“Press against it,” he told him. “Stay still and help will come.”
Next he checked the pulse of another man, whom he did not know. He was dead, too, his guts gaping, coiled like bloodied snakes on the ground below. By him, a red-spattered boy whom he presumed was his son sat rocking to and fro. He was in shock but, as far as Thomas could see, remained unhurt.
Another casualty sat clutching his thigh, screaming in agony. As Thomas approached, he could see it was Will Ketch. It seemed he'd taken a ball above his knee, and the wound was bleeding profusely. His dog had not been so fortunate. It lay at his side, a shot in its head. A woman hurried over.
“Your apron. Give me your apron!” ordered Thomas.
The woman quickly obeyed, and Thomas began tearing the linen into strips. Securing a makeshift bandage around Ketch's thigh, he instructed the woman to keep it tight until help arrived.
A few yards away a burst of yellow caught Thomas's eye. As twilight approached, the wind had got up and was catching the hem of a woman's skirt. Hurrying to her, he turned her over to see that the color of her laced bodice was deep crimson. She had taken the full force of a shot to her chest. Suddenly, from somewhere behind him, he heard a plaintive cry.
“Mamma! Mamma!”
He turned to see the little girl he had left behind the hawthorn bush, running toward him. Seeing her mother covered in blood, she cried out and threw herself on top of her. Another woman bent low to comfort her. As Thomas rose, he was aware of someone at his shoulder. He turned to see Adam Diggott, blood trickling from a wound above his left brow. He had joined Thomas to lean over the dead woman. Both men eyed each other; Diggott's lips trembled. Thomas returned his look with a mixture of pity and reproach. It was not his place to judge. He must put his emotions to one side. It was up to him to salvage as many shattered lives as he could.
Suddenly he heard Ponsonby shouting another order.
“Round up the rest!” the officer called from his mount. Even in the gloom, Thomas could see that the captain's pristine white breeches were spattered with blood. He saw several of the soldiers run at full pelt toward the woods in pursuit of the few villagers who remained. Adam Diggott went easily enough when confronted. He and two other men knew it was futile to resist arrest and offered themselves up without a struggle.
The sound of the musket fire had caused panic among the revelers on the common below. Many of the men began to surge up the slope. The soldiers who did not pursue the stray rebels remained to confront the villagers who now converged at the top of the hill. When some of the women saw the bodies on the ground, they began to scream hysterically.
A sergeant tried to restore order. “Go back to your homes now,” he shouted above the din. “Go home.”
The soldiers re-formed and stood firm, their bayonets fixed and their glare on the crowd. The atmosphere was as taut as catgut until, one by one, the men started to turn and descend toward the common.
“Go home!” barked Captain Ponsonby. “And no charges will be pressed against you.”
The crowd, shocked and dazed by what they had seen, poured slowly down the path. One or two jostled against the soldiers, but they were rebuffed and were reluctantly driven back.
Thomas remained, checking on the wounded. An earlier plea for help from the soldiers had gone unanswered. He felt overwhelmed, but he knew he must fight his own battle to stay calm. Ever since he arrived in England, he had needed to harden his heart to patients' screams as they underwent surgery, but even he had not heard the like of the unearthly wails of the battlefield before.
“I need help over here,” he called to Ponsonby. This time the captain rode over to him in person. “We need to move the injured. We should get them to the inn,” said Thomas, pressing hard on Zeb Godson's arm to stem the flow of blood, as the woodsman groaned in agony.
Even though it was growing dark, Thomas saw the young captain's revulsion at the sight of so much blood. He turned his head, then nodded.
“Very well.” He called to one of his men. “Sergeant, assign six men to help Dr. Silkstone care for the wounded,” he said, adding: “But make sure they don't escape. They are all under arrest.”
“Very good, sir.” The sergeant saluted, and soon those who were able to walk were being escorted down the hill, muskets at their backs, while a cart arrived to take the seriously wounded and the dead back down to the village.
Thomas supervised the operation. Using the shirts of the injured and women's aprons, he had managed to rig up tourniquets to stem the flow of blood, but it was clear to him that at least three wounded men would draw upon his chirurgical skills. He was about to climb up into the cart himself, when one of the soldiers who was ferrying the dead to the wagon called him over.
“Doctor!”
Thomas rushed over. Abel Smith, whom he at first had believed dead, was groaning; a low noise was issuing from his bristly beard. Grabbing a bandage from his case, Thomas was applying pressure to the head, when he heard a woman's voice behind him. Turning, he saw Maggie Cuthbert.
“You'll be needing my help,” she called down to Thomas.
He was glad of her offer. He had watched his father work in a field hospital in the Indian wars, and he knew that the more assistance that was given, the more lives could be saved. Swift action was the key to such traumatic injuries. He allowed himself to smile with relief.
“Indeed I will, Widow Cuthbert,” he said. “Here.” He rose, still pressing on Smith's head wound, and the old woman knelt and took his stead. Just as she did so, the air was split by a raucous cry. Simultaneously Thomas and the widow looked up to see a raven circling overhead. They both knew it was waiting to taste dead flesh.
Chapter 48
T
he cart trundled down the hill, bouncing and lurching without regard to its passengers, who clung to life by a thread. By the time they reached the Three Tuns, word of the rout had already set the wheels in motion. Mr. Peabody, the apothecary, had been summoned and had brought with him an array of medicaments. He had even overcome his usual reticence to instruct Peter Geech and his staff to line up tables to receive the wounded.
Outside the inn an anxious crowd had gathered, so that by the time Thomas arrived, the soldiers had to clear the way to allow the injured to be transported inside. The taproom had been turned into a makeshift hospital. Mr. Peabody had already ordered pails of water, and a large kettle was steaming on the blazing fire.
There were more injured than Thomas had at first feared. A long straggle of villagers with ferocious splinters in their hands or faces now presented itself. Thomas guessed they had been holding fencing stakes when the soldiers fired on them, sending shards of wood piercing like spears through their flesh.
“Dr. Silkstone! Dr. Silkstone!” Peter Geech approached Thomas wearing the expression of a man on whom the sky was about to fall. “What is to be done?”
Thomas knew that above all he had to remain calm. “I would ask that you provide me with plenty of your finest spirits, Mr. Geech,” he replied.
“Spirits, Doctor?” repeated the puzzled landlord.
“Yes,” Thomas replied firmly. “They will both dull the patients' pain and clean out the wounds, so none of your gin, Mr. Geech.”
“Very good, sir. But who will pay for my best brandy?”
Thomas took a deep breath. Even in times of crisis, it seemed that Mr. Geech had an eye to the main chance. “I will see you are compensated,” he said.
The doctor knew he had to prioritize treatment. Now that the battle had been fought, there were new enemies to confront. Lurking unseen among the blood and guts of his patients would be the seeds of certain diseases, the rigors and wound fever that needed to be destroyed before they held sway. He set Widow Cuthbert to work cleaning and dressing minor wounds, which he would check on later. For the moment he knew that lives could still be saved if he acted quickly. With Mr. Peabody at his side, he began his taste.
First he tended to Will Ketch's leg. Laying him flat, he let the apothecary administer a liberal dose of laudanum before he inserted a gag between the man's teeth to silence his agonized cries. Cutting away his breeches, Thomas could tell immediately that the shot had missed the femur. Molly had paled at the sight of so much blood, but after a moment to compose herself she had rallied and fetched the doctor his medical case from his room upstairs, before attending to the kettle. Using his forceps, Thomas managed to remove several large pieces of splintered wood from Ketch's wound. There was little hope of the flesh knitting together again naturally. It would need suturing, but at least if he could prevent blood rot, the cowman stood a chance of survival. The ball had embedded itself deep within the thigh muscle. Incising the wound at such a depth not only would be exceedingly painful but, Thomas feared, might also cause even more trauma to the patient, possibly leading to wound fever. There were many surgeons who would, he knew, question his judgment, but he'd seen more men die of subsequent infections than of gunshot wounds themselves. Most of his fellows would advise he take the saw to the leg and have done with it, too. Taking neither action was debatable, but it was a risk he was prepared to run. Satisfied that the wound was as clean as he could make it, Thomas sutured the thigh, leaving Mr. Peabody to bandage it. He moved on to the next casualty.
Zeb Godson's weathered face had turned as pale as a corpse. The tourniquet had saved his life, of that Thomas was sure, but staunching the blood flow once and for all grew more imperative by the minute. The brachial artery in the arm had been severed, causing a torrent of blood to gush from it. The makeshift tourniquet he had applied was now dripping with blood, so Thomas quickly replaced it with a screw tourniquet from his case. It was his goal to dam the great flood for good. His senses dulled by gin and laudanum, Zeb Godson offered little resistance as Thomas probed his wound. Taking a ligature from his case, he got to work, managing to bind the blood vessel securely with catgut. Widow Cuthbert had moved in to dress the wound when suddenly an urgent plea went up from Mr. Peabody.
“Dr. Silkstone,” he cried. The apothecary was standing over Abel Smith. He had lapsed into unconsciousness and his breathing was very shallow. Thomas felt for his pulse. It barely registered. Head injuries always presented their own problems. On inspection it seemed as though Abel had been hit by a musket ball just above the left temple. It should have killed him outright, but by some remarkable chance, it had lodged in his skull.
Thomas sighed deeply. “I fear trepanning is the only course,” he replied warily. The procedure was precarious, but he was aware that another respected surgeon, Percival Pott, had employed the method in field hospitals on several occasions. He had reduced the risk of infection in head wounds by extracting blood from extradural and subdural spaces by cranial draining. Thomas realized that if he were to save the fowler's life, he would have to do the same.
“I will need your assistance, Mr. Peabody,” he told the apothecary.
The little man looked askance. “But I am no surgeon, sir.”
“You have a brain in your head and a pair of hands, haven't you?” said Thomas curtly, without waiting for a reply. “Smith's life hangs in the balance.”
Next Thomas called to the landlord, who was busying himself with supplying kettles of hot water. “Mr. Geech, we need to get this man into another room. I need absolute quiet for the procedure I am about to perform.”
Geech nodded. “This way, sir,” he told Thomas, leading him into the private dining room. It was small, but the table was large and serviceable and Smith was laid on it flat with his head resting on a folded sack. Candles were quickly lit and Thomas tilted the skull away from him so that he could see the wound more clearly. It was evident that he had been hit at fairly close range. The swelling and contusions around his left eye were such that Thomas feared for Smith's sight, but it was the cranium that needed his most urgent attention. The flint had cracked it as if it were an eggshell, and a slice of bone the size of a walnut had been forced downward to press on the brain.
Although Thomas had performed the procedure twice before with success, he had seen many other surgeons' patients die shortly afterward. Sometimes death came swiftly, on the operating table; for others the surgery triggered delirium, agonizing headaches, or terrible seizures. He knew, however, that without treatment, Abel Smith's death was assured.
Reaching into a case, the surgeon brought out his trepanation implements. Mr. Peabody's eyes widened at the sight of them, as if they were instruments of torture rather than healing. Thomas, however, remained focused.
“Hot water, if you please,” he directed, craning his head over to the kettle in the hearth, where a good fire flickered.
After cleaning the head wound, Thomas carefully shaved the area of the fowler's head around the entry point of the ball. And there it was: a fragment of lead embedded in the bone. Peabody watched, transfixed, as Thomas fixed the top of the trepan handle with his left hand and turned it cautiously with his right. Lowering his own chin onto the turning instrument to stabilize it, he reinforced the pressure on the crown and rotated the handle slowly in a workmanlike fashion.
Tension seeped through Thomas's pores and appeared as dots of perspiration on his brow. No one dared speak. No one dared move. For a few moments it seemed that even the horses' hooves that clattered on the cobbles outside were stilled. The only noise was the whirring of the instrument as it tunneled through the bone. Each rotation of the trepan handle took the metal tip a little closer to this man's brain. Slowly but surely, the skull gave way to the trepan's bore and a small disc of bone was extracted, bringing with it the embedded lead shot.
Thomas straightened his aching back and gave a self-satisfied nod. “ 'Tis done,” he said quietly. “Now all we can do is wait and hope the swelling of the brain goes down.”
Mercifully, the patient had remained completely motionless during the procedure. It would be several hours before Thomas could ascertain whether or not his gamble had paid off. “Call one of the women to sit with him,” he said, wiping his bloodied hands on a towel.
For the first time in six hours, Thomas looked out of the inn's window, as the sky was lightened by the rising sun. It had been the longest night of his life, but he feared this new day just as keenly. Peabody had left the door ajar, and suddenly shouts from the taproom confirmed the doctor's worries.
Looking 'round the door, he could see a commotion in the hallway. Men and women were jostling with redcoats. Peabody returned with Molly and an anxious look on his face.
“They're arresting some of the wounded men,” he said breathlessly.
“Takin' them to Oxford, they are!” blurted Molly, her face crumpled with concern.
Thomas strode out of the dining room to see a clutch of villagers being herded through the main doorway. Rushing back to the window, he watched as the men, some with their hands tied behind their backs, were bundled into waiting wagons. Those who were injured were not spared. He saw Joseph Makepeace, his torso swathed in a bandage, and Zeb Godson, his arm in a sling, being prodded and poked like cattle. It seemed that most of the male population of the village was being rounded up and sent off for trial to the Oxford assizes.
The thud of heavy footsteps was suddenly heard coming down the passage, and the door burst open. Two soldiers thundered in but stopped short when they saw Abel Smith lying on the table, the fluid still draining from his head. A look of disgust swept over their faces when they realized what they were seeing. One of them turned and retched. The other eyed Thomas.
“Sir, this man is under arrest. We are to take him to Oxford to await trial.” His delivery was garbled and lacked conviction, and he turned his head away from the table so that he did not have to linger on the fluid draining from Smith's brain.
Had it not been made in earnest, the request would have been comical. Thomas snorted. “This man is going nowhere. If he is moved he will die.” He pointed to Smith's head.
The soldier who had spoken gulped hard. “ 'Tis Captain Ponsonby's orders, sir,” he replied, almost apologetically.
“Then I would speak with the captain,” countered Thomas. “Tell him Dr. Silkstone would see him.”
Moments later the young captain was standing in the dining room. Thomas could see that his eyes were being drawn involuntarily toward Smith's fractured skull, which was now being drained of fluid through a cannula.
“This man is close to death as it is, Captain Ponsonby. Any movement and you may as well tighten a noose around his neck,” he told the officer in no uncertain terms.
Ponsonby nodded. “You make yourself plain, sir, but I will need to station a man to guard him, so that if he revives, he will stand trial.”
Thomas nodded. He knew that even if Smith lived and was transported to Oxford Jail to await trial, he would probably contract a terrible fever and die before the hangman could get to him. He was doomed just like the rest of the dissenting villagers. Yet again, Sir Montagu appeared to have scored a victory over the people of Brandwick.