Ingenious pain Andrew Miller (smart ebook reader .TXT) 📖

cot. I went there directly and saw at once that the case was hopeless. Though I was angered by this

display of negligence, I was also afraid for him, for had it reached the ears of Captain Reynolds it might very well have come to a court-martial. I said - What is to be done, Mr Hodges?' - James Dyer answered - 'It is already done' - words to that effect. He was wearing Mr Munro's operating apron and stood beside an operating table of sea-chests spread over with a sheet of sailcloth. He had his instruments - Munro's instruments - all about him, and had the air of a man about to sit down to a good dinner. I said— 'Sureyou do not mean to manage alone, James?' - To which he replied that he did not, and was pressing me into service as his assistant. I did not like this idea at all but Mr Hodges seemed to think it a good one and offered his own services as a dresser so gamely that I felt it impractical to decline.

I put on an old jacket out of the slops and then joined the others at cards, though how I played I do not know for I longed to go above and see how we stood with the French. Shortly before three in the afternoon we felt the ship go about. Mr Hodges, who had been at sea some twenty years, nodded his head saying we would shortly be at it and would I say a prayer for our success and protection. I said something, I could not repeat it now to save my life, a rather rambling prayer to be sure, but the others in the cockpit — two women, two young children, Mr Shatt, and Stoker, a syphylitic case two poorly to fight — bowed their heads. All, I am sorry to say, except Dyer. My 'Amen was lost in the sound of gunfire, not ours but the enemy's, and I felt the poor old Aquilon shudder in the water as she took its force.

This, as I was able to establish after, was the first of the broadsides to rake Admiral West's squadron as we bore down on to the French line. Two more followed at intervals of four or five minutes before we felt the ship once again alter course. 'Now' — cried Mr Hodges, jumping up in the midst of dressing a man's hand and suddenly very martial - 'Now we shall bloody

their noses!' - He was a true oracle, for the words were barely out of his mouth when our guns fired. Lord, Sir, and how they kept it up! The lanterns dimmed and brightened as the concussion from the decks above sucked the air from the orlop deck, and after each broadside there was a mighty roaring of the gun-carriages and a general thunder of feet racing to the magazines and the shot-lockers.

I lost all sense of the passage of time. I remember my mouth was very dry. I shall not pretend I was not afraid. I could not understand how the ship could endure such punishment, how there could possibly be anyone alive upon the upper decks. Indeed, many were not and there was a steady flow of wounded men brought down into the cockpit, some screaming, some in a swoon, some bearing their lacerations with the most exemplary fortitude. Pretty soon it became difficult to walk there for the numbers of poor wretches who lay about on the boards. Always a cry of 'Surgeon!' and very many, even among the elder men, called for their mothers.

In the midst of this was James Dyer. Never for an instant did his concentration waver, never did he pause to rest or wipe his brow or drink. We brought the worst cases to him - dangling arms, crushed legs, gaping bellies — and he cut and sewed and pushed mens innards back into their natural cavities. I swear to you. Sir, he took pleasure in it, this demonstration of his genius, and I cannot believe any man ever cut human flesh with a cooler head or a steadier hand, certainly not while the world itself was shaking so.

At some moment I became aware of a commotion behind me and saw Mr Drake was there shouting that the Captain was hurt and demanding that the surgeon go up to attend to him. Mr Munro of course was in no case to attend to himself, still less the Captain, so it fell to your friend. I intended to go on with the men in the cockpit but Mr Drake said that my services might also

be needed and thus I found myself going up through the ship at Dyers heels.

The gun-decks were all billows of grey smoke. Each gun, the enemy s and our own, firing quick as they could be brought to bear, the pieces growing so hot they were skittish as colts, leaping high and recoiling with truly frightful force.

In several places we were forced to step over the bodies of dead men, ay, and dead boys — for I recall very well seeing the face of poor William Oaks, whose tenth birthday had fallen on the day prior to the battle. I could not see how he had been killed for there was no mark on him more than a small bruise above his eye.

On the upper deck the carnage was even greater, and as we made our way to the Quarter Deck the blood splashed on to our stockings. There was such a whistling of ordnance I firmly believed I should never get below again, that my hour was come, for it did not seem possible that a human being could survive in such murderous air. Indeed, I had the unreasoning conviction that the entire French Navy had set their honour upon destroying me, though I have since discovered that this is a by no means unusual conviction for men in battle. It is certainly