The sight of a horse, even a lone horse, made the sentries at Rangoon's gates rush to their posts, and the inlying picket stand to. A horse was at best the bearer of a Burman who wished to treaty; at worst it bore the forerunner of a Burman army.
'Shall I take a shot at 'im, sir?' called the picket-corporal to his officer.
The lieutenant strained to make out the target. Two hundred yards: he could not determine who sat astride, and he was as certain that his corporal, for all his reputation as a hawk eye, could strike neither horse nor rider at that range with a common musket. And with the extra windage of the French balls they'd been issued with he'd have no more chance at half the range. He looked for reassurance towards the field piece in the mouth of the gate – the gunners were already ramming home shell. 'No. Let him come on some more.'
The guard company now stood to, hastily, dressing in two ranks.
Their captain scaled the ladder to the palisade to see for himself. He raised his telescope; a hundred yards the rider had closed to.
The lieutenant rued his own want of so useful an instrument.
' Two men, Torrance – one leading. They're not wearing red, but they're not niggers either.' He turned and hailed his ensign. 'Out, Wilks, and give a hand!' They brought Hervey to the surgeon in a dhoolie. Corporal Wainwright, every muscle weary, stayed with him despite the Serjeant's entreaties to fall out and take his ease. The horse, exhausted too, and lame, was led away by a corporal – fresh meat at last, joked the men.
The hospital occupied the town-eater's collecting house – and every building around it, now. Men lay everywhere, barely tended. The place stank worse than Calcutta when the Hooghly was on the turn.
'Out you go, Corporal,' said the surgeon. He had come at once, tired and red-smeared from his ministrations with the bleeding stick. 'I'd rather stay, if you don't mind, sir.' 'I do mind. You're no use to me in here.'
Hervey lay unconscious. The assistants were already cutting away the left sleeve of his coat. Corporal Wainwright did not move.
'Oh very well,' grumbled the surgeon. 'But be out of my way. You both reek of rum.'
Corporal Wainwright stepped back, allowing the surgeon and his assistants full play at the table. One of them held a lantern up close to Hervey's shoulder. 'Too late,' said the surgeon. Corporal Wainwright's jaw dropped.
'It'll have to come off. It looks like a ball in there. The shoulder will be a deal too smashed, and putrefaction too far advanced.' He sounded as tired as he was certain.
'Sir, with respect, sir,' pleaded Wainwright, stepping forward. 'Captain Hervey couldn't draw his sword and hold the reins with but one arm.'
The surgeon spun round. 'Damn your impudence, Corporal! I've a mind to have the guard throw you out! Another word and I'll have that stripe from your arm.' He turned back to his assistants. 'The saw, please!'
Corporal Wainwright did not flinch. 'Sir, you must try and save Captain Hervey's arm!' The surgeon went purple. 'Throw 'im out!'
Corporal Wainwright drew his sword and pulled the pistol from his belt. The assistants fell back. 'I'll take the captain with me then, sir.'
'You damned fool,' spluttered the surgeon. 'This is gross insubordination – worse. The arm's got to be amputated, and quickly, otherwise it will gangrenate.' Wainwright sheathed his sword.
'Sensible fellow,' said the surgeon, nodding. 'Now why not wait outside?' Wainwright levelled the pistol again. No one moved a muscle.
He stepped forward, crouched slightly, beckoned an assistant to help, and took Hervey over his shoulder. He stood full upright in one movement, with a strength that awed the watchers, and walked out of the hospital.
He walked past orderlies too alarmed by the fierce eyes and the pistol to stop him. Indeed, so compelling was Wainwright's bearing that soon there were sepoys supporting him.
At the river he found more allies, this time in blue. 'It's Captain Hervey, sir,' he called to one of Liffey's officers in an approaching gig.
Liffey's officer of the watch had also been observing from the quarterdeck. 'Fetch the captain,' he snapped at a midshipman. 'And the surgeon. I think it's Hervey.'
Peto came at once with Surgeon Ritchie, both of them fresh-scrubbed and dressed for dinner. 'Hervey, you say?' The edge to the tone was obvious. Peto leaned well out as the boat bore alongside.
'I believe so, sir,' said the lieutenant. 'And his-'
'Great heavens,' exclaimed Peto, springing back from the rail. 'Mr Ritchie, your best work; your best work please!' He rushed to the gangway. 'Two marines – leave your muskets!'
The sentries at the foot of the companionways grounded arms and followed the captain down.
'Sir, Captain Hervey's shot, sir, in the shoulder,' said Corporal Wainwright, as Peto bounded down the gangway. 'The army surgeon wanted to take his arm off, sir.'
Peto pulled back the cloak to see for himself. He grimaced when he saw how much blood there was. The whole of the buff bib was red-brown. 'A hammock, there!' he shouted to the lieutenant, who had already anticipated the need.
Another marine scuttled down the gangway with it.
'Bear him up gently, men,' said Peto, more a plea than an order. 'Gently as you can.'
Seamen and marines began lifting him into the hammock.
'My cabin, if you please, Ritchie,' he called to the surgeon.
Surgeon Ritchie raised his hand to acknowledge and sent the loblolly boys sprinting to the cockpit for his instruments and the medical chest.
The marines, red in the face and sweating like pigs, bore Hervey up gently. Two more came to the job as they reached the main deck.
'I'll have your table, if you will, sir,' said the surgeon, as Peto came back on deck.
'Ay, of course, of course,' replied Peto absently. He pushed past, calling for his steward. Together they began clearing the table of its silver and fine china.
'Save the tablecloth, sir, if you please,' called the surgeon. 'Sit Captain Hervey upright,' he said to the marines. 'Support him with the cloth until I know what we're about.' Back came his assistants.
'Lay it all out here and give me the sharpest knife!'
Corporal Wainwright's stomach heaved. 'Sir, I-'
'One way or another the coat will have to come off, Corporal,' said Ritchie, moving candles closer. Corporal Wainwright's relief was palpable.
'A bowl of hot water and some brandy, if you will, Flowerdew.'
To anyone who observed the preliminaries of the two surgeons – the army's and Liffey's – the reason for the crew's high opinion of theirs would have been clear. Whereas, ashore, the man had worked in Stygian gloom, though there was no obvious cause to, and his prognosis was made after the most cursory of visual examinations, Surgeon Ritchie made full use of the evening sunlight that streamed through the stern windows – and his magnifying glass.
His prognosis, however, tended to the same. 'Not good, I'm afraid. Lint, please.' An assistant rummaged in a haversack.
'Clean lint. Let's not have any more stink than needs be.' Hervey opened his eyes.
'Capital, my dear friend!' said a delighted Peto. 'You're in good hands, now.'
Hervey appeared not to register where he was or even who was there.
'An ill-timed recovery, I'm afraid, my dear sir,' muttered the surgeon, pouring brandy on the lint and wiping away some of the blood caked about the wound. Hervey's head rolled.
Peto peered over the surgeon's shoulder at Hervey's. 'He reeks of rum, Ritchie,' he said, shaking his head. 'Little wonder he nods.' Ritchie threw the lint to the floor.
'Hold hard there, my old friend!' Peto called, as if to a deaf man, which, to all intents and purposes, Hervey was.
'How much rum has he drunk, Corporal?' asked Ritchie.
'Only a very little, sir,' replied Wainwright, standing to attention by a bulkhead. 'I poured the most of it into
