Antidote to Murder by Felicity Young

Author:Felicity Young
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781101622476
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2012-10-15T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

FRIDAY 25 AUGUST

He lay on a stretcher in the operating tent after a three-day journey across the veldt in an oxcart. The hospital tent he was carried into was so small they could barely fit the operating table between its two poles. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth; his body cried out for water. He stared longingly at the row of pannikins on the dressings stand, tried to reach out for one, and found he could barely lift his hand. Flies pattered across his face, and he did not have the strength to bat them away.

An orderly leaned over him, peeled the stinking dressing from his right knee, and called the doctor over.

“That left leg will have to come off,” the doctor said.

No, not the left, the right leg, Pike tried to say, but the words would not leave his mouth.

“There’s no anaesthetic,” the orderly said.

“Cowards don’t deserve anaesthetics.”

The remains of his ragged trousers were cut from his left leg. Above him the surgeon hefted a great axe. Then he realised this wasn’t the surgeon he’d seen earlier. This one had the face of Dody McCleland. She leaned over and kissed him long and deep, one moment looking like her sister, the next looking like herself. “It has to be done, Pike,” she said, resuming her position with the axe.

“No, no!” Pike cried mutely. He wriggled and strained and, just as the orderly moved to hold him down, fell with a crash from the operating table.

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