Thank you to various commentators on Pro-boards and MM Face book for Inspiration. Some questions just need an answer….
# # #
"Wake up! Wake up, man! You have to help me!"
He wasn't quite sure if it was the pounding on his door or the insistent ringing of the telephone that roused him to his duty, only that his head was foggy from fatigue. The case he'd been working on, complicated and dangerous, did not get settled 'till the wee hours, after which he went home to flop down on his bed in stupefying exhaustion, unmindful of the effects on his trousers. The last thing he wanted or needed was to be called out again due to a tragedy in someone else's life.
He dragged himself upright, got his feet back into shoes and ignored the telephone which had, in any case, stopped ringing. The door-pounding and yelling had not, and if anything was crescendoing higher. Running a hand through his hair he checked his watch: he'd been home barely two hours. "I'm coming!" he hollered, sure he could not possibly be heard over the din the man was making outside.
He braced himself for a moment, bringing to mind his chosen responsibilities and settled his shoulders to prepare for whatever emergency was on the other side of the flimsy wood, which was at the present moment threatening to splinter from the beating it was taking from without. Pulling the doorknob inward, a smelly, disheveled man fell forward from the force of his knocking once the barrier of the door was removed. The stranger was wild eyed and gasping, suddenly out of speech upon coming face to face with the one he sought, chest heaving from exertion.
"Yes? What is it you want?" he asked, hoping to get some sense out of his alarmed visitor. He propped the distressed man back up, feeling a frisson of disquiet shoot through him. Slowly, he recognized first the eyes, and then features hidden behind a scruff of reddish-beard and white-faced fear… Someone he recognized emerged from the dirty, battered figure before him, whose left hand was shaking while painfully gripping his arm.
The man took in a breath and tried to steady himself, unable to get the quaver out of his voice or gather any shred of dignity to bear under the circumstances.
"She is dying." William Murdoch rasped out, hoarse from shouting.
"What are you talking about, detective?" He stood there, uncomprehending, blinking back at the odd sight in front of him, thinking this must be part of a very bad dream.
"It's Julia. Doctor Tash, you must come, right now! Before it is too late."
# # #
"How long has she been like this?" Dr. Isaac Tash asked. He wanted as much information as possible before arriving at Julia's side to start formulating a treatment plan, needing to get himself oriented and focused. His lethargy had fled, replaced by adrenalin. He and Detective Murdoch jostled together uncomfortably while taking tight corners in a hansom the other man was furiously driving through the dark streets of Toronto, pushing the horse to its equine limits. The carriage wheels skittered but the rig did not tip. Yet… Heaven help anyone who gets in our way, he thought.
The story Julia's husband laid out in succinct fashion was nearly unbelievable: Gut-shot and in a coma, Julia woke up, snuck out of the hospital and rode out to the near-wilderness, finding the deranged woman who shot her and kidnapped the detective, winding up killing the other woman to save her own life. Almost unbelievable… but this was Julia Ogden they were talking about. He was still absorbing the news, having been out of town while the whole business was going on, or he would have insisted on attending to her care in the first place, certainly tried to prevent her from such a reckless, impulsive act. He grimaced: Although I know no one who ever restrained Julia once she has her mind set.
Murdoch continued. "That is the problem. I just thought she was asleep in the carriage ride back to Toronto. She was ill, in pain, and obviously exhausted from her ordeal. We did not say much to each other on the journey home. I just believed…" He shook his head angrily. "I just thought she was giving herself the opportunity to sleep, so I let her, just held her next to me. It was only when we got back to Toronto and we tried to rouse her that it was clear to me there was even more going on." He whistled the horse faster now that they were on a macadamed section of road. "The doctors at Toronto General are arguing about what to do, so they are doing nothing and she is slipping away…" His voice cracked.
"What have they done so far and what are the competing treatments?" the doctor asked.
"After removing the bullets and running the bowel to sew up any perforations, they gave her mercury for infection and laudanum for pain. She was lucky: the shots were not through and through, the only debris in the wound was from her silk robes, and the small calibre bullets managed to tear just a small hole in her colon." William flatly relayed what he had been told.
Hearing that, Tash knew there were no "small holes" in intestines and being gut-shot was often a death sentence; he suspected the detective knew that as well.
The detective continued. "She lost a lot of blood so they did a transfusion."
Dr. Tash's eye brows shot up. "That can be fatal if…"
"Yes. But we knew for certain that it would be all right—from a case Julia and I worked on…" His face clouded. "Julia gave herself some sort of unknown treatment—I found the evidence of an injection she apparently she self-administered, to get her stable enough for her intentions to ride out. Now her breathing and pulse are weak, and I insisted the doctors use one of those new sphygmomanometers improved by Riva-Rocce to monitor her blood pressure." He related the facts dispassionately until this point, anger and despair colouring his voice now. "The situation currently is as follows: one wants to bleed her, one wants to pack her in ice, one is considering leeches of all things and one wants to open her up again. The only thing I am sure of is that I don't want her to have any more mercury or opium-based medications, which turns out is the only thing all four of them agree is necessary for her to have. I'm afraid that the other thing they agree on is that I am interfering with her care…" He trailed off.
The doctor read the other man's guilt and fear. "Detective," Tash said as they came up to the hospital entrance, "our Julia… your Julia, is as strong a person as I ever met." He squeezed Murdoch's gloved right hand for encouragement, causing the detective to yelp in pain. "What is wrong with your hand?" he asked.
"It is nothing," was the reply. "Please go directly to her, Dr. Tash. You saved her life once... I am counting on you saving her again, God willing. Please…"
Tash felt the desperate sincerity in Murdoch's plea. "I will do my best," he answered, alighting from the cab even before it fully stopped. Running up the steps he hoped he could actually do something that was going to be helpful, recalling the last time he treated Julia was an awful nightmare of guessing and waiting; less for the medicine or treatment to work and more to see if her constitution was going to rally or collapse. Assurances to her husband aside, it sounded dire and he prayed it was not too late even now…
# # #
From Julia's hospital room doorway, Tash recognized Inspector Brackenreid, who was arguing most insistently with Dr. Warren. He had already heard contentious noise coming down the corridor before ever gaining the room. Inspector and doctor were squared off, mirroring each other in size and demeanor with crossed arms over their chests and jaws thrust forward, eyes staring daggers at each other, planted in place like a beefy set of forged andirons in a great hearth, with Julia and the bed representing the logs about to be set ablaze. "I understand what you are telling me doctor, but I must disagree. Dr. Ogden's husband is sending for her own personal physician, and that is the only one he trusts to see to her. Furthermore he trusted me to make sure no one else touched her until that doctor gets here." The inspector pointed to a tray in the doctors hands. "That, whatever the Bloody Hell that is, comes nowhere near this dear lady, do I make myself clear?"
Dr. Tash intervened before anything could escalates any further. "Gentlemen!" he said sharply. Dr. Warren and Inspector Brackenreid struggled to disengage. Both recognized Tash at the same time, simultaneously complaining about the unreasonableness of the other. "Gentlemen!" he tried again, holding up a hand. "Dr. Warren, may I speak with you in a moment, outside please?"
Warren gave a last harrumph towards the inspector and stalked off. Before Tash could speak, Brackenreid launched at him. "Where have you been? We'd been calling and calling. Did Murdoch find you?"
"I was on a case. And yes, he brought me here and I imagine will be along shortly. Now, if you will allow me, I must see to Dr. Ogden." Tash spoke firmly and with a confidence he did not feel, but it was enough to get the inspector to relinquish his role as guardian and leave him alone with his patient. He checked her pulse, listened to her heart, lungs and bowels, counted her respirations, pricked her feet, tested her reflexes, felt her forehead and looked at her pupils. Julia looked so small and fragile it was impossible to believe this was his forceful, vibrant friend. He thought about her husband: No wonder he is so worried. I am worried too.
It was worse when he checked under her bandages. To his eye, her wounds appeared inflamed, possibly starting to be infected, but none were obviously suppurating. There was no foul odor, indicating no severe infection was already taking hold. When he pressed on the area it did not feel right however, with his immediate guess being an internal bleed or abscess forming. On an abstract level he took in how her flesh was marred, as much by what he imagined the gunshots to have done, as by the efforts of the surgeons to find the bullets, get rid of dirt in the wound and sew her up. Her skin bristled with the ends of silk stitches indicating where there would be a network of star-shaped pock-marks and longer scars that were never going to fade. Behind him he heard a scuffle of feet and a low moan. Detective Murdoch came up behind him, wincing at the sight of his wife's wounds.
Too late to hide this from him now, he decided. He gestured to the detective to draw beside him, and pointed to the right side of Julia's abdomen.
"Detective…" he began.
"William, please doctor. Under the circumstances…" William took Julia's hand in his, brought it to his lips for a kiss, eyes searching her face for any flicker of recognition.
"Agreed. Isaac then, if you will, as well," he said, receiving a nod in return. "William, Julia has three gunshot wounds and an incision site where the surgeon opened her to check her bowel, sew her up and do his best to make sure she did not get septic. She is weak and unconscious but I don't think she is in an actual coma. See here?" He pulled her hand up and pinched the back of it, forming a little peak of skin that did not spring flat again very quickly. "This means she is dehydrated. Based on what you told me and what I observe, she had not eaten anything since you two had supper early Saturday evening. That is good actually in a way, because that meant she had less in her system, less in her gut when she was shot. She is thin, but healthy, so not eating for a few days won't hurt her. Not drinking plus bleeding out is more of a problem. Did she drink anything while she was with you?"
"Yes. We both drank our fill before starting for home and then she consumed the canteen we had—perhaps three pints?" He saw William try to visualize how much. "She did not eat anything, refused to actually, but let me put some honey in water for her—that seemed to help. She did bleed quite a bit, at least a half a pint I would guess, perhaps more, but that seemed to stop."
Tash thought this through. "She was smart. I think she needs fluids. I want to give her an intravenous saline solution to build up her blood volume. Then I want to investigate why her abdomen does not feel right. We may have to drain an abscess or draw out a small bleed, hopefully without having to operate again." He saw that William was accepting this so far without objection, but he hesitated to go further.
William saw the temporizing. "What is it… er…Isaac?"
Tash sighed, acutely aware of what he was asking for touched on so many unspoken issues between them. "I am given to understand you told the hospital staff that I was the only person you trusted with Julia's care. Was that accurate, or did someone mischaracterize your thoughts on the matter?" He narrowed his eyes. "Or was it Julia who asked for me?"
There was no hesitation in the response. Tash saw William try to draw himself up as if he were taking an oath or giving testimony in a court room. "Dr. Tash… Isaac, those are my exact words and my true feelings. I meant it when I asked you to save her again. I know she trusts you, and I trust her. She needs someone who knows and cares about her, someone who is as up-to-date in training and modern in thinking as she is. I can think of no one else better qualified than yourself."
"I see." Tash took another look at Julia's wounds. Trust deserved the truth. "She did herself no favours taking on trying to rescue you. It might have killed her." He paused and leveled his gaze at William and said very clearly: "It might yet." He saw William blanch and automatically rear back, eyes tearing and throat working, struggling to accept his blunt assessment.
"Yes." Was all William said back, his eyes never leaving the doctor's face.
Isaac thought the man exhibited remarkable control, and admired him for it. "I am going to agree with you about the mercury, and the laudanum, at least for now until she wakes and we see how much pain she is in. Believe it or not I am thinking about leeches for the blood, and iodine and sugar for the infection." William barely flinched at the suggestions, willing to accept anything, everything it seemed, that might work to save her life. Tash glanced down again and looked critically at William's right hand. "Unless I miss my guess, your hand is severely injured and you have gotten no attention for it. Can you even get that glove off?"
William looked down. "Umm…no I can't. I believe it is broken, perhaps some of the bones are…." He shrugged.
"William," Tash said kindly. "I will take care of Julia, but I will need your help, she will need it, and you can't do that if you are not tended to. Please get someone to look at that hand before the circulation is completely cut off, while I get to work." He saw William's eyes slide towards Julia. "You can do nothing here right for her now; by the time you get back we will both sit down and discuss the next stages of her recovery. You are an intelligent man, well-versed in the sciences and I would guess have absorbed more than your share of medical knowledge from Julia. We will find something." Tash spoke about it optimistically out of habit, despite being deeply worried. He looked at Julia and back again at her husband. "Julia would agree with me, however, that recovery depends as much, or more, on factors outside the doctor's control."
Unaccountably, William seemed to brighten up fractionally and moved his face into what seemed like a fleeting smile. Tash thought that was odd.
"William, please understand that there are no guarantees, other than I will do whatever in medical science it takes to help Julia. You have my word on that. This is going to be a long process. Honestly, perhaps it will take a miracle."
William touched his wife's face tenderly and turned to his companion, face set and determined. "Well, but doctor, I am a Catholic. We believe in miracles."
-End-
Reviews & correspondence always welcome.
Companion piece(s) from other points of view to follow.