CHAPTER VI.
THE STRANGE CASE OF JOHN DOE.
WHILE Kit was picking his way through the pineapple fields and watching the processes in the sponge yards of Nassau, something was happening on the other side of the world that would have made the blood jump in his veins if he could have known of it.
Though it was midwinter in New York, it was then, in January, midsummer in the city of Wellington, New Zealand, which lies south of the equator. Doors and windows stood open, and men and animals alike sheltered themselves as far as possible from the burning rays of the sun. Even the New Zealand boys, who are not little brown savages with feathers in their hair, but white boys who speak English and go to school and wear clothes made after London and Paris fashions—even the boys found it too hot to enjoy their usual Saturday games.
On the very day that Kit was trying to hurry the pineapple men and sponge men of Nassau, there was an unusual stir in the big public hospital of Wellington. Not in the wards where the patients lay; no matter what happened outside, they were always kept quiet and tranquil. But downstairs in the Board room, where the Board of Governors of the hospital meets four times a year to inquire into the management and arrange the financial affairs, the windows were open and the big table and soft armchairs all freshly dusted; and in the banqueting-hall beyond, which the patients never see, but where the governors regale themselves after their quarterly labors, a long table was spread as if for a banquet.
Occasionally a carriage drove through the big gates, and one or two gentlemen stepped out and disappeared in the house surgeon’s private office. It was evident, to every one who knew the hospital routine, that the quarterly meeting day had come, and that the governors were arriving. They were to audit the accounts, to hear complaints, to make any necessary changes in the staff, and last but by no means least to eat the good dinner that almost invariably follows the meeting of any board of charities.
At two o’clock precisely the chairman rapped on the big table and called the Board to order; and the ten other gentlemen, five on each side of the table, listened with more or less patience to the reading of the minutes of the last meeting. Then came a batch of reports; for the reading of reports and the appointment of committees to consider them form a large part of the business of such meetings. The house surgeon’s report gave a favorable account of the hospital’s work in the last quarter. So many patients had been received, so many had been discharged cured, and not so many but so few had died. If any stranger had been allowed to be present, he must have thought it the most remarkable hospital in the world. In the surgical ward, particularly, not a single patient had died while undergoing an operation; every operation had been successful. Some of the medical members of the Board smiled faintly when they heard this, being familiar with the cheerful medical custom of calling every operation successful when the patient does not die on the spot; he may die that night or the next day, but still the operation is called successful. There was a hush of interest about the table when the clerk read:—
“The strange case of John Doe need not be further mentioned here, as the house surgeon will ask the privilege of making a verbal report in his case at the pleasure of the Board.”
Then followed the steward’s report, showing how many barrels of flour and sugar and other eatables had been consumed and what they had cost; and the apothecary’s report of the medicines used, and a dozen more; and, after a half-hour’s discussion of these matters, that part of the business was finished, and the chairman announced that he was “now ready to hear the house surgeon’s report on what has appropriately been called the strange case of John Doe.”
At this the house surgeon stepped forward with a small memorandum-book open in his hand. He was a tall, slender man with iron-gray hair and an extremely professional appearance, slow and accurate in his speech.
“Although this case has already been brought to the attention of the Board, Mr. Chairman,” he began, “I will briefly rehearse the principal facts for your further information. This man to whom we have given the name of John Doe, because his real name is totally unknown to us, was brought to this port six months ago by the British ship Prince Albert; and being both physically and mentally incapacitated, he was immediately brought to the hospital. The log of the Prince Albert showed that on the 27th of last June their lookout saw a signal of distress flying from a pole on a small unnamed and uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean, the latitude and longitude of which I have a minute of, but do not at the moment remember. The ship was immediately put about and a boat lowered, and sent ashore under command of the second mate. The mate found what he at first supposed to be the dead bodies of four men, all scantily clothed; but on examining the bodies faint signs of life were found in one, the man whom we now know as John Doe, who wore nothing whatever but a pair of trousers, and, like the others, was much emaciated. The only property found on the island was the small spar which had been set up for a signal pole; and the plain inference was that the four men had escaped from some wreck on the spar, without an opportunity to save any of their property.
“The three men who were certainly dead were decently buried, and John Doe, who was unable to speak or even to open his eyes, was taken on board the Prince Albert, where under kind and judicious treatment he improved so far physically that by the time she reached this port he was able to walk a few steps, though still extremely weak. But there was no corresponding improvement in his mental condition. He was not able to speak, and apparently understood nothing that was said to him. Such was his state when he was received in the hospital.
“It was my opinion, and that of the entire staff, that he was broken down by the terrible hardships and privations that had caused the death of his companions, starvation and exposure doubtless chief among them. Under our treatment he has gained greatly in strength, so that he is able to move about slowly; and if he were mentally sound I should feel warranted in discharging him as convalescent. But mentally he is still incapacitated. His memory is so utterly gone that he does not even know his own name or country. We have tried every means to arouse him from his stupor, but he has been able to articulate only six words, and those indistinctly. They are: ‘I don’t know. I cannot remember.’
“Those few words are sufficient, however, to show that he belongs to some English-speaking nation, probably either to our own country or to America, or perhaps to some of the British colonies. And my object in laying the case before you at this length is to enable the Board to determine whether under the circumstances he is a fit subject for further treatment in the hospital. Some question has been raised on that point on account of the doubt whether the man is even a British subject.”
“This is indeed an interesting case—a most interesting case!” the chairman said, when the house surgeon sat down. “I do not remember that such a problem has ever been presented to us before. Whether this man, being no longer bodily ill, is entitled to our further treatment and support, is what we are called upon to decide. I understand from our worthy chief of staff that he is now strong enough to walk about without assistance. Would it not be well to bring him into the room, that we may see for ourselves?”
“Yes, yes; bring him in!” was echoed by several voices. “Let us see whether we can make him out.”
“And if we find that he is an American,” one of the governors said, “he should be taken in charge by the consul of his own country.”
“One word more, Mr. Chairman,” said the house surgeon, taking the floor again. “I must explain that there is some slight ground for believing that the man is an American rather than a British subject. The orderly on duty in the exercise yard reported to me several weeks ago that a ship had that day come into the harbor, flying the American flag; and that this John Doe, seeing it over the top of the wall, showed more interest in it than in anything else since his arrival. He extended his arm toward it, and tried to mutter some words that the orderly could not make out. With this hint I have had it in mind to try upon him the effect of the flags of other nations; but anticipating your desire to see the result for yourselves, I have postponed the trial until to-day, and have also asked the American consul to be present—subject, of course, to your wishes. The consul is now waiting in my office.”
“Let us see John Doe first,” said the chairman; and the house surgeon pressed a bell button and gave some instructions to the orderly who answered.
In a few minutes the door opened again, and the orderly escorted into the room what seemed at first to be a bent and stiffened old man, leaning heavily on a cane and making his way along with difficulty. His hair and beard were almost white, and he shuffled in without raising his eyes from the floor, as if he took no interest whatever in the proceedings. Led to a chair, he sat down heavily, and half-closed his eyes. But the professional eyes present saw that it was not age, but suffering and illness, that had reduced him to this condition. The aged look in his face was caused rather by pain than by years, for there were few of the wrinkles in the forehead or about the eyes or mouth that come with advanced age; and his hands were those of a man in the prime of life, “sixty-five or seventy,” an unprofessional person would have pronounced him; but the physicians present knew that he was very little, if at all, past forty.
“Well, my good man, how are you feeling to-day?” the chairman asked.
“I don’t know,” John Doe answered, without raising his eyes, and with a dazed look on his countenance.
“When did you leave London?” one of the governors asked; but the man merely shook his head.
“Or did you come from New York?” another said; but still there was no answer but a feeble shake of the head. It was too evident that he understood very little of what was said, and could not answer even that little intelligently.
Several of the medical members of the Board went up to him and felt his pulse, examined the hue of his skin, raised the lids and looked searchingly into his eyes, and felt his scalp carefully for traces of an old injury, but could find none.
“Suppose that we see whether any of our flags will have an effect upon him to-day,” the chairman suggested; and turning to the house surgeon he added, “and invite the American consul to come in and see the result.”
The surgeon went after the consul, and when they entered the room, they were followed by an orderly, bearing an armful of folded flags. The consul was invited to take a chair, after replying to the chairman’s question that he was acquainted with the circumstances of the case; and the orderly was directed to unfold one of the flags and show it to the mysterious patient.
“Try the British flag first,” the chairman said; and the room was as quiet as death while the orderly shook out the flag, and held it close to John Doe’s face. But the feeble man paid no more attention to it than he had paid to the questions.
“Now the French flag,” the chairman ordered; and still John Doe did not raise his eyes from the floor.
“The American flag,” said the chairman. This was the test; and as the orderly held out his arm with the beautiful stars and stripes hanging over it, the members of the Board leaned forward eagerly to watch the result.
For a moment John Doe did not seem to see the flag. But presently his sunken eyes caught the brilliant red and white stripes, and instantly a change was noticed in his face. A look of semi-intelligence came over it that none present had seen there before. Leaning the cane between his knees, he stretched out one hand and drew the orderly closer to him, and with the other hand stroked the stripes as lovingly and gently as he might have stroked a kitten or the head of a pet child. His lips moved, and it was plain that he was trying to utter words that would not come. And the hush in the room became still deeper when after a few moments of this the feeble man drew the back of his hand across his eyes to wipe away the moisture.
“That will do, Mr. Orderly; you can take the flags away,” the chairman said; and every man in the room noticed that John Doe kept his eyes fixed upon the flag until it was folded and carried away.
“If this remarkable experiment has had the same effect upon you as upon me, gentlemen,” the chairman continued, “you have seen that the sight of an old friend has for a moment roused the slumbering faculties of this poor man’s brain. I have no longer any doubt that he is an American; and I should like to hear the American consul’s opinion of this strange case.”
“This is one of the most touching things that I have ever seen, Mr. Chairman,” the consul said, stepping forward. “That this stricken and unfortunate man, a stranger in a strange land, sick, destitute, almost bereft of reason, should show this emotion at the sight of my flag, an emotion that nothing else excites in him, leaves me no room to doubt that he is my countryman. And yet I am compelled to say that this is not legal proof of his nationality, and to explain, what most of you doubtless know, that a consul is only permitted to give substantial aid to distressed seamen who are beyond doubt citizens of his country. Still I should be glad to strain a point and send this man home, if I only knew where to send him; but that is yet one of the mysteries.
“What we have just seen, however, convinces me that his reason is not dead, only sleeping. Any familiar sight, the face of a member of his family, even the mention of a familiar name, might restore his lost memory in an instant. I think you medical gentlemen will agree with me in this, for you have seen such cases. We shall have within a few weeks reports from our respective governments giving the names of all the British and American vessels that were lost last year. It is highly probable that the mention of the name of this man’s ship may awaken his memory sufficiently to give us a clue to his identity; and I shall of course lay the facts before the State Department at once. But meanwhile I am so firmly convinced that this unfortunate man is my countryman that I will willingly take upon myself personally the responsibility of his support.”
The consul had hardly resumed his chair before one of the members of the Board sprang to his feet.
“Mr. Chairman,” he almost shouted, “it is about two months, as you know, since I returned from America. While there my interest in hospital work naturally led me to visit the great hospitals in many of the large cities. In New York, in Boston, in Chicago, in San Francisco, in New Orleans, I found that at least ten per cent of all the patients were British subjects, receiving every possible care and kindness without question of their nationality. In that land they do not ask whether a man is an American or a Briton or a Hottentot; the only question is whether he is sick and in need of help, and if he needs it they give it to him. I do not wonder that this unfortunate man shed tears at the sight of his flag. And if we turn him out into the streets to starve because he is a foreigner, we ought to shed tears at the sight of ours, though for a widely different reason.”
As the speaker took his seat there was such a furious clapping of hands that the chairman had to rap on the table for order.
“The Board seems to be so much of one mind,” he said, “that it is not necessary to put a motion. John Doe will remain an inmate of the hospital until the Board’s further orders. And now, gentlemen, the orderly informs me that dinner is waiting. We hope, Mr. Consul, that you will do us the honor to dine with us.”
At the precise moment when the Board went in to dinner, and the tottering John Doe was led back to his favorite seat in the sunny yard, Kit, in happy ignorance of his father’s condition, was learning that a sponge as big as a bushel basket could be pressed into a small cigar box.