An Officer's Room in Belem

This was not helping, Stephen thought, shivering without his shirt. He felt as raw and pained as when he had come in, and he had only upset Padstowe as well - woken up a sleeping, injured man in the vain attempt to comfort himself - obviously dredging up terrible memories and guilt in his poor friend.

Padstowe looked up again, hoping now that the doctor's silence dictated a calmer state.

"Come, this is doing neither of us any good," he said. "You still need to rest. Come the morning you must decide what to do."

Stephen nodded. "I will take a dose," he said tonelessly. "Only enough to sleep, and I will ask one of the orderlies to wake me before sunrise."

Padstowe gave a minute nod.

"Until the morning, then."

"Sleep well. I am sorry to have woken you." Stephen bundled up his shirt, coat and waistcoat, and reached under Padstowe's bed for his knapsack.

Stephen bent down, and Padstowe exerted himself by lifting his arm to grip the doctor's shoulder, ignoring the pain and biting back on the small whimper that threatened to escape his lips.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Stephen looked at Padstowe's arm. "You should do that during the day. Lift it up, and practice moving it around, with the right." He looked down. "I am-" He covered Padstowe's hand with his own.

Padstowe smiled, just as the weakened muscles of his arm gave way and his hand slipped from the shoulder - fortunately prevented from falling further by Stephen's hand. He tighted his grip more.

"All is not lost, dear Stephen."

Stephen looked at Padstowe, and smiled. It was a small smile, and weak, but genuine. "I pray so. Good night, Jonathan."

"Goodnight, Stephen."

There was a free bed in the ward, recently vacated. Stephen checked with an orderly that its inhabitant had not died of anything contagious while he pulled his nightshirt on, and then asked to be woken when the sky was showing grey. He took a dose of laudanum, large enough to dull his dreams but not banish them, in case he could not be woken come the morning, and collapsed, utterly exhausted, falling asleep before he reached the first Paternoster.

Padstowe closed his eyes again and was asleep before the doctor had crossed over the threshold. Unlike Maturin had predicted for himself the captain slept a sound, dreamless sleep. He did not sleep long, however; waking early as the first light of dawn filtered through the window, and looking around stupidly to find the room around him empty and cold.

Stephen dreamt of Carneiro and the room, as he had predicted, and of Jack and Padstowe and des Sablières, but the laudanum took the edge off the terror and the horror, leaving only a dull, growing dread. He stared murderously at the hapless orderly for a few minutes as his brain woke up, and he found that even with the vestiges of sleep it was clearer than during the night - that weak lachrymosity almost gone, his walls restored. He brought his knapsack to Padstowe's room, checking on the papers while he waited for the response to his knock.

"Come in," Padstowe murmured. He fully expected to see some orderly come in for some errand or other, and was surprised to see Maturin up and about.

One thought that occured to Padstowe as the doctor entered, was that he had not received any mail at all from the army. Usually, wherever he was, he would be kept well informed of movements and proceedings; but there wasnot even a note of commiseration from Hogan.

"Good morning," said Stephen, rubbing his eyes as he took the seat, still half-asleep. "May I use your mirror when there is enough light?"

"Of course."

Though why the doctor needed to ask he did not know. It was not his mirror anyway.

Stephen peered at Padstowe through the half-light. "You slept well?"

"Not very well," he said. "But the main thing is that I did. It was of the kind that is over just as it has begun."

He looked queryingly up at the doctor.

"You know the sort I refer to?"

"I do. It tells me that you need to sleep more, and to build your strength again," Stephen said pointedly. "You were desanguinated before somebody tried to murder you, if you remember."

"It is not that easy to forget. How are you this morning?"

"Fine; much more clear-headed. I apologise for my display last night."

"There is no need," Padstowe shook his head. "I should have been more worried were you not to react so to such an atrocity."

Stephen looked at Padstowe, smiling sadly. "Still, it was a lapse. I cannot afford to be so... at least, not in front of other people."

Padstowe smiled cheerfully.

"I'm only a redcoat; I don't count."

Stephen smiled. "Do redcoats not count as people then?"