The Swiss missionary came early the next day, and was evidently not satisfied that sunstroke was entirely my complaint. He sounded my chest, and called out, ‘Oh, it is pleurisy.’ He seemed very excited, and said that, though occupied most of his time with people’s bodies, it was their souls which concerned him most. ‘As a doctor I can give you no hope, but as a missionary I can tell you that everything is possible with God. What is your name?’ I told him this, and, startled as I was, I still puzzled whether the name applied to me or to my ‘double.’ I can just recall the good man going down on his knees, and also his loud and earnest prayers; but owing to my semi-delirious state I can recall nothing of the latter but the good man’s foreign accent.
Why pleurisy should have so much alarmed him I cannot say, as I can recall many who have got the better of it. One good thing about it was that I could be attended to by the hotel servants, who up till that time would not answer my bell; they evidently were not satisfied till then that I was not down with cholera. The fever abated somewhat with the new treatment, and I was able to recognise Weigall and one or two other acquaintances who looked in. The doctor was most attentive, and advised my going with him as far as Assiout, where there is a good hospital run by the American Mission. He called in the native medical man to get a second opinion as to whether I could do the journey, and between the two of them it was decided that I had better risk the journey than risk remaining in the terrible heat of Assuan without any means of proper nursing.
The Swiss doctor would accompany me as far as Assiout, and he would wire to the mission to have me met at the station and take me to the hospital.
We left Assuan after I had been there four days, and a friend who was a manager of the line got a sleeping-car put on to the train. We started in the morning, and after a thirteen-hour journey we reached Assiout in the dead of night. Here I had to part company with the Swiss doctor, who was on his way to Jerusalem. Now, whether the telegram ever reached the mission or not I can’t say; anyhow, the doctor looked in vain for any one connected with the hospital. A good Samaritan in the shape of a Scot, connected with the government, had fortunately travelled down in the same train, and by good luck Assiout was his destination also. I can recall his carrying me to a carriage, and I can also recall his slapping the cheek of a native who tried to force his way in while he clamoured for baksheesh.
He rang up the hall-porter at the hospital, when we reached it, and asked if I was not expected. The porter knew nothing about it, and said every one had retired for the night; there was, however, an empty bed in the room kept for occasional paying patients. I was then placed on that bed while the porter was sent to inform the head of the mission of my arrival. On his return he told us that the hakim was dressing and would be down in a few minutes; there was therefore no occasion for the Scotsman, who had been such a friend in need, to wait any longer. It was then about one o’clock, and I lay on that bed till half-past seven in the morning before I saw another soul except that porter, and he kept out of my way as much as he could, for I don’t believe he ever went to the doctor’s rooms.
Never shall I forget that night, and how I regretted that I had not spent it in the train and gone to a hospital in Cairo. The porter snored in the passage until it was time for him to give out doses to the patients, and then he rang a bell just over the entrance to my room and bawled out the names of those who were to take their medicine. The watchmen in the street, at intervals, called wahed with a long plaintive drawl on the last syllable, and this started every sleeping dog barking once more. A fretful baby in a dormitory next to my room put a treble to the bass notes of the watchmen and the howling of the dogs. I tried to awaken the snoring brute of a porter so that I might get something to drink; but my voice was not strong enough to have any effect, and I had to lie there perishing with thirst till the time came for that dreadful bell to be rung. When finally he brought me a glass of milk my ‘double’ was once more keeping me company—and one small glass for two people seemed a perfect mockery of my thirst. Thus I lay in the clothes I travelled in till a vision of a ministering angel, in white cap and pinafore, appeared in the doorway.
She asked the porter who I was and when I had arrived, for until that moment no one in the hospital was aware of my existence except that lying porter. She sent for the doctor, got a sleeping-suit out of my trunk, and with the help of a male attendant she put me to bed.
Dr. Henry, an active, rather over-middle-aged American who has charge of the mission, was about as great a contrast to the little Swiss doctor as it is possible to conceive. He asked no questions till he had sounded my chest, and then gave the ministering angel, otherwise Sister Dora, orders to prepare a pneumonia jacket. ‘Ever had pneumonia before?’ he jerked out, and on my saying that I had not, and also that the Swiss doctor said I had pleurisy, he retorted, ‘Guess you’ve got both.’ Possibly lying all night between the open window and door had added this to the list of my complaints.
Dr. Henry was too practical a man to waste much thought on idle speculations as to causes; here was something definite to go for, and he went for it in good earnest. ‘That lung is clearing itself tiptop,’ he would say with professional pride after the fourth or fifth examination. The sunstroke was curing itself, unless my ‘double,’ who had left me, had gone off with it. The pneumonia jacket and the night noises were my chief discomfort after a few days. Assiout was distinctly cooler than Assuan, though there is plenty of room for heat without reaching 124° of Fahrenheit in the shade. A cotton-wool jacket about two inches thick was a severe trial and it stuck to me like a wet hot sponge, and before it was thinned down to vanishing point I was covered with prickly heat which I did not lose till after I had got back to England.
I was very anxious to write home, as my wife must have been alarmed at not having heard for some time. The Swiss doctor’s gloomy forecasts might easily be correct, and I wished to put my affairs in order. Writing was, however, such an exertion that I decided first to ask Dr. Henry whether my chances of recovery were good, and if so to put off correspondence until I could more easily manage it.