Chapter 23: Debut Stage (2)
TL: Hanguk
They say you shouldn't judge the past by twenty-first-century standards, but I refused to let my guard down until the very last moment.
No matter how you slice it, is it really okay for the President-elect and the party's heavyweights to keep lodging, right before the inauguration, in a hotel where people are collapsing from some unexplained diarrheal illness?
Couldn't the lodgings get switched, something like, "For the safety of our distinguished guests, we have regrettably been forced to arrange alternate accommodations on short notice"?
But the amazing America of the nineteenth century didn't sweat trivial little details like that. It was pure testo... no, pure brainlessness incarnate.
"Welcome, Mr. James Sergent. The distinguished guests are already staying with us at the hotel."
"Ah, yes... but they've truly all been lodging here for days on end? President-elect Buchanan as well?"
"Yes. Many strange rumors have circulated of late, but through thorough management we have eliminated every risk factor, so our guests may rest in perfect comfort."
Wow, they're actually going through with this.
Absurdity aside, if the diarrhea patients keep dropping one after another, that's hardly bad news for me.
As planned, I checked into the two rooms I had reserved in advance.
"Mr. Sergent?"
"Yes."
"You've reserved two adjoining rooms... will there be others in your party?"
"Not a party. Guards."
I jerked my chin toward Leo, Sam, and Ben, who stood behind me loaded down with a considerable amount of luggage.
The hotel manager sighed as if this were awkward and flipped through his book.
"Hmm... as a rule, slaves are to lodge in the servants' quarters in the annex."
"I'm aware. But as far as I know, there's no legal clause on the books forbidding blacks from lodging here."
Unlike the North, Washington, D.C. was a city where slavery was legal, so it had never bothered to lay down ordinances banning colored lodgers.
Southern bigwigs traveled with plenty of slaves in tow, and most of the black people who came here would be slaves anyway, so there had been no need to nail a lodging ban into law.
Of course, I wasn't just strong-arming him to allow it simply because it wasn't in the law.
The final bosses of Dixie were all massed in the capital; could I really be stupid enough to pull that kind of aggro?
"These men must guard important luggage around the clock. That luggage will be handled as a matter of the utmost importance starting at the inauguration itself, so it cannot be left in some storeroom. Hence I intend to have the slaves stay in the room and stand watch over it."
"Ah... I see. If that is the case, I believe there is no issue under our rules. However, some of the other gentlemen may take offense, so please see to it that the slaves keep out of the corridors as much as possible."
"Of course. And you must be worn out with all these important people arriving one after another. When your shift ends, have a round with your colleagues on me and get some proper rest."
"Oh my, you really shouldn't have. Thank you!"
Once I pressed a few dollars into his hand, the manager, as if he had never been troubled at all, even waved at Leo and Ben.
It was similar to and yet different from the time we had stayed at a hotel up North, and Leo and Sam looked bewildered, their faces slightly flushed.
"It's a strange feeling, sir. Up North, where slavery's outlawed, we couldn't even get a foot in the door; it was straight down to the basement for us."
"They've got it nailed into their ordinances up there, so nothing to be done about that. Not that this place is any nobler, mind you. They're granting permission by counting you not as guests but as watchdogs guarding my luggage."
"Even so, what a thing, getting to sleep in a soft bed! Ahh... to think we'd ever see a day like this. Following you was the right choice after all, Master. Thank you, truly, thank you."
"Go off to some storeroom or servants' quarters and catch a contagious disease, and see what happens. I'd be the first one in serious trouble."
That wasn't a joke; this was a genuinely grave matter.
If even the drinking water at the lodgings of America's most distinguished guests was a disaster, what would the sanitation be like where the slaves slept?
And I'm supposed to bed the Sergent plantation's finest employees in a place like that?
Fuck that. I'd sooner rent out a whole house nearby and board everyone there myself.
"For now, let's do a rough survey before Dr. Gadberry arrives this evening. And fair warning, do not drink any water that comes out of this hotel. No telling what's in it."
"Yes, sir. We'll drink only the purified water we sealed and brought from the plantation."
First, partly to gather information, I went to find Breckinridge's room, saying I wished to offer my thanks to the man who had invited me.
And then, should I call it surprising, or exactly as expected...
"W-welcome. Seeing you again here is... a pleasure."
"Yes, I suppose I must now address you as His Excellency the Vice President. It's... a relief to see you looking so well."
"Hahaha, quite so. Then... might I be excused to step inside now?"
No, Vice President Breckinridge, why in God's name are you twisting your entire body like a puppy hit with an emergency bathroom crisis?
The confident smile he'd shown when we met at the hospital was nowhere to be found; there was only the pitiable squirming of one man who wanted nothing more than to sprint to the nearest toilet, and even I felt an involuntary pang of sympathy.
"I'm terribly sorry, but might I ask you just a few questions?"
"Of course! I shall answer, but... wait just a moment. Hahaha. I, I have a spot of urgent business."
As though he could not hold it in a second longer, His Excellency the Vice President dashed for the washroom down the hall and vanished from my sight in an instant.
"Snrk!"
Barely suppressing the trembling at the corners of my mouth, I gave a warning to Leo and Ben, who stood behind me with their heads bowed low.
"Hoo... don't laugh. Laugh, and we are well and truly fucked."
"Nngh-hh... yes, sir!"
"Hnnn... on... our lives."
The Vice President of the United States with the runs. How the hell is anyone supposed to keep a straight face at that?
Having somehow held it in, I, along with Leo and Ben, could all rightly pride ourselves on superhuman powers of endurance.
After about ten minutes of chanting patience, patience in my head, deliberately keeping myself turned away from the washroom, Breckinridge, having approached at some point, cleared his throat.
"Ahem, hm, hm. My apologies for earlier; a most pressing matter. Now then, what is it you wished to ask?"
"I hear that many of the guests staying at this hotel are unwell. Has His Excellency the President also come down with dysentery (the diarrheal sickness)?"
"Y-yes. My own symptoms are not so severe, but His Excellency's strength is much depleted, and his personal physician's opinion was that he must rest until the inauguration."
Breckinridge, reflexively rubbing his belly, looked as if he wanted nothing more than to go in and rest, but I suppressed the pangs of my conscience and pressed on with my questions.
Sorry, but you're the highest-ranking man I can reach directly. Bear with me just a little longer.
"The truth is, I too heard the strange rumors circulating about the National Hotel, and I have been conducting ongoing research with my hospital's medical staff. And since we achieved results of a sort, I wished to discuss them with you, Your Excellency."
"I-is that so? But..."
"Ah, first, please drink this. It is a remedy of proven potency against dysentery."
When I reached back, Leo swiftly handed over the oral rehydration solution we had prepared in advance.
If I'd read a lot of web novels back in the day, I could've whipped up the golden-ratio oral rehydration solution on the spot; sadly, all I knew was that mixing salt and sugar worked well.
Still, I'd diligently hunted down diarrhea patients and dosed them while adjusting the ratio, so I trusted it would show respectable results.
Before I had even finished speaking, Breckinridge snatched the bottle of oral rehydration solution with ferocious speed.
"Our tests show that drinking this will not stop the diarrhea itself. But it visibly relieves the vomiting and the dehydration, so it will be considerably easier to endure."
"Truly? Even that much would make it bearable... Then I need only keep drinking this?"
"Ah, and please drink no water of any kind at the hotel if you can help it. Take this medicine I've given you instead. Do not drink a great deal at once; take one cup after each bout of diarrhea."
I deliberately withheld the facts that dysentery was a waterborne disease spread through water, and that the oral rehydration solution was nothing but water mixed with sugar and salt.
Rather than wasting time on some tedious, pedantic explanation, wouldn't it be far easier and more intuitive to call it a miracle medicine I had poured my fortune into creating alongside the doctors of the Mississippi State Medical Association?
As for the true identity of this miracle drug, a surprise reveal later, once its effects were proven beyond doubt, would do just fine.
"Thank you! Then I shall rest a moment; we will speak of the rest a little later!"
Sure enough, Breckinridge accepted the oral rehydration solution from me without a shred of suspicion and returned to his room.
And roughly four hours after I went back to my own room and began transferring the solution into thoroughly disinfected bottles.
Breckinridge, with remarkably more color in his face than when I had seen him earlier, came to my room in person.
"Why, James Sergent! What in heaven's name is this medicine! For it to take effect this quickly... my judgment in summoning you was not mistaken after all!"
"Your symptoms were not so severe, Your Excellency, so the effect must have come quickly. Had they been grave, you would still have suffered another day or two."
"I see. Even so, to be well within a day or two, what a blessing that is! Ah... wait, where is my head? This is no time for this... Sergent, how much more of that medicine do you have?"
"I brought a generous supply against unforeseen circumstances. Enough to prescribe to the principal figures attending the inauguration."
"Then... there is no time to waste. Come, let us go to His Excellency the President together."
Breckinridge strode ahead at a brisk pace, filling me in roughly on how many people were currently suffering from dysentery.
The list ran as follows.
President James Buchanan, and his secretary and nephew, Elliot Lane.
Mississippi legislator and leading figure among the Fire-Eaters, John Quitman.
Pennsylvania Representatives David Robinson and John Montgomery.
On top of that, the incoming cabinet nominees Lewis, Floyd, Aaron Brown, and more.
The President, the Vice President, three House members, and cabinet secretaries besides. A regular Avengers Assemble.
No wonder conspiracy theories like "Argh, those damn Yankee bastards!" can't help but pop up... but this one is entirely your own fault, people, so brace yourselves for a proper faceful of shame later.
And anyway, if history runs the way I know it, Buchanan and Breckinridge are fated to dribble out a little diarrhea here and go on walking around perfectly alive.
So my curing them shouldn't set off any tremendous butterfly effect.
All I have to do is walk away with the title of director of the hospital with the finest medical staff in the land, the ones who cured the President and the Vice President.
And so, with Leo, Sam, and Ben hauling loads of oral rehydration solution, I set out on my long round of house calls.
The first destination, naturally, was the biggest fish in the whole country, President Buchanan.
"Your Excellency! Do not worry. James Sergent here and the medical staff he leads have developed a medicine of specific potency against dysentery. I drank it myself only just now, and in under four hours my body has improved remarkably."
"Oh... i-is that so?"
Buchanan seemed in even worse condition than Breckinridge, worn down to skin and bone.
"Your Excellency. Take this medicine a little at a time, and often. If you have a bout of diarrhea, drink one cup of the medicine."
"That is... all? And that will cure me?"
"Yes... you will see improvement without fail, so trust me. Has the Vice President not already made a full recovery? However, while taking this medicine, you must on no account drink the water in this hotel. It destroys the medicine's effect."
"My word... I am truly grateful. But... if you have medicine enough to spare, would you see to my nephew, our Elliot... first? His condition is terribly grave."
Sure enough, Buchanan's secretary and nephew Elliot had come down with a particularly vicious case of dysentery and was suffering severe dehydration.
If I hadn't been standing here, odds are pretty high he'd have lost his life, no?
Given that the childless Buchanan had made the man his personal secretary, this young fellow was very likely a nephew the President cherished dearly.
Worst president in history or not, he was still the man who would reign as president for the next four years.
Only a moron would pass up the chance to saddle him with a debt this large.
"His condition is serious, but it is by no means too late. We have had people carried into our hospital in worse shape than this. Leo, set the medicine down here."
"Yes, sir."
Ordinarily the President's personal physicians would have nitpicked this and that, but with the experiment already concluded on the Vice President's own body, no one could stop me.
After the President's secretary came the three federal Representatives, and the cabinet nominees on top of them.
I briefly agonized over whether I really had to save the Fire-Eater Quitman as well, but pointedly leaving that man out while handing medicine to everyone else was preposterous on its face, so for now there was no helping it.
I'd slipped him a bit of donation money before, so however much of an extremist he was, surely he wouldn't repay the man who saved his life with a knife in the back.
"Ohh... thank you. Thank you, truly."
"I thought I was to die an absurd death... You have saved my life!"
"James Sergent! The James Clinic! I shall remember it, mark my words!"
It smelled a little, sure, but viewed objectively, a debut stage could not have gone better than this.
"Mr. Sergent! What on earth is that astonishing medicine?"
"Is it effective only against dysentery? Or against other diseases as well?"
"They say one must drink quite a large quantity until the illness passes... what will the medicine cost? Is it very dear?"
Naturally, the greatest attention at this inauguration was fixed not on the President's address.
But on the magic potion of James Sergent, the man who had saved the lives of those poor bastards with the runs.
***
Author's Note:
In actual history as well, President Buchanan went through his inauguration in an extremely weakened state because of this incident; sitting Representatives fell gravely ill and several died, and the cabinet nominees likewise complained of suffering from continuous diarrhea.
*****
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