‘Thank you, Doctor.’ His voice was stronger now, and he managed a weak smile. ‘That salve is making it feel better already.’
‘Good.’ The salve was made with many cooling and antiseptic herbs, pounded in honey, which is one of the best healers God has given us. With luck, the wound would heal. I patted his shoulder and moved with Peter to the next soldier.
By now I could see my father working his way along the opposite wall, while Dr Stevens was directing four of the nursing sisters to care for some of the less serious cases. When the hospital was part of the Priory of St Bartholomew, back before King Henry’s time, the daily care of the sick was carried out by nuns. Now the women who looked after our patients were secular, many of them widows, but the term ‘sister’ had lingered on. The mistress of the nurses, who did not normally care for the patients herself, had rolled up her sleeves and joined them. My father must have pacified her somehow.
The next soldier in the row along the near wall was a young boy, who could not have been more than thirteen or fourteen. He seemed only half conscious but it was clear that the injury was to his right hand, which was invisible inside a crude bundle of cloth. Once again I cut the bloodstained cloth away, to reveal a horribly crushed and mangled hand.
Peter looked at me and shook his head. I shrugged. It might be possible to save it, but I was doubtful. I took so long cleaning the hand and setting each finger in tiny splints that Dr Stephens came and stood over me, watching what I was doing. It made me nervous, for I knew he had a low opinion of me. Unlike him, I had not studied at the Medical School in Oxford. I had not even studied at a Portuguese university. I had learned my medicine at my father’s side, like an apprentice, and I had read widely and carefully in his medical texts, but for Dr Stephens that was not a rigorous physician’s training. I had not attended lectures on the great Greek physician Galen and I subscribed to the strange modern views of the infidel Arabs.
However, he was gracious enough to nod when I was finished. ‘At neat job,’ he said, as he turned away. From Dr Stephens, that was an accolade.
Peter grinned at me and winked.
As I finished, the boy half woke and moaned with pain. I felt a wrench at my heart, for he must have been suffering terribly for days, and he was so young. I called over one of the sisters.
‘Bring me half a cup of small ale,’ I said.
When she returned, I added a small amount of poppy syrup from the phial I kept in my satchel of medicines.
‘Help me to lift him up,’ I said to Peter.
One on either side, we eased the boy into a sitting position and I held the cup to his lips. They were cracked and blackened. Like all the soldiers he had starved during the siege and nearly died from lack of water. His eyes opened once we had him upright, but they wandered, unfocused.
‘Now,’ I said, ‘here’s is some ale for you. Drink it slowly and it will help the pain.’
Some of it dribbled down his shirt, but he managed to drink most of it. As soon as we lowered him down on to the pallet again he dropped into a deep sleep.
‘That acted quickly,’ Peter said.
‘I think his body is so exhausted he would have slept anyway, but it will ease his pain, I hope.’
Gradually Peter and I worked our way along the row of soldiers, stopping from time to time to reassure some of our other patients who were already occupying the beds, for the sight of so many wounded men brought in amongst them was causing them distress. One aggressive fellow, who had no more wrong with him than over-indulgence in eating and drinking which had made him bilious, demanded that the soldiers should be moved out of the ward, for the noise made it impossible for him to sleep.
‘Better, I think, Goodman Watkins,’ I said, ‘that you should go home and give up your bed to one of these wounded soldiers. Your wife can look after you now.’
I knew that his wife was a shrewish scold, who would not tolerate his malingering.
‘Oh, no,’ he said, rubbing his stomach and rolling his eyes, ‘I am in a vast amount of pain. I have not the strength even to step out of this bed.’ With that he rolled over and closed his eyes.
Peter shrugged. ‘We’ll send him home tomorrow. Only this morning Dr Stephens said he should go.’
We were perhaps a little more than halfway along the row when we reached a soldier with a heavily bandaged head and one arm strapped in a sling. I had noticed his eyes following me as I moved nearer to him. There was something familiar about him, but I could not put my finger on it. Kneeling down beside the pallet, I saw that, unlike so many of the men, he was fully awake and alert. Two bright eyes looked out at me from below the bandage which was wound around his head and one ear.
‘Well, Kit Alvarez, I did not expect to meet you again in such a manner as this.’
I knew the face, knew the voice.
‘Andrew!’ I said. ‘What are you doing here? These are foot soldiers. Surely you are a trooper?’
‘Aye, I’m still a trooper, but a few of us were sent over to Sluys with the infantry. I have been working with the gunners this year and it was thought my experience would be of some use to those poor buggers. But there’s not much use having guns when you run out of gunpowder. And there might have been need of a galloper to carry messages, but we never had the chance. The only messages sent out from the town were carried by cunning local lads who knew where to slip through the enemy lines.’
I saw that he was sweating slightly and realised that the brightness of his eyes was partly due to fever.
‘Peter,’ I said, ‘will you fetch me some of the febrifuge tincture? And we are going to need more of the salve.’
Peter, who had been listening to this exchange with interest, nodded and got to his feet.
‘Trooper Andrew Joplyn and I worked together last year.’ I felt I must satisfy his curiosity. ‘When I was in Sussex with Master Phelippes.’
Peter nodded. ‘I remember.’ He picked up his tray and headed off to the hospital still room.
‘That was a night.’ Andrew lay down with a sigh. ‘Back last year. I thought those fishermen were going to catch us.’
‘Because of my stupidity,’ I said.
‘Anyone could have had an accident in the dark,’ he said. ‘Still it was a fine race we had, back to Rye. Did they catch those men?’
‘Aye. They were . . .’ I paused, ‘dealt with.’
‘So you really are a physician. I’m not sure I believed you.’
‘I know you didn’t. Now, what is amiss with you?’
‘Dislocated my shoulder. A couple of the lads pulled it straight for me. It’s something we learn how to do. You can easily dislocate a shoulder, falling off a horse. The sling is just to give me some ease.’
‘And your head?’
‘Ah, well, that is nastier. I had a lucky escape. A bullet grazed my head just above the ear, but it didn’t penetrate. Hit the poor bugger behind me and killed him. Still, it’s sore.’
I began to unwind the bandage around his head. Like so many of the dressings I had already removed, this one was caked with dried blood and would not come away easily. Peter had left a bowl of Coventry water on the floor beside me, so I soaked the bandage until I could peel it away, revealing a deep gash in the side of Andrew’s head, as broad as two fingers. The bullet had also torn away the tip of his ear. While I was working, Andrew said nothing, but bit down on his lower lip. Beads of sweat trickled down the side of his face.
‘Aye, you were lucky,’ I said, relieved that the bone of the skull was merely grazed and not shattered. ‘It also looks quite clean.’
‘I did my best to wash it.’ His voice came out high-pitched, as if he was still struggling with the pain.
Peter came back with more salves and a bottle of the febrifuge tincture. I dressed the wound and bound it up, then gave Andrew a dose of the tincture.