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.’