Page 216 of Feathers in the Wind
‘What are we going to do?’ Alan looked at me, his brow furrowed with concern. I sat back on my heels and shook my head.
‘We can’t go to the hospital. Gunshot wounds have to be reported. There will be questions asked we can’t answer.’
‘You will have to use your own skills, Doctor Shepherd.’ Nat shook off Alan’s hand and pulled himself up so he sat with his back against the sofa.
Alan went to wash his hands and returned with a tumbler of whisky. Nat took a hearty swill of the amber liquid.
‘Alan! He could be going under general anesthetic...’ I protested.
Alan shook his head. ‘No, he’s right, Jess. You’re going to have to patch him up yourself. He has no NHS history and a gunshot wound. Questions will be asked.’
I stared at my brother. ‘I’m a children’s doctor. I don’t have the right equipment. It’s unhygienic...’
Nat turned his head to look up at Christian, sitting on the sofa above him. ‘He shouldn’t see me like this. I need you to look after him, not me.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have got yourself shot.’
He cast me a cold glance. ‘I can wait. Please settle the child first. Then you can find your bag of magic...’
He closed his eyes and took another gulp of the whisky. I turned to Christian. The boy, in his strange clothes, stared up at me with his large, knowing eyes. I had nothing suitable for a child anywhere in this house.
‘Alan, three doors away in Myrtle Cottage, Janice has three kids. Please, can you go and knock on her door? Tell her I’ve got unexpected visitors who’ve lost their luggage and they have a two-year-old child. I need nappies and clothes.’
Alan nodded and rose. He glanced at Christian with his long curls and skirts and frowned.
‘Boy or girl?’
‘Boy.’
It is definitely a blessing to have a brother who is a student of the seventeenth century. He accepted my answer without question.
While he was gone, I fed Christian baked beans on toast and a mashed banana. He pulled faces at the strange, unfamiliar food, but to his credit, managed to get most of it down. As I warmed some milk, Alan returned.
I took Christian and the pile of clothes and nappies Janice had provided up to the bathroom. I contemplated running a bath, but didn’t want to frighten the child with too many strange experiences on his first night. Instead I washed him thoroughly, dressed him in a nappy and overlarge one piece terry toweling thing with feet in it and carried him downstairs.
Janice, bless her, had provided one of those childproof cups with a spout. I filled it with the warm milk and with an overenthusiastic, ‘Say goodnight to Daddy,’ carried the boy up to the guest bed room, where I settled him into bed with his horsey.
I lingered a little while to see that he went to sleep but the thought of his injured father downstairs stopped me from sitting with him and singing the lullabies of my childhood. Fortunately, the poor child must have been exhausted. His eyes closed and he was asleep within minutes. I looked down at his innocent little face and took a deep breath.
Now I had to see to his father.
* * *
I tooka few minutes to extricate myself from my seventeenth-century clothes, and clean my teeth. I found a clean, but unsterilized, set of surgical scrubs in my cupboard and after the constricting garments I had been wearing for the last few days, I let out a sigh of relief as I pulled the inelegant garment over my head.
In my medical supplies, I located some basic surgical instruments, sterilized gloves and wipes. They would have to do.
Downstairs, I found Nat had finished off the glass of whisky and a second glass as well. He stared into the empty tumbler with a glazed look on his face.
I rounded on my brother. ‘Alan, what were you thinking?’
Alan shrugged. ‘Kills the pain?’
‘Can’t feel a thing,’ Nat’s voice sounded slurred.
I scrubbed the kitchen table and laid it with clean towels and sheets while the surgical instruments boiled on the stove. I thought of the surgical tents I had seen at Alan’s musters. In Nat’s time there would have been no adherence to cleanliness and yet men had survived the brutal, primitive surgery. Modern medicine underestimates the resilience of the human body.
I had no anesthetic except a local, which seemed rather ineffectual given the extent of his injury, but I gave it to him anyway. The whisky may have been more effective. With Alan providing brute force, I did what needed to be done. Somehow the musket ball had managed to miss the major blood vessels and the femur. He had been lucky but I still had to ensure that I removed every shred of cloth and dirt before I dared close the wound.
