Section 137: Five people in the quarantine camp

"When you're done, pack up your things, and we're going to Lingao."

"Really? Master. "I've heard that the Australians in Lingao have built a lot of churches and monasteries. ”

"No, not many, just three or four."

"Will they agree with me painting a mural for the church?"

"Of course, I don't think they'll refuse." Jin Lige thought that he was a simple person who only thought about painting.

Although both Gelanzani and Fr. Komange assured the small mission that they were welcome to serve in Australia and that they were friendly to the priests. They will be warmly entertained. But Kim Lip Go's confidence began to waver from the moment he reached the Australians' territory.

Not long after the Jesuit ship entered the Qiongzhou Strait, it was stopped by an Australian patrol boat and examined. Father Trigg found that even after the war was over, there was still a tense atmosphere of war throughout the Strait. It is estimated that the armed crusade that the Ming Dynasty government wants has not yet been completely completed

The priest explained his identity and purpose to the Australian soldiers who boarded the ship in Cantonese vernacular, and also showed Jesuit documents and a letter from President Geranzani, but the Australian officers on board seemed uninterested in these and had a very cold attitude. Fr. Trigg silently recited a prayer in which it seemed that Fr. Ruhwa's claim that the glory of the Lord had been spread across the Ascension was exaggerated, and that it was no easier to spread the Gospel of the Lord here than elsewhere in China.

"You go with the patrol boat." The officer ordered the sailors on board. Saying that, several soldiers took control of the position of the steer and the vital parts of the ship.

The ship was escorted by the patrol boat and sailed towards Lingao, the strait was still empty, there were no other ships sailing, only the Australian ships flew blue and white flags in the strait, and proudly declared their dominance in the strait.

Their boat was "escorted" by two dhows to the port of Bopu. What happened next was nothing short of bizarre and dizzying.

Father Trigg and his entourage had not yet recovered from the shock caused by the giant iron ships, the trains on the docks, and the steam cranes, when a group of sailors with rifles loaded with bayonets had come and surrounded them. No matter how loudly he proclaimed himself to be a messenger of the Society of Jesus, to serve in the Church here. The soldiers turned a deaf ear and pushed and pulled them into a sprawling building. Here the priest was forced to be separated from his companions and subjected to a lengthy, dizzying interrogation in solitude.

The interrogator spoke very Haode Italian—though the pronunciation and vocabulary were odd. When he learned that Father Trigg was from Flanders, he immediately changed to German, and said that he was sorry that he only spoke High German.

"You don't have to settle into my language. I can speak Italian and High German is not a problem. Fr. Trigg thought to himself that the so-called "erudition" and "versatility" of Australians were true.

The other party's kind remarks were in stark contrast to his interrogation, and he was asked many questions over and over again, some over and over again. Including some personal questions that he didn't want to talk about were also asked like this.

Father Trico doesn't know how many times he crossed his chest. The mouth silently chanted **. Though he comforted himself with the utmost patience that a Christian should have. But the treatment in front of him was beyond his imagination.

"Is this suspicion or torture?" He asked himself secretly. At the same time, I can't help but worry that my partner is coming.

The exhausting interrogation finally came to an end, and as suddenly as it had been delivered, two men in tunics with strange short muskets on their belts led him out of the room, through a series of corridors and stairs.

Eerie hallways and staircases, light shining in through the glass skylights above, every door in the hallway is closed, and the doorway is marked with a red number.

Even though every door is closed. He could still hear something crackling in a rhythm, and vague dictation. The shrill bell rang incessantly—he didn't know what it was, it wasn't the church priests shaking the bells, but a fierce, tense, high-pitched sound. When passing through a section of the hallway, there are large windows. He glanced out the window and saw the bay in the distance, and the ship that had brought him to Lingao, where the coolies were unloading.

Somehow, Father Trigg had a sense of foreboding. He was horrified to think that he would be taken to some secret secret room to be executed.

If he hadn't even done a confession, I wonder if they would have allowed a brother to confess for himself? As he began to recite the prayer of repentance, he found himself out the back door, in the middle of a sunlit square, where his companions were, all with confused expressions. The two men with short guns disappeared as if ghostly, and another group of heavily armed soldiers escorted them into a clearing surrounded by a wire fence, in the middle of which stood rows of low houses. When Father Trigg was in one of the houses he was pushing, he only had time to see a sign on the lintel with the words "quarantine camp".

The whistle reverberated through the rooms of the quarantine camp. Father Trigg didn't like the tune. Even though he had never heard of Verdi, the strange music still disturbed him.

The rectangular room is large, enough for 12 people in terms of the number of bunk beds. The room was clean and tidy. But there were only five members of the mission at the moment. Brother Cecilio, the priest was very fond of this pious young man, who knelt on the straw mat, clutched the rosary in his hand, and his lips were already trembling and white. John? Dermot had been looking at the window with fascination at the huge iron frame on the other side of the bay.

"It's incredible." "It is simply impossible for such a slender structure to be built so high without support," he exclaimed."

And that Weiss? The brought by Lando, sitting on the rotten straw near the door, showed a bewildered expression on even his usual stupid face after enjoying the incredible quarantine service of the Australians. When he got to the room, he searched in vain for a long time—the priest knew that he must be looking for something to eat.

Zuihou was the source of the whistle, the attaché Weiss whom the Jesuits would have sent to him? Lando, who always wants to put on an aristocratic style, knows at a glance that he is an authentic soldier from a humble background. The guy spread the blanket on the straw mat, half leaned against the wall, and lay comfortably in the corner of the wall and played a little tune. It seems that he doesn't care about the situation in front of him.

This is a dangerous man, said the outlaw Father Trigg to himself. What scared him even more was that Lando was a very suspicious heretic. This was not only because of the strange mannerisms and remarks he showed from time to time in Macau, but also because when he was forced by the Australians to take off his clothes and shower just now, he caught a glimpse of Weiss's bare back, and the strange pattern tattooed on it, made the priest almost think that he had seen the devil incarnate. He began to secretly complain about the attaché that Geranzani had sent to him, the heretic, who was already in his heart against Weiss? Landau made an assertion: a heretic in disguise, or worse, a cultist.

It's boring here, Weiss changed the tune, and thought as he blew it. They had been confined to the house for two days, and the four white men had spoken no more than five sentences to each other. The priest's chanting voice in the corner was lowered again, and if Verdi's triumphal march made him restless, then the merry widow was an authentic minority.

Weiss gloated as the priest tried to control himself from his anger. He's scared, Weiss? Lando thought to himself that the two missionaries were scared to death by all the actions of the Australians, or rather the Chinese, and that the red-haired Irishman was better than that. As for the somewhat neurotic young monk, the mandatory physical examination had scared him out of his soul and almost passed out. Ever since he saw the so-called "holy ship" at the High Corner, Fr. Trigg has been rowing a cross - of course, it is not surprising that he thinks it is a product of the devil with his level of knowledge.

The priest did not notice the smile on the face of his attaché when he saw the tall steamer. Weiss loved the familiarity and familiarity that the Holy Ship brought him, and in another shijie, he and his companions had repeatedly shipped tons of munitions to Sierra Leone and Congo on an equally shabby-looking Polish freighter over the past few years.

There was a commotion outside the window. Someone was shouting: Lando didn't know Chinese, but knew that the rhythmic roar was a password. He could see outside the window a large open space on the other side of the barbed wire: a group of men dressed in identical grey homespun clothes—not clothes at all, but a pocket over their bodies, shaved heads, straw sandals, and practicing under the clubs of an Australian soldier.

At first he thought these people were recruits, but after seeing them, young and old, men and women, Landau gave up on the idea. Obviously, this is just a daily military exercise, and the purpose is nothing more than to force these poor creatures to obey discipline and form a conditioned reflex of absolute obedience to orders.

"This is really a typical example of a totalitarian state." He commented in his heart, turning over on the straw mat, trying to change to a more comfortable position. There was something hard in my pocket on my waist, and it was a cigarette case. Weiss really wanted to pull out an Australian paper cigarette and take two puffs. He swallowed the urge along with his saliva.