating before the Collector could get his hands on it, all at once, what they had h.o.a.rded for weeks. Exasperated by this foolishness, the Collector told Mr Simmons to distribute the extra food with the rations as quickly as possible.

"The rations?"

"The normal daily rations of the food in the Commissariat." The Collector looked at Mr Simmons as if he were being obtuse.

"There's no food left in the Commissariat...None to speak of, anyway."