HAWES ESCAPES

Fort Canby was constructed during the Civil War.

God knows why.

By 1863, all the hostile Indians had been deported to Shitsville, Oklahoma and the looming threat of the Confederate Navy was confined to Mobile Bay and its environs.

I was stationed there in 1941, a regular Army sergeant on my third and (I thought) final hitch.

I had two privates under me, amusingly named Caine and Abel. The three of us were billeted in a British Nissen hut down the hill from the Cape Disappointment lighthouse.

We played cards, drank coffee, and wrote daily reports. It rained all day, every day. 95% of our reports read Zero Visibility. No activity.

After Pearl, the government came roaring in to throw up buildings and fortifications that included a shielded barbette emplacement of reinforced concrete that contained a six-inch naval gun.

They finished it in 1944, by which time the Japanese Navy was as much a threat as the Rebels had been.

What Pegman Saw: Washington State

There is a stone on Air Manis Beach in Sumatra, not far from where I was born.

My mother made a practice of showing me this stone (which has more than a passing resemblance to a prostrate man) because it is attached to a legend of an ungrateful son who forgets his mother.

“Malin Kundang left home to go out into the world,” she’d say, “as I expect you one day to do. This is not why the gods punished him.”

She would usually pause, waiting for me to ask why.

To humor her, I always would.

“It was because when he came back wearing his fine clothes and golden jewels, he saw his ragamuffin mother and was ashamed of her. He forgot to honor the woman who had brought him into this world.”

I usually think of this story when making my vacation plans.

What Pegman Saw

“Where can he be?” said Lakshmi.

“He’s often late these days,” said Bhavana. “He told me people stop him on the street.”

“I know, but never this long. Almost three hours. Look at the crowd.” She gestured to the throng of patients outside the door of the clinic. “We’ll never see them all today.”

“I’ll send Ashook to check on him if you go out and explain to the patients what’s happening. But use the back door so they won’t come in.”

A half hour later, Ashook returned to the clinic, his face pale. “He’s gone,” he said.

“Gone?” said Lakshmi. “What do you mean, gone?”

“His house is empty. No furniture, no rugs. Nothing.”

Lakshmi looked stricken her hand to her throat. “My God. What will we do?’

“Let them in,” said Bhavana. “We’ll do what we can. I’ll send word to Jaunpur that we need a new doctor.”

What Pegman Saw: Varanasi

In India, there is one government allopathic doctor for every 10,189 people, one government hospital bed for every 2,046 people and one state-run hospital for every 90,343 people.

You don’t need an epidemic for the public health system to collapse. Patients routinely share beds, doctors are majorly overworked, and many people are denied care altogether. Naturally, the shortage of health providers and infrastructure is the most acute in rural areas, where catastrophic health expenses push populations the size of the United Kingdom into poverty each year.