William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

stitch ’er?” Sutton whispered.
    Hester looked at the blood-soiled clothes and the mangled flesh. Martha was still bleeding freely, but it was not with the brilliant scarlet of arterial blood, and it was still pumping, which meant that she was alive.
    “I can try,” she answered. “But I need to be very quick. Claudine, you’ll have to help. Bessie’s got what looks like a broken nose, and Mercy’ll have to deal with that. Anyway, we’ve no time. Get my needle and silk out of the top drawer of the cupboard over by the sink.” As she spoke she was tearing out the other sleeve of Martha’s nightgown and rolling it up into a pad, holding it onto the worst of the wounds. “Sutton, fetch the bottle of brandy and pour some of it into a dish, then get more towels. Be quick.”
    They were ashen-faced, their hands trembling, but they did exactly as she told them. Mercy came while they were busy, and said in a low voice that Bessie’s nose was broken, but she had managed to stop the bleeding. Bessie would be all right, and so would Squeaky. He was bruised, but nothing was broken. Flo was doing what she could for the rest of the sick women, and what would Hester like her to do now?
    “Put a pot of tea outside for the men in the yard,” Hester answered. “And thank them. Tell them we are grateful.” She did not look away from her work. “Put your finger there,” she instructed Claudine, indicating a raw vein from which blood was running. “Hold it. I’ll stitch it as fast as I can. I’ve got to do this one first.”
    Without hesitation Claudine stretched out her finger and pressed.
    Hester was oblivious of time. It could have been a quarter of an hour, or three quarters, when she finally realized she had done all she could. With Claudine’s help she bound the last bandage on Martha’s neck and shoulder and the top of her arm. She looked only once at the purplish patch near the armpit. She did not know if it was a bruise or the beginning of a bubo. She did not want to know. They washed her the best they could, put a clean gown on her, then called for Squeaky to help them carry her to one of the downstairs rooms. They laid her on the bed and covered her over.
    Claudine looked at Hester questioningly, but she did not ask if Martha would live or not. “I’ll go and clean up the kitchen,” she said ruefully. “It looks like a butcher’s shop.”
    “Thank you,” Hester answered with profound sincerity. She did not add any praise. Claudine knew she had earned approval, and that was all that mattered to her. She went out, even smiling very slightly at Squeaky as she passed him on her way to the door.
    Hester took the bloodstained clothes down to the laundry, where she found Sutton looking exhausted. His lean face was shadowed as if with bruising, his eyes hollow, the stubble on his chin patched with white.
    “Was the Crimea like that?” he said with a twisted smile. “Gawd ’elp the army if it were.”
    She thought of it with an effort. It seemed like another world now. She had been younger, had so much less that was precious to her to live for. One did not allow oneself to think about the violence and the pain in a rational way, or it became too much to bear. Then instead of helping, one was another needing to be helped.
    “Pretty much,” she replied, dropping the clothes on the floor. The real answer was too long, and she was too tired, and perhaps Sutton did not really want to hear it anyway.
    “Iggerant an’ mad, in’t we?” he said with startling gentleness. “Makes you wonder why we bother wi’ ourselves, don’t it? ’Ceptin’ we in’t got nob’dy else, an’ yer gotter care ’bout summink.” He shook his head and turned to walk away. “Snoot!” he called when he was outside in the passage. “Where are yer, yer useless little article?”
    There was an enthusiastic scampering of feet. Hester smiled as the little dog shot out of the shadows and caught up with his master.
    After putting the clothes into cold water she went back to Martha’s room. There was not much she could do for Martha except sit with her, make sure the bandages did not work loose, give her water if she woke, bathe her brow with a cool cloth, and try to keep the fever down.
    Five minutes later Claudine came to the door with a hot cup of tea and passed it to her. “It’s ready to drink,” she said simply.
    It was. It was just cool enough not to scald. It was also so powerfully laced with brandy that Hester