The Surgeon’s Lady

by Carla Kelly

  So it went for a solid week, as battered ships of the Channel Fleet put in to Plymouth, discharged their wounded, revictualed, roamed the streets for unwary merchant marine seamen to snag into service, and sailed again. She was relieved that Oliver Worthy and the Tangier had sailed to the United States, instead of to a weary continent in flames.

  Her only respite came when she stole a moment to visit Davey Dabney’s classroom. He still wasn’t allowed to sit upright yet, but some enterprising orderly had padded a wheeled chair and reclined the back, so he could supervise the seamen able to sit at desks and write their alphabet.

  Matthew sat in front, ready to leap up and help, handing out paper and primers, and using his hand and elbow to maneuver Davey back to the ward when the hour-long lesson was done. By the end of the first week of class, the foretopman could manage an hour in the morning and another in the evening without exhausting himself. She knew Matthew was tired, too, but she saw the determination on his face.

  She was standing in the doorway watching, one late afternoon, when Philemon came to stand beside her.

  “Do you think Matthew will be fit to sail when Oliver returns?” she asked, not even looking over her shoulder. She knew who stood so close.

  “I reckon he will. D’ye think he’ll be reading and writing by then?”

  She nodded. “I wish he would go to Torquay.”

  “I know you do. So does Nana. He’s still in the navy, Laura.”

  “He’s not even twelve!”

  “So was Oliver. So was I.”

  “What has it got you but no sleep?” she fretted.

  He put his hand on her head and gave it a little shake, then walked away. Stay with me, she wanted to ask, but knew she would only be demanding what everyone in the block wanted: more of his time.

  He turned back; maybe he could read her thoughts. “I never thanked you for all your help this week.”

  “I’m only earning my twenty-five pounds a year.”

  “Do you want to help some more?”

  “You know I do.”

  “After tomorrow’s ward walk, follow me to the second floor. I’ll teach you and my new orderlies how to change dressings. It’s not appealing, so we’ll do it before breakfast.”

  Philemon could have flogged himself with such talk, especially when he yearned to tell her how much he loved her. He came so close yesterday, when she was leaning against the wall outside the washroom, chamber pot in hand and too tired to move. The absurdity of declaring himself over a piss pot was not lost on him and he laughed to think about it. He sobered soon enough. There was never going to be any better time, and he’d better come to an understanding about that.

  Every second of his life belonged to the Royal Navy and the men in his care. He was not a physician; there had been no reciting of the Hippocratic Oath or gowning ceremony. A mere surgeon, he had bound himself to the same rigid code of ethics that demanded he be present when required, that he do no harm, and that he surrender everything he possessed for the care of the sick and wounded; even his life, if necessary.

  Where did a wife fit in? He thought of poor Owen Brackett, back at work too soon with no time to grieve, and barely time to make arrangements for his sister to take his son to her home in Gloucester. Like as not, this war would drag into another decade, and Brackett would never know his only child. They would meet awkwardly, if at all, and the tally of war would have a son and father on its list, as well as those dead in battle.

  Philemon knew he didn’t want a life like that, one with no time to love his wife; to lie in bed with her on chilly mornings doing nothing but talking; to spend time with their children, teaching his sons to sail in Torbay and his daughters how to weave marsh grass into mats. Still, if Laura could love him, maybe even the smallest comforts would be worth all the deprivation.

  He knew she liked him. She had raised no objection that wonderful evening he fell asleep in her bed or when he kissed her as she departed for Taunton. He had been so ready to kiss her more thoroughly in his workroom that night he was making plasters and she was scraping lint. Duty had called and he had dropped everything. Since then, they had barely seen each other.

  I cannot court a woman in such circumstances, he told himself that night as he dragged himself to his bedchamber. He was happy to be in his own bed, and not snatching sleep on an operating table, but dismayed that he shared it with no one. All he wanted to do was make love with Laura Taunton; to enjoy the pleasure of sweet release from all his care—he had more than most men—with her arms tight around him.

  There was the matter of her unhappy marriage to aggravate the issue. True, she seemed willing enough for his hugs and touch, but what would happen if she were naked and lying under him? Would her courage fail her? Would she assume that all men were the same, or would she understand that Sir James was only a violator?

  Oliver Worthy had urged him to forge ahead, but his wife hadn’t been sold to pay creditors. Nana had never been alone, without any help from any source. Circumstance may have trod on Nana’s dignity, but it had not shredded her to the bone.

  I need to talk to Laura, he decided. He already knew he could talk to her about caring for wounded men’s bodily needs. He had seen her wiping men clean from defecation who were too weak or wounded to help themselves. Aitken had showed her how to administer enemas, and she had barely flinched when a poor gunny vomited on her when he saw his own wound for the first time.

  That was different. How can I tell her that I want to love her as a true husband loves his wife, and not remind her of misery with a husband who had used her meanly in his obsession for a child, and then used her harder as he died by degrees? To put it simply, would such a woman want anything he, an always-exhausted surgeon in the Royal Navy, had to offer? He doubted it supremely.

  She was at his elbow in the morning for the ward walk. Both he and his mates had come to rely on her excellent notes and her no-nonsense questions. When she didn’t understand something, Laura always asked, which often served to simplify things in his own mind.

  “You’re looking cheerful, Mrs. T,” he commented. “I’m counting my blessings. Most ladies would want to thrash me after I had worked them like galley slaves.”

  “I never was too wise, Lieutenant,” she said. “May you never be cursed to know the total boredom of nothing to do.”

  It sounded almost heavenly to him, or would, if he could spend such a year with Laura Taunton. Still, there she was, looking beautiful, even with her hair tucked under a cap.

  “You’re wearing a new apron. One that fits,” he said.

  “It does,” she agreed. “Captain Brackett told me yesterday that all the lads will feign illness to stay longer on my wards. I told him he was cheeky and he laughed. I don’t think he has done that in a while.”

  “I doubt he has.” Go ahead, he told himself, flirt a little. “You’re a tonic for all of us.”

  My, that was tame, he thought, disgusted with himself. Even my flirting is medical. I speak of tonic when I want to tell her like a schoolboy that I worship the ward she walks on. There I go again; I am hopeless.

  His new orderlies were waiting in A Ward, looking appropriately anxious. He decided the Marine corporal in bed four seemed the best candidate to introduce his neophytes to the world of bandage changing. He had a nice soft tissue wound in his thigh, with a simple entry and exit and nothing hanging out. The man, half dozing in that way of the wounded, looked up in alarm to see such a delegation around his bed. “Hey, now,” he began, and tried to sit up.

  “Corporal, as you were,” Philemon ordered. “You have sufficient rank to make me think you’re the best candidate to be my teaching tool. I wouldn’t ask just any patient.”

  He glanced next at the other men in the ward. Those who were aware, were beginning to enjoy themselves. He glanced next at the ward’s orderly, who wheeled a small table to the bedside. The corporal’s wariness changed to something near panic.

  “Corporal, I want to show these three ho
w to change a bandage. Lie down and…”

  The Marine looked from Laura to Philemon. “Beg pardon, sir, but she’ll see my…my…you know.”

  “She might. Mrs. Taunton has been tending the wounded long enough not to be surprised, provided your…you know…isn’t anything amazing.”

  One of the orderlies turned his bark of laughter into a cough sounding almost consumptive. “You’d best get that cough seen to, if you can find medical assistance,” Philemon joked, as he pulled back the sheet. He tucked it against the man’s other leg, shielding his privates. “There now. She doesn’t have to be amazed, after all, Corporal.” He looked at his students. “Do that whenever you can. We all like a little dignity, even those of us in George’s navy.”

  Speaking quietly and working quickly, he took his students through the process of removing the bandage and compresses, cleaning the entry and exit wounds, and showing them how to use a syringe. “I don’t mind a little pus, but too much can be painful. This is healing well. It appears that nothing of importance was hit.”

  “Course not, Doc. He’s a Marine. There’s nothing there,” someone from another bed observed. “Like ’is ’ead,” someone else contributed.

  The patients all laughed, including the orderlies. Philemon looked at Laura out of the corner of his eye, as she struggled to maintain her composure. Even the Marine was smiling, relieved, perhaps, that nothing could be too bad if someone could joke about it.

  He had them each clean the wounds and dress them as the Marine gritted his teeth and pretended he didn’t mind. When it was Laura’s turn, she took a moment to wipe the perspiration from her patient’s face and thank him. He melted like butter, which made Philemon smile inside.

  “That is how you teach?” Laura asked, when they moved on to another ward.

  “What passes for it in the navy, I think. Are you disappointed?”

  She surprised him. “Quite the contrary. I’m certain the navy doesn’t pay you enough.”

  Gratified by her flattery, he progressed through two other cases, each more difficult, teaching and coaxing courage out of his patients. One man was unconscious and behind a screen, so he could tell them how important it was not to register any emotion when they removed the bandage.

  “If he were conscious, he’d be watching your face, and not his wound. No one likes to look at a wound,” he assured them. “It’s your turn, Mrs. Taunton.”

  She did as he gently directed, her concentration fierce, a frown between her fine eyebrows. She sniffed the used bandage, then set it aside. Her hands shook a bit as she pressed the syringe into the abdominal wound to draw out exudations, flinching when the unconscious man flinched. He wanted to finish for her, but that was no way to learn. After she bound the wound, she sat back, drained. It was all he could do not to touch her.

  “He isn’t going to live long, is he?” she whispered.

  He was squatting beside her, so she didn’t have to raise her voice. “No. He will probably be dead by the first watch.”

  She rested her hand on the man’s neck. “Poor lad. He can’t be over eighteen.”

  “Seventeen.” He looked at the little group around the bed. “When he is gone, I will do a post mortem, which you may attend. I think there is something in the wound that his surgeon aboard ship was unable to retrieve, and I want to know what it was.” He stood up. “That is all we have time for today. Report to your usual stations.”

  Laura stayed where she was. “May I sit here with him?”

  “As you wish.”

  He scanned the room before he left, because he did not feel easy about this ward. The orderly had told him a few days ago how cheeky one of the seamen was to Laura. He wanted to certify that tar for duty immediately, but he had a nagging wound on his upper arm that would not heal. Philemon toyed with the idea again. As usual, his head trumped his heart; the sailor wasn’t ready for sea.

  She sent him a note at three bells into the afternoon watch. He wanted it to contain some words of love, but it was the bald announcement that the patient had not survived the first bell. His heart went out to her as he read:

  He did not die in pain, but I confess to enough of that, on his behalf. This is onerous work. LT.

  Why am I doing this to such an excellent female? he asked himself later that evening as he walked to the room off the dead house, where he and Brackett performed autopsies. There lay his naked patient, dead of his wound or his surgeon. He nodded to the one orderly who cowered in a corner of the room, and sat on a stool beside the corpse, trying to understand why he drove Laura so hard, and why she let him.

  I want her with me. I am so busy with duty that there is no other way right now to accomplish my selfish desire to be with her, he decided. He allowed himself to think that maybe, just maybe, she did what he wanted because she wanted to be with him, too. It was absurd, but made him almost cheerful as he contemplated the mortal remains of a young man dead too soon.

  He looked at the toe tag. “Junius Craighead,” he murmured, dignifying the naked body with its grievous wound. “Able seaman. H.M.S. Dauntless.” He knew nothing more—not where Junius was born or raised, who his parents were, what his plans might have been, had Napoleon not decided to dominate the world.

  He proceeded with the post mortem, teaching the orderly, who finally fled the scene, muttering something. Philemon wondered if he would be back in the morning.

  That was when he turned around to see Laura Taunton standing there, her eyes wide and staring at Junius Craighead spread open wide. Philemon looked into her eyes and got off his stool, fearful she would faint. He noticed, instead, that she was chewing on the inside of her cheek, which she did often enough at the jetty.

  He wanted to cover her eyes with his hands, but they were bloody, as usual. “Laura, you don’t need to see this. I was a fool to ask.”

  She didn’t leave, but came closer gradually, until she was standing behind him, partly hidden and clutching the back of his trousers. Her fingers were warm against the fabric at his waist and he had no objection.

  “Did…did…did you find what you were looking for?”

  Her voice was so low he had to lean closer to hear her. “Aye. Take a look.”

  She shook her head, then leaned her forehead against his back, which somehow touched him more than it aroused him. What happened then was one of the many things he appreciated about Laura Taunton. She slowly leaned around his arm and looked at the slimy scrap of cloth on the edge of the table.

  “It’s part of his shirt, isn’t it?”

  “Aye. His or someone else’s. The surgeon on the Dauntless was able to remove the ball, but probably hadn’t the time to probe a little deeper.”

  She made a small sound of irritation.

  “Laura, be easy on my colleagues. I know this scene, because I have been in battle, when the wounded are piling up in the companionway, and everyone needs help at once. That wasn’t his only problem and was likely not the fatal one. Come look.”

  She could not bring herself to come closer, so he gestured with a bistoury. “See there? The ball nicked his large intestine. Even God Almighty cannot help a man whose body wastes pour into his abdominal cavity. Better go into battle on an empty stomach.”

  Her face was close to his, so he rubbed his cheek against hers, which made her turn her face into his shirt with a sob. “How can you do this?” she asked.

  “I do this because I love the human body.”

  “It doesn’t scare you?”

  He could barely hear her, but he knew what she was asking. He handed her his bistoury. “Go ahead. Have a care—it’s sharp. Just lift that portion of skin. This is how you learn.”

  “Don’t touch that corpse, Lady Taunton!”

  Laura gasped and dropped the bistoury. Philemon felt the hairs on his neck rise. He turned around to see Sir David Carew, his face mottled with anger. His administrator glared at them from the doorway, but did not come closer.

  “I saw the orderly run out,” Sir David said,
barely moving his lips. He pointed his finger. “Brittle, have you no sense? What is she doing in here?”

  “Learning,” Philemon said. He gestured toward the corpse. “You can, too, but you must come closer.”

  Sir David looked with utter distaste on Junius Craighead. “Never.”

  “So this is your first post mortem, Sir David?” Philemon asked, before he thought.

  He should never have said that, even if it was true. If ever a short man towered in anger, it was the admiral. Cursing his own arrogance, Philemon could hardly blame him.

  “How dare you address me that way! I will have your license pulled if I ever see anyone besides a surgeon or a mate in this room! Lady Taunton, you have gone too far,” he concluded, taking Laura by the arm.

  “Don’t touch me!” she said, and there was nothing timid in her voice. “I am not very brave yet, but you have no idea what I have learned in here.”

  “And you can forget it all!” Sir David roared. He released her, only to shake his finger in her face, practically beside himself with fury. “I knew no good would come of this.” He looked at Philemon then, who was wiping his hands. “She is on notice as of right now, Lieutenant. If there is one more…one more!…untoward incident, she is sacked, and you will do it! And you, Lieutenant, you…By God, if we were not shorthanded, you would be back in a fever hospital!”

  He slammed the door behind him. The room was deathly quiet. Philemon shook his head. “I’m sorry, Laura. So sorry. God, why did I say that?”

  He was so embarrassed he didn’t even want to look at her, even though she stood so still, her arms around herself, shivering. He made himself look at her, and was startled by what he saw, even more than by Sir David’s sudden appearance. He had thought she was afraid, but he was wrong. She was ferociously angry.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Stunned by her expression, Philemon washed his hands as fast as he could. Before they were even dry, he reached for her, not knowing what she would do. His heart fell when she stepped back, but she stopped with a visible effort, and willed herself calm before his eyes.