Chapter 4 – Dr Felipe administers too much wine

Felipe rushed down the stairs, looking for Diego. He found him lying unconscious on the ground, face down, close to Toronado's pen. He knelt down close to him and shook him gently, but Diego didn't flinch. He tried again more vigorously; still no response. Felipe ran his hands over his head wondering what to do. He struggled to turn Diego over because he was too heavy for his strength. When he finally managed to turn him over, a large amount of blood, coming from Diego's wound in his back, pooled on the ground. Felipe looked at his own hands, soaked in blood, disbelieving. He stood up and paced around the cave aimlessly, forgetting about the blood and running his hands over his head again in a nervous tick, staining his hair with Diego's blood.

He thought about the available options: he could not possibly get a doctor involved without revealing Zorro's identity; he could try to read some of Diego's medical books and treat him himself, but that frightened him terribly; or he could go upstairs and get Don Alejandro, who would probably faint at finding out Diego's secret and his present condition, and then he would have two unconscious bodies to look after in the cave… or he could…

Felipe's train of thought was interrupted by an impatient Toronado, who was stamping on the ground and whinnying, urging him to do something. After all, that's why the horse came to find him in the first place, not to look at him wandering around the cave like a fool.

Felipe came back, knelt down beside Zorro again and removed his mask gently. Diego was very pale, his forehead covered in cold sweat. He didn't have a fever, at least not yet. Felipe looked around, and decided to improvise a bed on the ground close to Diego, because unless the latter was able to walk, he would not manage to move him a great distance away. After spreading an even thick layer of hay on the ground, he placed a couple of blankets over to make a mattress. He went to the house to get clean sheets, clothes to make bandages, towels and a couple of medical books, carefully avoiding Don Alejandro. When he returned to the cave, he heard a soft grunting noise. Diego was conscious now and trying to sit up, unsuccessfully.

"Felipe…. Water," he said, in a rasping low voice. Felipe rushed to get him a glass and helped him to sit up slightly, holding the glass to his lips. He drank it all.

"Thanks," he said, dropping back on the floor, exhausted. "How long have I been here?" he asked, looking around, blinking, his brain still waking up. "You have blood in your hair. Are you all right?"

Felipe shrugged his shoulders, pointing his finger to his head and then to Diego's chest. He signed he didn't know how long Diego had been lying there. He also asked what happened.

"One of the lancers finally got me with his musket, Felipe". He tried to laugh, but winced instead. "I am worried the ball has caused a lot of damage in my chest," he added, coughing and groaning at the same time.

What are we going to do? Felipe signed.

"We can't get a doctor, not unless we can be sure he will keep Zorro's secret." He paused for a moment, breathing slowly. "I need you to look at the wound, clean it and tell me if the musket ball is still there. If it is, you may have to get it out."

Felipe opened his eyes widely, and shook his head again. With shaky hands, he helped Diego to take off the cape and his shirt, and to lie on the improvised mattress, close to the wall. Diego winced in pain every time he had to move his left arm, grunting. He rested lying on his right side while Felipe looked at the wound.

The entry point was in his back, just below his left shoulder blade, following an ascending trajectory. It was a large hole that was constantly oozing dark blood. There was a large haematoma in his chest, around the collar bone, with no exit wound there, which meant the ball was still inside Diego's chest. Felipe signed to indicate there was no open wound. He cleaned the blood and applied a cloth with some pressure to try to stop the bleeding in his back. Diego complained.

"Don't press, please, just leave it there. It is painful enough as it is. You won't be able to stop the bleeding like that, it is too deep." He stopped talking, struggling to breathe.

"Sometimes the ball can be under the skin when it loses speed and can't penetrate it to come out. I read that somewhere," he continued, between quick shallow breaths. It was very painful to expand the chest every time he took some air. "I can't breathe lying like this. Help me to sit up a bit." Felipe reached for him and helped him to lean on the wall, with his torso off the ground, the improvised bandage between him and the wall.

"I have a book on treatment of war wounds by John Hunter. You should get it," Diego said from a more comfortable position, breathing slightly better.

Smiling, Felipe went to fetch one of the books he'd already taken from the library and showed it to him proudly.

"Well done, Felipe, you are thinking ahead. You should read the chapter on gunshot wounds."

While Diego felt around the bruised area in his chest searching for the musket ball, moaning and groaning in the process, Felipe opened the book looking for the gunshot section. At random, he started to read some passages, feeling quite disheartened by some of the information: "It is at first, in many cases, impossible to know what parts are killed, whether bone, tendon, or soft part, till the deadened part has separated, which often makes it a much more complicated wound than at first was known". He kept reading and was quite glad to know that the surgeon advocated for a conservative approach in most cases. The author didn't think it was usually necessary to cause more damage dilating the wound, using the forceps and probes to search for the ball and any other materials in there, such as pieces of cloth and bone, but it would be better if they could be removed. They often would come to the surface during the "suppuration process", whatever that meant. He liked one statement in particular: "It is pretty well known that wounds of the lungs are not mortal. I have seen several cases where the patient has got well after being shot quite through the body and lungs."

"I can feel something here," Diego said. "Yes, there it is, a bit deep, below my collar bone, which is broken, probably splintered," he added, out of breath. "It should be easy for you to remove the ball with a knife and forceps."

Felipe shook his head again, signing: "Who? Me? No way!"

"You will have to. There is nobody else," Diego said, looking intently at Felipe as he spoke. "You can do it."

Felipe finally nodded, uncertain.

"It is me I am not so sure about. This is going to hurt. A lot," he said, letting out a long sigh.

ZZZ

Victoria found herself travelling in a stagecoach to Monterey with Juan Ortiz, her newlywed husband. Everything had happened so fast, she still could not believe it. She had mixed feelings, excitement to start a new life, and deep sadness for the one she left behind. And longing for Zorro. She still had not come to terms with the fact that she probably would not see him again. "Why didn't he show up at the wedding? Surely, he knew I was getting married, he always knows everything," she thought. "Maybe he was in the crowd as himself, or didn't want to interfere, being such a gentleman, as Don Alejandro said."

Whatever the reason Zorro wasn't there, Victoria didn't think he could be in any trouble. He never was, not really.

ZZZ

Felipe dashed about in the laboratory looking for a suitable knife with a sharp, small point. While searching frantically, several instruments fell off his trembling hands, bouncing and clanking on the floor. After a while, he found a small pocketknife that would allow him to control the depth of his cut, and thin, long forceps. Holding the items in his shaky fist he came back to Diego.

"Yes, that will do," Diego said, examining the instruments briefly. "You have to clean them quite well first," he advised, giving them back to Felipe. "Now, you have to be very careful with the knife. There is a large artery and vein in that area; hopefully it is not already damaged, or I would probably be unconscious."

This is not helping! Felipe thought, already overloaded with apprehension.

"Can you look at my clothes and check if there are any small parts missing?" Diego asked. "Like small holes."

Felipe grabbed the cape and the shirt and examined them carefully, noticing that there was a single hole in the cape, and also in the shirt. He told Diego what he had found.

"Then you will need to look for these pieces. They will probably be quite close to the entry wound, in the back. You can use your finger for that. If they stay in, the wound will take much longer to heal, and I may develop an abscess." At that point, Diego started coughing, bringing up some blood. Felipe looked at him anxiously, with wide, fearful eyes.

"It's all right, Felipe, it's just a little bit of blood, that's all," he said, reassuringly, closing his eyes and resting for a moment. His breathing was shallow and more erratic now, and he was even paler than before.

"Now, Felipe, I need you to bring that Porto wine bottle that my father is keeping for a special occasion… like this one," he continued, with a half-smile, while stirring and trying to sit more upright, groaning again. He asked for more water, drinking the whole glass like before, asking for a second. Due to the bleeding and the cold sweat he was becoming dehydrated, and the wine could only make things worse. "I have to be still for you, so it will be better if I can get quite drunk. It will make it… more bearable, I hope."

ZZZ

Felipe washed the blood off his hair and hands before coming upstairs. Don Alejandro was lurking in the other room, and he spotted him on his way to the cellar.

"Felipe, is Diego back yet?" he asked. "I want to talk to him."

Felipe shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his eye, shaking his head at the same time.

"You haven't seen him. Never mind. I don't think he will be back tonight. We should have a serious talk when he shows up tomorrow," the old don said, storming out.

Felipe sneaked into the kitchen to get some food for Diego. Drinking a bottle of wine on an empty stomach could not be a good idea. He didn't get anything for himself because he already felt nauseous with the idea of the task ahead, and the chances of throwing up were very high. He found the Porto bottle and came back to the cave.

Diego ate some of the food and started drinking the wine. It was quite strong, and because he didn't usually drink alcohol, he felt quite drunk after half a bottle. He gave a few more instructions to Felipe, and asked him to get a stick to bite and something soft to grab onto with his right hand. Feeling very dizzy and drunk, he sat upright against the wall.

"I may pass out, but don't worry, keep going until you find it. I'll be all right," he said, putting the stick in his mouth.

Felipe grabbed the knife and felt the spot in Diego's chest where he said the musket ball was. He could not feel anything, and with unsteady hands he started to poke about, making Diego wince and bite hard on the stick. After a while, he lifted his right hand and showed Felipe where the ball was. Felipe still could not feel it, but started to cut a hole in that spot with the knife. Diego moved away a bit, involuntarily, with a reflex. He tried hard to stand still and not to cry out loudly, while Felipe kept digging with the knife, making him bleed.

Felipe paused for a moment, thinking about the artery Diego mentioned. He didn't have a clue of which one, where it was or how deep it was, so he decided to stop using the knife and to probe with his index finger. Diego closed his eyes, biting the stick hard and letting out a soft high pitch groan, squeezing a towel with his right hand, concentrating very hard to stand still. Felipe felt something hard, more than an inch deep into the muscle, and started to probe in the hole with the forceps, trying to grab it. His hand was shaking so much that the instrument was rattling about in the wound, driving Diego crazy with the pain. The wine was not helping that much after all.

Felipe finally managed to grab onto something, and started pulling away, until the forceps came out with a sudden burst, the musket ball firmly trapped at the end. Felipe, relieved, let out a long sigh and smiled widely showing the ball to Diego, who had opened his eyes and was resting with his head back, softening the pressure on the stick. He dropped it, and said with a slurred drunken voice:

"Well done Felipe. Now you need to find the pieces of cloth in the back. But let me rest a little bit first."

The new wound was oozing quite a lot of blood now, so Felipe applied a dressing while Diego rested. He had damaged a blood vessel while pulling with the forceps. Not the subclavian artery, but a large enough vein to cause significant bleeding. Felipe also took a moment to untack and feed Toronado, who was still unattended.

"Did you see my father?" Diego said, opening his eyes again. Felipe nodded. "Did he ask about me? I guess he is equally worried and angry." Felipe nodded again. "I need to make up a story about why I am not coming back for a while… I could say I fell off the horse, broke my collar bone and can't ride back home."

He asked for a piece of paper. With difficulty, due to the pain and his drunken state, he wrote a note to Don Alejandro telling him he would stay in Santa Paula for a while because of an injury.

"Give him this tomorrow. You should also get the mare and hide her in here, so my father doesn't see her at the stables. Now, are you ready to look for the pieces of cloth?" Felipe showed his palms up. "Try not to shake so much this time, please," Diego begged, with another half-smile. He turned his left shoulder away from the wall, resting on his right side only, and put the stick back in his mouth.

Felipe washed his hands again, and approached Diego from behind. He took off the dressing soaked in blood, and introduced his index finger in the wound as gently as he could, but Diego flinched involuntarily, letting out a cry. Felipe withdrew his finger quickly, scared.

"Try again," Diego said with a distorted voice, the stick still in his mouth.

Felipe introduced his finger again. This wound was much deeper and wider inside, and he was having trouble finding anything different between the tissues, nothing so obviously foreign like the musket ball. Diego tensed his whole body, trying to be still, biting the stick so hard he thought his teeth were going to fall apart in pieces. He let out a long groan, gradually growing in intensity while Felipe probed aimlessly in the wound, and after half a minute of torture he passed out, sliding slowly down the wall.

After Diego fainted, Felipe continued searching as instructed. It was a bit easier to manoeuvre without the tension. He used the forceps, and with great relief he managed to find the two pieces of cloth, rolled into one, which were not too far from the entry wound, just as Diego said. He gently washed the wounds afterwards, applied a thick layer of dressings on both sides, and placed the injured arm in a sling to minimize movement. Finally, he took off Zorro's boots, propped him upright with a few pillows so he could breathe better, and let him rest.

ZZZZZ