“Here, you fool. Come over here by the cannon port where there’s a little more light, so you can see what you’re doing. Morton said nothing, but continued the methodical cleaning of his boots. He half hid his feet beneath the bench as if he were embarrassed to have Cullen see his toes.
Good, God. What was wrong with the man?
Cullen’s mind flashed to images of the way Morton had walked on their passage to the harbor tea room, and the delicate look of his long fingers. Uneasiness buzzed again at the back of Cullen’s skull.
Wills stared at the new surgeon’s back while he meticulously set down all the details of the sailor’s injuries into the same log the elder Morton had kept for all of the ten years Wills had sailed with him as his assistant on the Arethusa.
Wills clenched a fist, wishing for a world in which it would be perfectly acceptable to plant a facer on MacCloud’s smug jaw. Instead, Wills turned back to the surgery medicine cabinet with a sigh and stayed busy taking another precise inventory of the bottles lining the neatly organized shelves.
The patient in the bunk was still sleeping deeply under the influence of opium and rum, unaware of the pain. The next day or so he would have to be watched closely for any signs of fever or pus in the fractured leg. What would probably follow was never easy on the patient, or the surgeon. Wills would not mention the dangers to the new surgeon, because with all his years in the Royal Navy in stations where he’d no doubt seen heavy fighting, he was of course accustomed to severing limbs which could not be saved.
Cullen’s mood sank lower the more he read from the letter his Aunt Elspeth’s retainer had sent. Between dealing with a moody young assistant and keeping constant watch on the injured sailor in the surgery, he did not need this latest headache.
His aunt had been his only family since his mother had died when he was three or four. His father, a prominent London physician, had rarely returned to the Highlands to tend to his lonely son. And so, Cullen had grown up on his mother’s family estate on the wild northwest shore of Scotland, running free with the other children of the Clan MacKenzie.
And now it appeared his aunt needed him. He wished the letter had arrived sooner. His aged aunt had already left Edinburgh for the clan townhouse in London. Her retainer’s carefully written letter made the seriousness of her illness clear. She wanted to see Cullen before he left for extended service aboard the Arethusa.
He was sorry now for having sent her a series of letters of complaint after he’d first arrived at his assignment. He’d been peeved over not being able to stay with his friends in the African Squadron. And maybe he’d complained a little too much about Morton’s mulish son.
He would have to hire a horse at the public mews in Portsmouth and then change mounts at inns throughout the nine to ten hours of hard travel along the Portsmouth-to-London Road. Riding astride a horse was not his favorite mode of transportation. However, at least it was August, not the rainy season.
Cullen speared his fingers through his unruly ginger hair and leaned his head back to stare up at the timbers lining the bottom side of the top deck. Why was nothing ever easy in his mother’s clan? What a stubborn lot of men...and women.
He straightened and stretched his arms above his head. The first step would be to ask the captain for leave to spend a few days ashore.
But he couldn’t leave until the patient in the surgery made it through at least the next seventy-two hours. That would be time enough to see if fever and putrefaction would mean they would have to amputate the man’s leg. He hated to have to resort to that alternative, but with his experience through all the action he’d endured in the Royal Navy, he knew the man had perhaps less than one chance in three to keep his leg. With the fracture’s nearness to the femoral artery, they were lucky he hadn’t bled to death.
Captain Walter Still was a reasonable man by reputation and probably a good master to serve under. But Cullen was still puzzled by how willing he’d been to accommodate his unexpected request for shore leave.
When he’d forwarded the unusual request so close after having reported aboard, he was sure the captain would balk. But instead, his superior leaned forward, a twinkle in his eyes. “Family business, eh? Best to deal with whatever land-bound concerns you have before we leave the dock. We will continue to provision and take on crew for at least another three weeks before we leave for the St. Helena station.”
Not only was the captain in agreement with his plans to leave the ship, but seemed urging him to take whatever time he needed.
“Once we leave, we’ll be gone for a year or two. We’ll be a long way from old England, the comforts of home.” He paused and then added, “And family.”
Cullen cocked his head for a moment trying to decipher whatever message the captain meant to relay, but finally shrugged it off. Maybe he imagined meaning where there was none.
When he made his way back below to the surgery, he nodded to young Morton before pulling a stool over to sit near him. His assistant continued to fill bottles with the essential compounds they would need over the months ahead to treat the diverse conditions the crew might suffer during the voyage, such as olive oil for burns and cinchona bark for fevers. Morton gave Cullen a
