Chapter 10
The world swam—a slow tide and a fall—then steadied upon a whitened ceiling where the laths ran not quite straight.
The air was thick with vinegar and wet ash.
A fly bumbled against the netting above him and found no entrance.
He tried to turn his head; a pain caught him at the temple and set the room to a dull ringing.
Canvas rasped under his palm. The sheet was coarse; his fingers had been washed too often and were sore at the nails. The shutters clicked as the wind took them; rain struck the roof in a nimble patter, then harder, as if urged on by a hand.
“Sir?” A voice at his left, low and uncertain. “Sir—if you please—he’s awake.”
Boot leather creaked. A shape leant into the light.
He made out a face burnt darker by the sun, with salt clinging at the hair; a corporal, hat in his hands.
“Beg pardon, sir. I’m Corporal Hill. They told me only to look and go.
I—only to say—there’s two men see their children again because of you. And for me—my wife.”
“God bless you, sir.”
Bennet’s throat had no proper voice. He meant to answer, and after a moment heard a sound like a whisper from someone else. The corporal nodded as if he had understood, and backed away at once when another figure came between them.
“Let him be,” said a second man. The tone was quiet but accustomed to rule. “You may give your thanks in writing when he is ready to read it.”
“Yes, Major.” The step retreated. The hat turned once in two hands and was gone.
The commander remained. He stood very still; Bennet could not see his face for the dark between them, only the outline of a coat that had not yet dried.
A drop fell from the cuff to the floor. After a while the commander’s hand rested upon the foot-rail.
“You did your duty, Captain Bennet,” he said.
“The magazine holds. The yard holds. That is sufficient for tonight.”
A cloth touched Bennet’s temple—cool for a breath, then warm again. Someone lifted his head, slipped a folded strip beneath the nape, and let him down.
The surgeon’s voice carried a different gravity: no command in it, only an exactness.
“The burns are chiefly upon the right thigh and hip. The skin has blistered and torn; there is charring about the seam where his breeches were caught. I have dressed it with oil and lime-water, and laid on lint. He must be kept from heat and from flies, and from all stirring.”
“Will he mend here?” the commander asked.
“In time, with every danger between,” the surgeon said. “The air spoils the wound. There is fever already; his head took a blow. If the flesh inflames and mortifies, we shall do little but watch. He ought to be in a cooler climate.”
The commander’s fingers tapped once upon the rail, and were still. “How far gone is the fever?”
“Early, but obstinate. Laudanum has quieted him. The head must be guarded from noise, the room kept dim, the dressings renewed with care. If we can bring the heat down and persuade the wound to look kindly, he might travel within a week. If we cannot, he will not travel at all.”
Bennet tried again to speak.
“He is attempting to rouse,” the surgeon said. A hand—square, dry—took Bennet’s wrist and held it a moment. “Be easy, sir.”
Easy. The word did not sit; it rolled and would not settle.
The image came—the door blown outward, a breath of white heat, a line of fire running swift as thought; then the wall, and the stars, and the knife where it must be.
Cut there. He had cut; the hiss ceased. Something had followed—men’s voices very far, and his name given a dozen ways, none of them right.
“Captain Bennet,” said the commander, lower than before. “You are in the hospital. You are not to move.”
He found, with surprise, that he had already agreed. His leg burned in waves; whenever he sought to climb out, it climbed with him and set him down again. The sheet clung at the bandage; every breath discovered a new seam of pain. He closed his eyes, and the room steadied.
The surgeon went on, not to him now. “He must leave the island, Major. If you will have him live and keep his limb, he must go north.”
“Very well.” The decision was not loud, and therefore final. “The first ship bound for England. See that he has a berth where the air moves, and a man who can be trusted with the dressings.”
“I shall provide one,” said the surgeon. “Corporal Hill has served in the infirmary and knows the handling of poultice and bandage. He is steady under pain and silent when speech does harm.”
The commander inclined his head. “Hill, then. Put his name to the orders. He will attend Captain Bennet home, and remain with him till the surgeons at Portsmouth receive him.”
“There is a packet in three days if the wind changes,” the surgeon answered. “If not, the Augusta within the week.”
“Three days, then.” Papers rustled. A chair scraped. “Make him fit to sail, Mr——”
“Evans.”
“Mr Evans. He has earned the attempt.” The commander’s hand left the rail. “I shall have the orders drawn at once.”
A light step near the door. “Sir?” The corporal again, with a whisper that pretended it was not heard. “They’ve set the men to sweeping the yard. The casks are damp, but whole.”
“Good. Send a runner to the harbour-master. I want a berth reserved on the packet for a convalescent officer and an attendant. Give my name to him.”
“Yes, Major.”
Silence eked itself out after they were gone. The rain altered its tune and fell more gently; a draught found the crack in the shutter and laid a cooler finger across the room. Bennet felt it on his face and thought, England, and could not say why the word made the breath catch.
The surgeon’s chair creaked. “Sleep now if you are able,” he said, somewhere above the pulse that throbbed in Bennet’s ear. “We will change the dressings at dawn.”
Bennet’s hand found the edge of the sheet and closed there. He fixed his gaze upon the slant of light beneath the door, watched it thin to nothing until only the sound of the rain remained. Then the commander’s voice again, from the doorway, quiet as if not to wake him and sure that he heard:
“England, then. First ship north.”