Part 12 (1/2)

”He is delirious from the infection.” Max shook his head. ”His fever is through the roof. Gangrene must have set in.”

Sunny rushed over. Wordlessly, she pushed Ernst aside and slid an arm behind Charlie's back. Even through his damp s.h.i.+rt, she could tell that his skin was on fire.

”The railway station,” Charlie mumbled to her in Mandarin. ”Don't you see? It is the key. We must get to the station.”

”We will, yes,” Sunny rea.s.sured him as she forcefully guided him back toward the bed. Charlie didn't resist, but he could barely hold himself upright. Max and Sunny had to drag him onto a stretcher, manoeuvering him past a line of patients, who watched with expressions ranging from bewildered to petrified.

With Franz's help, they hoisted Charlie back onto the bed. He kept trying to lift his head up off the mattress, despite being too weak to hold it up. ”The explosives,” he mumbled. ”How will we get the explosives in?”

Max squinted at Franz. ”You must take him to the operating room and remove more tissue. Surely it is his only hope.”

”There is no time, Max,” Franz blurted. ”Ghoya is on his way over. Von Puttkamer too.”

Max's face blanched. ”That vicious n.a.z.i is coming here? Mein Gott! Why?”

”I have no idea,” Franz said. ”We must get Charlie out of here before they arrive.”

”Why would they care about Charlie?”

Sunny waved her hand. ”We will explain later, Max,” she said in a tone that left no room for argument. ”Go get Joey. Straight away.”

Max hesitated as if to argue but then turned and went in search of Joey.

Franz gazed at her. ”What do we do now, Sunny?”

He looked as lost as she had ever seen him. ”Joey and I will take Charlie home,” she said.

”Home?” Franz asked incredulously. ”To Hannah, Esther and the baby?”

”Just until we can find somewhere more suitable.”

”And what will we possibly do for him there?”

She looked down at the blackened wound on Charlie's thigh. It had begun to blister around the edges. ”We have to take care of that,” she said softly. ”You must bring home the necessary equipment.”

Franz watched Charlie thrash at the air above him. ”Ernst was so right. This is lunacy.”

Joey popped his head through the curtains and seemed to immediately understand what was happening. ”What do you need?”

”Go get a coolie with a rickshaw-someone you trust, Joey-and have him wait out front,” Sunny instructed. ”And find a straw hat if you can.”

As soon as Joey left, Sunny retrieved Charlie's trousers from their heap under the bed. With Max pinning his shoulders down and Franz holding his thighs, Sunny managed to slip the stained garment over his legs. Charlie screamed as the fabric rubbed against his raw wound. Berta arrived at the bedside holding a syringe of morphine and two Aspirin tablets. Together, they managed to sit Charlie up. He choked on the water but swallowed the pills. Sunny exposed a patch of skin on his shoulder and injected the painkiller, then wrapped a blanket around his torso while Berta dabbed at his brow with a compress. Throughout it all, Charlie kept muttering about railways and explosives.

”The coolie is waiting,” Joey said from the end of the bed, where he stood holding a ratty bamboo hat.

Franz turned to Sunny. ”Let me come with you.”

”No. You have to be here when Ghoya arrives.”

Joey and Sunny hoisted Charlie to his feet. Joey secured the hat firmly on Charlie's head. He was like dead weight now and mumbling incoherently. Together they dragged him across the ward and down the corridor.

”I will check the street.” Franz darted out the door without waiting for a response.

Charlie's eyes were closed, even as he continued to mutter. Joey stared silently at the door. Sunny's pulse pounded in her ears. Moments later, Franz burst back inside. ”There is a soldier at the end of the street. Just standing there. I'm not sure which way he will go.”

”And the coolie?” Sunny asked.

”He's at the curb out front.”

”We have no time to wait for the soldier to go.” Sunny shuffled Charlie toward the door and Joey followed her out.

They practically carried Charlie down the pathway to where the coolie stood beside his rickshaw, viewing them with only mild interest as he held tight the handles of his carriage.

Joey hopped inside the rickshaw and helped Sunny manoeuvre Charlie into the seat beside him. Just as she squeezed in herself, the soldier marched up to the rickshaw. He waved his rifle at Charlie and barked at them in j.a.panese. Joey and Sunny shrugged to indicate that they couldn't understand him.

The soldier took a step closer to the rickshaw. He studied Charlie, then motioned for them to remove his hat. Fighting to steady her hand, Sunny feigned indifference as she pulled the hat off Charlie's head. The soldier leaned forward and examined his face.

Sunny's breath caught in her throat.

Suddenly, Joey let out a loud cackle, and the soldier turned to him in surprise. Joey formed a bottle with his thumb and his fist and pantomimed drinking from it. He nodded toward Charlie. ”This one starts very early in the morning,” he said, laughing.

The soldier's lip curled into a disgusted scowl. ”No-good drunk Chinaman.”

CHAPTER 18.

Franz stepped inside his bedroom to find the others crowded around the bed where Charlie lay gla.s.sy-eyed. His calmness suggested that he had emerged from his delirium. Still, despite the breeze from the open window, the faint smell of decayed flesh hung over him.

Sunny stood at the head of the bed speaking to Charlie in a low voice while pressing a compress to his brow. Wen-Cheng, dressed in a surgical gown and gloves, had wedged himself between the bed and the wall and was a.s.sembling an impromptu surgical tray from tools he had smuggled over from the hospital. A hacksaw perched ominously on the far end of the tray.

Sunny looked over her shoulder at Franz. ”What happened with Ghoya and the n.a.z.is?”

”We can discuss it later.” Franz could still picture the crazed little man leading the n.a.z.i contingent around the silent ward as though showing them an apartment whose tenants he was about to evict.

Charlie winced. ”This is too much.”

”What is?” Sunny asked. ”The pain?”

Charlie shook his head slightly. ”Just let me go,” he croaked.

”We cannot allow that,” Wen-Cheng said. ”We are your doctors. We know how to fix you.”

Charlie's eyes drifted over to the saw. ”Fix me?”

”Dr. Huang is correct,” Franz said. ”You should improve once we-”