Chapter 140: On the Ship [1] Once the sea turned rough, it showed no sign of calming easily. Thanks to Sayaga's excellent command and the swift operations of the Dongnae naval forces, they had barely managed to escape the very worst stretch. But the Korea Strait, famous for its roughness, seemed determined to prove that reputation.
"Hold on tight!"
"This... makes it hard even to get close."
Kanghyeok was moving forward with difficulty together with Kim Seongil. Each time they opened their mouths, dark seawater splashed inside.
Crash.
The waves struck the ship without pause. They were not as powerful as before, but they were still enough to shake Kanghyeok and Kim Seongil, neither of whom was used to being on a ship.
"Oh dear."
Kim Seongil especially, old as he was, sprawled helplessly. It was fortunate Kanghyeok caught him. Otherwise, they would have ended up with two emergency patients instead of one.
"Here, take my hand."
Sayaga, who had come up before they realized it, held out a hand. Even on the deck, which jolted like mad, he did not waver in the slightest. He looked as though both his legs had taken root in the deck.
Is it because his legs are short...? How does he keep his balance so well?
In terms of sheer strength, he could not compare to Kanghyeok. Even Dolseok, who was inside enjoying himself with Yoshitoshi, was probably stronger than Sayaga. But on an actual ship, even Makbong was helpless. All he could do was hold on to Kim Seongil's collapsed nephew. He could not even think of moving the way Sayaga did.
"Hurry and take it!"
"F-first, this elder!"
Kanghyeok shoved Kim Seongil forward first.
"Mm!"
For an old man, Kim Seongil was still fairly vigorous. He managed to grab Sayaga's hand without much trouble.
"I'll get this gentleman over there first, then come back! Keep coming slowly!"
"Ah!"
Come to think of it, no matter how capable Sayaga is, it would be difficult for him to move while leading two people. On top of that, I'm much larger than he is. If he forces it and something goes wrong, both of us could be seriously injured.
With Yoshitoshi down, Sayaga's practically the only guide... and if I get hurt too...
A voyage without its guide and its physician would be little different from charging headfirst into solid ground. Of course, with the experienced Dongnae naval forces aboard, there was still a high chance they would reach Tsushima somehow. But even so, Sayaga would know the sea route far better, since this was a route the Japanese went in and out of constantly.
It's even possible Sayaga once did a bit of Japanese raiding himself.
No.
Kanghyeok shook his head after recalling Sayaga's usual words and conduct. For a Japanese man living in this era, he was rare in that he knew honor and shame.
He's not the type to say he respects Joseon and then go around cutting people down.
That might change later. But at least for now, Kanghyeok did not think he was the sort to turn to banditry of his own will.
"Heave."
Supporting Kim Seongil, Kanghyeok followed behind Sayaga, who was moving toward the patient. Watching closely, the way Sayaga placed his feet was anything but ordinary. From the start, his ankle strength was impressive, but there also seemed to be some secret in his posture.
Should I walk like that?
Kanghyeok began stepping as much like Sayaga as he could. At first it felt awkward, since there was quite a difference in the length of their legs. But being the man with such excellent physical ability that he was, he soon managed to imitate it. Thanks to that, he was at least able to roughly match the speed at which Sayaga was leading Kim Seongil.
"Now, stay here..."
Sayaga set Kim Seongil down, then turned around. Originally, he had meant to go back and bring Kanghyeok next. But when he saw Kanghyeok had already arrived right nearby, he looked surprised.
"You're here already."
"There's a patient. It didn't feel right to just sit there."
In truth, even if Kim Seongil reached the patient first, what could he do? He would only stand there wringing his hands at the patient's side. In that respect, Sayaga was not much different. In the current situation, Makbong was actually the most useful one there.
And in fact, that was exactly the case.
That brat... so he really hasn't been following me around carelessly all this time.
Compared with Dolseok, Yeoni, or Yeoju, his skill was somewhat lacking. But that was only in comparison to those three. Compared with the average physician of this era, he was more than good enough to be called a famous doctor, especially when it came to trauma care.
"Hold still, hold still a bit."
Makbong was feeling for the patient's carotid pulse with astonishingly practiced hands, while at the same time keeping the man's face turned to the side. He also did not miss the chance to use a wooden stick from nearby to pry the patient's mouth open. It was truly the image of a textbook emergency trauma response.
"Makbong, how is he?"
"Until just now, the pulse was strong enough, but now it's gotten weaker... and the heartbeat's very fast. As for the breathing, well, you can see it."
Because Makbong had studied for so little time, his words required a certain amount of interpretation.
His vocabulary's far too poor compared to what he actually knows.
It was not only his vocabulary that was lacking. There were countless other deficiencies too, and Kanghyeok had no clear sense of where to begin filling them in. Watching Makbong, he was realizing how important elementary education really was, something he had always dismissed as useless. No matter how much he taught him, the concept of minutes and seconds still would not sink in.
If it were Dolseok, he would've told me the exact number per minute right away. The respiratory rate and heart rate too.
Still, he could not be too greedy. The fact that Makbong had managed even this much on his own was fortunate. Though he was not showing it openly, he was clearly quite tense. Kanghyeok could tell from the way his hands had been trembling all this time. Surely he was not doing something that bizarre on purpose.
"All right. I'll take over now."
"Yes, young master."
At Kanghyeok's words, Makbong rose with a noticeably relieved expression. Then he stepped aside to a place where he would not obstruct Kanghyeok's work.
"Whew."
Letting out a sigh of relief over and over.
Kanghyeok knew very well what Makbong must have been thinking just then. There had once been a time when he too lacked experience, and his hands could not keep up with what his mind wanted to do. Back then, even if a senior only one year above him showed up, it felt like salvation had arrived. If a professor came, it felt as if a god had descended.
I don't want to disappoint that expectation...
Had he not always been that way until now? At the very least, not a single patient who had passed through Kanghyeok's hands since arriving in Joseon had died helplessly. Of course, epidemic disease or death from old age was another matter.
But trauma patients... I really have saved them brilliantly.
It was not only skill. His luck had also been absurdly good. So good that there was almost no better way to describe it than to say heaven's favor was with him.
Is this where I pay the price for that?
Kanghyeok looked down at the patient with a darkened face. He had not spent that long walk over doing nothing but moving his feet. Inside his head, he had simulated the moment of injury dozens of times already. And after doing that over and over, he had come to one conclusion.
This time, I might not be able to save him.
An abdominal injury from a rope. Kanghyeok had seen a similar patient in twenty-first-century South Korea too. That patient had been brought in from a construction site, and the injury had been caused not by a rope but by a steel cable.
"This is the worst."
With lightning-fast hands, Kanghyeok opened up his house-call bag. Makbong, just as quickly, handed over the items Kanghyeok would want.
"Blood pressure... seventy over fifty. Start the IV set."
"Yes, young master."
Makbong nodded and hurriedly connected the IV set. When Kanghyeok turned his head, he could see Yeoni and Yeoju far off in the distance. Yeoni was too busy vomiting to be of any use, and Yeoju was stepping this way only with great difficulty.
If the two of them make it here, things would be a bit better.
But for now, it was hard to expect any help from Yeoni. It seemed he would have to manage with only Makbong and Yeoju. And even then, there was no knowing what might happen to Yeoju on the way over.
"Sayaga. Please bring that friend here."
"Ah, yes."
"She hates being touched terribly... so it's better if you only take her hand."
Sayaga nodded without a second thought. Had they not been the two who spoke the most on the road from Suwon to Hanyang? Naturally, there was no way they would not share a special sense of familiarity. It was even possible that Sayaga had already vaguely guessed Yeoju's secret.
Well... even if he knows, nothing much will happen. Surely Sayaga is not going to meddle and tell the Joseon officials. There's nothing for him to gain by putting himself at odds with me. If he wants Yoshitoshi cured... he won't go against what I say.
Using another person's illness as leverage was underhanded, but it was effective. Because of that, Kanghyeok had absolutely no intention of stopping. He had always been rather underhanded by nature.
Plop.
In the meantime, Makbong connected the IV into the patient's wrist. The blood pressure was so low that it must have been difficult to find a vein, but it had not taken him very long.
Next...
Kanghyeok began auscultating the patient's abdomen. Fortunately, he did not hear any sound of something pouring or rushing out. It seemed a major blood vessel had not ruptured. Even so, the abdomen was already considerably distended, which Kanghyeok took to be due to damage to internal organs.
Even if the blood vessels are intact, the amount of bleeding won't be small.
Kanghyeok clicked his tongue, then moved on to the next examination.
Percussion.
All he did was place his fingers on the abdomen and tap lightly. Outwardly, it looked like nothing special, but for a skilled physician it yielded quite a lot of information.
As expected... it's filling with blood. And if there's a wave-like fluctuation, that means gas has escaped too. Not good.
Kanghyeok's chilled eyes settled on the patient's epigastrium. It had gone beyond blue bruising and was already turning black.
Why did a hard blow to the solar plexus hurt so much that it was hard to regain one's senses? Because that area gathered so many vital organs, and if that area was injured, it meant the prognosis would be that much worse.
I'll have to cut him open first.
In a proper hospital, he would have run at least a CT scan. Here, at most, all he had was auscultation, percussion, and inspection. To know anything beyond that, there was no choice but to open the body directly.
Kanghyeok quietly gripped the scalpel.
Crash.
At that same moment, a wave struck the ship, and the scalpel in Kanghyeok's hand tore across the inside of his house-call bag.
Cold sweat poured down in an instant.
If this had been his abdomen, the patient would be dead already.
His face darkened in real time, and the others surrounding him were not much different. Kim Seongil's complexion in particular had gone bad enough that the old man looked ready to bow his head before Kanghyeok.
"Is... is it that bad?"
"Even on land this would be difficult to treat... ugh."
Even during that short exchange, the ship was shaking violently. It was better than when they had been driving straight through the storm, but it was still too unstable to perform any real treatment.
"Even so, he must be treated. The Kim clan's line is thin... and more than that, he is the sort who throws himself into state affairs without regard for fire or water. I'm not saying this just because he's my nephew..."
"Hmm."
As Kanghyeok knew, Kim Seongil was a man so upright it was beyond description. When he had served as Jangnyeong in the Office of the Inspector-General, he had even earned the nickname "Tiger" for criticizing corruption among the royal relatives. A scene of such a man bowing himself this low was not something one saw easily.
Perhaps because of that, even Hwang Yungil, who could be called Kim Seongil's political enemy, began pleading with Kanghyeok.
"I beg you as well. Wasn't this the very reason I brought you along in the first place?"
"Mm."
Kanghyeok furrowed his brow and looked back and forth between the patient, Kim Seongil, and Hwang Yungil.
There's absolutely no way to do this without a transfusion. No, even with one, there's no telling what'll happen...
In other words, someone would have to become a living blood bag.
Ordinarily, he would have grabbed the lowest-ranking person nearby first. But this was a ship. And not just a ship, but one in the middle of the open sea. The laborers were all too busy at their posts to spare any attention. The ones who had become comparatively idle were the men of high status. Among them, Chief Envoy Hwang Yungil and Vice Envoy Kim Seongil were little better than bystanders.
Fine. If they're willing to come that far, then I should try too.
Kanghyeok nodded and spoke.
"In that case... are you willing to comply with whatever treatment I'm about to carry out?"
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