Chapter 45 – Screwed Pooch
July 19, 1660

Arriving at Guadeloupe, it felt odd flying under French colors but no one challenged my presence either. With a nod to Timon, and strict orders to run for it if pressed, I left the ship and went to check out the town, stopping by the inn closest to the port which was where I figured the sailors would head. I also made sure to take a pistol and my sword, better safe than sorry in case they came for me and I had to hide out in the brush until Timon came back at dusk for me.

"Who be you?" someone asked as I shut the door on the bright light of day.

"Lord Admiral Owen Hunt," I told him as I fingered my rapier.

"Looky boys!" the man said as he rose from the table and drew a cutlass from his cloth belt. "An admiral! You know what we do to admirals?"

"I'm no mere admiral," I said as I drew my sword and squared off with him. Quick as a flash he began hacking and slashing at me and I repelled his attack. Thankfully no one tried to interfere as I backed the man against a large timber pole, finally getting my chance when the man let out a bellow and charged as he tried to break free which I allowed, pirrouetting under his attack and then stabbing him in the butt cheek to prompt him to run across the room where I pinned him against the wall.

"You'd stab a man in the back?" he growled as I held my sword to his neck.

"Well," I said as I drew my pistol and thumped the handle on his head. The man collapsed without a sound, and I faced the sailors.

"Now, as I was saying…"

"You looking for a crew?" another sailor said as he stood up. "Hodges is actually good in a fight, but he shouldn't drink. It makes him stupid and mean."

"I'll take every man who thinks he can sail or wield a sword," I told him and the room at large, every man having stopped what they were doing to listen in. "I've a large frigate with forty cannons. I took it a few days ago at the point of a sword. My problem is I don't have but thirty men in fighting form. If you don't know what you're doing and are willing to learn, follow me back to my ship and I'll sign you on as a full sailor and make you useful. As I said, I'll take nearly every man willing, even him."

The last was said as I nudged the groaning Hodges before turning for the door. The room was silent as I stepped outside, but a line of sailors was already forming as I headed back to my ship. A few whistled appreciatively at seeing my ship, then again at seeing Evelyn sitting atop the poop deck's railing in nothing but a chemise as she welcomed me back.

"Evening!" she called with a wave as I passed by her by, welcoming the new recruits as I stepped aboard where Jasmine already had the articles out and ready to be signed on top of a keg. Looking at the crowd that had followed me, it seemed I had emptied the tavern including the still groggy Hodges who was supported between two men as he stepped aboard.

"Why didn't you kill me?" he asked after he signed my articles. "You had me cold."

"I think you'll be more useful as alive rather than dead," I told him as he smiled to show missing teeth before turning to join the crew who quickly had the sheets set as we departed. A few grumbled at finding out there were several lady officers aboard, but after a few meals, the grumbling stopped which I figured had more to do with empty bellies and sour attitudes and the need for a good night's rest.

Drills were set the following day, many of the new crew showing their skill with cannons by having the cannons reloaded in the required time with little problem, their many hands making light work of the process while Shang drilled the newer ones on the process as they were mostly merchant mariners and not fighting sailors. The second day I got to test them as Melody sighted sails and a French merchantman made a run with the wind. Timon trimmed the ship out and ran it down, and though I had the cannons loaded, hoped I wouldn't need them.

"Hard to port!" I shouted to Ariel as the merchantman tried to cut across our path and fire their cannons, but I'd seen their helmsman start turning the wheel through the spyglass when the order came. The captain went slackjawed as I presented my own broadside and fired, a few shots hitting home in the hull before the cannon captains adjusted their aims and reloaded as Ariel cut the wheel to chase them down, our faster speed and larger size meaning we had to make a larger circle around the merchantman's smaller circle as they fired and reloaded, but their shots fell short as they tried to find the range.

We traded a few more rounds of shots as we chased them down, slowly working our way towards the French merchantman as they tried to shoot it out with us, but my gunners were good shots and their cannonballs were ripping the hull apart, the splinters injuring many of their crew as it once had mine. The enemy captain soon gave it up and surrendered, and my men quickly fleeced them down.

"Captain," Jasmine said somberly as she came to where I was watching over the fleecing. "There's a problem below."

"Show me," I told her as I followed her down to the hold where I heard a woman screaming, finding someone I hadn't expected to see ever again.

"Barbarian!" the man I once knew to be the up and coming governor of Montserrat spat while a thin man stood over a screaming Belle. As Adam LaBit came around the table to attack me, I drew my pistol and held the big man at bay even as he seemed intent on pulling a Wookie.

"I must proceed," the man said and I nodded, Belle screaming as the surgeon moved Belle's legs into a familiar position and I realized what was going on. The screaming babe was soon born, the doctor cleaning the baby up before handing it off to the mother.

"You're a father," I told him as I the babe suckled at Belle's breast. "Go and greet your child."

"It's a boy," Belle told Adam as he held his teary wife.

"A boy," Jasmine said, her own eyes tearing up.

"Pity," the doctor said under his breath as he passed me, and I spun on him.

"Why?" I asked him to make him stop at the bottom of the stairs.

"Two things," the doctor said as he stopped to address me. "One, the child won't survive the weeks long trip it'll take to return to land via rowboat and two, it's...it's too small. If I were on land, I'd tell the mother to go home and enjoy the time she has with her child and the father should, well…"

He cut off as the grim nature of the doctor's words set in, Belle bawling her eyes out as she held her baby close. Jasmine sat down, putting her head in her hands to cry as she realized that even if she were to have a baby there was so much that could go wrong and rob you of the life you had created. Adam looked livid, ready to tear me apart but lacking the will to do so as he realized the deed was already done and the death warrant signed.

'Fuck that,' I thought as I remembered an old episode of MASH. In it, the doctors needed a kidney machine when they had no power and rebuilt a piece of old technology a doctor years previously had devised that while a little more than a collection of spare parts, nearly perfectly replaced a vital human body part. As Colonel Potter stated, the technology was already invented, we just had to make it. In my time, hospitals had incubators for young preemies that kept them warm and helped them breathe, I just needed to do the same. A way to keep them warm and help them breathe, if needed.

"I'm placing the three of you under arrest," I said darkly as I jerked the doctor back and pointed my pistol between his eyes to make him go crosseyed trying to see the pistol.

"You can't hold me," the doctor started to say but stopped when I cocked the pistol.

"You can stay of your own accord, or die as a result of a boarding action," I stated flatly. "I need your skill and medical knowledge to help keep that child alive."

"Such a thing is not possible," the doctor told me.

"He needs to be kept warm," I stated and Adam rose at that. "To that end, I desire a bed warmer placed under blankets and embers from the stove kept in it at all times."

"There's a bed warmer in my cabin," Adam stated as he looked at me.

"Second, let that child scream," I told Belle who bawled harder at my words. "Screaming helps clear the lungs of fluid and reduces the chance of breathing problems. It's why doctors spank a baby when its born, to make them scream."

"Belle," Adam pleaded and, with a nod, Belle pulled the baby away from her breast where it proceeded to bawl.

"You are wasting your time," the doctor told them as he regarded the screaming child.

"I'll make you a deal," I told him and he turned back to me. "Your life, and services, versus all the gold and silver I possess if that child should live."

"A hundred and twenty thousand francs at last count," Jasmine told him softly as she rose to join us after her mental collapse.

"It'll be the easiest money I've ever made," the doctor stated boldly as I lowered the pistol.

"Put them in the officer's quarters," I told Jasmine.

For the next little bit, I had my crew gathering supplies and quickly building a modified crib where the bed warmer could be slid in and out from under the baby with ease. A glass pane was inserted over it, to trap the heat in, and a constant watch was set over him to keep watch, night and day. The doctor was also tasked to watch over the watchers, keeping an eye on its care and health while Belle was available to nurse the infant as required.

"Do you really think you can keep it alive?" Jasmine asked me as I left a distraught mother and father to watch their preemie fight for its life.

"I'm going to be honest," I told her as I looked out over the darkening sea. "I've seen it done, babies younger and smaller than him but not here and not in this place. I know the doctor thinks it can't be done, but I know it can. It's just not easy."

"How do you know more than a doctor?" she asked me and I hung my head. "So much wisdom, so young still."

"When I was young, younger than Melody is now, I had a dream," I confessed to her. "In it, I saw a woman dying of a wound I knew to be easily healed if I had access to a doctor, but no doctor was to be had. As she lay dying, I searched far and wide for a doctor, finally finding one but he wouldn't leave his own dying patients. So he taught me, and I returned to find her having long since died of her wounds.

"When I woke up, I vowed to learn as much as I could so I could handle anything that ever came to me," I told her as I hung my head. "Sometimes, it might seem like I know more but I don't. I can't tell you how that baby is doing right now. I can't tell you if its sick by looking at it or inspecting it unless it's obvious and I can't duplicate their surgical techniques. I can tell you how the human body works in more detail than you think possible, more thoroughly than you yourself can understand and why certain things happen the way they do."

"Why do we bleed?" she asked me and I smirked.

"Every month, the female body prepares itself to get pregnant," I told her and she nodded in acceptance. "Deep in your belly, at the top of the hips like a crown, is a small sack called the womb where the baby grows."

"Nothing new there," she said with a chuckle.

"The blood you bleed is when that sack fills with blood, but your egg doesn't get seeded by a guy," I told her and she gave me a curious look.

"Like a chicken?" she said sounding skeptical.

"Similar," I said and she scoffed. "So much smaller as to be unseeable and no hard shell, but it contains everything a chicken egg does."

"So, how does this...egg...grow to be baby?" she asked me pointedly.

"Same as the chick," I told her and she looked puzzled. "Once it hatches it will grow, well, it grows in the egg too. It just pops the shell at birth…"

"Baed alwilada," she said breathlessly. "The afterbirth that comes out after a baby?"

"Right," I told her and she chuckled. "I never would have thought…"

"But the knowledge is out there," I told her and sighed.

"You should teach someone what you know," she told me then sighed herself. "But I guess you try to when you find the right situation."

"I try," I said as I sighed again. "Don't fret yourself too much over what happens with Belle and her child. Premature birth isn't the end of the fight and it can hurt your child. Let this whole scenario flow around you as much as possible."

"I'll try," I told her before I let out a final sigh and headed for bed, though I knew I wasn't going to sleep well at all. I hadn't lied when I told her about my dream and the effect it had on me, and it was one of the biggest reason I loved medical shows that weren't complete dramas and actually talked medicine. I might not be a real doctor, but damn it if I wasn't close at times.

I just hoped Belle's child would live. I had to try at least.