Corporal Wainwright's relief was palpable.
'A bowl of hot water and some brandy, if you will, Flowerdew.'
To anyone who observed the preliminaries of the two surgeons - the army's and Liffey's - the reason for the crew's high opinion of theirs would have been clear. Whereas, ashore, the man had worked in Stygian gloom, though there was no obvious cause to, and his prognosis was made after the most cursory of visual examinations, Surgeon Ritchie made full use of the evening sunlight that streamed through the stern windows - and his magnifying glass.
His prognosis, however, tended to the same. 'Not good, I'm afraid. Lint, please.'
An assistant rummaged in a haversack.
'Clean lint. Let's not have any more stink than needs be.'
Hervey opened his eyes.
'Capital, my dear friend!' said a delighted Peto. 'You're in good hands, now.'
Hervey appeared not to register where he was or even who was there.
'An ill-timed recovery, I'm afraid, my dear sir,' muttered the surgeon, pouring brandy on the lint and wiping away some of the blood caked about the wound.
Hervey's head rolled.
Peto peered over the surgeon's shoulder at Hervey's. 'He reeks of rum, Ritchie,' he said, shaking his head. 'Little wonder he nods.'
Ritchie threw the lint to the floor.
'Hold hard there, my old friend!' Peto called, as if to a deaf man, which, to all intents and purposes, Hervey was.
'How much rum has he drunk, Corporal?' asked Ritchie.
'Only a very little, sir,' replied Wainwright, standing to attention by a bulkhead. 'I poured the most of it into Captain Hervey's shoulder, sir.'
Ritchie turned and looked at him before more rubbing with new lint. 'And why, pray, did you do that?'
'I know Lord Nelson's body was preserved in brandy, sir. I thought it could help Captain Hervey.'
'You did, did you? Well, it can't have done too much harm, though it might have been better had you poured it all down his throat.' He took off his coat and pulled up his shirtsleeves. 'A digital examination, then, now the wound's exposed proper.'
Peto screwed up his eyes, the better to see the work, although it anticipated the flinch too.
Ritchie inserted a finger - the right index - with the utmost care, but the pain was so great that Hervey let out a cry and at once passed out.
'Good,' said Ritchie. 'Much the best way,' as he continued probing.
Peto grimaced, but more in anticipation of what Ritchie might say. Wainwright stood stock-still, at attention. He could do no more now than trust.
'There's been prodigious bleeding,' said Ritchie after a while. 'But no disruption of the glenoid cavity. No bone splinters either. And I believe I may feel the ball.' He withdrew his finger and wiped it on some lint, taking good care to observe Hervey's breathing as he did so.
The marines shifted their weight a little.
'Keep him proper upright, and hold his head back, one of you,' said Ritchie, wiping the sweat from his brow with his left arm. 'Probe-point bistoury, please, Magan.'
One of the assistants handed him the curved knife.
'Corporal, be aware that I might be doing your captain no favour in this. I may remove the ball, but if the shoulder is more damaged than I surmise it would be better that I disarticulate the limb now.'
Corporal Wainwright nodded. 'Sir.'
'Stand easy, man,' said Peto, kindly.
'But first there'll be more blood,' warned Ritchie, wiping his forehead again. 'Turn him round a wee bit more to the light.'
The marines turned him carefully with the linen sling.
'First I have to enlarge the wound.' He dipped the bistoury in the hot water. 'Curious thing how the patient afterwards says he felt the cold blade. Nelson did. Might as well make things as comfortable as possible.' He wiped the bistoury on his sleeve then deftly elongated the wound two ways, pulling the flesh apart either side with the thumb and finger of his left hand while he probed for the ball with the knifepoint.
Blood began to run copiously again. The assistants dabbed at it with lint.
'Forceps.'
Magan handed them to him and took the bistoury. Ritchie, as he had done with the knife, warmed the bullet-extracting forceps before putting them to the flesh.
Peto began silently to pray, although he was not a praying man. Wainwright was a praying man; he had scarcely ceased praying since first lifting Hervey into the saddle.
'Hold him hard. I don't want a struggle,' growled Ritchie as he pulled aside the flesh again and inserted the forceps.
But Hervey was in too deep a syncope to know how the instrument probed.
In the end it was done quickly. Out came forceps and ball in less than a minute. Ritchie examined the missile for signs of having struck bone. Then, satisfied, he tossed it to Corporal Wainwright. 'Your captain may want to see the intruder.'
'Sir. Will that mean he'll be well now, sir?'
Ritchie was already back to work with magnifying glass and the smaller forceps. 'I dare say so.' He tutted, picking out particles of blue serge from the wound. 'Lord, but this cloth's bitty. More light, there! A candle or two.'
It was Peto who obliged him quickest.
'But no braid, though, it seems,' said Ritchie in a tone of some relief, and peering even closer. 'Well, he's as good a chance as any. I'll suture now, Magan. Keep him steady, my lads. Good work.'
'And then to my cot,' said Peto, nodding with the greatest appearance of approval. 'Well done, Mr Ritchie. Well done, sir!'
'I could do no better, Captain. But your praise may be premature. It will be two weeks, perhaps three, before we see the laudable pus - the exuviae of the sickness. Only then can we say the arm is saved. What he needs now is to rest, and to be still. I'll bleed him tomorrow.'
PART TWO
HOME TRUTHS
CHAPTER SIX
CAMP FOLLOWERS
Calcutta, four months later
The girl ran a finger down the neat line of the scar. Hervey felt no pain. Quite the opposite, for her touch was always delicate and accompanied by the gentlest of kisses. He sighed with the pleasure of their intimacy. 'You had better go, Neeta. Manu will be here shortly, and you know how you dislike him.'
The girl hissed. 'I do not know why you keep him as your bearer when you have so good a servant as Mr Johnson!'
Hervey smiled. ‘Manu is a good bearer too. And he does Johnson's bidding willingly.'
The girl rose from the bed, tied a lungi about her, then sat at Hervey's dressing table and took one of his brushes to her long black hair, as Henrietta used to do.
What a solace she was - companion these past two years, and nurse these last two months. Yet how dismayed he had been when first she had come to Calcutta looking for him. Chittagong had seemed so far behind. He rose, put on his dressing gown, then took her shoulders, watching in the mirror as she brushed - so very like Henrietta, and yet in appearance so different. It was all very safe, therefore. But he broke the rules. A bibi did not visit; she was but a 'sleeping-dictionary'. He kissed the top of her head, then went outside.
It was a quiet afternoon in the lines, even allowing for the usual retreat to the shade and the punkah, although the worst of the south-west monsoon's clammy heat was long past. There were a few mounted men about the cantonment, but no hawkers, no rumble of wheels. The Company was at war with Ava, but the war was so far distant that the seat of government was undisturbed.