Hiroshima Joe

by Booth, Martin

  So, in this manner, Francis Leung and the girl were ghosted away by their henchmen.

  It did not take Sandingham long after reading the article to realise that his threat came not from the law but the outlaw. Revenge would be sought.

  He considered going to the police himself, giving himself into protective custody. They would surely be glad to welcome the killer of a drug runner, major fence and Triad leader. Then he remembered the Happy Paradise Bar and that put an end to that.

  His safest bet was to stay as close to the hotel as possible. In a crowd he would be all right. On his own he would be at no small risk.

  With the money he had, he paid Mr Heng for another fortnight. Heng, for his part, soon grew concerned by the fact that Sandingham now resided in the hotel all the while. As long as the Englishman was ensconced in his room, or the lounge, or the hotel bar, he was not earning money, no matter how he might obtain it as a general rule.

  The owners of the hotel were getting restless about his being a paying guest, never mind a free-loading one. The tale of his inveigling David up to his room had run through the hotel staff and the manager had felt duty-bound to relay it to his employers. They were worried in case the guests got notice of it. Many were on friendly terms with the employees.

  Additionally, the end of Sandingham’s fortnight would fall just before Christmas. To turf Sandingham out into the street at such a time would seem uncharitable in the extreme, petty even, and mar the festivities the hotel staff intended to put on for their residents. After all, he was a European.

  Mr Heng tried his best to persuade his employers to allow Sandingham to remain until a week into the new year, but they were adamant. He was not to be given any more credit, not so much as a day’s worth.

  Sandingham accepted Heng’s information with a calmness that took the manager aback.

  ‘It’s all right, Mr Heng. I quite understand how things are. I shall seek some alternative accommodation.’

  ‘If I can help you, Mr Sandingham? I have a friend who manages a cheaper hotel near Jordan Road. I’m sure…’

  ‘I appreciate that: thank you. But I think I’ll be okay.’

  Quite how this move was to be achieved was beyond him.

  * * *

  Even with the opium to act as a kind of restorative to his system, Sandingham did not feel well. Every now and then, even in the middle of doing something like holding a cigarette or a knife and fork, his fingers went numb and prickly. The irritation was not unlike the electric feet from which he had suffered in the war years. His skin, after the summer months of clearing up, once more started to flake. He attributed this to the winter, but he also knew that even in the severe snows of Japan he had not had this trouble.

  Worse than this were other symptoms. His urine began to burn again as he passed water and his stomach started playing up. He put this down to eating out of a can in his room. Perhaps he had stannic poisoning or something. However, even after being careful and consuming his stolen food on a plate, the indigestion and diarrhoea continued. He examined the tins in the boxes on the back stairs one night by the aid of a torch ‘borrowed’ from a roomboy. None of them showed signs of rust or deterioration.

  It occurred to him that he might have contracted a venereal disease. He studied his penis closely. There were no signs of inflammation, pustules or broken blood vessels. It looked quite normal, yet it hurt like hell to piss.

  In the mornings he woke unrested. His back, calves and biceps ached as if he had rheumatism. One of his teeth was loosening in its socket.

  A week before Christmas, he awoke one morning to find the pillow under his head streaked with hairs. He touched his head. The hair was loose. He could pull little tufts of it free without feeling any jab of pain whatsoever. He sat up sharply with alarm. He was hit by a wave of giddiness. The light, which he had left on during the night, hurt his eyes as if he had just been freed from the eiso cell. He grappled for the chair back, but could not judge the distance to it and missed. His hand fell on to his stomach and his fingers hurt badly where they touched it. Looking through a wave of nausea, he saw that his fingernails were bruised dark mauve beneath the cuticle and one of them was weeping a straw-coloured, plasma-like fluid.

  ‘Christ!’ he uttered to his swaying figure in the mirror. ‘I’m falling apart!’

  It was like a nightmare. Maybe it was a nightmare, induced by going back on to the dope after being half-weaned off it. Or perhaps he had the DTs. He wasn’t aware he was an alcoholic, but what else it could be he could not imagine.

  He realised that he had to see a doctor, although he was not registered with one and had not been to visit one since returning to Hong Kong in late 1947. Only, to go to a doctor was to present his addiction to opium, and that would lead to complications both medical and legal. He could do without that.

  An idea came to him. If he were to cross to Hong Kong Island, he could present himself to one of the military hospitals, either the Army establishment at Bowen Road or, on the other side of The Peak, the Royal Naval hospital at Mount Kellett. If he were to arrive in the out-patients’ clinic as an ex-serviceman in transit through the colony they might just believe him and treat him. It wouldn’t matter if they found out about his habit because he would not be a resident or one of their regular patients. They might ignore that aspect of his condition.

  With familiar skill, he concocted a tale and left in the hotel bus with the guests who commuted daily to Central District.

  The Star Ferry was packed and there was standing room only. This was handy, for it not only afforded Sandingham the safety of numbers that he required but also provided him with the opportunity to filch over one hundred dollars from an overcoat hung on one of the seat backs.

  He was not as safe as he had anticipated. As he was queueing in the jostle to disembark at the Hong Kong-side jetty a well-dressed Chinese, whom he had noticed was one of the last passengers to board in Kowloon, running down to ramp to the gangway as it was about to be raised, leaned over and spoke to him.

  ‘Mr Sandingham, good morning. Travelling across the harbour to the office?’

  He made no reply. He did not recognise the man at all, but guessed his mission.

  ‘Perhaps we might have a chat the next time you leave your hotel?’ The man’s voice was urbane, polite and carried a San Franciscan accent. ‘My name is Choy. We have a mutual acquaintance in Francis Lee-Ung. Or, to be more accurate,’ he said with exactitude, ‘we had.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ Sandingham muttered.

  The gangway hit the jetty with a thud.

  ‘Good morning to you, too, Mr Sandingham. Until we meet again in more friendly surroundings.’

  The Chinese got off the ferry ahead of Sandingham who was very watchful when he gained the waterfront.

  Here he was at his most vulnerable. A car could pull up to the kerb, he could be bundled into it and it could be away down Connaught Road before anyone could take any action – if, indeed, something appropriate occurred to them. Ten or fifteen minutes’ drive would have the car parked in a secluded sideroad near Pok Fu Lam Reservoir. After a lengthy session of excruciating pain, he would be left to die tied to a tree on the lower slopes of High West, well away from the road so that he was not discovered, his mouth jammed with his shirt and one or two of his fingers and, for good measure, a wadge of his own dung.

  There was no sign of ‘Choy’ who had vanished into the rush-hour crowds.

  Sandingham allowed three taxis to pull away from the rank before he hailed the fourth. None of the drivers had sought his custom so he assumed that there was no one cab planted there to kidnap him.

  ‘Bowen Road Hospital,’ he directed and lay back in the rear passenger seat.

  A dizziness began to wave over him again and he strove against it like a man fighting nausea. He had to remain alert in case the taxi driver was one of those sent to get him. Being in the rear seat gave him an advantage. The dizziness passed.

  The taxi drove round the Hong Kong
Cricket Club ground and climbed Garden Road past the Peak Tram station. At the top, by the Botanical Gardens, the driver changed down into second gear and negotiated the left-hand hairpin bend into Magazine Gap Road. As the car went over the Peak Tram bridge Sandingham looked down the hillside to see the roof of the house he and Bob had made love in that day. It seemed a hundred years ago.

  Bowen Road was narrow and twice the taxi had to pull in to the kerb to allow through a private car approaching from the opposite direction. Each time this happened, Sandingham half-expected a bullet to crack through the window.

  The taxi finally passed the sentry at the gate, who nodded them through and halted by a row of parked staff cars and an ambulance. Sandingham paid the driver and added a tip he could ill afford. He was relieved, even surprised, to have arrived safely.

  The powerful smell of carbolic and medication met him at the door to the out-patients’ admissions office. He knocked and walked straight in.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  The orderly on duty, a corporal, did not get up from behind his desk. He saw no need to rise for a civilian and especially one that wasn’t all that well dressed. It was important for Sandingham to gain the upper hand.

  ‘Don’t you stand up for a senior officer in the RAMC any more, corporal?’

  The veiled, threatening tone of sarcasm in his voice, if not his appearance, suggested an officer’s grip on command.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  In struggling to rise, the orderly banged his knee firmly on an open drawer. The pencils inside rattled.

  ‘I want an appointment to see a doctor. It is quite urgent as I’m on my way through to Seoul and due to take off this afternoon. Two…’ A slip was about to be born and he corrected it. ‘Fourteen hundred hours.’

  ‘Can I see your movement orders, please, sir?’

  ‘No. They’re with my baggage at Kai Tak. Under guard. You know how it is.’ He winked the wink of an officer to a subordinate.

  ‘Yes, sir. If you’ll just sit here for a moment, sir, I’ll see what I can do for you. May I have your name, sir?’

  Sandingham gave it and sat on a chair by the door. The orderly picked up a telephone. He talked on it for a few minutes, trying several extensions. Finally, he hung up.

  ‘Dr Gresham will see you, sir. If you’ll…’

  There was a rap on the door and another orderly came in.

  ‘Garner. Take…’

  ‘Captain,’ Sandingham interpolated.

  ‘Take Captain Sandingham to Dr Gresham. Room –’

  ‘Yes, corp.’

  He turned jauntily on his heel and went out into the passage, his boots scuffing on the polished stone floor. For effect, Sandingham raised his eyebrows as the private went out.

  ‘National Service,’ explained the corporal. ‘Can’t do nothing with ’em, sir.’

  Sandingham followed the private and was conducted along corridors painted in cream and green gloss until they reached a matching green door. The private knocked, waited and opened it for Sandingham. The doctor was seated at a general-issue desk signing sheets of foolscap.

  ‘Do have a seat. Be with you in a moment, Captain.’

  His rank had evidently been phoned through ahead of him.

  The doctor screwed his fountain pen into its top and looked up.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m not feeling at all well,’ Sandingham informed him. ‘I wondered if you could help me.’

  He described the symptoms in some detail while Gresham left his chair and came round the corner of the desk to perch on the front of it, listening in a friendly manner.

  When Sandingham was done, the doctor said, ‘Right-o. Strip to your underpants, will you?’

  As he was undressing, the doctor watched him. These were not the clothes of a staff officer in civvies on his way to Korea. The undergarments were shabby, the trousers creased and worn shiny at the seat. They smelt faintly of sweat and cheap soap.

  ‘Sit on the couch. Now…’

  He examined Sandingham in silence for at least five minutes, except for a curt ‘Breathe in’ or ‘Cough’ or ‘Does that hurt?’ until he removed his stethoscope and straightened up.

  ‘I’ll go on with my examination,’ he said, ‘after you tell me why you’ve lied through your teeth to get in here.’

  Holding back as much as he felt he could, Sandingham admitted that he was a resident in Hong Kong, had little money, had been in the Army and been a Jap PoW, was down on his luck and needed help. He made sure that he did not exhibit any of the signs of pomposity upon which he had relied with the corporal to get him the appointment.

  Gresham sighed. ‘I can understand why you are reluctant to go to a local quack,’ he said when Sandingham stopped. ‘How long have you been addicted?’

  ‘Three, maybe four years.’

  ‘Drink much?’

  ‘Beer, some scotch. Not a lot. Can’t afford it.’ Sandingham smiled self-deprecatingly.

  ‘Now that we know you don’t have a plane to catch, we’ve got a bit more time. I think we’ll need it.’ Gresham picked up the phone. ‘Rollings? Dr Gresham here. Cancel my rounds for the morning. Ask Dr Tailling if he’ll take them. Or Dr Frazer. And ask Dr Stoppart if he’ll be so good as to pop along to my room.’ Pause. ‘No. Now, if he could.’

  He caught Sandingham’s concerned look.

  ‘No need to worry. I’m not shopping you.’ He hung up the telephone. ‘I just want another doctor to see you. Second opinion. Two consultations are better than one – like heads,’ he joked, to put his new patient at his ease.

  Dr Stoppart joined them within a couple of minutes. He was in his fifties, dangled a pair of pince-nez spectacles on a black ribbon round his neck and wore a charcoal-grey suit. Gresham had on his uniform.

  The two doctors examined Sandingham for over an hour. As they were drawing their study of him to a close, a Chinese orderly arrived with a tea trolley and they each took a cup of tea, obtaining a third for Sandingham, ensuring that his was weaker than their own.

  The cross-examination then began. They asked about his general health prior to the appearance of the symptoms, his appetite and diet, his sex life, his hotel room, his contacts, his opium usage, his tobacco and drinking habits (again) and his family background.

  ‘Let me recap now,’ Stoppart summed up, replacing his spectacles on his nose and scanning a sheet of paper upon which he had taken notes. ‘You live alone in a hotel, don’t mix socially, haven’t had a woman for some months. You smoke opium at the rate of about three ounces a week, but this has been greatly reduced of late. You don’t seem to drink too much but you don’t eat well. Your parents…?’

  ‘My parents are dead,’ Sandingham said.

  ‘Can you tell me what they died of?’

  Sandingham, leaning his elbows on his knees, looked at his feet. The cup in his hand shook and the ripples converged on the centre of the tea.

  ‘My father died during the war,’ he said, adding with embarrassment, ‘I don’t know what killed him.’ He looked up with muted defiance to defend himself against the critical stares he expected: there was none. ‘My mother’, he continued, looking down once more, ‘passed on in the autumn of 1937. She caught flu – it was very cold that winter – which developed into pneumonia.’

  Stoppard sensed the emotion in Sandingham’s voice and exchanged a professional glance with Gresham.

  ‘Finally,’ he asked, ‘you’ve lived here permanently since 1947?’

  Sandingham nodded slowly, heavily.

  ‘Have you had.…?’ Stoppard reeled off a formidable list of diseases. Sandingham had had quite a number of them.

  ‘Tell me, one last clarification – I’m sorry to have had to shoot so many queries at you like this – you were a PoW in Hong Kong and Japan.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Sandingham.

  Scratching his head meditatively, Stoppard admitted after a long pause that he was unsure and wanted blood and urine samples tested
.

  ‘To tell you the truth, Sandingham, I can’t be certain what is wrong with you. You could have a number of deficiency ailments and some of your symptoms are most likely related to your opium-smoking. You could be suffering from a sort of jaundice even, though your liver seems not too distended. Your blood pressure is up, certainly, but…’

  ‘You are also anaemic,’ Gresham commented.

  ‘What I’d like to do is take a drop of your blood and get you to leave us samples of your urine and faeces. We’ll keep your presence here quiet – completely confidential. But we must make out records and admit you on to our lists as an out-patient. We are able to treat ex-servicemen. And you can rely on our discretion – the secrecy of the surgery. But you must return to us to keep your bookings. Will you do that?’ He glanced at Gresham and Sandingham tried to interpret his meaning: perhaps, he thought, the doctor was afraid he’d turn out to be one of those patients who, once equipped with a bottle of pills, disappeared never to return. ‘We’re not going to take you on if you put yourself off most of the while.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sandingham replied humbly.

  Gresham dabbed surgical spirit on the vein in the crook of Sandingham’s elbow and drew off ten ccs of blood. It oozed like scarlet oil into the glass syringe. He was given a specimen bottle and told to urinate into it behind the screen. This he did.

  ‘We also want another sample, as you know,’ said Gresham.

  ‘A thought,’ Stoppart said. ‘Can we have a specimen of your semen?’

  Forty minutes later, all the samples were provided and Sandingham was told to rest in a waiting-room for the duration of the lunch-hour. He asked if he might have a meal and Gresham gave him a chit for the purpose. He ate steamed fish, mashed potatoes and runner beans, with rice pudding for dessert, in a cafeteria with the male nursing and orderly staff.