“He’ll be all right. That is, he’s in no danger. Abnormally thick
skull, I should say; that saved him. Concussion, yes, but not
fractured, I think. Hard to say without an x-ray. Respiration, pulse,
temperature, blood pressure-none of them shows any signs pointing to
extensive brain injury. It’s his leg i’m worried about.”
“His leg?”
“Patella. Kneecap to you. Completely shattered, beyond repair.
Tendons sliced, tibia fractured. Leg sawn in half. Must have been hit
several times. The damned murderers!”
“Amputation? you don’t think-”
“No amputation.” he shook his head irritably. “I’ve removed all
the broken pieces I can find. Bones will either have to be fused, so
shortening the leg, or a metal plate. Too soon to say. But this I can
say: he’ll never bend that knee again.”
“You’re telling me he’s crippled? for life?”
“I’m sorry. I know you’re very friendly.”
“So he’s finished with the sea?”
“I’m sorry,” marston repeated. Medical incompetence apart, he was
really a pretty decent old buffer. “Your turn now, john.”
“Yes.” I wasn’t looking forward to my turn. I looked at the
guard. “Hey, you! yes, you. Where’s carreras?”
“Sefior carreras.” the young man dropped his cigarette on the
persian carpet and ground it out with his heel. Lord dexter would have
gone off his rocker. “It is not my business to know where sefior
carreras is.”
that settled that. He spoke english. I couldn’t have cared less
at the moment where carreras was. Marston had his big scissors out, was
preparing to slit up my trouser leg.
“Captain bullen?” I asked. “What chance?”
“I don’t know. He’s unconscious now.” he hesitated. “He was
wounded twice. One bullet passed clean through below the shoulder,
tearing the pectoral muscle. The other entered the right chest a little
lower, breaking a rib, then must have gone through the lung near the
apex. The bullet is still lodged inside the body, almost certainly in
the vicinity of the shoulder blade. I may decide to operate later to
remove it.”
“Operate.” the thought of old marston hacking round inside an
unconscious bullen made me feel even paler than I looked. I choked down
the next few words I thought of and said, “operate? you would take the
grave chance, you would be willing to risk your lifetime’s professional
reputation “a man’s life is at stake, john,” he said solemnly. “But you
might have to penetrate the chest wall. A major operation, dr.
Marston. Without assistant surgeons, without skilled nurses, without a
competent anaesthetist, no x-rays, and you might be removing a bullet
that’s plugging a vital gap in the lung or pleura, or whatever you call
it. Besides, the bullet might have been deflected anywhere.” I took a
deep breath. “Dr. Marston, I cannot say how much I respect and admire
you for even thinking of operating in such impossible conditions. But
you will not run the risk. Doctor, as long as the captain is
incapacitated I am in command of the campari in nominal command,
anyway,” I added bitterly. “I absolutely forbid you to incur the very
heavy responsibility of operating in such adverse conditions. Miss
beresford, you are a witness to that.”
“Well, john, you may be right,” old marston said weightily. He was
suddenly looking five years younger. “You may indeed be right. But my
sense of duty
“It does you great credit, doctor. But think of all those people
who have been carrying a bullet about inside their chests since the
first world war and still going strong.”
“There’s that, of course, there’s that.” I had rarely seen a man
looking so relieved. “We’ll give nature a chance, hey?”
“Captain bullen’s as strong as a horse.” the old man had
at least a fighting chance now; I felt as if i’d just saved a life.
I said weakly, “you were right, doctor. I’m afraid I have been talking
too much. Could I have some water, please?”
“Of course, my boy, of course.” he brought some, watched me drink
it, and said, “that feel better?”
“Thank you.” my voice was very faint. I moved my lips several
times, as if speaking, but no words came. Marston, alarmed, put his ear
close to my mouth to make out what I was trying to say, and I murmured,
slowly and distinctly, “my thighbone is not broken, but pretend it is.”
he started, eyes reflecting astonishment, opened his mouth
to speak, and then closed it again. He wasn’t all that slow, the
old boy. He nodded slightly and said, “ready for me to begin?”
he began. Susan beresford helped him. My leg was a gory sight but
looked worse than it was. One bullet had passed directly through the
leg, but the other two had just torn superficial gashes on the inside,
and it was from those that most of the blood had come. All the while he
was working dr. Marston kept up, for the sake of the guard, a running
commentary on the extent and severity of my wounds, and if I hadn’t
known he was lying fluently he would have made me feel very ill indeed.
He certainly must have convinced the guard. When he’d cleaned and bound
the wounds, a process I bore with stoic fortitude only because I didn’t
want to start yelling in front of susan beresford, he fixed some splints
to my leg and bound those on also. This done, he propped up my leg on a
pile of pillows, went into the dispensary and reappeared with a couple
of screwed pulleys, a length of wire with a heavy weight attached to the
end, and a leather strap. The strap he fitted to my left ankle.
“What’s this in aid of?” I demanded.
“I’m the medical officer, please remember,” he said curtly. His
left eyelid dropped in a slow wink. “Traction, mr. carter. You don’t
want your left leg to be permanently shortened for life?”
“Sorry,” I muttered. Maybe I had been misjudging old marston, just
a little. Nothing would ever make me reconsider my opinion of him as a
doctor, but he was shrewd enough in other things: the first thing a man
like carreras would have asked was why a man with a broken bone in his
thigh was not in traction. Marston screwed the two hooks into holes in
the deckhead, passed the wire through, attached the weight to one end
and the strap to the other. It didn’t feel too uncomfortable. He then
picked up the length of trouser leg that had been cut off, checked
quickly to see if the guard was watching, splashed some water on it, and
then wrung it out on top of my bandages. Even to myself I had to admit
that i’d seldom seen a more convincing sight, a patient more completely
and thoroughly immobilised.
he finished just in time. He and susan beresford were just
clearing away when the door opened and tony carreras came in. He looked
at bullen, macdonald, and myself, slowly, consideringly he wasn’t a man
who would miss very much -then came to my bedside.
“Good evening, carter,” he said pleasantly. “How are you feeling?”
“Where’s that murderous parent of yours?” I asked. “Murderous
parent? you do my father an injustice. Asleep,
at the moment, as it happens: his hand was giving him great pain
after marston had finished with it”-i wasn’t surprised at that”so he was
given a sleeping draught. The good ship campari is all buttoned up for
the night and captain tony carreras in charge. You may all sleep easy.
You’ll be interested to hear that we’ve just picked up nassau on the
radarscope-port forty, or some such nautical term-so you weren’t playing
any funny tricks with that course after all.”
I grunted and turned my head away. Carreras walked across to
marston. “How are they, doctor?”
“How do you expect them to be after your thugs have riddled them
with bullets?” marston demanded bitterly. “Captain bullen may live or
die, I don’t know. Macdonald, the bo’sun, will live, but he’ll be a
stiff-legged cripple for life. The chief officer has a compound
fracture of the femur-the thighbone. Completely shattered. If we don’t
get him to hospital in a couple of days, he also will be crippled for
life; as it is, he’ll never be able to walk properly again.”
“I am genuinely sorry,” tony carreras said. He actually sounded as
if he meant it. “Killing and crippling good men is an unforgivable
waste. Well, almost unforgivable. Some things justify it.”
“Your humanity does you credit,” I sneered from my pillow. “We are
humane men,’9 he said.
you’ve proved that all right.” I twisted to look at him. “But you
could still show a little consideration for a very sick man.”
“Indeed?” he was very good at lifting eyebrows. “Indeed. Dan’l
boone, here.” I nodded towards the sentry with the gun. “You permit
your men to smoke on duty?”
“Jose?” he smiled. Jose is an inveterate chain smoker. Take his
cigarettes away and he’d probably go on strike. This isn’t the