Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [374]
“To be sure,” said Leclerc, with a beckoning gesture. “Do walk this way, and give me your opinions. I must tell you that our expedition suffers a terrible shortage of qualified medical men, and here especially I am not at all satisfied with the arrangements—”
“I would resume charge of this hospital if you wish,” said the doctor. “It had been my responsibility, before your landing.”
“That was my very hope,” said Leclerc, rubbing his hands together. As he spoke, the rising sun cleared the hospital wall, spreading a band of warmth. They were walking along the rows of patients on their straw mats on the ground. A few of the nurses came up to greet the doctor with quick hand clasps and shy smiles. Behind them, Guizot and Aloyse were maneuvering the coach out of the gateway, so that the cart from La Fossette could come in.
“Mortality from these fevers is very troubling to us,” Leclerc said. “I am told that you have an unusual skill in treating them.”
“There are some local herbs effective against certain fevers,” the doctor said. “In the case of malaria, cinchona is best.” He stopped and looked at Leclerc more closely, noting his skin tone, a slight discoloration of the whites of his eyes, the ghost of a tremor at his fingertips.
“I might recommend such a course to you, Captain-General,” he said. “Unfortunately, cinchona must be imported. I had laid in a good supply just before your arrival, but I am sure it has all been incinerated. And now I don’t know what merchant ships, if any, may be calling at our ports.”
“I will look into it,” Leclerc said. They resumed their promenade. The old guardian, having closed the gate, now stumped along behind them with his stick.
“And there,” said Leclerc, as they reached the wall above the ravine, with a gesture at this last row of moribund patients. “For that fever, what is your specific?”
One of the nurses had stooped to help the nearest man, catching a spew of his black vomit in a gourd. Delicately she wiped his lips and laid his head back on the mat, then pressed his arms to still them, for they writhed in a fading convulsion.
“None,” said the doctor. “That is mal de Siam, the yellow fever. There is no treatment. Few survive.”
“And what accounts for the survival of those few?”
“I do not know,” the doctor said. “I am myself a survivor, but I don’t understand the reason any more than you do.” He paused, looking down the row along the wall. At the lower end of it the grave tenders had begun to lift corpses onto their cart.
“The yellow fever spreads very rapidly among those newly arrived to the colony,” the doctor said. “You may expect it to grow worse with the spring rains. The best solution is to send your new men quickly into the mountains. The bad air of the marshes on the coast promotes the fever.”
Leclerc turned his face toward the wall, fingering his long silky sidewhiskers. The doctor observed his handsome profile. Leclerc was no taller than himself, he noticed, perhaps not even quite as tall. He knew that most of the French troops were already unfit to march into the mountains by the time they arrived, and he expected that the mountain posts were too insecure for his advice to be very safely followed.
“At the least these men should be quarantined once they have taken the yellow fever,” he said. “That the contagion may not spread to others here, who might have better hope to recover.”
Leclerc faced him. “And you suggest?”
“There are the old slave barracoons at La Fossette,” said the doctor. “I don’t know how well they survived the fire, but they were distant from any other buildings.”
“I would not send my troops to the barracoons,” Leclerc said crisply. “And such proximity to the cemetery would be disheartening, is it not so?”
But they’ll mostly die anyway, the doctor thought, and it would be more convenient for the burials. Instead of saying it aloud, he raised his eyes to the hills above the wall.
“These victims might be carried to the height of La Vigie,” he said. “The transport is more difficult, but the air is more salubrious once they arrive.