Chapter 6
George Baxter sank a finger into the oozing wound, frowning when his none too gentle probing, knuckle deep, in the torn and bloody flesh failed to discover the musket ball that had inflicted the damage. He withdrew the finger and wiped his hand on the front of a once-white apron, now streaked with gore. "In too deep," he remarked to no one in particular.
If the ball were to somehow work its way to a shallower position, it could be removed; if not, it would remain embedded. The patient, should he survive the shock, loss of blood and likely infection, would carry this souvenir of war for the rest of his life.
The doctor turned from the Redcoat laid out on the rough deal table and bent over the next man in line, shaking his head at the sight of a deep sword cut to the stomach that gaped obscenely. He prodded the wound perfunctorily. There was little to be done for such an injury. He signalled an orderly to remove the man to the undercroft.
Baxter straightened, kneading the small of his back with his fists. Helen, moving between the rows of wounded carrying a bowl of clean water, noted her father's weary expression. She set down the bowl and crossed the room to lay a hand on his arm. "You're exhausted. Why not let me finish up here?" she offered quietly.
Baxter looked down at the floor, considering her suggestion, but jerked his head up suddenly as the door crashed back on its hinges to admit two Riflemen, staggering under the weight of a third, roughly supported between them.
George Baxter heard his daughter's sharp intake of breath and recognised Major Sharpe's bowed head in the same moment. Helen recovered in an instant and hurried over to the men to relieve them of their burden.
"Took a bullet just below the shoulder," Harper said as he eased Sharpe's semi-conscious form on to a nearby table. Doctor Burnett nodded as she removed the makeshift bandage with fingers that with effort, remained steady, and assessed the injury.
Leaning in, Helen examined the wound. "The ball entered here and…" Indicating that Sergeant Harper should assist, she turned Sharpe on to his left side and bent to inspect the damage now revealed. "…And has probably lodged here." She pressed the swollen flesh at the top of Sharpe's arm and sighed deeply. The Major had barely made a sound since his arrival, and seemed oblivious to his surroundings. "This is going to be difficult," she said, glancing at Harper. "Fluid is collecting here, under the skin."
"Fluid?" Harper eyed Doctor Burnett guardedly.
"Blood. A splinter of bone may have punctured a vein," Helen replied, avoiding mention of an artery for her own sake as much as the Sergeant's.
Doctor Baxter surveyed his collection of surgical instruments, fingering the handle of the largest of the bone saws, the serrated blade showing dull grey beneath crusted blood. "Best we amputate, my dear. The sooner we act, the better his chances will be."
"No!" Helen's violent reaction startled both Doctor Baxter and Sergeant Harper. "I'm sure the arm can be saved, Father. Please, leave it to me."
Baxter opened his mouth and seemed about to object, but noting the determined set of his daughter's mouth, he shrugged and moved away.
Sharpe was back in the small square room in La Casa Santa Pilar. At least, that was where he seemed to be. It was too dark to be certain. He could see Wellington's hawk-like features in the glow from the candles in a wrought iron chandelier which hung low over the table as the General reached across to… do what? Sharpe craned his neck in an effort to glimpse the tabletop, but the chair he was sitting in seemed determined to drag him down, or perhaps he was becoming smaller?
The curved arms were rising higher and higher on either side of him, like cliffs of carved oak. The candles in the chandelier, multiple suns that flamed overhead, dazzled him.
Wellington was speaking. Sharpe saw his lips move but the words sounded inside his head. The General seemed to be arguing with someone seated opposite. Though he tried, Sharpe could not turn his head, seeing only a lace cuff where it rested on the edge of the table, and the glint of gold from a signet ring. A voice cut across Wellington's, speaking in French, the forceful tone finally drowning out the other's words.
Sharpe jerked awake, gasping as the torn muscles in his shoulder protested at the sudden movement. With the breath rasping in his throat, he stared up the vaulted ceiling of the infirmary, the curving stonework showing grey in the early light.
Sharpe frowned. He must still be asleep. That insistent voice was continuing its one-sided argument in French, somewhere off to his right. No, he was awake. He could feel the rough wool blanket beneath his fingers, and the flagstones at his back. He tried to turn his head, but it required too great an effort.
Sharpe lay back and closed his eyes, only to be woken again a few minutes later when an icy draught swept through the room, an almost tangible chill that unrolled like a carpet of freezing fog. A door banged shut, rattling the windows. Sharpe shivered and tugged at the thin blanket, drawing it up to his chin. The voice had fallen silent.
"Come on, Harper. Spit it out!"
Harper shifted from foot to foot. He had been putting off telling Sharpe the worst details of the massacre in the village for several days, but on discovering that the Major had finally escaped the infirmary and was taking the air in the walled garden, he had had to concede that the time for concealment was over. He fixed his gaze on the unkempt shrubbery and took a deep breath.
Doctor Burnett, tending another of her patients a few yards away, looked over as Sharpe let loose a stream of invective and slammed his fist into the wall in frustration. Harper regarded him impassively, while inwardly admiring the colourful combination of phrases that Sharpe had employed, doubtless culled from his time aboard one of His Britannic Majesty's ships of the line, some years earlier.
"I'll thank you not to aggravate my patient, Sergeant Harper."
Harper glanced at Doctor Burnett, sketching a salute. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but it's Major Sharpe's lot in life to be aggravated by his Sergeant." Doctor Burnett sighed. Harper's tone was artificially light. She didn't need to be told the subject of their conversation. The entire camp knew of the scenes of carnage that had greeted the men of the South Essex after they had retaken the village.
Initially, she had been surprised to find the big Irishman a frequent visitor to Sharpe's bedside, but had come to realise that a strong bond existed between the two men, and ceased to regard Harper's presence in the sickroom as strange.
Sharpe slumped onto a bench, clutching his shoulder and wincing in pain. Venting his spleen against the stonework had done nothing for torn muscles that had still to heal.
"They killed everyone in the village?" Sharpe demanded hoarsely.
Harper sank down onto a low wall, hands dangling limply between his knees. "It looked that way, sir."
He knew that Sharpe had seen the bodies of their own men, sprawled across their path as they fought their way through the streets. What the Major had not seen were the civilian dead, inside the church where they must have gathered for safety, when it seemed that the British garrison could no longer offer protection.
Harper was about to add that for the French, it had been like shooting fish in a barrel, but thought better of it, uncomfortably aware that their own position in the Castillo was similarly vulnerable. Colonel Blake had reacted in typical blustering fashion, branding the French tactic of disguising themselves in British uniform as 'underhand' and 'unsporting,' but he was also fearful of being branded incompetent for having ordered their occupation of the hilltop position in the first place.
Sharpe drew a long breath and stared at the ground. "Thanks, Pat."
Harper shrugged, embarrassed. "It was Major Hewlin found you and patched you up. Ruined a good silk shirt on your account, so he did. He was wounded himself, but he's up and about again now."
"Oh. I didn't know that."
Sharpe still had a good deal to discover about the attack on the village, having only a vague memory of events. Harper told Sharpe how close he had come to losing his arm to the pragmatic Doctor Baxter, but for the daughter's battling to keep him whole. "Fussing over you like a mother hen, so she was," he continued. "'You leave that limb right where it is,' says she. 'He's no good to me damaged'."
Sharpe eyed the grinning Irishman dubiously.
Still smirking, Harper leant forward to trace the line of a broken paving stone. He looked up as a shadow fell across his outstretched arm.
Doctor Burnett had appeared behind him and was standing looking toward Sharpe, holding out a tin cup. Harper ducked his head to hide a smile and then eased himself gingerly from his perch.
"Well, I'd best be off now, sir. Don't want to interfere with the dispensing of your…er… medicine," he said, struggling to keep a straight face, before beating a hasty retreat, keenly aware of Sharpe's savage look boring into his back.
Sharpe peeled his gaze from the retreating figure and turned it on the cup, which now hovered under his nose. He and the doctor engaged in what had become an habitual silent battle of wills before Sharpe finally conceded defeat and took it from her.
He peered into the murky depths, swirling the liquid around. "Be careful, it's hot," Doctor Burnett said as she bent to put her arm around his shoulder. She flushed, realising somewhat belatedly that the Major had recovered his strength over the past few days and no longer required a helping hand.
Sharpe sipped dutifully while registering the unnecessary but not unwelcome assistance with a sideways glance, which the Doctor affected not to see. "What did you say this was?" he asked.
"Alecost," Doctor Burnett said, casting about for an example of the herb. The plant she sought was growing a few feet away in a corner. "That's it over there." Grateful for an excuse to end the awkward embrace, the Doctor crossed the narrow pathway and pointed to a cluster of grey-green leaves.
"It's also known as costmary or Bible leaf, because it makes a good bookmark." She plucked a leaf and held it up, then mimed slipping it between the pages of a book. Sharpe nodded absently, having little interest in the raw material for this disgusting brew.
He watched as Doctor Burnett stooped and pushed her fingers into the earth around the plant's roots, muttering to herself. Eventually she stood, brushing the dirt from her hands and returned to sit on that part of the wall recently vacated by Sergeant Harper. Sharpe noticed that she now held the leaf in her lap, rolling the stem idly between finger and thumb.
"Those plants have become very woody and straggly." Doctor Burnett gestured toward the overgrown bed. "The roots should have been divided earlier in the year. They need more room to grow."
Sharpe raised an eyebrow at the idea of Napoleon's troops finding time to cultivate a herb garden. The doctor saw Sharpe's mouth twitch and flushed again. She looked down at the leaf in her hand, pretending to study the intricate network of veins. Sharpe took another sip and tried to swallow without shuddering.
"I'm sorry. It really should be sweetened with sugar, but there was none to be had," Doctor Burnett said suddenly, looking up at Sharpe.
There was precious little to be had of anything among the Company's stores. The expected supply wagons had failed to arrive, but whether from attack by the French, or misdirection by the unknown spy in their midst, Sharpe could not say.
He waved aside the apology with a tight smile and braced himself to drain the cup and have done with it.
The doctor gave him a sideways look. "One of the ingredients is adder's tongue."
Sharpe gagged and spat the last mouthful out onto the ground.
"But we were short of that as well."
Sharpe stared at her. Doctor Burnett returned his look straight-faced and then smiled. She stood up and came over to take the empty cup from him.
He decided to play along. "I suppose that's put back my recovery," he said ruefully, nodding toward the spreading stain on the paving stone. "I didn't drink it all."
Doctor Burnett sat down beside him on the bench, and regarded him gravely. "Oh, almost certainly." Now it was Sharpe who smiled. The doctor was surprised by the transformation. At first meeting, she had thought him severe, humourless; his features at rest, drawn down by the scar on his cheek, suggesting a world-weary cynicism. But the brief glimpses she had allowed herself of him in the company of his men had revealed a lighter side to his nature.
From her vantage point on the battlements, Helen Burnett had watched a ball game with seemingly few rules being played in the courtyard below, a few days after their arrival at the Castillo. After some noisy but good-natured dispute, the Riflemen had hurled themselves gleefully onto Sharpe's back until he disappeared grinning beneath a tangle of limbs. She had never known an officer so easy with his men. Major Richard Sharpe was certainly very… different.
Sharpe looked about him. This part of the garden was hidden from the castle by thick vegetation; the scents from the surrounding tangle of plants lying heavy on the air. He recognised a clump of lavender growing along the base of the wall to his left, but other than that, the identity of the remaining leaves and flowers was a mystery to him.
Doctor Burnett frowned. The Major seemed pale beneath his tan and was still weak, despite his insistence that he return to duty. "You know a lot about herbs," Sharpe said at last.
Startled by the realisation that Sharpe had caught her staring at him, the Doctor drew back. "My aunt's house has a large garden. My mother died when I was born and I was sent to live with her. The herbs were grown for the kitchen, but I was always more interested in their healing properties." Sharpe nodded, surprised by this sudden revelation of personal history.
"If she had known that my interest in herbal medicine would spark an enthusiasm for medicine proper, I think my aunt would have kept me at my needlework from morning 'til night." The doctor smiled, recalling too that had she known that Helen's interest in medicine would lead to an even greater attraction to her father's protégé, James Burnett, Aunt Elizabeth would doubtless have kept her niece locked in the attic.
"I found almost everything I needed here," she continued. "Basil, chervil, parsley, chamomile, borage, comfrey…"
"Knitbone," Sharpe said, dredging the word from his memory. He wondered if this snippet of information had come from Harris but finally decided that it was more than likely Hagman who had told him of the plant's healing properties. The veteran Rifleman was familiar with both the flora and fauna of the countryside, although it was his poaching of the latter, which had obliged him to enlist in King George's army.
The Doctor smiled at Sharpe's response. "Yes, that's right. I haven't had the opportunity to test the theory since my father favours amputation on the field wherever possible. I understand his reasoning, of course. The flow of blood is much reduced for a man in shock, and the tissue around the wound is numb to a degree, so the limb can be removed with much less pain."
Sharpe winced. Having come within a hair's breadth of the surgeon's bone saw, Doctor Burnett's dispassionate summary of the benefits of lightning amputation was enough to 'put the heart across him' as Sergeant Harper was wont to say.
"My father has great respect for Monsieur Larrey's methods," the Doctor continued. Sharpe eyed her suspiciously. "Who's Monsieur Larrey?"
"Dominique Larrey," she replied. "Napoleon's surgeon. He's making tremendous strides in overcoming post wound and post-operative infection. Battlefield fatalities are much reduced if his procedures are followed. I understand he's introduced some sort of horse-drawn vehicle for the removal of wounded men from the field."
Sharpe grunted, paying scant attention to her words, preoccupied, as he was with pondering whether Doctor Baxter was one of the familiar faces that Nairn had suggested he might run across while searching for the spy. "Your father knows this Monsieur Larrey?" he asked, carefully.
"Well, he knows of him. A good surgeon is always keen to discover new ways to increase a man's chances of survival and he shares his knowledge with others who have the same goal." Doctor Burnett looked over and noted Sharpe's clouded expression. "Man proposes; God disposes. You can't blame my father for trying to influence the outcome."
The Doctor folded her arms and leant back, surveying the unruly shrubs that spilled onto the path from all sides. "In India, I would have used spices on your wounds. Cardamom, cumin, ginger, turmeric…"
"You were in India?" Sharpe broke in, surprised.
"Yes, my husband was an army surgeon. Ten years ago I was living in Mysore."
"You must have been very young."
Doctor Burnett turned to regard Sharpe narrowly, surprised at his resorting to flattery when she'd had such high hopes for him, but found the Major's expression one of genuine astonishment.
"I was eighteen, and headstrong," she said with a sigh. Sharpe looked away to hide a smile, but wisely said nothing. "We had been married for two months when James was posted to India," the Doctor went on. "I flatly refused to be left behind in the company of one extremely disapproving aunt, and insisted that he take me with him."
Sharpe had known of several officers whose wives had accompanied them to India. He had seen them on occasion in their carriages on the crowded streets of Mysore; a glimpse of sprigged muslin and a fringed parasol, bringing a little piece of England to what many considered an uncomfortable situation, overwhelmed by a bewilderingly alien culture.
Doctor Burnett appeared to share his thought. "I don't believe our English constitution was designed to withstand the Indian climate. The churchyards there are filled with our dead. Not just from the war," she added, glancing toward Sharpe. "Young children, babies, and their mothers, wasted by the heat and disease." Her voice trailed off.
Sharpe noticed that she still held the leaf and was absently tearing strips from it as she conjured the memory. Eventually, the Doctor straightened, and drew a deep breath, as if steeling herself to continue.
"James had dreams of combining surgery with general medicine in partnership with my father when we returned to England. An unusual approach, of course, but they were certain it would work. They would discuss their plans whenever they could, which wasn't often. My husband spent almost all his off-duty hours tending the sick in the cantonment. He would attend patients who had little hope of survival, those whom no one else would touch. He seemed to think he was immune to disease."
She tore a final strip from the leaf.
"He was wrong."
"I'm sorry."
Doctor Burnett nodded her thanks then stood to brush the leaf fragments from her skirt. She produced a watch from her pocket and exclaimed over the time. "It's later than I thought. I must go." As he seemed interested, the doctor handed the watch to Sharpe. He turned it over in his palm, tracing the delicate engraving on the reverse with his finger. The lightest of touches sprung the lid to reveal a plain white face ringed by Roman numerals.
An officer had once loaned him a watch such as this. Sir Augustus Farthingdale had expressed disdain for Sharpe's leading a rescue mission, but deciding that his wife's safety depended on accurate timekeeping, his Lordship had thrust the watch at him, clearly with the belief that Sharpe would sell it at the earliest opportunity.
"It's all I have left of James now that he's gone," Doctor Burnett said, returning the watch to her pocket. "Not that I had much of him when he was alive." Sharpe made to stand up, but the Doctor kept him in his seat with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Will I see you at dinner tomorrow night, Doctor Burnett?" he asked, looking up at her.
"It's Helen," she replied.
Sharpe nodded slowly. "Will I see you at dinner, Helen?"
"Yes, I rather think you might, Richard."
Helen turned to make her way back through the overgrown garden. Sharpe remained on the bench, watching until she disappeared from view.
The shot had gone wide. Very wide. Sharpe didn't need to see Hagman's wooden expression to know that. One hundred yards distant, a brandy barrel, turned on its side and marked with a crude target remained largely undamaged by Sharpe's rifle practice. He dropped the weapon to his side and cursed under his breath.
"Perhaps if you moved a little closer, sir," Harper offered, then immediately wished he'd kept silent, as Sharpe turned on him with a savage expression. "Any closer, Sergeant Harper, and I could bayonet the bloody thing!" Which if not quite a lie, was a somewhat optimistic assertion.
Sharpe felt as if a ton weight depended from his right arm rather than an eight and a half pound Baker rifle, his partially knit muscles burning from the weapon's forceful recoil. He wiped the sweat from his eyes with his good hand and raised the gun again.
Bending his head to sight along the barrel, Sharpe was distracted by the appearance of a lone figure high up on the Castillo's battlements. Doubtless the impressionable Simpson would have assumed it to be a daylight manifestation of the legendary Dona Elena, but Sharpe knew it to be the very real Helen Burnett. She had referred to the quarters assigned to her in the castle's upper reaches as her 'eyrie' - an escape from the sickness and death in the infirmary far below.
"A fine sight, Richard, wouldn't you say?"
Sharpe jerked out of his trance to find Major Hogan standing beside him, apparently inspecting the castle's soaring stonework. The Engineer turned an innocent gaze on him. "You were admiring the impressive construction of these flying buttresses, of course." Sharpe lowered his gaze to fix on what he hoped was an appropriate example of that architectural feature. "Oh, yes," he replied, nodding unconvincingly.
Hogan now looked between the rifle in Sharpe's hand and the brandy barrel sparsely dotted with bullet holes. "Just a small word of advice, Richard." Sharpe shrugged off his fatigue and assumed an air of attentiveness. "Yes, sir?"
"You might want to stand a little closer to the target."
Sergeant Harper hid a grin and wisely moved out of range.
Hogan sighed. "I keep telling you, lad. It's 'Michael', not 'sir.'"
"Old habits die hard."
The Engineer smiled and gestured toward the rifle in Sharpe's hand. "Don't push yourself too hard. These things take time."
Sharpe nodded his thanks, his gratitude for Hogan's concern tempered by the hearty slap delivered to his injured shoulder as the Engineer took his leave.