Game of Bones by David Donachie

Author:David Donachie [David Donachie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749019327
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2015-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

HARRY had never sailed with a surgeon on his books, his experience of the breed being that they were to a man drunken sots who killed more than they cured: when they’d fought these last five years James had run the cockpit and dealt with the bloody aftermath of action. But as he lay face down, with Pender working on his back, he knew that he needed a surgeon now, and not just for himself.

All around him in the faint glim from the candlelight, men were in pain, some so deep in shock that they merely stared at the low deckbeams above their heads while their shipmates tended to their needs. Others screamed and begged for relief, the rum administered by Willerby seeming to add to their fears and suffering rather than placating them. The smell, a mixture of blood, wounded flesh, sweat, and involuntary human waste, was so overpowering that Harry Ludlow, whose own back was covered with rum, thought he would expire from it rather than his wound.

‘It’s the best I can manage,’ said Pender, leaning forward so that Harry could see his strained face out of the corner of his eye. ‘But the ball has lodged in the flesh of your right shoulder, very close to a bone from what I can see, and I don’t have the skill to try and dig it out.’

‘Illingworth?’

‘Tom Biggins and Frog-spawn are tending to him, right now.’

‘What’s our position?’

‘We’re still driftin’ on the current, about five miles to the east of them islands. I’ve got boats out to keep her head steady and we’ve managed to keep well to the north of some nasty-looking cliffs off our starboard quarter.’

‘What about Tressoir?’

‘Still where he was, as far as I can see.’

‘Help me up,’ Harry croaked.

‘You’d best not. That stitchin’ ain’t too secure.’

‘Just do it!’

Getting Harry to his feet wasn’t helped by the narrow confines of the crowded cockpit. The deckbeams were so low that he had to adopt a painful crouch till they reached the companionway that led up to the upper deck. Standing fully upright nearly did for him, and it was only by a supreme effort that he managed to hang on to consciousness. Every step of the steep ladder was a struggle, with Pender behind able to offer only limited help.

‘We could stretcher you out,’ he said, not in the least surprised when the response to that suggestion was somewhere between a grunt and a growl.

They did make it eventually, and Pender could get beside his captain to take his weight. Not that looping Harry’s left arm over his shoulder was achieved without more suffering, but at least the pain was confined to the side of his back which was merely cut. Once in the cabin, Harry leant his head against the wooden bulkhead, his fists clenched as he sought to stay conscious.

‘What’s the state of the ship?’

‘Bad, your honour. We’ve taken more punishment than she can truly bear, though we were lucky below the waterline.’

‘The angle of fire was too high.

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