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By Root 1366 0

Palace. But just like the Queen's Guard, the Imperial Bodyguard wasn't merely a ceremonial unit; its professional soldiers and its units were no different than the rest of the armed forces, and trained for battle. Up-and-coming cadets from all the services went to Sandhurst or West Point or Poona. But those sojourns had a way of expanding one's social conscience. The Emperor feared a coup by these young officers. Having the second- or third-largest standing armed force on the continent was a matter of pride, but it was also potentially dangerous to his reign. The Emperor deliberately kept the four services in competition with one another, kept their headquarters far apart, and he transferred generals who were getting too powerful. Matron sensed some such intrigue—why else would the Minister of the Pen call personally?

The minister had no idea what it meant for Missing not to have a surgeon, Matron thought. Before Thomas Stone's arrival, Missing could handle most internal medicine and pediatric patients, thanks to Ghosh, and it tackled complicated obstetric and gynecologic conditions, thanks to Hema. Over the years a number of other doctors had come and gone, some of them capable of surgery. But Missing never had a fully trained and competent surgeon till Stone. A surgeon allowed Missing to fix complex fractures, remove goiters and other tumors, perform skin grafts for burns, repair strangulated hernias, take out enlarged prostates or cancerous breasts, or drill a hole in the skull to let out a blood clot pressing against the brain. Stone's presence (with an assistant like Sister Mary Joseph Praise) took Missing to a new level. His absence changed everything.

THE PHONE RANG again a few minutes later, and this time the sound was ominous. Matron brought the instrument gingerly to her ear. Please God, let Stone be alive.

“Hello? This is Eli Harris. Of the Baptist congregation of Houston … Hello?”

For a call from America, the connection was crystal clear. Matron was so surprised that she said nothing.

“Hello?” the voice said again.

“Yes?” Matron said gruffly.

“I'm speaking from the Ghion Hotel in Addis Ababa. Could I speak to Matron Hirst?”

She held the receiver away, covering the mouthpiece. She felt panicked. And confused. What on earth was Harris doing here? She was accustomed to dealing with donors and charitable organizations by mail. She needed to think quickly, but her mind refused to cooperate. At last, she took her hand away and brought the phone up. “I'll pass the message on, Mr. Harris. She will call you back—”

“May I know who is speaking—”

“You see, we have had a death of one of our staff. It might be a couple of days before she calls you.” He started to say something, but Matron hung up abruptly. Then she took the receiver off the hook, glaring at it, daring it to ring.

The Baptists of Houston were of late Missing's best and most consistent funders. Matron sent out handwritten letters every week to congregations in America and Europe. She asked that her letter be forwarded to others if they were unable to help. If a reply came expressing any interest, she immediately mailed them Thomas Stone's textbook, The Expedient Operator: A Short Practice of Tropical Medicine. Though expensive to mail, it was better than any prospectus. Donors, she found, always had a prurient interest in what could go wrong with the human body, and the photographs and illustrations (by Sister Mary Joseph Praise) in the book satisfied that desire. A picture of a strange creature with the face of a pig, the furriness of a dog, and with small, myopic eyes accompanied the chapter on appendicitis, and Matron always put her letter there as a bookmark. The legend read “The wombat is a burrowing, nocturnal marsupial found only in Australia, and the only reason to mention it is the dubious distinction it has in joining man and apes in ownership of an appendix.” The book, more than any exchange of letters, had won the Houston Baptists’ support.

Ghosh arrived half an hour later, shaking his head. “I went to the British Embassy. I drove around