Maung Tun Thu - The Castle (P)

(1)

One afternoon in late October 1924, a rather frail-looking young man named Andrew Mason boarded a third-class carriage of a train from Swansea to the Peedwell Valley. The carriage was almost silent, as there were not many passengers. The young man looked out the window at the surrounding countryside, lost in thought.

Andrew Mason was exhausted from a day's journey. He had only had a brief break at Kalislee and Shrewsbury, where he had changed trains since leaving the north. He had spent all his time on the train until he reached his final destination, south Wales.

Throughout the very boring journey, he kept thinking about the first job he would accept as a doctor.

This area was a strange place for him. The forest was so dense that the terrain was uneven. He wondered if his work would go smoothly in such a remote and rugged area.

The mountains on either side of the railway line were hazy from the heavy rain, their peaks hidden behind a thick layer of dark clouds.

The deserted slopes are quiet and dry. The slopes are ugly because of the scars left by mining. Each one is made even more ugly by the piles of loose rocks that lie in piles, making it less beautiful and more unsightly.

A flock of dirty sheep wandered over the slippery rocks, but there was no pasture to be seen. There were no bushes or trees to be seen. In the dim, hazy light, the trees that were visible were so dry that they looked like the shriveled, wretched, and evil goblins.

At the bend of the railway, he caught a glimpse of a group of workers in their overalls, working under the bright red light coming from a factory. The workers were all covered in dirt and their hands were raised to strike something. The scene disappeared from Andrew Mason's eyes in an instant, but the image of the workers moving with full vigor remained etched in his mind.

Andrew Mason sighed. His mind was no longer the same as before. It was light and cheerful. The thought that his work had great potential came to him. That thought brought a ray of hope, and a faint confidence that his future would be bright and prosperous returned to him. The shadows of darkness were beginning to recede.

Half an hour later, the train pulled up wearily in front of Drenthe Station. His journey had come to an end.

Andrew Mason grabbed his suitcase, jumped off the train, and walked briskly along the platform, looking around for someone to meet him.

Under the lamppost near the station exit, a sallow-faced old man, wearing a square hat and a long raincoat, stood. The old man looked up at Mason with his bulging, yellow eyes, and asked in a hesitant voice:

“Aren’t you the one who’s going to be Dr. Page’s assistant?” “Yes, sir, I’m Mason. My name is Andrew Mason.”

"Huh... My name is Thomas, I'm often called Old Man, I've got a horse-drawn carriage, come on, come on, well... If you have to walk like this without a horse-drawn carriage, you'll definitely have to swim."

Mason lifted his box onto the horse-drawn carriage and sat down. The black horse was strong and powerful, but the carriage was shabby and old. Thomas gave the reins a jerk and pulled.

"Hey...horse" The horse-drawn carriage had entered the city.

Andrew Mason looked carefully at the city, but he could not see it clearly. The heavy rain made it difficult to see the houses that stood in rows at the foot of the high mountains.

Old Thomas looked at Andrew Mason's face often, searchingly, but he said nothing. (To Andrew's eyes, Old Thomas did not look like a well-paid doctor or a skilled coachman. The old man was very thin and frail. He sat and dressed very unkempt. He was covered in horse dung.) Finally, he began to speak.

"Did you get the letter I wrote here?" Andrew didn't answer verbally. He nodded. "Well... I think so too. I'll get it."

Old Thomas spat out a mouthful of saliva. He seemed pleased that his guess had been correct. His speech became more fluent than before.

"The last assistant doctor who did it was gone about 10 days ago. Usually, it's like this. They don't want to wait for the next person to come in."

Andrew smiled and asked inquisitively, "Why don't you wait?"

"One reason is that I think he's busy," Thomas said, and then he stopped before he could finish his sentence. "Tell me the next line," Andrew said.

"Well, the next line is something you'll find out on your own," Thomas replied.

A moment later the carriage arrived in front of a church. Thomas pointed, whip in hand, at a house at the far end of a row of houses, a smoke-filled chimney. "That's where I and the priest, Dr. Patch, live."

A smile, perhaps a secret one, could be seen on Thomas' lips.

........................................

Here, Mason, I understand you are just beginning your journey from London to Haley Street, where the well-known doctors and surgeons live. Anyway. There are two things you should know about this place at the moment. I say this because I think it is worth saying. You will find that you cannot work here with the ideal of being a doctor, with all your compassion, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind

There are no hospitals, no ambulances, no X-ray machines, oh my... there is nothing. If you want to operate, you have to put the patient on a table in the kitchen of their house. After the operation, you have to wash your hands in a bowl that is used to wash dishes. The water is not clean.