Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“Shut your mouth, imbecile.” The second man poked him with his foot while the first man, crouching down beside Rynn, opened
the bottle of poteen. Grasping the injured man’s jaw even as he struggled and gasped, he poured the liquid down his throat.
The sour smell Rynn had noted earlier enveloped her: of course, the poteen. She was surprised she hadn’t recognized it at once.
“He needs to be kept warm. If you could build a small fire—”
“No fire!” The response was explosive. Uttered so close to her ear, it made Rynn jump.
“Here, he can have my coat. ’Tis not so cold out, after all.” The second man took off his coat, handing it to Rynn. Taking
care not to seem to notice that his scarf had slipped, exposing his face to her view, she draped the coat over the injured
man, who was seemingly insensible once more.
“Do what you can for his leg.” Standing up, the first man gave Rynn a fierce look. She’d clearly heard the injured man—Barney
McShea was his name, she was almost sure; it had sounded like he was giving his name and other information as required of
captured soldiers by the Geneva Convention in the Great War—but thought it best to pretend she hadn’t understood. Beyond the
name, the identifying information made her think—no, she knew—that he must be an IRA soldier. That these must be IRA soldiers.
Not that she wanted to know. It wasn’t safe to know.
Hadn’t Cyril had been telling Mrs. Frampton over breakfast about an IRA ambush on a convoy of British Army lorries near Finner
Camp before dawn that morning? Only it had gone wrong: several soldiers had been wounded, but the lorries had broken through
and gotten away. Cyril had attributed the attack to a flying column, as they were calling units that had split off from standard
brigades and were constantly on the move because so many of their members were now wanted and on the run.
Was this part of the aftermath of that attack? She had to assume it was.
Keep your wits about you.
“I’ll need a knife and two stout, straight sticks, about as long as his leg,” she said. “The best I can do is get the bone
back in place and splint it.”
“Will he be able to walk, then?”
“Over a short distance maybe, with assistance.”
“Eh, I’ll carry him on my back if need be,” the second man said to the first. “As long as he don’t start the screaming again,
we’ll do fine.”
“If I could have a knife, I could get started while one of you goes to find sticks. Stout and straight, mind, and the length
of his leg.”
“I’ll go. You watch her,” the second man said, and ducked out of the cairn as the first handed his knife over.
“Are you a nurse, then? A true nurse?” The first man watched suspiciously as she carefully cut the trouser leg away, baring
the limb and the gruesome injury. The broken bone protruded through the skin halfway between crotch and knee. The flesh was
torn and bloody where the bone had come through. The degree of swelling and bruising around the wound told her that it was,
as she had suspected, several hours old.
“Yes. How did you hear about me?” She was busy slicing the trouser leg into long strips.
“Never you mind about that. Just fix the leg.”
Don’t ask questions. The more you know, the more risk you pose to them.
“I can set it, but after that he needs to be seen by a doctor. Dr. Lowry in the village—”
He gave a quick, negative shake of his head. “The doctor’s being watched. All the doctors are being watched. The Brits have
spies everywhere. They think we’re stupid, but we know. And we know who they are.”
The look he gave her as he said that burned with promised vengeance.
Rynn thought it best to redirect his thoughts to the situation at hand.
“When your friend comes back, I’m going to ask one of you to hold him and the other to pull hard on his ankle so that the bone can be put back in place.
You look to me like you’re the strong one, so it should probably be you who holds him.
” That last was a deliberate piece of flattery, designed to get on this man’s good side.
If they were desperate and on the run, and she assumed they were, they might be wary of leaving behind a living witness.
The thought sent a shiver down her spine.
“I’m the one for that, all right. What is it you’re doing?”
She was pouring poteen over the open wound to clean it, and she told him so. By the time the second man came back with the
two stout, straight sticks as requested, she was ready for them. Telling them both what she needed them to do, she waited
until they got in position. The injured man, perhaps sensing what was to come, started moving and muttering again, but she
had no time or inclination to listen.
“Hold him still,” she said to the first man. Then, to the second, “Pull! Now! Hard and sharp!”
He pulled, the injured man screamed and fainted, the broken bone disappeared back through the skin as she manipulated it into
place and the thing was done.
After that, she poured more poteen on the wound and had them hold the sticks on either side of the broken leg while she bound
it up tightly.
Sinking back on her heels, pleased with how it had gone, she saw that both her captors were looking at her. And realized to
her dismay that the first man’s scarf now hung loosely around his neck, too, exposing his face.
“Are you finished, then?” the first man asked.
She was already breathing hard and sweating from the work she had done. But something about his expression, their expressions—she could feel the hair rise up on the back of her neck.
As clearly as if they’d said it aloud, she knew they were thinking about the danger she might now pose to them.
Stay calm.
“The bone is set and splinted. To avoid the risk of amputation, though, he’ll need to have Dakin’s Solution applied daily
for six days to the wound where the bone broke through the skin.”
“What? What’s that?”
“An antiseptic. Luckily the house where I live served as a hospital in the Great War, and I was a nurse there. I have medical
supplies inside. Since we’re done here except for that, I’ll go fetch the Dakin’s Solution for you.”
“Amputation, you say?” Both men looked at her uneasily.
She nodded. “Without the Dakin’s Solution, he’s almost certain to lose that leg, I’m afraid.”
They looked at each other in what was clearly a silent debate while her stomach twisted itself into knots. Her life hung in
the balance, she feared.
“And you have some of this solution?”
“I do.”
Another exchange of looks between her captors.
In desperation she said, “I’ve done what you brought me here to do. I’ve set his leg, and if you follow my instructions, he
won’t lose it. But you need to let me go get that Dakin’s Solution, or it will all have been for nothing.”
The first man’s gaze snapped back to her. He looked at her hard, then slowly nodded.
“Get up, then,” he said. To the other man he added, “I’ll take her. You stay here with—” He broke off, shooting her another
hard look.
She tried to appear calmly confident as she rose to her feet.
Darkness had fallen by the time they reached the outer edge of the kitchen garden.
Lights were on in the house. Had anyone missed her yet?
Were they looking for her? Probing the shadows in the desperate hope that someone might be about, she saw no one, not Cyril, not Mrs. Frampton, no one, out searching.
“I’m going to go inside and fetch the solution for you now,” she said to the man behind her, who’d been silent as a rock during
the entire trek back. His scarf was once again in place. His rifle was tucked under his arm. Which gave her hope but was still
no guarantee he wouldn’t shoot her as she walked away. His long silence, she feared, was the product of a wary mind weighing
the risk she represented.
“And you’ll be bringing it back out to me, just as nice as you please.” The skepticism in his voice was unmistakable. Here
was another choice: lie or tell the truth.
“You needn’t fear that I’ll tell anybody about this, because I won’t,” she said. “There’s a bench beside the kitchen door.
I’ll put the bottle on that. You need only come up and get it. You must just pour the solution over the wound once a day.
For six days, remember.”
He looked at her. She could see in his eyes that he was deciding. Her jaw clenched. Her pulse thundered in her ears.
“You keep your mouth shut about this, missy,” he said, and she nodded.
Then she went inside the house, fobbed off Mrs. Frampton and Cyril, who’d been alarmed when, Cyril having gone out to look,
she hadn’t been anywhere to be found, went to the cellar and located the Dakin’s Solution, mixed it, came back outside, held
the bottle up where her erstwhile captor could see and set it on the bench.
She could feel his eyes on her the whole time. The tingle in her shoulders and back as she tensed against a possible bullet
didn’t ease until she was safely back inside.