“Beautiful, isn’t she, sir?” The midshipman was grinning with pleasure. Andrew didn’t reply.
They lowered a ladder for him and he climbed it without once looking down. He’d never had a head for heights. If he could have, he’d have refused this summons, but there was no chance of that. They called the tune and he danced. That was the life of a high-placed Tory. When a pair of strong seamen reached down to haul him the last few feet he surrendered gratefully to their grip.
“Dr. Turner, is it? Welcome aboard the
Laurel.
I’m Captain Gregory.” Andrew shook hands with a short, swarthy man who even when he stood still seemed to be strutting. Another man approached. Taller, more dour, bit of a scarecrow. Full black beard. Obviously not interested in fashion. “This is Mr. MacAllister, the ship’s surgeon,” Gregory said. “He’ll look after you while you’re with us.”
Andrew nodded a greeting, noting that MacAllister’s smile didn’t reach his dark eyes. Small wonder. It couldn’t have been his idea to bring a land-based doctor aboard, much less a colonial. He was civil, though. And making the best of it.
“Yer patient’s below,” MacAllister said as he led the way aft along the planked quarterdeck. His Glasgow burr was faint. “Mind yer head on the ladderway.”
Andrew’s heart sank, but it was not, thank God, another ladder, merely steep and narrow stairs. He picked his footing carefully, hanging on to the polished brass handrail, aware that the mahogany walls on either side had been buffed to a high waxed sheen, and that nowhere was there a speck of dust. “Runs a slick ship, Captain Gregory does,” MacAllister said.
“So I see.”
“Aye, I expect ye do. Here we be. Patient’s in the Captain’s day cabin.” The surgeon swung open a door and led Andrew into a space some eight feet by ten, with a parquet floor and paneled walls painted gleaming white. There was a round oak table with four chairs in one corner, and a many cubbyholed desk in another. Between them was a hammock slung from ceiling hooks, making crowded what would have seemed, for shipboard, a spacious area. “Only other place to put the lad was in Captain’s sleeping quarters. This seemed some better.”
The head of the figure in the hammock was bandaged, and the eyes closed. Sleeping or unconscious. He’d soon know. Andrew began unbuttoning his coat. “A ship this size, I’d have thought there were plenty of other places to put an injured man.”
“Every bit o’ space on a ship’s accounted for, Dr. Turner, however big or small it is. I promise ye that. Me and t’other officers sleep in the wardroom, and there’s twenty midshipman in one cabin on the orlop deck. Crew does everything but shit where they’re stationed, next to the guns. Crammed in like fish in a barrel, we all are. I’ve me infirmary, if that’s what yer thinkin’, but t’wouldn’t do for the likes o’ this laddie.”
Andrew glanced once more at the patient. Still no movement. “And why is that, Mr. MacAllister?”
“’Cause he’s a prize rebel, he is. For the moment, at least.”
“Rebel? I never thought—”
“Most important man in the bloody war, to hear ’em talk. For all he ain’t a man but a boy.” MacAllister pulled one of the chairs forward and sat stiffly, both feet planted firmly on the floor. Obviously he intended to be no part of the examination or the treatment. “At least he’s important for the next five minutes. That’s how military men are, Dr. Turner. And why an ordinary ship’s surgeon wasn’t good enough.”
“It wasn’t my decision to come aboard your ship, Mr. MacAllister. These days I follow orders. So tell me who he is, and your diagnosis.”
“Last part’s easy. Lad got hit in the head. Brain’s addled. I trepanned three places. Didn’t help none. Been bleedin’ him o’ course. That ain’t helped much neither. Least not so’s ye can see. As for who he is, name’s Edward Preble. Father was a general. Potato farmer now, they tell me, but General Preble fought beside Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham afore all this rebellion rubbish. Didn’t teach his boy a lot about loyalty, for all that. Young Edward here was captured off a rebel frigate.”
“I see. And why did they bring Edward Preble here when they captured him?”
“Didn’t. Put him aboard the
Jersey.”
Andrew froze in the act of rolling up his sleeves. “And how long, Mr. MacAllister, did they keep him in that hellhole?”
MacAllister shrugged. “Couple o’ weeks. Maybe a month. I’ve nothing to do with the
Jersey
or any o’ the prison ships, laddie, so ye can get that look off yer face. First thing I knew o’ this boy Preble was when they brung him aboard the
Laurel
and Captain Gregory said I was to look after him. Keep him alive as long as he was needed.”
“Needed for what? It’s painfully apparent that the men sent to the
Jersey
are required by no one but Satan.”
The Scot shrugged. “I expect that’s why this one’s no longer there. He’s to be exchanged. General Preble’s son in return for the son of a loyal British general, I’m told. Don’t know which one and don’t much care.” MacAllister nodded toward Andrew’s battered old pigskin satchel. “I see ye has yer own things, but if there’s anything o’ mine ye can use, just say so.”
“Thanks. I’d be grateful for some water. Fresh, not salt.”
“’Course. I’ve me own supply o’ that commodity, Dr. Turner. Collected from the steam o’ the cooking fire down below. Sweet as ye likes. Very efficient, His Majesty’s navy is. I’ll be off and get ye a couple o’ quarts o’ me fine Adam’s ale. Won’t be long.”
MacAllister left. Andrew crossed quickly to the boy in the hammock. Definitely unconscious rather than sleeping. The stubble covering his cheeks was more fuzz than beard. Christ. He couldn’t be more than sixteen, and not likely to see seventeen from the look of him. Breathing so shallow his breast hardly moved. And his skin was cold, clammy.
Andrew reached below the blanket and extracted one limp arm. The fingernails were blue, indicating advanced shock, and the crook of the elbow was hatchmarked with small cuts left from the number of times MacAllister had bled him.
He let go of the boy’s hand and adjusted the covering to keep him warm. Then, listening for MacAllister’s step, he crossed to the desk.
He might have three, maybe four minutes, and the likelihood of there being anything of value in the cubbyholes that were in full view was all but nil. Andrew tugged at the drawers. There were two on either side and they were locked, but the center drawer slid out with no effort. Nothing inside except a few penwipes, a number of nibs, a bit of sealing wax, and sundry other supplies.
At least a minute gone. Not enough time left to work on the locks of the drawers. Andrew turned and looked back at his patient. No change. Jesus God Almighty, he couldn’t let an opportunity like this slip away. He made up his mind, pulled the center drawer out entirely and set it aside, then dropped to his knees.
Dust in the cavity. Slick ship or no, this particular spot wasn’t often examined.
Every secret drawer might be different, but the principle of the levers that activated them had to be the same. And in the past few years there had been a huge vogue for the damned things.
He ran his fingers along the slides that held the center drawer in place. Nothing. And no joy from the ledge that marked the division between the desk’s top and sides. Two minutes at least gone by. A trickle of sweat rolled down his back. Four years he’d been at this. You’d have thought by now it wouldn’t make him shake like a leaf in a gale, but it always did, at least on the inside. And the stench of the prison ships lingering in his nostrils didn’t help. No, he shouldn’t let that worry him. Spies were hanged, without benefit of a trial.
The ridge of beautifully sanded and smoothed wood that marked the mortise joint in the rear left of the drawer cavity yielded to the pressure of his fingers, and the sprung compartment opened soundlessly to his right. It was smaller than the one in his own desk, and shallower. Just big enough for a slim booklet with a dun-colored leather cover, some four inches wide by seven or eight long. He slipped it into the front of his shirt and pushed the secret drawer shut, then stood to replace the desk’s center drawer as he heard MacAllister’s step in the companionway.
He’d never get it done if he didn’t stop trembling. Jesus. Have to get both sides in place at the same time. There. That did it. Just time to turn around and face the hammock.
The door opened. MacAllister held a tarnished copper bucket with a brass handle. Wisps of steam rose around his beard. His eyes measured the space between Andrew, standing with his back to Captain Gregory’s desk, and Edward Preble’s hammock. “Treatment from a distance,” he said softly. “That’s yer style, is it, laddie?”
“Sometimes,” Andrew said. “When I’m calculating the pitch that’s to be needed.”
“Needed for what?” MacAllister set the bucket of hot water on the table, but he never took his eyes off Andrew.
“For whatever treatment I decide is called for.” Sweet Christ, he sounded like a blithering idiot, and the Scot was nobody’s fool. “Of course, in a case like this …” Andrew began.
“And just what is the case? Have ye decided that, Dr. Turner?”
“Definitely. The boy’s in shock, Mr. MacAllister. He won’t live out the night if we don’t do something.”
MacAllister nodded. “So far I’ve no cause to disagree,” he said softly. “I’d have given him not much more than a couple o’ hours meself. So what is it yer proposin’ to do, Dr. Turner? What’s the treatment that needs to be ’calculated’ from over by Captain Gregory’s desk?”
“Blood transfusion, Mr. MacAllister.” He didn’t know he was going to say it until he did. “You’ve heard of it, I expect.”
“No, I can’t say as I have. I told ye, I’ve already bled him. Took a pint mornin’ and night since they brung him aboard.”
“Yes, I know. Now we’re going to put some back. That is, if you’re willing.”
MacAllister’s eyes narrowed. “Put some back? Never heard o’ such a thing. ’Course, it’s nothing to do with me. Yer the one’s in charge o’ the lad’s care now. If he dies, he does it on yer watch. Captain Gregory’s orders. And his came from the admiral.”
“Yes, I know. But the real object of this exercise is to save him, and I can’t do that without your assistance, Mr. MacAllister. And first we have to push the desk a bit closer to the hammock. Can you help me do that?”
“Push the— I don’t understand what yer thinkin’, laddie.”
“Ah, but you will, Mr. MacAllister. I promise. Come, help me move the desk. We want it a foot or two closer to the hammock. There, that should do it.”
MacAllister stepped back and waited and watched. Andrew grabbed his bag, blessing the fact that it had once belonged to his grandfather and that he had never removed the transfusing equipment that Christopher had designed and always carried with him, though as far as Andrew knew the old man hadn’t used it again after Red Bess’s death. “Would you mind sitting here on top of the desk, Mr. MacAllister?”
“What’s wrong with the chairs?”
“Nothing, but I need you a bit higher than young Mr. Preble here. To direct the flow. Yes, exactly like that. Now, we’ll roll up your sleeve—”
“I can look after me own shirtsleeves, thanks very much. And I dinna see what—”
“Roll it right up, please. Above the elbow.” His hand was shaking when he reached into the special compartment where the brass pipettes, the valve, and the hollow needles were to be found. It was fine. Everything was there.
Bloody hell. He’d never done this before, only heard his grandfather describe it and read the old man’s notes. Whatever it was that Captain Gregory had put in his own secret drawer moved beneath his shirt. Sweet Christ, what if it fell out? He turned aside and pretended to cough. The move gave him time to readjust the position of the dun booklet.
“Dr. Turner, I dinna see what yer proposin’t’ do here.” Like most Scots’, his burr got heavier the more agitated he became.
“I’m proposing to save this boy’s life, Mr. MacAllister. And since I cannot do so without your active cooperation, we shall be equal heroes when the job is done.” Andrew reached into his bag and grabbed a strip of leather, which he wrapped tightly around the other man’s arm.
“But in the name o’ Almighty God, what— Ow!”
He hadn’t been gentle with the lancet. The whole point of using MacAllister’s blood was to get the other man so involved in the procedure he’d forget the suspicions that had been apparent when he walked in. “Sorry,” Andrew murmured. “Had to be done. Now, we shall simply insert this hollow tube in the incision. There, perfect. Would you mind holding it in place while I prepare the patient, Mr. MacAllister? Thank you. That’s fine.”
He applied a tourniquet to the boy’s arm. A vein popped up, blue and pulsing. He used the triangular blade of the lancet to make an opening and insert another hollow needle. “Now, will you lean forward a trifle, Mr. MacAllister? Yes, exactly like that. Just enough for the other end of the pipette in your arm to reach into his. There. Everything’s ready. I’ll just release your tourniquet first … Now his—”
“Och, laddie, yer as mad a bugger as ever I’ve met,” MacAllister said softly, studying the apparatus that linked him to the unconscious patient. “Madder.” MacAllister’s eyes were wide with astonishment.
“Not a bugger at all, sir. I assure you. I’ve a wife and three children to prove it.” Sweet Christ, what if young Preble died? Like Red Bess. Grandfather never had the faintest notion why that happened, only the conviction that it had nothing to do with the blood transfusion.
The transfusion would have saved her, Andrew. I’m sure it would have, if the cancer or the surgery hadn’t killed her first.
MacAllister slowly shook his head. “Mad as a hatter,” he whispered. “There’s some would call this witchcraft, laddie. Ye knows that I suppose. He’s a colonial, by God. A rebel to boot. And I’m a Scot. Ye canno’—”
“Yes, I know. But I must. What we have here, Mr. MacAllister, is a patient who is in shock, as we both agree. You have trepanned and bled him, yet he gets worse. Logic suggests the opposite treatment may make him better. Consequently, blood transfusion.”
“If that were true, laddie, d’ye not think— Holy God Almighty.”