QB VII (9 page)

Within the year Angela was teaching them how to read and write English, as well as some nursing. Even L. Clifton-Meek got caught up in it and opened an experimental plot of land just beyond the compound. At the end of the third year there was a major breakthrough, when one of the boys returned from the Batu Lintang School qualified to operate a radio. For the first time in their thousand year existence, the Ulus were able to speak to and hear from the outside world. During the monsoon season, the radio became a godsend to diagnose and treat a variety of ills.

Terrence Campbell turned out to be the hidden jewel in the program. His ability to communicate with the Ulu youngsters made things happen that awed everyone in the British compound. As more sophisticated textbooks arrived, Terrence devoured them. Adam was now more determined than ever to qualify Terry for a top English college. Perhaps some of Kelno’s zeal lay in the realization that his own son would never choose medicine. But there it was, Kelno the mentor and idol and Terry the determined and brilliant student.

Mass inoculation of Bintang’s people reduced age old scourges. Bintang’s long houses were cleaner, the earth yielded more, and there was a little more time to live with a little less pain. Soon, other chieftains and Turahs petitioned Dr. Adam to send children to Fort Bobang and the center grew to forty students.

The budget meetings in Kuching were always a hassle, but MacAlister generally gave Kelno what he wanted. It was no secret that the Sultan of Brunei wanted Dr. Adam as his personal physician and offered a lavish new hospital. After two years, he got his helicopter, which increased his movement capability a hundredfold. The Ibans made up a song about the wingless bird and the doctor who came from the sky.

All of this was but a grain of sand. Adam knew that given all the resources he could command and all the money he could spend, there was little that would really change, but each small step forward renewed the determination to continue.

The years passed by and the work continued. But what Adam Kelno really lived for was the return of Stephan on the summer holidays. To no one’s surprise the boy was skipping ahead in his classes. Although he fared well in Australia, Fort Bobang was his home, where he could take those wonderful trips on the Lemanak with his father.

And then Adam received news that distressed him more than he believed possible. MacAlister was retiring and moving to England. There had never been either intimacy or affection between the men, and he wondered why it bothered him so.

The Kelnos went to Kuching, where a farewell dinner was given for MacAlister and Sir Edgar Bates, the governor, who was departing for England to attend the coronation of the new queen. Sir Edgar would also remain in England and a new governor would be assigned to Sarawak.

Even in places so remote, the British knew how to conduct their affairs with flourish and fanfare. The ballroom was white with colonial uniforms and colored with sashes and medals.

There were a multitude of toasts filled with true and mock sentiment. Things were changing quickly these days. The sun was setting on that Empire where the sun was never supposed to set. In Asia, and Africa, and America it fell like a house of dominoes. The Malayans in Sarawak had picked up the cadence of the freedom wind.

As the evening reached its zenith, Adam turned to his wife and took her hand. “I have a surprise for you,” he said. “We leave in the morning for Singapore, and we will fly to Australia to visit Stephan and perhaps a short vacation in New Zealand.”

The long night of Adam Kelno was coming to an end.

14

T
HE NEW GOVERNOR WAS
a persuasive fellow and convinced Adam to take the appointment as chief medical officer of the Second Division. With freedom in the air there was an urgent attempt to leap forward. The training of civil servants and upgrading the medical and educational facility took priority. Development of forests and mines by Sarawak-Orient ran parallel to an infusion of new teachers, nurses, airfields, and ports.

In the Second Division Adam was able to remain in Fort Bobang but inherited over a hundred thousand persons, mostly Ibans with a smattering of Chinese and Malayans in the population centers. Adam had four doctors and a dozen nurses and assistants and of course Terrence Campbell, with primitive aide stations at the long houses. They were badly understaffed to cope with the range of diseases and problems, but he still had a higher ratio than the other Division Medical officers, who could only claim one doctor to every thirty-five thousand people.

His long suit remained the utilization of the land. There simply was not enough grazing land or farm land, so the threat of famine always lurked. Even as taboos were being broken he was unable to penetrate the ones forbidding the eating of deer and goats. It was the Iban belief that these animals were reincarnations of dead ancestors. Conversely he was unable to stop them from eating rats.

In searching United Nations bulletins and other works on the subject, Kelno became entranced by similar work in the new state of Israel. Although they were entirely different in make-up, Israel and Sarawak shared the fate of land shortage and acute deficiencies of beef and protein.

Israel had filled the protein gap with crops requiring very little land. Intense chicken hatcheries worked on a twenty-four hour basis. This idea was not suitable for the Ibans. The buildings required electricity to light them so the hens would lay around the clock. Also, the chicken itself was a disease prone fowl requiring a more advanced mentality to raise properly.

It was the second idea that caught Kelno’s fancy, the artificial fish ponds. Israel had a consulate in Burma, her first diplomatic exchange in the Far East, and a number of Israeli agricultural experts were sent to establish experimental farms. He was sorely tempted to go to Burma and study the fish farms, but his fear of being recognized by a Jew overruled it.

He gathered the available literature and near Fort Bobang had his students build a half dozen ponds supplied with water from natural sources with simple canals to feed them and outlet valves for overflow. Each pond was stocked with a different variety of fish and cultured with self-perpetuating algae and plankton.

A half dozen years of trial and error were required to determine the most reliable and hardiest crop. A variety of Asian carp did the job along with imported New Zealand lobster, which flourished in fresh water.

And then came the years of persuasion before fish ponds began to pop up near the fields of the Ulus on the Lemanak.

My Dear Kelno [wrote MacAlister]

Not much is happening in Budleigh-Salterton. I am so pleased we have stayed in correspondence. It is difficult to believe you have been in Fort Bobang over a decade.

I have read your paper on the fish ponds, and your new experiments in grinding whole trash fish from the ocean as a protein supplement. May I say right off that I consider this one of the most dynamic possibilities to do something about the most pressing problem in Sarawak. I’m glad now I didn’t convince you to come to Kuching to practice at the hospital.

I fully agree that your paper should be read to the British Academy. However, I cannot go along with your idea obscuring the authorship to that of an unnamed “research team.” The paper should, and must, have your name on it.

Pursuant to this, I have traveled to London on numerous occasions and working quietly with old friends in Scotland Yard and the Foreign Office we nave delved discreetly into the matter of your past unpleasantness with the Polish Communists.

We have even been able to extend our inquiries to Poland itself through our diplomats in Warsaw. The results are all quite positive. All the Poles who were in the embassy in London are long since gone, and since you now have British citizenship there is no request for extradition on war crime charges of any kind.

Furthermore, I have spoken to Count Anatol Czerny, a charming chap, and it is also his opinion that it is all water over the dam and you have nothing to fear.

I am pleased to hear that Stephan is doing so well “down under.” Count Czerny assures me also that Terrence Campbell with his superior grades in special examinations and the fact you applied for entry several years ago will be admitted to Magdalen College. I think it is the most beautiful in Oxford, dating all the way back to the fifteenth century.

Dear Kelno, please look favorably on my request to read the paper in your name before the academy. My kindest regards to your charming wife. In friendship,

Yours sincerely,

J. J. MacAlister, M.D.

Adam reached the decision to allow MacAlister to read his paper without too much searching. He had traveled on numerous occasions to Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia without incident. His nightmares had all but faded. It was his love of Stephan that cast the deciding vote. He wanted to have his boy proud of him, and that desire outweighed his fears. He owed that much to Angela, too. And so the paper was read under the authorship of Dr. Adam Kelno.

These were the days of the new enlightenment, when it became fashionable for white men to ponder about the unproductive fields and life of squalor of black and yellow men and mass death by starvation. A conscience stirred far too late with far too little to save more than half of the world that went hungry. Adam Kelno’s paper created a ripple.

As a pure scientist he had to resort to a method believed by many to be extremely cruel. Half the Ulu long houses received his medicine, fish ponds, sanitation programs, and new crops and farming methods. The other half went without these things in order to furnish the comparative statistics.

The higher death rate, lower longevity, and level of physical development and vitality dramatized the impact of his program.

The use of human guinea pigs was something the scientists did not like but understood. A secondary part of the paper that concerned the breaking down of ancient taboos particularly proved interesting to those who had struggled in the colonies.

The paper was widely published and acclaimed and became a standard reference for those teams of doctors, scientists, and agricultural experts who were wrestling with hunger throughout the world.

The best of it all was that no adverse reaction was heard anywhere to Adam Kelno’s name.

Eighteen months after the paper, “Artificial Fish Ponds, and Their Effect on the Diet and Health of Primitive Peoples: Use of Ground Whole Trash Fish as a Protein Supplement: Comparative Diet and Vaccine Charts,” an internationally manned UNESCO team arrived in Sarawak and made to Fort Bobang for a firsthand look at Kelno’s work. A month later a report was filed that “United Nations funds and personnel should be committed to Fort Bobang to join the study.”

Adam now looked forward to Singapore as a place for joyous reunions with Stephan. This was to be an occasion among occasions. Stephan had been accepted at Harvard and would soon be traveling to America to study architecture.

“I have news, son,” Adam said, unable to constrain himself. “Mother and I have talked things over. Fifteen years in the jungle is quite enough. We are going to return to England.”

“Father, I’m speechless! It’s marvelous, just marvelous. Strange how it all works. Terry in England with you. Me in America.”

“One doctor, one architect from Fort Bobang. Not so bad,” Adam said with just a tinge of sadness. “The United Nations people really have taken things over at Bobang. In a manner of speaking, my work is done. The medical facility of Sarawak has more than doubled and a lot is going on. I’m pleased to say that when Sarawak becomes part of the Malayan State, Sir Abdel Haj Mohamed, the prime minister apparent, wants me to remain.”

“They’re no fools.”

Stephan knew it was his father’s dream that they be together and he didn’t want to dampen the moment but inside him he felt he had to do his stint in some faraway place.

The Kelnos traveled from Singapore to Kuching in the highest spirits. The capital was something out of Somerset Maugham. Lady Grayson, the governor’s wife, sent the Kelnos an invitation to join them at a formal garden party in honor of the Queen’s birthday.

As they arrived at the governor’s mansion, Lord Grayson met them and escorted them to the lighted garden into an array of the top government officials in their whites and the Malayans and Chinese, who would soon be administering the state. As they entered a hush fell over the lawn and everyone stared at Adam.

The governor nodded and the native orchestra played a ceremonial fanfare.

“What’s going on, Lord Grayson?” Adam asked.

He smiled “Ladies and gentlemen, refill your glasses. Last night I was advised by the Colonial Office that the Queen’s Birthday List has been published in London. Among those chosen for honor to the Empire, Dr. Adam Kelno has been awarded the Order of Knight’s Bachelor.”

“Oh Adam, Adam.”

“Ladies and gentlemen. A toast To Sir Adam Kelno.”

“Here, here!”

15

Oxford—1964

B
EYOND THE LIMITS OF
greater London, England and Wales are divided into several legal circuits and numerous times each year, the judges leave London to dispense justice in the assize towns.

The circuit system was founded after the Norman invasion in the eleventh century, when the kings began the custom of sending their justices into the countryside.

Henry II, the first great legalist and reformer, formalized the assize system in the twelfth century and the procession of rulers continued to refine it.

Such a system is possible because England accepts London as the seat of the royal power with one set of laws for the entire country. In America, for example, there are fifty separate sets of state laws, and a man from Louisiana would hardly want to be tried by a judge from Utah.

Several times each year, the counties are visited to dispense justice in the name of the Queen, where the judges try the most difficult and major legal issues.