a routine day.
“A drink of water … just a drink of water.”
“I want me ma …”
“I can’t see! Oh, God, I can’t see!” shrieked a hysterical boy, rocking back and forth on the floor, his face red and mutilated.
Emily’s eyes filled with tears. She had seen it all before, though it was no easier to bear this second time round. Here again was the reality of battle beyond the politicians’ rousing rhetoric and the reckless bravado of common men. Here again it lay before her – in all its dreadful glory – and she had no recourse but to face it head on. She yanked the red scarf from her neck and used it to tie back her hair. Then, crawling to the bucket of water Leander kept next to his operating table, she unhooked a cup from the bucket’s side and filled it. Balancing the cup in one hand she weaved her way through the throng of suffering sailors to the man who had pleaded for water.
She put the cup to his swollen lips and said softly, “Here, drink this.” He coughed and spit, but managed to get some down. There were no shoes on his feet, his pants had been half torn away, and a spreading bloodstain on his soiled shirt showed he had been struck in the chest. With laboured breathing, he looked up at her and said, “Thankee, Miss.” A moment later his bruised head slumped forward and he slowly slid down against her breast, his blood seeping into her clothes. Emily heard him utter a long moan and knew that he was gone.
A teenaged lad crouching nearby said, “He’s dead, ma’am.”
Emily suppressed a whimper and put her hand on the lad’s arm. “Could you help me carry him out to the galley?”
“Aye, ma’am. Only got a bit ’o lead in me leg, but I don’t feel it none.”
The lad hooked his strong, bare arms under the dead sailor’s limp ones and lifted him up while Emily held onto his legs. Blinking back tears, she fought to keep her stomach down as they carried him through the stifling, stinking hospital and out into the galley where they lay him carefully on a grey blanket near Bailey Beck, who was already at work there sewing the dead men – with an eighteen-pounder at their feet – into their hammocks for burial at sea. Emily thanked the young lad and searched out others who needed aid, this time walking rather than crawling through the sea of misery, mindless of her own cares and annoying ankle. Struggling to contain her emotions, she gave water and a comforting word to those she knew would die before Leander was able to see them.
Before long the guns boomed again. Above deck, the bellowing grew louder and fiercer so that Dr. Braden had to raise his voice in order to be heard by Osmund, who was darting nervously about the room like a fox with a pack of hounds on its heels. Emily could hear the whirr of chain and bar shot intended for the Isabelle’s rigging, and could feel the large cannonballs pounding her walls. She reached up for the ceiling boards to balance herself as she waded through the room, catching a word or two spoken by the men.
“Sounds like we be broadside to ’er now.”
“Lord, help thee lads.”
“Dr. Braden, I only got a couple ’o cut-up fingers. If ya could just bandage me real fast, I could git back to fightin’.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Morris, you will have to wait your turn,” Leander said, focusing on a lead extraction from the arm of a shrieking, thrashing, red-haired midshipman. “Mr. Stewart, if you could stay still I might have an opportunity to remove the lead ball. If not, I will be forced to send you to the back of the line, and when I see you again in about three days, I will most likely have to remove your entire arm.”
Not heeding the doctor’s words, the midshipman continued to thrash about on the table.
“A good punch to the face will settle ’im down, Doc.”
“Thank you for that, Mr. Crump, but I don’t normally adhere to those methods.”
“Ohhhh!” moaned the midshipman. “Please send for my mother. She’ll hold my hand and smooth my hair.”
Those of the less wounded sailors within earshot chuckled. “If thee lad lives he’ll ’ave trouble livin’ them words down.”
“I’m afraid, Mr. Stewart, your mother is not here with us.” When the boy did not cease his flailing, Leander finally lost his patience. “Osmund, you’ll have to sit on him.”
“Right, then.” Rolling his thick tongue around his cracked lips, Osmund hopped up onto the operating table and plunked his full weight down onto the boy’s buttocks, gripping his skinny wrists with his enormous hands. The midshipman howled and cried out for mercy, but Osmund held him fast and firmly enough for Leander to do his work.
Emily pulled her attention away from the midshipman’s plight and snatched some clean rags from the chair at Leander’s back. She then refilled the water cup and went to kneel next to the boy with the mutilated face.
“I can’t see!” he cried. “I can’t see.”
Dipping a rag in the cold water, Emily wrung it out a bit and gently began dabbing his bleeding face. His hair was matted with blood, and on his head and left cheek were oozing gashes. In the shadowy light, with some of the blood washed away, she realized, with dismay, that his left eye had been shattered.
“Is that you, m’am?”
Emily paused to study the small, torn face in her hands. “Magpie?”
“One ’n’ the same, ma’am, but not bein’ very brave, I’m afraid.” He began to sob. Emily wrapped one arm around his thin shoulders, whispering, “Hush, now. I’ll stay with you.” She then searched the room for the teenaged lad, only to find that he was sitting nearby, watching her with interest.
“Could you manage to help me again?” she asked. “I know where there’s an empty hammock.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
With his strong arms, the lad scooped up Magpie and, limping, followed Emily to her private corner. As they weaved and bobbed through the huddled throng, she felt Leander’s eyes on her. Turning her head to him, she found that he had paused in his work to send a grateful smile her way.
6
Tuesday, June 8
2:00 a.m.
(Middle Watch, Four Bells)
GUS WALBY HURRIED UP THE LADDER to the poop deck. Captain Moreland stood in the dark and pouring rain, drinking cold coffee and watching the progress of his boarding party as they organized a group of about fifty presumed British deserters on the quarterdeck of the Liberty for transportation onto the Isabelle.
“Sir, Mr. Austen asked me to tell you we are ready to bring the men aboard,” said Gus, shivering in his sodden muslin shirt. “He says there are forty-six of them. They all speak like Englishmen but, except for one man, all claim to be American citizens.”
James, wearing his knee-length Carrick coat to shut out the wind and dampness, droplets of rain falling from his bicorne hat, closed his eyes to think. “Thank you, Mr. Walby. Tell Mr. Austen to take them down to the gaol for the balance of the night, then tell Biscuit to make certain they receive food and water. We will begin questioning them one by one in the morning.”
“And
