Chapter 72.
Christopher, Jean and the three children reached Hong Kong in the autumn of 1921 and were met by his father and Dorothy and Helen. They had brought two valuable goats to provide milk for the children. While living in a flat in Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, waiting for a steamer to Kong Moon, the goats were stolen. After a few days the family got to Kong Moon safely.
(Christopher) We had to spend a little time there waiting for a junk to Yeung Kong. The kind missionaries of the Boat Mission took us in and we slept on their boat. We had no mosquito nets and the mosquitoes were awful. It was probably there the seeds of malaria were sown.
The junk to Yeung Kong was very crowded, so we decided to put the three children to bed on the after deck. There was a great pile of goose baskets up there, perhaps ten or twelve feet high, but plenty of room for us. During the night we were towed down the Kong Moon River, which was perfectly smooth, but before daybreak we reached the open sea where the waves were high and it was not long till the pile of baskets fell over, just missing the heads of the three children. I suppose another six inches and it would have killed them all.
Through the mercy of God we finally reached Yeung Kong safely and settled in. My father had had a little gallery built in the room we occupied and here the children slept, while we had the room below. The rats were terrible, but we finally caught two big ones in one trap and that helped for awhile. It was November when we reached Yeung Kong and we started to study the language: “Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum”, over and over again, each “yum” having a different tone and each meaning something quite different to the other “gums”.
I think it was Christmas Day that John went down with his first attack of malaria and he was quite sick with a high temperature, but came around fairly soon. About a month later he waked us one morning before five with screams of fright. I hurried to him and took him in my arms. He was burning hot and having the most terrible dreams. The room where we stayed was next door to an idol temple, with only a thin brick wall between, and he could hear the idol worship going on, and as he passed the temple in the daytime he could see the horrible idols. He dreamed that these idols were trying to get hold of him. I got the thermometer and it shot up to 105. I did not wait for it to go higher; all the house was awake by now and I got them to bring a cold bath and I put him into this and my father sent a man to go to the city gate near the hospital, so that the moment it was opened he could go out and call the doctor. The doctor had a bicycle and came as soon as he was called (the gate opened at six). As soon as he came in he said: “Take that child out of that bath; you’ll kill him”.
Then began a long hard fight. Every eleven hours and a half his temperature would go up and when it reached (I think it was) 103 he would see these horrible idols coming after him again. It was not long before Hope went down with relapsing fever, I think the first case the doctor had had of this disease. He had treated her for malaria but the quinine had no effect and one injection turned into a great abscess. Fanny had developed whooping-cough and had it very badly, almost strangled with the cough, but not only that—the powdered milk we had for her acted like poison to her and we could find nothing that she could digest. Hope was frightfully ill and when awake would only lie in my arms and I would watch her and wonder with each breath if it was to be her last. And yet, through all, we had a sort of sheet anchor that we fell back upon. We had come to China in the face of the most bitter opposition from my wife’s relations, who insisted that all the children would die. This had driven us to the Lord in very earnest prayer as to whether or not we should give up all thought of China. The Lord (I have not a doubt) gave us that beautiful verse: “And those children whom ye say shall perish in the wilderness shall inherit the land ... ... Your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in”. And we felt the Lord could not go back on that promise, nor let our opposers triumph.
I think it must have been the latter part of March that. Dr. Dobson, the doctor at the Presbyterian Hospital, told us that we must take the children away to the hospital in Hong Kong. He told us of a hospital, “The Matilda”, that took in those who were poor, free of charge. And there was no doubt we were poor. The dear Chinese saints were so kind and good. They had a special meeting to commend us to the Lord the morning we sailed, and how well I remember one of the brothers giving out that hymn: “Take the Name of Jesus with you, Child of sorrow and of care”. It was like balm to our troubled hearts. When we got down to the mouth of the river where we usually got on board the junk to take us to Kong Moon we found that this trip there was not to be a junk but a real little steamship, with a tiny cabin to ourselves. I never remember such a thing happening again; it must surely have been the Lord’s tender care of us, for He saw we were near the end of our tether. In spite of being held up by pirates in the Kong Moon River, we reached the ship for Hong Kong ten minutes before it sailed.
When we arrived in Hong Kong, the doctor at The Matilda Hospital refused to take the children in, because we had no letter from Dr. Dobson, and we waited on a boat in the harbor. Finally they were admitted, but each day the doctor thought would be their last.
Our funds were exhausted and we lived in a cheap room in Sham Shui Po (Kowloon), but the doctor insisted that we move nearer to the children (the Matilda Hospital is on The Peak on Hong Kong Island). The little meeting at Gordon Bay had sent a draft that met the cost.
We could not return to Yeung Kong and the doctor at the Matilda Hospital insisted that we take John and Fanny north on the next boat. Hope, he felt, was too ill to travel.
On our way out to China we had met Margaret, the daughter of our old friend Mr. J. L. Duff, who was traveling with us on the Canadian Pacific “Empress of Japan”.
When the ship stopped at Shanghai en route to Hong Kong we met her father, Mr. J. L. Duff, starting a friendship of many years. Mr. Duff had said that he was sure the children would not stand the climate of South China and asked me to cable him and he would have a place for the family on Kuling, a mountain resort above Kiukiang on the Yangtse River, in Central China.
So I cabled Mr. Duff and booked passages for the whole family, including Hope. We had with us a Chinese nursemaid (amah), Ah Mo, the widow of a fisherman lost at sea, who had worked for the Presbyterian missionary families in Yeung Kong.
When we reached Shanghai we did not know where the Missionary Home was, so we took rickshaws and the coolies pulled us there. We met Miss Spurling for the first time. She sent a man with us to the Yangtse boat, took care of all our baggage, did everything that could be done.
I suppose we traveled Chinese style, first class. Ah Mo was with us and between us all we could not speak one word of Mandarin, so you can guess what a fix we were in.
We reached Kiukiang (the port for Kuling) about 2 a.m. and got the family all out on the floating dock that was anchored there, with all our baggage. It was pitch dark, you could not see your hand in front of you and the narrow walk way round the covered shed on this pontoon was only about three feet, maybe four feet, wide. I was terrified one of the children would fall in. Mr. Duff had assured us someone would meet us, but there was nobody. I was at my wit’s end. A Chinese came and poured out a volley of talk; I had no idea what. However, finally he took possession of our baggage and I supposed it was a brigand going off with our possessions. Then he insisted we go too. There seemed no way out, so we did so, down a gangway after him. We found all our baggage in a sort of big punt and we got in on top. We started down the Yangtse but soon turned off into a sort of dark, narrow creek—no doubt leading us to his hideout! But soon he beached his boat, signaled us to get out and follow him, and he led the way to a respectable looking house. We were very puzzled. He banged on the door and shouted “K’ai men, k’ai men” (open the door, open the door). And in time somebody did open it and our kind “brigand” brought in all our baggage and we discovered this was “The Rest House”; a very pleasant introduction to this excellent system. We had a nice, clean room upstairs to ourselves and soon had beds on the floor for the children. There were iron beds with wire springs, but we had neither mattresses nor sleeping mats, so the floor was best.
I got up fairly early and went out to find Mr. Duff’s house. I wandered about till I was hopelessly lost. I tried to ask, but nobody understood and I understood nobody. I was standing at a corner, completely and hopelessly lost, not knowing what to do next. Just then a nicely dressed young man came up to me and asked in perfect English: “Could I help you?” “Please, I want to find Mr. Duff’s house,” said I. “That is easy. I work for him and am on my way there now.” And so it was not long till we were sitting down to a sumptuous breakfast, all our baggage brought to us and soon after we were packed into a motor car for the drive of 12 or 14 miles across the plain to the “foothills”. Then there were chairs for Jean and the children and coolies for the baggage, and the long climb up the mountain started.
The air grew cooler and beautiful flowers began to appear and in time we saw Mr. Duff himself coming to meet us. The mountain was beautiful and when at last we passed through “The Gap” and the whole beautiful valley opened before us, the sight seemed too beautiful for words. It was April 27th 1922, our sixth wedding anniversary.
Mr. Duff led us to a comfortable, roomy flat, with a verandah overlooking all this beauty and at the other side the Recreation Ground and the British School. What a relief from the strain of the last few months. The children could go out and play without having to be watched. John came in to dinner next day, his cheeks glowing, ‘Daddy, I’ve played all morning with a little American boy and do you know, he speaks English quite well!”
Mr. Duff got us a young man to teach us Chinese, but he was rather a failure, for he found it impossible to keep awake while he taught us, but I suppose we learned a little. The good, cool, clear air of the mountain top restored us all to health and in September I was well enough to go back to Yeung Kong, leaving Jean and the children in Ku ling.