Skull and Bones

Chapter 44

"This is Doctor Cowdray!" cried Jimmy Chester. "He's John Silver's surgeon, and was Flint's before, and has Latin and Greek and all the tools of his trade, and is qualified at all the universities of England!"

"No," said Cowdray, protesting, "I am self-taught… Ex uno disce omnes… I learn from each case. My teacher was practice, not scholarship."

But nobody listened, for cries and groans arose from the horrors of the grog shop, which being the biggest public building in the town, and lavishly furnished with tables… was now its hospital, where five whores, three washerwomen, a man- midwife and the fort's horse-doctor were trying to attend nearly three hundred wounded men, some already dead in their bandages, others bawling loudly, still others shivering in pain, and the stink, noise and squalor beyond all contemplation.

"Did you know, Flint locked me up!" said Chester to Cowdray.

"He did!" said the clump of Savannian assemblymen at their president's heel.

Cowdray looked at them, and the way they held their noses, and tried not to see the horrors all around, but glanced constantly at the door and the sweet outside.

"And we set him free!" they said, praying to be free themselves.

"And I was summoned when your boat arrived," said Chester.

"Thank God, you are here!" said the assemblymen.

"Doctor!" said a fat, sweating washerwoman in blood- drenched clothes.

"Our men won the fight, but at huge cost!" said the assemblymen.

"We brought them all here!" said Chester, waving a hand at the rows of wounded.

"There's a boy here won't be stopped from bleeding," said the washerwoman.

"Spanish and English together!" said Chester. "For we are Christians!"

"There's another one here," said the man-midwife.

"Should we heat irons, Doctor?" said the washerwoman. "Is that the best way?"

"Can we leave you now…?" said Chester, backing towards the door.

"… to take command?" said the assemblymen, and fled.

"Doctor!" said a dozen voices, and horrific creatures advanced towards Cowdray: soiled, exhausted and slimy with blood. They looked like ghouls and monsters, but were those few noble, shining souls among thousands — and themselves some of the least in the city — who were doing their best, beyond duty, beyond praise, to save the hundreds of men slowly dying before their eyes.

But… adveho bora, advebo vir… come the hour, come the man, and Doctor Cowdray did what he'd done for twenty years. He sent for soap and hot water. He sent for braziers, charcoal and irons, which would indeed be needed. He cleared a table, laid out his instruments, went round the room… and divided the wounded into three groups: first, those who would surely die and who — in desperate extremity — must be set aside; second, those who would surely live, who were set aside for the present, and third, those whose lives could be saved only by treatment, and who were brought first to his table.

Thus it was many hours before Doctor Cowdray could rest, and he sank down trembling with exhaustion but deeply at peace within himself in the sure and certain knowledge that his skills had saved the lives of many men.

Barely had he sat down, when the fat washerwoman came up and bobbed him a curtsey, for all present now stood in awe of Doctor Cowdray.

"Doctor?" she said. "I sees you're done in, and done for… but we just found one poor sod — beggin' yer honour's pardon — what we was putting among the dead but what's still breathing."

"Oh…" sighed Cowdray, and tried to stand. He was sunk in weariness. He was so weak they had to help him to his feet.

"God bless you, Doctor!" they said, in their respect and admiration.

"Yes, yes," he said, "I'll come…"

"No need, your honour," said the washerwoman. "We brung him in a blanket."

Cowdray forced his legs to carry him to the table. He called for hot water and soap. He peered at this last patient: the one that wasn't dead after all. He couldn't see clearly. He was so tired he'd forgotten his spectacles. He found them. He put them on. But the lenses were smeared.

He rubbed them on a clean patch of shirt.

He placed aching hands on the patient's chest.

He gathered strength.

He blinked.

He looked at the face.

"Auribus lupum teneo!" he cried, and fell back in horror.