STAR-CROSSED BOOK II

COPYRIGHT Linda Collison  2007

Chapter One

 “This leg must be amputated,” Charles Brantigan announced, his voice gritty as a holystone.  “And you, Mr. MacPherson, will conduct the operation.” 

The chief surgeon looked at me, his blue eyes cloudy, nearly blind, yet still shrewd.  Still as intimidating as the day I signed ship’s articles.  I nodded, my face a mask.  At least I hoped it was.

“Mr. Freeman, you and I shall assist,” Brantigan continued. 

We stood between the hammocks, our feet apart for balance.  The wind had risen and veered, the waters were rough.  The hammocks shivered and swayed erratically with the new motion.  My stomach churned.“No!”  The patient’s protest sounded more like the squeak of a terrified rodent, than that of a soldier.Ignoring him, Brantigan untied the strips of muslin that held the thick pad of dressing, revealing the injury for our inspection.  The kneecap looked like a bruised plum; soft, swollen, and puce-colored.  Leaning over for a better look in the dim light belowdecks, I caught a whiff of the mortifying flesh. 

The stench of illness I was becoming accustomed to.  Such vile smells, though unpleasant, no longer made me retch.  (As Aeneas MacPherson might have said, were he still alive, a discerning nose is one of the many tools in a ship surgeon’s kit.  I was only beginning to comprehend the truths behind my teacher’s pithy apothegms.)

Brantigan cleared his raspy throat and fixed me in his fading, yet ever-astute sight.  “You are up to the task, Mr. MacPherson?”I glanced at the patient’s freckled face, now drained of all color.  So difficult to meet their questioning eyes when you had so little to offer them.  The patient  looked at me beseechingly, as if I might wink and tell him it was but a bad joke.  He opened his mouth, revealing his chipped front tooth, then shut it again without saying a word.   Intervene for me, he seemed to be pleading.  Champion my cause.

 “Is there no chance it might be saved, sir?  Perhaps if I blister it again?”

Dudley Freeman’s glance was a dart in my side.  “Why waste time blistering a gangrenous leg when a scalpel and bone saw will do the job in a wink?  I’ll do it, Mac, if you haven’t the stomach for it.”

Brantigan removed his spectacles and wiped his eyes with a kerchief.  “Please be so kind as to hold your tongue, Mr. Freeman.  Now then, Mr. MacPherson; you can save the limb or you can save the man, but I’ll wager you cannot save both.  Unless a miracle occurs by eight bells tomorrow morning the leg must come off, else the poison spreads through his body and kills him.”  

The young soldier groaned as if Brantigan had struck him in the chest.Suddenly remembering the patient was present and hearing every word, Brantigan placed his knobby hand on the soldier’s arm.  I believe he meant it to be a compassionate gesture, but the boy flinched at the touch.    “Easy, lad.  Easy.  How old are you?”  The gruff old ship’s surgeon’s voice was almost gentle. 

“Sixteen, sir.” 

“Lee is your name?”

The young man nodded, still pale as the moon.

“What is your given name?  What name does your mother call you?”

“Everett.  Everett Mayhouse.”

“And where is your home, lad?”

“Rhode Island, sir. At least, that’s where I was born.” 

“I am heartily sorry Everett Mayhouse Lee,” Brantigan said, his rheumy eyes glistening.  “But it must be done, you know.  The gangrene will kill you if we linger.”

We all fell silent.  A man’s sigh from a nearby hammock brought a slovenly girl out of the shadows to attend him.   

Meanwhile, two decks above us the sailors sang out as they hauled on the lines, bracing the yards.  Their voices, the sound of their footfalls, carried across the decks, down the wooden hull and rang throughout the vessel.  The frigate creaked under the demand of the sails and seemed to dig her shoulder into sea, eager to respond.  The sounds made me long for the fresh air aloft, the wet wind in my face.  I would rather climb to the tops in a gale than have to amputate Everett Lee’s leg. 

“Mr. MacPherson, a word with you in my cabin,” the surgeon said.  “Mr. Freeman, carry on with today’s sick call on the foredeck.” 

“Aye, sir.”  Freeman threw me a victorious smirk before clattering up the companionway. 

My heart lurched like the ship itself; I was afraid I was to be reprimanded for some breech of military etiquette.  Or perhaps my superior officer had somehow intuited the truth. 

Reluctantly I followed the old man down to the lower deck, to his cabin below the waterline. A crowded little room that served as his berth, his office and the frigate’s dispensary, all in one.  Brantigan closed the door behind us and fumbled to light a glim.  Though it was broad daylight on deck, deep in the belly of the ship it was as dark as a coal cellar.  He eased himself into his chair, winching as his knees bent, and bade me sit down in the other chair, opposite his cluttered desk.  The cabin air was stuffy.  My sense of entrapment soared and I fought the familiar rising panic that enclosed spaces bring upon me.

“Now then Mr. MacPherson, I must ask you to take over the bulk of the record keeping for me.  My eyes, they’re worsening by the day.”  He rifled through the logbook with shaking hands.  His tremors too, were getting more pronounced, yet he said nothing about them.“Aye, sir.”  I waited as he found the page he was searching for.  So that was it?  He just wanted some help with the paper work?  I took courage and said what was on my mind.

“Mr. Brantigan, about the amputation...” 

Brantigan looked up with the swiftness of a harrier intent on a field mouse.  “Are you challenging my judgment?  My eyes might be failing me but there’s nothing wrong with my nose.  That wound is gangrenous.

“No sir, of course not. I mean, I’m not challenging your judgment.”  I swallowed hard.  “But don’t you think Mr. Freeman should do the cutting?”

“Why?” He fixed me in his gaze.  Though his vision was poor I knew his perception was keen.I felt my face and neck redden although I willed them not to.  My coloring was always giving me away.

“Sir, Mr. Freeman is surgeon’s first mate and I’m second mate.  He’s the more experienced.” 

“Precisely,” he growled. “High time you had more practice, wouldn’t you say?” 

Reluctantly I nodded, aware of the fens forming in my armpits, dampening my clean shirt. 

In truth, I was an imposter, not a bona fide surgeon’s mate.  Though trained by a man who was both surgeon and medical doctor, the finest in either profession, I had never sat for my exam.  I had some knowledge, yes, and some experience, but my credentials and identity were shams. 

Brantigan’s expression softened. “I’m keen to see how well you perform. Though I’m certain you’ll do well or I never would have hazarded the young man’s life on it.  A little experience, a little confidence, that’s all you’re lacking Patrick MacPherson.”

Out of Brantigan’s mouth, that was praise indeed.  Yet it only made me squirm.

“Have a talk with our young soldier,” Brantigan said. “Prepare him for his ordeal tomorrow.  Help him find his courage and make peace with his Maker.  But put his mind at ease that this will be a proper operation, not a heat-of-battle, hack-it-off-and-cauterize, slap-dash affair.  Mr. Freeman and I shall assist you, but you’ll call the shots and do the cutting and sewing.”

“Of course sir,” I managed to say.  I had assisted Freeman in sawing off more than one shattered limb during the grisly Havana campaign this summer past, but I had never taken charge.   I had been an automaton those many weeks, merely doing what I was told.  I couldn’t recall a single one of those names or faces, just the pitiful sound of their cries.  The smell of their warm blood, their sizzling flesh sealed by hot tar.  The sight of severed legs and arms, livid and lifeless, covered with maggots.  It had been a living nightmare.  But the nightmare was over and Havana, beyond the horizon.  I had tried to put the memories behind me as well. 

Everett Lee was no stranger.  I had come to know him, I liked him, his face was clear in my mind.  It was bad enough he must lose his leg; I didn’t want to be the one to do the cutting. What if I wasn’t strong enough?  Surely I wouldn’t be quick enough. What if I failed?  

Brantigan rummaged about in the clutter of his desktop, found a quill and an inkwell and pushed it toward me.  “Now then, if you’ll write while I dictate we’ll have our treatment book up to date in no time.”