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He blinked, tears streaming, saw the black spikes of his clotted lashes and cold gray stone by his face.
Jesus Falls the Third Time,he thought. Poor bastard.
Someone was bellowing overhead, meaningless sounds. Ca
“Jesus! Look at the blood of him! He’ll never last!”
“His arm, let me bind his arm—”
“No use, no use, it’s blown clean off!”
“It’s not, I saw his fingers move, back off—back off,I said, God damn your eyes!”
The voices seemed to come through a fog of noise, something rushing, like a waterfall that filled his ears. He still felt the thump of the guns, but that, too, had faded somehow, seemed safely distant. The pain had drawn in upon itself, and sat sullen in his chest, glowing like a lump of metal flung from a blacksmith’s forge, molten and heavy.
He hoped his heart would not come too close to it. He could see his heart, too, a pulsing dark-red thing, almost black by contrast with the brilliant crimson of the pain.
They were saying something now about the gun—were they fighting the gun?—but he couldn’t focus on the words; they all rushed past, part of a waterfall, loud in his ears. Water…warm water. It was rushing over him, his clothes felt sodden, he could feel the trickle of it down his neck, over his ribs, the feel of wet cloth stuck to his belly.
“Oh, Jesus,” said a voice above, despairing. “So much blood.”
He was in a room somewhere, filled with light. Wounded, he’d been wounded. By reflex, he grabbed for his balls. Their reassuring presence compensated in some measure for the rending pain that shot through his body with the movement, but it was still enough to make him gasp.
Something moved across the light, and someone bent over him.
“Me lord!” Tom Byrd’s voice came loud in his ear, halfway between fright and hope. “Quick, quick! Get the earl—he’s awake!”
“Earl?” Grey croaked. “What…Hal?”
“Your brother, aye. He’ll be right here, me lord, don’t you trouble yourself. D’ye want water, me lord?”
He wanted water somewhat more than heaven, earth, or the riches of the fabled East. He was dimly aware of someone arguing about whether he should be allowed to have any, but his precious Tom snarled like a badger and elbowed whoever it was away.
Cool pottery touched his mouth, and he gulped, half choking.
“Slow, me lord,” Tom said, moving the cup away, and put a hand behind his head to steady him. “Slow as does it. That’s it, now. Lap it like a dog, now, just a bit at a time.”
He lapped, urgent for more, trying to will the water into the parched tissues of his mouth and throat, tasting the faint silver of blood from a cracked lip. For a brief period of ecstasy, nothing existed save the bliss of drinking water. The cup was drawn away, though, and Tom lowered his head gently to the pillow, leaving him blinking at the ceiling, panting shallowly.
He’d ignored the pain in his chest and arm for the sake of water, but now realized that he could not draw a full breath. The left side of his body seemed encased in something solid, and he recalled quite suddenly hearing someone say that his arm had been blown off.
He jerked, trying to raise his head to look, and reached across his body with his right hand.
“Oh, Jesus!” Colored lights danced before his eyes and a cold sweat broke out on his body—but his left arm was there, thank God. It was still attached, though plainly not in good shape. He tried wiggling the fingers, which proved a mistake.
“Don’t move, me lord!” Tom sounded alarmed. “You mustn’t. Doctor says as it could kill you, if you move!”
He didn’t doubt it. The pain was back, grimly sitting on his chest, driving the breath out of him, trying patiently to stop his heart.
He lay still, eyes closed and teeth gritted, breathing in sips of air. He could smell pigs, ripe and near at hand. It must be one of the farmhouses near the may.
“Tom. What…happened?”
“They said the gun blew up, me lord. But the battle’s won,” he added, though Grey didn’t really care at the moment. “Mr. Brett nearly drowned in the dyke, but Mr. Tarleton fished him out.”
There were other people in the room now, he didn’t know how many. Voices, murmuring gravely. Tom was babbling nonsense in his ear, in a patent attempt to keep him from hearing what was being said. He raised his right hand, but let it fall, too exhausted to try to shush Tom. Besides, he thought he didn’t really want to hear what they were saying.
The voices stopped and went away. Tom fell silent, but stayed by him, dabbing sweat from his face and neck, now and then wetting his lips with water from the cup.
He could feel the fever starting. It was a sly thing, barely noticeable by contrast with the pain, but he was aware of it. He felt that he should fight, concentrate his mind to drive it back, but felt too tired to do anything but go on breathing, one short, shallow gasp at a time.
Perhaps he fell asleep, perhaps his attention only wandered. He was aware all at once that the voices were back, and Hal with them.
“All right, John?” Hal’s hand took hold of his sound right arm, squeezing.
“No.”
The hand squeezed harder.
“You see, my lord?” Another voice came from his other side. He cracked one eye open, far enough to see an earnest cove with a long face and a stern mouth, this downturned in displeasure at Grey’s state—or perhaps his existence. The name popped into his mind, sudden as if the face had acquired a label—Longstreet. Mr. Longstreet, army surgeon.
“Shit,” he said, and closed his eyes. Hal squeezed him again, evidently thinking this remark a response to the pain.
Another of the voices loomed up at the foot of the bed, this one speaking German. Burly sort in a green uniform, jabbing his finger at Grey in a definite sort of way.
“…must amputate, as I said.”
He was barely lucid enough to hear this, and flapped the uninjured arm in a feeble attempt at defense.
“…rather die.” Hoarse and cracked, it didn’t sound like his voice, and for a moment, he wondered who’d said that. Hal was scowling at him, though, attention momentarily diverted from the doctor.
The lining of his mouth stuck to his teeth, and he worked his tongue in a frantic effort to generate enough saliva to speak. His body convulsed in the effort and he reared up from the bed, fire roaring up the left side of his body.
“Don’t…let ’em,” he said to his brother’s swimming face, and fell back into darkness, hearing cries of alarm.
The next time he came round, it was to find himself bound to a bedstead. He checked hastily, but his left arm was still amongst those present. It had been splinted and wrapped in bandages and it hurt amazingly, much worse than the last time he’d been awake, but he wasn’t inclined to complain.
He was mildly surprised to hear that the surgeons were all still arguing—in German, this time. One of them was insisting to Hal that it was futile, as “he”—Grey himself, he supposed—was undoubtedly going to die. Another—Longstreet, he thought, though he also spoke in German—was insisting that Hal must leave the surgeons to their work.
“I’m not leaving,” Hal said, close by. “And he isn’t dying. Are you?” he inquired, seeing that Grey was awake.
“No.” Some kind soul had wetted his lips again; the word came out in a whisper, but it was audible.
“Good. Don’t,” Hal advised him, then looked up. “Byrd, go and guard the door. No one is to come in here until I say so. Do you understand?”
“Yes, me lord!” The hand on Grey’s shoulder lifted and he heard Tom Byrd’s boots hurrying across the floor, the opening and closing of the door.