The Sunken (29 page)

On a naval frigate, an officer does not report to the physician unless he is in rather dire circumstances. If I could not perform my duties, the responsibility would pass to the other lieutenants — Nicholas and Jacob — or worse, to the Captain himself. This was not conducive to the future of my naval career, and I needed that career to facilitate adventuring, and so I pressed on as best I could, my stiff gait the only clue to the searing pains that echoed up my legs.

The day came when my ankles swelled to such proportions I could no longer put on my own boots, and I dragged myself with tears streaming down my cheeks to the office of Dr. Nesbitt, the ship’s physician, who confined me to bed at once.

“Rheumatism,” he pronounced with an air of confidence after inspecting my swollen legs. “It’s common in officers of your age — caused by the sudden temperature changes, hot then cold, cold than hot. Soaking clothes and cramped conditions don’t help, either.”

“Can we cure it?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“Yes. Many of my colleagues have had much success with fresh fruit, horse-back riding, and plenty of wine-whey.”

But, of course, we were at sea, far from fresh produce, horses, and wine-whey. Not surprisingly, as I lay tossing and turning in agony, Nesbitt changed his diagnosis to something he
could
cure — gout. I knew I didn’t have gout, which is a disease of the old, the overweight, and the sedentary, none of which I could be accused of. But Nesbitt needed something he could treat (even if unsuccessfully), and the only thing that cures gout is bed rest.

So they let me rest.

After two weeks, the pain subsided into a dull, throbbing ache, and after a further twelve days, faded completely. I dared to hope maybe I did have gout, after all. With great delight I thanked the good doctor and resumed my duties.

It was not to be. The pain returned worse than ever. I confided in no one, save Nicholas, who watched my agonised movements with growing concern. After the forth week of torment, when he saw me refuse a meal for the third day in a row, he led me aside and told me to report to sick duty.

“I cannot,” I winced, pushing his arm away. “I must endure this, or all my years of work will be for naught.”

He insisted on taking the evening watch with me, even though he would perform his own afterward and would get no sleep at all. He sat on the bowsprit and called a pod of dolphins to the ship, and we watched them dive and prance over the waves. A sea-necker joined them, slapping her giant fins against the side of the boat.

“She’s the same one,” he said. “She follows us. She’s the only one of her kind left in all these waters.”

“What happened to the others?”

“Fished up and eaten, mostly. Many others died when they choked on debris from the skirmishes on the coast.”

The ship hit the crest of a wave, and lurched sideways. I grabbed for the rail, and missed, my hands grasping at air. The sudden tilt of the deck forced my weakened legs to give way, and I toppled forward, pitching over the rail and watching the waves and the churning fins of the sea-necker hurtle towards me. Black spots swarmed in my eyes, before finally enveloping me completely.

My eyes fluttered open. Nicholas stared down at me, his face furrowed in concern. My head banged against something hard, and I cried out.

“You’re awake,” he whispered, he voice wavering, He was carrying me, struggling to fit us both down the narrow steps below deck. “You passed out, James, and nearly fell overboard. The sea-necker saved you. She caught you on her fin. As I dragged you back, you hit your head against the anchor chain, and you’ve been asleep ever since.”

That explained the throbbing, and why my clothes seemed wetter than usual. I slowly registered other objects: the spare rigging and sails stacked against the wall, the barrels of pickled beef and wine on which we subsisted. Nicholas eased open the door of my cabin, and heaved me inside.

We must’ve woken Jacob, for he lurched into the galley, leaning against the frame of my cabin door and rubbing his eyes. “Is that Holman causing trouble again?” he mumbled. “If he goes back to sick bay one more time, the Captain will have him off the ship.”

Nicholas ignored him. As he lay me down on my bunk and wrapped my swollen legs in a blanket, a tear crept from the corner of my eye. Relief washed over me, and fear for my future, and gratitude for Nicholas’ kindness.

“Sleep well, my friend.” Nicholas lit a fresh lantern and clambered back on deck to finish the watch.

But I did not sleep; the searing pain and my wretched thoughts kept me awake. I thought of my father, who’d scrimped and saved every penny in his life that his only son might have the chance of becoming a gentleman. I thought of the life I longed for — the adventure and freedom that could only come with the prestige and steady salary of an officer. I thought of Jacob, snoring away in his own cabin right next door, hell-bent on making me out to be the worst kind of officer. I knew — pain or no pain — my entire naval career depended on me performing my duties the following morning.

I prayed to the gods for a miracle. Old gods, new gods, forbidden gods — every deity I could think of received a prayer and a pledge of obedience if only they would strike away the pain. But they either could not hear me, or thought my plight a terrible lark, for no relief came.

When his bell rang, Jacob rose, smirking as he lit a candle and dressed himself. “Enjoy your rest,” he sneered at me from the galley as he fumbled with his buttons. I had a witty retort all figured out, but the pain rode so great I could not summon the strength to utter it.

When the tenth bell sounded and his watch finished, Nicholas clambered down into the cabin and spooned half his breakfast gruel into a chipped enamel cup. “You’ll need to eat if you’re to report to watch today,” he said. He knew as well as I that I had no choice but to return to my post.

Somehow, I managed to pull my boots on over my swollen ankles and stumble on deck, gripping the railing so tightly my fingers bled and swapping my weight from one leg to the other to give each a brief respite. I bit my tongue and tore shreds of skin from my lips with my teeth, and the food in my belly rumbled and squirmed as the pain caused my stomach muscles to cramp and convulse. I trained my eyes out to sea, and counted back from a hundred, then a thousand. Thankfully, the wind caught my agonised tears and whipped them away before any of the men could see.

But it was no use — my valiant effort came to nothing. A week more of this torture and I was in the sick bay again, unable to walk. Nicholas brought me food and water and gave me his single threadbare blanket, and he helped me to my feet to endure my hurried return to service. But after three days I could not bear it — my legs no longer support my weight.

The Captain came to speak to me in my convalescence. Jacob had no doubt told him I was merely being lazy, shirking my duties. As he stood over my bed and stared gape-mouthed at my ankles the size of cannonballs and the tears of shame and agony running down my cheeks, his manner changed to one of pity. He had been a lieutenant once — he knew what my position meant.

“We’ll be putting in at Portsmouth in a few weeks,” said he. “And I expect you off this ship.”

“But sir—”

“You’re in no state to serve on board my ship, Lieutenant Holman. You’re a good officer; you’ll recover from this setback. Go to Bath, get this taken care of, and I’ll put in the good word with the Admiralty, see if I can’t get you another commission, maybe closer to home this time.”

When we finally put in on English soil, I had to be carried off the boat in a stretcher. Nicholas lent me seven shillings for the coach ride to Bath, and a purse of coins to help pay the doctors. I rode on forthwith, my supine body banging and clattering about the carriage, much to the annoyance of the other passengers.

I thought the pain the worst horror of my life, but I was not prepared for what awaited me at Bath.

Of all the disciplines to suffer under King George’s Gods of Industry, the medical profession has bore the brunt of the damage. Perhaps, if the Church of England’s medical colleges had been allowed to continue unhampered, we might have avoided the human atrocity that was the “Heroic Medicines.”

A romantic notion popularised by the Morpheus Church, heroic medicine deals with a new methodology for balancing the humors: forcing the malady from the body by subjecting it to various levels of medieval torture.

In the resort town of Bath, where medical men gather in the thousands to hawk their trade amongst the ancient healing springs, I placed myself at the mercy of these barbarians. They rewarded my dwindling savings with the most imaginative torments. They pumped me so full of purgatives I swear at one point I excreted my own viscera. They took so much blood through the lancet and the leech I practically became a vampire. And when this did not ease the pains, they began with the blistering — a most unpleasant treatment where they would strip me naked and flick burning acid upon my skin, so that it would burn and blister and sting so violently it might cast out the gout or rheumatism or whatever they said I had this week. And all of this did not one whit of good. The pain remained.

I quit of them all, and prescribed myself long walks around the city and several hours of daily soaking in the healing waters of the bathhouse, which seemed to slowly loosen the vices upon my legs. I closed my eyes and dreamed I might return to service in a month. With a speedy recovery, there was still a chance my career would not be completely ruined.

And then I discovered a new kind of pain.

I have never before experienced vision problems, and luckily too, because perfect eyesight is essential for naval officers. So on this particular day, as I took up my usual spot in one of the restored Roman baths, I was quite surprised to feel a sharp pressure behind my eyes, as though my skull had shrunk around them.

I rubbed my temples, threw my head back, and lay in the water to wash them out, but the pressure only intensified. Red welts appeared in my vision, and with reluctance and a good degree of fear, I hoisted myself out of the pool and took myself to a nearby doctor.

“Pain behind the eyes has been known to occur, especially following some kind of trauma to the head,” he said. “Have you fallen or bumped your head in recent months?”

I nodded, thinking of my fall on the
Cleopatra
, and how Nicholas knocked my head pulling me back on board.

The doctor — one of the Morpheus Sect — wanted to couch the eye immediately. His theory was that the humors in the lens of my eye were imbalanced, forming an invisible cataract.

“And what does this couching involve?” I asked, preparing myself for another excruciating treatment.

“Well, sir, I take this needle, and I thrust it directly into—”

I didn’t stick around to hear the rest. Back at my lodgings, I made myself a cold compress, lay on my bed, and closed my eyes, and tried to will the pain to go away. My heart pounded against my chest as I contemplated the ramifications of this new torture. Sometime later, I drifted into an uneasy sleep.

I awoke again, opened my eyes, and found the world eternally dark.

Fear clung to my chest. I was a lieutenant — a rank that had cost all my mother’s money and all my efforts to obtain. It was enough of a disgrace to retire at age twenty as a cripple, but blinded? I would be a beggar. I would never accomplish my greatest dream, to see the world in all her multitudes of splendours.

The days dragged on in unending sadness, and still my vision remained shrouded by darkness. I visited every doctor in the city of healers, trying everything from leeches under the eye, shaving my hair three times weekly, and submerging my bald scalp in icy water, to bleeding via a lancet through my neck and poultices made of diluted brandy and vinegar. Nothing brought back my sight.

And when I could find no more doctors, I turned to those I had scorned — the soothsayers and witch doctors of the engineering sects. The Metics took precise measurements of my face and drew mathematical sigils on my body with hot ash. I subjected myself to brutal psychological experiments by two German Mesmerists. I even saw a phrenologist from the Church of Isis, in the hope he could discern my recovery from the bumps on my head. I met a Dirigire priest in secret in a chamber under the Roman ruins outside the city, who I gave the last of Nicholas’ money in exchange for a clockwork device I fitted to my temple, which shot sparks of fire into my cheek every few minutes, causing my face to contort and spasm in pain. But to no avail.

I had to face reality. Not a single doctor, soothsayer, or engineer in Bath can help me. I was doomed to remain a blind man, with no money, no prospects, and no hope.

After James’ dismissal, life on the
Cleopatra
grew progressively unbearable. After their stop in Portsmouth to discard James, the
Cleopatra
had been reassigned to duties closer to home. King George had lost interest in the Americas, and had his sights set on re-establishing Naval supremacy in Europe, and strengthening the few Industrian strongholds in Europe. Despite his bold plans, however, the French were gaining the upper hand along the coast, and Spanish privateers had been raiding many of the British ports around the Mediterranean. Several British ships had already been destroyed or captured, and morale was low by the time the
Cleopatra
joined the fray. In their first engagement with a French frigate, their prey escaped and they suffered heavy loses, which put the Captain in an ill temper.

Jacob, having got rid of Holman seemingly without any effort, set his sights on Nicholas. Joined by Harold — the new lieutenant brought on board to replace James — Jacob watched Nicholas day and night, reporting even the most minor infractions to the Captain. If his eyes fluttered shut for a moment while on watch, the next day he was summoned to account for his slothful behaviour. His punishments flowed into each other, so his back burned constantly with the bite of the lash and there didn’t seem to be a waking moment when he was not engaged in some unpleasant task.