PART 6

When they turned the corner of the staircase and disappeared Seigfried breathed a sigh and blew it out through inflated cheeks, before making his way into the kitchen. After hovering over the stove for a couple of minutes however he finally decided that he couldn't stomach the hot, sweet liquid. The thought of the shrivelled leaves stewing in warm water made him feel slightly sick - his own stomach had already started somersaulting with anxiety, and so he instead settled for a glass of water and returned to his brother's side.

Tristan was tossing and turning upon the sofa, the sweat dripping from his hair as he cried out in his sleep. Siegfried quickly hurried over and put the palm of his hand to his brother's forehead. He was relieved to find that he was no warmer than he had been the last time he'd checked, but his cheeks were still flushed and so he re-soaked the wash cloth sitting in the bowl of cold water Deirdre had left upon the side table, before wringing it out and placing it to his brother's forehead. At one point Siegfried heard his brother call out his name amid his confused ramblings, and so he squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.

"It's alright Tristan, I'm here." He soothed.

As he was no hotter Siegfried theorised that the violent attack was probably the result of a fever induced nightmare, and looking at the glass of water he had hurriedly placed down upon the small table beside the armchair opposite he reached out for it and gently shook his brother awake.

"Tristan..." He whispered, "Tristan..."

The young man whimpered quietly.

"Shhh," Siegfried soothed him, "shhh! It's alright little brother. I'm here."

Tristan stopped flailing and his eyes opened a crack - the lids tired and swollen.

"Siegfried?" He asked.

"Yes little brother, it's me." Siegfried somehow found the emotional composure within himself to force himself to smile. "It's alright, you were dreaming." He explained. "The fever's unsettling your sleep. We need to try and bring it down before Doctor Alanson arrives. Here, take a sip of this."

Siegfried held out the glass of water for Tristan with one hand, and with the other helped guide him towards it, gently lifting his head. As his lips made contact with the edge of the glass Tristan supped gratefully on the cold liquid, feeling the rising tide of neausea as it hit his stomach, but compelled to carry on drinking by his fever fuelled thirst. He coughed weakly, and then spluttered and choked as the action caused a small trickle of water to enter his lungs. Siegfried removed the glass immediately and waited for the fit to subside, when upon he gently lowered his brother's head back down onto the arm of the sofa.

Tristan was asleep again before it even made contact with the pillow, but his sleep remained unsettled.

"Oh little brother," Siegfried sighed sadly to himself, "how do you manage to get yourself into such scrapes?"

...

"What have you given him?" Doctor Alanson asked, as he pulled Siegfried aside a few hours later. The doctor had indeed finally arrived, but it hadn't been until the early hours of the morning. James, Callum and Deidre had been tactful enough to remain upstairs throughout that time, and he hadn't heard any further shouting emanating from Callum and Deidre's room and so presumed that the two of them had finally managed to make it up with each other. Siegfried hadn't left his brother's side. He'd sat in the armchair opposite, intermittently getting up to offer comfort when the sleep terrors become too unbearable, and returning to the kitchen for fresh cold water to soak the cloth in for Tristan's forehead.

He'd had to change his brother's dressing twice in that time, but by the time that Doctor Alanson arrived he'd been relieved that the flow of blood from the wound appeared to finally be showing signs of stemming. The bleed had been slow, occurung over the course of the past few hours, and Siegfried realised that in a strange twist of fate the time Tristan had spent stranded out on the freezing moors had in fact saved him from further blood loss by slowing the rate of the bleed. Bloody bandages always gave the impression that a wound was bleeding far more profusely than it was, due to the nature of the bodily fluids to seep along the length of the fibres. Even so though Siegfried had been relieved to watch as the doctor carefully tied off the last of the sutures to his brother's leg, before finally standing back and admiring his handiwork and turning his attention to assessing the young man's general condition.

"Well," He considered thoughtfully, "I've given him Pethadine for the pain, plus penicillin, and a tetanus booster."

"Very good, very good," The doctor smiled approvingly, "well Siegfried, it seems as though I couldn't have done much better myself even if I had have been here."

"I would have obviously preferred not to have had to to make that call, but he's been asleep for a lot of the time." The eldest Farnham brother explained, knowing in his heart that in reality he'd been too emotionally involved to approach the situation with any degree of objectivity. He'd done the best he could under the circumstances, and by the grace of God everything appeared to have worked out all right on this occasion, but it was as much down to luck and his ability to remain calm and take control of the situation as it was to his years of experience as a vetenary surgeon. If the wound had of been any deeper or if Tristan had spent any longer stranded out on Daroby moor then they could have so easy been looking at an entirely different outcome. Despite Doctor Alanson's approval he was not a qualified doctor, and the drugs he'd had at his disposal had been very limited. "He's been very unsettled though." He explained.

Doctor Alanson looked from Siegfried, and then back down at Tristan lying on the sofa before him. He took in the man's pale complexion and flushed cheeks, the hair plastered to the top of his head with sticky sweat. He thought about the small amount of fluid he'd heard fizzing in the young man's lungs, and hoped that it wouldn't become infected and turn into pneumonia. It was true that his fever was indeed high, although not currently dangerously so, but it was evidently enough to cause him significant distress and to disturb his sleep.

He sighed gravely, and nodded, taking a syringe from his black leather bag and filling it with a few millilitres of clear fluid from a small vial of medication. Siegfried felt sorry for his brother as the doctor emptied the contents of the hypodermic into a vein in his arm, and Tristan grimaced as for the fourth time that evening he felt burning fluid mix with his blood. He would be glad when the day was finally over, he thought, and they could all get some much needed sleep - he somehow doubted that he would get much though. Tristan had been though absolute hell, and with anxiety still plaguing him Siegfried to knew that the days events had been the perfect cocktail to cause insomnia.

"I've just given him a mild sedative to help him rest," Doctor Alanson explained quietly, "and I'll prescribe him a course of strong anti-biotics and painkillers. The wound isn't particularly big, but it is very deep. He should remain where he is for tonight. I've stitched and re-dressed the wound but I'm reluctant to move him whilst he's comfortable. You can help him upstairs in the morning, and he will need complete bed rest for the next few days. Let me know straight away if the fever appears to be getting any worse. He'll probably be reluctant at first but make sure that he gets up and moves around every few hours, and then he should be ready to come down and join you on the sofa within the week. Just makes sure that he keeps the leg elevated whilst resting at all times."

"What about the tachycardia?" Siegfried asked.

"I heard it," Doctor Alanson nodded, "but I don't think it's anything to be too concerned about at the moment. It's very mild, and I suspect that it will probably fix itself in the next few hours, but I will call around to check on him again tomorrow just to be on the safe side. The pain he was in has caused him to hyperventilate over the course of the past few hours, he probably wasn't even aware of it, but I suspect that that, coupled with the stress of what happened to him, is the most likely cause. He should sleep now throughout the night, but if he's still uncomfortable when he wakes up you can give him another 10mg of morphine, and anti-inflamatories should also help with the pain, and start to bring the fever down. I take it you're ok to give him the injection if he needs it?" He asked.

Siegfried nodded.

"The tablets I've prescribed should be enough to take the edge off any residual pain after that." He explained. "Try and avoid giving him any more morphine after tomorrow if you can avoid it, but if you feel as though he needs it he should be alright on a low dose for the next few days."

"Thank you Harry." Siegfried smiled, as the doctor took a bottle of prescription medication from his bag and scribbled something down on the front of the label. He tore a page from his prescription note pad, copied the words from the label underneath a short instructive note and handed them both to Siegfried.

"There's enough anti-biotics in that bottle to keep him going for the next couple of days." He explained, "And a prescription for some more when he's finished with those, as well as for the painkillers and some anti-inflamatories. Someone will need to collect them from the chemist for him tomorrow."

"I'll ask either James or Callum to pick them up for him whilst they're out on their rounds." Siegfried nodded, as the doctor, having now completed his examination, made his way towards the sitting room door and he followed him out. "Thank you so much for coming Harry."

"I'm only sorry I couldn't get here any sooner Siegfried." The doctor apologised. "But I can see that he was in more than capable hands."

Siegfried showed the doctor to the front door and as he opened it an icy breeze invaded the house. Harry Alanson hadn't even had chance to finish putting his coat on before the wind whipped up around his ankles, making him shiver.

"It's a fowl night tonight." He commented, as he wavered on the threshold. "Coldest night of the year so far I'd be willing to bet."

"I won't disagree with you on that one Harry." Siegfried agreed, and it made him think about Tristan being forced to spend the night stranded up on the moor. If Joe Hepton hadn't spotted his broken down car when he had and had the good sense to go looking for him then the chances were that he would still have been there now. There'd have been no possibility of finding him in the dark and in this appalling weather, and in his compromised state he would have been even more vulnerable to the elements. By the time any of them had have found him it would have almost certainly been too late. The prospect was such a distressing one that it didn't bare thinking about.

"...Well, hopefully the wife will have something nice and hot waiting for me when I get in." Siegfried suddenly realised that the doctor was still talking and turned back to look at him - trying to give the impression that he'd been listening, and not wanting to appear rude. "A mutton stew and dumplings perhaps, or a plate of roast beef and potatoes. You eaten anything yet Siegfried?" He asked pleasantly.

Siegfried shook his head. "No." He responded. "To be honest Harry I'm not particularly hungry."

"You must eat Siegfried." The doctor urged him. "You won't be doing Tristan any favours if you run yourself into the ground."

"I'll be alright Harry." Siegfried smiled. He knew that there was some bacon left over in the larder, and he thought that he might fry it up with a couple of eggs later. Now he came to think about it he was beginning to feel rather hungry, but he didn't really fancy much else. "Don't stand around in the cold. You hurry on home, and give my regards to your good wife."

"Will do." The doctor tipped his hat to Siegfried respectfully as he left. "Goodnight Siegfried."

"Goodnight." The vet chorused back, closing the front door behind him and hesitating in the hallway, before making his way over to the table where the telephone sat in order to call Caroline - she had told him that she was going to wait up for his call.

It was such a horrible evening that he would have felt sorry for the doctor having to make his way home through the cold and the snow, if the man didn't only live next door.